IP: NSF study: "Internet Voting is no 'Magic Ballot'": [risks] Risks Digest 21.28

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 14:24:58 -0800 (PST)
> From: Terry Carroll <carroll () tjc com>
> Subject: NSF study: "Internet Voting is no 'Magic Ballot'"
>
> RISKS has previously had discussions of the risks associated with going to
> computerized voting (especially Internet-based voting) as an attempted
> panacea for the types of problems we saw in the last US presidential
> election.
>
> The National Science Foundation recently released a study that it
> commissioned from the Internet Policy Institute on problems associated
> with Internet voting.  The NSF's press release on the study may be found
> at <http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/01/pr0118.htm>.  The IPI has a
> page devoted to the study (including a link to the report itself) at
> <http://www.internetpolicy.org/research/results.html>.
>
> The NSF highlights the following findings with respect to the feasibility
> of Internet voting:
>
> - Poll site Internet voting systems offer some benefits and could be
>   responsibly deployed within the next several election cycles;
>
> - The next step beyond poll-site voting would be to deploy kiosk voting
>   terminals in non-traditional public voting sites;
>
> - Remote Internet voting systems pose significant risk and should not be
>   used in public elections until substantial technical and social
>   science issues are addressed; and
>
> - Internet-based voter registration poses significant risk to the integrity
>   of the voting process, and should not be implemented for the foreseeable
>   future.
>
> Terry Carroll, Santa Clara, CA <carroll () tjc com>
>
>   [These results are rather similar to the findings of the California
>   commission.  Interested readers should also dig up the recent Caltech/MIT
>   report, which states that lever machines, hand-counted paper ballots, and
>   optically scanned ballots are all significantly more accurate than
>   direct-recording voting machines (DREs) and Internet voting schemes.  PGN]



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