Why Electronic Voting Is Still A Bad Idea

Summary

Tom Scott argues that electronic voting remains a poor choice for high-stakes elections because elections must meet two difficult requirements at once:

• Anonymity: Voters should not be able to prove how they voted, which could make them vulnerable to bribery or threats.
• Visible trustworthiness: The public must have confidence that votes were counted accurately.

Paper voting is not perfect, but its vulnerabilities are familiar, and large-scale fraud is difficult. Altering many votes would require influencing many people and coordinating across numerous polling places, increasing the cost and risk of exposure. By contrast, a single compromised component in an electronic system could potentially affect many votes.

Key concerns

• Voting machines: Voters cannot easily verify that a machine is running the intended software or recording their choices correctly. Checksums and other safeguards introduce additional things that must be trusted. At DEF CON’s unofficial Voting Village, researchers have demonstrated ways to manipulate machines, including altering stored tallies and displayed ballots.
• Transferring results: Physically transporting machines can be impractical, USB transfers can be tampered with, and internet transmission introduces network risks—especially if either endpoint is compromised.
• Central counting and auditability: A central server or electronic counting machine can be difficult for the public to inspect. Even errors can undermine confidence. The video describes a Scottish election tally that was corrected after an observer noticed that a spreadsheet’s results had not been fully viewed.
• Confidence in results: An election can be destabilized by casting doubt on the system, even if no votes are changed. For example, an unexplained USB drive or a misleading image could be used to raise suspicions.
• Voting from home: Personal phones and computers may be outdated or infected. A well-resourced attacker, including one backed by a national government, could potentially exploit a vulnerability at scale.
• Estonia: The video acknowledges Estonia’s widely used internet-voting system but cites an independent report raising concerns about operational security, aging system architecture, and exposure to cyberattacks.
• Blockchain: Blockchain does not resolve questions about trust in the voting device, its software, or the link between a voter’s choice and the recorded vote. A receipt that reveals a vote could compromise anonymity, while an opaque receipt may be difficult for voters to understand and trust.

Electronic voting can offer accessibility benefits and may be suitable for low-stakes or small-group elections. Scott’s conclusion is that these benefits do not outweigh the risks when national outcomes are at stake.

Sponsorship

The video includes a Dashlane sponsorship segment promoting a password manager with password storage, generation, and autofill; cross-device syncing; credit-card autofill; a VPN; and secure storage.

Additional context

• Format: Analysis, not a review, guide, or tutorial.
• Main speaker: Tom Scott.
• Sources and examples: Demonstrations at DEF CON’s Voting Village, an independent report on Estonian e-voting, and examples including a Scottish election. Computerphile is mentioned as the channel for Scott’s earlier video on the subject.