Computer Science

Computer Science’s Wallach selected for election task force

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

Rice University’s Dan Wallach has been selected to serve on a task force examining issues that arose in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced earlier this month.

Wallach, assistant professor of computer science and in electrical and computer engineering, was named to the DNC’s Ohio Election Task Force, a group charged with taking an in-depth look at the voter registration problems, long lines at the polls, the issuance and counting of provisional ballots and voting equipment irregularities that voters faced during the 2004 presidential election in Ohio.

The group comprises 10 nonpartisan experts, including attorneys, political scientists and statisticians. Wallach, an expert in computer security, co-authored a groundbreaking study in 2003 that revealed significant flaws in the software at the heart of what is believed to be one of the country’s most popular electronic voting systems. He has testified about voting security issues before government bodies in the United States, Mexico and the European Union.

“My role [on the task force] is, if and when the statisticians discover anything unusual, to look deeper into identifying the possible sources of the problem,” Wallach said. He also will contribute to the final report in which the group will make recommendations for the future.

“This research will hopefully lead to improvements in election procedures and technologies, not only in Ohio, but throughout the U.S.,” he said.