By Luther Weeks on May 19, 2013
Last week a group of computer security experts issued a warning about a proposed expansion of government spying know as CALEA II (Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Assistance) being considered for “wire” tap expansion.
The report if anything understates the risks. Further, if you believe that, in general, government can be incompetent, that makes this plan even less effective and more risky.
Posted in Electronic Vulnerability, National
By Luther Weeks on May 14, 2013
In La, apparently there is evidence and no disagreement that fraud occurred. The issue is which campaign did it. Maybe it is both? Absentee voting is a convenience, not just for voters, it really helps fraudsters as well.
Cash strapped New Haven would be a bad place to test early voting in 2013. It is the first competitive election in New Haven in 20 years. Turnout is all but guaranteed to increase – early voting or not – we can predict that early voting would get the credit.
Posted in Legislature2013, Mail/Absentee Voting, National
By Luther Weeks on May 10, 2013
As the Connecticut General Assembly contemplates online voting, we should contemplate r the implications of the recent Liberal Party online vote. In this case it was a landslide. What if it was very very close? Or there were polls saying the other candidate should have won by a comfortable or small margin?
Bonus: 2,904 reasons in New York City alone, that Internet banking and Internet voting can be costly.
Posted in Internet Voting, National
By Luther Weeks on May 5, 2013
Today we have two reports highlighting the worst of the risks. i.e. mass mail voting, sending ballots unsolicited to voters and tracking ballots to voters, completely eliminating the secret vote. One good thing about tracking, apparently it shows dramatically the problems with error and fraud, as well as the lack of official concern with integrity.
Posted in Mail/Absentee Voting, National
By Luther Weeks on April 30, 2013
at the end of their careers or in retirement, justices tend to figure out where they screwed up. … Now we see that in retirement, O’Connor is still pining about Bush v. Gore.
Posted in National
By Luther Weeks on April 25, 2013
We are getting the annual emails requesting that voters encourage the Connecticut General Assembly to join only eight other states and the District of Columbia that have signed on to the National Popular Vote Agreement/Compact since 2007. There are many reasons to the like the concept of one person one vote, however, there are strong reasons to require that the current system be corrected first, in order that we actually have a fair, credible, and accurate process. Without a trusted, equal, auditable, recountable uniform national election system for President, it is not worth the risks. The devil is truly in the details.
Posted in Legislature2013, National Popular Vote
By Luther Weeks on April 19, 2013
This is about as ironic as it gets. First the United States has no mechanism for a full recount or audit of its national elections. Second, the call officially comes from John Kerry who overruled his friends, advisers, and supporters to throw in the towel early on the day after the Nov 2004 election, in spite of massive charges of fraud in Ohio – allegations, since largely justified.
Posted in National, Post-Election Audits
By Luther Weeks on April 13, 2013
As promised, comments on earlier bills passed through the Government Administration and Elections Committee.
Posted in Internet Voting, Legislature2013, Mail/Absentee Voting, National Popular Vote, Post-Election Audits
By Luther Weeks on April 8, 2013
The Government Administration and Elections Committee met for the last time before its deadline to consider and approve 39 bills. After an hour long Democratic caucus they discussed the bills for about three hours. In honor of the late Roger Ebert we provide graphic summaries of our comments.
Posted in Internet Voting, Legislature2013
By Luther Weeks on April 4, 2013
This was a simple online poll that was easily compromised. Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved. Before we entrust critical public functions such as voting to such software, the public deserves a solid demonstration that such claims are truly substantiated, and policy makers need to be schooled in a proper skepticism about computer security. That has not yet happened.
Posted in Internet Voting, National, Other Editorials
