THIS COUNTRY'S SYSTEM for running elections is about
as decentralized as its system of local public libraries.
When Americans go to cast their ballots in November
2020, they’ll file into polling places administered by a
sprawling archipelago of more than 10,000 county, town,
and precinct authorities. Or, as Dana DeBeauvoir puts it,
it’ll be “Aunt Sally and Uncle Bob” against the Russians.
DeBeauvoir happens to be one of those local officials
herself. For more than 30 years, she’s been the Travis
County Clerk in Austin, Texas. And for much of that time,
she’s been caught in a bind: forced to purchase clunky,
expensive voting machines from the three big vendors
in the cartel-like election industry, while simultane-
ously catching hell from concerned computer scien-
tists in Texas for buying woefully insecure technology.
In 2011, DeBeauvoir curtly responded to her critics:
Why not come to Austin and help her design a better
voting machine? “Anyone can tear down a barn,” shesays. So a motley squad of cryptographers and engineers
descended on Austin to design an impregnable voting
system from scratch. They left with a dense white paper
and a name: STAR-Vote. Their designs call for encrypting
the vote using an application of pure math called homo-
morphic cryptography. There’s also a built-in paper trail
and a system of automatic audits designed to ensure
an election’s accuracy with unprecedented certainty.
The trouble was that DeBeauvoir couldn’t find any-
one to build it. But then this year, Darpa and Microsoft
separately revived aspects of the concept under new
names, each aiming to develop a prototype within the
next few years. The designs will be open source, open-
ing the way for future companies (or tinkerers) to manu-
facture cheap, secure systems that liberate officials like
DeBeauvoir from the tyranny of high-priced, hidebound,
hackable technology. Soon, thanks to her initiative, any-
one may be able to build a barn. —BENJAMIN WOFFORDELECTION SECURITY
Dana
DeBeauvoir
COUNTY CLERK /
Travis County, Texas
Saying “enough” to lousy
voting technology.