Category: Other Topics

  • Electronic Voting Researcher Arrested Over Anonymous Source

    Updates:8/28Alex Halderman: Indian E-Voting Researcher Freed After Seven Days in Police Custody 8/26Alex Halderman: Indian E-Voting Researcher Remains in Police Custody 8/24Ed Felten: It’s Time for India to Face its E-Voting Problem 8/22Rop Gonggrijp: Hari is in jail 🙁 About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about a research paper in which Hari Prasad, Rop…

  • The Future of DRE Voting Machines

    Last week at the EVT/WOTE workshop, Ari Feldman and I unveiled a new research project that we feel represents the future of DRE voting machines. DRE (direct-recording electronic) voting machines are ones where voters cast their ballots by pressing buttons or using a touch screen, and the primary record of the votes is stored in…

  • NJ Voting Machines Left Unattended, Despite Court Opinion

    It’s Election Day in New Jersey. Longtime readers know that in advance of elections I visit polling places in Princeton, looking for voting machines left unattended, where they are vulnerable to tampering. In the past I have always found unattended machines in multiple polling places. I hoped this time would be different, given that Judge…

  • India's Electronic Voting Machines Have Security Problems

    A team led by Hari Prasad, Alex Halderman, and Rop Gonggrijp released today a technical paper detailing serious security problems with the electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in India. The independent Electoral Commission of India, which is generally well respected, has dealt poorly with previous questions about EVM security. The chair of the Electoral Commission…

  • Election Day; More Unguarded Voting Machines

    It’s Election Day in New Jersey. As usual, I visited several polling places in Princeton over the last few days, looking for unguarded voting machines. It’s been well demonstrated that a bad actor who can get physical access to a New Jersey voting machine can modify its behavior to steal votes, so an unguarded voting…

  • Sequoia Announces Voting System with Published Code

    Sequoia Voting Systems, one of the major e-voting companies, announced Tuesday that it will publish all of the source code for its forthcoming Frontier product. This is great news–an important step toward the kind of transparency that is necessary to make today’s voting systems trustworthy. To be clear, this will not be a fully open…

  • Finnish Court Orders Re-Vote After E-Voting Snafu

    The Supreme Administrative Court of Finland has ruled that three municipal elections, the first in Finland to use electronic voting, must be redone because of voting machine problems. (English summary; ruling in Finnish) The troubles started with a usability problem, which caused 232 voters (about 2% of voters) to leave the voting booth without fully…

  • NJ Voting-machine Trial: Defense Witnesses

    I’ve previously summarized my own testimony and other plaintiffs’ witnesses’ testimony in the New Jersey voting machines trial, Gusciora v. Corzine. The defendant is the State of New Jersey (Governor and Secretary of State). The defense case comprised the following witnesses: Defense witness James Clayton, the Ocean County voting machine warehouse supervisor, is a well-intentioned…

  • NJ Voting-machine trial: Plaintiffs' witnesses

    Both sides in the NJ voting-machines lawsuit, Gusciora v. Corzine, have finished presenting their witnesses. Briefs (in which each side presents proposed conclusions) are due June 15 (plaintiffs) and July 15 (defendants), then the Court will eventually issue a decision. In summary, the plaintiffs argue that New Jersey’s voting machines (Sequoia AVC Advantage) can’t be…

  • NJ Voting-machine trial update

    Earlier this month I testified in Gusciora v. Corzine, the trial in which the plaintiffs argue that New Jersey’s voting machines (Sequoia AVC Advantage) can’t be trusted to count the votes, because they’re so easily hacked to make them cheat. I’ve previously written about the conclusions of my expert report: in 7 minutes you can…