Some $2 to $4 billion will be spent in the United States and Canada during the next decade to update voting systems. But are computerized methods for ballot casting and tabulation really better than the punch-card devices that caused chaos during the last U.S. presidential election? Maybe, but maybe not.
In fact, the new touch-screen voting machines used in Florida's 10 September primary had a variety of problems. As it turns out, many of the voting products currently for sale provide less accountability, poorer reliability, and greater opportunity for widespread fraud than those already in use.
In the October issue of IEEE Spectrum, Rebecca Mercuri looks at new technologies for voting, including Internet voting, and discusses the problems inherent in making such systems trustworthy and private. The author details bugs that have been discovered in many of the existing products and talks about potential solutions.
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