How bad could it get? America’s ugly election

Paper travails

Covid-19 has accelerated the adoption of online government services for

everything from welfare to weddings

International

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50

International

The Economist

September 5th 2020

2

Where services did exist online, their

inadequacies became apparent. Digital un-

employment-insurance systems collapsed

under a wave of new claimants. At the end

of March the website of the 

inps

, the Italian

social-security office, received 300,000 ap-

plications for welfare in a single day. It

crashed. Some of those who could access it

were shown other people’s data. The au-

thorities blamed not just the volume of ap-

plicants but also hackers trying to put in

fraudulent claims. Criminals were a pro-

blem in America, too. In the worst-affected

state, Washington, $550m-650m, or one

dollar in every eight, was paid out to fraud-

sters who took advantage of an outdated

system of identity verification (about

$300m was recovered).