Software Independence

Alternative Definitions

Definition 2

Quality of a voting system or voting device where a previously undetected change or fault in software cannot cause an undetectable change or error in election outcome. In practice, voting systems are generally viewed as possessing the quality of software independence when they allow for a voter-verifiable paper record of voters’ contest selections to be created and compared against vote totals or against an electronic cast vote record used in determining vote totals.

Source: NIST Election GlossaryType: standard

Definition 3

The “quality of a voting system or voting device such that a previously undetected change or FAULT in software cannot cause an undetectable change or error in election outcome.” 2007 VVSG. Software independence is a concept unique to electronic voting, developed by Ronald Rivest of MIT and John Wack of NIST. It recognizes that the privacy associated with voting makes it impossible to conduct an independent check that voter’s ballots have been recorded correctly, as the voters cannot be asked how they voted. Under such circumstances, an undetected flaw in system software might alter the outcome of an election that would not be apparent. Therefore complete reliance on softwa re is misplaced. It must be possible to AUDIT an election to verify that ballots were record ed and tabulated correctly, and audit cannot rely on the correctness of the software. Software independence is a laudable goal, but its value with respect to a given system depends on the security and reliability of the non-software audit mechanism that is relied upon as a check on the software.

Source: Electronic Voting GlossaryType: external