WebRoots Democracy has published a new report ‘The Cratos Principles: An essential guide to assessing online voting platforms for use in elections’. It is the final report of the ‘Cratos Project’ established in 2018 in order to design a framework to assess the suitability of remote online voting systems for use in public and private elections.
Through a series of forums, roundtables, and expert interviews held in Birmingham, Edinburgh and London, the project delved into contentious debates within the field and drew out lessons from existing paper-based methods of voting. The project was supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, an independent funder working to help people overcome disadvantage.
The report contains two main outputs. The first are the ‘Cratos Principles’ themselves, 33 in total, which cover key aspects of accessibility, security, and user experience. The second is a recommended ratings framework which applies weightings to the different principles based on importance. In addition, the report includes a review of existing literature and detailed discussion on the challenges and opportunities involved with online voting.
To mark the launch, an online webinar was held on Tuesday 31st of March 2020 with more than 30 expert researchers and developers from across the world. The hope for the report is for it to serve as a useful tool for those embarking on pilots, those wishing to design an online voting system or audit process, and those undertaking wider research on the subject.
Learn more about the Cratos Principles, and download the report, here.
WebRoots Democracy 