[IP] : Defense Dept. Cancels Internet Voting Project (fwd)

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: chodge5@utk.edu
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 18:49:28 
To:Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Defense Dept. Cancels Internet Voting Project (fwd)



Defense Dept. Cancels Internet Voting Project

February 5, 2004
 By JOHN SCHWARTZ 


Citing security concerns, the Department of Defense
canceled a $22 million project today that would have
allowed Americans overseas to vote over the Internet. 

The system, the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting
Experiment, or Serve, was developed with financing from the
Defense Department. 

The decision was announced in a memo from Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to David Chu, undersecretary of
defense for personnel and readiness. 

Paraphrasing the memo, a department of defense spokeswoman
said "the department has decided not to use Serve in the
November 2004 elections. We made this decision in view of
the inability to ensure legitimacy of votes, thereby
bringing into doubt the integrity of the election results,"
the spokeswoman said. The memo also states that efforts
will continue to find other ways to cast ballots
electronically for Americans overseas, but "the integrity
of the election results have to be assured," the
spokeswoman said. 

The decision to cancel the project, which was developed by
Accenture, the consulting and technology services company,
was announced two weeks after members of a panel of
scientists who were asked by the government to assess the
project's security recommended that it be canceled because
any system based on off-the-shelf personal computers and
run over today's Internet was inherently insecure. 

Aviel D. Rubin, an author of that report, said today that
the Serve project was a noble idea that could not be
carried out in a secure way using today's technology.
"While we appreciate their efforts to allow this segment of
the population to have more accessible voting, we applaud
their decision to cancel this project because of the
security concerns, he said. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/politics/campaign/05CND-VOTE.html?ex=1077024834&ei=1&en=330e7d607f5b28e0


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