Book Description
In 2003, Computer Science Professor Avi Rubin touched off a national debate when he revealed that security glitches in the Diebold electronic voting machines could make it easier for election results to be compromised. Rubin himself became the center of the uproar: Diebold initiated a campaign to ruin his career; election officials in localities that had invested in the system dismissed his findings; and the media, misinterpreting his objections to specific weaknesses, cast him as a Luddite.
In Brave New Ballot, Rubin tells the story of his role as a whistle-blower (including the toll it took on his career and family) and recounts his observations as an election judge in Baltimore County, which gave him a full picture of electronic voting in action. Addressing both technical and legal problems, he shows how easy it is to rig an election. He describes the vulnerability of computerized systems to tampering, not only by insiders like poll workers but also by outsiders able to breach the system without detection.
The election process for millions of voters is being transformed as electronic voting machines replace older mechanical systems throughout the country and Internet voting becomes a reality. Brave New Ballot is the first book to describe the systemic imperfections that may have affected past elections and to spell out what must be done to assure fair elections in the future.