Technologists Say Online Voting Not Ready for Prime Time

“The Internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the results are verifiably accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to democracy,” said Princeton University professor of computer science and public affairs Ed Felten, Carnegie Mellon University professor David Farber, BT Chief Security Technology Officer Bruce Schneier and 29 other computer technologists. “Several serious, potentially insurmountable technical challenges must be met if elections conducted by transmitting votes over the Internet are to be verifiable,” they said. “Internet voting should only be adopted after these technical challenges have been overcome, and after extensive and fully informed public discussion of the technical and non-technical issues has established that the people of the U.S. are comfortable embracing this radically new form of voting,” they said.

“Malicious software, firmware, or hardware could change, fabricate, or delete votes, deceive the user in myriad ways including modifying the ballot presentation, leaking information about votes to enable voter coercion, preventing or discouraging voting, or performing online electioneering,” the technologists said. Before online elections can happen, there must be mechanisms to prevent disruption of vote transmission and undetected changes to votes, and there needs to be “reliable, unforgeable, unchangeable voter-verified records of votes that are at least as effective for auditing as paper ballots, without compromising ballot secrecy.”

The National Association of Counties also cited privacy and security concerns with online voting and voter registration. It said “the potential for voter registration fraud cannot be discounted,” and there’s no established method to ensure voter anonymity, NACo said.

Elections results “must be contained in a permanent record independent of any hardware or software used to produce said results,” said the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation, a nonprofit. From a policy standpoint, citizens may not have equal access to the Internet, although that might be addressed by a strategy restricting broadband enablement to official polling places, it said. Another question is “whether and to what extent ballot secrecy -- a hallmark of American elections -- can be properly preserved.” But the Foundation said sidestepping Internet voting altogether isn’t the answer. “Avoidance of these issues by simply ignoring the growing relevance and role of the Internet in American digital democracy will neither stop the revolution the Internet represents, or slow the evolution of our democratic process in a digital age.”

However, elections security company Scytl said techniques exist to secure voting. “Online voting is already now more secure and efficient compared to postal voting,” it said. Conventional computer and network security services like firewalls and antivirus software aren’t enough to protect votes, but governments can secure votes by applying a “application-level cryptographic e-voting framework,” it said. “Electronic voting presents numerous advantages over traditional paper-based voting,” Scytl said. Elections officials may easily design and modify ballots, and can count electronic votes faster and more accurately, it said. Also, online voting supports multiple languages and is more accessible for the blind and visually impaired, it said.

Commenters were more supportive of webcasting government meetings. “Making government meetings and hearings available online will drive demand for broadband in areas that don’t have it and enable civic participation across the nation,” said the Center for Democracy & Technology. “While an open room with seats for spectators was once the model of sunshine in government, now video streaming is the example that we should be following making meetings public.”

The FCC should recommend that Congress update laws requiring public meetings so they encourage Web streaming whenever possible, CDT said. Also, the commission should do a study on its own streamed meetings to assess impact and participation, and convene an advisory committee of government webcasting experts from the public and private sectors and public interest groups, CDT said.

Government agencies holding meetings online “should strive to follow the letter and spirit” of openness laws, said the Society of Professional Journalists. Meeting notices and agendas should be posted “well in advance,” and minutes should be posted online soon afterward, SPJ said. “Online communication should go both ways,” with opportunities for the public to ask questions during and after online meetings, comment afterward using online technologies, and object when officials “choose to go into executive session or take other steps to limit openness,” it said. All meetings should be in a location where the public can attend in person, and “a quorum” of the government body should be present to allow interactions, SPJ said.

It’s good the FCC is looking at how to enable online government, but it mustn’t “place the cart before the horse,” said NACo. The plan’s priority should be to increase broadband deployment and adoption, NACo said. “Any efforts to include in its plan specific recommendations on elections- related uses of broadband must bear in mind that some citizens will be disenfranchised due to the unavailability of broadband in their communities.”

Broadband lets local governments “provide more services for less cost,” but NACo doesn’t support “nationwide, unfunded mandates on how local governments must make use of such technology and what voting services it must offer online,” it said. Adoption of any proposed elections process must be optional for state and local governments, and adequate funding should be made available for installation and maintenance, it said. Also, the process “must be adaptable to state-specific requirements and restrictions and may not be deemed as the exclusive vehicle by which a particular elections procedure may be accomplished.”

Bringing government online will enable deaf people to participate more fully in democratic processes, said Broadband for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. With universal broadband, local governments could stream and caption events, election coverage in the media could be made accessible, and geographically-dispersed deaf persons could mobilize, it said.