When buying hardware and software, EMBs should ensure that proper licences are obtained. Apart from the legal and ethical problems with using unlicensed or unregistered software, users also run the risk of not being notified of known bugs, software fixes or upgrades. Security Computer systems used for elections must include high levels of security. Unauthorised persons must be prevented from accessing, altering or downloading sensitive electoral data. Demonstrable security levels are another way of ensuring that election systems are transparent and trustworthy.
Various mechanisms exist to provide for computer security.
These include password protection, encryption, verification programs and physical isolation. Accuracy Accuracy is vital to the conduct of an election, particularly when counting and reporting election results. To ensure that technological systems are trustworthy, they must be tested to verify that they are accurate. Accuracy can be tested by entering known data into a system and verifying that the system correctly arrives at the known result. Another method is to process the same set of data through two or more different, independent systems to verify that each obtain the same results.