Saving Democracy from Technology

Joe Kiniry gave his inaugural lecture at the Technical University of Denmark on Friday, 1 February 2013. The title of his talk was Saving Democracy from Technology.

The talk was streamed live over the internet and recorded via Adobe Connect.

Saving Democracy from
        Technology Abstract:

For the past several decades governments around the world have been endangering their own democracies though the reckless use of computers in elections, or what is colloquially known as e-voting. Politicians, bureaucrats, and the general public have high expectations for e-voting. Unfortunately, voluminous evidence shows that e-voting makes elections more expensive, does not increase voter turnout, and removes public control from democracies. Consequently, virtually the entire computer science community is against the introduction of computers in elections. All hope is not lost though. Computer science does have a role in elections. We can improve the correctness and accuracy of elections---not by putting computers in voting booths, but in other, more subtle and surprising, ways.

Joe looking up at his slides while speaking

Photos from the Event

a photo of the lobby and a banner for the lecture a photo of the audience listening to the lecture
a closeup of the audience, particularly Poul-Henning
        Camp, listening to the lecture a photo of the reception
a photo of Nicoline Miller (Head of Elections for
        Denmark) and Prof. Carsten Schurmann at the reception a photo taken while Helle Rootzen, Director of DTU
        Compute, spoke at the reception