| Dr. Wolter Pieters, University of Twente (NL) Wolter Pieters (1978) studied computer science and philosophy of science, technology and society at the University of Twente. From 2003 to 2007, he did his PhD research at the Radboud University Nijmegen, resulting in his interdisciplinary thesis "La volonté machinale: understanding the electronic voting controversy". After finishing his PhD, he worked for the Dutch Ministry of the Interior for one year, on electronic voting and electronic travel documents. Since September 2008 he is employed as a postdoc researcher in the VISPER project at the University of Twente. The project concentrates on de-perimeterisation, the disappearing of traditional boundaries in information security. Verifiability of e-voting: between confidence and trust When computer scientists speak about electronic voting, it is often in terms of trust. But there are two contradictory statements. First, they argue that it should not be necessary to trust e-voting systems, which would be the case if they are provably secure. Second, for an e-voting system to be successful, the public must trust it. When we unravel the confusing concept of trust, we find that there are two quite different meanings: relying on something that you don’t understand and don’t really choose (confidence), or relying on something that you do understand and have consciously chosen (trust). The distinction is due to the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and I use it to analyse the Dutch controversy around electronic voting. Trustworthiness, as opposed to reliability only, has now become a major requirement of electronic voting systems, leading to the demise of electronic voting in the Netherlands, but also to various verification options. I will discuss the types of verifiability in electronic voting systems, and how these can contribute to the trustworthiness of electronic voting. |
