32 States Offer Online Voting, But Experts Warn It Isn't Secure (bostonglobe.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis writes: According to the Washington Post, 32 states have implemented some form of online voting for the 2016 U.S. presidential election -- even though multiple experts warn that internet voting is not secure. In many cases, the online voting options are for absentee ballots, overseas citizens or military members deployed overseas. According to Verified Voting, "voted ballots sent via Internet simply cannot be made secure and make easy and inviting targets for attackers ranging from lone hackers to foreign governments seeking to undermine US elections."
And yet 39% of this year's likely voters said they'd choose to vote online if given the option, according a new article in the Boston Globe, noting that "All 50 states and D.C. send ballots to overseas voters electronically," with Alabama even allowing them to actually cast their ballots through a special web site. "Security is exponentially increased over any other kind of voting because each ballot, as well as the electronic ballot box, has military-grade encryption," argues the founder of the software company that assures the site's security. "She also claims that Web voting is more accurate," reports the Boston Globe. "No more hanging chads or marks on a paper ballot that may be difficult to interpret. Web systems can also save money and can be upgraded or reconfigured as laws change..."

Comments

Not likely

[rsilvergun]

Any fraud large enough to influence elections is likely to get caught. It was in Florida too, it's just that Gore underestimated the damage of a Bush presidency and over estimated the damage a fight would have. That's not a mistake anyone's going to make twice.

Make no mistake, the Republicans are absolutely shitting themselves at the thought of this. Right now Trump's strategy of trying to appeal to new voters is freaking them out (538, Nate Silver's blog, just did a piece on it). A huge part of American politics is controlling who actually gets to vote. That's why progressives like Obama have been flying the idea of mandatory voting for a few years now. The working class generally is too busy working 50 hours/week to think much about it. And the working class isn't too friendly to the Republicans. They're diametrically opposed to their economic and they're becoming indifferent to the social issues (if only because the Repubs have failed to deliver on any victories).

The American left need enfranchisement to succeed. If you accept that as a truism (and I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader) then it stands to reason the American Right need disenfranchisement. This also explains the popularity of "voter Id" laws.