Online Voting Introduces Increased Access With Security Concerns

By Tracie Ehrlich

Today, Americans can buy a car, apply for a mortgage, make a will, and even get married entirely online. This November, at least three states--Delaware, West Virginia, and New Jersey-- will add to this ever-growing list by implementing online voting in several forms. 

For its proponents, online voting brings the prospect of engaging a new generation of voters and increasing accessibility to the ballot booth. Voatz, a Massachusetts based company providing mobile voting via an application downloaded to a voter’s smartphone, is one such proponent. 

Voatz implemented small pilot programs with jurisdictions across the United States, targeting voters who commonly face difficulties casting a ballot, including those with disabilities and military personnel deployed overseas. 

Jesse Andrews, Voatz Director of Business Development, said that online voting is all about giving voters another channel to cast their ballot. 

“That’s really our mindset,” Andrews said. “How do we help these voters? How do we allow election workers to protect their voters?”

For many, however, the security and privacy risks of implementing an online voting system outweigh any perceived benefits.

“Given that online voting isn’t really secure by any mechanism we know of, we’re unprepared,” Eugene Spafford, a Computer Science professor at Purdue University and computer security expert, said. “The fact that people still think of it as a possibility indicates that we’re not prepared.” 

Spafford said the United States has only begun to scratch the surface of online voting and that there are problems associated with it that don’t have solutions yet. 

“In general, our cyber security posture is terrible, as businesses, private individuals, [and] governments all fall prey to this,” Spafford said. “Anybody talking about ‘well we can make it secure’ just doesn’t understand the reality of how people are using computing now, and how weak it really is.”

He said he believes the core values of American elections cannot co-exist with online voting. 

“Voting as we do it is not possible online,” Spafford said. 

For example, he explains that people are concerned whether others know how we voted. If we moved away from such concerns, then online voting may be possible, but would allow for the possibility of voter fraud and coercion. 

Mike Shapiro, Chief Privacy Officer for the County of Santa Clara, said accurate information and voter empowerment are the most pressing issues and should be prioritized first. 

For Shapiro, online voting holds future promise. However, he said, putting such a tool into practice remains a distant goal, given outstanding security concerns. 

“I think for now, considering all the efforts that are going on to try to infiltrate, I would consider a mail-in paper ballot to be the viable option. That’s not to say that I’m against the technology in particular,” Shapiro said. “I think it’s just going to be a matter of time before it advances enough to where it is going to be a safe and secure way to vote.”

Shapiro said the irony of skirting new voting technology is not lost on him, given the constituency he serves, Silicon Valley, still votes by paper.

“There’s going to be a time where we’re going to get there, but that’s going to be a little bit into the future,” Shapiro said.   

Despite security concerns, Andrews says Voatz’s benefits are too great to ignore, citing the opportunities Voatz gives disabled, military, and elderly voters to cast their ballot. 

“There’s risk inherent in every channel, and every manner of voting and, again, election administrators, they’re risk mitigators,” he said, stating that while it is important to consider safety and security, it is also crucial to consider “who are the voters getting left out or left behind that can’t participate?” In other words, “a vote lost is its own form of lack of security,” Andrews said.

Andrews said he also envisions ways for online voting to enhance election security. 

“If you’ve been hit by a hurricane or wildfire, and your polling locations are down, what do you have as back up? What is your resiliency in this system? That’s how we think about this. We want to strengthen this election system across the US,” Andrews said. “We want to make this another option. We think a lot of different channels can flourish.” 

Andrews said he encourages those skeptical of online voting to work with its proponents to address potential security issues. 

“This is a decades-long process that’s going to happen here,” Andrews said. To the detractors and people who are even slightly hesitant about the future of online voting, he urges, “come fight the good fight with us.”

Spafford said the most critical issues facing voters don’t hinge on technology. 

“If one looks at the electoral system, there are some common problems that are not necessarily associated with technology,” Spafford said. “And, it’s not clear that technology provides the solutions. For instance, a minority of voters are the ones who go to vote. How do we get the others to vote? Even more importantly, how do we get the majority of voters to cast informed ballots? That’s tough.”

Spafford said it is essential to have people who care and are educated at every level of the election system. 

“A good government, a democracy, does not maintain itself,” Spafford said. “It is maintained by the people who care enough to participate. We can’t defer this to technology.” 

(Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the October 2020 [Volume 51, Issue 1] edition of The Advocate.)