Page IV: India reports success, while Venezuela fears fraud. What can the world learn?
The country's sole pilot program for electronic voting covers fewer than 10 polling places in the Australian Capital Territory. The government requested that the voting systems be built with open-source software, allowing anyone to look at and modify the code.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that open-source e-voting is key to the democratic process, but I do believe that one of the key features of a democratic electoral system is transparency -- essentially being able to externally verify that what goes in is what comes out," said Phillip Green, electoral commissioner for the Australian Capital Territory. "Open-source e-voting software is one way of achieving transparency, but not the only way."
The company that developed Australia's pilot systems, Software Improvements, has decided to test the country's commitment to open-source software. It is modifying its licence to allow only experts who have petitioned for access to see the election system's source code.
"Whilst I generally endorse the concepts and precepts of open-source development and licensing, I am not sure that what is in place now will guarantee the trust in the voting system," said Clive Boughton, chief technology officer at the Australian company.
Others see open-source software as a necessary, if not sufficient, way to keep elections open. In the United States, the Open Vote Foundation plans to use the original software as the basis for an open-source voting system. Digital-rights activists, among others, have called for open-source technologies in US voting systems, but states have largely allowed election machine makers to keep the code a secret.
"If I had to sum up the problems with e-voting in the United States, it would be 'a well-deserved lack of public trust,'" said Scott Ritchie, director of the foundation. "Democracy requires not only public election of officials, but also confidence in election results."
Johns Hopkins' Rubin, a noted critic of current US e-voting system security, believes that with the United States headed into uncharted e-voting territory, doubts about the upccoming presidential election will inevitably arise. "There is no way that the election will not end up with a big question mark on it." Rubin has called for US election officials to require paper ballots for electronic voting systems, but only a handful of officials have adopted the requirement.
Many election machine makers and some voting experts have noted that there has never been a proven case of fraud in using an electronic voting system. But Tony Stanco, associate director of the Cyber Security Policy & Research Institute, said that is not enough.
"The prize here is who gets to control the country," he said. "The stakes are so high that you have to imagine that people will try crazy things, so you have to have a strong system."
That's a lesson that the United States, along with the rest of the world, might have to learn the hard way.
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