Securing Election Infrastructure with Hand-Marked Paper Ballots

Author:

Gupta Varun1,Hypolite Joel1,Mell Stephen1,Sanghvi Hersh1

Affiliation:

1. University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

American democracy is critically threatened by the use of insecure voting systems. Many existing electronic voting machines have malfunctioned during recent elections, and many are also vulnerable to hacking (Appel et al. 2019, Blaze et al. 2019, Blaze 2020). Most states have switched to secure, hand-marked paper ballots, but roughly 30% of Americans will continue to vote using vulnerable voting machines in 2020 (Cordova et al. 2019, Bajak 2020). While Congress allocated $380 million in 2018 and $425 million in 2020 to improve election security, these funds were neither targeted at nor sufficient for replacing all electronic voting machines. We propose that Congress (1) allocate $110 million exclusively for transitioning away from electronic voting machines and (2) prohibit the use of federal funds for purchasing voting systems that do not primarily use hand-marked paper ballots. This one-time transition cost is much smaller than even annual expenditures on other critical infrastructure (Copeland 2010; Halderman 2019). Replacing electronic voting machines with hand-marked paper ballots is the most affordable and secure option.

Publisher

Journal of Science Policy and Governance, Inc.

Reference37 articles.

1. Anthes, Rob. 2019. “Hacked in 7 minutes: questions of vulnerability surround New Jersey’s aging voting machines.” Community News. Published October 31, 2019. https://communitynews.org/2019/10/31/hacked-in-7-minutes/

2. Appel, Andrew, Maia Ginsburg, Harri Hursti, Brian Kernighan, Christopher Richards, Gang Tan, Penny Venetis. “The New Jersey Voting-machine Lawsuit and the AVC Advantage DRE Voting Machine.” USENIX Association. Published August 2009. https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/evtwote09/tech/full_papers/appel.pdf

3. Appel, Andrew, Richard DeMillo, and Philip B. Stark. “Ballot-Marking Devices (BMDs) Cannot Assure the Will of the Voters.” SSRN. May 21, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3375755

4. Axelrod, Tal. “Mississippi officials confirm multiple cases of voting machines changing votes in GOP governor runoff.” The Hill. August 27, 2019. https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/459067-mississippi-officials-confirm-multiple-cases-of-voting-machines-changing

5. Bajak, Frank. 2020. “Reliability of Pricey New Voting Machines Questioned”. February 23, 2020. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-02-23/reliability-of-pricey-new-voting-machines-questioned

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