An open-source voting system (OSVS), also known as open-source voting (or OSV), is a

voting system An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections m ...

that uses

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Ope ...

(and/or

hardware Hardware may refer to: Technology Computing and electronics * Electronic hardware, interconnected electronic components which perform analog or logic operations ** Digital electronics, electronics that operate on digital signals *** Computer hard ...

) that is completely transparent in its design in order to be checked by anyone for bugs or issues.

Free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

systems can be adapted and used by others without paying licensing fees, improving the odds they achieve the scale usually needed for long-term success. The development of open-source voting technology has shown a small but steady trend towards increased adoption since the first system was put into practice in

Choctaw County, Mississippi Choctaw County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 8,547. Its northern border is the Big Black River, which flows southwest into the Mississippi River south of V ...

in 2019.

Significance

Security and trust

Systems where more people can understand more of the process and get insights into details serve a similar purpose to election observers who help to inspire trust with increased transparency and verification. Additionally, when 90% of the market of election systems in the United States, for example, are run by 'murky' and 'inscrutable' private equity companies, conspiracy theories can flourish alongside serious vulnerabilities. With quicker identification and correction of issues than under proprietary systems, organizations such as the

U.S. Defense Department The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

opt to incorporate

. Cities, for example, can have their own staff work on software with the vendors when out in the open, allowing for faster patches and enhancing their

election security Election cybersecurity or election security refers to the protection of elections and voting infrastructure from cyberattack or cyber threat – including the tampering with or infiltration of voting machines and equipment, election office netwo ...

. The consensus among the information security community is that a widely-used

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

system should be more secure than a closed one, as more people tend to be willing and able to check for vulnerabilities.

Cost Savings

In addition to increased transparency creating more trust and

security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

can lower costs for elections. A

VotingWorks VotingWorks is a nonprofit organization that creates and sells open-source voting systems in the U.S. They currently have three products: one for casting and counting ballots, another, named Arlo, for risk-limiting audits (RLAs), and a third for ...

bid in a Mississippi county, for example, was 50% less than the other vendors using proprietary software, while its machines in 2021 were listed at 1/3 the price of the average machine.

Open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Ope ...

allows maintenance costs to be controlled via vendor competition (rather than dependence on just a couple vendors), and to be shared with other jurisdictions as they employ the software.San Francisco Open Source Voting Technical Advisory Committee. May 14th 2019 Meeting. Committee Member Brandon Phillips. p. 39. https://osvtac.github.io/files/meetings/2020/2020-03-12/packet/DT_OSV_State_of_Art_Briefing_Feb_2020.pdf

Development milestones

In 2019,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

made its ElectionGuard software open-source, which the company claims is used by all major manufacturers of voting systems (in the United States), however they have come under fire for obstructing the adoption of open-source election software. In 2020,

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is th ...

became the first U.S. jurisdiction to implement its own publicly-owned election system. A condition of the Secretary of State's approval was to open-source the code by October 1, 2021, but had shirked that commitment as of February 2022.

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

applied to run a limited pilot in November 2022, but California's Secretary of State asked the City to resubmit their application when

' ranked-choice voting module was closer to completion.

Adoption

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mis ...

was the first state to have local jurisdictions use open-source voting systems to cast and count ballots. In

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

, the towns of Ashland, Newington and

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

piloted that same open-sourced software system in the fall of 2022 with an eye to statewide adoption of

systems by 2024. Open-source election

risk-limiting audit A risk-limiting audit (RLA) is a post-election tabulation auditing procedure which can limit the risk that the reported outcome in an election contest is incorrect. It generally involves (1) storing voter-verified paper ballots securely until they ...

systems have been implemented statewide in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

s of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but i ...

, and

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

and in local jurisdictions in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...

, and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

References

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voting Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect hol ...