Election officials nationwide are preparing for what may the highest election turnout in modern history in the middle of a pandemic. In response, several states will be turning to a relatively new and untested form of Internet-based voting to aid the voters who may have the most trouble getting to the polls.
In the latest demonstration of the technology, Delaware will allow voters with disabilities to return their ballots electronically in its primary election next month, becoming the second U.S. state to do so. The decision comes despite grave warnings from the cybersecurity community that the technology doesn't offer sufficient safeguards to protect the integrity of an election.
NPR is the first to report the development, which has yet to be announced publicly. Both the state, and the Seattle-based company administering the technology, Democracy Live, confirmed the decision, although they dispute the term "Internet voting" for the cloud-based system.
Earlier this year, West Virginia passed a bill to allow the use of the technology for disabled voters, after becoming the first state to allow overseas and military voters to use an app to vote in the 2018 midterms. Delaware will also allow overseas and military voters to use the technology.
A third state, New Jersey, is considering making the technology available for voters with disabilities and overseas voters, according to an election official with knowledge of the state's plans. A state elections spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The developments are sure to worry election security advocates. Until the pandemic struck, their efforts were focused on cybersecurity following the 2016 election, when Russian operatives successfully hacked election networks in multiple states. Since then, many states have increased their security protocols and generally moved away from all-electronic voting systems back toward paper ballots.
But most security experts scoff at that concept because the ballot is transmitted via the Internet before it reaches the stage where it's printed, leaving it potentially vulnerable to cyber manipulation.
"In the computer security business, we worry about worst-case scenarios, and the downside risk of the Democracy Live model is really bad," said Doug Jones, a computer science professor and election security expert at the University of Iowa. "If the voter is marking the ballot using a device, it's an online ballot-marking system, and if the physical ballot is not printed by the voter, it's online voting."
Still, there are signs that the general public may be becoming more open to the idea. A survey this month by TargetSmart, a data analytics firm that works with Democrats, found that a plurality of voters support Internet voting as a response to the coronavirus crisis.
But advocates of Internet voting technology are clear that they don't see it stopping with relatively small slices of the electorate such as overseas voters and voters with disabilities, or being restricted to times of crisis. They see it as the future of voting.
"You know, eventually we can't hold back the tide. We're going to get there," said Bryan Finney, the CEO and founder of Democracy Live. "Next generation voters are going to demand next generation voting technologies."
Read more:https://www.npr.org/2020/04/28/844581667/states-expand-internet-voting-experiments-amid-pandemic-raising-security-fears
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