In answer to the question “With existing technology, is it possible to enable and ensure safe and secure voting online today?”, Verified Voting responded, “in a word, no.” It is likely that no one in the country has studied the subject of internet voting more intensely than David Jefferson, senior scientist at Lawrence Livermore National…
It is likely that no one in the country has studied the subject of internet voting more intensely than David Jefferson, senior scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Part of his job is to help devise strategies to defend against the relentless attacks we see every hour of every day against U.S. networks, both government and corporate, from sources ranging from self aggrandizing students to foreign intelligence and cyber warfare agencies. He has also been deeply involved in voting and election security for over a decade as a voting technology advisor to five successive Secretaries of State in California, and is a coauthor of most of the best known peer-reviewed scientific publication on Internet voting, the SERVE Security Report.
[pullquote align=”left”]“The integrity of a general election is as important as the integrity of many of our national defense secrets.[/pullquote]In his comments to the FCC, Jefferson emphasizes that election security is an aspect of U.S. national security. He observes that, “few people have any idea how tiny is the fraction of votes that, if selectively lost or switched, could swing a presidential election, or swing the balance of power in a house of Congress. The controversial 2000 presidential election that was decided by a few hundred votes in one state was only the most extreme object lesson, but other elections such as the recent Minnesota senatorial election, have been as close. This is all the more true in these times in which the electorate is nearly evenly divided on several key national issues. It is vital that we protect the security of every vote, or the legitimacy of our government will be rightly called into question–a situation that is very damaging in a democracy.”