This article appears in the October 2012 issue of Communications of the ACM
The assertion that Internet voting is the wave of the future has become commonplace. We frequently are asked, “If I can bank online, why can’t I vote online?” The question assumes that online banking is safe and secure. However, banks routinely and quietly replenish funds lost to online fraud in order to maintain public confidence. We are told Internet voting would help citizens living abroad or in the military who currently have difficulty voting. Recent federal legislation to improve the voting process for overseas citizens is a response to that problem. The legislation, which has eliminated most delays, requires states to provide downloadable blank ballots but does not require the insecure return of voted ballots.
Yet another claim is that email voting is safer than Web-based voting, but no email program in widespread use today provides direct support for encrypted email. As a result, attachments are generally sent in the clear, and email ballots are easy to intercept and inspect, violating voters’ right to a secret ballot. Intercepted ballots may be modified or discarded without forwarding. Moreover, the ease with which a From header can be forged means it is relatively simple to produce large numbers of forged ballots. These special risks faced by email ballots are in addition to the general risks posed by all Internet-based voting schemes.
Many advocates also maintain that Internet voting will increase voter participation, save money, and is safe. We find the safety argument surprising in light of frequent government warnings of cybersecurity threats and news of powerful government-developed viruses. We see little benefit in measures that might improve voter turnout while casting doubt on the integrity of the results.a
Almost all the arguments on behalf of Internet voting ignore a critical risk Internet-based voting shares with all computerized voting—wholesale theft. In the days of hand-counted paper ballots, election theft was conducted at the retail level by operatives at polling places and local election offices. By contrast, introduction of computers into the voting process created the threat that elections can be stolen by inserting malware into code on large numbers of machines. The situation is even more dangerous with Internet voting, since both the central servers and the voters’ computers are potentially under attack from everywhere.
Despite the serious threats it poses to election integrity, Internet voting is being used in several countries and U.S. states, and there is increasing public pressure to adopt it elsewhere. We examine some of these threats, in the hope of encouraging the technical community to oppose Internet voting unless and until the threats are eliminated.
Full Article: Internet Voting in the U.S. | October 2012 | Communications of the ACM.