We were happy to see that ACM is using the Helios online voting system for a number its elections this year, including the 2014 ACM Council election. ACM members, all 100,000 of them, have the option of voting online via the Web or requesting a paper ballot in the election of ACM’s top officers. This demonstrates the confidence that the “world’s largest educational and scientific computing society” has in the technology of online verifiable voting systems.

Helios is an example of an end-to-end verifiable voting system that uses cryptographic techniques that can provide ballot privacy as well as high confidence that errors and fraud will be detected and that the election outcome is correct.  Such systems let voters verify that their votes were not modified and were counted without revealing which candidates were voted for. In some cases, they allow anyone to determine that all of an election’s ballots have been correctly counted and also help prevent coercion and vote selling by making it impossible for a voter to prove how she voted to a third party.

Among the things we like about Helios is that it provides a free service that anyone can use to hold end-to-end verifiable votes on the Web and that its code is open sourced, allowing one to study the (mostly Python)  code and install and run it on their own computers.

Developing verifiable voting systems has been one of the research activities of UMBC’s Center for Information Security and Assurance for more than six years. Professor Alan Sherman and his students contributed to Scantegrity, the first end-to-end verifiable voting system used in a binding municipal election.  The UMBC team oversaw that first use in the Takoma Park, Maryland municipal election in November, 2009.   A subsequent system, Remotegrity, was used to allow Takoma Park residents to submit absentee ballots over the Internet in the November 2011 Takoma Park election.  A current secure voting project in Professor Sherman’s lab is led by Ph.D. student Christopher Nguyen, who is developing techniques to support random-sample elections.

Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot

Go on an egg hunt with Saatchi & Saatchi http://depot.ly/vS3PX

Interesting Wikipedia concept http://depot.ly/vS3IR  via @dribbble

12 Little-Known CSS Facts http://depot.ly/vS391  *Good read via @sitepointdotcom

#Typography is a practice: http://ow.ly/vS35i  via @BrushLovers

Google Offers Sneak Peek At Latest Google Glass Software Update http://depot.ly/vQaJs  via @marketingland

The beauty of Nick Meek’s photography http://depot.ly/vQaby  via @fubiz

Nice tip: How to Add Audio to PowerPoint Presentations http://depot.ly/vQ9pW

Google’s modular mobile could be with use within a year http://depot.ly/vQanS

Want to build a website but don’t know where to start? Here are 59 tutorials to help you out http://depot.ly/vMIVs  via @CreativeBloq

Good read: 12 ways to get the most from Behance http://depot.ly/vMIjN  via @tutsplus

Google’s Dead-Simple Tool For Making UX Decisions: 2 Jars Of Marbles http://depot.ly/vJU7d

A Beginner’s Guide to UX & UI Design http://depot.ly/vEunr  via @justcreative

Get it Done: 35 Habits of the Most Productive People [Infographic] http://depot.ly/vEBzJ  via @EntMagazine

Do’s and Don’ts of Using Light Typefaces http://depot.ly/vExnh

Want more? No problem! Keep track of all our tweets by following us @DesignerDepot

Easily Create Powerful Online Forms with FormGet – from $27!

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

Tight squeeze

Productive while working at home

Send backup

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

MightyDeals Exclusive: New Thirsty Soft Font Family – only $9!

The UMBC community gives back in many ways. The Clothing Closet and Sweeten Up Your Network events were great examples of exactly that. Thanks to your donations of time, money and clothes, students were able to find outfits for future job interviews, brush up on their networking skills and make connections that could last a lifetime. Weren’t able to make it? Take a look at some of the pictures and head over to the Student Alumni Association Facebook page for more!

Sometimes these types of articles are cheezy and filled with fairly obvious stuff, but not when Louis Lazaris does them. All of these are pretty non-obvious.

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12 Little-Known CSS Facts is a post from CSS-Tricks

Nice stuff by Michaël Villar. Tasteful, subtle, informative animations is a trend I can be behind.

Reminds me of the nice stuff Val Head has been teaching, Hakim El Hattab's experiments, Codrops examples, Pasquale D’Silva's thinking, Effeckt.css...

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Improve the payment experience with animations is a post from CSS-Tricks