Voting amidst a pandemic
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2020
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Could electronic voting help the US hold an election?
Ed Butler speaks to Nimit Sawhney founder and CEO of Voatz - a US startup that provides voting through a smartphone app, and to Priit Vinkel, the former head of the state electoral office of Estonia where 50% of citizens now cast their votes online.
J. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science at the University of Michigan explains why e-voting systems are so risky when it comes to election security. Lori Steele Contorer, former founder and CEO of e-voting company Everyone Counts, argues the case for electronic voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Producer: Edwin Lane
(Photo: Voters line up at polling stations in the US state of Wisconsin earlier this year; Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're combing the entire continent of Africa for surprising and fascinating stories in our new BBC World Service podcast called The Co. |
| 0:09.4 | Come and see what we found by searching for The Coe wherever you got this podcast. |
| 0:17.4 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily. Today, the quest, indeed for some, the dream of getting modern day elections online. |
| 0:26.4 | When it comes to democracy, you've got to find the space on the line that allows everyone who's legally entitled to vote, |
| 0:33.7 | the ability to do so, securely and reliably. |
| 0:36.2 | And that is possible using digital technology. |
| 0:38.3 | Why is it so hard to do voting via the internet? |
| 0:42.3 | Some say it's just never going to be safe. |
| 0:45.3 | Internet voting is extremely risky. |
| 0:47.3 | Foreign intelligence agencies and militaries. |
| 0:50.3 | There may be ways that they can get in and alter the way votes are counted. |
| 0:54.7 | But what's the price for democracy in staying offline? |
| 0:58.5 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:03.5 | This is so wrong. |
| 1:05.1 | This is just so wrong. |
| 1:06.3 | This election should have been called off. |
| 1:08.8 | You know, they're telling us to stay in the house and, you know, |
| 1:11.7 | staying six feet from each other, but then one of the most important times, |
| 1:16.5 | they're forcing us to come out here in a group. |
| 1:19.9 | Stop playing politics with our lives. |
| 1:22.4 | You know, that's what I'm feeling. |
| 1:24.2 | A voter there at a Democratic primary in the US state of Wisconsin earlier this year. |
... |
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