Online Voting System (evoter)
	-Vivek Kothari

1.  Overview/Problem
	How to implement a fully functional, reliable online voting system.  This program, ideally, in its most expansive form would replace all paper (i.e. traditional) balloting.  It would have to account for the security issues inherent in any election as well as the various security issues present when dealing with the internet (hackers, etc).  It will have a database of registered voters against which potential voters will be verified.  Voters will then be shown a ballot and given an opportunity to record their votes.  The votes will then be sent securely and tallied.  This process, for obvious reasons, must be immune to tampering.  

2.  Features (Basic/Optional)
	Basic
	  1.  Database of registered voters: The program must have some sort of data structure which maintains a list of the eligible voters.  It is very important that this list neither be writable nor readable to the general population.
	  2.  Internet/Graphical Front End:  There must be a simple, clean interface via which users can register their votes.  While I see this application being most useful on the internet, on the national level, it can be used on whatever hardware at polling stations.
	  3.  Tallying of Votes:  This must be done without tampering and must report an accurate total.
	  4.  Security:  As has been mentioned, this program must ensure that the election has integrity.
	  5.  Validation of votes:  There must be a system by which the system determines whether the vote submitted is valid (is the user registered, etc)
	Optional
	  1.  Statistical breakdown of data:  We will have access to an enormous database of information which we could breakdown statistically depending on how people vote.  This is information potentially worth millions of dollars.  Not sure about the ethical issues

4.  Feasability
	I believe that this project is feasible.  At the least, I believe that we can make an election system that will suffice for the Brown community if not the world.  The presence of election.com, a turnkey elections website which has carried out statewide elections in Arizona is a testament to its doability.

5.  Users
	At minimum, the Brown community should be able to use this software for surveys and elections.  UCS is an ideal client as they have regular elections and presumably have the need to run surveys.  This software will also theoretically serve larger groups such as municipalities, states, the nation, and eventually...the world!!

6.  Testing
	Serious testing will be required, particularly security and stress testing.  We must make sure the program can handle potentially thousands of visitors at a time.  Furthermore, we must ensure that it will survive basic security scares and is reasonably (there is no less corruption of the votes than during a conventional election) reliable.

7.  Hardware and OS Requirements
	The program itself must run on Solaris on the UltraSparcs in the Sun Lab.
	The Web-based interface must be accessible by a wide variety of users,
running different browsers and different operating systems. At the very
least, it should be usable in Netscape Navigator 3.0+ and Microsoft
Internet Explorer 3.0+, as well as text-based browsers such as Lynx. It
should also be accessible to people with disabilities. The Web-based
interface will require a TCP/IP connection to the Internet.