Legal Issues Facing Election Officials in an Electronic-Voting World

30 Pages Posted: 22 Jan 2014

See all articles by Aaron J. Burstein

Aaron J. Burstein

University of California, Berkeley - School of Information; University of California, Berkeley - School of Law

Stephen Dang

Berkeley Center for Law & Technology; Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

Galen Hancock

University of California, Berkeley

Jack I. Lerner

University of California, Irvine School of Law

Date Written: March 15, 2007

Abstract

Recent publicity concerning the reliability and security of various electronic voting systems has increased public scrutiny of the machines themselves as well as the election process as a whole. The election officials who are responsible for electing, maintaining, and operating electronic voting systems face not only public inquiry but also a thicket of state and federal legal issues.

We provide in this paper a general analysis of typical legal issues that elections officials face (or should consider). This paper analyzes legal issues that surround three broad categories of activities that elections officials undertake, or might wish to undertake: Security testing, public disclosure and auditing, and assembling systems from separate components. Finally, we discuss how state election codes and contract law, as well as copyright and trade secret law, might affect elections officials who wish to combine components from different manufacturers into a single electronic voting system.

Keywords: elections, voting, electronic voting

JEL Classification: K39

Suggested Citation

Burstein, Aaron J. and Dang, Stephen and Hancock, Galen and Lerner, Jack I., Legal Issues Facing Election Officials in an Electronic-Voting World (March 15, 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2382435 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2382435

Aaron J. Burstein

University of California, Berkeley - School of Information ( email )

310 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law ( email )

215 Law Building
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

Stephen Dang

Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

2850 Telegraph Avenue
Suite 500
Berkeley, CA 94704
United States

Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

2850 Telegraph Avenue
Suite 500
Berkeley, CA 94704
United States

Galen Hancock

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

310 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

Jack I. Lerner (Contact Author)

University of California, Irvine School of Law ( email )

401 E. Peltason Dr.
Ste. 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-1000
United States
949-824-7684 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/lerner/

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