Demo/testing a Scheduled election
Once you are done with setting up your election, you should now proceed to test it. To test your election setup, you need to ensure the following has been set up:
One demo voter (“John Doe”) with the “Email” field containing your email address.
One voting round which is displayed as “Active,” “Open,” and set as a “Demo.”
An email template with the correct injectable links for Scheduled Voting events. Refer back to the subsection on Injectable Voter attributes and the guide onCreate a template.
To start testing your election setup, you need to send out an email template to a demo voter. Read how to do this in the guide Send out campaigns: individual and mass.
Once the email template has been sent out, you should have an email in your inbox which looks like the image shown below. From this email, you can access the Login page of the election by clicking on the button “Go to login” – this will open a new browser window with the election front page.
1.1. Cast a vote
The next step in the process is to cast a ballot and generate results.
Once the election front page is open, check that the “Election Code 1” has been prefilled in the first field and matches the code in the email.
Under “Birthdate,” insert the birthdate from the “John Doe” voter: 01011999.
Click on “Go to ballot.”
Once you are logged in, you should now be able to see the ballot and cast a vote.
Cast a ballot by choosing your desired candidate(s), clicking “Continue,” and then “Submit vote.” You have now voted and should see a receipt screen. If you have enabled the “Download receipt” button in the election configuration, it will also appear on the receipt page, as seen in the image below.
1.2. Creating a result
Go back to the backend of Electa and go to the “Voting rounds” tab.
Under the section “Currently active,” click on the “Example voting round.”
Click on the yellow
button in the right-hand corner.
Scroll down on the page to “Voting round report” and click “Start extraction” to generate the results. You can then follow the progress of the download.
Go to the “Result” tab. Here, click on the “Start extraction” button.
Once the extraction process is complete, you should be able to see the result on your screen. Optionally, should you want to save the result, click on the “Download results” button in the top right corner to download a .zip file containing the results.
You have now successfully conducted a test of the election setup.
1.3. Video guide
Something else which should be tested is the end-to-end verification process, specifically by testing a ballot before submitting it and tracking a ballot once it has been submitted.
Before testing the end-to-end verification voting flow, make sure that you have the relevant E2E verifiability features configured properly – refer to to the section End-to-End (E2E) verifiability for instructions on how to do this.
2.1. Vote verification using the Ballot Tester
Testing a ballot (also known as the Benaloh challenge or vote verification) happens after the voter has marked their ballot, but before it has been submitted. Refer to the previous section for the voter flow.
After selecting an option in the ballot, the voter clicks “Enable possibility of performing vote verification” at the bottom of the page.
The voter clicks “Confirm choices.”
The voter will now be presented with the choices of “Test ballot” or “Cast ballot.” Additionally, a verification code with a QR code will appear.
Test ballot: This will start the process of testing the vote by going to an external ballot verification page within the EVS.
Cast ballot: This will conclude the voting process by pinning the encrypted ballot to the digital bulletin board.
The voter should now open the Election Verification Site. They do this by scanning the QR code with another device, such as a smartphone, or click on “click to open it on this device” to open the EVS in another browser window.
On the EVS page, the ballot tester should have found the voter’s ballot.
The voter clicks “Test ballot” to start the process of testing their vote.
A pairing code will appear both on the Election Verification Site and in the election system. The voter must compare these two pairing codes.
If they match, click on the “Does match” button on the computer screen.
Pairing code in the ballot: | Pairing code in the EVS: |
*If the pairing codes do not match, the voter should click “Does not match.” This will lead them back to the “confirm your selection” screen and allow them to restart the verification process.
The voter returns to the EVS ballot tester page, where the ballot’s choices will now appear decrypted and spoiled.
At this point, a voter must confirm that the choices shown in the EVS correspond to those options they marked on their ballot.
If the choices match, they can click “Return to voting” on their computer screen.
Once again, the voter must confirm their choices before the ballot can be encrypted. Should they wish to do so, the voter may also change the content of their ballot by clicking on the “Modify choices” button.
The voter can then choose to test the ballot again (repeating the process shown above) or submit their vote to the digital ballot box by clicking on the “Cast ballot” button.
Should the choices shown not match the voter’s selection, they should report this to you and you should tell them to not submit their ballot.
2.2.Tracking a ballot
To track a ballot, voters will need a submitted ballot, its corresponding tracking code, and the ballot tracker page.
Once the voter has cast a ballot, they will receive a tracking code, a QR code and a vote receipt.
The voter then opens the EVS ballot tracker page by either scanning the QR code with another device, such as a smartphone, or by clicking on “click to open it on this device” to open it in another browser window.
On the ballot tracker page, the voter will be able to see all activity attached to that tracking code. They can learn more about each activity by opening it up and reading the descriptions therein.
Alternatively, they can obtain the vote receipt by clicking on the
button.
The vote receipt will contain the link to the EVS ballot tracker (see in the image above the red marking). Inside this page, it is then possible to upload the vote receipt.
On the ballot tracker page, the voter will be able to see all activity attached to that tracking code. They can learn more about each activity by opening it up and reading the descriptions therein.