Introduction

Elections in the United States have a surprisingly sordid past; vote buying, ballot fraud, voter intimidation, and bald-faced cheating appear to be the rule rather than exception to anyone acquainted with the history of American elections. If anything has changed about US elections in recent times, it is that elections have become more complicated. Electronic voting systems are being introduced to address many election difficulties, most notably in response to the millions of ballots disqualified in the 2000 presidential election due in large part to voter error. Unfortunately, at this moment, electronic voting systems present numerous challenges—in fact, electronic voting systems sometimes introduce more difficulties and offer less control than the systems they replace. The aspect of electronic voting I will focus on is whether electronic voting systems should be open or closed; whether scholars, experts, and your average voter should be allowed to scrutinize the underlying details of the systems being used, or whether these details should be kept secret by the companies that build, own, and operate these systems. I will begin by discussing the 2000 presidential election and the flaws in traditional voting systems uncovered by that election. I will go on to discuss Congress's response to the 2000 election debacle—a bill funding the nation-wide implementation of electronic voting systems. I will provide details about two electronic voting systems, one which is open and one which is closed. After that, I will discuss Lawrence Lessig's distinction between open and closed code, and his argument for why code should be open in certain, critical contexts. Finally, I will touch upon the issues of commerce and intellectual property that cause some to be concerned about the idea of open voting systems. My conclusion is that our societal interests of democratic government, fairness, honesty, and transparent regulation overwhelmingly favor open voting systems.