Thousands of absentee voters from Maryland will be the first to mark their ballots online this fall, as the attorney general gave the green light to the State Board of Elections Thursday. But at least one advocacy organization said the new online ballot marking program, along with the state’s just started online registration process, is open to voter fraud. The long-awaited formal opinion from the attorney general gave the elections board the official OK to implement online ballot marking software without having to undergo state or federal certification, which a watchdog group opposed. The five-member board voted unanimously during their monthly meeting to proceed with the new online tool. The ballot marking “wizard” will allow military and overseas voters, also referred to as Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) voters, to mark their absentee ballots online, a step designed to make the final processing of their ballots more efficient, the state board said. After the approval, a voting rights advocate told the board about a possible security vulnerability, one she said that would not only affect the state’s new online voter registration system but could potentially extend to the November elections.
Rebecca Wilson of SAVEourVotes.org told election officials about a website that easily displays a person’s state issued driver’s license number, which is one of the four information components required to register online. By inputting the person’s first, middle and last names, and the month and day the person was born, the site displays the person’s Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) issued identification number. “The only thing the corrupter needs to know is the full name and the date of birth, but the month and day only,” and not the year, Wagner said. Many people post their birth dates on Facebook.
State Board of Elections Chairman Robert Walker, and state board members David McManus, Jr. and Rachel McGuckian check their cell phones during a presentation of online security vulnerabilities for a website that uploads Maryland drivers license numbers, as elections administrator Linda Lamone and deputy administrator Ross Goldstein look on. The election board’s chairman, Robert Walker, sat with fellow board members during the presentation frantically searching the Internet on their cell phones for the company Wagner referred to, but did not mention by name. Within minutes Walker pulled up the site, www.highprogrammer.com, and confirmed what Wagner alleged. “It does come back accurately,” Walker said.Full Article: Online ballot marking for absentee voters approved, but potential for fraud questioned – MarylandReporter.com.