Building the People’s Voting System

Author: John Sebes

Cancellation of Federal Assistance to US Elections — The Good, The Bad, and The Geeky

Recently I wrote about Congress dismantling the only Federal agency that helps states and their local election officials ensure that the elections that they conduct are verifiable, accurate, and secure — and transparently so, to strengthen public trust in election results. Put that way, it may sound like dismantling the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) … Continued

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The Myth of Technologist Suppression of Internet Voting

I’ve got to debunk a really troubling rumor. It’s about Internet voting, or more specifically, about those who oppose it. Longtime readers will recall that Internet voting is not one of the favorite topics here, not because it isn’t interesting, but because there are so many more nearer-term low-effort ways to use tech to improve … Continued

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Recounts, Russian Hackers, and Misunderstood Claims

There’s a lot of news media about the Green Party’s push for recounts. Some is accurate, some is wildly alarmist, but most of what I’ve read misses a really key point that you need to understand, in order to make up your own mind about these issues, especially claims of Russian hacking. For example, University … Continued

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More on CyberScoop Coverage of Voting Machine Vulnerabilities

CyberScoop‘s Chris Bing wrote a good summary of the response to Cylance’s poorly timed announcement of old news on voting machine vulnerabilities: Security Firm Stokes Election Hacking Fears. I have a couple of details to add, but first let me re-iterate that the system in question does have vulnerabilities which have been well known for years, … Continued

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Clarifications to PBS Newshour “Here’s How Hackers Could Mess With Electronic Voting”

PBS Newshour reporting on election cyber risks offers a good roundup of a handful of notable cyber-risks, but also contains some basic misunderstanding of how election operations actually work. While appreciating the reporting as a whole, here is my list of some mistakes. Tied for first in misleading points is the claim that “Some experts believe this … Continued

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