The real question is if we can trust the vote!
With proper controls in place we might be able to say that the vote can be trusted. The problem we have is that there is so little security in general on computers used by the general public that it isn't even possible to determine how many (very many) are compromised at any point in time. Given there are a large number which are compromised then determining if they in fact were exploited in a manner which might make the vote invalid is another matter.
The simple fact of the matter is that anyone casting votes via the net can have the vote reversed and it is very unlikely this would be detected.
What people do not realize is that when they hook their computers to the net they plug in every keyboard in the world. This is much worse than taking the computer full of confidential files and setting it up in the middle of a mall and just telling the general public to have a go!
Let me illustrate how easy it is to compromise a machine: I gave my kids their own computers and set them up in their own zone behind my firewalls. I told them to leave mine alone. I did at that time have a windows machine because I do cross platform software development and needed to test things. That windows machine did NOT have a browser installed... it was for software development and not surfing the net.
One morning I get up and walk into my office and my son's face is white! He installed Internet Explorer on my windows machine and went to his prof's website to get an assignment. (He was in 3rd year). The machine was compromised! That took him less than 15 minutes and I know what web sites he visited. I had to tear down the operating system and re-build it that afternoon. In the mean time I turned it off.
Nightmare? Yup. The university with their professional support staff can't cope. Neither can the World Bank because last week FOX NEWS carried a story to the effect their machines were owned for more than a year.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...
If large organizations with their resources and professional support staff can't cope then how can we expect John Q Public to cope?
