Internet Voting, Security, and Privacy

Internet voting is an appealing concept to most voters, primarily for reasons of convenience (“why can’t I vote in my pajamas at a convenient time”), while appealing because of the attractiveness of technology. However, Internet voting is fundamentally different from other types of online transactions such as banking or shopping. In this Article, I describe different types of Internet voting, the advantages and disadvantages from a security and privacy perspective, and provide perspective on the history and evolution of the field. * SRI International. William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal Symposium: Privacy, Democracy, and Elections, October 22, 2010. This article was prepared with support from ACCURATE: A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections, under National Science Foundation Grant No. 0524111. 1 E-mail from Mitch Trachtenberg, Software Developer, to author (Oct. 11, 2010, 11:06 EST) (on file with author). 2 Alex Altman, Will Online Voting Turn Into an Election Day Debacle?, TIME, Oct. 15, 2010, available at http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2025696,00.html (quoting Ron Rivest, computer scientist and cryptography expert). 3 Dan Morrell, Secret Ballots, Verifiable Votes, HARV. MAG., May–June 2010, at 10 (quoting Ben Adida, inventor of Helios, an Internet voting system). 4 Editorial, Hacked!, WASH. POST, Oct. 19, 2010, at A14.