Machine Politics

“I think there’s a sense that there would be a certain amount of convenience for some voters,” she says. “But we want voting to meet a standard for justifiable confidence, a standard for auditability, a standard for security.”

Smith also points out that it is difficult for Internet voting to remain anonymous. Jefferson agrees and states that voting should be treated as a national security issue: “You can’t imagine doing military command and control over open Internet from unsecured [computers] the way people want to conduct elections. We have to treat election infrastructure as if it’s a critical national infrastructure, the disruption of which does major damage to the country.”

Smith says that while it is possible that better approaches to handle the voting process will develop, paper appears to be the most secure way for now. “The question is, with voting, how many are we willing to lose?” Smith says the answer should be none.