Can Open Source Save Electronic Voting?

One of the key problems with electronic voting seems to be the feeling that most voters have no idea how the machines work — if they’re easy to tamper with or could break down at any time. Voting machines, or at least their software, is proprietary — the companies keep it secret so that no one can steal their ideas. But what if electronic voting machines were open source?

Open source voting machines would require the code behind the software to be easily accessible — anyone could dissect it to find out where problems are. Many people assume that this also means that it would be easier for any person with a little computer knowledge to tamper with a voting machine. If that was true, though, why are so many governments comfortable using Linux to run vital systems full time? Even banks — like the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is comfortable using Linux machines for a number of tasks. That easy access to open source code is actually what makes Linux systems less likely to have security breaches: so many more people look at Linux’s code before it’s implemented that a much higher number of security flaws can be addressed. The companies producing voting machines simply can’t afford to hire a similar number of people.

While open source software is not a cure-all for the problems with electronic voting, I do think it could address a surprisingly large number of them, including the high cost of such machines. The real problem with adopting open source voting machines is one of the key issues with electronic voting: there’s a distinct lack of trust for both options. People trust paper trails, and so far, voters have not embraced electronic options, and until they are more comfortable with the idea, I’m not sure how successful an open source approach will be.