Luther Weeks | CTVotersCount.org

Georgia on my mind. Paper not on Georgia’s radar.

Georgia and Cobb election officials are rejecting calls from advocacy groups for voters to use paper ballots while the FBI investigates a data breach at Kennesaw State University.

Voters will continue to use electronic voting machines during upcoming elections, said Candice Broce, spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. The use of paper ballots is reserved as a backup system in case there is a problem with the voting machines, she said…

Earlier this month, KSU announced a federal investigation at the Center for Elections Systems located on the Kennesaw campus to determine if there was a data breach that might have affected the center’s records, according to Tammy DeMel, spokesperson for the university.

When will they ever learn? We firmly believe that the days of paperless elections are coming to an end. It may take a few more years, yet we believe it is unlikely that any jurisdiction in the U.S. well make a major purchases of paperless voting equipment in the future. The useful life of most paperless equipment will end within the next decade or so.

Recall that the potential hacking of Georgia’s touch-screens was a very early example that started concerns with electronic voting. The dangers and suspicions were highlighted in Chapter 11 of the book, Black Box Voting, by Bev Harris. Especially, Chapter 11, Noun and Verb? rob-georgia.zip

Now Georgia is back in the news. Election officials reject advocacy groups’ call for paper ballots <read> <or here>

Georgia and Cobb election officials are rejecting calls from advocacy groups for voters to use paper ballots while the FBI investigates a data breach at Kennesaw State University.

Voters will continue to use electronic voting machines during upcoming elections, said Candice Broce, spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. The use of paper ballots is reserved as a backup system in case there is a problem with the voting machines, she said.

Cobb voters will also use the voting machines in next week’s special elections for the 1 percent special purpose local option sales tax for education and the vacant Marietta school board Ward 6 seat, said Janine Eveler, director of Cobb elections.

Earlier this month, KSU announced a federal investigation at the Center for Elections Systems located on the Kennesaw campus to determine if there was a data breach that might have affected the center’s records, according to Tammy DeMel, spokesperson for the university.

Tuesday, the watchdog group Common Cause called on Georgia election officials to use paper ballots to ensure the integrity of next month’s congressional special election on April 18. That election is to fill Georgia’s Sixth District congressional seat left vacant after Tom Price was confirmed as the Health and Human Services secretary.

Testimony on Early Voting and Registrar’s Bills

Yesterday, we submitted testimony on a number of early voting bills and a bill likely submitted by the Registrars of Voters Association.

The primary reason to avoid expanded mail-in or no-excuse absentee voting is the opportunity for and documented record of absentee voting fraud. There are other reasons:

Contrary to a touted benefit – early voting DECREASES turnout…

And a bill likely submitted by the Registrars of Voters Association.

As an election official, I am sympathetic to the wish of Registrars to make their jobs simpler. Yet, my sympathy ends when it results in barriers to participation in democracy for candidates and citizens.

Yesterday, we submitted testimony on a number of early voting bills and a bill likely submitted by the Registrars of Voters Association.

Our testimony of a variety of early voting bills <read>

We oppose expanded mail-in voting in any form, including no-excuse absentee voting. As I testified several times in the past, we have no objection to a Constitutional Amendment authorizing the General Assembly to legislate early voting, provided, that voters are clearly informed of the amendment’s intent for the form(s) of early voting to be authorized.

The primary reason to avoid expanded mail-in or no-excuse absentee voting is the opportunity for and documented record of absentee voting fraud. There are other reasons:

Contrary to a touted benefit – early voting DECREASES turnout – An academic report concluded that early voting, including mail-in voting, decreases turnout by 3%. An earlier report showed a reduction of 2.6% to 2.9%.

It disenfranchises voters, not providing the opportunity to revote when they mistakenly overvote.

It disenfranchises voters, when applications or ballots are lost or delayed in the mail.

…We could support a version of in-person early voting as suggested by S.J.27.

However, any such approach should have sufficient provisions to provide:

Assurance that voters can receive impartial voting instructions and the opportunity for spoiling ballots and trying again.

Sufficient provisions for security of ballots, check-in lists, and voting machines in periods when voting does not occur.

Absentee ballots should be included in all post-election audits. This becomes more and more important as the number of absentee votes increases.

Our testimony on the Registrars bill <read>

The Citizen Audit supports one provision:

Lines 86-90 requiring the permanent posting of declaratory rulings, opinions, and regulations by the Secretary of the State on the web.

The Citizen Audit opposes one provisions as currently written:

Lines 131-132 require that random audit drawings be held within 72 hours of the election. We agree that a deadline should be set for the random drawing which has often occurred very late in the process, causing problems for election officials and the public. However, vote counting does not complete until 48 hours after the election. The drawing should be held sometime after all results are reported to the Secretary of the State and available for public review on the Secretary’s election reporting system. Also, the random drawing should have a required advanced notification. See our testimony on S.B. 540. We suggest the following substitute language:

“and take place not later than the 8^th day after any election or primary and be noticed to the public by press release at least three business days in advance.”

The Citizen Audit completely opposes one provision:

Lines 149-156 would remove the requirement that the Secretary of the State consult with the University of Connecticut for the approval of electronic pollbooks. Was this proposed be because Prof. Shvartsman of UConn has tested several available electronic pollbooks and found them all lacking? (Ref: Video of NH Forum on Electronic Pollbooks, on May 10, 2016 at 30min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtYJkVNIGMA or as covered by the Manchester Union Leader: https://ctvoterscount.org/CTVCdata/16/05/UnionLeader20160511.pdf)

I personally oppose one other provision:

Sections 8 and 9 preclude voters who register after petitions become available from being counted for the petition. This would reduce ballot access for petitioning primary candidates. It would reduce participation and preclude a standard practice that results in more eligible voters registering.

It is normal and vital to success for petitioning candidates and their supporters to approach citizens that are unaffiliated and ask them to sign the petition by simultaneously reregistering in the candidate’s party – this change would preclude that. They also approach eligible citizens to encourage them to sign the petition and simultaneously register for the first time – this change would preclude that.

As an election official, I am sympathetic to the wish of Registrars to make their jobs simpler. Yet, my sympathy ends when it results in barriers to participation in democracy for candidates and citizens.

We respond to Secretary Merrill’s testimony opposing audit transparency bill

Last Monday we testified for S.B. 540, a bill that would increase audit transparency and public verifiability.

Later we noticed that Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, submitted testimony opposing one provision of the bill and therefor recommending against the entire bill. Her testimony misinterpreted our bill, recommending against it based on something we did not ask for and was not part of the bill.

In response we wrote a follow-up letter to the GAE Committee.

Last Monday we testified for S.B. 540, a bill that would increase audit transparency and public verifiability. The bill would:

Set common sense minimal standards for ballot security.
Set common sense prior public notice requirements for all aspects of the audits which should be transparent and publicly verifiable.
Based on sound science, make the recently implemented machine audits, manually verifiable, transparent, and publicly verifiable.

Our testimony <read>

Later we noticed that Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, submitted testimony opposing one provision of the bill and therefor recommending against the entire bill. Her testimony <read>

Her testimony misinterpreted our bill, recommending against it based on something we did not ask for and was not part of the bill:

My main objection is that it potentially jeopardizes the sanctity of ballot secrecy. Some people do initial or sign a ballot if a mistake is made. In smaller towns, deducing identity from these details is actually possible.

Creating images of ballots that anyone can take home and study could result in people’s ballots being posted online, something that we are already contending with vis-à-vis the voter file.

She went on to suggest a solution similar to the one actually proposed in the bill.

If there is public uncertainty about our new audit equipment or there is a desire to “audit the audit equipment”there areless intrusive ways to ensure accurate results such as a random sampling of ballots that can be compared to computerized result s while at the audit session. These types of simple solutions could be implemented at no cost and with much less intrusion to the sanctity of our voted ballots.

In response we wrote a follow-up letter to the GAE Committee. Our letter <read>

The Secretary’s testimony incorrectly stated that the S.B. 540 requires the posting of ballot images online. In fact, S.B. 540 bill does not require the release of ballot images to the public and does not require the posting of ballot images online.

S.B. 540 requires the release of Cast Vote Records (CVRs) to the public present at a machine audit, with no requirement for online posting. CVRs are not ballot images. They do not include stray marks by voters. They are data records, one record for each ballot that contains the digital interpretation of the votes on the ballot i.e. numbers indicating which bubbles on the ballot were filled in. They are totaled to determine the votes for each candidate or question in the audit

In the paper included in my testimony, CVRs are described:

“In a machine-assisted audit, the retabulation system produces an interpretation of votes on each ballot (a Cast Vote Record, or CVR) that can be matched with that ballot. The CVRs are exported from the retabulation system. Observers verify that these exported CVRs produce the same electoral outcome(winners, etc.) as the voting system. Then observers compare a random sample of actual ballots against the corresponding CVRs.”

There is no law in Connecticut exempting CVRs from the Freedom of Information Act. A quick survey of election officials and advocates indicates that CVRs for entire elections or audits are regularly provided to requesters in the states of AZ, NY, CO and SC. In SC, they are published online.

In addition to correcting the her misinterpretation, we also pointed out our stand that voted ballots are, in fact, subject to Freedom Of Information requests in Connecticut.

PS: Although it is irrelevant to S.B. 540 we disagree with the Secretary’s interpretation that voted ballots or ballot images are exempt from Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act (FOI). We are not aware of an explicit exemption in Connecticut statutes. To our knowledge, FOI of ballots has never been tested before the FOI Commission or in court. We are aware of several states where allots and ballot images are subject to FOI.

Testimony on bill to improve election audits, transparency, and security

Yesterday, we testified in support of our bill to improve the post-election audits, audit transparency, and ballot security.

Common sense reforms to require all aspects of audits to be transparent and open to the public.
Common sense reforms to establish minimal standards for ballot security.
Electronically Assisted Manual Audits that are transparent and publicly verifiable, based on sound science.

Yesterday, we testified in support of our bill to improve the post-election audits, audit transparency, and ballot security.

Common sense reforms to require all aspects of audits to be transparent and open to the public.
Common sense reforms to establish minimal standards for ballot security.
Electronically Assisted Manual Audits that are transparent and publicly verifiable, based on sound science.

Here is our testimony <read>

Testimony on several bills, including the National Popular Vote Compact

Yesterday, we testified on several bills, submitting three packages of written testimony. Most of the bills were proposals for the National Popular Vote Compact. We half agree with those testifying for the Compact and half disagree. We would be in favor of a National Popular Vote with a sufficient Constitutional Amendment. We oppose the Compact. Its misfit with our presidential election laws portent chaos.

We also testified against two partisan changes to the presidential election <Proportional Electors>

We testified in favor of needed changes to the Election Day Registration law. We have long argued that the 8:00pm cutoff is a civil rights violation waiting to happen . Although it happened in New Haven in 2014, it apparently happened all over the state in 2016. Secretary Merrill received much criticism in the hearing for her past opposition and proclamations keeping the cutoff in place. <EDR and Civil Rights>

Don’t Kill the Election Assistance Commission

The new administration and state election officials have the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in their crosshairs. It is not a watchdog agency. The EAC is intended to help assist officials across the country share information and create voluntary standards for election systems. Many states look to and require Federal certification of election equipment. In a stranglehold for years, the EAC was on life support until commissioners were finally appointed a couple of years back. Efforts to update outdated standards, improve and streamline the certification process are close to fruition, yet may never be completed.

It is not just the Republicans. It is the National Association of Secretaries of State, currently headed by Connecticut’s Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill. Good Grief! the EAC is intended to help them do their jobs. Maybe they will change their stand this week, yet we doubt it.

Every odd-numbered year since 2011, Republicans in the House have tried to kill the Election
Assistance Commission—the tiny federal agency responsible for helping states improve their
voting systems. None of their previous efforts made it very far, and with Barack Obama in the
White House…

The EAC went fallow for a few years when the Senate stalled in confirming new commissioners,
a period that delayed the introduction of new voting machines in some states because the agency
could not approve new guidelines. Now housed outside Washington in a small suite of offices in
suburban Maryland, the EAC is waging a public battle for its very existence. The commission’s chairman, Thomas Hicks, issued a statement denouncing the GOP move to eliminate the EAC as being “seriously out of step with the current U.S. election landscape.” And in a subsequent phone interview, Hicks noted that among its other activities during the 2016 election, the agency had provided critical guidance to states seeking to bolster their systems against the threat of cyberattack.

In the interview, Hicks responded to Harper’s criticism of the EAC’s relevance by comparing its unheralded work to a city sanitation department that clears the streets after a snowstorm. “If you
don’t notice it,” Hicks said, “that means we’re doing our job.”

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the National Association of Secretaries of State, expressing their continued consistent position in 2015, reaffirm their resolution of 2005 and 2010 and encourage Congress not to reauthorize or fund the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Journal Inquirer Editorial and Our Response

Journal Inquirer Editorial, Monday: ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS VOTING IN CONNECTICUT?

Our letter sent yesterday:

I agree with the sentiment but not the details of your editorial…There is a better solution…The solution is routine, independent, and publicly verifiable audits of all aspects of election administration. With such audits, we would not be in this situation…

Journal Inquirer Editorial, Monday: ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS VOTING IN CONNECTICUT? <read>

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill says they aren’t, but nobody has checked officially even as there is an easy way to find out.

The state Department of Motor Vehicles has issued 28,000 “drive-only” driver’s licenses to people who are living in the state illegally. New Haven has issued thousands of city identification cards to illegal aliens living there. To protect illegal aliens, these databases are kept secret, but the secretary could subpoena them and compare them against the state’s voter rolls, which are public.

Does anyone in authority want to know? Not likely.

Our letter sent yesterday:

To the Editor,

I agree with the sentiment but not the details of your editorial, dated 2/6/2017, “Are Illegal Aliens Voting in Connecticut”. The residents of Connecticut and the Nation deserve evidence to confirm or refute President Trump’s allegations that 3 million illegal aliens voted. The method proposed to compare alien driver’s licenses and registrations in New Haven to voter lists, by the Secretary of the State is inadequate and illegal. Illegal because the Secretary of the State does not have subpoena or even investigative powers. Inadequate because it only covers two segments of aliens – two segments that are taking the risks of identifying themselves. Inadequate because a secret investigation, including one by a government agency, especially of elections, should not be trusted by the public and the press.

There is a better solution which we have recommended to Denise Merrill, Secretary of the State and President of the National Association of Secretaries of State. The solution is routine, independent, and publicly verifiable audits of all aspects of election administration. With such audits, we would not be in this situation of baseless allegations of fraud and counter claims of unquestionable integrity. The science of election auditing could be used to economically provide an answer. It is estimated, that publicly, randomly selecting just 400 voters checked off as voting and determining if they voted legally could confirm with 99.7% certainty that nothing like 3 million voted illegally. That is just 400 nationwide! Publicly, randomly, selecting several hundred in Connecticut would provide more than adequate proof or refutation that our electors were correctly chosen. Note that the real issue is comparing actual voters, not the registration lists, yet those lists could also be audited with similar effort.

Election News Roundup

Several instructive articles and events this week.

Last week, Secretary of the State and President of NASS (National Association of Secretaries of State) held a press conference discussing Donald Trump’s allegations of 3 Million “Illegals” Voting. Secretary Merrill Challenges President’s Reported Claims of Illegal Voting
Meanwhile, at least, Connecticut is no Kansas: The Kansas Model for Voter-Fraud Bluffing
Here an article I generally agree with from Forbes: What The Election Can Teach Us About Cybersecurity
Speaking of attacks on voter databases here is a story from this fall: Hackers hit Henry County voter database

Several instructive articles and events this week.

Last week, Secretary of the State and President of NASS (National Association of Secretaries of State) held a press conference discussing Donald Trump’s allegations of 3 Million “Illegals” Voting. Secretary Merrill Challenges President’s Reported Claims of Illegal Voting <press release> <video>

After the press conference, I discussed the issue with Secretary Merrill:

I agree that it is unlikely there there were more than a few illegal in-person votes in the election (I doubt as more than a few undocumented are registered. There may be some, especially felons, registered by their and official’s mistakes)
Any credible investigation should confirm that.
We would not be in this bind, if there were routine audits of all aspects of the election process, including voter lists and estimates of the number of illegal in-person voting.
We know the lists are a mess.
An audit of check-in lists could for a very low cost and effort show that there was nowhere near millions of illegal in-person votes.
Speaking of audits, Connecticut’s voting machine audits are better than average in a poor field, considering that half the states don’t do audits at all and perhaps one or two states do vote count audits that are quite good.

Meanwhile, at least, Connecticut is no Kansas: The Kansas Model for Voter-Fraud Bluffing <read>

Here an article I generally agree with from Forbes: What The Election Can Teach Us About Cybersecurity <read>

Lowering The Bar For Information Warfare: Three Methods Of Interference

In the past, regimes wishing to upend elections had to do things like engineer strikes or military uprisings. Today the game has changed: Anyone can use the internet to destabilize elections in ways that are easily deniable — and perhaps more effective.

Around the world, no two elections are conducted the same way. However, as more campaigns come under fire, we can now see common hallmarks of offensive interference.

Doxxing: Gathering sensitive, confidential data and maliciously disclosing information in a calculated fashion to inflict setbacks in political momentum and unity.

The best examples of this are the email leaks that plagued the offices of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and its allies in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in 2016…

Forget Watergate-style break-ins; today, doxxing is easy to accomplish with simple phishing e-mails introducing malicious software to email recipients…

Digital Propaganda: Inundating voters with misleading or inflammatory information masquerading as news and other trusted sources.

Today it’s easy to fabricate websites with seemingly innocuous domain names hosting digital propaganda and then use orchestrated, automated social bots and other methods to seed it across social media and other channels…

Hacking Election Machinery: The most volatile attack scenario is compromising voting machines, agencies and other polling infrastructure.

This is the hardest category to pull off, because remotely compromising a voting machine, for example, is more difficult than tricking election staffers into clicking on malicious email attachments (as stage one of a doxxing expedition). Yet, every newly-disclosed vulnerability rightfully worries election regulators. Even quick technical fixes applied after such disclosures may not reassure voters’ perceptions.

Training their sights on election machinery is a high-stakes game for nation-state attackers, because a country could consider such intrusions attacks on their critical infrastructure systems, an act meeting the threshold for military retaliation and other dire responses in the physical world. The risk and sheer complexity of these attacks is likely why productivity-minded election adversaries spend most of their time on propaganda and email hacking.

That last part, I disagree with. Hacking is difficult, yet quite possible from the outside. Its much simpler from the inside. Its not just a cyber risk.

Speaking of attacks on voter databases here is a story from this fall: Hackers hit Henry County voter database <read>

Attempts by computer hackers to hold Henry County’s voter database for ransom had county and state officials scrambling just days before the Nov. 8 general election.

Voters were advised about the data breach in a letter sent by the Henry County commissioners earlier this month.

Commissioner Glenn Miller said the voter database was restored from backups at the county and state level, and no ransom was paid.

He said officials have no reason to believe the security breach compromised election results, or that voter registration information was extracted from the system.

The ransomware attack occurred on Oct. 31. Ransomware is a malicious software used to deny access to the owner’s data in an effort to extort money. Miller said hackers that use ransomware are typically after money, not stealing data.

Trick n Tweet: The Age of the Unsound Bite

I was going to write a post discussing the allegations of “widespread illegal immigrant voter fraud”. Yet, voter fraud is not the problem; Russian hacking is not the problem; Immigrants are not the problem; How many attended the inauguration is not the issue.

The problem is that, like Three Card Monte, the controversy takes our our attention off the real issues.

I was going to write a post discussing the allegations of “widespread illegal immigrant voter fraud” which have been widely debunked e.g. <here> <here> <here>. (Basically there is no proof, no anecdotal evidence, and every credible investigation has come up empty looking significant outsider fraud, other than absentee voting fraud). And maybe also cover the lack of evidence for Russian hacking of our election <here>.

Yet, voter fraud is not the problem; Russian hacking is not the problem; Immigrants are not the problem; How many attended the inauguration is not the issue.

The problem is that, like Three Card Monte, the controversy takes our our attention off the real issues, takes our attention off actual analysis, and takes our attention off policies actually being implemented. We should be concerned that congress is baring the OMB from analyzing the financial impact of ending or replacing Obamacare; Concerned that education has been altered, science is being suppressed, and will be altered without expertise, analysis, and debate. Concerned that defense spending is out of control, wasteful, ineffective, and unaccounted, no matter ones views on foreign policy. Concerned as Naomi Kline is that we may be heading steadily toward Disaster Capitalism.

The problems for voting are the real risks of our vulnerable voting systems; the risks from insider manipulation; the disaster that is our voter registration systems; the inequality in our state by state voting systems; and the lack of actual evidence that our elections were correctly or incorrectly decided. And ignoring the low costs of actually strengthening our systems and preforming effective audits to demonstrate or refute the reported results.

Evidence-Based Elections

We favor “Evidence Based Elections”. We recently reread this 2012 paper by Phil Stark and David Wagner, Evidence-Based Elections

It covers at a high level the requirements to provide the public and losing candidates the evidence necessary to convince that its very likely the candidate favored by the voters actually was declared the winner of an election (or determining, if possible, the winner).

Compared to all the states in the Union, Connecticut would rank slightly above average, yet far from approaching credible evidence-based elections. We have paper ballots, inadequate post-election audits, close-vote recanvasses, no compliance audits, and atrociously weak ballot security. This is a case where a rating/ranking should be the result of multiplying the factors, rather than adding them:

Paper Ballots(1.0) x Post-Election Audits(0.3) x Self-Correcting(0.4) x Compliance(0) = 0

We favor “Evidence Based Elections”. We recently reread this 2012 paper by Phil Stark and David Wagner, Evidence-Based Elections <read>

Paper ballots (To date there is no other viable voter-verified record).
Software Independent Voting Systems – the whole system, computer, human etc. can produce an accurate result (independently) even if the computer and software systems are in error.
Compliance Audits – that the election was conducted as intended. e.g. we can trust the paper ballots and the check-in records.
Risk-Limiting Audits – that demonstrate that there is a certain chance that if a contest was wrongly decided, the audit would have detected that. e.g. 90% or 95%.
(A 95% detection risk does not mean that there is a 5% chance that the election was wrongly decided. Only that if there was error or fraud 19 times out of 20 if would be detected e.g. if there was a 95% chance a person would be caught each time they used a cell phone while driving, few would risk it.)
The overall election and canvass process should correct its own errors.

Finally, the authors point to the limitations of certification and testing of election equipment and the advantages of easing the constraints of setting unrealistic expectations for certification requirements.

Sadly, no state has full risk-limiting audits. Only about half have audits at all. Few have compliance audits. About half have close-vote recounts, which provide self-correction when the initially reported results are close.

Compared to all the states in the Union, Connecticut would rank slightly above average, yet far from approaching credible evidence-based elections. We have paper ballots, inadequate post-election audits, close-vote recanvasses, no compliance audits, and atrociously weak ballot security. This is a case where rating/ranking should be the result of multiplying the factors, rather than adding them:

Paper Ballots(1) x Post-Election Audits(0.3) x Self-Correcting(0.4) x Compliance(0) = 0