The Case Against Implementing Electronic Voting Systems

Voting booth attendants on Election Day at Elison Air Force Base. Photo courtesy of Janine Thibault.

The increased use of digital voting technology in the United States has become the new basis for concerns about voting security breaches and vote miscounting. However, advocates for the expansion of electronic voting argue that these platforms speed up ballot counting and enfranchise voters otherwise barred from participating. In November 2019, several federal agencies responded to these concerns in a joint statement which named election security as a top national priority. Despite this effort, states currently reserve individual power to decide which voting mechanisms to employ and can forgo using federally-certified voting technology and machines. Some states, consequently, have implemented digital voting technologies that have encountered security and counting issues—at least as early as the 2016 presidential election—and this use of electronic voting continues to threaten the integrity of American elections. The lack of more stringent regulations on digital voting technology will affect voting accuracy and reporting once more in the 2020 election cycle.

In February 2020, the failures of the mobile application used to organize and report votes by the Iowa Democratic caucuses exemplified the difficulties that digital voting technologies can cause in this election cycle. Christopher Krebs, the director of the cybersecurity agency at the Homeland Security Department, confirmed that the federal agency neither approved nor tested the application prior to its implementation. The application was intended to modernize and increase the efficiency of the voting process, but due to the lack of thorough testing, it risked delaying the reporting of results and potentially skewing the delegate count. After proving to be unreliable, the new technology that promised to yield election results more swiftly than paper machines forced vote counters in Iowa to depend upon the paper trail of votes gathered retrospectively, which ultimately slowed counting. The Iowa application likely did not incur a security breach despite its faults, but Matt Blaze, the Georgetown McDevitt Chair of Computer Science and Law, affirms that the type of program used for the application relies on cell phone networks that can be hacked by skilled programmers. 

While the problems encountered in Iowa present a challenge to the faster reporting once promised by digital voting, the potential for technology to improve minority voter enfranchisement is still possible. With that said, changing to electronic voting platforms is not a perfect solution for representing the median minority voter. In particular, the argument for digital voting insists that this system would enable voters with disabilities and people overseas to cast their ballots. Hannah Wallach, a machine learning researcher at Microsoft Research Lab, explains that attempting to improve the data available for a minority group by utilizing the convenience of technology wrongly assumes that all members of that minority group have access to tools like computers and smartphones that allow them to participate in the data collection process. Expanding Wallach’s reasoning to minority voting, the political voices of less privileged citizens who lack access to digital devices will not be accurately reflected through digital voting collection.  Moreover, the electronic votes collected will likely overrepresent the more privileged voters of the minority group who can access electronic platforms.

Even technology that has been implemented with the minority voter in mind has faced security issues. West Virginia first implemented blockchain through the voting platform Voatz as a means to increase voting participation for citizens residing abroad during the 2018 election. This technology failed to protect against malware, which can be used to manipulate votes. Though the number of votes casted by overseas voters did increase in West Virginia, the possibility of security breaching obscures whether the new votes captured digitally were accurately reported. Thankfully, no evidence of vote tampering was found, but this did not ensure that Voatz will be as reliable in the future. Regardless, West Virginia initially planned to expand Voatz into all 55 of the state’s counties. As of March 2020, West Virginia returned to a paper ballot method for voters with disabilities and those overseas after a MIT security audit confirmed that Voatz is vulnerable to manipulation, which emphasizes the need for external voting technology authorization and testing. The absentee voting processes currently utilized by voters residing outside of the United States and by voters with disabilities should be improved. However, turning to electronic voting is not the most secure nor most representative solution at this time. 

Despite the challenges faced in Iowa and West Virginia, individual states will continue to implement various digital voting methods in the 2020 election without federal penalty. Heavier federal regulations on the testing and use of digital voting are necessary in order to avoid the implementation of faulty technology. While the upcoming election provides an opportunity for a larger number of votes to be gained immediately through electronic voting technology, these benefits do not ensure equitable enfranchisement of the median minority voter and do not justify utilizing slapdash applications that compromise the integrity of the American vote. 

Denver Blevins is a junior at Columbia College studying History and Economics. She is originally from Charlotte, North Carolina and can often be found in art museums.