Yes, Voting Machines Can Be Hacked – Now the Hard Work Begins

DEFCON Report on Machine Vulnerabilities Critical First Step in Raising Awareness, But to Secure Election Systems, States Must Adopt Paper Ballots A new report on cyber vulnerabilities of our elections systems raises awareness of a critical issue, but in order to secure our elections, we need fundamental changes made at the state and local level.…

New Report: Internet Voting Threatens Ballot Secrecy

Author: Warren Stewart Casting a secret ballot in the upcoming election might not be so secret or secure depending on where – and how – you vote, according to a new report The Secret Ballot at Risk: Recommendations for Protecting Democracy. The report was coauthored by three leading organizations focused on voting technology, the Electronic…

Give Us The Ballot | Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The following passage is excerpted from a speech that Dr. King delivered before the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington on May 17 1957, three years after Brown v. Board of Education and eight years before the enactment of the Voting Rights Act.  Three years ago the Supreme Court of this nation rendered in…

Why Voting Systems Must be as Secure as the U.S. Power Grid

Authors: Karen Hobert Glynn and Pamela Smith This oped was posted by Reuters on August 17, 2016. Every American has the right to have their vote counted. The Department of Homeland Security is weighing steps to help safeguard that right. The agency is considering actions to secure the voting process against cyber-threats by designating voting…

All Election Integrity is Local: Remembering John Washburn (1962-2016)

Author: Warren Stewart We were saddened to learn of the untimely passing of election integrity activist John Washburn at the age of 53. John was a fiercely independent thinker – disarmingly honest and contagiously cheerful – and a passionate advocate for transparent election administration. Verified Voting President Pamela Smith noted that John “was actively engaged…

How Not to Measure Security

Author: Jeremy Epstein This article was originally posted at Freedom to Tinker on August 10, 2015. It is reposted here with permission of the author. A recent paper published by Smartmatic, a vendor of voting systems, caught my attention. The first thing is that it’s published by Springer, which typically publishes peer-reviewed articles – which…

Hack the Vote: The Perils of the Online Ballot Box

Authors: Pamela Smith and Bruce McConnell While most voters will cast their ballots at polling stations in November, online voting has been quietly and rapidly expanding in the United States over the last decade. Over 30 states and territories allow some form of Internet voting (such as by email or through a direct portal) for…