WEBVTT - Election Security is (mostly) Solvable 0:00:15.076 --> 0:00:24.476 Pushkin, this is solvable. I'm Jacob Weisberg. So you can 0:00:24.476 --> 0:00:28.876 talk about fake news and propaganda and astroturfing, but all 0:00:28.916 --> 0:00:31.636 of those things hacked the greater process. The conversation around 0:00:31.636 --> 0:00:36.556 the election. Election meddling undermines what sits at the foundation 0:00:36.636 --> 0:00:41.156 of American democracy, confidence in our voting system. Whether hacking 0:00:41.196 --> 0:00:43.676 takes the form of masking the original source of a 0:00:43.716 --> 0:00:46.396 campaign message to make it seem like it comes from 0:00:46.436 --> 0:00:52.236 the grassroots, so called astarturfing, or disseminating intentionally false information, 0:00:52.556 --> 0:00:55.796 it all leads Americans to question the legitimacy of the 0:00:55.836 --> 0:01:01.116 democratic process. In twenty sixteen, we discovered Russian backhackers were 0:01:01.116 --> 0:01:06.676 responsible for disinformation campaigns. In response, Congress directed three hundred 0:01:06.676 --> 0:01:09.956 and eighty million dollars to the fifty states to boost 0:01:09.996 --> 0:01:14.316 election security. But did it really help? Is it useful 0:01:14.356 --> 0:01:17.356 to compare electoral outcomes to poll results? You're not going 0:01:17.396 --> 0:01:20.156 to believe it, right, I mean, the problem of voting, 0:01:20.276 --> 0:01:23.676 as opposed to any other computer security mechanism is that 0:01:23.796 --> 0:01:27.836 after the fact, it's partisan. Is there a problem with 0:01:27.876 --> 0:01:31.396 the expectation we have than that the winner of election 0:01:31.876 --> 0:01:35.836 ought to be declared immediately? So yes, a slower process 0:01:36.316 --> 0:01:41.236 would enable us to do more checking before announcing anything. 0:01:41.836 --> 0:01:45.316 The American people don't like that. I mean, even going 0:01:45.356 --> 0:01:49.756 to sleep before knowing is bad. With increasingly long election seasons, 0:01:49.836 --> 0:01:53.236 I'd sleep better on election night hearing than my candidate one, 0:01:53.676 --> 0:01:56.756 But wouldn't we all sleep better knowing that whatever the result, 0:01:56.916 --> 0:02:00.116 it was guaranteed to be accurate. The tech is real, 0:02:00.396 --> 0:02:03.116 but the tech is solvable. None of what you've described 0:02:03.996 --> 0:02:08.996 is exotic or untried. Why has it been so difficult 0:02:08.996 --> 0:02:12.196 to convince other states to put in place some of 0:02:12.236 --> 0:02:18.076 these already available voting techniques Because the problems are not technical. 0:02:18.476 --> 0:02:27.556 The problems are political Elections security is mostly solvable. Brush 0:02:27.556 --> 0:02:32.756 Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist. He teaches cybersecurity 0:02:32.756 --> 0:02:36.156 at the Harvard Kennedy School. My co host Malcolm Gladwell 0:02:36.396 --> 0:02:38.956 talked with Schneier about the threats that loom over the 0:02:39.036 --> 0:02:43.516 vote this fall. When we talk about elections being hacked, 0:02:44.436 --> 0:02:47.116 what does that mean? I'm assuming that there are fifty 0:02:47.116 --> 0:02:50.676 different things that fall under that category. So we'll talk 0:02:50.716 --> 0:02:55.356 about hacking the voting process, and that's a process by 0:02:55.396 --> 0:02:57.996 which you cast your vote. We also talk about hacking 0:02:57.996 --> 0:03:02.436 the broader electoral process. So when the Russians hacked the 0:03:02.476 --> 0:03:05.396 Democratic National Committee and posted a dump a lot of 0:03:05.436 --> 0:03:08.836 information online, they weren't hacking the vote. They were hacking 0:03:09.196 --> 0:03:12.276 the overall election process. So you can talk about fake 0:03:12.356 --> 0:03:16.596 news and propaganda and astroturfing and all of those things 0:03:16.636 --> 0:03:19.996 hack the greater process, the conversation around the election. And 0:03:20.036 --> 0:03:24.396 that's one very separate branch. The other branch is hacking 0:03:24.396 --> 0:03:27.436 the vote itself, or the process by which you and 0:03:27.476 --> 0:03:31.556 I go to vote. And there you have four places 0:03:32.036 --> 0:03:35.236 where you can affect things, sort of affect the outcome. 0:03:36.036 --> 0:03:40.276 The first is the registration process, and we've read about 0:03:40.356 --> 0:03:43.316 and seen different hacks on the voting rolls so that 0:03:43.396 --> 0:03:45.716 when you go to vote, you can't at that point 0:03:45.756 --> 0:03:48.996 this particular kind of hacking. Is it really about taking 0:03:48.996 --> 0:03:52.156 people off the rolls. It's a couple of things. In 0:03:52.236 --> 0:03:56.356 California some years ago, people had their party affiliation change 0:03:56.916 --> 0:04:00.436 from Republican to Democrat. You can change the address of somebody, 0:04:00.716 --> 0:04:02.756 so they go to vote and they were told to 0:04:02.796 --> 0:04:05.476 go to a different poll. And some of these are easy. 0:04:05.916 --> 0:04:11.156 Many states have online systems to change your registration that 0:04:11.316 --> 0:04:15.276 aren't well authenticated. Others is to pull people off the 0:04:15.316 --> 0:04:19.436 voting roles. Others are to erase the voting roles. What 0:04:19.476 --> 0:04:21.356 happens if we get to election day in a certain 0:04:21.396 --> 0:04:24.316 state and the voting roles don't work and we don't 0:04:24.356 --> 0:04:27.076 know why. So a lot of things against the voting roles. 0:04:28.116 --> 0:04:30.716 The second is the thing we talk about all the time, 0:04:30.716 --> 0:04:34.956 which is the vote itself. Is your vote recorded accurately. 0:04:36.196 --> 0:04:39.276 The third is the tabulation process. May no matter how 0:04:39.356 --> 0:04:43.316 you vote, there's this sort of automated, sort of manual 0:04:43.356 --> 0:04:47.236 process by which the numbers out of each machine get 0:04:47.276 --> 0:04:52.276 increasingly aggregated, the numbers in the building, the numbers and 0:04:52.356 --> 0:04:56.276 the precinct, the numbers in the town, the city, the state, 0:04:56.356 --> 0:04:59.236 you know, all the way up to the national if 0:04:59.276 --> 0:05:02.596 that matters. And then the last, which I think people 0:05:02.596 --> 0:05:05.876 don't think about a lot, is the reporting process. And 0:05:05.956 --> 0:05:08.956 we have seen and this was something that we think 0:05:09.196 --> 0:05:16.916 is thwarted in eighteen erroneous reporting where the numbers are right. 0:05:17.196 --> 0:05:21.556 But the press release says the opposite of those four 0:05:21.636 --> 0:05:24.596 things that you've identified, Can we rank them in order 0:05:24.596 --> 0:05:28.036 of seriousness? Which is the one that worries you the most? 0:05:28.676 --> 0:05:31.836 I would not rank them. I think ranking is dangerous. 0:05:31.836 --> 0:05:36.436 I think they're all risky. Yeah, if I'm a chaos agent, 0:05:37.756 --> 0:05:42.316 how did what's the level of difficulty involved in spreading 0:05:42.396 --> 0:05:45.236 chaos in the American electoral system. It will depend on 0:05:45.276 --> 0:05:48.756 the technology. So we can talk about voting machines and 0:05:48.916 --> 0:05:52.276 some are more secure than others. And I vote in Minnesota. 0:05:52.476 --> 0:05:54.756 We use optical scan voting. I have a piece of paper, 0:05:54.796 --> 0:05:58.556 I fill in ovals and then that is tallied using computer. 0:05:58.836 --> 0:06:02.756 That is the gold standard. It is a voter verifiable 0:06:02.956 --> 0:06:07.436 paper audit trail now is real hard to mess with that, 0:06:08.036 --> 0:06:10.556 and you can mess with the tabulating, but there's a 0:06:10.596 --> 0:06:13.996 paper backup. You can do a recount. Some states vote 0:06:14.036 --> 0:06:17.716 on touch screen machines. We've had times those machines have 0:06:17.756 --> 0:06:20.076 opened up and that it's been zero to zero, zero 0:06:20.076 --> 0:06:22.476 to zero. What does that mean? Right? No votes to 0:06:22.596 --> 0:06:27.636 no votes? Something went wrong today. Those machines are a 0:06:27.676 --> 0:06:30.996 lot worse than you want them to be. The companies 0:06:31.076 --> 0:06:34.636 keep them very secret, but there have been audits. At 0:06:34.676 --> 0:06:37.036 Defcon hacker conference, I think a couple of years ago, 0:06:37.076 --> 0:06:39.076 we had a bunch of machines and a voting village 0:06:39.316 --> 0:06:42.556 and they were all hacked. Companies say they're all flying, 0:06:42.596 --> 0:06:46.396 they're often online. There's a lot of ways to go 0:06:46.436 --> 0:06:49.596 after those those machines. So this isn't like hacking into 0:06:49.596 --> 0:06:53.716 the NSA. This is like, this is some This is 0:06:53.756 --> 0:06:55.636 a lot more garden variety kind of hacking that we're 0:06:55.676 --> 0:06:57.716 talking about. It's a lot more garden variety. Give me 0:06:57.756 --> 0:07:00.996 a description of the most vulnerable system. What would be 0:07:01.076 --> 0:07:04.396 the one? Touch screens, touch screen voting. Anybody voting on 0:07:04.436 --> 0:07:08.116 touch screen voting is taking a chance. Now that's in 0:07:08.116 --> 0:07:12.596 the US country like Estonia, they have internet voting that 0:07:12.716 --> 0:07:17.276 is even more dangerous than going to a machine. Yeah, 0:07:17.316 --> 0:07:21.596 I can't design a secure internet voting system. I can't 0:07:21.636 --> 0:07:25.356 design a secure electronic voting machine. I can't do it. 0:07:25.356 --> 0:07:27.596 It can't be done. We shouldn't do it. And you'll 0:07:27.596 --> 0:07:30.796 come back to me and say, we're banking over the internet. 0:07:31.196 --> 0:07:34.196 We're doing all these other things over the Internet. Why 0:07:34.236 --> 0:07:36.956 in the world is this different? Why is it different? 0:07:36.996 --> 0:07:41.396 The short answer is that voting requires anonymity. That when 0:07:41.436 --> 0:07:43.196 you think about everything else to do in the Internet, 0:07:43.796 --> 0:07:46.076 your name is attached as an account attached. If there's 0:07:46.116 --> 0:07:48.356 a problem, you can roll it back, you can figure 0:07:48.356 --> 0:07:50.596 it out. MAF you came back to me and said, 0:07:51.076 --> 0:07:53.196 we're going to dump the secret ballots. Right, all votes 0:07:53.236 --> 0:07:55.596 are now public, right, you know, and we could decide 0:07:55.636 --> 0:08:00.316 that's a reasonable way to vote. The Switzerland voted that 0:08:00.356 --> 0:08:03.796 way for many years, the Romans voted that way for 0:08:03.836 --> 0:08:07.876 a lot of their elections. Then it's a different story. 0:08:07.876 --> 0:08:10.356 And actually I could do voting easily. I can vote 0:08:10.396 --> 0:08:12.436 by app, we can vote by Facebook. All that will 0:08:12.476 --> 0:08:16.156 work because at the end of the day you can 0:08:16.196 --> 0:08:19.316 go look online at the tally of votes, make sure 0:08:19.356 --> 0:08:22.036 your name is in the right column, and you know 0:08:22.076 --> 0:08:25.516 the votes accurate. I'm not sure to understand the fact 0:08:25.556 --> 0:08:28.116 that voting has to be we have to have a 0:08:28.156 --> 0:08:33.036 secret ballot makes the task of digital voting. You're saying 0:08:33.356 --> 0:08:37.196 very very difficult. Why exactly, I'm not following that. Why 0:08:37.196 --> 0:08:41.316 can't I have an authentication system to get into the 0:08:41.396 --> 0:08:46.516 voting booth, But then you anonymize me once I'm inside 0:08:46.596 --> 0:08:50.076 the booth and the electronic booth and record my vote. 0:08:50.396 --> 0:08:52.636 So that works great. They are systems that do that. 0:08:53.356 --> 0:08:56.836 And now the question is do we trust the computer security? Right? 0:08:57.116 --> 0:09:00.116 Are the computers that are doing this somehow magically better 0:09:00.156 --> 0:09:03.236 than other computers and they're not, so there'll be lots 0:09:03.236 --> 0:09:05.556 of ways to hack into that, just like there are 0:09:05.596 --> 0:09:07.916 lots of ways to hack into corporate networks and banking 0:09:07.956 --> 0:09:11.276 networks and all those comut to security stories we find. Now, 0:09:11.276 --> 0:09:15.276 if someone hacks into your bank and changes bank balances, 0:09:15.876 --> 0:09:17.716 you will know that, you will see that, you will 0:09:17.756 --> 0:09:19.316 go to the bank, the bank will figure it out. 0:09:19.636 --> 0:09:23.516 The difference is that in the election case, you might 0:09:23.556 --> 0:09:25.756 not know it would happen, and there's no way to 0:09:25.876 --> 0:09:29.796 recover because there is that anonymity, because there's that break 0:09:29.876 --> 0:09:34.276 between the registration right getting into the system, as you mentioned, 0:09:34.756 --> 0:09:38.996 and the voting your votes anonymized. I can't have an 0:09:39.036 --> 0:09:43.636 audit system, and I can't post on a public website 0:09:43.916 --> 0:09:46.796 everybody who voted for candidate A ever and voted for 0:09:46.836 --> 0:09:51.196 candidate B. Now that's a check. You do that, and 0:09:51.276 --> 0:09:53.116 we will all though those of us who care enough 0:09:53.116 --> 0:09:55.756 of us will will look at the lists, make sure 0:09:55.756 --> 0:09:59.476 we're there, and we have very high confidence that no 0:09:59.476 --> 0:10:03.356 one's been moved without their consent. You can't do that 0:10:03.436 --> 0:10:05.596 with an anonymous ballot. So what if I just said 0:10:05.636 --> 0:10:08.676 to you, Okay, if the risk of hacking is as 0:10:08.756 --> 0:10:10.796 large as you say, it is, why don't we do 0:10:10.836 --> 0:10:13.316 away with the secret ballot? We could. Now that's a 0:10:13.396 --> 0:10:15.836 voting question, that's not I mean I'm a computer security person. 0:10:15.876 --> 0:10:19.156 That feels like a political science question. I mean, let's 0:10:19.196 --> 0:10:21.996 have experts talk about that. We can talk about some 0:10:22.076 --> 0:10:23.796 of the some of the risks. The risks are going 0:10:23.836 --> 0:10:28.716 to be coercion. So if I am in, I'm gonna 0:10:28.716 --> 0:10:31.796 make this up an abusive relationship with you. You can 0:10:31.796 --> 0:10:33.156 tell me how to vote, and you can make sure 0:10:33.196 --> 0:10:35.676 I vote the way you want me to. You could 0:10:35.676 --> 0:10:38.636 buy my vote and make sure I deliver. Yeah. Now, 0:10:38.676 --> 0:10:42.316 we're in a world where many of us are transparent 0:10:42.636 --> 0:10:46.356 about our votes, but there is political value in the 0:10:46.396 --> 0:10:49.596 secret ballot, and that is probably a discussion we should 0:10:49.596 --> 0:10:52.476 have as a society today. So setting that aside for 0:10:52.516 --> 0:10:55.116 a vote, that's one that's one branch we could follow. 0:10:55.356 --> 0:10:57.476 And so you're saying, if we decided to do with 0:10:57.476 --> 0:10:59.756 the secret ballot, it makes the job of people like 0:10:59.836 --> 0:11:03.196 you a lot easier. Actually, it makes it trivial. I mean, 0:11:03.756 --> 0:11:07.156 it's suddenly it's solved. You download an app, you vote 0:11:07.556 --> 0:11:13.036 anyway you want, webs kiosk on Facebook, nobody cares. Yeah, 0:11:13.716 --> 0:11:17.236 how do we know when there's fraud, So is it 0:11:17.396 --> 0:11:19.836 entirely possible that a lot of the fraud that goes 0:11:19.876 --> 0:11:22.596 on because you're talking about systems like say with a 0:11:22.636 --> 0:11:27.036 touchscreen system, it's quite possible. You would never something could 0:11:27.036 --> 0:11:29.676 be hacking. You'd never know, right, And that's true in 0:11:29.836 --> 0:11:32.916 pretty much all hacking is your email hacked? Who's reading 0:11:32.916 --> 0:11:36.596 your email? You don't know? Yeah, and you know. I 0:11:36.636 --> 0:11:41.396 mean it's a famous hack against Apple Photo Archive where 0:11:41.476 --> 0:11:45.116 photographs of celebrities were stolen and then published. Were they 0:11:45.116 --> 0:11:49.276 not published, we would never know. Examples of networks, equifacts 0:11:49.436 --> 0:11:52.316 they were hacked. They figured it out like five six 0:11:52.396 --> 0:11:56.956 months later by accident. Lots of hacking in our world 0:11:57.316 --> 0:12:00.396 goes unnoticed, and the more skilled you are, the more 0:12:00.516 --> 0:12:03.836 you can cover your tracks. You talk about government hacking, 0:12:03.876 --> 0:12:08.716 I bet a lot of it goes unnoticed forever. Criminal 0:12:08.756 --> 0:12:11.116 hacking tends to be noticed because the crime is going 0:12:11.156 --> 0:12:14.556 to be financial and eventually you'll see you lost money 0:12:14.596 --> 0:12:17.836 and you'll try to figure out how. But hacking for information, 0:12:19.316 --> 0:12:21.436 I think there's a lot more that goes on at 0:12:21.476 --> 0:12:25.916 the state, the state level than we know about because 0:12:25.916 --> 0:12:28.236 it is largely done in secret. So you're talking about 0:12:28.236 --> 0:12:30.716 some of these systems, say, with the test screen system, 0:12:30.796 --> 0:12:36.316 it's very difficult, too impossible to figure out whether hacking 0:12:36.356 --> 0:12:39.756 has taken place. But are there proxies we can use? 0:12:39.796 --> 0:12:42.956 I mean, is it useful to compare electoral outcomes to 0:12:43.076 --> 0:12:46.556 poll results? And is there other ways to flag at 0:12:46.636 --> 0:12:50.796 least suspicious outcomes? There is, but you're not going to 0:12:50.836 --> 0:12:53.476 believe it, right. I mean, the problem of a voting 0:12:53.636 --> 0:12:56.996 as opposed to any other computer security mechanism is that 0:12:57.156 --> 0:13:01.876 after the fact it's partisan. You know, we can do 0:13:02.036 --> 0:13:04.916 polling and compare polling with the actual vote and stuff 0:13:04.956 --> 0:13:07.796 that didn't matter, like what color eminem we want to choose, 0:13:08.156 --> 0:13:10.476 and we can use that say oh yeah, look there's 0:13:10.476 --> 0:13:14.636 been the balance stuffing the purple eminem people organized on 0:13:15.196 --> 0:13:18.956 four chan and they have stuffed the vote. But if 0:13:18.956 --> 0:13:21.516 you do that with an actual election and you're on 0:13:21.516 --> 0:13:24.236 the losing side, how do you feel when someone says 0:13:24.716 --> 0:13:27.676 the actual vote was different than the polls, You're going 0:13:27.716 --> 0:13:29.956 to say, no, what do you mean? The actual vote 0:13:29.996 --> 0:13:33.916 is what counts the polls, don't people lied on the polls. 0:13:33.916 --> 0:13:38.156 Silent majority will have all these reasons, So scientifically we 0:13:38.236 --> 0:13:41.916 might be able to use that as evidence, but politically 0:13:42.716 --> 0:13:48.076 that will never fly as anything because it is so partisan. 0:13:48.836 --> 0:13:51.516 Is there a problem with the expectation we have that then, 0:13:51.596 --> 0:13:55.276 that the winner of election ought to be declared immediately? 0:13:55.356 --> 0:14:00.076 Should we start by abandoning that that notion? So? Yes, 0:14:00.196 --> 0:14:04.796 a slower process would enable us to do more checking 0:14:05.676 --> 0:14:10.996 before announcing anything. The American people don't like that, you 0:14:10.996 --> 0:14:13.876 know nobody, I mean, even going to sleep before knowing 0:14:14.956 --> 0:14:19.076 is bad in our system. If we could abandon the 0:14:19.116 --> 0:14:24.036 immediate knowing, the exit polls, the guessing, all of that. 0:14:25.156 --> 0:14:28.756 As an election security person, as election to reliability person, 0:14:28.996 --> 0:14:31.276 I would like that change. So it's all right, place 0:14:31.356 --> 0:14:32.996 you can have that. How long do you need for 0:14:33.036 --> 0:14:35.996 close elections? You want a little more time because you 0:14:36.036 --> 0:14:39.676 want to make sure everything's accurate in a normal election. 0:14:40.356 --> 0:14:43.436 My guess is only a few days. Because what I 0:14:43.556 --> 0:14:48.236 want to do is do automatic audits on all elections. 0:14:48.476 --> 0:14:51.836 There are systems of audits we can do where the 0:14:51.956 --> 0:14:55.836 level of audit depends on how close the election is. 0:14:56.196 --> 0:14:58.716 If the election is ninety percent to one, you have 0:14:58.756 --> 0:15:01.556 to audit one ballot, or you know, ten percent of 0:15:01.556 --> 0:15:03.956 the ballots. If it's fifty one to forty nine, you 0:15:03.956 --> 0:15:06.796 have to audit and to make this up twenty percent 0:15:06.836 --> 0:15:09.116 of the ballots. The numbers are actually actually a lot 0:15:09.116 --> 0:15:13.116 lower than that, So you know, two thousand Florida, we 0:15:13.196 --> 0:15:16.516 actually wanted a lot of time, and politically we couldn't 0:15:16.516 --> 0:15:20.356 get it because that was a badly designed ballot. So 0:15:20.476 --> 0:15:24.476 it was a slow, manual recount that was triggered. I 0:15:24.516 --> 0:15:27.956 think one of the I think the Gore team to 0:15:28.476 --> 0:15:31.516 ask for the recount according to law, so I want 0:15:31.556 --> 0:15:34.556 automatic recounts that don't have to be asked for. That 0:15:34.596 --> 0:15:36.996 we just do as a matter of course because we 0:15:37.036 --> 0:15:40.396 don't know where there's going to be problems. So it's 0:15:40.436 --> 0:15:43.556 really right now, it's going to depend on COVID. So 0:15:43.596 --> 0:15:45.396 we're going to have an election that will be a 0:15:45.396 --> 0:15:47.676 lot of mail in votes at the last minute, and 0:15:47.756 --> 0:15:49.836 some of the states say they have to be postmarked 0:15:50.036 --> 0:15:53.036 on election day, so which means what they delivered three 0:15:53.116 --> 0:15:56.836 days later and they are counted slowly after that. I 0:15:57.036 --> 0:16:00.916 worry that they will be preliminary results on election night 0:16:01.356 --> 0:16:04.476 and that the demographics of the mail the late mail 0:16:04.556 --> 0:16:07.556 in voters will be different. I don't even know how 0:16:07.596 --> 0:16:10.596 in what way, but you know, it's plausible that there'll 0:16:10.596 --> 0:16:13.196 be some demographic that waits at the last minute, and 0:16:13.236 --> 0:16:17.636 then you'll have the person who's was declared the presumptive 0:16:17.636 --> 0:16:21.676 winner on election night. Say I was robbed when two 0:16:21.676 --> 0:16:25.476 weeks later all of these mail in ballots swing the 0:16:25.476 --> 0:16:27.756 election the other way. And I don't even know which 0:16:27.756 --> 0:16:30.076 party is going to benefit. Right that it's not even 0:16:30.076 --> 0:16:34.036 obvious to me. Let's do Bruce's optimal system tell me 0:16:34.276 --> 0:16:37.636 what election, what the electoral process should look like in 0:16:37.676 --> 0:16:41.076 the United States. So this is so, I think we 0:16:41.156 --> 0:16:45.036 have a problem in that we require separate registration. I 0:16:45.076 --> 0:16:49.276 think registration should come with citizenship when you turn eighteen, 0:16:49.756 --> 0:16:51.996 and a lot of other countries do that. We have 0:16:52.036 --> 0:16:55.276 a separate registration process that has largely been a voter 0:16:55.356 --> 0:16:58.796 suppression process, and we should do away with it. So 0:16:58.876 --> 0:17:02.076 you're saying, at the age of eighteen, everyone automatically has 0:17:02.076 --> 0:17:04.956 the right to vote, and that's true, but they should 0:17:04.956 --> 0:17:08.036 all they should automatically be registered, they should have ability 0:17:08.116 --> 0:17:12.636 to vote. Yeah, how does automatic registration work in practical terms? 0:17:12.716 --> 0:17:15.076 I mean, I don't know. You automatically get a source 0:17:15.076 --> 0:17:18.596 security number when you're born, so maybe something's flipped when 0:17:18.636 --> 0:17:20.876 you turn eighteen. I mean I don't know how these 0:17:20.876 --> 0:17:25.796 processes work. Yeah, but I think removing that separate step 0:17:26.196 --> 0:17:30.436 will make elections better and fairer and will increase participation. 0:17:30.596 --> 0:17:33.516 Yeah yeah, I'd like there to be. What the US 0:17:33.596 --> 0:17:37.236 doesn't have is an independent voting commission. A lot of 0:17:37.276 --> 0:17:41.716 countries have a bureaucracy that's in charge of voting. Candidate 0:17:41.796 --> 0:17:44.476 does the UK does. We have a bureaucracy in charge 0:17:44.476 --> 0:17:47.836 of the census, a similar breaucracy in charge of voting, 0:17:48.116 --> 0:17:52.116 in charge of accuracy, not partisan this, I think we'll 0:17:52.116 --> 0:17:55.276 go a long way to making this more more secure. 0:17:56.076 --> 0:17:59.196 So we should do that, and that group will be 0:17:59.236 --> 0:18:03.596 in charge of making sure these voting lists are accurate, 0:18:03.796 --> 0:18:07.316 are current, are sent to the precincts where they need 0:18:07.356 --> 0:18:10.276 to be sent. If they are problems, they can there's 0:18:10.316 --> 0:18:13.316 a helpline to figure it out. As much of this 0:18:13.356 --> 0:18:16.276 should be done with paperbackup as possible, because we all 0:18:16.276 --> 0:18:19.556 worried about computer hacking, the voting itself needs to be 0:18:19.596 --> 0:18:22.556 done on secure machines. I mentioned Minnesota optical scan of 0:18:22.596 --> 0:18:26.356 voting that is the gold standard right now and all cases, 0:18:26.396 --> 0:18:30.876 in all elections, we do an audit. The size of 0:18:30.916 --> 0:18:33.796 it depends on the margin of victory. None of what 0:18:33.916 --> 0:18:40.996 you've described is exotic or untried or a lot of 0:18:40.996 --> 0:18:44.276 times when we do these solvable podcasts, we're talking about 0:18:44.276 --> 0:18:48.156 a solution that's off on the horizon somewhere. These solusions 0:18:48.156 --> 0:18:50.916 are not off on the horizon. There some chunk of 0:18:50.956 --> 0:18:53.116 it is in the state of Minnesota. Why has it 0:18:53.156 --> 0:18:57.316 been so difficult to convince other states to put in 0:18:57.356 --> 0:19:02.596 place some of these already available voting techniques because the 0:19:02.756 --> 0:19:06.956 problems are not technical. The problems are political. If you 0:19:07.076 --> 0:19:12.316 believe that your side benefit fits from ignoring the problem, 0:19:12.876 --> 0:19:15.316 why would you spend money on the problem. I mean, 0:19:15.436 --> 0:19:19.396 voting machines are for profit enterprises in this country. There's 0:19:19.836 --> 0:19:24.716 government lobbying on spying and selling voting machines. It's not 0:19:24.876 --> 0:19:30.196 likely again getting back to a government bureaucracy in charge 0:19:30.196 --> 0:19:32.836 of accuracy, we don't have that. So if you are 0:19:32.876 --> 0:19:35.556 a company that makes touching voting machines, you're going to 0:19:35.676 --> 0:19:39.476 shove out all this kind of noise on how great 0:19:39.556 --> 0:19:42.436 your machines are, and the election officials don't know better, 0:19:42.476 --> 0:19:45.276 and they're going to buy them. After two thousand, we 0:19:45.356 --> 0:19:48.956 had to help America Vote Act, where Congress apportioned a 0:19:48.996 --> 0:19:52.076 lot of money to give to the states to improve 0:19:52.116 --> 0:19:55.676 their voting machines. A lot of those went to computerized 0:19:55.756 --> 0:20:00.236 voting machines that have been dumped since then because of 0:20:00.436 --> 0:20:04.196 security problems. So this is a very political issue. My 0:20:04.476 --> 0:20:07.956 problems are in technological that's it's not core science, Yeah, 0:20:08.276 --> 0:20:11.276 it's policy and politics. Do you think there might also 0:20:11.316 --> 0:20:15.036 be a kind of implicit bias that among some people 0:20:15.076 --> 0:20:20.276 that as we move towards more digital digitalization of the system, 0:20:20.556 --> 0:20:22.836 we're making it safer. In other words, are people assuming 0:20:22.836 --> 0:20:26.116 that the application of additional technology here is what will 0:20:26.156 --> 0:20:28.916 improve things and not you're actually you're you're arguing for 0:20:29.156 --> 0:20:31.836 a return to a much more traditional way of voting. 0:20:32.276 --> 0:20:34.796 And this is how we started the podcast, Right, what's 0:20:34.916 --> 0:20:38.676 different about the risks of voting? So, yes, right, there's 0:20:38.676 --> 0:20:40.916 a belief that, you know, we're putting computers on this, 0:20:41.316 --> 0:20:44.516 Computers are good computers going to make this better, safer, faster, 0:20:45.036 --> 0:20:47.556 do all of these things, and it turns out security 0:20:48.276 --> 0:20:51.676 is uh, you know, ends up being something that's that's 0:20:51.716 --> 0:20:55.356 flowing in the other direction, and that that makes this harder. 0:20:55.956 --> 0:20:58.996 What can listeners to this podcast, what can ordinary citizens 0:20:59.036 --> 0:21:03.796 and voters do to to help advance the case of 0:21:04.636 --> 0:21:10.756 most secure elections. So there are organizations that are advocating 0:21:10.876 --> 0:21:16.556 for accurate voting, Verified Voting, dot Org, the National Electoral 0:21:16.556 --> 0:21:19.956 Defense Coalition, There's a group called True the Vote, the 0:21:19.956 --> 0:21:22.596 Brennan Center for Justice. So those are some of the 0:21:22.676 --> 0:21:26.716 organizations I support and think we all should. But if 0:21:26.756 --> 0:21:31.196 this is not a political issue, this will not change fundamentally. 0:21:31.516 --> 0:21:34.636 That is the problem. The tech is real, but the 0:21:34.676 --> 0:21:38.036 tech is solvable. We need the political will to solve it. 0:21:38.396 --> 0:21:41.916 We need the money to solve it. Bruce, thank you 0:21:41.956 --> 0:21:45.436 so much. This has been fascinating. Thank you again. Hey, 0:21:45.436 --> 0:21:49.356 thanks for having me. This is fun. That was Malcolm 0:21:49.396 --> 0:21:53.916 Gladwell speaking with security technologist Brush Nier. Remember to check 0:21:53.916 --> 0:21:56.196 out our show notes for links to the suggestions our 0:21:56.276 --> 0:21:59.836 guest mate for ways that you can get involved. Solvable 0:21:59.916 --> 0:22:02.596 is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our show is 0:22:02.596 --> 0:22:07.876 produced by Camille Baptista, Senior producer Jocelyn Frank. Catherine Girardou 0:22:07.956 --> 0:22:11.476 is our managing producer. Our executive producer is Mia Lobell. 0:22:12.116 --> 0:22:15.996 Special thanks to Heather Faine, Eric Sandler, Carl Migliori and 0:22:16.076 --> 0:22:18.436 Kadija Holland. I'm Jacob Weisberg.