[Air-l] online voting

[ell at bradley.edu]

> Dear colleagues,
> 
> I've written a brief conference report (well... a debate report) from
> today's event.
> 
> I hope this is of interest,
> Christian

Christian's post reminded me that we had an occurence here that might be of 
interest...that I forgot to note for the group. 

Our student government, in cooperation with computing services, held online 
elections for student officers is past spring. Both sponsoring parties were 
"sure" about security. It failed. The vote was compromised by users who 
obtained user log ons and passwords [no one is saying how or how many] and 
voted [no one is saying how or how many times] illegally. The election had to 
be reheld, the old way. HUGE inconvenience.

Computing services has now put in good lord knows how many hours across all of 
their security procedures, including a new firewall (planned before the snafu).

Anecdotes (esp. from small and relatively insignificant places) don't set the 
course of technological change. However, early adopters' experiences do seem to 
"add up," sometimes.

We are a little skittish here, now...

Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Speech Communication and Multimedia
Bradley University
Peoria IL 61625
309-677-2378
http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~ell
Editor, Journal of Communication and Religion
http://gcc.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/rsca/index.html