Gus Hurwitz on election security
Nebraska Public Media – ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was quoted by Nebraska Public Media in a story about cyber-security concerns around election machinery. You can read the full piece here.
Gus Hurwitz said voting machines take out the potential for human mistakes, so the elections are more reliable. He’s the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center and an associate professor of law at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“If you have 100,000 paper ballots that you’re having the Election Commission count through and process, probably, if they were to count those 100 ballots three times, they would get different results.” Hurwitz said. “They be roughly the same, but there are going to be some ballots that we just make some counting mistakes. Computers don’t make those sorts of mistakes.”
Hurwitz and UNL professor John Hibbing said the elections are more secure now since it’s difficult for hackers to alter the electronic and paper votes. However, Hurwitz said the real threat to elections aren’t the machines, but misinformation and lack of trust in the voting process.