Building a public election technology framework to increase confidence in elections and their outcomes

ElectOS consists of components that help election administrators and state agencies (and voters too) before, during, and after elections. Although many voters mainly pay attention to the voting system during an election cycle and especially during their experience of casting a ballot, the scope of technology required to administer an election is broader. In order to maintain voter records and ensure they are ready for Election Day, election officials need a reliable and secure election infrastructure that functions effectively all year round.

More specifically, ElectOS is a framework of software components that encompasses both election systems and voting systems. The distinction between the two is important:

• An Election System is a set of subsystems and components that comprise the technology (“platform”) to prepare, configure, operate, and manage voter registration functions and election preparation. The components of an election system do not “transact” “live” (cast) ballots, however. Instead, election systems perform functions associated with voter record management and voter check-in (i.e. “voter registration”) or, alternatively, election definition, ballot creation, and reporting of results (i.e. “election management”). For the sake of costs, operational efficiencies, and cybersecurity, election systems can “run in the Cloud” (along with their subsystems, apps, and services).
• A Voting System is a set of subsystems and components that comprise the technology (“platform”) to support the casting and counting of ballots. In other words, the components of a voting system present “live” ballots to voters, record the voter choices when the ballots are cast, and tabulate results. For the sake of integrity and security, a voting system is comprised of physical devices that operate in a polling place or the local election office, depending on how the jurisdiction is configured to conduct an election. For instance, if the election is administered through by-mail ballots, then the voting system might include high-speed scanners at a central location; and, on the other hand, if the election is administered through in-person voting, the voting system might include precinct scanners at individual polling places.
• The best-practice to transfer data between election systems and voting systems is a physical removable media device between the two major systems (called “air gapping”) to minimize the potential for digital (cyber) compromise of any part of the voting system.

In keeping with the definitions above, the ElectOS framework is divided into three “families” of software:

1. ElectOS “Electorate” - Voter registration functions

   • Primarily cloud-based
   • Not part of the voting system

2. ElectOS “Versa” - Election management functions

   • Primarily cloud-based
   • Not part of the voting system

3. ElectOS “VoteCast” - Voting functions

   • Not network-connected
   • Voting and tabulation devices

Let’s be honest: the “operating system” reference is more metaphor or analogy than anything that those technically adept would acknowledge. But to help those perhaps less technically-oriented it's a fine way to get acquainted with ElectOS. Just as smartphones run an operating system or “OS” combined with apps to manage common activities (e.g., tracking your contacts, eMail, banking, health, social media, etc.), ElectOS provides a core set of software and data capabilities on top of which voter registration, election administration and voting apps function or operate, that cover a range of critical activities for verifiable, accurate, secure, and transparent election administration.

Every time you use a smartphone, tablet, or computer, you’re also using its OS: the basic brain of the device that enables its operations including running apps and services. Those apps on your device rely on the OS for capabilities and exist as a consequence. It’s like electricity in your home; electricity is the OS. Desk lamps, the cable box, the microwave, coffee maker, computer or anything needing electricity to operate on are the apps and services. The electrical infrastructure of your home is the foundation for its operation. So too, the device OS serves as a digital foundation for its operation including all apps and services.

If this foundation is weak, error prone, or insecure, all the apps you run on that device and its OS will likely inherit the problems of the OS. On the other hand, if the OS is robust, reliable, and secure, the apps that run on it will benefit from the operating system’s advantages.

That’s why ElectOS is designed to be a strong, open, extensible framework for future development -- an “ecosystem” for critical democracy infrastructure. (View a detailed schematic of the ElectOS framework in a new window.)

It’s also important to note that voter registration, election management, or voting can be comprised of any number of ElectOS components. One is not required to adopt, adapt and integrate all of ElectOS to achieve a finished system. As we explain later, however, the more complete and “purely” ElectOS-based your system is, the easier, more convenient (and even delightful) your finished election administration and/or voting system will be to operate and maintain.

So in short, ElectOS is:

• An open and flexible framework for election administration and voting technology
• A robust foundation to support verifiable, accurate, secure, and transparent elections
• Adaptable and customizable to work with specific local election regulations and laws
• Reliable and secure because you (and anyone else) can review the transparent source code that makes it work

And honestly, that’s about the limit of the “OS” metaphor or analogy.

ElectOS is founded upon the proposition that what’s at stake in election technology is much bigger than the current commercial marketplace, which is supported by private election technology vendors. Built on a foundation of open source principles, ElectOS aims to further the following public benefits:

1. Reduced barriers to innovation and more cross-industry learning. The current election technology industry exists as a largely closed, proprietary set of technology tools that, in the absence of additional reference software for public technology, remains trapped in the past, non-transparent to outsiders, and prone to security vulnerabilities -- especially because closed, proprietary software code from commercial election technology vendors is not available for public peer review.
2. Accelerated technology development. Because ElectOS is “reference software,” our vision is to provide third-party developers of commercial technology (e.g. voting system vendors) with state-of-the-art software that sets new standards for security, usability, extensibility, and efficiency. And because ElectOS is “open source” software that is freely distributable and freely available for commercial vendors to incorporate into their own products, ElectOS can help to “move the needle” in new development. In short, the availability of open-source software can help break down silos that have traditionally kept the election technology industry largely insulated from the most cutting-edge innovations in secure, trusted computing.
3. Lower costs and increased flexibility. With open source public technology, traditional commercial vendors (or even new market entrants) will have the opportunity to “pick up” entire toolkits of software code based on open, common, and interoperable data standards, thereby saving them the time and cost of developing software on their own. This can help to increase choice and lower the overall cost of election technology for end-users such as state and local election officials.
4. A new paradigm for public-private partnerships in election technology. The machinery of elections is much bigger than economic markets and private corporate balance sheets. Democracy depends on it; all citizens benefit from it; and enhancing the foundations of our democracy is a collective need that serves our national security. Supporting the development of verifiable, accurate, secure and transparent election technology is fundamentally a patriotic enterprise -- not simply an economic one.

Transparency is at the heart of ElectOS. As public technology (i.e., made possible by public funding) open source software is completely accessible, available for peer-review and testing, and lends itself to building trust in the systems that use the public technology--in this case, ElectOS. Accordingly, election officials can adopt, adapt, and deploy ElectOS software to run on commodity hardware.

To be sure, open source does not mean free source because, while the software source code is publicly available, there are still important and real costs. These include vital, commercial efforts to adapt the software to local requirements, deploy the resulting systems, and support its lifecycle.

One more thing: keep in mind the transparency of ElectOS software coexists with the imperative to protect voter privacy. Transparency applies to the processes and technology of elections, but certainly not to the ballots of voters as cast, which must remain private and anonymous.

Most commercial election technology that exists in the U.S. today was designed on functional standards that date all the way back to 2005, and which resulted from the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (which was itself the result of the disputed Bush v. Gore Presidential Election in 2000).

In the years since then, technology innovations and risks have advanced at a rapid rate, creating a vastly different operating environment and threat model for election infrastructure. Not only are foreign nation-state cyberattacks on our election infrastructure a challenging reality, but the state of the art has advanced in other important areas, including usability, accessibility, auditability, and cybersecurity.

In short, it is fair to say that disruptive technology developments have led to a turning point for the nation’s outdated critical democracy infrastructure. Protecting U.S. national security and global faith in democracy will require advanced new technology frameworks, and ElectOS is part of that effort.

ElectOS “Electorate” is a software family that manages voter registration functions. Voter registration (PDF, 1 MB) is the starting point in the interactions between voters and election officials because it allows voters to declare their intent to vote. Not only can first-time voters submit a new registration, voters can also manage their registration, declare a party affiliation, or request an absentee ballot. The voter registration process ensures that voters can identify themselves at the polls, which is essential to a successful election. ElectOS collects the information that voters provide during the registration process in a database that election officials use to prepare for the election; and Election officials then draw upon the ElectOS voter registration database to produce poll books, which contain records of all registered voters.

ElectOS Electorate includes:

• “Keystone” Voter Registration and Management System
• Digital Poll Book Manager
• Digital Poll Book Devices

ElectOS “Versa” is a software family that includes election management applications. ElectOS Versa is analogous to what is typically referred to as the “Election Management System,” or EMS, in traditional commercial voting systems. Election management includes both pre- and post-election functions, including election data management (e.g. contests, choices, precinct and district associations), ballot design (both paper and electronic versions), results reporting, and analytics.

ElectOS Versa applications are used to create election definitions and ballots which are passed to voting devices and tabulation PCs through secure removable media. In this way, the “election preparation” outputs are passed to the voting system components (i.e. ElectOS VoteCast).

ElectOS Versa includes:

• Election Data Manager
• BallotMaker (ballot design studio)
• VoteStream (election results reporting)
• Analytics (follow-up reporting to state and/or federal officials)

ElectOS VoteCast includes voting system (PDF, 4.4 MB) components that are used to present, record, and count ballots that have been cast by voters. On Election Day, all the various pieces of the voter registration and election management (i.e. preparation) processes come together with ElectOS to create a smooth voting experience and fast, accurate tabulation and reporting.

ElectOS VoteCast supports different voting methods, including by-mail voting (with central counting), or in-person voting in precincts or in consolidated polling places. Unlike ElectOS Electorate and Versa, which include cloud-based software applications, the VoteCast family has a more stringent security profile; its components are not network-connected, and they include important features to support a “trusted boot” process to validate that all voting components are running only authorized versions of software.

The “handoff” between ElectOS Versa and the VoteCast components is accomplished through the Device Manager application, which is part of the VoteCast family. The Device Manager accepts Versa’s election definitions, which are written in accordance with open, interoperable standards from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Device Manager is used to configure various components for voting and tabulation.

ElectOS VoteCast includes:

• Device Manager
• VoteCast Precinct (in-person ballot scanner)
• VoteCast Central (high-speed central scanner)
• BallotScribe accessible ballot marking device (for voters who cannot hand-mark a ballot)
• VoteTab tabulation software

Finally, it should be emphasized that all ElectOS VoteCast components have been designed to support post-election audits, including risk-limiting audits (RLAs). These features allow authorized officials to compare the voting system’s interpretation of selected cast vote records and calculated totals with those that result from a software-independent hand-audit (i.e. not relying on the voting system tabulation software).

ElectOS is designed to be a strong, open, extensible framework for future development -- an “ecosystem” for critical democracy infrastructure.

More specifically, the ElectOS framework makes possible ancillary apps and services to meet the growing needs of voters and election administrators. For example, the TrustTheVote Project is developing several ancillary apps and services to assist with voter registration security and notifications, as well as additional apps for voters to make the voting process more efficient. These are reference apps to offer examples of the limitless possibilities. Here are just a few:

• Vanadium — a service that uses digital ledger technology to enhance the security and integrity of voter rolls, without requiring any change to existing voter registration database infrastructure and list management procedures.
• VoteReady — an App and service that notifies voters if their voter registration record has been modified and provides them a link to remedy the situation.
• PreCheck — an App and service enables voters to print (or send to their mobile device) a polling place qualification “ticket” that enables them to rapidly check-in at their precinct, much like TSA PreCheck for airport travel.
• Ballot.ly — an App and service that offers voters ability to print a blank copy of the ballot for an upcoming election, allowing them to fill it out as an absentee ballot or bring it with them to their actual polling place as a memory aid.
• BusyBooth — an App and service that informs Voters how busy polling places are during election day based on near real-time data, to enable them to plan and schedule when they will cast their ballot.

To ensure adaptability, interoperability, customization, and lower costs, the ElectOS framework is designed in conformance with open election standards devised by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST):

• NIST 1500-103 for Electorate and VoteStream
• NIST 1500-100 for Versa and VoteCast

All components of ElectOS interoperate via the NIST standards, and they can interoperate with any other system that conforms to those standards.

All OSET-supported research and development work results in publicly available (open-source) software. For election jurisdictions or commercial vendors, the software is available via an OSI accredited open-source license, the OSET Public License (or OSET-PL), and is distributed via our public-access source code repository. Eventually, portions of this software will be housed in a special repository capable of performing license managed distribution for officially certified versions of source code intended for deployment in commercially delivered voting systems (more on this soon). For academicians, researchers, hobbyists, peer-reviewers and the like, the OSET-PL allows distribution of ElectOS software under the GNU Public Licenses (GPL) version 3.

Let that simmer a moment; this is an important feature of the OSET-PL. If you are not a government organization attempting to use ElectOS software as part of a commercial acquisition of a certified voting system that incorporates this software, or you are not a commercial vendor in the ordinary course of business of providing elections technology goods or services, then ElectOS software may be acquired pursuant to the terms and conditions of the GPL.v3 license (which is an important distinction for those individuals and organizations not concerned about government procurement issues or selling finished voting systems using ElectOS software).

Details on the OSET-PL can be found on the OSET Institute’s licensing page. Our FAQ available as a PDF (185K) explains all of this in detail.

If you have capabilities in software architecture, engineering, or development, UX/UI design, particularly digital security, and/or election administration, please help protect and enhance democracy by contributing to or joining the CoreTeam to help finish the ElectOS initiative. See our volunteer form here.

Election administrators are a core stakeholder community at the TrustTheVote Project and especially in the design and development of ElectOS from concepts, to design, to engineering, through development and especially user acceptance testing.

The participation process is inspired by a similar mechanism that will be familiar to those who’ve contributed to the development of the software and protocols of the Internet via the Internet Engineering Task Force: the RFC or “Request For Comment.” The TrustTheVote Project will, from time to time, issue RFCs for various aspects of public software or systems design. Here is one example of a TrustTheVote Project RFC (PDF, 772K) and here is another (PDF, 769K). Sometimes RFCs can be extensive and complex such as RFC.101 (PDF, 692K) that set out the design for voter registration databases some years ago. And RFCs can be deprecated, superseded, or replaced (as will inevitably be the case of RFC.101, given emerging technology like distributed ledgers emerge for a more secure means of administering voter data).

Anyone is invited to comment on RFCs because after all, that’s what “Request For Comment” is about--your input. RFCs are one of several aspects of the TrustTheVote Project and the ElectOS framework development that makes this digital public works act so unique. The process for commenting on RFCs is currently being revised. Stay tuned and contact us to be added to the RFC mailing list.

The Open Source Election Technology (“OSET”) Institute Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonpartisan, nonprofit election technology research corporation chartered with research, development, and education in election technology innovation. Federal Tax Charitable Corporation ID: 20-8743186; CA Charitable Trust ID: 0202910.

In addition to our flagship technology, ElectOS, OSET’s TrustTheVote™ Project is a “democracy software foundry” developing other public technology solutions. As part of our research, development and education mission, the Institute produces briefings and other content to inform stakeholders, supporters, and the public about issues of election technology innovation and security. The Institute also works closely with federal, state and local government on public technology policy issues and legislative initiatives. The OSET Institute as a 501.c.3 seeks to inform government on matters of public policy, but not influence.

The OSET Institute, Inc. deeply appreciates Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), Automattic Corporation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the Frost Foundation, the James H. Clarke Foundation, the Chris Kelly Family, the Barbara Coll Family, the Michael L. Henry Family, Matt Mullenweg, the Frank J. Santoro Family, the Peter F. Harter & Shelby Perkins Family, and the Alec Totic Family for their generous support of the OSET Institute’s work to increase integrity, lower cost, and improve usability of election technology infrastructure in the U.S. and abroad in defense and preservation of democracy.