San Francisco Considers Pioneering Open Source Voting Machine Software

San Francisco wants voting to be open source. That's the goal of a new initiative by the city government aimed at studying the development of a balloting system based on open source software, which would be the first of its kind in the United States.

On Friday, a government committee in San Francisco adopted a report titled, "Study on Open Source Voting Systems." The document offers recommendations on how San Francisco could implement a home-grown voting system based on open source software. It was prepared by Jason Fried, executive officer with the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo).

The report estimates that building a voting system based on open source software would cost the local government between $4 million and $18 million. That's compared to the $20 million that San Francisco's current voting solution will have cost the city by the end of 2016.

But the proposal for an open source-based voting solution isn't just about saving money. It's also a response to concerns that the accuracy and honesty of voting machines that run closed-source software are more difficult to verify. "The source code, which determines how the voting system machines are run, is unknown to the public," the report said in describing existing voting solutions. "There is no way to confirm that the system is free of serious security vulnerabilities."

In contrast, the report contends, open source voting would make it possible for anyone to inspect the code to verify that the machines register votes fairly and do not have obvious security vulnerabilities.

The other big benefit of a homegrown, open source voting system is that it would finally bring voting technology into the 21st century. Rather than replacing proprietary code on the traditional, boring voting machines Americans have known for decades, San Francisco's solution would allow voting on tablets, backed up by printed ballot receipts.

There is no indication regarding how long it might take to develop an open source voting system in San Francisco if the city decides to follow the path. And it's sure to be a long time before such solutions reach other, less technically minded regions of the country. But the day could well come when the code that enables voting in America is as free, open and transparent as republican democracy itself is supposed to be.

Editors’ Note: A previous version of this article misidentified the preparer of the "Study on Open Source Voting Systems" as Jason Fried, the co-founder and president of 37signals. The author is actually Jason Fried, executive officer with LAFCo. The text has been updated to reflect the change.