National Academy of Sciences study: Blockchain may make voting more vulnerable

While the General Assembly contemplates how Blockchain might solve some undefined problem in our voter registration system, we point to a National Academy of Sciences study Securing the Vote, Protecting American Democracy:

The blockchain abstraction, once implemented, provides added points of attack for malicious actors…Furthermore, blockchain protocols generally yield results that are a consensus of the miners/stakeholders. This consensus may not represent the consensus of the voting public. Miners/stakeholders with sufficient power might also cause confusion and uncertainty about the state of a blockchain by raising doubts about whether a consensus has been reached.

[read post] | By on March 29, 2019 - Blockchain, Legislature 2019

Five pieces of testimony on six mostly ridiculous bills

Yesterday the GAE Committee is hearing testimony on another raft if bills. I spoke on four pieces of testimony on five bills. What brings them together is that they are all but ridiculous and unworkable given existing tried and true election law.

I was not going to testify orally on H.B.7392 as I thought it was so outrageous that everyone would testify against it. Apparently not. Many believe it was just like last year’s bills. It is much worse. In his testimony, Michael Brandi from the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) saw the same problems I saw – it precludes anyone but the Secretary of the State, Registrars and political operatives from seeing voter registration records, not even the SEEC or polling place officials, let alone voter integrity groups. Not surprisingly the media is getting it wrong too (E.g.), since most of the testimony has yet to be posted by the Committee.

[read post] | By on March 26, 2019 - Legislature 2019, Mail/Absentee Voting

Three pieces of testimony on six bills

On Wednesday the GAE Committee held testimony on another raft if bills. I was out of town but submitted testimony on several bills.

The bills, and links to my testimony, in priority order: (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than date)

H.R.161 and S.J.27 A good and a not-so-good bill on Early Voting

S.B.1046, S.B.1049, and H.B.6059 One good and a couple of not-so-good Election Day Registration bills. In addition to those previously heard.

S.B.1050 A slightly improved Rank Choice Voting Task Force bill.

[read post] | By on March 16, 2019 - Legislature 2019, Mail/Absentee Voting

Four pieces of testimony on five bills, including Blockchain and RCV

On Wednesday the GAE Committee held testimony on another raft if bills.

The bills, and links to my testimony, in priority order: (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than date)

H.B.5417 A proposed study to use blockchain to solve some undefined problem in voter registration. I opposed, perhaps the only one in the room who is a computer scientist. In summary, if someone wants to sell you or asks you to invest in blockchain – Run. Run fast and keep your eye on your wallet and passwords! …

[read post] | By on March 1, 2019 - Blockchain, CT Law, Instant Runoff Voting, Internet Security Issues, Legislature 2019

We Must Do Better: Connecticut’s 2018 Post Election Audit

Citizens Audit Report:
We Must Do Better:
Independent Observation and Analysis of Connecticut’s 2018 Post Election Audit

From the Press Release:

Post-election vote audits of the November 2018 elections failed to meet basic audit standards. Audit should provide voters with justified confidence in elections. Instead, these audits reduce our confidence in election officials, concludes the non-partisan Connecticut Citizen Election Audit. Five percent of the State’s election districts were randomly chosen to be audited, as required by state law.

Among the Citizen Audit’s concerns:

  • The audits were not conducted and reported as required by law. The Secretary of the State’s Office continues to fail to take responsibility for that failure by local officials.
  • 39% of official audit reports submitted by town registrars were incomplete.
  • Human error was still considered an acceptable explanation of differences between machine and manual counts. This defeats the purpose of the audits.
  • Weaknesses in ballot chain-of-custody and security procedures.
  • Continued use of flawed electronic audit procedures that are not publicly verifiable.

The Citizen Audit was pleased with the following developments:

  • Fewer instances of write-in ballots not properly stored in separate envelopes.
  • Fewer instances of write-in ballots read into scanners multiple times on election night.
  • Electronic Audit equipment had few if any problems reading creased, folded, or mutilated ballots.

“We are frustrated with so little improvement after 20 statewide audits over 11 years,” Luther Weeks, Executive Director of the Citizen Audit said. “Citizens deserve better. If the Secretary of the State’s     Office acts to fix these problems and pursues publicly verifiable electronic audits, progress can be achieved in the near term.”

<Press Release .pdf> <Full Report pdf> <Detail data/municipal reports>

[read post] | By on February 22, 2019 - CT, Post-Election Audits

Five pieces of testimony on six bills

On Friday the GAE Committee held testimony on a raft if bills. This is just the first hearing, and first wave this year.

There is a risky trend in the last couple of years that bills are sketchy drafts at hearing stage. So there is no detailed text to comment on and correct details and improve. This means that advocates on all sides have little chance to help the General Assembly avoid errors. So, I find myself testifying more about potential improvements at a high level, while trying to anticipate important details to advise on. And I find others providing short general testimony in favor or against rather than detailed suggestions or critiques.

The bills, and links to my testimony:

[read post] | By on February 16, 2019 - Legislature 2019

Three Experts on Blockchains

Do you need a public blockchain? The answer is almost certainly no. A blockchain probably doesn’t solve the security problems you think it solves. The security problems it solves are probably not the ones you have. …A false trust in blockchain can itself be a security risk. The inefficiencies, especially in scaling, are probably not worth it. I have looked at many blockchain applications, and all of them could achieve the same security properties without using a blockchain—of course, then they wouldn’t have the cool name.

[read post] | By on February 9, 2019 - Blockchain, Legislature 2019, National

Deadlocked Committee on Contested Elections passes ball to whole House

Yesterday, the Connecticut House Committee on Contested Elections concluded its work on the contested election in Stratford. They provided two options to the House: Leave the certified winner in office or hold a re-vote. You can read more at CTMirror: House committee deadlocks on disputed Stratford election  The CTMirror article includes the final report.

The crux of the issue is that after a recanvass the certified winner was ahead by 13 votes. 75 voters were given the wrong ballot, without that race. The votes counted in the pooling place district favored the loser, in fact if the 75 had voted as the rest of the district, on average the loser would have picked up 12.55 votes, thus on average, all but even odds for each candidate. The crux of the disagreement is around the issue of if that evidence brought the uncertainty of the election in question enough to justify a re-vote.

[read post] | By on February 5, 2019 - CT Law, Legislature 2019

VotING fraud via Absentee, this time in Stamford

When Connecticut passed public financing of elections a major part of the justification was a history of campaign finance scandals. Avoiding expanded mail-in voting can be justified by the similar pattern of AB abuse. We do favor a form of early voting for Connecticut we call in-person absentee voting – in-person at the municipal clerk’s office, where officials can be expected to easily detect a single person attempting to vote 14 times under different names!

[read post] | By on February 1, 2019 - Legislature 2019, Mail/Absentee Voting, Our Editorials

Rhode Island Risk Limiting Audit in Time Magazine

Not exactly person of the year or prisoner of the month, I did have my picture in Time Magazine! The occasion was the Rhode Island Risk Limiting Audit (RLA) where I participated last week.

Rhode Island wants to make sure their elections are protected from all sorts of problems, after a programming error in 2017 almost caused an incorrect result to be certified. The article contains some very good summaries of what what we and the Rhode Island Board of Elections were up to.

“Democracy and elections are only as good as whether people trust them or not,” [Secretary of State Nellie] Gorbea said. “Confidence in our democracy is critical to every other public policy issue.”…

 

[read post] | By on January 26, 2019 - Electronic Vulnerability, National, Post-Election Audits