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Scientists to Evaluate Internet Voting, Will Legislators Listen?

This promises to be an important project. The powerful team all but guarantees a significant, trusted result. Yet, what is critical is that officials and legislators fully understand the result and undertake any Internet voting following any detailed requirements developed by the study. Our own educated prediction is that reasonably safe Internet voting is likely to be judged possible, yet unlikely to be feasible. There are significant security challenges, especially if voting were to be performed from voters’ computers, without requiring sophisticated verification techniques on the part of voters, and expensive security provisions by officials.

A project to evaluate Internet voting has been initiated by The Overseas Vote Foundation: End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting Project Announcement <read>

Their efforts aim to produce a system specification and set of testing scenarios, which if they meet the requirements for security, auditability, and usability, will then be placed in the public domain. At the same time, they intend to demonstrate that confidence in a voting system is built on a willingness to verify its security through testing and transparency.

“The secure, tested, certified remote voting systems that election officials envision aren’t even for sale. Available online ballot return systems are not considered secure by the scientific community, nor are they certified. As a result, email has become the default stopgap method for moving ballots online. Email is especially weak on security, yet it is being used regularly by election officials because viable alternatives are not available,” says Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, President and CEO of Overseas Vote Foundation, who spearheaded this project…

“There is a historical misunderstanding in the U.S. election community that this project aims to correct. Our country’s best scientists are not against technology advancements, nor are they inherently at odds with the election officials who seek technology improvements to meet their administrative challenges. What the U.S. scientific community takes issue with are the unproven claims of security regarding existing systems that are not publicly

tested or vetted. This study aims to recalibrate this situation. This group of scientific leaders has often pointed out security vulnerabilities in past systems, however they do agree on one thing: that if IV does happen, it should be in a system that takes advantage of end-to-end verifiability and auditability,” said Ms. Dzieduszycka-Suinat.

The Downside(?) Of Clear Election Laws

To paraphrase Einstein, “Laws should be as simple as possible, but no simpler”

Washington Post: The Down Side Of Clear Election Laws <read> A thoughtful piece, yet the title does not say it all:

State lawmakers have introduced at least 2,328 bills this year that would change the way elections are run at the local level. Some passed, some stalled. Some are mundane tweaks, others are controversial overhauls.

But if election reformers want to prevent their laws from being held up by lawsuits, they would be wise to pay attention to how they’re written, says Ned Foley, an Ohio State University professor and election law expert.

“Put clarity at the top of the list of things to achieve, maybe before fairness or integrity or access or whatever, because litigators can’t fight over things that are clear,” he said, speaking on an election law panel during a multi-day conference hosted by the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures in Washington, D.C. “It’s amazing how much ambiguity kind of seeps into laws that is unintended.”

But while clear regulations are important, too much can backfire, said Alysoun McLaughlin, deputy director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections in Maryland.

“We really kind of have a love-hate relationship with the clarity that you write into laws,” she said, speaking to a group of lawmakers, staff and others. Because election officials are working with limited resources and budgets, specific unfunded requirements can make it hard to implement new election regulations well. For example, too much specificity on ballot design—an issue a fellow election official requested McLaughlin bring up—can tie officials’ hands, she said.

“You kind of get mid-stream and then you realize, oh, there’s this statute that’s really going to make it more expensive. It really doesn’t make sense, but it’s too late to change it now,” McLaughlin said. “So specificity can kind of bite you on the back end.”

And in a lot of states, legislative schedules can make it impossible to address in time. A few legislatures meet every other year and others may pass election reform during short sessions only to realize after the session is over that the laws are problematic, she said.

Clarity matters, she said, but be wary of micromanaging.

To paraphrase Einstein, “Laws should be as simple as possible, but no simpler”

Especially when Legislators do not have the training and experience to understand all the areas that they must legislate, and lack the time to consider all sides in depth, laws can be a more complex than necessary, and ambiguous. Yet, there are cases where laws need to cover the essentials. Some issues in Connecticut:

The post-election audit law mandates that the random selection of districts and local counting sessions be open to the public. Yet, does not specify a notification period or required method of notification of the public. And there is no requirements that the random selection of races to be audited by the Secretary of the State be public. Officials have not always provided reasonable notice or public notice when not required.
A law originally saying clearly that elections that could not be handled by lever machines could use paper ballots, was rewritten to cover optical scanners. The botched rewrite was not clear. It said to run elections on paper ballots when in was impracticable to use optical scanners, yet the word impracticable has been interpreted by officials to mean not practical so many officials avoid using scanners when they clearly would work, while impracticable means “difficult or impossible to use” (did you know that?)

Three years later, Denise Merrill, tests same line crossed by Susan Bysiewicz

Three years ago, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, got in hot water for using state resources for a political database and newsletter. Now current Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill may have crossed that same line. The circumstances are slightly different but, at least at this point, there seems little difference and distinction.
UPDATE 10/15 – Merrill holds press conference, ends newsletter.

Jon Lender reports in the Hartford Courant: Merrill Uses State Office To Send Newsletter To Democratic Activists <read>

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has been using her taxpayer-funded office to maintain a computerized list of names and email addresses of thousands of Democratic activists and campaign contributors — to whom she sends a monthly newsletter touting her accomplishments.

Her actions are reminiscent of widely condemned practices by her predecessor in the office, Susan Bysiewicz. Bysiewicz’s campaign for state attorney general failed in 2010 amid a scandal over a politically tinged “constituent database” — which Bysiewicz maintained in her office and utilized to send a similar newsletter of her own…

Merrill, who is up for re-election next year although she hasn’t declared her candidacy, says her newsletter is intended to keep her constituents informed.

But the list of recipients, obtained by the Courant through a public-records request, is densely packed with names of political donors and members of the state’s Democratic establishment — the kind of people a candidate wants to stay in touch with in order to win renomination and to raise campaign funds.

Reminiscent of three years ago, the main operative is a Chief of Staff:

Most of the names were sent to Merrill’s office in April from the personal email account of Shannon Wegele, Merrill’s $97,850-a-year chief of staff. Wegele assisted with Merrill’s 2010 campaign, and previously had been an aide on her staff in the state legislature, where Merrill served as House majority leader..

Merrill, who is typically available to the press, declined to talk to The Courant Friday and instead responded to questions in a written statement relayed through Harris. As to the origin of the list, Merrill’s statement said:

“The initial list of our e-newsletter recipients includes people I have known personally for a long time throughout my career in public service. Since then we have also added other groups of people to the list as well, people of varying political affiliations who have been involved in programs we have run so far in my term as Secretary of the State. As we continue to build the list I’m sure it will reflect the political and geographical diversity of those interested in the mission of this office.”

UPDATE 10/15:

Merrill holds press conference, ends newsletter: CTNewsJunkie: Merrill Ends Controversial Newsletter, Joins Republicans In Calling For Audit <read>

What do voters most want to know from election webs and brochures?

?How do I register? How do I vote absentee? How do I vote? The answer might surprise you.

? How do I register? How do I vote absentee? How do I vote? The answer might surprise you.

Usage experts have surveyed the real experts – voters – to see what they want in election office brochures. The most desired information matched the result from their study last year of what information voters most desired from election office web sites.

What makes elections information helpful to voters? <read>

Whitney Quesenbery for Civic Designing

Every election department (and many advocacy groups) create flyers and small booklets to help voters learn about elections. But when we looked for guidelines for good communication with voters, we found very little. There were some political science and social psychology experiments that measured the impact of get-out-the-vote campaigns, but there was little about what questions voters have, and how to answer those questions well.

As a companion to the research on county election websites, we did a study of how new voters used election information booklets.

We recruited people who had voted for the first time in the 2008 election or later. Our participants were young people, recently naturalized citizens, and people with lower literacy. As new voters, we hoped that they would remember their first experiences clearly and would still have questions about elections.

We worked with a selection of voter education materials that we thought were pretty good: clearly written, attractively designed, with good information…

We asked our participants to choose two of them to read, marking any sections they thought were particularly good or particularly confusing. And then we talked about what they read.

They had many of the same questions as the participants in the web site study:

what’s on the ballot

where do I go vote

how do I get an absentee ballot

Many other questions were about the basic mechanics of voting, from eligibility and ID requirements, to finding their polling place, to the details of how to mark their ballot.

An ideal guide helps voters plan and act

When we sorted out all the data, we weren’t surprised to find that the overriding concern was being able to act on the information. That fits the definition of plain language: information voters can find, understand, and use.

These less experienced voters wanted specific instructions that would let them vote with confidence. For example, they weren’t sure how long your voter registration “lasts” or even that they might have options for voting, not only on Election Day, but in early voting or by mail. They liked the confirmation and reassurance of seeing information they already knew…

16 Districts in 9 Municipalites selected for post-election audit

Yesterday, we were pleased to participate in drawing the 16 districts to be audited by the Secretary of the State. Also present from the Connecticut Citizens Election Audit Coalition was Kim Hynes of Common Cause. We are also pleased to report that the drawing was held close to a week before counting begins, next Wednesday.

See the the Municipalities on the official press release <read>

Update: An earlier version said 10 Municipalities…it is 9

Secret Vote? Not on “our” Internet — just the insiders and bad guys know how you intended to vote

From Public Media: Internet S.O.S. <read>

Is the Internet on life support?

Last week we learned that U.S. and British intelligence agencies have broken the back of digital encryption — the coded technology hundreds of millions of Internet users rely on to keep their communications private.

Over the weekend, Der Spiegel reported that the NSA and its British counterpart are also hacking into smartphones to monitor our daily lives in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before the age of the iPhone.

This news, just the latest revelations from the files of Edward Snowden, only heighten our sense that we can no longer assume anything we say or do online is secure.

But that’s not all. In a case that was heard in a U.S. federal appeals court on Monday, telecommunications colossus Verizon is arguing that it has the First Amendment right to block and censor Internet users. (That’s right. Verizon is claiming that, as a corporation, it has the free speech right to silence the online expression of everybody else.)

Government and corporate forces have joined to chip away at two pillars of the open Internet.It’s come to this. Government and corporate forces have joined to chip away at two pillars of the open Internet: the control of our personal data and our right to connect and communicate without censorship or interference.

The Surveillance Industrial Complex

A series of reports coordinated among the Guardian, the New York Times and ProPublica revealed that the NSA and its British counterpart have secretly unlocked encryption technologies used by popular online services, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft…

The secret vote has not always been guaranteed in the U.S. People used to vote in public, the way the Connecticut Legislature and the U.S. Congress does, where we know every vote. Public voting systems have advantages in integrity – it is easy to know the votes were recorded and tabulated correctly when they are given and posted publicly. What could go wrong…

The problems with a public vote are vote buying and intimidation. In the old days before the Civil War, it was superficially who would provide the most food or the best beer. Yet, it was more likely intimidation that led citizens to vote the way their friends, employers, benefactors, or bullies would want. Today, most people believe the secret vote is in the public interest.

For the benefits it provides, the secret vote has some costs and risks. Polling places, ballots, and absentee ballots are constructed and managed in ways that make it difficult, hopefully close to impossible, for any voter’s vote to be determined by others and proven to others by the voter. (Absentee votes being an exception, where voters can easily, yet illegally, demonstrate their vote to a buyer, friend, or intimidator). Extra work is required in counting secret votes, keeping them secret, and risks that they are not correctly recorded or tabulated, based on fraud or error. Thus, for the secret ballot we have increased cost, risk incorrect results, and reduced credibility.

There is perhaps something even worse than the risks of the secret vote or the risks of the public vote. Voting via Internet in a way that has many of the risks of public voting, without the benefits, along with the risks of secret voting and lack of confidence in the system. That would be Internet voting with election official insiders, outside hackers, outside political interests, outside business interests, and the Government itself able to see your vote and possibly manipulate the result; no credibility and plenty of perceived intimidation.

What is perceived intimidation? We can easily envision the soldier going into a room to vote on the Internet, told by his superior several times, perhaps with a wink, “Nothing to worry about troop, the system is secure. I could not possibly know how you voted”. We can envision similar scenarios for Government employees, business employees, or church members “encouraged” to vote on computers owned by their employer, union, or church. No actual Interned insecurity required, just perceived intimidation. Less easy to envision, is that it would actually be the same for the rest of us voting at home over the Internet, knowing that many can know our vote, but we cannot be sure that our vote or anyone’s is correctly counted.

Encryption, exposed as almost useless except to spys

Several weeks ago, Glen Greenwald said there was much more to come based on the information obtained by Edward Snowdon. For several of those weeks we have had disturbing, yet relatively minor disclosures. Yet once again, Snowdon has providing something huge. We need, once again to become a nation of laws.

Yesterday the New York Times, ProPublica, and the Guardian broke a major story. Several weeks ago, Glen Greenwald said there was much more to come based on the information obtained by Edward Snowdon. For several of those weeks we have had disturbing, yet relatively minor disclosures. Yet once again, Snowdon has providing something huge. From the Times: N.S.A. Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web <read>

Because strong encryption can be so effective, classified N.S.A. documents make clear, the agency’s success depends on working with Internet companies — by getting their voluntary collaboration, forcing their cooperation with court orders or surreptitiously stealing their encryption keys or altering their software or hardware.

According to an intelligence budget document leaked by Mr. Snowden, the N.S.A. spends more than $250 million a year on its Sigint Enabling Project, which “actively engages the U.S. and foreign IT industries to covertly influence and/or overtly leverage their commercial products’ designs” to make them “exploitable.” Sigint is the acronym for signals intelligence, the technical term for electronic eavesdropping…

In one case, after the government learned that a foreign intelligence target had ordered new computer hardware, the American manufacturer agreed to insert a back door into the product before it was shipped, someone familiar with the request told The Times.

To state the obvious, this should end the myth that encryption actually protects the secret vote, and vote integrity, if it really could have in the first place. Basically:

The NSA can hack almost any encrypted communications
They have coerced companys to put in back doors in software and hardware
They compromised encryption standards
The UK and other countries share in the secret and results
Edward Snowdon did not have authorized access to the information, yet was able to obtain it
Internet banking, purchases, stock trades, etc. are all exposed and vulnerable for the public and corporations

You can also listen to Glen Greenwald and Bruce Schneier on DemocracyNow!. <read/view> They are providing further insights. Not only that we have no reason to trust companies who claim useful encryption software, but that the holes created for the NSA are available to others for whatever purpose they might want. Some sophisticated users may be able to use open-source encryption and still protect their communications.

Perhaps worse, encryption standards have been hacked by the NSA, while scientists have been hoodwinked or compromised:

Cryptographers have long suspected that the agency planted vulnerabilities in a standard adopted in 2006 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and later by the International Organization for Standardization, which has 163 countries as members.

Classified N.S.A. memos appear to confirm that the fatal weakness, discovered by two Microsoft cryptographers in 2007, was engineered by the agency. The N.S.A. wrote the standard and aggressively pushed it on the international group, privately calling the effort ‘a challenge in finesse.’

‘Eventually, N.S.A. became the sole editor,’ the memo says.

In the 90’s we had a battle in congress over the government requiring back doors in encryption hardware and software. The spies lost, the public won. But in the end we have learned that we cannot trust our government. We need, once again to become a nation of laws, as Greenwald pointed out in his book, published before he had met Edward Snowdon.

A follow-up story in the Times today: Legislation Seeks to Bar N.S.A. Tactic in Encryption <read>

An example of the usual response from the NSA. This is not news, everyone knows we do it, yet its really damaging.

A statement from the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., criticized the reports, saying that it was “not news” that the N.S.A. works to break encryption, and that the articles would damage American intelligence collection.

The reports, the statement said, “reveal specific and classified details about how we conduct this critical intelligence activity.”

“Anything that yesterday’s disclosures add to the ongoing public debate,” it continued, “is outweighed by the road map they give to our adversaries about the specific techniques we are using to try to intercept their communications in our attempts to keep America and our allies safe and to provide our leaders with the information they need to make difficult and critical national security decisions.”

But if intelligence officials felt a sense of betrayal by the disclosures, Internet security experts felt a similar letdown — at the N.S.A. actions.

It does hurt. It is the truth that hurts:

But the perception of an N.S.A. intrusion into the networks of major Internet companies, whether surreptitious or with the companies’ cooperation, could hurt business, especially in international markets.

“What buyer is going to purchase a product that has been deliberately made less secure?” asked Mr. Holt, the congressman. “Even if N.S.A. does it with the purest motive, it can ruin the reputations of billion-dollar companies.”

In addition, news that the N.S.A. is inserting vulnerabilities into widely used technologies could put American lawmakers and technology companies in a bind with regard to China.

Over the last two years, American lawmakers have accused two of China’s largest telecommunications companies, Huawei Technologies and ZTE, of doing something parallel to what the N.S.A. has done: planting back doors into their equipment to allow for eavesdropping by the Chinese government and military.

Both companies have denied collaborating with the Chinese government, but the allegations have eliminated the companies’ hopes for significant business growth in the United States. After an investigation last year, the House Intelligence Committee concluded that government agencies should be barred from doing business with Huawei and ZTE, and that American companies should avoid buying their equipment.

We will leave for another day, a discussion of the implications for voting integrity and democracy.

Common Sense: Public Transparency and Verifiability

In our last post in this series, Why Should Audits Be Independent, we ended with “When it comes to elections, are independent audits sufficient? Not really. We need public transparency and verifiability as well.” In this post, we will address transparency and verifiability.

Note: This is the eighth post in an occasional series on Common Sense Election Integrity, summarizing, updating, and expanding on many previous posts covering election integrity, focused on Connecticut. <next> <previous>

According to Wikipedia:

Transparency, as used in science, engineering, business, the humanities and in a social context more generally, implies openness, communication, and accountability. Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed.

According to Miriam Webster:

Verifiable: Capable of being verified: Verified: to establish the truth, accuracy, or reality of <verify the claim>

What we mean by Publicly Transparent and Verifiable is that members of the public can actually determine the election or audit outcome because the process is transparent in a way that allows the public to verify the result.

This goes beyond a call for independent audits. Independent audits require that we trust the auditors. Certainly an independent audit is more trustworthy than a non-independent audit, which in turn is seemingly better than no audit at all. Perhaps not. No audit at all, clearly provides little confidence the process beyond “trust me, and trust all officials in their integrity, in their competence, and in securing the process”.

Yet, a non-independent audit can provide a false sense of confidence. We can never be completely sure, even of an independent audit – the auditors may be biased, incompetent, sloppy, or compromised. Far fetched? We are not so sure, given the history of transgressions in all walks of live. Elections are especially vulnerable because of the central role they play in democracy and the requirement of the secret ballot, making end to end verification impossible.

But if audits, recounts, and elections are publicly transparent and verifyable, there is an alternative! Members of the public (and candidates) can judge the process and determine the results themselves. When it comes to audits and recounts, for hand counting, the public should be provided an opportunity to clearly see and verify,:

each ballot and vote on the ballot as it is being classified
that votes are correctly classified
that votes and ballots are counted correctly by counting teams in batches
that the totals are the valid sums of numbers determined by counting teams in batches
that consolidated reports are based on the numbers determined in audited or recounted districts

This is really the minimum for hand count audits and recounts. For audits and recounts (and elections) to be fully trusted, then the election day process must also be publicly transparent and verifiable and the chain-of-custody needs to also be publicly transparent and verifiable. Let us leave the voting process and the chain-of-custody for another day.

Overseas Vote Foundation, Voting Research Newsletter

Some important and fascinating information in the latest issue of the Voting Research Newsletter. In general there is some good news with regard to improvements over time in return rates of military ballots, yet several types of relevant data not collected or reported for specific states and for all states. Closer to home, Connecticut is one of the many states missing data.

Some important and fascinating information in the latest issue of the Voting Research Newsletter <read>

In general there is some good news with regard to improvements over time in return rates of military ballots, yet several types of relevant data not collected or reported for specific states and for all states. Closer to home, Connecticut is one of the many states missing data.

Some specific highlights we note (see the newsletter for charts and much more fascinating and important information):

THE IMPACT OF THE ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION OF BLANK BALLOTS IN 2012

…2012 proved to be a tipping point in the use of technology by military and overseas voters, as over 50% of survey respondents indicated using some form of electronic transmission to receive a blank ballot.

…Only 24 states were able to provide a breakdown of paper versus electronic ballots transmitted for the 2012

…Contrary to expectations of many in the election community, the preliminary data indicate that in most states (11 of the 16 respondents) electronic ballots had lower return rates.

…While the impact of electronic transmission of election material is unclear at this time, the overall ballot return rate suggests that the ability of UOCAVA voters to return their ballot on time may be a result of the MOVE Act mandate to send ballots 45 days before an election rather than electronic transmission methods.

…However, despite these improvements, about 25% of UOCAVA ballots are still not returned or their status remains unknown. Second, UOCAVA voter turnout has not increased, but appears relatively stable between 11% and 12%. Despite the new technology, the number of ballots transmitted in 2012 was lower than in 2008.

NEW FEDERAL REPORTS: LOOKING AT THE FVAP AND EAC’S 2012 REPORTS
[FVAP: Federal Voting Assistance Program. EAC: Election Assistance Commission.]
…With their 2012 report, the FVAP has done much to try and rectify the non-respondent bias in their survey.

…Unfortunately, the 2012 FVAP report does not consider overseas civilian voters. This is a significant flaw and as a result, any reported findings are overstated. The report, and its findings are limited to the population that has been studied (military) and does not take into account the diversity of the UOCAVA population, of which the FVAP is charged with fully serving.

…There are several other problematic elements in the report

…Both the FVAP and EAC reports have improved, but still suffer from inconsistencies within the reporting of the data. In 2014, the EAC and the FVAP will work together to improve the reporting process. In 2014, the EAC will consolidate their survey with FVAP’s local election official survey into one combined instrument. “The 2014 EAC survey is intended to meet the requirements of both the EAC and FVAP to collect election related statistics from local election officials.” The proposed 2014 survey is currently available for public comment.

Bankrupt city? Running out of common sense?

The worst possible action would be to throw the votes out and certify. That punishes the voters for actions of pollworkers and election supervisors. That would defy common senses and cancel democracy.

The election staff did not completely fill out write-in votes according to instructions, so a panel seems to be taking the least sensible approach, taking it out on the voters: Detroit mayor count in chaos as Wayne County refuses to certify primary results <read>

A state election panel will have to decide who really won the Detroit mayoral primary after Wayne County election officials on Tuesday refused to certify shocking new election results, which would have invalidated about 20,000 votes and handed the primary win to Benny Napoleon instead of Mike Duggan.

The county board was debating whether to invalidate more than 20,000 write-in votes that were not recorded at polling locations using hash marks, which would cause the result of the Aug. 6 primary to be flipped — with Napoleon, the Wayne County sheriff, receiving more votes than write-in candidate Duggan…

Counters for the Wayne County Board of Canvassers were unsure of what to do with votes that did not use a method known as “hash-marking,” where votes are counted individually on poll books. The 20,000 votes at issue were entered into the books with just the numerical number of votes, instead of hash marks.

The proper way for poll workers to keep track of write-in votes is shown in a manual the state provided county boards of canvassers in July 2010. The manual shows a sample poll book with hash marks corresponding with each vote cast for a declared write-in candidate. The hash marks then are to be added up for each declared write-in candidate and a total is to be recorded in each poll book.

The manual does not give instructions if hash marks are not recorded in the poll books.

It seems to us that there are two logical solutions:

Most accurate: Recount the votes in question and record them properly, recalculate, and certify.
Likely quite accurate: Accept the totals without hashmarks, unless there is a reason to believe they are incorrect. If so, recount.

The worst possible action would be to throw the votes out and certify. That punishes the voters for actions of pollworkers and election supervisors. Defies common senses and cancels democracy.