INSTALL

Condorcet Internet Voting System
Copyright © 2016, Andrew C. Myers

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

1. Create a configuration file.  You will find it helpful to use
   config/sample as a template.  The configuration file specifies
   certain constants that localize the CIVS installation to your system:
   file system paths, URLs, email addresses, server names, etc.

2. Run the install script.  Assuming your working directory is the CIVS install
   directory, you would do this by invoking:

      ./install-civs config/my_config_file

   Of course, you would replace "my_config_file" with the name of the file
   you created in step 1.

   Check for any errors reported by the install script and try to
   correct them.  The most likely warning that the install script
   will report is that the $CIVSDATADIR/private_host_id file does
   not exist.  The data in this file acts as the server's private
   key.  There is no requirement on the format of this file.  It is
   suggested that you fill it with some number of randomly-generated
   bits, but English text will suffice.

3. Apache is the only explicitly supported web server, though the system
   may be able to work with other servers. The server must support content
   negotiation on languages.

   For Apache:
   * Enable the MultiViews option on at least the CIVS document directory
     ($HTMLDIR) and the CIVS CGI directory ($CGIBINDIR).
   * Make sure that the following modules are enabled: mod_cgi,
     mod_negotiation, mod_mime.
   * Include the httpd-languages.conf file if it exists, possibly in a
     subdirectory such as extra/.
   * Add index.html.var to the DirectoryIndex option.

4. Test the server installation by browsing to $CIVSURL, creating
   an election, adding yourself as a voter, opening the election,
   voting in the election, closing the election, and viewing the
   results. You may need to obtain some Perl packages, especially
   HTML::TagFilter.

Good luck!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Several people have worked on CIVS and its design.

    Andrew Myers built the initial version of the system and has maintained it.
    Michael Clarkson designed and implemented the protocols that are used to
    protect voter identity.  He also added the ballot reporting feature and
    cleaned up the code quite a bit.

    Nate Nystrom gave good suggestions on the the user interface,  David Gamble
    helpfully critiqued the proportional representation method, and Steve
    Eppley gave useful pointers on MAM and related methods.
    Chris Benham helped with the "runoff" method.

    Localization for languages other than English was provided by other
    volunteers: Árpád Magosányi (Hungarian), Jacopo Corbetta (Italian), Pascal
    Levasseur and Michel Billard Sarakawa (French), Julian Mehnle (German), Tom
    Dromi and Roey Perlstein-Dvir (Hebrew), Benhur Stein (Portuguese),
    Danfeng Zhang (Chinese), and Chin Isradisaikul (Thai).

    Contributions and feedback are always welcome!

    Additional language support would be great if there are more
    volunteers out there. Some languages frequently used in CIVS
    polls but that are not yet supported include Spanish, Russian,
    and Norwegian. Adding support for a new language is pretty easy
    and does not require programming expertise.