MAS.966 (H) Voting Technology: What Is and What Can Be

Ted Selker with members of the Caltech/MIT Voting Project + guests

MIT Media Lab, Fall 2004
MAS.966 (H), Special Topics in Technology, (0-9-0)
Thursday 3:30 to 5:00 PM, Location: E15-468

Whose vote counts in an election? Voting process does affect election results. For the first time in history we are in a position to create technology and processes that can probably allow detection and correction of human error and fraud in voting. Improving voting technology should be central to protecting our democratic process. As well, it can instill confidence in our government and system. Digital technology may even improve our government.

Improved voting technology can also transfer to other areas. Solving problems of disenfranchisement of people relative to socioeconomic, physical, and cognitive disabilities in voting can be applied to other universal access problems. Solving problems of security, reliability and integrity in voting can help improve other transaction processing systems.

This course will survey voting systems and how they can be improved. We discuss user experience, reliability, security and integrity of voting systems. The course will consist of weekly topic areas and lectures from voting technology experts. Topics will follow the largest areas of lost votes and topics of public debate.

Sources of 4 to 6 million lost votes in the American 2000 election:

• Registration - Can it be accurate?
• Ballot design - Can ballot design be fair?
• Polling place operations - Can polling places let everyone vote?

• Absentee ballots - Can the vote selling and stealing be stopped?
• Electronic technology - Can it improve security, integrity and reliability?