Online voting tested in Washington State

KING COUNTY, Wash. (KING)  – More than one million voters in Washington State will cast a ballot without taking a trip to a polling place.

Voters in King County, Washington will be able to cast a ballot online for the upcoming Board of Supervisors election.

Voters will be able to go to a website, enter their first and last names, their birth date, cast their vote, then verify through an online signature.

In the last Board of Supervisors election, out of more than one million potential voters, just 3,200 votes were cast.

King County officials said their voting portal will allow greater access to the local democratic process and they say that’s a good thing. King County Executive Dow Constantine said, “Mobile voting could very well be the next frontier because we know when more people participate, our democracy is healthier, stronger.”

But Jesse Rothstein the co-founder of a Seattle-based cyber Security company ExtraHop, says there’s no way to make a completely secure system. “These online applications have an enormous attack surface and while we can mitigate some of that attack surface,” Rothstein said. “I’m skeptical that it’s even possible to build a completely secure application.”

Rothstein said he’d rather see the nation move toward making Election Day a holiday before considering some form of online voting.

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