Like many states around the country, the District of Columbia Board of Elections decided to allow military and civilians living abroad to vote (i.e. return voted ballots) over the Internet this November. However, unlike other Internet voting enthusiasts, the Board planned to conduct a pilot test prior to the actual election ­ after which they intended to allow overseas voters to return their voted ballots over the Internet. The test began around the end of September; by early October we learned that a team from the Univ. of Michigan, led by Prof. Alex Halderman, had succeeded in breaking into the test system. The first sign of the break-in was the playing of the Michigan fight song, which began 15 seconds after the voter viewed the vote confirmation page. Further very serious revelations quickly followed, including that the Michigan team could rig every cast vote.

In addition to reviewing the remarkable outcome of the DC Internet pilot, we will discuss ways in which Internet voting differs from e-commerce, analyze the threats to Internet voting, review key studies and reports, describe several elections and pilots held over the Internet, and reflect on the future of Internet voting.

Barbara Simons, an expert on electronic voting, is on the Board of Advisors of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. She was a member of the National Workshop on Internet Voting that was convened at the request of President Clinton and produced a report on Internet Voting in 2001. She also participated on the Security Peer Review Group for the US Department of Defense's Internet voting project (SERVE) and co-authored the report that led to the cancellation of SERVE because of security concerns. Simons co-chaired the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) study of statewide databases of registered voters. She recently co-authored the League of Women Voters report on election auditing. Simons and Doug Jones are co-authoring a book on voting machines.

Simons was President of ACM, the nation's oldest and largest educational and scientific society for computing professionals.

The explosion of mobile phones into a region that, until recently, was nearly devoid of telecommunications infrastructure provides a valuable opportunity to explore the potential effects of information and communication technology on various economic

and social outcomes. This article focuses specifically on the potential influence that mobile phones will exert on corruption in Africa. Two distinct empirical analyses test the hypothesis that mobile phones will reduce corruption in Africa, as a result of decentralizing information and communication and thereby diminishing the opportunities available to engage in corruption as well as increasing the potential of detection and punishment. The results of a fixed effects regression of panel data at the country level reveal a significant negative correlation between a country's degree of mobile phone penetration and that country's level of perceived corruption. In addition to this, a multivariate regression of survey data reveals that the degree of mobile phone signal coverage across 13 Namibian provinces is significantly associated with reduced perceptions of corruption at the individual level.

Catie Snow Bailard received her doctorate in political science from UCLA, before joining the faculty of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University in 2009. She graduated with concentrations in American Politics, Formal and Quantitative Methods, and International Relations. Throughout Catie's academic career, her research agenda has primarily focused on the intersection of telecommunications and politics. This fascination with the effect of mass media on political outcomes began in college as a major in UCLA's Communication Studies Department, a top-ranked undergraduate department. It was this experience that inspired Catie's decision to pursue a doctoral degree in political science at UCLA.  

 Studying under esteemed scholars in the field of political media studies at UCLA provided Catie with a broad substantive understanding of political communication as well as rigorous training in methodology. While the majority of early political communication research focused on television's impact on electoral outcomes in America, Catie's research agenda seeks to broaden this field.  By focusing on political outcomes beyond elections, beyond the American borders, as well as media technologies beyond television, Catie hopes to contribute to the evolution of political communication research to accommodate and effectively study the complex and rapidly-changing landscape of new media.  Catie's preferred approach to research is multi-methodological, with a particular preference for merging cutting edge quantitative analyses with randomized field experiments.

The abrupt fall of an authoritarian regime often surprises the world with apparent suddenness.  Given the right moment of opportunity, skillfully applied pressure can prove a thuggish regime surprisingly brittle. However, these moments are prepared through a long struggle for democratic rights within a closed society. Technology can help create these openings, organize activists, document abuses and share information in the moment that the eyes of the world are watching.

Being prepared to seize the day requires more than tech, though: activists and citizens are most effective in political groups, using good organizing approaches. International development organizations, funders, academics, tech companies and others can help, but must consider the entire terrain - political, human, social and technical - in their efforts because liberation technology can land people in jail - or worse. Savvy authoritarians have inherent advantages in this "cat-and-mouse" game. 

This talk addresses the role of technology in fragile democracies and closed societies from NDI's perspective as implementers of democracy strengthening programs.

Chris Spence is Chief Technology Officer at the National Democratic Institute. In this capacity he manages NDI's work in employing the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to promote and strengthen democracy around the world through NDI programs, and has done so since 1996.  Mr. Spence was the first staff person to specialize in ICTs for democratic development at NDI, and during his tenure with NDI has overseen ICT programs in dozens of countries around the world in all of NDI's program areas and positioned the Institute as a leader in the use of ICTs in democratic development. Areas of specialization include ICT and e-governance projects, including working with legislatures, local government, election monitoring, political parties and civil society organizations in developing countries and emerging democracies.

Mr. Spence brings to NDI a combination of information technology and international relations expertise. He started his technology career in 1986 in Silicon Valley with positions in several companies including Oracle Corporation, Netscape Communications and Triad Systems.