Votorola - host open elections
Votorola is software for hosting open, continuous elections. Installed and running on a server, it implements one more electoral subservers. An electoral subserver is a variable store of electoral data that is maintained by voters and administrators, and made accessible through communication interfaces:
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mail and Web-based voter interfaces, to maintain electoral data |
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file-based watchdog interface, to verify election results |
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command line administrative interface |
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database synchronization interface, for cross-site communication |
This is a brief summary of the command line administrative interface, and the configuration files.
Log in under an
electoral subserver account in order to issue
commands. An electoral subserver account is a local user
account on the server, that is dedicated to the storage of
the subserver’s data, the running of its daemons, and
so forth. A typical installation has an
’on-line’ subserver (maybe named
’elections’) for public use, and an
’off-line’ subserver (maybe
’tester’) to pre-test new services and software.
See votorola/a/manual.xht#subserver.
vocount(1)
Service utility to tally the results of an election.
vodeliver(1)
Test utility to deliver an email message to the inbox of the voter interface.
volist(1)
Service utility to compile a list of voters.
volog(1)
Test utility to log messages at all logging levels.
vomailrd(1)
Service daemon to await and respond to email messages from voters.
voqproperties(1)
Test utility to print the system properties.
voscript(1)
Interpreter to test the execution of a configuration script.
vosnap(1)
Service utility to take a snapshot of voter input.
voter(1)
Command shell to issue a voter command to an electoral service.
Votorola is configured by modular JavaScript files. See voscript(1) for general information on encoding, language, and the modular include facility. Most of the configuration files are located under /home/subserver-name/votorola/, where subserver-name is the user name of the subserver account.
/home/subserver-name/votorola/vomailrd.js
Script vomailrd.js configures the mail-based voter interface, and its responder daemon, vomailrd(1). See votorola/a/manual.xht#voter-interface.
/home/subserver-name/votorola/web.js
/etc/tomcat-6/Catalina/localhost/subserver-name.xml
Script web.js and servlet context file subserver-name.xml configure the Web-based voter interface. See votorola/a/manual.xht#web.
/home/subserver-name/votorola/services/service-name/service.js
Each script service.js configures an electoral service. The service-name directory determines the name of the service. It is recommended that all names be restricted to the common characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, _) and dot (., except no dot as the first character). The name must not exceed 63 characters in length. It ought to be unique among all services of the subserver, and all other subservers that share the same domain name. (The email address of the service will be constructed as service-name@subserver-domain). See votorola/a/manual.xht#electoral-register, and votorola/a/manual.xht#Elections.
The administrator’s manual for Votorola is votorola/a/manual.xht.
The project Web site is http://zelea.com/project/votorola/.
Copyright 2007-2008, Michael Allan.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Votorola Software"), to deal in the Votorola Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicence, and/or sell copies of the Votorola Software, and to permit persons to whom the Votorola Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The preceding copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Votorola Software.
THE VOTOROLA SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE VOTOROLA SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE VOTOROLA SOFTWARE.