Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting

by Aviel David Rubin

Imagine for a moment that you live in a country where nobody is sure how most of the votes are counted, and there’s no reliable record for performing a recount. Imagine that machines count the votes, but nobody knows how they work. Now imagine if somebody found out that the machines were vulnerable to attack, but the agencies that operate them won’t take the steps to make them safe. If you live in America, you don’t need to imagine anything. This is the reality of electronic voting in our country.

Avi Rubin is a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University and a specialist in systems security. He and a team of researchers studied the code that operates the machines now used in 37 states and discovered the following terrifying

• The companies hired to test the election equipment for federal certification did not study the code that operates the machines and the election commissions employed no computer security analysts.

• All votes are recorded on a single removable card similar to the one in a digital camera. There is no way to determine if the card or the code that operates the machine has been tampered with.

• It’s very easy to program a machine to change votes. There’s no way to determine if that has happened.

• There were enough irregularities with the electronic voting machines used throughout the 2004 election to make anyone think twice about using them again.

Avi Rubin has testified at Congressional hearings trying to alert the government that it has put our democracy at risk by relying so heavily on voting machines without taking the proper precautions. As he has waged this battle, he has been attacked, undermined, and defamed by a prominent manufacturer. His job has been threatened, but he won’t give up until every citizen understands that at this moment, our democracy hangs in the balance.

There are simple solutions and, before you vote in the next election, Rubin wants you to know your rights. If you don’t know them and you use an electronic voting machine, you may not be voting at all.

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brave New Ballot does a decent job of explaining the dangers of election voting machines that don't provide any method for a meaningful audit. However, I would have preferred that the book focus more on the technical issues and the solutions to fix them, rather than including so much information about Dr Rubin's involvement with the press, descriptions of numerous panels and meetings, and personal interactions with others in the field.

[J Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone interested in democracy, this is a great read that introduces most of the issues that arise with electronic voting. It focuses on the USA but the lessons are global.