Security News > 2020 > November > You can't spell 'electronics' without 'elect': The time for online democracy has come

Last time, as it usually does, the Republican party lost the popular vote and won the presidency; it has spent much of the time since trying very hard to suppress the votes of people it doesn't like.

If the US had a single electronic voting system across the country, with access for those without the right personal technology, and it was reliable, trustworthy, and efficient, then democracy would be much better served.

Can online voting ever be reliable, trustworthy, and efficient? Can you prove a vote has been cast by a properly registered voter, that this is the only vote they cast, that malware hasn't interfered on client or server, that fraud isn't being committed by bribed system managers, that the communications infrastructure hasn't been compromised by powerful enemies?

There can be an election week, or a month, or an election that terminates when a certain number of votes have been cast, or local voting to large numbers of independent servers who amalgamate their votes later, or whatever.

With political will, a commitment to doing things right and to keeping the voting public in the loop and engaged with the debates, we can and should follow Estonia's lead. And with electronic voting in place, there are lots of good questions about how it could be used to increase participation in democracy.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2020/11/02/electronic_voting/