Voting Naked: A Feasible Election System or Just a Recurring Nightmare Presented by: Danita McRae Daniel Bramell

eVoting Possibilities  Poll Site Internet Voting  Kiosk Voting  Remote Internet Voting

Definition of Internet Voting  “An election system that uses electronic ballots that would allow voters to transmit their voted ballot to election officials over the Internet” (CA Report on Internet Voting)  Internet voting means casting a secure and secret electronic ballot

Poll Site Internet Voting  Similar to traditional voting in that it would be held at a local polling site  Staffed by election officials  Computer terminals set up in place of current election booths  Ability to vote from anywhere in state or district

Kiosk Voting  Voting terminals located in various convenient locations such as malls, libraries, and schools  Still monitored by election officials to address security and privacy concerns  Would provide more accessible mobile terminals to increase voter convenience

Remote Internet Voting  Allows people to vote from home or personal computer  Eliminate stress of having to travel to polling site and waiting in long lines  Enables for more demographic studies of the voting populous

Is there really a need for Internet voting?  Increased voter turnout  Accurate counts of election results  Creates an alternative for demographic groups that exhibit a low voter turnout  More efficiently tallies absentee ballots  Reduce cost of elections in the long-run  Could be inevitable because of the increasing reliance on computers and the Internet

Problems with Internet Voting  Must discover a way of electronically authenticating voters to prevent people from voting under a false identity  Inaccessibility to each person in accordance with the voting rights act  Would need some sort of security measure such as biometrics to ensure security  Problem of “mass-cheating” where hackers could flood the server with activity preventing people from voting

Problems with Internet Voting  Could expose the weakest part of the election process…voter registration  Could cost more because of the sophisticated technology involved  Permission for states to use Internet voting must be granted by the federal government (Voting Rights Act of 1965)

Projected Households with Internet Access in California

Arizona Democratic Election

Digital Divide  Could increase problems that exist due to the digital divide because the disproportionate number of households with Internet access  Digital Divide violates Constitutional Rights of the 15 th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Security Concerns  Is the technology advanced enough to be able to sufficiently secure the voting process  Could hackers find ways to vote illegally under a different profile or could they prohibit people from voting  there are 40,000 cases of credit card and personal identity fraud on the Internet each year - Who is to say that will not be a problem for voting

Conclusions  Internet Voting may be an inevitable step because of the growing dependence on the Internet  But it is a step that is to be taken very carefully because of the concerns with efficiency and security and until these concerns are addressed, Internet Voting is more of a dream than a reality