So, they finally did it. They’ve been talking about it for years and it’s starting to happen. They are going to allow Americans that live abroad to vote online.
Read the article here.
If you think that they had problems during the 2000 elections, just wait. Now that they will start to allow elections to be held online their will be more court battles, more cheating, and a whole lot more confusion than any previous election that was ever held.
I’ve seen first hand what can happen when a website gets hacked. There are some really good hackers out there. Most of these hacks take place on minor sites and are done for the hackers own perverse pleasures. But what will happen when election websites start showing up on the internet?
Picture this. You are registered to vote on an election website. It’s now election day and you are ready to online to vote. You go online and put in the correct url and the opening page has a giant picture of a skull and crossbones with the words “You’ve been hacked by some idiot”.
That scenario would of course be minor. Still regardless how minor that may be, it could be enough to greatly affect the outcome of an election. Imagine if everyone located outside of the U.S. can not vote. That would be a lot of voters not counted.
Now picture this. You go to the website to vote. You select your favorite candidate. You get a response back thanks you for your vote and that it has been counted, or whatever. However, someone has been able to manipulate the code and the vote is actually counted for a different candidate.
Are these impossible scenarios? Not at all. This kind of stuff happens everyday all over the place. Kids these days are hacking sites that have been deemed impossible to hack. They do it for fun. Imagine what would happen to a website that gets attacked by a professional that has a real interest in corrupting the system.
I think that we are a long way off before we can even consider electronic voting over the net. They would still need to find a way to prevent access of people that are determined to ruin the legal voting system. As long as the internet is world wide, I don’t think this will ever happen. In my opinion, a telephone voting system would be much easier to secure. Why don’t they start looking into this option for voters that live abroad?
