The 'smartphone electronic voting' using the smartphone application is finally introduced into the pros and cons

By newkemall

Even without having to take the trouble to the polling place, a mechanism that allows you to vote for the election just by operating the application on the smartphone will be partly introduced in the mid-term elections held in November 2018. The "smartphone electronic voting" introduced by the state of West Virginia will be limited to military personnel who are in duty outside of the United States for the time being, but opinion that strong concern is raised from security persons also has been raised, and pros and cons Operation will be started in the state of.

West Virginia to introduce mobile phone voting for midterm elections
https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/06/technology/mobile-voting-west-virginia-voatz/index.html

The electronic voting system with the smartphone application introduced in West Virginia is to vote using the dedicated application " Voatz ". Although it is a place to worry about only the screen of iPhone being displayed on the top page of the website, it is a mechanism not able to vote from other than this application.

Voatz
https://voatz.com/

A voter who wishes to vote electronically needs to first take a picture of his identity card issued by the government and his face with a movie and upload it and complete the registration to the system. According to Voatz of the same name which developed the application, the face authentication system adopted in the voting system can surely guarantee that it is the same person, and the voter who completed the registration votes from the Voatz application It will be possible. All voting data will be anonymized and will be managed by the block chains widely used in the virtual currency.

Although it is concerned about security problems such as hacking by voting system via the Internet, Secretary of State of Virginia Mac and Warner insists it is safe, confident in operation I will. In addition, Voatz has been preparing so far and has insisted that security measures are perfect. Test operation was already conducted in the two local elections held in early 2018, the problem was not confirmed, and the problem was not confirmed after the audit of the four components making up the system That is the basis. In addition, Voatz has been introduced even in voting by multiple private organizations, and it has also been used for voting in the Rock Hall of Fame , which recognizes the achievement in the American music world.

The smartphone electronic ballot of this time can be used only for the US military officials in West Virginia who will take overseas assignments. Voting system using Voatz this time is supposed to complement this system though voting system was prepared for citizens who work overseas for a long time, but voters are likely to vote as before It is also possible to choose a vote using paper.

By Morning Calm Weekly Newspaper Installation Management Command, US Army

Although this measure is likely to become a foothold to change the election mechanism dramatically, some people with security are showing strong concern. Joseph Lorenzo, the chief engineer of the nonprofit organization "Center for Democracy and Technology," to CNN, "Mobile voting is a terrible idea, which uses horribly less secure devices, It's a terrible thing to vote for servers that are extremely difficult to secure high security, "he says, with security concerns present throughout the system including the network and servers.

Marian Schneider, who is representative of the group " Verified Voting " that monitors the transparency of the elections, shows a more severe view. When CNN asked, "Mobile voting is a good idea?", Mr. Schneider answered "It is easy to say" No ". Mr. Schneider says that the actual security can not be confirmed from the fact that the system is not under review of Verified Voting, while mobile voting has much wider attackable area than other electronic voting systems As a problem point.

Charles Stewart III, who teaches political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), believes that "Prime Time" has yet to arrive (mobile is not ripe), as mobile voting spreads widely, We are told that West Virginia's policy this time sees Technology as a "bold opportunity" to try out technology.