Category: Post-Election Audits

Three Issues After Monroe, CT 2006 Audits

Previously I covered my concerns with audit differences in the audit of the 2006 election. Today I will cover my observation of the Monroe, CT audit.

On November 27, 2006 I was able to witness the audit that was taking place in Monroe, CT. Monroe has four voting precincts and two of them were selected for full hand recounts.

There were three issues associated with the audits and several problems with the election process.

Read the details:

Continue reading “Three Issues After Monroe, CT 2006 Audits”

Were 2006 Election Audits “Good News”?

If the auditors were employed by or under the control of the SOS[Secretary of the state], such factors might include the perception that “good news” should be the primary object in the audit report. (emboldening added)
– Candice Hoke, Testimony to U.S. House, March 20, 2007

We have very good news to report today, because it is now clear that the optical scan machines performed very well on Election Day and without any problems. Any changes in vote totals found in these audits were due to ballots being marked incorrectly by the voter, not to any problems with the optical scan machines. (emboldening added)
-Secretary of the State, Susan Bysicwicz, Press Release, Dec 7, 2006

Consider the results of the audits conducted after the November 2006 Connecticut election:

Continue reading “Were 2006 Election Audits “Good News”?”

Statistics Can Help Ensure Accurate Elections

The American Statistical Association’s Science and Public Affairs Advisory Committee has recommended that post election audits have at least a 90% level of confidence.

Election officials need to make sure the person elected winner is the person the most voters want..Election results are most trustworthy when the entire election process can be audited, not just the vote counts…the audit should have the statistical power to trigger additional action at least nine out of 10 times when the wrong winner is declared.(emboldening added)

What is significant with this committee is that it has recommended a specific level of confidence where other reports have used 90% or 95% as examples. For instance here and here.

As I have emphasized here and here Connecticut law is, in my opinion, inadequate because it over audits some races and it is woefully inadequate in other races. For example, in races such as state representative, senator, or small to mid size municipal races, the probability of detection would be 2%-4%. or one in 50, or one in 25, which is a far cry from nine out of 10. (Note: CT Law specifies auditing 10% of races selected randomly, which is quite different than the confidence %, a measure which represents the probability an audit confirms the correct candidate has won an election)

The committee goes on to cover other areas where statistics can be used to increase the integrity and confidence in the whole process. Read the entire report here.

The President of the association, however, recommended an even higher standard of 99% confidence in a letter to Senator Feinstein who, along with Senator Dodd has proposed woefully inadequate legislation at the federal level.

Brennan Center: The Machinery Of Democracy

On August 1st the Brannan Center released a report Post-Election Audits: Restoring Trust in Elections which has been covered on CTVotersCount.org. Today we will look at the security portion of an earlier report The Machinery Of Democracy: Accessibility, Usability, and Cost and its implications for Connecticut.

The tone of the report is serious. The conclusions are serious. Like all computer voting machines, optical scan voting machines are vulnerable, they are most vulnerable to malicious software, they “pose a real danger to election integrity”, and most jurisdictions have implemented none of the counter measures recommended.

A key finding:

The Brennan Center’s Task Force on Voting System Security reviewed more than 120 potential threats to voting systems…attacks involving the insertion of software attack programs or other corrupt software are the least difficult attacks against all electronic systems currently purchased when the goal is to change the outcome of a close statewide election.

Continue reading “Brennan Center: The Machinery Of Democracy”

EVT07 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop

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 with highly academic papers, was in the mid 1980’s when for several years I participated in annual Artificial Intelligence conferences. At those conferences I found the general sessions very useful but the academic papers were very detailed, seemingly crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s on previous papers, those sessions went well beyond my tolerance for detail. The papers presented at the workshop yesterday were all clear and interesting, timely, and most were relevant to voting in Connecticut.

Seeing and meeting the other attendees was also a highlight of the day – researchers whose papers and blogs I’ve read, talked to previously, and who have made huge contributions to raise awareness of the risks of electronic voting. It was also hopeful to see a considerable group of researchers who work with state election officials and three election officials. Alex Shvartsman of Uconn and several of his students were there presenting one of their recent papers. Clearly the most appreciated attendee was Debra Bowen, Secretary of the State of California.

Sixteen of forty-two submitted papers were presented. A huge increase from the eighteen papers submitted last year. Doug Jones from Iowa, who testified to the CT Legislature a year lor two ago, was one of the organizers. He expressed the hope that next year more papers would be available that point the way to improved, reliable voting methods. Most of the papers this year demonstrated the lack of security and reliability in existing e-voting equipment. Several pointed the way for more effective post election paper audits. The final three papers presented five innovative ways that might enhance the voter attractive touch screen voting to make it private and auditable — unfortunately, for the most part, they accomplished the security by requiring a lot of sophistication on the part of the average voter.

 

I have covered the Uconn paper previously I will cover a paper relevant to Connecticut, from Princeton, here and perhaps more papers on other days.

The Princeton University paper:

Continue reading “EVT07 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop”

Brennan Audit Report and Connecticut – a Discussion

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 new election
audit law.

First, let me thank all of those involved in creating and contributing to this report. The Brennan Center, The Samuelson Law Clinic, and the members of the ‘Audit Panel’. The audit panel included several individuals from Verified Voting and staff from the Office of the Secretary of State of Connecticut. The Connecticut panelists alone were four of the entire panel of seventeen. As the report states, “Opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations … are soley of the authors and the Brennan Center”.

While we seldom agree on everything, the the staff of the Office of the Secretary of the State have always been responsive and available. The Secretary has also always been responsive and I have no doubt that she is committed to fair elections with integrity. When the Secretary changed course to specify optical scan machines in early 2006, she demonstrated the kind of flexibility and openness that will be necessary to apply the conclusions contained in this report and the reports from California to the benefit of Connecticut voters.

Perhaps the most basic findings of the report and the most challenging to recently enacted Connecticut law are:

Of the few states that currently require and conduct post-election audits, none has adopted audit models that will maximize the likelihood of finding clever and targeted software-based attacks, non-systemic programming errors, and software bugs that could change the outcome of an election…
Based upon our review of state laws and interviews with state election officials, we have concluded that the vast majority of states conducting audits are not using them in a way that will maximize their ability to improve elections in the future.(emphasis added)

Strickingly, these finding were based on an earlier version of Connecticut’s law that was proposed by the Secretary but later watered down considerably. From the Brennan report: “Connecticut, California, and Illinois check all races on the ballot during a post-election audit”.

Continue reading “Brennan Audit Report and Connecticut – a Discussion”

Likely that state’s largest election will go unaudited

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 the charter revisions and will put it all at risk for a relatively small amount as at least that part of the election goes unaudited.

Read the full story

An hour with the Secretary of the State

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 note that one of them registered only on July 24th, and has not blogged until today, with the name LiveFreeOrDie, I suspect someone from out of state. I note that the other, obviously from CT registered on April 17th, but has not commented until today.

Although the Secretary was to take questions on four subjects, the vast majority were on voting machines.

WHAT I LEARNED

– She started with a long entry, probably prepared ahead. The news for voting integrity was that she referenced the anticipated Brennan Report, to which she provided a link. (It is 40 pages plus another 50 in appendixes). I attempted scanning it quickly it appears to be more of a survey confirming many other reports without taking many strong stands. Yet, it will take a real read to really see what it has to offer. Report.

– I asked if she was happy with the confidence levels of 2-4% of detecting fraud in municipal and state legislateive races. She said “NO”. But, in reality it is clear she confused the 10% random district audit level with the resulting confidence level. So, not surprisingly, we learned that she, like many seems to have a weak grasp of statistics, at least in a fast blogging session. Unfortunately, the one hour blog session is not an environment suitable to educating on such subjects. I am sure most people can understand enough if we could actually sit down with their full attention for a few minutes.

– I asked that if when SB1311 mentioned primaries, elections, and races, if it included referendums and questions in audits?. I was disappointed to have my suspicions confirmed that they will not be audited. And pleased that she expressed the possibility of working on that in the future.

I would hope that she and other officials are not detered from similar sessions.

VerifiedVoting.org, Percentage-based vs. SAFE Vote Tabulation Auditing: A Graphic Comparison

This is a complete case for variable audit percentages.

Several pending electoral-integrity bills specify hand audits of 2% to 10% of all precincts. However, percentage-based audits are usually inefficient… Percentage based audits can also be ineffective, since close races may require auditing a large fraction of the total –even a 100% hand recount  to provide confidence in the outcome. This paper presents the SAFE (Statistically Accurate, Fair and Efficient) alternative¦based on the same statistical principles that inform audits in business and finance…However, SAFE audits ensure high confidence in all electoral outcomes by using auditing resources more efficiently and employing large samples only when necessary.

Read the full report