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D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) wants to make it easier to register to vote by offering an online option, but in Maryland, where online registration is already in practice, it could easy for hackers to mess with the system.
A group of election technology researchers and voting rights advocates told Maryland officials last month to better secure the Old Line State’s online voter registration platform, The Washington Post reports. According to the concerned group, which included scholars from the University of Michigan and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, anyone armed with a voter’s full name and date of birth could potentially alter that person’s home address, party association and other information.
The Maryland State Board of Elections told the Post it believed a cyberattack to be highly unlikely, but the ranks of Marylanders who go online to register or change their voting status are growing. The Post reports that since July, 107,000 Maryland residents have submitted or altered their voting statuses. And while the board insists it is taking sufficient, albeit unspecified, security measures, it doesn’t take much information for a persistent hacker to crack Maryland’s voter files:
According to the researchers, the crux of the problem is that Maryland linked its voter registration files to the state’s database of driver’s license numbers.
That move was designed to add a layer of security and to weed out suspicious voter files. But in Maryland, driver’s license numbers are derived from a resident’s name and birth date. Several Web sites can decode a driver’s license number using the latter two pieces of information. The researchers discovered Maryland’s problem after finding a similar vulnerability in Washington state’s new online voter registration system.
And because the state sells its database to campaigns looking to target voters, the system lays itself bare for widespread fraud, the Lawrence Livermore analysts told Maryland.
In the District, Wells introduced his legislation to create online voter registration on October 2, hoping to bring D.C. current with the 12 states that already offer it. “We remain woefully out-of-date, and out-of-style, in how an individual can register to vote and update their voter information with a name change or change of address,” he said at the time.
Wells’ bill would require people registering or altering their registration to provide either a driver’s license or Social Security number to confirm their identities. It would leave it to the D.C. Board of Elections to “take additional measures it deems necessary to ensure the integrity and accuracy of voter registration applications submitted through the online voter registration system.”
Charles Allen, Wells’ chief of staff, tells DCist in an email that he hopes the D.C. Board of Elections would consult with its counterparts around the country in establishing the security parameters for an online voter registration system.
