The touchscreen design of Electo Electro 2020 is a parody of the touchscreen system employed by the Diebold Accuvote TS, a defunct voting system that was difficult to audit and susceptible to hacking. The parody continues into the format of the installation itself, which resembles a polling station. An installation can have as few as two stations or as many as ten. The format is an open one that allows anyone visiting the installation to interact with the stations. The project aspires to encourage those who interact with it to examine media and become individuals who can control media, rather than be controlled by it. 

 

In 2003, a group of researchers discovered a long list of vulnerabilities in the Accuvote TS, including several hardware and software entry points resulting in opportunities to steal votes, lose votes, or render the machine itself unusable. The Diebold Accuvote TS system embodied a breakdown of the democratic process. It had no built-in auditing via paper. The computer used code that was owned by its parent company and can’t be checked or audited. State-level voter databases associated with this voting system have seen serious security breaches. Its manufacturer has been embroiled in scandals including questionable affiliations between political officials and corporate executives. Government officials at the state level who supported the Diebold system’s use have been involved in various lawsuits. Despite all these issues, this system was used as recently as 2018 in Georgia during its gubernatorial election. 

 

Voting machines such as the Accuvote TS are DREs – Direct Recording Electronic systems. The flaws found in the Accuvote TS are not unique to that particular system. Many DRE systems are equally susceptible to similar security threats. 

​

To read a paper about the project's development, click HERE.