Internet voting is not yet feasible, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology have concluded. “Malware on voters’ personal computers poses a serious threat that could compromise the secrecy or integrity of voters’ ballots,” said Belinda Collins, senior advisor for voting standards within NIST’s information technology laboratory, in an May 18 statement. “And, the United States currently lacks an infrastructure for secure electronic voter authentication,” she added. Collins released the statement in response to an inquiry from Common Cause, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit active in campaign finance and election reform.
“This statement should serve as a blunt warning that we just aren’t ready yet and proves that we can’t trust the empty promises of ‘secure Internet voting’ from the for-profit vendors,” said Susannah Goodman, head of Common Cause’s Voting Integrity Project. “We urge election officials and state and federal lawmakers to heed NIST’s warning and step back, support further research and STOP online voting programs until they can be made secure,” Goodman added.
Collins said NIST came to the conclusion that “additional research and development is needed…before secure Internet voting will be feasible” as a result of preparing a February 2011 interagency report on security considerations for electronic voting for uniformed and overseas citizens absentee voting. The report, NISTIR 7770 (.pdf) concluded that Internet voting systems “cannot currently be audited with a comparable level of confidence in the audit results as for those for polling place systems,” Collins said.
Full Article: NIST: Internet voting not yet feasible – FierceGovernmentIT.