“We believe that online voting, especially online voting in large scale, introduces great risk into the election system by threatening voters’ expectations of confidentiality, accountability and security of their votes and provides an avenue for malicious actors to manipulate the voting results,” Neil Jenkins, an official in the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security, said at a conference of the Election Verification Network this spring.
Thirty-two states have some form of electronic transmission of ballots over the Internet, compared with no states with online voting in 2000. In Alaska, for example, all voters can submit an absentee elections ballot online from computers in their own homes.
Missouri offers electronic ballots for members of the military who are serving in a “hostile zone” overseas. North Dakota permits overseas citizens or military members deployed overseas to vote online. And in 20 other states and the District of Columbia, certain voters living abroad will be allowed to return their absentee ballots via email or fax in the upcoming presidential election.
Source: More than 30 states offer online voting, but experts warn it isn’t secure – The Washington Post
Well, it isn’t secure and it can’t be made to be. However, is showing up to vote that secure? Is handcounting that secure? In the US, Florida has consistently shown that the current process is corrupt and unreliable. How do the risks weigh up?
Robin Edgar
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