Voting Machines ProCon.org HOME | CLOSE


1. Name: Joseph Lorenzo Hall  
2. Title: PhD Student, University of California, Berkeley

3. Voting Machines
Position:		 Neither Pro nor Con to the question "Do electronic voting machines improve the voting process?"
4. Reasoning:

"It definitely improves the process remarkably for minority language voters, people with disabilities, election officials and voters consistently like using the machines. However, we have been too quick to embrace these aspects of the machines without also addressing their shortcomings and the lack of transparency that comes with them." (Mr. Hall in a July 5, 2006 email to ProCon.org)

"The move to electronic voting has placed limits and barriers on the ability of election officials and the public to oversee election technology and ultimately elections. As computers replace paper and pen, the functionality of voting systems has moved from plain view to closed quarters. The previously transparent and familiar process of voting on pen and paper has been enclosed by technology that creates barriers to public and official knowledge and evaluation of the voting process." (Testimony before the California State Senate Committee on Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments, 2/8/2006)

5. Credibility
Ranking:		  Experts
Election officials, people with post-graduate degrees in a computer science, J.D.s, Members of Congress, or elected officials with significant involvement in, or related to, electronic voting machine issues

6. Involvement:
  • Advisory Board Member, Verified Voting Foundation
  • 2005-current - Election Law and Policy Researcher, ACCURATE
  • Testified before the California State Senate Committee on Elections, Reapportionment, and the Constitution on open source software in electronic voting systems
  • Consultant to Electronic Frontier Foundation to develop information sheets on electronic voting machines
  • Member, National Committee for Voting Integrity
7. Education:
  • Master of Information Management and Systems (MIMS), University of California, Berkeley, 2005
  • M.A., Astrophysics, University of California, Berkeley, 2003
  • B.A., Physics and Astronomy, Northern Arizona University, 2000
8. Relevant Affiliations/Honors:
  • 2001-2004 - Berkeley Edge Academic Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley
  • 2000 - Outstanding Student of Physics and Astronomy, Northern Arizona University
9. Contact Info:
Phone: Not listed Fax: (510) 642-5814
E-Mail: joehall@berkeley.edu
Web Site: http://josephhall.org
10. Other: Select publications include:
  • "Transparency and Access to Source Code in e-Voting," accepted paper for USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop, 2006
  • "Privacy Issues in an Electronic Voting Machine," A.M. Keller, D. Mertz, J.L. Hall, and A. Urken, chapter in Privacy and Technologies of Identity: A Cross-Disciplinary Conversation, Strandburg and Raicu, eds., 2006
  • "A PC-Based Open-Source Voting Machine with an Accessible Voter-Verifiable Paper Ballot," presented at the professional conference USENIX '05, April 2005
  • "Towards a Privacy Measurement Criterion for Voting Systems," posted paper at the National Conference of Digital Government Research, 2005
  • "Preliminary Analysis of e-Voting Problems Highlights Need for Heightened Standards and Testing," D. Mulligan and J.L. Hall, paper submitted to National Research Council Committee on Electronic Voting, 2004
TOP CLOSE