The Future of Voting Technology: Towards "Critical Democracy Infrastructure?"
April 20, 2:00 p.m., Hemisphere B
Description: The cornerstone of democracy is fair and trustworthy public elections,
and in a digital age, the substance of that cornerstone is technology. However, the free
market effort of privatizing our election technology has largely failed. This panel
explores 3 questions: [1] Toward the goal of trustworthy elections, are we best served
by making all specifications for America's elections technology "open source?"
[2] Should a standardized set of voting technology blueprints be maintained in a
"public trust" and compelled for any vendor to license in deploying commercial
voting solutions? [3] Should this effort rise to the level (and visibility) of "critical democracy infrastructure?"
* Aaron J. Burstein (TRUST and ACCURATE Research Fellow at UC Berkeley School of Information)
* Joseph Lorenzo Hall (Founding member of the National Science Foundation CyberTrust ACCURATE Center)
* Lowell Finley (Deputy State Secretary of California)
* Nick Handy (State of Washington Director of Elections)
* Hon. Debra Bowen (Secretary of State, California)