The Future of Voting: Holograms, Fingerprints, Iris Scans and More

March 25, 2016 – Brittany Wren is today’s guest blogger. She hails from Nebraska and works in higher education. Her other pursuits include backpacking, traveling, writing poetry and enjoying good coffee. On the weekend, she’s likely to be found with her nose in a book or working on a seemingly endless supply of house projects for her 100-year-old home.

Brittany has chosen to give us a glimpse of the future of voting. Applying technology to elections has always been seen as a logical evolution. After all machines do a great job of counting. But in 2000 dimpled chads in Florida led to a disputed U.S. presidential election result that eventually got settled by the United States Supreme Court. And dissimilar voting technologies in many U.S. states caused citizens to make mistakes marking ballots that were then read by voting machines as spoiled.

In Canada with a population of 36 million voting remains a manual process with a minimal amount of technology deployed to do the counting. Mostly we have scrutineers who check and record each hand-marked ballot. It works. But searching for a technology alternative even here in Canada is in the works.

Brittany explores what some of these technologies look like and their likelihood of deployment in future elections. Enjoy her contribution and as always we welcome your comments.

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Say “goodbye” to Tom Cruise and “hello” to Chief of the Department of PreCrime, John Anderton, because the world depicted in the movie, “Minority Report” may become a reality. From fingerprints to holograms, emerging technologies are rapidly gaining momentum in banking, shopping, socializing and now voting. Unlike the politics of the past, voting and campaign processes of the future will be much more automated, and the technological innovations will change democracy.

Hologram Campaigns

Holograms are not just for “Star Wars” Emperor Palpatine anymore. In fact, the use of hologram technology in politics was pioneered in 2014 by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who campaigned successfully appearing live in 3-D at multiple rallies across the subcontinent simultaneously. In doing so, he was able to reach a vast population in a short amount of time, a feat any politician would welcome. In future elections, politicians can take this technology to the next level, providing tailored messages to voters door-to-door, according to David Plouffe,  former assistant to the President and Senior Advisor in Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign.

Electronic Voting

Electronic voting could become the predominant method of voting in the near future in the United States and Canada. Already used in some 31 countries today, technologies include Direct Recording Electronic Systems, Electronic Ballot Printers, Optical Mark Recognition and Internet Voting Systems. These technologies demonstrate advantages because they “create opportunities for a more inclusive election process,” according to the National Democratic Institute. For example, voters with visual impairments can use audio technology for explanation of the process, or they can adjust font size to better read the ballot. Voters who don’t speak English could choose an option to vote in a language they prefer. And eligible voters residing in other countries, ex-patriots working overseas and military personnel, could dispense with absentee ballots.

Fingerprinting

Biometric data, such as fingerprints, can be used for voter ID and for marking electronic ballots in the near future. Some countries are already adopting this strategy. For example, more than 21 million fingerprint identifications were used by voters to verify their identity in Brazil’s 2014 national elections. The Electoral Court System in Brazil aims to achieve 100% voter participation using biometrics by 2018.

Iris Recognition

Known as IR, this method of recognition uses the unique shape of your eye’s iris to identify you. The FBI already considers IR a quick, accurate form of identification. It could eventually become a U.S. law enforcement standard for ID. Maybe it can replace fingerprints. In any case, it conceivably can be used to confirm voter ID for the voting process.

Facial Recognition

Starting this summer, Wells Fargo is unrolling a new face and voice recognition system for its customers’ sign-on.  Users will login by framing their face within a box on their smartphone screen and then they will be asked to read a series of numbers. According to NEC.com facial recognition is believed to be superior to many other identity markers because it requires no physical contact. It’s no stretch to see it one day becoming a method of verification for Internet voting.

Targeted Campaigns

Once your biometric data is in a government database it is conceivable that the information could be used for targeted campaigning during election cycles. Imagine walking into a store, having your face recognized at the door, your identity confirmed and your voting record in past elections accessible. Could you end up being besieged by holograms of political candidates interacting with you while you shop or visit an office? Without privacy constraints such an outcome is possible in the near future.

Voter Fraud

The privacy concerns regarding all of the technological innovations described above are substantial. And as new technologies emerge to make voting more automated, so will we see greater vulnerability to the hacking of the electoral process. Expect online security and identity theft protection to become even more prevalent as a result.

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Brittany alludes to Internet voting but doesn’t describe it in this posting. Internet voting has been described by computer scientist such as David Jefferson of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, who is also chairman of Verified Voting, that “from a security point of view [it] is an insane thing to do.”

One nation, Estonia, recently experimented with online voting. More than 176,000 of its citizens chose to I-vote. Of these 31% voted using computers connected to the Internet. 12.2% voted using a mobile-ID voter app and a smartphone. And 60% of I-voters used the Internet in advance polls.

Nor does Brittany broach the subject of compulsory voting and how technology could facilitate 100% voter participation in future elections. It is interesting to note that I-voting in Estonia has increased citizen participation in elections.

Comparing the voting challenges of a small nation like Estonia with the vast geography and sub-government jurisdictions found in United States or Canada, is “apples to oranges.” With so many local parties deciding on electoral processes it would seem that we are far away from an ideal and secure, high participation technical solution.