CISAT WG-DEMTECH

Mission

Over the last four decades, information technology has begun to transform the electoral process---perhaps the most foundational process upon which democratic societies are built. Computers are gradually replacing manual parts of the democratic process by, for example, tallying results in Excel spreadsheets, predicting exit polls, or by computing seat assignments to parties in parliament (since 1962 in Denmark). With every such transformation, the overall process becomes more efficient, informative, and economical. However, there is a risk of the process becoming less trustworthy. The deployed technology tends to be complex and therefore prone to programming error and vulnerable to malicious attacks. These problems have an adverse effect on the very foundations of democracy. Voters are less likely to trust the electoral process, which inevitably leads to lower voter participation and cynicism. In this working group we investigate the research question, if it is possible to modernize the electoral process while strengthening the trust of the voters into the election outcome.