Main content

Why do we vote with paper in the age of the smart phone?

Most voting in elections worldwide is done with paper ballots, and for good reason. Digital Planet explores how online or machine voting is open to hacking.

Despite a pandemic, nearly everyone voting in the upcoming US election will do so with a tick in a box on a piece of paper. They may post their ballot, or go in person to a voting station, but the process is still physical. Why? Presenter Gareth Mitchell will be asking election voting advisor Susan Greenhalgh.
Despite the prevalence of paper, there are some voting machines in the USA, Beatrice Atobatele tells us why she bought one online and how hacking into it could help to make the coming US election more secure.
Also on the programme, data is central to nearly everything in computing today. It presents issues, but imagine if you could train your machines on clean, orderly, high quality data? Well a new technique to generate clean data artificially has been released, open source, by MIT. We explore what this could mean with Nicolai Baldin, the CEO of the London company ‘Synthesized’.

(Image: Getty Images)

Presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert comment from Bill Thompson
Produced by Rory Galloway

Studio Manager: Giles Aspen

Available now

41 minutes

Last on

Sat 31 Oct 2020 17:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 27 Oct 2020 20:32GMT
  • Tue 27 Oct 2020 21:32GMT
  • Wed 28 Oct 2020 04:32GMT
  • Wed 28 Oct 2020 09:32GMT
  • Wed 28 Oct 2020 11:32GMT
  • Wed 28 Oct 2020 13:32GMT
  • Wed 28 Oct 2020 18:32GMT
  • Sat 31 Oct 2020 08:32GMT
  • Sat 31 Oct 2020 17:32GMT

Podcast