Bruce Schneier on Electronic Voting

Bruce Schneier's website describes the man as "an internationally renowned security technologist and author. . . When people want to know how security really works, they turn to Schneier."

So what does this have have to do with politics? Well, in a post on the New York Times' Freakonomics blog today, Mr. Schneier answers questions on security. Two questions focus on electronic voting:

Q: What is the future of electronic voting?

A: I’ve written a lot about this issue (see here and here as well). Basically, the problem is that the secret ballot means that most of the security tricks we use in things like electronic funds transfers don’t work in voting machines. The only workable solution against hacking the voting machines, or — more commonly — innocent programming errors, is something called a voter-verifiable paper trail. Vote on whatever touch-screen machine you want in whatever way you want. Then, that machine must spit out a printed piece of paper with your vote on it, which you have the option of reviewing for accuracy. The machine collects the votes electronically for a quick tally, and the paper is the actual vote in case of recounts. Nothing else is secure.

Q: Do you think it will ever be feasible to vote for public officials via the Internet? Why or why not?

A: Internet voting has the same problems as electronic voting machines, only more so. That being said, we are moving towards vote-by-mail and (for the military) vote-by-fax. Just because something is a bad security idea doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

-Dippold

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