The Real Risk of Digital Voting?

  • Authors:
  • William A. Arbaugh

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Maryland at College Park

  • Venue:
  • Computer
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

Many computer scientists have expressed their concern with the security of digital voting machines, especially their lack of a voter-verifiable audit trail. These risks pose real threats that we must resolve. To understand what system checks and balances are possible, we need to examine the entire voting process, not just the technology - even though, let's face it, the technology is woefully flawed at this point. An election has essentially three phases: registration, voting, and tallying. The risks of human manipulation of the system are highest in the first two phases, and the risks of digital manipulation are highest in the last two.