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EVT07 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop

By Luther Weeks on August 7, 2007

Yesterday was the USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop held in Boston. Today I will give some overall impressions and highlight just one of the relevant papers. UPDATE: Avi Rubin blogs on session with Debra Bowen (inappropriate certification processes for electonic voting) For me it was a highly educational and engaging day. My experience at conferences […]

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Brennan Audit Report and Connecticut – a Discussion

By Luther Weeks on August 5, 2007

On August 1st, The Brennan Center for Justice released: Post-Election Audits: Restoring Trust in Elections. The entire report is quite readable without requiring knowledge of statistics, voting laws, or computers. I recommend it as a compurehensive introduction to the issues of auditing elections. This post will discuss the report’s relation to and implications for Connecticut’s […]

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CA Secretary of the State Decertifies E-Voting Machines

By Luther Weeks on August 4, 2007

In a late night, 11:45pm, press conference Debra Bowen decertifies e-voting machines. Will allow one DRE per polling place, which must have paper ballot hand counted. BradBlog reports on the press conference. The CA Official site. Secretary of State Debra Bowen began her top-to-bottom review of the voting machines certified for use in California in […]

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CA Software Reports Released – Diebold subtracts from democracy

By Luther Weeks on August 3, 2007

Update: Talk of the Nation Interview – Red Team Leader    ” [relying on procedures] indicates a very high belief in human infalibility.” Executive Summary: Vulnerability to malicious software The Diebold software contains vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to install malicious software on voting machines or on the election management system. Malicious software could cause […]

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Likely that state’s largest election will go unaudited

By Luther Weeks on August 2, 2007

The Norwich Bulletin reports concern in Plainfield because the ballot for a charter revision may reach three pages. No mention in the article that the state’s new audit law does not provide for random audits of ballot questions. Apparently huge concern in Norwich over cost of ballots, yet they have likely spent thousands on developing […]

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An hour with the Secretary of the State

By Luther Weeks on August 1, 2007

Susan Bysiewicz live blogged tonight on MyLeftNutmeg. MLMBlog I asked two questions and got two answers, both of which were disappointing in different ways. But 1st let me say that I endevored to ask reasonable questions and make reasonable comments. There were two bloggers there that asked very confrontational, long, and sometimes insulting questions. I […]

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Is Diebold ineligible in NY?

By Luther Weeks on August 1, 2007

Memo to Governor Spitzer: New York State Law Prohibits State from Entering into Contract with Any of the Vendors under Consideration New York State is enjoined from doing business with vendors who lack business integrity or whose past performance is wanting…none of the voting machine vendors New York is presently considering doing business with are […]

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Hot Summer for Research Reports

By Luther Weeks on August 1, 2007

Recent weeks and months have seen increasing activity in voting machine security and statistical analysis for auditing elections. Expect more news in the near term: A report is anticipated from the Brennan Center for Justice and several papers at the USENIX Accurate Electronic Voting Technology Workshop in Boston on August 6th.

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CA, Post-Election Audit Standards Working Group, Report

By Luther Weeks on July 31, 2007

Post-Election Audit Standards Working Group, Report, Evaluation of Audit Sampling Models and Options for Strengthening California’s Manual Count This report moves the technical and political conversation to a whole new level. “ The literature does not frame the statistical problem in the best way: Most of the papers address essentially this question: ‘If the machine […]

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University of California Red Team Reports to the Secretary of State

By Luther Weeks on July 31, 2007

This confirms earlier reports on Diebold Optical Scan equipment, including the University of Connecticut report. The vulnerabilities identified in this report should be regarded as a minimal set of vulnerabilities. We have pursued the attack vectors that seemed most likely to be successful. Other attack vectors not described here may also be successful and worth […]

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