Internet Voting | CTVotersCount.org

Governor Malloy: Please Veto Internet Voting BIll

Earlier this week we sent a letter to Governor Malloy requesting that he veto Senate Bill 647, now Public Act 13-185. It is now up to the Governor to protect voting integrity, uphold the Connecticut Constitution, and remain steadfast to the principles articulated to his veto message last year for a similar bill.

Here is the summary from the letter articulating why a veto is appropriate:

This bill is a threat to the security, accuracy, and secrecy of the votes of our military members and their dependents, and thus to the certified outcomes of our elections.
It is unconstitutional since it violates the Connecticut Constitution, which states: “The right of secret voting shall be preserved.”
It requires the Secretary of the State and the Connecticut Military Department to develop a system for secure and private online voting by October 1^st. A task that security experts, computer scientists, and experts at Homeland Security, and NIST (The National Institutes of Standards and Technology) believe is technically impossible.
It is further complicated by provisions for voting by deployed military dependents. It also is not restricted to deployed military, not even restricted to military actually on duty.
It sets a requirement for guaranteed receipt within four hours in each voter’s municipality. This cannot be accomplished by either fax or email return.
While online voting through a web page might be developed to meet the guaranteed return requirement, it is also insecure, risks the secret vote, and would be very expensive.
All known methods of Internet voting would likely violate Connecticut’s Voter Verified Paper Records law established in 2005.

U.S. says it will not export tools to interfere in politics

Even the cicadas must know by now that the U.S. is engaged in massive collection of data on phone calls, emails, web access, and banking transactions. Those who a week ago were criticized as ‘conspiracy theorists’ for claiming the Government had such massive secret spying programs will now be criticized as ‘naive’ for not knowing this was going on all along. What more can we say? What can we add that has relevance to elections and election integrity?

Today, there are two articles, an op-ed, and an engaging cartoon in the New York Times:

U.S. Helps Allies Trying To Battle Iranian Hackers <read>
How The U.S. Delved Deeper Via Technology <read>
Your Smartphone is Watching You <read>
The Strip: Secret Agent Smartphone <read>

Restating the Obvious

Internet voting is unsafe and not guaranteed to be secret. Our voting is most vulnerable to insiders.

Iranian, Chinese, or Al Qaeda hackers attempting to compromize a U.S. election have a more difficult job changing votes.
Foreign and outsider efforts are likely to be detected if they change votes or disrupt a Federal election – detected and reversed or mitigated.
I really don’t care if foreign governments or terrorists know who I voted for, not sure they care, few would be intimidated by their potential to find out.
But insiders are are another matter. They have an easier job. Their legitimate access and sanctioned unconstitutional or illegal access is less likely to be detected or prosecuted.

We can only suggest that anyone who trusts politicians and other insiders to never use every tool available, or trusts that Internet voting is somehow immune from compromise has a serious case of cognitive dissonance. Unfortunately, when it comes to Internet voting that virus has infected our entire state Legislature. While we are pleased that Connecticut’s entire Congressional Delegation have expressed concerns with the NSA spying, we doubt that they are convinced that Internet voting is unsafe.

Thanks For Small Assurances

In the 1st article, we learn:

Officials pledge that computer hardware and software eventually provided to allied nations will be evaluated to avoid providing the type of defensive systems that also can be used for domestic surveillance or to punish political opponents.

We find nothing particularly surprising in this statement. Yet, for ‘naive’ readers, let me regain the skeptical mantle of ‘conspiracy theorist’ by pointing out:

This assurance is presumably given by some of those same “officials” who until a few days ago claimed that the U.S. does not have these secret spying programs, that now claim that they are not a big deal, yet hid their existence and still hide the questionable legal justifications.
I’d love to see how systems that allow foreign surveillance can be released that cannot be used for domestic surveillance. For the technically challenged, consider that Saudi Arabia could ‘rendition’ its domestic spying or political manipulation to Japan or South Korea in return for a bit of oil.
Are we saving the software that allows domestic surveillance and punishing opponents for our own domestic use?
Since it is not mentioned, are we exporting software that could manipulate election results?
Would a country that would work to overthrow foreign leaders through a coup, and openly work to change election results, hesitate to punish foreign politicians, or manipulate foreign election results? (Hint e.g.: Google “Chavez Coup CIA”)
Would insiders from top leaders, to individuals with the keys to the kingdom, hesitate to manipulate U.S. elections?

Once again, those who would call this farfetched have little knowledge of U.S. History and the fallibility of human nature. Our Democracy was designed to defeat human nature with checks and balances, with the bill of rights, including transparency, individual privacy, and a subsidized free press.

What Can They Know And How Can They Use It?

The op-ed provides a chilling summary, including:

It is at least possible to participate in online culture while limiting this horizontal, peer – to – peer exposure. But it is practically impossible to protect your privacy vertically — from the service providers and social media networks and now security agencies that have access to your every click and text and e – mail. Even the powerful can’t cover their tracks, as David Petraeus discovered. In the surveillance state, everybody know s you’re a dog.

And every looming technological breakthrough, from Google Glass to driverless cars, promises to make our every move and download a little easier to track. Already, Silicon Valley big shots tend to talk about privacy in roughly the same paternalist language favored by government spokesmen. “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know,” Google’s Eric Schmidt told an interviewer in 2009, “maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

The problem is that we have only one ma jor point of reference when we debate what these trends might mean: the 20th – century totalitarian police state, whose every intrusion on privacy was in the service of tyrannical one – party rule. That model is useful for teasing out how authoritarian regimes will try to harness the Internet’s surveillance capabilities, but America isn’t about to turn into East Germany with Facebook pages.

For us, the age of surveillance is more likely to drift toward what Alexis de Tocqueville described as “soft despotism” o r what the Forbes columnist James Poulos has dubbed “the pink police state.” Our government will enjoy extraordinary, potentially tyrannical powers, but most citizens will be monitored without feeling persecuted or coerced.

So instead of a climate of pervasive fear, there will be a chilling effect at the margins of political discourse, mostly affecting groups and opinions considered disreputable already. Instead of a top – down program of political repression, there will be a more haphazard pattern of politically motivated, Big Data – enabled abuses. (Think of the recent I.R.S. scandals, but with damaging personal information being leaked instead of donor lists.) In this atmosphere, radicalism and protest will seem riskier..

The second article some chilling details:

Accompanying that explosive growth has been rapid progress in the ability to sift through the information. When separate streams of data are integrated into large databases — matching, for example, time and location data from cellphones with credit card purchases or E – ZPass use — intelligence analysts are given a mosaic of a person’s life that would never be available from simply listening to their conversations. Just four data points about the location and time of a mobile phone call, a study published in Nature found, make it possible to identify the caller 95 percent of the time…

Industry experts say that intelligence and law enforcement agencies also use a new technology, known as trilaterization, that allows tracking of an individual’s location, moment to moment. The data, obtained from cellphone towers, can track the altitude of a person, down to the specific floor in a building. There is even software that exploits the cellphone data seeking to predict a person’s most likely route. “It is extreme Big Brother,” said Alex Fielding, an expert in networking and data centers…

So,

They can find every candidate we have contributed to. Every email we have sent. Pretty much every event, protest, or meeting we have attended.
Every ‘conspiracy theory’ we have believed or investigated along with ‘naive’ views we have held, every contradictory statement, and link us to others with all sorts of views we may or may not agree with.
Every donation, medical condition, every mistake, or misstatement we have ever made.
Bad enough that they will know every Facebook post and every (sort of) public statement, but also anything written or said candidly, casually, or unthinkingly.
Are we sure that potential employers or potential friends or allies will not find this information or be given that information to harm us or them?

CT Senate’s Magical Mystery Military Voting Tour

In summary the bill requires the Secretary of the State, Military Department, and Local Officials to defy science and economics, performing at least two miracles!

Just in time for Memorial Day, the Connecticut Senate has passed unanimously, an amended version of S.B. 647, An Act Concerning Voting By Members Of The Military Serving Overseas – To permit voters who are members of the armed forces and serving overseas to return ballots by electronic means

In summary the bill requires the Secretary of the State, Military Department, and Local Officials to defy science and economics, performing at least two miracles!

The previous version directed that the Secretary and the Military department develop a method for safe electronic voting and produce a report outlining needed changes in the law by next January. This bill requires them to develop that method by October 1st this year and that it be implemented in 2014, apparently regardless of their success in developing such a method and their success in passing such legislation.

The Requirements of the Bill
[Our comments in brackets]

On or before October 1, 2013, the Secretary of the State, in consultation with the Military Department, shall select a method for use in any election or primary held after September 1, 2014 [After the August 2014 Primary]
may be used by any elector or applicant for ad ission as an elector who is a member of the armed forces and expects to be living or traveling outside the several states of the United States and the District of Columbia before and on election day, [So any travel or living change applies, duty related or not, so, a National Guard member not deployed but on vacation or a business trip could presumably vote under this act]
or such member’s spouse or dependent if living where such member is stationed, [It includes spouses and dependents but not those on vacation, at college, or on business trips]
due consideration to the interests of maintaining the security of such ballot and the privacy of information contained on such ballot, [We assume ‘due consideration’ should include assuring the Constitutional requirement of a secret vote be strictly maintained]
and…ensures receipt, prior to the closing of the polls on the day of the election or primary, of such ballot by the municipality in which the member or member’s spouse or dependent is enrolled or has applied for admission as an elector, if such method is properly utilized by such member or such member’s spouse or dependent prior to the closing of the polls on the day of the election or primary. [So, within 4 hours of voting by 8:00pm EST, it must be guaranteed to be received by some official, inbox, or machine in the appropriate municipality. 8:00pm EST could be almost any hour of the 24 hours in a day, depending on the deployment, business, or vacation location]
Not later than January 1, 2014, the Secretary of the State shall submit a report, in accordance with section 11-4a of the general statutes, to the joint standing committees of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to elections and veterans’ and military affairs describing such method and any legislative changes necessary for its implementation.

Lets look at the three known options: Email, Fax, and Online Voting

Email is (1) of course, not secure with the NSA listening in, interceptable by bad external actors, and directly accessible by insiders such as email vendors, insiders at data centers all along the way from personal computers or military computers, state computers, local town computers, and every stop along the way. (2) Email cannot meet the mandated four hour delivery requirement – often emails take much longer to traverse the Internet, presumably especially from remote locations the military must protect (3) Email frequently is not delivered at all. Several times a year I become aware of emails sent to me that never arrived. (4) Email schemes we have seen all require that an individual along the way receive and print the “ballot” for counting – a clear violation of the secret vote. (5) Email would have to cover personal computers for spouses and dependents, not military computers. And the military member might be on vacation or business in an area where no military computer access is available.
Fax, (1) like email is subject to interception in transmission (2) and like mail is subject to an individuals in town hall or state government viewing the fax as it is received. (3) subject to viewing and potential viewing by multiple members of the military as it is passed up the chain-of-command and to the Voting Assistance Officer as articulated by Rep Alexander. (4) We cannot expect the chain-of-command to pass votes and wake Voting Assistance Officers to pass votes along at all hours and within four hours, nor to provide services to dependents – did we mention they also have a war to fight and enemies that might not avoid attacks during that critical four hour period.
Online Voting – By online voting we mean some interactive means of voting on a web page or sending a .pdf ballot under the control of a webpage, not via email. (1) Online voting can be more secure that email or fax voting, yet is still not secure as confirmed by NIST and Homeland Security. And no online voting system has proven secure by sufficient evaluation and testing – in fact, the only system subject to some public testing failed spectacularly and another was broken by an average citizen, while vendors refuse to open their systems to scrutiny. (2) Online voting may be difficult to administer and use, when the system is too hard to use they blame the voters. (3) Online voting is expensive! Will the state and local officials do better than highly funded vendors or turn to their ineffective solutions? It would have cost just Edmonton Alberta $400,000. (4) Online systems entail emailing or paper mailing IDs to the voters – email can be compromised, and avoiding especially outgoing mail is the whole motivation for this bill. Which brings us to an additional miracle. (5) Once again, it cannot be restricted to military computers.

Another Miracle for the Secretary, Military Department, and Local Officials

The Legislature requires that the the report, voting implemented, and run at no cost! It was passed with a note from the Office of Fiscal Analysis: “NO FISCAL IMPACT”. Or as articulated in more detailed note for the committee approved bill:

State Impact: None

Municipal Impact: None

Explanation

The bill, which requires the Secretary of the State to develop and report on a method for returning the ballot of a military member stationed overseas, has no fiscal impact.

The Out Years

State Impact: None

Municipal Impact: None

We doubt anything close to claiming some level of security or privacy can be done at no cost. An online system would be in the hundreds of thousands, a credible study and report on fax and email would require extensive expertise and time.

An interesting comparison is with a somewhat similar but much easier and feasible requirement in another bill passed by the same committee this year, and also analyses with a note from the Office Fiscal Analysis. The bill allows municipalities to use, at their option, electronic check-in. It requires, probably in response to our testimony, that the Secretary provide a list of acceptable electronic check-in equipment, much less a task:

State Impact:

Agency Affected Fund-Effect FY 14 $ FY 15 $

Secretary of the State GF – Cost 150,000 10,000

Municipal Impact:

Municipalities Effect FY 14 $ FY 15 $

Various Municipalities Potential Cost Less than 20,000 Less than 20,000

Explanation

The bill would allow registrars of voters to use electronic systems that are approved by the Secretary of the State (SOTS) to check in voters. The bill would also require SOTS to create and maintain a list of electronic devices that municipalities may use for electronic checking in of voters.

The SOTS is anticipated to incur a cost of $150,000 in FY 14 to review, approve, and create a list of approved electronic devices for use in the voter check in process. The SOTS is anticipated to incur on-going costs of $10,000 per year beginning in FY 15 to maintain and update the list of approved electronic devices. Given the technical nature of device approval it is expected that the costs identified for SOTS will support a contracted consultant.

To the extent that municipalities decide to utilize electronic resources to check in voters, there is a potential cost to municipalities arising from their purchase of such devices. The cost potentially incurred by municipalities is dependent upon the type of equipment utilized and number of polling stations in a municipality. Such costs are not anticipated to exceed $20,000 for municipalities that decide to utilize this type of equipment.

The Out Years

The annualized ongoing fiscal impact for SOTS identified above would continue into the future subject to inflation. Municipal costs in the out years would be dependent upon the lifecycle of the equipment utilized.

What is Secretary Merrill to Do?
(If this bill passes the House and is not vetoed again by the Governor)

We presume the Secretary is expected to obey the law, and that Secretary Merrill maintains her past opposition to electronic voting as expressed in her testimony on this bill and on S.B 283, stated by experts in her Online Voting Symposium, and confirmed by the Governor’s veto last year.

Normally, we presume Connecticut has a government of men (and women), of a Constitution, and not of miracles! We do not believe the Constitution requires that any official perform miracles. If it did then it would be easy to command the Governor to solve all our budget, tax, and funding problems in a similar manner.

While her response is up to the Secretary, we would suggest she insist that the report include:

Even experts at Homeland Security and the National Institute of Standards and Technology agree with the vast majority of computer scientists and security experts that the Internet is not safe and cannot be made safe for voting.
That while we have a dedicated state Military Department and legendary state and local Information Technology Departments, it is unlikely that they can defy science to do better than the U.S. Military, and large financial institutions which are regularly hacked.
That she and the Military Department cannot meet the requirements of the law that secrecy and security be protected.
That any requirements not include directives to the U.S. Military, which has shown a lack of enthusiasm and compliance with directives regarding military voting from the U.S. Congress.
At minimum the Constitution would need to be amended to eliminate or adjust the requirement of a secret vote, and this law amended to eliminate the requirement for ‘due consideration’ of security and privacy.
That the Office of Fiscal Analysis incorrectly stated the costs of study, implementation, and operation.
Any system should be subject to extensive independent, contracted security evaluation and testing along with well notified extensive public testing, and public comment, to guarantee its security and secrecy. Such testing should include random unannounced testing using typical equipment in the typical environments to be used by the military members and their dependents. Our voters and our military are worth this and deserve it!

Online voting system names winners in Canada

As the Connecticut General Assembly contemplates online voting, we should contemplate r the implications of the recent Liberal Party online vote. In this case it was a landslide. What if it was very very close? Or there were polls saying the other candidate should have won by a comfortable or small margin?

Bonus: 2,904 reasons in New York City alone, that Internet banking and Internet voting can be costly.

As the Connecticut General Assembly contemplates online voting, we should contemplate the implications of the recent Liberal Party online vote. In this case it was a landslide. What if it was very very close? Or there were polls saying the other candidate should have won by a comfortable or even a small margin? Would we trust the result? Should we?

Canada’s Liberal Party Holds Online Primaries While Security Experts Scowl <read>

Canada’s Liberal party elected a new leader last week. And for the first time in the party’s history, the voting took place online. Justin Trudeau, the telegenic son of the late Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s most famous prime minister, won in a landslide with over 80 per cent of the vote. But online voting critics say that despite the decisive results, the Internet remains an unsafe place to cast your vote.

Impossible to ensure security and anonymity

“If the Conservative party want to select the next Liberal party leader, this provides them with the perfect opportunity,” says Dr. Barbara Simons, an online voting expert, and co-author (with Douglas Jones) of Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count? “I am not saying the Conservatives would do this — I’m just saying this is a very foolish and irresponsible thing for Liberals to be doing, because they open themselves up to vote-rigging that would be almost untraceable, and impossible to prove.”

Simons draws parallels between the risks involved in voting and banking online. She points to viruses like ZeuS (“It’s my favorite virus, because it is incredibly smart,”) which has been used by criminals to steal millions of dollars from online bank accounts, leaving its victims none the wiser.

“I think many people feel that what they see on their screen is what goes out on the Internet,” says Simons. “They don’t appreciate the fact that these are different components, and there is software in between that can change the results – they can vote for candidate A, and a virus can change their vote to candidate B, and they wouldn’t know.”

Actually online voting is more risky that online banking because there is no receipt or audit available to determine if votes were counted for the correct candidate. But as Dr. Simons says, banking is risky even with bank owned ATM’s.

For those doubters here are 2,904 reasons in New York City alone, that Internet banking and Internet voting can be costly:

In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme <read>

It was a brazen bank heist, but a 21st-century version in which the criminals never wore ski masks, threatened a teller or set foot in a vault.

In two precision operations that involved people in more than two dozen countries acting in close coordination and with surgical precision, thieves stole $45 million from thousands of A.T.M.’s in a matter of hours.

In New York City alone, the thieves responsible for A.T.M. withdrawals struck 2,904 machines over 10 hours starting on Feb. 19, withdrawing $2.4 million.

The operation included sophisticated computer experts operating in the shadowy world of Internet hacking, manipulating financial information with the stroke of a few keys, as well as common street criminals, who used that information to loot the automated teller machines.

Editor’s Note: We seem to repeatedly harp on some subjects over and over, like the risks of mail-in voting and all forms of Internet voting. Yet, it also seems that the message never quite makes it that both are very vulnerable in theory and in practice. We will keep at it, working for rational discussion and evaluation.

Bills Approved Earlier by the GAE Committee

As promised, comments on earlier bills passed through the Government Administration and Elections Committee.

As promised, comments on other bills passed through the Government Administration and Elections Committee.

S.B. 901 Post-Election Audits This bill would allow officials to perform the post-election audit by counting with an identical AccuVote-OS scanner and memory card. Connecticut would go down as in history as the first state to effectively kill post-election audits. Machine Assisted Audits that are publicly verifiable are possible, but not this way.

S.B. 1058 Destroying Unused Absentee Ballots By Town Clerks We would like to see a comprehensive strengthening and standardization of the retention of all ballots. Currently clerks retain voted absentee ballots in manila envelopes in unnumbered tamper evident tape, for six months or twenty-two months. Polling place ballots are retained for the same period by registrars, and are sealed in bags with numbered tamper evident seals, for only fourteen days. Without comprehensive reform, this is essentially a harmless bill.

S.B. 1118 Prohibits Some Criminals From Certification As Moderators A common sense idea, although we know of none who have been. We would like to see the same criminals prevented from becoming Registrars of Voters and Registrars at minimum required to be certified as Moderators.

S.B. 6630 Allowing Delivery of Absentee Ballots At An Agreed Upon Time Codifying what is largely already the actual practice.

H.B. 6635 Requiring Election Results To Be Certified By Local Officials Seven Days After An Election We would be for this bill if an earlier or later date were chosen. Recanvasses must be complete eight days after an election. Specifying seven days is too late to cause a necessary recanvass, and too short to reflect the difference made by a recanvass. Looks like more work at a less than useful time.

S.B. 647 A Report On Laws To Be Changed For Online Voting We see no need for another report. We know it is risky, we know it is unconstitutional. Better than S.B. 283 that mandates fax and email voting this year, just like the bill vetoed by Governor Malloy last year.

S.B. 432 National Popular Vote Agreement/Compact An act we have long opposed because it would make a flawed system for electing the President even worse. We would be in favor of the popular election of the President if we had a, verifiablyaccurate, uniform, enforceable, and enforceable election system.

S.B. 433 Creating a Democracy Index A well intentioned idea to collect, publish, and track data around election performance. We like the idea, but will remain skeptical until we see what is collected, how accurately it is collected, and if the program is well done for several cycles. Otherwise it may just produce some feel good statistics or be quietly ignored. As Norman Augustine said, tong in cheek, “Most projects start off kind of slow, and then sort of taper off”.

H.B. 5999 Provisional Ballots For State And Municipal Offices A good idea, still needed even with Election Day Registration. e.g. When a voter claims to be eligible to register or to vote when already checked-off and officials question that.

H.J. 36 To Change The Constitution To Allow The Legislature To Decide Early Voting We supported this because the Legislature may be in a better position to choose and correct voting methods than the blunt method of specific Constitutional Amendment. But we wonder some times when we see inadequate early voting bills proposed to take effect before and amendment, after years of insisting an amendment is necessary. Either it is or it is not necessary – pass one set of bills with confidence or perhaps face court challenges.

Committee Approves 39 Bills In Last Meeting

The Government Administration and Elections Committee met for the last time before its deadline to consider and approve 39 bills. After an hour long Democratic caucus they discussed the bills for about three hours. In honor of the late Roger Ebert we provide graphic summaries of our comments.

The Government Administration and Elections Committee met for the last time before its deadline to consider and approve 39 bills. After an hour long Democratic caucus they discussed the bills for about three hours. <agenda> In honor of the late Roger Ebert we provide graphic summaries of our comments.

S.B. 4 Early Voting This would mandate early voting for eight days before each state (even year) election. We are not against early voting, yet this bill needs more details to protect voters and guide officials, especially in the areas of ballot security, registration, and check-in coordination. It also might be unconstitutional. It will be quite costly, especially for small towns. It also includes an unrelated provision attempting to force the Secretary of the State and Registrars to limit lines to 15 minutes at most.

S.B. 5 Campaign Finance Disclosure This bill would increase disclosure requirements for independent campaign spending, including listing top donors in advertisements. Ironically for disclosure, a similar bill last was written behind closed doors, with no opportunity for testimony, and later a “rat” provision for email and fax military voting was added. We are half-way to a better process this year, and hopefully to passage of a clean bill for cleaner campaigns.

S.B 1146 Ending Cross Endorsements From the discussion almost no member of the GAE was in favor of the bill. It seems only Senate President, Senator Williams is in favor. Several members echoed the public testimony all but uniformly against the bill. They appreciated the cross endorsements they have received, said the bill was a “solution in search of a problem”, noted cross endorsements might decrease the spoiler effect and enliven democracy. Several said maybe there was a way to reduce “voter confusion”. Our take is that there is no voter confusion, but registrar confusion and resistance to the straight-forward, yet bothersome allocation of dual votes for the same candidates to parties. Most confusing to the public, is the many members who voted for the bill after speaking against it.

S.B. 777 Allowing Voters To Be Checked-in Electronically We favor electronic check-in. It is not proven to speed up lines, it might slow them down a bit, requiring more pollworkers. But done well it can make check-in more accurate and updating who voted faster and more accurate. With connectivity it could cut down calls to the registrars office for voters who have moved, and let voters check-in in any line. We testified against the original bill because it set no standards for electronic check-in equipment and processes. UPDATED. Based on reviewing the approved bill, not yet online, we are pleased that the Committee took our advice and required approval of check-in equipment by the Secretary of the State.

S.B. 778 Consolidation of Polling Places for Primaries We are all for allowing for the consolidation of polling places for primaries. Many towns do this already for referendums. The Governor vetoed this bill last year because he said it might be confusing to voters and the provision for secret objection by candidates. We agree with the Governor on the second point, we do not see how such objections would actually remain secret. We do not know if we would veto it just for that, but would much rather see only an-on-the-record public objection.

H.B. 5600 Making Rulings, Instructions, and Opinions Issued by The Secretary of the State Enforceable We asked for something similar several years ago. We see this bill is unchanged from the original draft. We would like it to include regulations which are not currently agreed to be enforceable. We would like it to require a specific posting method for all such items and require them to cite this law. We like the provision that voter ID requirements be posted in all polling places. Overall we would be pleased to seethis become law.

S.B. 729 Pilot Program for Early Voting in Municipal Elections. Allows up to nine towns of varying sizes to apply to pilot early voting, this November. We are all for pilot programs. We are concerned that this on lacks the same security and check-in requirements of S.B. 4 discussed earlier. It requires a report by the Secretary of the State by last January, (hopefully to be corrected) . We wish that report were specifically required to cover costs, security, and check-in coordination issues. We also wonder how many towns, especially small towns will be willing to pay for a pilot. We are also concerned that it will simply result in a feel-good approval of the idea, especially if New Haven pilots in the first open mayoral race in years, almost guaranteed to increase turnout. Overall we hope some valuable lessons will be learned, but have concerns with constitutionality.

H.B 6111 Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act We testified against this bill. It was a sketchy, blank-check, with many potential provisions that required scrutiny for coordination with existing law, especially for primaries, special elections, and referendums. Maybe the GAE listened to us. The resulting bill will help military and overseas voters, but only apply to elections. We cannot be sure of all the details – registrars would know more if there were any conflicting provisions. It calls for a bit of work on the part of the Secretary of the State, but is missing deadlines for those requirements – that can be good or bad in this case. We are pleased to be able to support this bill which will help military and overseas voters.

S.B. 283 Email and Fax Military Voting. We remain opposed to all forms of Internet voting: online, fax, or email. This is the same concept stuck in the campaign finance bill last year, without hearings. The same bill vetoed by Governor Malloy because email and fax voting is risky and unconstitutional. We cannot figure out the GAE this year, passing this bill and passing earlier S.B. 647 which mandates for a report from the Secretary of the State due next January on how email and fax voting could be accomplished and how the law would need to change. One representative keeps calling this a “Veterans Bill”. This veteran does not get how it helps anyone to risk votes and destroy the secret vote guaranteed by the Connecticut Constitution.

H.B 5903 Resolving Tie Votes A sensible minor change requiring that after tie votes, only the tied candidates should be on the ballot for the run-off election.

H.J. 3 Resolution To Congress RE: Protecting Free Speech Rights of Persons Against the assault of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

So much for one day. In the next few days, I will go back and do the same for the bills approved earlier in the session. Given past practices, many of these bills may change dramatically going forward and be consolidated together or into other bills, so our assessments may change.

Op-Ed: Internet Voting Security; Wishful Thinking Doesn’t Make It True

This was a simple online poll that was easily compromised. Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved. Before we entrust critical public functions such as voting to such software, the public deserves a solid demonstration that such claims are truly substantiated, and policy makers need to be schooled in a proper skepticism about computer security. That has not yet happened.

“Internet Voting Security; Wishful Thinking Doesn’t Make It True”

Duncan Buell

On March 21, in the midst of Kentucky’s deliberation over allowing votes to be cast over the Internet, its daily poll asked its readers, “Should overseas military personnel be allowed to vote via the Internet?” This happened the day before their editorial rightly argued against Internet voting at this time.

One of the multiple choice answers was “Yes, it can be made just as secure as any balloting system.” This brings up the old adage, “we are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.” The simple fact is that Internet voting is possible – but it is definitely NOT as secure as some other balloting systems. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact. Votes cast over the Internet are easily subject to corruption in a number of different ways.

To illustrate this point, two colleagues of mine wrote simple software scripts that allowed us to vote multiple times in the paper’s opinion poll. We could have done this with repeated mouse clicks on the website, but the scripts allowed us to do it automatically, and by night’s end we had voted 60,000 times. The poll vendor’s website claims that it blocks repeated voting, but that claim is clearly not entirely true. We did not break in to change the totals. We did not breach the security of the Courier-Journal’s computers. We simply used programs instead of mouse clicks to vote on the poll website itself.

Some policy makers are wishing that the net were secure and the security promises of vendors were true, and they are not listening to the computer experts who know otherwise. Why shouldn’t we entrust computer voting security to government and its vendors? Ask that of South Carolina taxpayers; hackers have shipped overseas all tax records and identifying information from 1998 to 2012. Wishful thinking is dangerous when it causes us to fail to protect our best interests; we must defend our data just as we defend our shores.

This was a simple online poll that was easily compromised. Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved. Before we entrust critical public functions such as voting to such software, the public deserves a solid demonstration that such claims are truly substantiated, and policy makers need to be schooled in a proper skepticism about computer security. That has not yet happened.

There is an irony in hacking an online poll about whether voting can be hacked. But it points to a much-needed dialogue between policy makers and computer security experts. Elections are too important to be entrusted, without proof, to the marketing hype of an Internet voting company. The nation’s real elections should be decided by the voters in the nation’s jurisdictions, not by whichever entity – foreign or domestic – happens to have the best software bots running on any given biennial Tuesday in November.

As Professor Buell points out “Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved.”. That has been tested once, in Washington, D.C. and the result was exposure of a clearly insufficient Internet voting system.

For now we await vendors willing to subject their systems to ongoing rigorous professional and open public adversarial testing. We admit it will take a lot to satisfy us that systems are sufficiently secure from outsiders and insiders. But it seems vendors are hardly willing try.

PS: Not so long ago another newspaper’s poll was compromised, by parties and methods not disclosed, will little lessons learned by the newspaper.

Kentucky and Connecticut (for now) choose to evaluate online voting

We are not done in Connecticut, even for this year. Two other bills are still in play. A competing online voting bill, and the UMOVEA bill. The last Committee meeting that can approve bills is Friday April 5th. Perhaps the competing bill will be dropped or also changed to a study. Perhaps the UMOVEA bill was mentioned because it contains provisions to help military vote, but likely not provisions for online voting. Beyond that all bills are subject to dramatic change and consolidation prior to votes by the Senate and House. Like last year, a section authorizing online voting could be stuffed into any other bill by the Committee, even a bill otherwise especially attractive the Governor.

This week Kentucky and Connecticut chose to evaluate online, email, and fax voting for the military.

On Thursday, Kentucky the Secretary of the State is a strong proponent of Military voting. The Legislature has been pushing back and finally chose to support online delivery of ballots (required by the Federal MOVE Act for Federal elections) and to study electronic returns <read>

Kentucky military personnel serving overseas will be able to get ballots electronically under legislation approved late Tuesday in the Kentucky General Assembly. How they send them back is still to be determined. Working until the last minute of the 2013 session, legislators went back to the original Senate version of the military voting bill that allowed for electronic sending of ballots to overseas military, but snail mail return of the ballot. The legislation also establishes a task force to study electronic returns—the preferred method of Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. The task force will address safety concerns with that option.

Like many individuals and articles, the Kentucky article assumes the alternative to electronic return is “snail mail”, ignoring the option of free express return for Federal elections and the options of states paying for free express mail in other elections – hard to imagine a price approaching the $1000 a ballot typical of online military voting. Hard to imagine anything more risky than email and fax voting.

In 2011 the Connecticut Legislature went through a similar trajectory with online(*) voting opposed by Secretary of the State Merrill. Near the end of the session the bill was changed from a mandate to a requirement that the Secretary provide a report on online voting. She responded with a Symposium on Online Voting, with national experts. By our count about 50-60 voters attended, including only three legislators <video> At least one who attended was not impressed, another who did not attend was also not impressed <read> Given the developments in 2012 and 2013 very few, if any, Legislators were impressed.

Undeterred in 2012, fax and email voting, with no public hearings was stuffed into an emergency bill for campaign finance. That bill ended in a veto by Governor Malloy, based partially on the risks of such voting and the unconstitutionality of violating the right of a secret vote. <read>

On Wednesday the Connecticut GAE Committee passed a bill forward asking for a report from the Secretary of the State, not yet available online with the rest of the information on the bill:

AN ACT CONCERNING VOTING BY MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY SERVING OVERSEAS.

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

Section 1. (NEW) (Effective from passage) The Secretary of the State, in consultation with the Military Department, shall develop a method for returning any ballot issued pursuant to section 9-153f of the general statutes that (1) may be used by any elector or applicant for admission as an elector who is a member of the armed forces and expects to be living or traveling outside the several states of the United States and the District of Columbia before and on election day, or such member’s spouse or dependent if living where such member is stationed, (2) gives due consideration to the interests of maintaining the security of such ballot and the privacy of information contained on such ballot, and (3) guarantees the immediate receipt of such ballot if such method is properly utilized by such member or member’s spouse or dependent prior to the closing of polls on the day of the election or primary. Not later than January 1, 2014, the Secretary of the State shall submit a report, in accordance with section 11-4a of the general statutes, to the joint standing committees of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to elections and veterans’ and military affairs describing such method and any legislative changes necessary for its implementation.

The bill does not seem to expect the Secretary to object, but to design a method that meets the requirements of the bill. Even so, it is a tall order. A quick analysis suggests:

“Guaranteeing Immediate Receipt” would seem to preclude email voting since email is neither immediate nor guaranteed.
Also “Guaranteeing Immediate Receipt” would likely preclude a state centralized fax or web based voting system unless the law were changed to classify that central receipt as sufficient to equal official receipt by the Town Clerk, which is now required for absentee ballots.
Including “member’s spouse or dependent” would seem to preclude email or web based return by Military computers – we doubt the Military authorizes use for such dependents.
Gives “gives due consideration to the interests of maintaining the security of such ballot and the privacy of information contained on such ballot” would seem to require consideration and adherence to the Connecticut Constitution’s requirement that “The right of secret voting shall be preserved”. Short of requiring a change to the Connecticut Constitution, email and fax voting would be precluded as demonstrated by the text of last year’s bill requiring an unconstitutional waiver of secret voting for email and fax voting.
Perhaps at a huge cost, commercial online web voting systems could be judged, or better still proven to not violate the secret ballot.
Another issue, perhaps especially with online web voting, is the issue of a voter-verified-paper-record required by all voting machines in state law. In any of these online methods neither the state nor local officials have a voter-verified-paper-record. Of course that law could be changed if necessary or overridden in specific cases.

We are not done in Connecticut, even for this year. Responding to objections to only a study by some GAE Committee members, a co-chair said that two other bills were still in play. A competing online voting bill, and the UMOVEA bill. The last Committee meeting that can approve bills is Friday April 5th. Perhaps the competing bill will be dropped or also changed to a study. Perhaps the UMOVEA bill was mentioned because it contains provisions to help military vote, but likely not provisions for online voting. Beyond that all bills are subject to dramatic change and consolidation prior to votes by the Senate and House. Like last year, a section authorizing online voting could be stuffed into any other bill by the Committee, even a bill otherwise especially attractive the Governor.

* As a long time computer scientist, programming computers since 1966, the term “online” to me is an application with a person using a computer tied to a central database. To me, “Online voting” in 2013 would be a voter entering votes on a web page to be entered into a database. But the common usage for “online voting” seems to include creating a .pdf and submitting it through a web page, emailing votes, and even using fax for submitting votes. I would call that all “Internet voting”, since the phone system used for faxing and calling these days is difficult to distinguish from the internet (with a small ‘i’). But for clarity I have started using “online web voting” for any method of voting involving interactive access to a system designed specifically to collect votes or voted ballots.

[Why NOT] Let Overseas Military Fax Votes Home ?

Connecticut does need to improve the voting process for military voters — but Internet voting is not the answer.

Every day, headlines reveal just how vulnerable and insecure any online network really is, and how sophisticated, tenacious and skilled today’s attackers are. Just last week, we learned that the U.S. has already experienced our first-ever documented attack on an election system, when a grand jury report revealed that someone hacked into the Miami-Dade primary elections system in August 2012.

Earlier in March, the Courant ran an editorial in favor of online, email, and fax early voting: Let Overseas Military Fax Votes Home <read>

We have testified twice this year against this risky, expensive, unconstitutional concept, providing information on safer, economical alternatives <here> <here>

Today, to its credit, the Courant published an op-ed by Pam Smith of VerifiedVoting. org, articulating Why Not: Internet Voting Puts Election Security At Risk <read>

Connecticut lawmakers are considering legislation to allow military voters to cast ballots over the Internet. The intention of this legislation is well-meaning — Connecticut does need to improve the voting process for military voters — but Internet voting is not the answer.

Every day, headlines reveal just how vulnerable and insecure any online network really is, and how sophisticated, tenacious and skilled today’s attackers are. Just last week, we learned that the U.S. has already experienced our first-ever documented attack on an election system, when a grand jury report revealed that someone hacked into the Miami-Dade primary elections system in August 2012.

A chilling account in The Washington Post recently reported that most government entities in Washington, including congressional offices, federal agencies, government contractors, embassies, news organizations, think tanks and law firms, have been penetrated by Chinese hackers.

They join a long list that includes the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense, Bank of America, and on and on. These organizations have huge cybersecurity budgets and the most robust security tools available, and they have been unable to prevent hacking. Contrary to popular belief, online voting systems would not be any more secure.

Not surprisingly, a senior cybersecurity official with the Department of Homeland Security warned election officials last year that online voting is premature and not advisable at this time. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (the federal body tasked with researching Internet voting) issued a statement shortly after, warning that secure Internet voting is not feasible with the tools currently available. Because the agency determined that Internet voting cannot be done securely, it has not developed testing or certification standards for systems.

So why are state lawmakers considering online voting for the military?

First, there is a mistaken perception that because we can shop and bank online, we should be able to vote online securely. But shopping or banking online are far from secure. Banks and online merchants lose billions every year to online fraud. They factor this into the cost of doing business.

There is, however, no acceptable level of vote fraud or manipulation. Moreover, elections have unique properties that are unlike banking or e-commerce. In a financial transaction, both parties can check each online transaction by reviewing a statement or receipt. But we vote by a secret ballot. Neither the voter nor the election official can verify that a ballot has been received the same way it was sent. This makes online voting especially susceptible to undetected hacking.

Second, we have seen a big push for Internet voting (including via email and digital fax) because the vendors of online voting systems have targeted state lawmakers and election officials with aggressive marketing and sales campaigns. The vendors have made extraordinary claims of security and auditability — all of which are unsubstantiated by any publicly reviewable research or documentation. None of these systems are subject to any standardized security testing or certification and claims of security are backed only by the vendors’ words.

There are things we can do to improve the voting process for our military voters without risking the integrity of their ballots or the security of our elections.

We can:

1. Move registration deadlines closer to the election. Virginia did this in 2012 and it paid big dividends, allowing service members to receive and return their ballots up to Election Day.

2. Allow our troops to use the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot to register and vote. Many states now allow service members to do both. It’s the military voter equivalent of Election Day Voter Registration. This widely used, practical reform would make absentee voting much easier for service members stationed outside of Connecticut.

3. Count military ballots postmarked by Election Day, and received seven days after. This would still give election officials enough time to count the ballots before certification, and would give our troops an opportunity to vote on Election Day.

Our legislators are right to act to improve voting for our brave men and women in uniform, but online voting is not yet the answer. Instead, the General Assembly should look to make the voting process easier and more accessible with some simple, common-sense improvements.

Groundhog Deja Vue for Fax, Email Voting

Now we have it, a redrafted S.B. 647. We do not know who was involved around the table rewriting it, yet what we have is almost an exact copy of the bill Governor Malloy vetoed last year as risky and unconstitutional.

Three decades ago, when I went off for my year in the United States government, an old hand explained to me the nature of the job: it was mostly about fighting bad ideas. And these bad ideas, he went on to explain, were like cockroaches: no matter how many times you flush them down the toilet, they keep coming back.
– Paul Krugman

The Veterans Affairs Committee held hearings on Feb 19th on S.B. 647, An Act Concerning Voting By Members Of the Military Serving Overseas. We testified against the bill which would allow fax and email return of ballots for presumably military serving overseas. The concept is risky, unconstitutional, ineffective, and unnecessary – there are better, more economical alternatives available, proven effective in other states. The Committee talked of working with others to rewrite the bill. Two days later they voted to draft S.B. 647 as a committee bill.

Do not let the bill’s title mislead you. It is not just for the military, it includes all overseas voters(*). It is not just for overseas military and their dependents, it is for any military anywhere, presumably even a national guard member living and working in Connecticut:

any elector who is living, or expects to be living or traveling before and on election day, outside the territorial limits of the several states of the United States and the District of Columbia and any member of the armed forces who is an elector or an applicant for admission as an elector, or the ember’s spouse or dependent if living where such member is stationed…

*Although we are opposed to online, email, and fax voting, we are in favor of treating all overseas voters equally, including military contractors, State Department staff, CIA staff, Peace Corps volunteers, and NGO staff and volunteers.

Agency Affected	Fund-Effect	FY 14 $	FY 15 $
Secretary of the State	GF – Cost	150,000	10,000

Municipalities	Effect	FY 14 $	FY 15 $
Various Municipalities	Potential Cost	Less than 20,000	Less than 20,000