Do We Trust Online Voting?

Imagine a situation where voting is done by simply getting out of bed, walking to your computer and clicking a button. Easy, right? Online voting can serve many purposes including convenience of use, to make lives easier, but online voting also has an assortment of problems. Online voting brings up many issues including hacking, safety, who's voting, tallying votes and rigging the software used in elections.

Hacking or breaking into a system is a major danger. Many people will essentially use the same software to cast their vote. If a hacker knew enough about the software, they could break into the system, steal data, or change votes. Hacking presents a major concern to developers of the software used in conjunction with voting. If a system is poorly designed, potentially anyone can expose its flaws [3]. For example, the state of Maryland implemented a system (prior to any testing) with many flaws, which computer scientists later discovered [4]. Also, a foreign nation may have a legitimate concern about an election. For example other nations might have a concern about a presidential election and may try to tap into the voting system used to control the outcome of an election. Neumann noted, "We have cautioned against over-endowing the integrity of computers and people involved in the election process, and have noted many risks involving accidents as well [3]."

Safety becomes the next major concern regarding online voting. Safety refers to using the system without having personal information exposed. Such vital information includes one's favored candidate, social security number, date of birth etc. A voting system should only store the votes actually cast by legitimate voters. Voting systems should not store vital personal information. Regardless of storing information or not, if a system asks for certain information by the voter, then the user must realize they put their own information at great risk. Other people could essentially steal voters' private information. The safety issue makes one consider other problems with online voting including who the actual voter is.

When an individual casts a vote, the vote is presumed a legitimate vote cast by the person who filled out the appropriate paperwork. In other words, if I want to vote and someone else accesses the online voting system in my name, they can cast a vote using my name and then I would lose my opportunity to cast my vote and project my political voice. A special encryption scheme may solve the issue or may discourage some malicious people to think twice before trying to vote illegally and illegitimately. Also, some people want a printed receipt of who they voted for in case they need to show they voted for a particular candidate if a recount is necessary. A tangible receipt might seem like a good idea initially, however, one particular article mentioned having a receipt might not seem like such a great idea because others would inevitably know who voters voted for [1]. The good side to not having a voting receipt is the ability to keep an anonymous vote. Pretend for a moment you vote in an election and you get a receipt, now your employer somehow gains access to the receipt, or friends, or whoever, but do you really want someone else knowing for a fact who you voted for? Online voting should not use receipts because they prevent the anonymity in voting.

Tallying votes presents another great concern. Who should tally votes, people or machines? Both? Should a different machine tally the votes, or should a person vote online and have some online system count their vote simultaneously? "Older counting machines can remain in situations where they perform well, and be replaced in other situations where they perform poorly [2]." A tally can have an outcome of either an over vote or under vote; deeming accuracy of the voting scheme absolutely critical to correctly tally all votes cast [2]. If computer engineers developed a special computerized counting machine, voters would know instantly the outcome of any election instead of waiting or worrying about recounts. However, the downfall to computers includes their accuracy. If only a computer is used to count votes, do voters truly accept what the computer says? Remember, in any case, the tallying method is created by people; presenting its own set of problems including bad coding. If developers don't know how to create a machine appropriately to count votes, likely election results would have numerous errors including flaws going un-noticed. Ultimately meaning a voter who casts a vote would truly have no say in an election if a bad counting system oversees a vote cast or doesn't count votes properly. Also, if a malicious programmer gets hired to develop or modify a tallying system, he could intentionally code the system in a manner favorable to a certain candidate by disregarding votes, creating random numbers, or increasing the number of votes for the given candidate.

Rigging an election is definitely not acceptable by the masses of people who take time out of their daily lives to cast a vote. When voters cast a vote for their favored candidates, they certainly want their votes to count. If a system is designed in such a manner where votes become disregarded or miscounted, then voters have wasted time with bothering to vote. Politics controls many aspects of daily life and politics in the United States can affect other countries throughout the world. Certainly foreign governments have great interest in elections held in the states and will even want to try to influence the outcome of an election, if they couldn't totally control one [5]. Any government, with the consent of its people should designate a truly neutral party to create a voting system with the aid of its voters, engineers, mathematicians and the like to deem the system truly reliable, safe and secure. The government in conjunction with its voters should agree the system put in use is acceptable to the voting population.

Many people can use online voting because many homes have computers and access to the Internet. People with extremely busy lives and little time can cast votes online in seconds, without ever leaving the house. If a voter can't reach their polling place, they can cast their vote via a computer from their work or wherever. The Internet may serve a delightful place to vote, but if online voting becomes commonplace, the United States must take appropriate measures to ensure the reliability of the system put into use. So what does the future hold, one might wonder? Online voting can become the voting realm of the future, but must face rigorous scrutiny from a wide range of testers. The government should follow certain guidelines, determined acceptable by its people, to follow in order to satisfy voter confidence in the voting process. Lastly, the ultimate problem in a computerized election is the occurrence of a nationwide, or even worldwide power outage, and if voters can only vote by going online, now they can't vote.

Works Cited

[1] Benaloh, Josh. Tuinstra, Dwight. Receipt-Free Secret-Ballot Elections. ACM Press New York, NY, USA. 1994. 544-553.

[2] Brady, E. Henry. Buchler, Justin. Jarvis, Matt. McNulty, John. Counting All the Votes: The Performance of Voting Technology in the United States. Berkeley, California, Department of Political Science, Survey Research Center and Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley. 2001.

[3] Neumann, Peter G. Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems. ACM Press New York, NY, USA. January 2001. 14-38.

[4] Schulte, B. Security Review Finds 328 Flaws in AccuVote. The Washington Post. September 25, 2003.

[5] Smyth, J.C. Voting Machine Controversy. The Cleveland Plain Dealer. August 28, 2003.