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Protecting Your Vote With Invisible Ink

A new voting system uses the Internet, cryptography, and "magic" ink to ensure that everyone's vote is counted.

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Voting machines are one of the few areas where technology has decidedly taken us a step backward. The electronic voting ma­chines that one-third of American voters will be using in November are no more reliable than your home computer.

Direct-recording electronic voting machines are incredibly easy to hack; Princeton University security expert Ed Felten proved it by accessing a Diebold machine’s memory card with a hotel minibar key he bought online. In less than one minute, Felten was able to install undetectable vote-stealing software. Then there is the garden-variety computer error. Touch-screen machines in Sarasota, Florida, recorded an 18,000-vote undercount in a congressional race decided by fewer than 400 votes. Paper itself was never foolproof (remember those chads?), but a stolen, lost, or stuffed ballot box risks mere hundreds of votes while a hidden computer glitch risks millions. And since viruses can spread, one machine’s infection can quickly cross county ...

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