Assuming that we have an accurate voter registration database, we know who the proper voters are. The next procedural question is how are we going to authenticate those voters when they arrive at the polling place. In many countries, there are national IDs and most countries that have these, just use these for voting as well. You present your national ID card, they check your picture, and you're allowed to vote. In the US, however, we don't have a national ID card. We have drivers licenses issued by each state and we have passports issued by the Federal Government, but it's really a patchwork rather than just one single standardized system. This greatly complicates election procedures in the US and results in a variety of, of different solutions. Many states require only a signature to verify that the voter is who they claim to be. The voter registration database is printed with into a list at each polling place of the people who live in that area and each voter who's eligible to vote at that polling station has a space on this list. And for a long time, this was done entirely on paper like this. So, the way it would work is the voter would arrive at the polling place they'd announce themselves to the to the poll workers. The poll workers would look them up on both the registration list, and then they'd sign their name into the poll book. The poll worker would then check a copy of the signature from the voter registration form to make sure that the signature the voter just signed matched. This was the primary means of authentication. Another authentication feature that's part of this system in, in many states is that the, the poll worker will also call out your name so that everyone in line can hear. Now, as in voice voting this is actually a security mechanism. In a small in a small town or a small polling place like at, like where I grew up this could provide some pretty strong authentication properties. When, when I would go to vote when, when I was younger probably some of the poll workers were, were neighbors or were, they mother or father of, of a friend. If people in line noticed that someone with my name, who wasn't me, was trying to vote they'd, they'd raise red flags. So, so, this system isn't necessarily as weak as it might seem. On the other hand, in larger places, in cities, in, in places with a lot of mobility, people moving in and out chances that, that, that fraud would be detected by, by this mechanism were somewhat lower. Signature matching is also pretty tricky especially if the, the person signing has some idea what the real signature should look like. And in some kinds of, of voter registration books, the signature that's being matched against yours is printed right next to it so that doesn't provide a very strong form of protection. Many states are now introducing computerized poll books like these that maintain a copy of the voter registration database in a digital form. This can provide a lot of advantages for instance it may be faster to look up people in the computer than to thumb through many pages of printed material. It can also be used to allow you to vote at whichever polling place is most convenient, rather than just at a preassigned one because these machines can be networked and then after you vote, your name can be crossed off the list at all the locations. They also introduced some security concerns though particularly worries about the , the data being manipulated and worries about denial of service. So, if someone were able to make these machines malfunction and there have been documented cases where they've malfunctioned just apparently for naturally occurring error reasons then that could that could interfere with polling. It could delay the election. So attacks against are more possible, although it's certainly not as severe a threat as we have to be concerned with, with DRE voting, for instance where someone attacking the system could directly manipulate the votes. Then, there's the question of voter ID. There's an increasing push for states to implement some kind of requirement for checking photo ID every time a voter arrives at the polling place. Today, this is required in at least 32 states and other states are considering adopting it. Generally, the way an ID requirement works is that the voter has to provide a form of government-issued non-expired photo ID, either issued by the state government or the federal government. This seems like a common sense kind of check, right? This is something that we already do normally when we when we open a bank account or when we when we fly so why shouldn't something like this also be required for voting? Well, when you dive down into it, there turn out to be a number of issues. And there's a pretty clear trade-off here once again, between voter authentication and, and enfranchisement. One issue is that there's not much evidence that there's a problem here to begin with, that people are voting illegally. Between 2002 and 2005, there were less than 50 people convicted of illegal voting and none of these convictions, none of these crimes would have been stopped by an ID check. Another issue is that not everyone has ID. Actually, about eight percent of the, of the US population, more than 21 million US citizens don't have a government-issued photo ID that would be valid for, for voting under these rules. If that, as if that's not bad enough the population of who doesn't have ID isn't uniformly distributed across the population. There's certain specific groups, who are much more likely than the, than, than a, a randomly picked person not to have ID. For instance, more than a quarter of voting-age African-Americans wouldn't be able to, to produce the required ID under these rules eighteen percent of seniors, twenty percent of voters, eighteen to 29. Because these groups have particular demographics excluding them could result in a shift in election outcomes. And, for that reason, ID requirements have the potential to be imposed or opposed for political reasons. Because the, the parties in power fear that adding these requirements or removing them would, would cause a political shift to their, to their benefit or, or detriment. So, the, the political issues are complex, but the, the, to, to return to the security question, will voter ID even be effective? And I think if you if you talk to any college student, at least in the US, they'll tell you that one problem with voter ID is that getting a fake ID is as easy as going to a website. There are many places online where you can just go and purchase for relatively little money a quality fake ID. Now bars, clubs, places with professional bouncers who every night are required to, to check IDs. Even they. Have some problems spotting fakes. So, if you take volunteer poll workers who have probably just a few hours of training for how to look at IDs if any training at all I doubt that they'll do any better a job. Just catching people with fake IDs is not yet a, a, a, a, a very secure way a very secure possibility even if we do have an ID requirement in place. Some other countries have a very different much, much lower tech but still possibly effective way of, of combating multiple voting that doesn't require an ID check at all and that's as you see in this picture. When you vote, you'll have, you know, at the tip of a certain finger placed in a jar of ink of so called indelible ink which won't be able to wash off for a number of days. So, this indelible ink will be a good countermeasure to multiple voting so long as poll workers check to make sure there's no ink on your finger the next time you show up at the polling place. So, this potentially is, is a pretty good security system except for, for one thing which is the, the, there's no ink that's truly indelible. Chemists will tell you what the appropriate solvents are to actually remove it. But in places where that access to that kind of material is difficult or where there's not a well-organized campaign of multiple voting, it can still provide some pretty good protection. One interesting thing to note is that in some countries this creates a voter privacy problem because the mere fact that you voted could get you in trouble, could cause you to be coerced or attacked. And one solution that certain countries figured out was that they could use a kind of invisible ink, ink that only showed up under, say, UV light. So, that's a, a kind of clever solution to, to increase the amount of voter privacy that's provided by, by indelible ink on the finger. Looking ahead maybe we can find some higher tech solutions to this voter authentication enfranchisement trade-off, at, at least for countries like the US where not everyone has ID I wonder if we could add other identifiers to the voter registration database. Things like biometrics a, a fingerprint scan or an iris scan. Or even just a photograph of the voter could be added to the registration database. Now, this would create further privacy problems. There's still the security privacy trade-off. And there may be logistical impediments to collecting these kinds of authenticators when people register. But with the shift to computer poll books there certainly seems to be an opportunity for voter authentication that involves more than just a signature but doesn't require the voter to actually have anything they're carrying with them e-, except for their person.
