West Virginia's disabled residents and overseas military personnel will be able to vote by smartphone in the US presidential election this year, the latest development in a push to make balloting more accessible despite persistent security fears.
Rising interest in electronic voting has heightened concerns among security experts who fear these systems are vulnerable to hacking and manipulation that could undermine confidence in election results.
Overseas service members from West Virginia first voted by smartphone in 2018 with the blockchain-powered mobile application Voatz, which is now being tested in some elections in Colorado, Utah, Oregon and Washington state.
West Virginia recently expanded the program to people with physical disabilities.
A report released Thursday by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers uncovered Voatz "vulnerabilities" which could allow votes to be altered and potentially allow an attacker to recover a user's secret ballot.
Voatz called the study "flawed" and said its app has been updated 27 times from the version used by researchers.
MIT researchers Michael Specter, James Koppel and Daniel Weitzner on Friday stood by their findings, saying they used recent versions of the app.
The researchers said that amid the uncertainty, election officials should "abandon the app for immediate use."
Backers of mobile voting argue it is more efficient, and can improve accessibility for deployed troops, ..
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