CentralVote
| CentralVote | |
|---|---|
 | |
| CV Staff | |
| Directors | _frozen LDShadowLord |
| Facts and figures | |
| Headquarters | 4 Kalmar Street, Central City XE1 Central City NE |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Parent Company | Central Exchange Organisation |
CentralVote is an independently owned and operated voting client designed for use in high-security scenarios. CentralVote is wholly owned by the Central Exchange Organisation.
CentralVote operates on a web server wholly owned by LDShadowLord. No other members of the MRT have access to this server ensuring that the vote is private and secure throughout.
History
CentralVote was originally proposed by LDShadowLord to _frozen during the development of the Central Stock Exchange as a method of keeping elections honest on the MRT. The first draft of CentralVote was published on the Central Stock Exchange's website and was used a number of times before _frozen took an extended break from the server.
During a voting scandal in the June of 2017, LDShadowLord was asked to bring CentralVote back for possible use by the United Cities to prevent election fraud in the future. The entire system was rebuilt from the group up due to data loss that had occurred when the Central Stock Exchange website was taken down. In CentralVote V2 the system is now much less reliant on the use of JSON files and is built more into the server software itself to allow it to better manage votes.
In late June CentralVote V3 was released, this added the ability to host dozens of ballot boxes and made the voting system more robust.
How it Works
CentralVote uses a master file, known as a "block-chain" to store the results of every vote in a public forum. It should be noted that CentralVote's implementation of a block-chain is substantially different than the actual implementation of one, this was due to a mis-understanding of what a block-chain actually was while CentralVote was being developed.
Each voter is sent a unique token comprised of 16 hexadecimal characters. When a user travels to the CentralVote website they can enter their token and choose a candidate from those available. If the token is in the database and the vote is still ongoing, the token and the candidate are added to the "block-chain" and the token is removed from the database to prevent multiple votes.
Each voter is randomly assigned their token and automatically mailed it via the /mail command using a script, this ensures that nobody knows what user is assigned which token and the vote is completely anonymous. The only method that someone not allowed to vote would be able to, is if a voter purposefully gave their token URL to another user.
The voting section of the CentralVote website does not log the IP address or the token used to vote to ensure voter identity is protected at all times.
CentralVote V3 now supports thousands of simultaneous ballot boxes. As such, to vote there is now the additional requirement of a "Vote Identifier" which is a 4 character hexadecimal token.
Proxy Votes
There is semi-support for Proxy Votes in CentralVote V3 via two different methods.
1. The absent voter can give their token URL to someone else so they can vote with the absentee's token. This would also allow the absentee to check via the block-chain that their proxy voter has voted correctly for them and has not stolen their vote.
2. POST votes. If Proxy Votes are sent to LDShadowLord, then so-called "POST" votes can be entered via an admin console into the block-chain. POST votes are called such because it is a play-on-word for the UK voting system, and because each voting token entered via this method is prefaced with "POST". While a regular token may look like this "0123456789ABCDEF", a POST token will look like this "POSTAB0123BA0000". The final number represents the vote that was issued that is then prefaced by up to 3 zeroes. LDShadowLord can then respond to the proxy voter with the token that was issued for them so they can ensure compliance with their wishes.
Pricing
As CentralVote costs both time and money to develop and provide to users, there are a series of pricing options available to users or groups that wish to use CentralVote.
| Name | Votes | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Trial Package | 1 | $0 - One Time | Can only be redeemed once per user/group |
| The One Shot Package | 1 | $2.99 - One Time | Designed for single votes by users. |
| The Democracy Package | 7 | $11.99 - Per Calendar Month | Recurring Fee - Designed for organisations who have expansive voting requirements - Votes reset at the beginning of each payment period. |
| The Custom Package | > 28 | > $29.99 - Per Calendar Month | Need something special? Contact LDShadowLord for details. |
To submit a vote you *MUST* PM @LDShadowLord#4238 on Discord so that the required information can be gathered.
CentralPoll
CentralPoll is a polling system created from the same code base as CentralVote. CentralPoll does not use tokens, instead using players usernames. CentralPoll is currently in a BETA state and is not yet for public consumption.