U.S. democracy is at an inflection point, and how we administer and verify our elections is more important than ever. From hanging chads to glitchy touchscreens to partisan disinformation, too many Americans worry that their votes won’t count and that election results aren’t trustworthy. It’s crucial that citizens have well-justified confidence in this pillar of our republic.

Technology can provide answers - but that doesn’t mean moving elections online. As president and CEO of the nonpartisan nonprofit Verified Voting, Pamela Smith helps lead the national fight to balance ballot accessibility with ballot security by advocating for paper trails, audits, and transparency wherever and however Americans cast votes.

On this episode of How to Fix the Internet, Pamela Smith joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien to discuss hope for the future of democracy and the technology and best practices that will get us there.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

Why voting online can never be like banking or shopping online
What a “risk-limiting audit” is, and why no election should lack it
Whether open-source software could be part of securing our votes
Where to find reliable information about how your elections are conducted

If you have any feedback on this episode, please email podcast@eff.org. Please visit the site page at https://eff.org/pod209 where you’ll find resources – including links to important legal cases and research discussed in the podcast and a full transcript of the audio.

Pamela Smith, President & CEO of Verified Voting, plays a national leadership role in safeguarding elections and building working alliances between advocates, election officials, and other stakeholders. Pam joined Verified Voting in 2004, and previously served as President from 2007-2017. She is a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises, a diverse cross-partisan group of more than 50 experts whose mission is to prevent and mitigate election crises by urging critical reforms. She provides information and public testimony on election security issues across the nation, including to Congress. Before her work in elections, she was a nonprofit executive for a Hispanic educational organization working on first language literacy and adult learning, and a small business and marketing consultant.

This podcast is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower.

This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators:

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751

Klaus by Skill_Borrower

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703

commonGround by airtone

http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/62475

Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)

Steve Riley (L.A. Guns drummer)