'Hacking Democracy' and Open Source Voting

Luke Fretwell | GovFresh | January 21, 2012

Hacking Democracy, released in 2007, documents the improprieties and lack of security around proprietary voting software vendor Diebold Elections Systems. It’s incredible to see a group of citizens with little technical background become so passionate about a broken system that they delve deep into the intricacies of vote calculation, but also crack the code on an easily-penetrable software program.

Quotable: “I think we, as election officials, need to be a little bit more demanding from the vendors as to the technical specifications of this equipment. The vendors are driving the process of voting technology in the United States. I would much rather at this point I think focus on allowing citizens to select technology that satisfies their needs.”

I’m not a voting software expert, but after watching this, I want to learn more about the work of the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation and organizations like it.