You can see everyone’s USG Winter election encrypted ballot

This could breach confidentiality

Yesterday, we received an anonymous tip regarding a possible breach of confidentiality during the recent USG winter elections.

Our source informed us that it was possible to log into Helios, the USG voting website, and not only see a list of the NetIDs of all the voters, but also view their encrypted ballots.

A screenshot of NetIDs of voters. The NetIDs themselves have been blacked out to preserve their anonymity.

 

A screenshot of a portion of an encrypted ballot.

Although you cannot explicitly see the individual voter choices, you can see the encrypted ballot.

It’s unclear whether voter anonymity is guaranteed by the USG, but the election handbook says “voter aliases will be used,” which does not seem to be the case.

We reached out to Aleks Czulak, president of USG, for a response and have not received a reply.

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