March 19, 2024

Suggested Principles for State Statutes Regarding Ballot Marking and Vote Tabulation

This letter, signed by 20 election cybersecurity experts, was addressed to the Pennsylvania State Senate Committee on Government in response to a request for policy advice, but it applies in any state — especially those that use Ballot Marking Devices for all in-person voters: Georgia and South Carolina; most counties in Arkansas, New Jersey, and […]

Switzerland’s e-voting system has predictable implementation blunder

Last year, I published a 5-part series about Switzerland’s e-voting system.  Like any internet voting system, it has inherent security vulnerabilities: if there are malicious insiders, they can corrupt the vote count; and if thousands of voters’ computers are hacked by malware, the malware can change votes as they are transmitted.   Switzerland “solves” the […]

A reasonably priced Ballot On Demand system from Hart Intercivic

To run vote centers that must supply many different ballot styles, for hand-markable paper ballots to be counted by optical scanners, it’s convenient and effective to use ballot-on-demand (BOD) printers.  When the voter signs in at the vote center, the BOD laser printer produces a hand-markable optical scan ballot, with the appropriate choice of contests […]

Searcy County Arkansas switches to hand-marked paper ballots

Almost all Arkansas counties have been using ballot-marking devices (BMDs) in their elections. Searcy County has just chosen to switch to hand-marked (fill-in-the-oval) paper ballots, which will be counted by machine (for an unofficial, immediate count) and then counted by hand (for an official, certified count). Hand counting all the ballots might be impractical in […]

ExpressVote XL “fix” doesn’t fix anything

Five years ago I described a serious security flaw in the design of all-in-one voting machines made by two competing manufacturers, ES&S and Dominion. These all-in-one machines work like this: the voter indicates choices on a touchscreen; then a printer prints the votes onto a paper ballot; the voter has a chance to review the […]