Category: Skulduggery and Errors

Denise Merrill mostly right on Trump voting witch hunt commission

 

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill , said,“The rationale for this commission was articulated in a baseless tweet from the president that claimed millions of illegal votes were cast. The facts don’t lie. Voter fraud is extremely rare. Yet time and again, the specter of voter fraud has served as an excuse to disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters. I hope that this investigation is not a fig leaf for voter suppression and intimidation. In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

This reminds us of the Bush era witch hunt in the Justice Department for voter fraud.  Several attorneys were let go because they could not find or refused to continue hunting for all but non-existent fraud.

We do question Secretary Merrill’s statement that “In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

Secretary Merrill’s Press Release <read>

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill
, said,“The rationale for this commission was articulated in a baseless tweet from the president that claimed millions of illegal votes were cast. The facts don’t lie. Voter fraud is extremely rare. Yet time and again, the specter of voter fraud has served as an excuse to disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters. I hope that this investigation is not a fig leaf for voter suppression and intimidation. In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

This reminds us of the Bush era witch hunt in the Justice Department for voter fraud.  Several attorneys were let go because they could not find or refused to continue hunting for all but non-existent fraud.

This is clearly such a witch hunt because the commission is stacked, with mostly Republicans and mostly those with dubious records.  Not only the Secretary from Kansas but also the notorious Ken Blackwell.  The only person on the Commission so far that we would trust is William Gardner from New Hampshire.

We do question Secretary Merrill’s statement that “In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”  Perhaps we will protect such rights in the future.  But unless the General Assembly acts or the Secretary has a sudden conversion, we will continue to leave “eligible persons” in line at EDR. See <Our testimony earlier this year>

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Election News Roundup

Several instructive articles and events this week.

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

Several instructive articles and events this week.

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

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

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

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

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

Lowering The Bar For Information Warfare: Three Methods Of Interference

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Will good help be available from Homeland Security, and will Connecticut ask for it?

The Department of Homeland Security has designated Election Infrastructure as Critical Infrastructure. We ask three questions.  We would like to see evaluations in Connecticut.

We emphasize the ‘see’ as secret evaluations would do little to provide the public assurance, and likely as not, would be available one way or another to those bent on using them to exploit weaknesses in the system.

The Department of Homeland Security has designated Election Infrastructure as Critical Infrastructure: <read>

By “election infrastructure,” we mean storage facilities, polling places, and centralized vote tabulations locations used to support the election process, and information and communications technology to include voter registration databases, voting machines, and other systems to manage the election process and report and display results on behalf of state and local governments…

Prior to reaching this determination, my staff and I consulted many state and local election officials; I am aware that many of them are opposed to this designation.  It is important to stress what this designation does and does not mean.  This designation does not mean a federal takeover, regulation, oversight or intrusion concerning elections in this country.  This designation does nothing to change the role state and local governments have in administering and running elections.

The designation of election infrastructure as critical infrastructure subsector does mean that election infrastructure becomes a priority within the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. It also enables this Department to prioritize our cybersecurity assistance to state and local election officials, but only for those who request it.  Further, the designation makes clear both domestically and internationally that election infrastructure enjoys all the benefits and protections of critical infrastructure that the U.S. government has to offer. Finally, a designation makes it easier for the federal government to have full and frank discussions with key stakeholders regarding sensitive vulnerability information.

We ask four questions:

  • Will the program continue in the Trump Administration? Many Republicans are skeptical of any Federal program and currently doubting foreign interference in our elections,
  • Will the program actually be meaningful? It could fail by being a whitewash or by being to critical.
  • Will Connecticut Municipalities and the Secretary of the State ask for reviews?
  • Will we ever know?  Its results might be withheld from the public for reasons of security?

We would like to see such evaluation(s), statewide and locally:

  • An evaluation statewide of our election programming, memory card protocols, tabulator protocols, voter registration database, vote totalling, post-election audits, and recanvass procedures – not just the laws and procedures, but also their actual implementation.
  • An evaluation municipality by municipality of ballot and tabulator security.

We emphasize the ‘see’ as secret evaluations would do little to provide the public assurance, and likely as not, would be available one way or another to those bent on using them to exploit weaknesses in the system.

New Haven Set To Repeat 2014 Disaster

! W A R N I N G !

Do not wait till the last minute.  Do not wait to the last hour.  Get there early if you want to use Election Day Registration!

NOTE: This is also a tale of how elections work in a state with a Secretary of the State with limited powers over underpaid, and occasionally resistant/obstinate local registrars.  (The same registrars who are often cited by state officials as the reason we will have no problems in our elections this year.  Read here how they handle their joint responsibility.)

! W A R N I N G !

Do not wait till the last minute.  Do not wait to the last hour.  Get there early if you want to use Election Day Registration!

We have been saying this for years.  Election Day Registration is heading for a Civil Rights Violation. The reason is the Secretary of the State’s procedures which say officials must have your registration complete by 8:00pm or you will be turned away.

It happened in 2014 in New Haven, 100 were turned away.  But nobody sued.  It looks like it is going to happen again, unless somebody takes bold action.  Even then it can happen.  If they are moderately busy and a bunch of people arrive close to 8:00pm, some will be turned away.

NOTE: This is also a tale of how elections work in a state with a Secretary of the State with limited powers over underpaid, and occasionally resistant/obstinate local registrars.  (The same registrars who are often cited by state officials as the reason we will have no problems in our elections this year.  Read here how they handle their joint responsibility.)

Here is the story from the New Haven Register Election Fiasco Repeat Looms  <read>

The Secretary of the State’s office rushed down to New Haven to try to prevent a repeat Election Day disaster involving last-minute registration.

An election staffer from the office huddled with the city’s Democratic and Republican registrars Thursday to try to bring them up to speed on how to conduct Election Day Registration (EDR).

The secretary of the state’s office is concerned for three reasons, according to spokesman Patrick Gallahue:

• New Haven’s registrars, unlike the majority of other registrars in the state, failed to participate in three EDR training sessions.

• The office appeared not to have enough ballots in place and staffers ready to handle the expected crush of people seeking to vote.

• This is the first presidential election in which Connecticut will have EDR, and big crowds of last-mintue voters are anticipated in college communities.
Compounding fears is the fact that New Haven failed in handling EDR in 2014, the year it took effect in Connecticut.

We testified this year to the General Elections and Administrations Committee. They seemed to understand what we were saying, yet did nothing (at least they did not go along with the Registrars request and cut-off EDR at 7:00pm)  <testimony>

Here is the first time, we predicted this, long before the debacle in New Haven, back in May 2012 <read> and two months earlier in testimony <read>

I recommend against this proposal for Election Day Registration. It lacks sufficient detail to protect the rights of EDR voters, the rights of all voters, and the integrity of elections. The structure that is proposed, by its nature portends chaos in future critical and high interest elections…

Another Annotation: Don’t stop being concerned about election integrity.

Lately the news is filled with Donald Trump saying the election is rigged and with election officials and others saying that is impossible.  We continue to disagree with both. As we have said:

The truth is that there is no more or less risk to elections this year than in the recent past. The bad news is that the risks of election skullduggery are significant and do not come only from one adversary.

So, lets annotate a recent Op-Ed in the Hartford Courant: Nothing Rigged About American Elections

Lately the news is filled with Donald Trump saying the election is rigged and with election officials and others saying that is impossible.  We continue to disagree with both.  As we have said: (And we and others have said again, again, and again more this year,)

The truth is that there is no more or less risk to elections this year than in the recent past. The bad news is that the risks of election skullduggery are significant and do not come only from one adversary. A report from the Institute for Critical Infrastructure technology says it all: “Hacking Elections is Easy!” The report discusses how our election infrastructure, from voting machines to registration and reporting systems, are all at risk.

In Connecticut, like most states, a disruption in our centralized voter registration system on Election Day or its compromise before voter lists are printed, would disrupt an election. In many municipalities, voted ballots are easily accessible to multiple single individuals, “protected” only by all but useless tamper-evident seals. Partisans run our elections from top to bottom. Most are of high integrity, yet there is high motivation for manipulation.

We can do much better in the long run, if the actual risks are not forgotten after November.

So, lets annotate a recent Op-Ed in the Hartford Courant

Nothing Rigged About American Elections
By SCOTT BATES
Amid the rubble of war, a woman stood against a cold and bitter wind. I asked her why she stood patiently waiting in a line with hundreds of her neighbors. “I have waited 90 years to cast my vote,” she said with a smile. “I can wait just a little longer.”
In the autumn of 2001, I had the privilege to be with this woman and thousands of others for the first parliamentary elections in war torn Kosovo. For decades, the people of this east European land were ruled by kings and dictators, and occupied by Nazis and Communists. But at the dawn of a new century, with American help, they emerged from the shadow of genocidal war and put their faith in a future decided by free and fair elections.
In the past quarter century, I have worked alongside people in more than a dozen countries on four continents to help advance the democratic process by holding free and fair elections. Here at home, I
worked on a team that called on the U.S. Justice Department to push back against voter intimidation against African-Americans in east Texas. As a member of the National Association of Secretaries of State,
I stood with Republican and Democratic election officials to ensure that the integrity of our electoral system is respected and protected.
[There are, of course, deserved respect and blind faith. One can work for either or both.]
That’s why I’ve taken claims that our election system is “rigged” very seriously. Once faith in the integrity of the electoral system is undermined, the legitimacy of government is called into question. Democracy itself cannot long endure in such an environment.
[If faith in the integrity of the electoral system is undermined, then we should use facts and reason to determine if faith is justified, or if the system needs attention.]
Fortunately, there are some internationally accepted guidelines that help us determine if an electoral system is rigged.
First, there needs to be a legal framework that specifies the time, place and manner of holding elections. We’ve got that—it’s in the Constitution along with 50 state constitutions and related local regulations.
Second, there should be universal and equal suffrage and nondiscrimination when it comes to who canvote. This has not always been the case in the United States. It could be said that elections in which African-Americans and women were denied the vote in the past were rigged, but fortunately that is no longer the case.
[Unfortunately, our 50-state system is not uniform and in many states barriers are in-place to make it easier or more difficult for particular classes of citizens to vote.]
Third, electoral management bodies should be formed that can hold and monitor the conduct of elections. In the United States, each of the 50 states separately controls conduct of the electoral processthrough their respective offices of the secretary of state. Today, the majority of these officers are, infact, Republicans. All of these offices are staffed with career professionals. At the local level, tens of thousands of municipalities across the United States have town or city clerks or registrars of voters who administer elections and count ballots.
[This are not necessarily an exhaustive list of requirements. Also often the devil is in the details.  There is no guarantee that each one of these individuals is honest and unbiased.  We all remember Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris.  We note that Government finances are under the control of individuals in every state, county and town, yet that does not guarantee the money is all accounted for.] [PS:  Those officials do not, in general, count the ballots.  It is left to pollworkers and the vast majority of ballots are not counted by people but by machines that those people do not fully understand or control.]
Fourth, provision should be made for election observers to be present during the casting of ballots, as well as being present during tabulation of the ballots. These duties are carried out by hundreds of
thousands of our fellow Americans at polling sites across the country. Thank them when you see them this Nov. 8.
[I am one of them and appreciate thanks.  Here in Connecticut no observers are allowed – yet with machine counting there is not much to observers and when votes are counted by hand, observers are allowed to watch from quite a distance.]
Working in places like Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, I have seen men and women put their lives on the line to organize and participate in elections. They did it because they believed democracy offered them a way forward. They saw it as a flawed system, but one with more hope than the one from which they emerged.
[Many of them would be happy to be here.  But the question is, do we have a flawed system and hope for improvement or unjustified blind faith?]
Those who denigrate our democracy with groundless claims not
only insult the thousands of officials and hundreds of thousands of poll workers who make the system work, they risk undermining the faith that millions across the globe have placed in democracy as the best system to advance equality of opportunity and protect the rights of the individual and the dignity of all.
[When one disagrees with our foreign policy, one is accused of insulting the troops and veterans. Here questioning our election system is diffused as insulting pollworkers.  If one is to have faith in Democracy, it must be fully realized and open to improvement and questioning.]
By any measure, America’s electoral system is a wonder to behold, for on this Election Day, one of the most diverse populations on the planet will show the world—once again—that free people can govern themselves.
[Apparently not as Obama said four years ago “We can fix this.”]
Scott Bates of Stonington is an adjunct senior fellow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I., the former Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia and has worked on U.S.-funded democracy assistance missions in over a dozen countries.
[Yes Virginia, which until recently used widely viewed as the most notorious voting system system in use, the WinVote. <read>.  The WinVote probably did happen after Bate’s service as Secretary of State in the mid 90’s <bio>]

Secret Ballot and Constitution under assault in Connecticut by AP and Secretary of the State’s Office

One AP story, two different versions in the Connecticut Post and the Hartford Courant.

As we said in our comment on the Connecticut Post article:

Connecticut has this other thing called the Constitution. It is even available at the Secretary’s website. It says: “The right of secret voting shall be preserved.”, which would likely be interpreted as not taking a picture of your ballot such that you could prove how it was voted. Otherwise votes could easily be bought, sold or intimidated. http://www.ct.gov/sots/cwp/view.asp?q=392288

One AP story, two different versions in the Connecticut Post and the Hartford Courant:

CTPost: Ballot selfies: A look at where they are allowed or not  <read>

CONNECTICUT: No law bans ballot selfies, according to Patrick Gallahue, a spokesman for Secretary of State Denise Merrill. But election moderators have discretion to prohibit activity “that threatens the orderly process of voting or the privacy of another voter’s ballot.”

Courant: If you elect to take ‘ballot selfie,’ check state law first <read>

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring issued a formal opinion last month that nothing in Virginia law prohibits voters from taking pictures of themselves, fellow voters or their ballot within the polling place.
Ballot selfies are also legal in Connecticut.

As we said in our comment on the Connecticut Post article:

Connecticut has this other thing called the Constitution. It is even available at the Secretary’s website. It says: “The right of secret voting shall be preserved.”, which would likely be interpreted as not taking a picture of your ballot such that you could prove how it was voted. Otherwise votes could easily be bought, sold or intimidated. http://www.ct.gov/sots/cwp/view.asp?q=392288

UPDATED: Not a hack, breathe easy! PS: 1000’s of registrations changed

Obviously it was only incompetence and likely fraud, unless officials are mistaken. Indiana official: Altered voter registrations raise concerns

******Update: Clarified? It could also be a witch hunt

Obviously it was only incompetence and likely fraud, unless officials are mistaken. Indiana official: Altered voter registrations raise concerns  <read>

Thousands of voter registrations were altered, raising concerns about possible fraud, says Indiana’s chief elections official, whose office warned voters to check whether their information is correct online and encouraged voting early to avoid problems on Election Day.

Secretary of State Connie Lawson said in a statement Tuesday that Indiana’s online voter registration database had not been hacked but records were changed on paper forms, online and at Bureau of Motor Vehicles offices.

“At this time, my office is not sure why these records were changed, but we have evaluated the Statewide Voter Registration System and have found no indication it has been compromised,” said Lawson, a Republican…

The Indiana voter registration problem surfaced when voters contacted the secretary of state’s office after discovering through the online system voters can use to check their registration status that their dates of birth or first names were incorrect, the office said. That prompted the office to run a report in the statewide system and it found that thousands of registrations had been altered. The office declined to provide a more precise number.

******Update: Clarified? It could also be a witch hunt: <read>

Security Against Election Hacking

From Freedom to Tinker, Andrew Appel: Security against Election Hacking – Part 1: Software Independence <read>

We have heard a lot lately about the vulnerabilities of our elections to hacking.  Both cyberhacking and unsophisticated insider attacks. Andrew Appel describes some common sense approaches to detect and deter error and fraud in our elections, covering three major vulnerabilities:

  • Incorrect or unavailable poolbooks.
  • Voting machines
  • Accumulation of results across polling places and jurisdictions

From Freedom to Tinker, Andrew Appel: Security against Election Hacking – Part 1: Software Independence <read>

We have heard a lot lately about the vulnerabilities of our elections to hacking.  Both cyberhacking and unsophisticated insider attacks. Andrew Appel describes some common sense approaches to detect and deter error and fraud in our elections, covering three major vulnerabilities:

  • Incorrect or unavailable poolbooks.
  • Voting machines
  • Accumulation of results across polling places and jurisdictions

Any of these computers could be hacked.  What defenses do we have?  Could we seal off the internet so the Russians can’t hack us?  Clearly not; and anyway, maybe the hacker isn’t the Russians—what if it’s someone in your opponent’s political party?  What if it’s a rogue election administrator?

The best defenses are ways to audit the election and count the votes outside of, independent of the hackable computers…

So the good news is: our election system has many checks and balances so we don’t have to trust the hackable computers to tell us who won.  The biggest weaknesses are DRE paperless touchscreen voting machines used in a few states, which are completely unacceptable; and possible problems with electronic pollbooks.

In this article I’ve discussed paper trails: pollbooks, paper ballots, and per-precinct result printouts.  Election officials must work hard to assure the security of the paper trail: chain of custody of ballot boxes once the polls close, for example.  And they must use the paper trails to audit the election, to protect against hacked computers (and other kinds of fraud, bugs, and accidental mistakes).  Many states have laws requiring (for example) random audits of paper ballots; more states need such laws, and in all states the spirit of the laws must be followed as well as the letter.

Read the full, brief article to understand the details of Appel’s recommendations.

In addition to paying attention to all these recommendations, Connecticut needs to attend to improving our existing post-election audit transparency, the security of ballots, and consider adding formal measures along these lines for check off lists and results reporting.

 

 

Report: Secret Ballot At Risk

A new report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, articulates some of the risks of losing the the Secret Ballot: Secret Ballot At Risk: Recommendations for Protecting Democracy <Exec Summary> <Report>

We recommend reading the Executive Summary and at least the section of the report covering the history of and the need for the secret ballot, pages 4-9 and the section for your state, e.g. Connecticut pages 54-55.

Our only criticism is that the report does not cover the risks to the secret ballot and democracy posed by photos, most often seen in selfies of voters with the voted ballot taken in the voting booth.  Nor does it cover the risks  to the secret ballot posed by absentee voting.

A new report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, articulates some of the risks of losing the the Secret Ballot: Secret Ballot At Risk: Recommendations for Protecting Democracy <Exec Summary> <Report>

We recommend reading the Executive Summary and at least the section of the report covering the history of and the need for the secret ballot, pages 4-9 and the section for your state, e.g. Connecticut pages 54-55.

Our only criticism is that the report does not cover the risks to the secret ballot and democracy posed by photos, most often seen in selfies of voters with the voted ballot taken in the voting booth.  Nor does it cover the risks  to the secret ballot posed by absentee voting.

From the Executive Summary:

The right to cast a secret ballot in a public election is a core value in the United States’ system of self-governance. Secrecy and privacy in elections guard against coercion and are essential to integrity in the electoral process. Secrecy of the ballot is guaranteed in state constitutions and statutes nationwide. However, as states permit the marking and transmitting of marked ballots over the Internet, the right to a secret ballot is eroded and the integrity of our elections is put at risk…

Our findings show that the vast majority of states (44) have constitutional provisions guaranteeing secrecy in voting, while the remaining states have statutory provisions referencing secrecy in voting. Despite that, 32 states allow some voters to transmit their ballots via the Internet which, given the limitations of current technology, eliminates the secrecy of the ballot. Twenty-eight of these states require the voter to sign a waiver of his or her right to a secret ballot. The remainder fail to acknowledge the issue.

From the Report:

The secret ballot reduces the threat of coercion, vote buying and selling, and tampering. For individual voters, it provides the ability to exercise their right to vote without intimidation or retaliation. The secret ballot is a cornerstone of modern democracies. Prior to the adoption of the secret ballot in the United States in the late 19th century, coercion was common place. It was particularly strong in the military…

The establishment of the secret ballot helped prevent that type of coercion in the military. It also changed coercive practices in the workplace. But has our society evolved so much that we no longer need the secret ballot?

The answer is, simply, no. The secret ballot also protects individuals from harassment as a result of their vote. In February 2009, The New York Times reported that “some donors to groups supporting [California’s “Proposition 8” re: same-sex marriage] have received death threats and envelopes containing a powdery white substance, and their businesses have been boycotted.” The Times reported that a website called “eightmaps.com” collected names and ZIP codes of people who donated to the ballot measure and overlaid the data on a map, contributing to the harassment and threats of violence.

Further, employer-employee political coercion is alive and well in the United States. A recent article in The American Prospectdocumented a number of instances of political coercion in the workplace, including:

  • An Ohio coal mining company required its workers to attend
    a Presidential candidate’s rally – and did not pay them for their time.
  • Executives at Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries which employs approximately 35,000 people, distributed a flyer and a letter indicating which candidates the firm endorsed. “The letters warned that workers might ‘suffer the consequences’ if the company’s favored candidates were not elected.”

Thanks to the secret ballot, employers cannot lawfully go so far as to “check” on how an employee actually voted. But if ballots were no longer secret, many employees would risk losing their jobs if they voted against the recommendations of management. Our democracy would no longer be free and fair. Our need for privacy protections is just as strong today as it was when the secret ballot was adopted

Connecticut Constitution and statutes:

Constitutional provision re: right to secret ballot Conn. Const. Art. 6 § 5
In all elections of officers of the state, or members of the general assembly, the votes of the  electors shall be by ballot, either written or printed, except that voting machines or other mechanical devices for voting may be used in all elections in the state, under such regulations  as may be prescribed by law. No voting machine or device used at any state or local election  shall be equipped with a straight ticket device. The right of secret voting shall be preserved

”’

Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 9-366
Any person who […]does any act which invades or interferes with the secrecy of the voting
or causes the same to be invaded or interfered with, shall be guilty of a class D felony.

…