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GCN Home > 08/16/04 issue

Does every vote count? Public and experts split

By William Jackson, GCN Staff

Despite concerns of security professionals, members of the public have a high level of trust in electronic voting.

More than half of those polled in a recent survey spoke favorably about e-voting, and three-quarters expressed confidence in its accuracy.

But a majority of computer professionals attending the recent Black Hat Briefings and Defcon IT security conferences in Las Vegas were less sanguine. Nearly half said they had no confidence in the technology.

Two election analysts at the Black Hat Briefings last month said the U.S. election system is broken, and instead of turning to e-voting to fix it, jurisdictions should go back to paper ballots.

The survey results, presented at the Defcon hackers’ conference, underscored the difference of opinion about whether touch-screen computers are secure enough for the polls.

“There’s a gigantic schism” between the general public and IT experts, said Larry Ponemon, head of the Ponemon Institute of Tucson, Ariz., which conducted the survey. “It’s the largest difference I’ve seen in a study.”

More than twice as many Democrats as Republicans, 42 percent against 19 percent, said they had little or no confidence in e-voting technology.

“There is a lot of consistency in the data,” Ponemon said. “The differences suggest that there is an emotional perception,” possibly a hangover from the 2000 disputes. “That is dangerous in a close election.”

In search of alternatives

Touch-screen voting systems, also called direct-recording electronic systems, or DREs, have gained popularity as states look for alternatives to flawed punch-card machines that delayed presidential results in 2000.

The 2002 Help America Vote Act provided federal funding to replace those machines, and a number of states turned to DREs. But experts still question e-voting software development, security and reliability, as well as the lack of a paper audit trail for recounts.

California has decertified DRE machines for the November elections. Other states, including Missouri and Ohio, have either decertified them or demanded additional safeguards.

“If the security concerns are not addressed, it will be difficult to trust this technology in the future,” said Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat Briefings.