Open Source Digital Voting Foundation
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The Open Source Digital Voting Foundation (OSDV) is a California based, US (pending) Public Benefit Corporation formed in April 2007 in an attempt to address issues surrounding US e-voting technology, specifically, to create voting systems that are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible.
The OSDV is chartered to operate as a non-profit organization for the purposes of advancing open source designs and specifications; everything it does, including any software or hardware it creates, is free.
The work of the OSDV is accomplished through a volunteer community that includes system and software developers, an outreach team, and experts in electronic voting technology as well as trustworthy computing.
The OSDV Foundation's application (IRS Form 1023) for tax exempt status pursuant to secion 501(c)(3) of the US internal revenue code is pending with the IRS as of February 2008.
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[edit] Goals
The OSDV Foundation has the following five goals:
1. Provide clear, neutral, and sustainable public ownership of design specifications, request for comments documentation, draft standards, software code, hardware architecture, patents, and other intellectual properties and domains.
2. Establish an accountable and transparent decision-making structure for the essential activities of the Foundation.
3. Promote activities designed to help grow the OSDV “movement” – “Lectio Reformo” – our call for election reform in general, and specifically to re-invent how technology empowers and protects the cornerstone of democracy: every U.S. citizen’s vote.
4. Advance the free adoption of the OSDV technology standards, and the SHARP technology framework.
5. Solicit additional funding and public participation in order to continue the work of the Foundation.
Additionally, the foundation aims to restore trust[1] in the processes of US elections. To this end, the OSDV is engaged in two related activities:
1. Proposed Standards: Developing technology guidelines and other tools to aid in the development, evaluation, and use of computing technology in conducting elections; using real systems and real voting procedures to demonstrate the use of these guidelines and tools to show how high-assurance computing can be used as part of a high-confidence election process.
2. Real Working Prototypes: Developing a demonstration test-bed of high assurance digital voting systems and services built on these guidelines, publicly and freely available for demonstration, education, and research purposes and even suitable for mock or real polling or elections.
[edit] History
The OSDV took form in the autumn of 2006 when E. John Sebes and Gregory Miller met to discuss their individual interests in election reform and voting processes, and made the decision to turn their attention and experience to a benevolent effort to resolve the challenges of today’s voting technology.
The major issue that concerned both was the lack of trust in the process of voting and election results[2].
For elections to retain real meaning, confidence must be restored in this country’s systems of conducting voting in a reliable transparent manner. Those systems must accurately capture the will of each voter. As a result, the OSDV Foundation is based on an open source system, one that invites anyone and everyone to participate.
[edit] References
- ^ [1], To Assure Pride and Confidence in the Electoral Process, Report of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform, Jimmy Carter, Gerald R. Ford, Lloyd N. Cutler, Robert H. Michel, Publisher Brookings, 2002
- ^ [2], California Secretary of State, Top-to-Bottom Review Summary, May 9, 2007
