"Unlike most online activities, failed - or just distrusted - elections can result in significant outcomes that affect everyone," the group wrote. "The intentional lack of traceability of a cast ballot back to a voter due to the requirement of a secret ballot demands different technical controls than other types of online transactions."Įven more abstract, but critically important, is that the stakes with U.S. "In most transactions, the results of a failure are traceable and often obvious to all parties involved in a transaction: a bank account balance is wrong, a car is delivered in an unexpected color, a tax burden does not match expectations," the working group wrote. The biggest one is that voting presents challenges that aren't there in other types of online transactions.Ī common refrain, for example, is that people transfer trillions of dollars online every year, so Americans should be able to vote this way too.īut voting requires a secrecy not needed in financial transactions, where both parties can confirm accuracy. There are a few fundamental reasons internet voting isn't there yet, which the UC Berkeley working group explained in its paper. "There's really more agreement on this point than almost anything else in election security." "Basically every election security expert agrees that we should not have lots of people voting over the internet," said William Adler, the senior elections technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Each of these steps may act as a barrier to voting for voters who are blind and disabled." "To complete a paper ballot one is required to, at the least, read standard text, physically write and/or fill in the ballot choices, seal and certify the ballot via a signature on the envelope, and mail the ballot back to the appropriate voting official to be counted," Bridges wrote then in a letter to Congress arguing for expanded electronic voting options. The lawsuits generally argue that traditional absentee or vote-by-mail systems don't allow voters with disabilities the same rights to voting as other citizens.Įric Bridges, the president of the American Foundation for the Blind, told NPR in 2020 that while absentee voting is often viewed as more accessible, it still leaves some people behind. In recent years, voters with disabilities in states like North Carolina and Indiana have filed suit to successfully force states to expand the pool of voters who are able to return their ballots electronically. In addition, 13 states allow voters with disabilities to use one or more of those methods to vote.Īnd seemingly every year another state or two slowly expands the voters this option is offered to. A few additional states allow voters to return ballots via fax. One confusing aspect of the internet voting landscape is that - like with all things in elections - each state does it slightly differently.Īccording to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 26 states and Washington, D.C., allow military and overseas voters to return their ballots by email, and seven states allow those voters to return their ballots using an online portal. Internet voting or electronic ballot return is only available in some states, and in those states, it's only offered to overseas and military voters and, in some cases, voters with disabilities. The vast majority of American voters are only allowed to vote using an in-person or absentee ballot, which is then counted by a machine that is not connected to the internet. Here are answers to some commonly asked questions about internet voting: Wait, so can I vote online? It just isn't safe," said Ron Rivest, a cybersecurity expert who founded the companies RSA and Verisign, in testimony earlier this year opposing an internet voting bill in Washington. "Informally, putting a server online to support online ballot return is like asking a kid to go play in traffic. In 2020, more than 300,000 Americans cast ballots online.Īnd states are expanding the pool of people that option is available to - despite grave warnings from experts who say there is no reliable way for election officials to confirm results when ballots touch the internet. Which would be one thing if it just meant another obstacle to Tusk's longshot dream.īut the awkward fact is internet voting is already happening in every federal election. public elections at this time," the group wrote. "The current cybersecurity environment and state of technology make it infeasible for the Working Group to draft responsible standards to support the use of internet ballot return in U.S. The UC Berkeley working group met regularly for more than a year and at the end produced a 12-page report that essentially said what security experts have been saying for years: Secure internet voting is still impossible, and the group couldn't even draft a set of standards by which to begin considering it.
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