Comments on: Pentagon Drops Internet Voting Test http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/pentagon_drops_internet_voting_test/ Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:40:28 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: dondo http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/pentagon_drops_internet_voting_test/comment-page-1/#comment-14621 dondo Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000 /?p=5616#comment-14621 The only downside to internet voting is -- that it's absolutely insane. As a senior engineer at Amazon.com, I have a little insight into what it takes to make systems secure. There are a lot of problems with internet voting (and most of these apply to electronic voting at the polling place, by the way). The highlights: 1. There's no audit trail. a bug -- and bugs *will* happen -- cannot be reconciled. 2. There's no good way to reliably authenticate the voter. Who is actually casting that vote? 3. It creates the possibility of automated ballot stuffing. 4. There's no way to ensure that there's no coercion. Who's watching you cast that vote? What stick -- literal or metaphorical -- are they holding? With the payoff that comes with fixing an election, and a long history of fixed elections (and I am NOT necessarily talking about Florida; the history of this country goes back more than four years), internet voting is just a very, very bad idea. --- The only downside to internet voting is -- that it's absolutely insane. As a senior engineer at Amazon.com, I have a little insight into what it takes to make systems secure. There are a lot of problems with internet voting (and most of these apply to electronic voting at the polling place, by the way). The highlights:

1. There's no audit trail. a bug -- and bugs *will* happen -- cannot be reconciled.

2. There's no good way to reliably authenticate the voter. Who is actually casting that vote?

3. It creates the possibility of automated ballot stuffing.

4. There's no way to ensure that there's no coercion. Who's watching you cast that vote? What stick -- literal or metaphorical -- are they holding?

With the payoff that comes with fixing an election, and a long history of fixed elections (and I am NOT necessarily talking about Florida; the history of this country goes back more than four years), internet voting is just a very, very bad idea.

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