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Senate passes risky, expensive online voting bill – Now on consent calendar

Despite opposition by the Secretary of the State and promises to the contrary, the Senate passed S.B.939 with online voting, placing it on the Senate consent calendar.

Despite opposition by the Secretary of the State and promises to the contrary, the Senate passed S.B.939 with online voting, placing it on the Senate consent calendar. Now Section 59 rather than Section 60:

Sec. 59. (Effective from passage) The Secretary of the State shall, within available appropriations, recommend a method to allow for on-line voting by military personnel stationed out of state. The Secretary shall 1830 look at what other states have done to reduce any potential for fraud in on-line voting and determine whether any such state’s on-line voting system could be appropriate for adapted use by this state. Not later than January 1, 2012, the secretary shall, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a of the general statutes, report any progress made toward recommending such a method to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to elections.

For more information see < post on bill status> and <Op-Ed on online voting>.

Update: It has been pointed out to me that the word “recommend” in the amended bill replaces “establish” in the previous version.

Update: It is the law now. Passed by House with debate, but none about the Online voting provision. Only Representative Tim O’Brien voted against.

Report: What Hath HAVA Wrought?

Charles Stewart III, presented a fascinating report earlier this spring. It is forty-two pages, double spaced, yet engaging throughout. In addition to describing HAVA and its implications, the report covers the political process which resulted in a useful, yet insufficient response to the issues raised in 2000.

Charles Stewart III, presented a fascinating report earlier this spring at a conference, Bush v Gore, 10 Years Later: Election Administration in the United States.. .The report, in draft form, as presented: What Hath HAVA Wrought? Consequences, Intended and Not, of the Post-Bush v. Gore Reforms <read>

It is forty-two pages, double spaced, yet engaging throughout. In addition to describing HAVA and its implications, the report covers the political process which resulted in a useful, yet insufficient response to the issues raised in 2000. We are left with several thoughts generated by reading the report. (These are our thoughts based on our interpretation of the fascinating details in the report. In general they are consistent with the report, yet our conclusions and interpretations go beyond those in the report.):

Like the Patriot Act rushed through after 911, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed in a crisis window of opportunity to fix exposed problems and also to enact longstanding wish lists for reform. Little has happened to election reform efforts at a national level since HAVA and it seems that actual state election integrity improvement legislation and activity has similarly tapered off, except in the wake of a state crisis now and then.
We can expect the same in the aftermath of last November in Bridgeport. The current reforms viewed as less than ideal by the Coalition and the Secretary of the State are likely all we will see from that incident.
The report reminds us how strong the calls for machines to allow the independent voting for voters with disabilities were five years ago. And how little we hear from that community to fix Connecticut’s inadequate IVS system. The report identifies that the real issue for voters with disabilities seems to be physical access to the polling place rather than accommodating machines.
It seems there never was much attention paid to electoral accounting and recounting which were at the core of Gore v Bush decision. (See our testimony on the NPV earlier this year especially page 6) Even in election integrity circles presidential electoral accounting continues to be largely unknown.
The report confirms our concerns with disenfranchisement represented by increased mail-in and unlimited absentee balloting.
Generally, election officials have pushed for unlimited absentee voting because they claim it saves money, while in Connecticut town clerks opposed increased absentee voting based on estimated higher costs. It is an interesting open issue less critical than the risks vs. turnout implications of mail voting.
The report highlights the continuing neglect of voting administration, especially when compared to other government functions. Would the public stand for birth records, drivers licenses, or criminal records with the errors pervasive in voter registration lists? Would they accept Federal Reserve, weapons, or virus research security as weak as ballot security? Why do we accept such weak security and integrity in voting?
We are struck with be lack of balance between election integrity, the promise of counting every vote, vs. the rush to have results and move on quickly after every election. This effects accuracy, overseas voting, and presidential accounting.
Not covered in the report is any discussion of the role of vendors in HAVA. We recall tales of much vendor involvement with Congress. Following the money, it seems to us that the reforms that were enacted were those that result in spending: for new voting machines, for special machines for disabled voters, and centralized voter registration systems. Reforms improving the lot of or requiring more work on the part of officials seem to be neglected unless they were a consequence of the large vendor expenditures.
Three Billion for HAVA seems like real money. But it is a few days at war or a day or so of deficit which might depend on which person is elected President or Senator. It is equal to the deficit we are dealing with in Connecticut, the solution to which is dependent on who is Governor.

This report is recommended reading. It also suggest that we should read and report on some of the other papers delivered at the same conference.

Op-Ed, Denise Merrill: “Bill Ends Ballot Shortages, Protects Voters”

We agree with Secretary Merrill in strongly supporting passage of the bill. Yet it is insufficient. More is required to recover from similar problems in the future such that all votes are counted initially, followed by time for a full statewide recanvass, when based on corrections to initial results, the tallies become close. We continue to recommend the stronger measures in the Coalition Bridgeport Recount Report.

Update 4/19: Denise Merrill explains the bill on CT-N (about four and a half minutes in <view>
In the interview, she also discusses the primary date change and the National Popular Vote Compact, which we oppose based on serious voting integrity concerns. While there may be no evidence of fraud in the one state that has gone to all absentee balloting, there is plenty of evidence and instances of absentee ballot fraud in several states and it does not increase turnout. Not so long ago our legislature changed the way of delivering absentee ballot applications after several instances of skulduggery right here in Connecticut.
****************
The following Op-Ed by Denise Merrill in the Hartford Courant today:

Bill Ends Ballot Shortages, Protects Voters

By DENISE MERRILL

The Hartford Courant

May 17, 2011

In the early afternoon of Nov. 2, 2010, the unthinkable happened at the secretary of the state’s office in Hartford. A trickle — then a flood — of reports started arriving claiming that a number of polling precincts in Connecticut’s largest city had run out of ballots and long lines of Bridgeport voters were being turned away while officials scrambled to photocopy paper ballots or print new ballots.As the ensuing crisis surrounding one of the closest races for governor in Connecticut’s history played itself out in the national media for the next few days, this disturbing episode also exposed serious weaknesses in our election laws. If we are to fulfill our promise that what happened in Bridgeport must never happen again, these problems need to be fixed.

Connecticut lawmakers have in front of them a bill I proposed in February that, if enacted, will go a long way toward that goal. Last week, the state Senate rose above partisanship and took the courageous step of unanimously passing this bill, “An Act Concerning the Integrity of Elections.” It is in that spirit of cooperation that I now ask my former colleagues in the House to do the same before the end of the legislative session.

When we looked at what happened in Bridgeport, we found that several communities in Connecticut also ran out of ballots that day, but other towns were prepared. They took decisive, appropriate action: photocopying ballots and promptly distributing them to precincts so voting could continue without interruption. The election integrity bill requires all towns to have an emergency plan for Election Day to cover ballot shortages and other contingencies.

One of the more vexing things I found when I took office as secretary of the state was that this office was unaware of how many ballots had been purchased in each of our 169 cities and towns for Election Day. Under our current law, municipalities are not required to inform the secretary of the state of their pre-election preparations. Our election integrity bill gives municipalities a choice: Either tell us how many ballots they have purchased for the upcoming election, or order enough ballots to cover a 100 percent turnout of registered voters on Election Day.

If, after careful review, our office finds that the number of ballots purchased for Election Day is insufficient or does not take into account factors that could augment turnout (such as a visit by the president of the United States), under this legislation, we would have the authority to direct towns to order more ballots.

I am not proposing to dismantle our election system and start from scratch, nor do I favor a wholesale state takeover of elections. Elections have been run at the local level in Connecticut for more than 200 years, and for the most part our registrars of voters have handled the task well.

Post 2010, we and our partners who administer elections at the local level must prepare and communicate better, and we must all be accountable. If the secretary of the state’s office is truly the chief elections office and everyone looks to us for answers on Election Day, that has to mean something. We need to know how many ballots each town purchases and the factors on which that number is based. It is far better to head off a crisis than to watch helplessly as it unfolds.

The bottom line: No registered voter who wants to cast a ballot on Election Day should ever be turned away from the polls. This is not a political issue — our elections integrity bill has received broad bipartisan support because everyone understands that reliable and secure elections are the essence of our American democracy. That freedom to choose our government is what our military is fighting for overseas.

Let’s not let this historic opportunity to ensure the integrity of our elections slip away.

Denise Merrill is Connecticut’s secretary of the state.

In addition to head moderators, the Secretary of the State should have the power to order discrepancy recanvasses.

Allow more time for the initial reporting of results, investigation of minor discrepancies, and for the accomplishment of recanvasses and the certification of results . There should a timeframe for discrepancy recanvasses, followed by a timeframe for subsequent close vote recanvasses. The current post-election and certification schedule in Connecticut should not be viewed as unchangeable. For example there could be a seven business day window for Discrepancy Recanvasses and their reporting and an additional five business day window for Close Vote Recanvasses to allow for changes in the initial reports resulting from Discrepancy Recanvasses.

Enforceable laws, regulations, and procedures for the accounting for and public verification of the reporting of election results from counting teams, polling place officials, and head moderators, to the Secretary of the State’s Office. Currently district data is transcribed from scanner tapes to district Moderators’ Returns, then in towns with more than one polling place, transcribed and added to the Head Moderator’s Return which is submitted to the Secretary of the State for transcription and summarization on the Secretary’s web site. This is an error prone, difficult to verify process.

Three districts selected for May post-election audit

This morning, Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill randomly selected three districts for post-election audit from the the districts using optical scanners in the May municipal elections. Exempted from the audits were districts from two towns with post-election close vote racanvasses and two who used ballots, but not optical scanners.

This morning, Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill randomly selected three districts for post-election audit from the twenty-four districts using optical scanners in the May municipal elections. Two alternates were also selected. Exempted from the audits were districts from two towns with post-election close-vote racanvasses and two that used ballots, but not optical scanners.

This is a good time to recall our stand that the audit law should be amended to included all ballots and districts in the audit, with no exemptions. The three major exemptions are districts with recanvasses, centrally counted absentee ballots, and all hand counted ballots. We know from experience that manual counting can be performed with great accuracy, yet also with significant errors. Any exemption from the post-election audit is an opening for errors to be hidden and a formula for skulduggery.

For example, the November Bridgeport election and citizen recount demonstrated about 25% of originally hand counted ballots being incorrectly counted or reported in the (still) official results. Since audits do not include hand counted ballots we do not have a way of judging how accurately other towns in Connecticut count ballots on election night. We speculate that sometimes some are quite accurate, but that sometimes some are also significantly inaccurate.

The districts selected were:

Groton – West Side Middle School Dist. 2
Groton – William Seely School Dist. 4
Stonington – Stonington Fire House

Alternates selected:

Griswold – Griswold Town Hall
Woodbridge -Center School

“Wisconsin is no Minnesota” (Psssst: neither is Connecticut)

Many of the problems in Wisconsin are similar to those we are led to “expect” in states like Connecticut. One unique concern in Wisconsin is several coincident actions of one of the candidates.

Brad Friedman covers issues in the Wisconsin recount, so far. <read>

Many of the problems are similar to those we are led to “expect” in states like Connecticut:

Bags not sealed
Seal numbers missing
Seal numbers don’t match
Faith in sealed bags
Extra ballots found outside bags
Batches of ballots not counted or reported on election night
Officials making errors in calculations or submitting results to the state
Homegrown accounting systems
Local and state officials making errors in transcription and addition

We point out that incompetence or mistakes are good cover for skulduggery , especially where they occur regularly and are routinely accepted/ignored. CTVotersCount readers know that Connecticut Post-Election Audits frequently expose similar problems, as the citizen Bridgeport Recount found, usually followed by no action. The recent exception being some useful, but incomplete, steps to reduce the odds of problems occurring similar to those in Bridgeport, but little to cause the system to correct similar counting, calculating, and reporting errors.

One unique concern in Wisconsin is several coincident actions of one of the candidates, issues including misstatements by the candidate, the activities of the candidate after the election, the location of the changes in votes right after the election, and the location of some of the chain of custody problems (See Brad’s Report).

We are pleased that Wisconsin is holding the recount, such as it is, and that citizens are reporting issues and concerns. The best result would be a recount that ultimately provides real integrity and confidence, followed by positive reform in Wisconsin and other states. At this point we remain open but skeptical that this recount will be satisfactory.

Risky, expensive online voting bill moves forward in legislature

Yesterday, after a brief discussion S.B. 939 was passed by the Planning and Development Committee. As we have discussed many times, online voting is risky and expensive.

In the discussion, two representatives expressed concerns with the online voting provided in Section 60. Representative Jason Rojas said that the Senate should consider removing the section as the bill moves forward. Representative William Aman said he would vote for the bill as the Government Administration and Elections Committee were working on improvements to that section.

Update 5/4/2011: Our understanding is that Section 60 will be removed from the bill.

CT Mirror Op-Ed: Online voting is risky and expensive

Online voting is an appealing option to speed voting for military and overseas voters. Yet it is actually “Democracy Theater”, providing an expensive, risky illusion of supporting our troops. Technologists warn of the unsolved technical challenges, while experience shows that the risks are tangible and pervasive. There are safer, less expensive solutions available.

Our op-ed published at the CTMirror <read>

Online voting is risky and expensive

by Luther Weeks

Luther Weeks is executive director of CTVotersCount.

April 29, 2011

Online voting is an appealing option to speed voting for military and overseas voters. Yet it is actually “Democracy Theater”, providing an expensive, risky illusion of supporting our troops. Technologists warn of the unsolved technical challenges, while experience shows that the risks are tangible and pervasive. There are safer, less expensive solutions available.

This year, the Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on a bill for online voting for military voters. Later they approved a “technical bill”, S.B. 939. Tucked at the end was a paragraph requiring that the Secretary of the State “shall, within available appropriations, establish a method to allow for on-line voting by military personnel stationed out of state.”

In 2008, over thirty computer scientists, security experts and technicians signed the “Computer Technologists’ Statement on Internet Voting,” listing five unsolved technical challenges and concluding: “[W]e believe it is necessary to warn policymakers and the public that secure internet voting is a very hard technical problem, and that we should proceed with internet voting schemes only after thorough consideration of the technical and non-technical issues in doing so.”

The prevailing attitude seems to be, if voters and election officials like it and see no obvious problems then it must be safe.

In September 2010, Washington D.C. opened their proposed internet voting system to public testing. The system was quickly compromised, changing all past and future votes. Separately, the municipal network was entered, passwords to municipal systems obtained, and the list of codes for Internet voting in the November election were obtained.

This should not be surprising. Almost weekly we learn of one system or another that is penetrated by outsiders, including teens and overseas criminals. Organizations that have been unable to protect networks and applications include banks, government agencies, the Department of Defense, Google, and ironically, Internet security firms.

Several states have implemented various forms of Internet voting. None has subjected their systems to evaluation and testing for the difficult challenges identified by the experts. One of the “success stories” without any proof for precluding vulnerabilities is West Virginia. That state spent about $75,000 for 54 electronic votes. Over $1,300 per voter!

To the public, like some legislators, it seems intuitive to accept that “We use ATMs and bank online with no problems, why not vote that way?” This argument fails theoretically and practically. The anonymous ballot does not provide the verification and proof of banking receipts or double entry bookkeeping which help detect fraud. ATMs are bank-owned computers with special network security, much safer than general purpose computers. Even so, banks lose billions each year to fraud with ATMs and online banking. They have warned their business customers to avoid online banking.

There are better, safer, economical alternatives available. The Federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE), passed in 2009, provides for electronic distribution of ballots and absentee ballots that can be returned together in one envelope. In conjunction with the Overseas Voter Foundation, express return of ballots was available from 94 countries for $25 or less. Even regular express rates from almost anywhere are available for less than one-tenth the cost of the unproven West Virginia system. If a military and overseas voter can get to a computer network then they should be able to express their paper ballot and absentee application, at our expense, providing a safe, anonymous, and auditable vote.

To ask Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, to accomplish what experts have not is a tall order. Especially with no budget! As Merrill testified earlier this year, “In the future, it is conceivable that we could move in the direction of online voting. But the problem is, the technology to make sure no one can hack into an online voting system and distort the vote totals has not yet been developed. We want to make voting more convenient, but not at the expense of the security or integrity of our elections…there is no on-line voting system secure enough to protect the integrity of the vote.”

Update: Said a different way. CBC interview with Professor Andrew Appel. He emphasizes that online voting is “dangerous to democracy” on both the client and server ends. (Interview starts about 1/3 into the podcast <listen>

More online voting risks and opportunities for skulduggery

We have been warning of the risks of Internet voting and ignoring science since our founding. Yet, we have overlooked some of the risks, literally right in front of our nose.

Since our founding, we have been warning of the risks of Internet voting and ignoring science. We are currently amazed at our own legislators, risking military voters rights, dismissing the scientific facts and the practical evidence of the impossibility of internet voting. Yet, we have overlooked some of the risks, literally right in front of our nose.

More Risks Right In Front Of Our Nose

An ongoing story starting late last week highlights those dangers. B. F. has a post describing intended or accidental suppression which brought those issues to my attention http://tinyurl.com/3fg2t36 (Note: We use the initials B.F. and a tinyurl intentionally and instructively, just in case you might want to bring this post to the attention of your friends through an email, post, or Facebook link.)

Here is a summary of what happened to B.F.:

If you use an AOL email address, AOL is doing you the favor of making sure you do not receive email containing any links to [B.F.’s site] in it.

Not email from a [B.F. site] address, mind you, as if I were a spammer or something (which, obviously, I’m not), but any email from anybody that has a link to this site, or to one of our news stories.

I learned this swell news early this week when someone was kind enough to let me know that their attempts at sending a link to this site to a friend bounced back to them with an error message. That error message was “HVU:B2”. What is that error?:

* 421 HVU:B2
o There is at least one URL or domain in your e-mail that is generating substantial complaints from AOL members. Resolution will require opening a support request.

That’s right, “substantial complaints” from someone, whatever that means, will result in no links to stories at [B.F.’s site] getting through to any of AOL’s millions of members. And they will never know about it.

Again, these are not even emails from [B.F’s site]. They are simply emails from anybody to any AOL email address which has my domain linked in the body of the email.

Neat, huh? I wonder what would happen if there were “substantial complaints from AOL members” about, say, FoxNews.com? Or MSNBC.com? Or NYTimes.com? Would that result in millions of members not being able to receive any email that links to anything at those sites? Sounds like a great way to [expletive verb] someone you don’t care for politically, doesn’t it?…

So far, I’ve spoken to at least 10 different AOL support people on the phone, since clicking the “support request” URL they offer in the error message seen above actually takes you to someplace on the “AOL Postmaster” that doesn’t actually give you the form you supposedly are to fill out to deal with this issue.

It took a day or two, and several more calls to more very nice AOL tech support people who told me they couldn’t help me in the slightest…

Most ironically, and so that you are open to the interpretation that these are not intended but simply the result of bureaucratic incompetence:

I finally looked up the AOL corporate website online, found the numbers for the “Corporate Media Inquiries” department, figuring I’d either get help or get an on the record comment about this mess and about the fact that AOL is censoring members emails for them, and spoke to another very nice person whom I told about the situation, explained that I was a journalist, not a spammer (and besides the notes being rejected didn’t even need to come from my address to get rejected), mentioned the irony that I even write news for Huffington Post from time to time,

But from personal experience I would call it unintentional arrogance. Over the years, I have put up with similar problems from both AOL and Google:

I am webmaster for a 501.c3 organization that runs annual tournaments for children. Over the years AOL has, to my knowledge, blocked us at least twice. It took some time, each time, to realize this was happening. Both times, I did manage to get through the bureaucracy and get it fixed after some time. Once was because a spammer used some of our email addresses. Another time when a board member sent an email that had some key words in it that had AOL classify our site as a spammer.
A couple of years ago we had problems when a couple of my WordPress sites fell victim to some WordPress vulnerabilities with malware added from sources unknown. Malware with potential for spreading viruses. The good news is that Google informed me and provided tools, so that it could be quickly corrected. But the bad news was that the sites were banned for several weeks from Google search results and provided users with messages that warned of the dangers of my sites.

Withing the last month, a popular news site was hacked and completely taken down such that it had to essentially be rebuilt. And just this weekend another popular reader supported news site sent this message to donors:

We learned that right in the middle of our spring campaign this past week that our secure credit card processor was offline for several hours on a few occasions. Donations were not processing. If you encountered this and gave up, please try again.

So what? What can we learn?

Incidents like these may be intentional, untended, or bureaucratic arrogance.
They point the way to intentional disruption.
They point the way to intentional disruption covered up as unintended, well meant policies. Who is against protection from spam and viruses? Asking users to report concerns?
In cases like AOL’s policies, when users are able to nominate spammers, dangerous, or offensive sites, or email addresses. – these policies can be used by others to assist in their agendas. It would not take any computer expertise. Beyond the simple cases, expert unethical hackers could infect sites and use policies like Google’s to their advantage.
Each of these examples either went unnoticed for several days, took away capabilities for several days once they were discovered, often inadvertently.
No matter how noble the intention or accidental, the result can be disruption and in some cases defamation in what could be a critical time period.
Most of all recognize that these are common occurrences. Much more widespread than the samples that each of us is aware of or listed here.

What does this have to do with online voting and democracy?

Any of these problems , or similar problems, can occur to any web site, any email account, any time – including those associated with voting, campaigns, and news, all vital to democracy.
Voting vulnerabilities include: Online voting, online registration, campaign web sites, campaign emails etc. The impact of such vulnerabilities varies.
Many solutions to speeding military and overseas voting include sending election notification and voting materials by email. These would likely come from a known url and email account, which could be blocked. Presumably any form of online voting would require notification and information be sent electronically, unless overseas voters are expected to find and keep checking the site for upcoming elections and availability of materials.
We all know email is unsafe, vulnerable to hacking and blocking. These vulnerabilities highlight the possibility of easier and unintentional methods of blocking email return of ballots, email used for voter registration, or email communications/questions between voters and election officials.
Voting itself and access by remote military and overseas voters is conducted in very short windows. A site blocked or down for even a day can discourage/disenfranchise someone who has infrequent opportunities for internet access.

Despite the risks we remain in favor of email notification and web access to election materials for military and overseas voting, but the high risk of using the internet, email, or fax for the return of votes is unacceptable.

I agree with our current Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill in her testimony this year:

In the future, it is conceivable that we could move in the direction of online voting.

But the problem is, the technology to make sure no one can hack into an online voting system and distort the vote totals has not yet been developed.

We want to make voting more convenient, but not at the expense of the security or integrity of our elections…

…there is no on-line voting system secure enough to protect the integrity of the vote…

Military Internet voting requirement tucked into “Technical Bill”

If you accept the science that global warming is caused by human activity – you have much more reason to oppose Internet voting.

In the last couple days, the text of bills passed by the Government Administration and Elections Committee in mid March have been posted to the Connecticut General Assembly web.

One item was tucked into S.B. 939 that requires the Secretary of the State to implement Internet voting without a budget increase. The bill was intended, and mostly remains, as a “Technical Bill” to make changes to the statutes to account for the move to optical scan voting. (the bill: S.B. 939) .

1779 Sec. 60. (Effective from passage) The Secretary of the State shall, within
1780 available appropriations, establish a method to allow for on-line voting
1781 by military personnel stationed out of state. In establishing such a
1782 method, the secretary shall look at what other states have done to
1783 reduce any potential for fraud in on-line voting and determine
1784 whether any such state’s on-line voting system could be appropriate
1785 for adapted use by this state. Not later than January 1, 2012, the
1786 secretary shall, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a of
1787 the general statutes, report any progress made toward establishing
1788 such a method to the joint standing committee of the General
1789 Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to elections.

Although the bill mentions that the Secretary “shall look at what other states have done to reduce any potential for fraud in on-line voting and determine whether any such state’s on-line voting system could be appropriate for adapted use by this state” it does not make success in this necessary to the requirement to provide a means for Internet voting. The Secretary has no choice, in my reading, although there is no deadline for completion.

If you accept the science that global warming is caused by human activity – you have much more reason to oppose Internet voting.

If someone believes in Global Warming and that it is caused by human activity because the vast majority of scientists say so, then there is a much much more solid case against Internet voting in any form. I just don’t understand why people believe scientists in one case when in reality the Internet voting case is much stronger:

Claiming Internet voting is safe and accurate violates an undisputed a basic proof of computer science (Turing’s Halting Problem)
In practice no system has been proven safe, the one system subjected to public testing failed with all votes changed. All sorts of computer systems – business, government, and defense – are regularly compromised. <some examples>

I wonder how the Secretary is supposed to implement Internet voting for 169 towns with no budget addition. Other states have paid significantly for Internet voting, while failing or neglecting to prove it safe.

The good news is the current bill only applies to Military voters, not all overseas voters.

The bad news it applies to any Military voters stationed outside Connecticut.

Here is my testimony against the standalone bill proposed and not passed by the Committee:

We oppose online voting, internet voting, email voting, and fax voting in general, for several reasons:

Internet Voting Is Technically Risky: The Computer Technologists Statement on Internet Voting details five technical challenges to such voting that have never been resolved and concludes: “The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the results are verifiability accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to democracy.”

Internet Voting Has Proven Risky In Practice: In September 2010, Washington D.C. opened their proposed internet voting system to ethical hackers. With very short notice, the system was compromised, changing all past and future votes. Separately, the municipal network was entered, passwords to municipal systems obtained, and the list of codes for Internet voting for all voters in the November election were obtained. Internet voting for the election was canceled. Washington D.C. should be applauded for allowing the test, since other jurisdictions have not subjected their systems to such testing.
https://www.ctvoterscount.org/video-cure-for-internet-voting-warning-viewing-may-case-severe-permanent-einsecurity/

Internet voting can be expensive: West Virginia, about half the size of Connecticut, spent about $75,000 for 54 electronic votes.
http://votingnews.blogspot.com/2010/05/wv-overseas-internet-election-54-votes.html

I oppose this bill in particular because:

It contains no controls, specifications, or requirements for online voting. Would there be any public testing of such systems? Would there be any attempt to address the Technologists’ concerns or prevent problems similar to those in Washington, D.C?

It does not specify if such voting would be the responsibility of individual municipalities or the Secretary of the State.

It provides no funds either for the State or Municipalities to implement.

Could Connecticut accomplish centrally what Washington D.C. has not? Would it be constitutional?

Would each of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities be able to afford such systems and accomplish what Washington D.C. has not?

Would the system be optional by municipality? Different in each municipality? If implemented in only some, would it be unfair, violating Federal civil rights and voting laws?

Please join me and other technologists nationwide in opposing Internet voting.

Technologists’ Statement on Internet Voting <read>

PS: I have some other less serious concerns with this bill and another technical bill. In a few days I plan to review and comment on those concerns.

GAE Committee changed title and substance of bill

A “Technical” change to existing statutes becomes a National Popular Vote Agreement.

Earlier this year, the Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on a bill, H.B. 6331

Here is how it looked as originally submitted and still showing as the “Raised Bill” on the General Assembly Web <Raised Bill>:

AN ACT CONCERNING TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS TO CERTAIN ELECTION-RELATED STATUTES REGARDING TABULATORS.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:

Section 1. Subsections (a) and (b) of section 9-168a of the general statutes are repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof…

This bill was the subject of a public hearing on February 10, 2011 <Agenda>

And here is the “Substitute Bill” that was passed by the committee on April 1st <Agenda> Note the change in the name of the bill on the agenda.<Substitute Bill>

AN ACT CONCERNING AN AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO
ELECT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BY NATIONAL
POPULAR VOTE.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General
Assembly convened:

Section 1. (NEW) (Effective from passage) The Agreement Among the
States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote is hereby
enacted into law…

It looks a lot like a bill H.B. 6163 where a public hearing was held on March 11, 2011 <Agenda>

I attended both hearings and the meeting on April 1st. The Committee did debate the National Popular Vote, yet no member noticed/mentioned that they were passing a completely different bill than the bill number on the agenda.

As a final note, currently the Bill Status page remains confused as to the name and the purpose of the bill <read>

AN ACT CONCERNING AN AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE.

To make technical corrections to the elections statutes, including updating the statutes to reflect the current use of voting tabulators.

According to the rules of the General Assembly:

[15.] (b) Hearing Requirement for Favorable Report. Except as provided in Rule 32 (2)(A), no bill and no resolution proposing an amendment to the constitution or other substantive resolution shall be reported favorably by a committee unless a public hearing has been held as provided in Rule 6, but no further public hearing shall be required for a favorable report on a substitute for such bill or resolution, provided the substitute is based on or is germane to the subject matter of the original bill or resolution, or for a bill or resolution petitioned under Rule 11 on which a subject matter public hearing has been held.

I suppose it all depends on how inclusive a definition of “germane” is implied. I understand that similar changes happen regularly.