Andrew Appel shepherded a public comment—signed by twenty election cybersecurity experts, including myself—on best practices for ballot marking devices and vote tabulation. It was written for the Pennsylvania legislature, but it’s general in nature.
From the executive summary:
We believe that no system is perfect, with each having trade-offs. Hand-marked and hand-counted ballots remove the uncertainty introduced by use of electronic machinery and the ability of bad actors to exploit electronic vulnerabilities to remotely alter the results. However, some portion of voters mistakenly mark paper ballots in a manner that will not be counted in the way the voter intended, or which even voids the ballot. Hand-counts delay timely reporting of results, and introduce the possibility for human error, bias, or misinterpretation.
Technology introduces the means of efficient tabulation, but also introduces a manifold increase in complexity and sophistication of the process. This places the understanding of the process beyond the average person’s understanding, which can foster distrust. It also opens the door to human or machine error, as well as exploitation by sophisticated and malicious actors.
Rather than assert that each component of the process can be made perfectly secure on its own, we believe the goal of each component of the elections process is to validate every other component.
Consequently, we believe that the hallmarks of a reliable and optimal election process are hand-marked paper ballots, which are optically scanned, separately and securely stored, and rigorously audited after the election but before certification. We recommend state legislators adopt policies consistent with these guiding principles, which are further developed below.
More Stories
Smashing Security podcast #372: The fake deepfake, and Estate insecurity
Remember when a US mother was accused of distributing explicit deepfake photos and videos to try to get her teenage...
Cyber-Attack Disrupts Christie’s $840M Art Auctions
Despite this setback, the auction house said bids can still be placed by phone and in-person Read More
PDF Exploitation Targets Foxit Reader Users
CPR said exploit builders in .NET and Python have been employed to deploy this malware Read More
Why You Need a Personal VPN
It used to be the case that only businesses used virtual private networks (VPNs) to connect securely to the internet...
NCSC Expands Election Cybersecurity to Safeguard Candidates and Officials
The National Cyber Security Centre launches an opt-in Personal Internet Protection service to safeguard individuals from cyber threats during the...
How To Spot A Fake Facebook Account
How do you manage your Facebook friends? Do you keep your list really tight and only include ‘active’ pals? Or...