Category: Chain of Custody

Talk Nation Radio – Fix Security Issues By Nov

Another excellent Talk Nation Radio <read listen>

Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, Professor Alex Shvartsman, Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara, and Connecticut Registrars discuss problems with the voting machines and security protocols set up to use them. The Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara reported nineteen voting machine failures last year, but at least some failures were not on her list because they were not reported. That was the case in the Republican Party stronghold of New Canaan, where ROV Bob Shafter and ROV George Cody were in disagreement about events at the polls…

We speak with Connecticut registrars of voter from New Canaan where a voting machine broke down in 2007 and LHS guided a mid election repair. The malfunction was not reported to the Secretary of the State. Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara discusses problems from recent state funded memory card study and promises to do more education to get registrars to contact proper authorities when failures occur, and the lead researcher on the state’s memory card study goes over problems with vendor, LHS, and what happens when voting machines fail…

There have been problems with the memory cards for the state’s voting machines and problems with the vendor, LHS Associates, since 2006. Connecticut’s Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, a Democrat, has yet to bring the full power of her office to bear to solve them. She downplayed serious problems that cropped up on Super Tuesday even as the state’s voting machine security expert Alexander Shvartsman was trying to explain the troubling results of a study of the memory cards from the 2007 state and municipal election. And as public hearings go on, more problems and issues with the voting machines are coming out.

Norwich GAE Hearing

Testimony submitted and posted at GAE site.

Update: Testimony of Beth Angel, East Hampton <read>

in my hometown, East Hampton, at the last municipal election. The results of the election required a recount effort, which ended up necessitating 3 recounts. Each recount delivered differing results from the initial count after the November 6 election. Those who were in attendance reported these irregularities.

  • At the first recount, the moderator walked into the main counting room carrying 70 ballots in his arms and UNSECURED
  • At the second recount, envelopes were already open and distributed without the public present
  • At the third recount the same moderator came in with 117 ballots, again in an UNSECURED envelope
  • I understand from the law all ballots must be secured after the vote, prior to and after any recounts and audits
  • While they counted the ballots in the room with the public audience
  1. no members of the public were allowed to observe the actual ballots including the hashing or counting process and
  2. when it came time to total each candidates’ vote hashes, the moderator (D) and the Republican registrar went into a back room outside of public observation. I repeat, totaling of votes was done out of the public eye
  • We voters want to be sure the people who were actually elected by the voters of our town are sitting on our Town Council.
  • Finally ballots were impounded because of citizen complaints filed with the SEEC due to irregularities observed.
  • All of the above information is part of several citizen complaints…

Original Post:

Two articles in the Day on the hearings <read> <read> also commented on at by greenpeas at MyLeftNutmeg.I have been a bit busy working on my own testimony for the hearing coming up tomorrow in Norwalk. I am an activist and a blogger, not a reporter. At the Norwich hearing I took some notes while I spent most of my time listening to the testimony. But there is plenty to add that was not covered in these two articles and one correction. (I don’t blame the reporters, this is an aspect of protecting democracy that is more important than the details of tax law or defense contracts, yet not nearly as interesting. to many). I wish I could be more detailed which is precluded by time and my reporting abilities, but at least I will be able to touch on some of the additional issues.

Continue reading “Norwich GAE Hearing”

Public Input Sought On New Voting System

Stamford Advocate discusses Public hearings starting next week. <read> See the schedule our our Calendar.

“We’ve got to do everything humanly possible to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. I think it’s incumbent upon us to be vigilant and seek information from the public,” said state Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, chairman of the General Assembly’s Government Administration and Elections Committee. “We don’t want to go in with any predetermined conclusions, we want to hear the pros and the cons.”…

“What I find most troubling is that there is nothing statutorily requiring the secretary of state to count the number of ballots distributed to each municipality and check the number of votes cast against how many ballots are left over at the end of the night,” [Rep. Caruso] said…

“The concern is that because there’s a computer, someone can hack into it, but with a paper trail, if someone were to manipulate it, you could always open the back and count the ballots,” [Town Clerk Andy] Garfunkel said.

e-Democracy Symposium – Recounting/Auditing By Machine – The Devil Is In The Details

Yesterday I attended the spring symposium at the UConn Law School by the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal: e-Democracy: Democratic Values In A Digital Age. There were three panels:

  • Campaigning On The Web
  • The Mechanics of Voting
  • Political Speech and the Internet

I found all three very interesting. Christine Stuart has an excellent article on the first panel at CTNewsJunkie I completely agree with her highlighting of Tim Tagaris, statement: “It’s Americans with computers, [not 20 somethings]”. The other point that rang true to me was that political blogging leads to personal interaction not isolation. I learned of the panel based on personal contact that was the result of political blogging, that was the result of personal contact that was the result of blogging…

The third panel discussed laws and regulations concerning political contributions, blogging, and the relationship of bloggers to campaigns. The summary was that political blogging is not regulated or restrained because, unlike television, it is open to anyone and thus does not need such regulation. I asked if the panel agreed that all their conclusions were based on “Net Neutrality”? Matt Stoller gave an impassioned response articulating current erosion of net neutrality.

The Second Panel: The Mechanics of Voting

The second panel covered the risks of electronic voting. Some of the issues we cover regularly here. The panelists were:

  • Lawrence Norden, Brennan Center for Justice, lead author of several significant reports on electronic voting. Mr. Norden also has worked to cause New York to make better choices in electronic voting.
  • J. Alex Halderman, Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, and participant in the Diebold portion of the CA Top-To-Bottom Review.
  • Senator Gayle Slossberg, Co-Chair of the Connecticut General Assembly Government Administration and Elections Committee, and one of the authors of our audit bill, PA 07-194.

I appreciate all the panelists and their work for democracy. Also in attendance for the panel: Deputy Secretary of the State, Lesley Mara, several registrars, and more than several town clerks. I also appreciate their taking the time to be involved and informed. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole panel, wishing for more elaboration on some of the points, wishing it was more of a debate that I could join in. I fear that the lack of time, lack of common understanding, and background information between the panelists, and between the panelists and the audience may have left some significant misimpressions. Since I don’t have a transcript, you will have to go with my summary of what was said and of course my own impression of what might have been misinterpreted:

  • I completely agree with Mr. Norden’s statement that there is a lot we can do with what we have in time to improve the security of elections in time for November 2008.
  • I completely agree that Connecticut is much better off with optical scan than we would be with DRE (touch screen) voting equipment. I also agree that we have procedures that are better than those in many other states.
  • However our procedures are woefully inadequate to protect us. A chain-of-custody is only as good as the weakest link. Our procedures are inadequate, by their nature procedures are unenforceable, and have not been enforced. They have been regularly violated in the custody of ballots, audits, and memory card security.
  • Our 10% selection of districts for our post-election audits provides an easy claim to the strictest audit in the Country. That is misleading since the 10% is followed by a secret drawing of three or 20% of races to be audited, the law is full of loopholes, is articulated in inadequate, unenforceable, frequently violated procedures, and has proven in practice to provide no confidence that an error or fraud would be recognized. As Mr. Norden pointed out 10% can be overkill in some cases, unfortunately our audit law for the most part falls far short of the Brennan Center’s standards. Even that 10% is misleading since it is followed by a secret random drawing of three or 20% of races to be actually audited. And further while 10% for a state wide race would often be overkill, it is woefully inadequate to provide deterrence in state legislative races and most municipal races.

Recounting By Machine – The Devil Is In the Details

Once again, as has been the case since the November election we heard calls from officials for recounts by machine rather than hand counting. We also heard, once again, from Senator Slossberg that the Legislature may consider changing from manual recounts to machine recounts.

Here is where I saw the possibility of a large gap in understanding and context that may lead to misinterpretation of some of the remarks of the speakers.

In answer to a question of mine to Mr. Norden, where I asked how recounts by similar machines with similar memory card could discover problems, he answered that is was possible in cases where the machine used in the election was adjusted incorrectly or scanning incorrectly. I fear this may have left an impression with some that recounting by machine was fine. However, his answer, while technically accurate, has no relevance to catching errors or fraud having to do with software in the computer or in the memory card. Those would not be detected by running the same votes through properly setup, identically functioning computers and memory cards. In addition, if a variance were found based on an improperly functioning scanner, the question would then be which machine was more accurate – the original or the second one?

In his opening remarks Mr. Halderman mentioned that is was possible to recount and audit by reading votes through a new scanner and manually counting some votes, while saving huge sums of money, and in some cases reducing the actual hand counting to as low as 1 vote in 10,000. I agree. Yet, how many in the audience understood that he was talking about a completely different type of scanner, one that is not available commercially today. Yes, we could count and audit at a much lower cost with much more confidence – in fact the same type of technology could likely be used for the initial counting and avoid the second scanning (but the not the manual sample) altogether. The important point to understand is that this is not what is on the table in Connecticut at this time, when election officials, the Secretary of the State and the Legislature discuss recounting by machine.

Legislature To Hold Public Hearings On Optical Scan Elections

The leadership of the Government Administration and Elections Committee(GAE) announced a series of five public hearings at a press conference yesterday. One hearing will be held in each of the five congressional districts in the state. Towns where the hearings will be held were announced with no specific dates or locations. Their goal is to have the hearings during the 2nd and 3rd week of February. The towns will be West Hartford, Norwich, East Haven, Norwalk, and Danbury.

I attended the press conference but did not take verbatim quotes so I will summarize.

This is very good news for several reasons.

  • The GAE clearly recognizes that the public as well as registrars have concerns.
  • The GAE indicated that they have heard from registrars but also want to hear more from the public.
  • The areas of concern recognized so far include: registrars’ concerns for time and cost of recounts and audits; voters concerns with election day privacy, with the optical scan machine integrity, and with the integrity of the audits. (our coalition report was mentioned in the press conference)
  • The GAE is open to hearing the public and, if warranted, changing the law in the short session.
  • It is a true bi-partisan effort supported by the committee co-chairs and the ranking members. Democrats Caruso, Slossberg, and Urban. Republicans Freedman and Heartherington.

I was also pleased with the questions from the press, asking about Connecticut vs New Hampshire, and the outsourcing of elections to LHS. The GAE members said that we may well learn from the experience in New Hampshire.

On the other side of the ledger, the GAE is open to considering an optical scan based recount in close races. They say it is only one suggestion and they are not at this point recommending it. We have seen that the machines usually count accurately, yet they also frequently count inaccurately both in New Hampshire and in Connecticut. We certainly hope this idea is quickly abandoned in favor of physics, science, and reason.

Update: Stamford Advocate Story <read>

“[Secretary of the State Bysiewicz] Susan’s been the biggest cheerleader for this system and at times I don’t think she’s been able to step back and look at it objectively (and) hear some of the problems that are occurring,” Caruso said.

TalkNationRadio: Interview with Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara on Voting Machine Glitches: Breaking News re LHS Violations and State Elections

Another very informative show <read/listen>

TalkNationRadio – Raindrops Keep Falling

This week’s TalkNationRadio by Dori Smith, Raindrops Keep falling on Connecticut’s Diebold Voting Machines: <read and listen>

Interviews with Connecticut Registrars, Deputy Secretary of State Lesley Mara, and True Vote Connecticut member George Barnett.  Coverage of the November 6th election and the problems with wet ballots.

Former corporate auditor George Barnett:

‘In 2006 twenty eight of the 550 recounts from seventeen districts there were differences of ten votes or more between the machine counts and the hand counts. In 19 of those of those 28 recounts the machines recorded a higher votes than the hand counts. Now, after these audits the Secretary of State put out a press release saying the optical scan machines performed very well on election day without any problems and that 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 machine.

So if 19 recounts the machine count was higher than the hand recount during the audit, that contradicts that statement. And I personally reviewed an audit in Monroe where the machine had a higher count than the hand recount and I talked to the Registrars there and they never spoke to the Secretary of State. So it seems like the Secretary of the State made this statement without basing it on fact. She did not look into any of these differences.

Barnett has also written about these issues at CTVotersCount <here> and <here>.

FAQ – How can the scanner be hacked? It is kept in a canvas bag protected by a tamper-evident seal!

Update 10/28: The Secretary of the State’s Office has taken action to mitigate these concerns by requiring three additional tamper evident seals to indicate when the case has been open and to protect the ports. <read the details> Our democracy hangs, literally, by a vulnerable plastic thread – that can be compromised with a few … Continue reading “FAQ – How can the scanner be hacked? It is kept in a canvas bag protected by a tamper-evident seal!”

Update 10/28: The Secretary of the State’s Office has taken action to mitigate these concerns by requiring three additional tamper evident seals to indicate when the case has been open and to protect the ports. <read the details>

Our democracy hangs, literally, by a vulnerable plastic thread – that can be compromised with a few $, in a few seconds.

Background: The recent story in New Britain started curiosity for information on the actual security of the canvas bag and the tamper-evident seal that are required to protect the AccuVote-OS optical scanners in Connecticut. By fortunate coincidence I had just started reading the CA Top-To-Bottom Source Code Review of the Diebold Voting System which also led to an article, Tamper-Indicting Seals in American Scientist by Roger G. Johnson, head of the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (I will post a review of the CA Source Code Review in the near future)

Even though there is a tamper-evident seal over the memory card in the optical scanner, that alone would be insufficient to protect the memory card from unauthorized changes for two reasons: 1) Despite the recommendations of the University of Connecticut, the parallel port remains operational and exposed to provide access to compromise the scanner’s software and/or the memory card. 2) Four screws can be removed to provide access to the memory card and other parts for alteration/replacement without without disturbing the seal. The employed solution is a canvass bag matched with a tamper-evident seal enclosing the entire optical scanner.

Continue reading “FAQ – How can the scanner be hacked? It is kept in a canvas bag protected by a tamper-evident seal!”

Candidate’s rivals bothered by company’s role with voting machines

Update: 10/16 More News From New Britain: Party’s changes in ballots stress election chiefs Apparently Higher Pay does not prevent stress.

New Britain Herold story by Rick Guinness – Are voting machines protected properly? The article and the quotes from individuals involved open more questions than they answer. It is clear that Gerry Amodio is on the ballot and his company is moving the voting machines. The rest of the facts are unclear. And since the actual move has not yet happened, by surfacing the issue election officials will have time to do the right thing, no mater their original intent. <read>

Here is who the Moderator’s Handbook says must deliver the voting machines:

“BOTH Assistant Registrars from EACH polling place, or two sworn election officials from different parties (which can include the Registrars of Voters) or one police officer”.

Continue reading “Candidate’s rivals bothered by company’s role with voting machines”

Bev Harris Discusses Vulnerabilities in Bridgeport

Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org has posted a stimulating discussion of the election in Bridgeport and our vulnerabilities. Not the kind of national publicity we should be proud of in the Constitution State: <read>

Bev alleges no known illegalities or incorrect vote counts, but points to the vulnerabilities of our custody procedures, the sealing of our voting machines, the inadequacy or irrelevance of the inner seal, and some questions specific to Bridgeport. Whoever won or should have won, the Bridgeport mayoral primary demonstrates several vulnerabilities which do not instill confidence.

Whoever won or should have won, the procedures in Bridgeport mayoral primary have left plenty of room for fraud…

In other words, this is a “Trust Me” elections model where you are trusting private contractors…

Despite a lot of hoopla about security procedures and special testing of memory cards and seals, we received citizen reports of at least one midday voting machine replacement. This, in a location where only 270 votes separated candidates. One or two polling places was enough to do the trick…

I have not seen the seal on the canvas tote bag, but that is actually the only seal that matters (if it even matters; I have a little experiment in mind…). The seal on the voting machine itself is a sham…

By the way, the legal term for racketeering, the charge brought against our friend the Bridgeport mayor, is “conspiracy.” Next time someone calls you a conspiracy theorist, consider saying, “Well yes, in the RICO sense, I suppose I am.”

Bev was the featured guest on Voice of The Voters last night in Pennsylvania. Two of the three callers were from Connecticut, including yours truly. I briefly discussed the recent audits. She pointed out that in her opinion that audits are not really public unless we actually see the ballots as they are being counted. Food for thought.