Alaska Election Security Report - Phase 1

Abstract

Alaska voters depend on a chain of people and equipment to keep their votes secure—to count and report the votes accurately and protect the secrecy of individual ballots. How secure is Alaska’s voting system? That’s what Alaska’s lieutenant governor and the Division of Elections asked the University of Alaska Anchorage to find out. We’re reporting here on the first phase of what will be a multi-phase study of Alaska’s election security. The last phase will be completed before the 2008 presidential election. What we found so far is in many ways reassuring: Alaska’s system has a number of features that address security. Paper ballots remain the official ballots, and they back up electronic counts. Vote counts are cross-checked in different locations. Alaska also has a centralized system for federal and state elections. In this first phase of the project, we did several tasks: • Examined Alaska’s voting system, including equipment and procedures. • Did detailed reviews of election-security studies for California and Florida and interviewed researchers who conducted those studies. • Identified areas of Alaska’s system that need more evaluation.