Cybersecurity and election integrity are set to intertwine in a brand new way next month during West Virginia’s legislative general election. Voting technology will embark on a brand new journey by allowing remote residents cast their ballots in the election via a smartphone app.
On the 9th of May, West Virginia officials tested out the blockchain-based technology in two counties during the primary election, informing the decision to roll it out across all counties for the legislative election scheduled for November. During the primaries, eligible voters were allowed to vote from their Apple of Android devices and now, officials within the state government are preparing to provide access to the system for eligible military personnel abroad who want to vote digitally next month.
“Especially for people who are serving the country, I think we should find ways to make it easier for them to vote without compromising on the security,” said Nimit Sawhney, co-founder of Voatz, the company that created the app of the same name that West Virginia is using. “Right now, they send their ballots by email and fax, and — whatever you may think of our security — that’s totally not a secure way to send back a ballot.”
Despite the buzz around this potentially new method of voting, cybersecurity experts and election integrity advocacy groups are saying that this is a terrible idea. In August, University of Pennsylvania cybersecurity expert, Matt Blaze, tweeted: “Why is blockchain voting a dumb idea? Glad you asked. For starters: – It doesn’t solve any problems civil elections actually have. – It’s basically incompatible with ‘software independence,’ considered an essential property – It can make ballot secrecy difficult or impossible.”
Many experts agree that West Virginia is setting an example of what states or countries should avoid doing during elections, especially because of heightened fears caused by the belief that Russian operatives are still trying to hack their elections.
According to Christian Vasquez, “Blockchain is essentially a decentralised digital ledger that uses information stored on multiple computers to track any type of transaction — including payments, in the case of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It also appends the information into a “block” of encrypted data that is designed to be tamper-proof, and it provides anonymity so that it’s difficult to trace a transaction to any particular person.”
Essentially, blockchain is an online database of transactions. Put into the context of elections, those transactions are votes and the blockchain itself serves as an online ballot box and an election administrator simultaneously. According to Voatz, “identities are confirmed by selfie and state-issued ID, and then double-anonymised, first by the smartphone, and second by the blockchain server network.”
“Blockchain is being applied to voting now because it’s often considered inherently un-hackable, since its data is stored on multiple servers that all verify the authenticity of the blocks (in Voatz’ case, the votes) and copy them onto the chain of blocks that make up a blockchain. Those blocks (again, votes!) are supposed to be un-erasable—and unchangeable.”
Still, advocacy groups are calling for a stop to West Virginia’s voting app pilot.
Ross Rustici, senior director of intelligence services at Cybereason, a Boston-based cybersecurity firm said: “Count me among the cybersecurity experts who are appalled at this idea. I would argue that it’s a matter of when, not if, that type of voting system gets compromised.”
Similarly, Susan Greenhalgh, policy director at the National Election Defense Coalition said: “Blockchain does not magically make online voting secure, it remains vulnerable to multiple attacks that can compromise an election,” bashing people’s confidence in Voatz’ voting app.
However, both the West Virginia government and Voatz have decided to move forward with the revolutionary app for next month’s elections, despite drawing sharp criticisms from several advocacy groups and individuals. With other states and officials already showing interest in the system and thinking about replicating it in their elections, the results from November’s elections will be what to watch in order to determine whether or not this will catch on.
