Georgetown Law
Technology Review

Political identification in the digital age has shifted online: increasingly, people define their political identity in how they come together around issues and news events on the social web. We adopt online political identities in three major ways: through shared consumption of information on social media platforms; through participation in political movements through hashtags and […]

Every decade, the U.S. Census Bureau undertakes its constitutional mandate to count every person once, only once, and in the right place. The 2020 Census is the nation’s first “digital” decennial census; for the first time in its history, the Bureau has invited the majority of the public to participate using an online self-response portal. […]

Picture Election Day. It is probably a Tuesday (though not necessarily). Check-in tables in the high-school gymnasium sort voters by precinct, while plastic privacy screens fill the engine house of a nearby fire station. Some voters return ballots to drop boxes, while others mailed theirs back days ago. Voting remains a manual process in an […]

In the weeks preceding the 2016 United States presidential election several images began making the rounds on Twitter. The graphics sought to “remind” Democrats that they could vote via text message. According to The Wall Street Journal, they were built to resemble genuine “get-out-the-vote material produced by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.” Many included the “Paid for […]

From Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Era, voter intimidation typically took the form of flagrant, violent targeting of blacks and their political supporters. However, in recent decades, those attempting to suppress the vote have embraced more subtle, cynical, and creative methods. Increasingly, voters are being subjected to false information about voter requirements, aggressive questioning about […]

A consequence of our federalist system and tradition is that even though U.S. elections are organized around a national hierarchy, they are executed in a highly decentralized manner, with each state responsible for setting its own standards and procedures for registering voters, casting ballots, and counting votes. The federal government sets broad standards for such […]

There is no perfect, infallible way to count votes. All methods— including optical scan, touchscreen, and hand counting—are subject to errors, procedural lapses, and deliberate manipulation. Almost all U.S. jurisdictions count their votes using computer-based technology, such as touchscreens and optical-scan machines. Computer-based methods are subject to “hacking,” that is, the replacement of legitimate vote-counting […]

Internet voting is the return of voted ballots over the Internet, using a computer, a tablet, or a smart phone. The voted ballot may be transmitted via a web portal, as a PDF or other attachment, or as a fax. IF I CAN BANK ONLINE, WHY CAN’T I VOTE ONLINE? That is a question we […]

More than thirty election-security bills have been introduced in Congress, but most have been stalled in the Senate and no major legislation has been enacted. The bills would require states to make greater use of paper ballots and paper trails, adopt effective audit procedures, and strengthen federal cybersecurity support for state and local election authorities. […]

Finding a silver lining associated with Cambridge Analytica can be difficult. The notion of a private organization using licit and illicit means to undermine elections around the world for profit is hard to reconcile with liberal democratic values. A brief sampling of the myriad allegations against the U.K.-based data analytics firm include: sharing detailed information […]