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…
Author: Pamela Smith Connecticut lawmakers are considering legislation to allow military voters to cast ballots over the Internet. The intention of this legislation is well-meaning — Connecticut does need to improve the voting process for military voters — but Internet voting is not the answer. Every day, headlines reveal just how vulnerable and insecure any…
At a time when more and more transactions occur online, a number of election officials and private organizations are looking to the Internet as one more possible avenue for balloting. When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that would be using an online voting system to help its members choose this year’s…
Military and overseas voters saw improvements in their ability to vote in 2010, thanks to the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE) passed in late 2009, according to a report to Congress last month by the Military Postal Service Agency (MPSA). The report indicates that MOVE will improve things further as its provisions become…
Author: David Jefferson I am very concerned about the widespread push toward Internet voting in the U.S., of which email voting is just one kind. Neither the Internet itself, nor voters’ computers, nor the email vote collection servers are secure against any of a hundred different cyber attacks that might be launched by anyone in…
Guest Author For years, computer security experts have said that casting ballots using the Internet cannot be done securely. Now, after a team from the University of Michigan successfully hacked the Washington D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics (DCBOEE) public test of Internet voting, we have a visceral demonstration of just how serious the threats…
This week, as University of Michigan computer technologists revealed in stark fashion the risks of Internet voting, Verified Voting, Common Cause, and Voter Action worked to halt an effort to expand the electronic return of voted ballots in Washington State. The Secretary of State of Washington has proposed an emergency rule that would allow voters…
Author: David Jefferson University of Michigan Prof. Alex Halderman has now released some details about his successful attack on the District of Columbia’s proposed Internet voting system which has been under test for the last week. (See www.freedom-to-tinker.com.) It is now clear that Halderman and his team were able to completely subvert the entire DC…
Verified Voting applauds the decision of the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics to suspend their plan to offer overseas voters the dangerous option of returning their voted ballots by a “digital vote by mail” Internet voting system. The District’s plans to continue other Internet-based ballot return methods (including email and fax) for…
If we can use the Internet to deliver blank ballots, then why not use it to return voted ballots? Part of the answer lies with the nature of the Internet itself. If we are to be sure that the vote cast is the same as the vote counted, we need a way to guarantee that 1)…