National | CTVotersCount.org

Edmonton rejects Internet voting 11-2

It has been a matter of consideral discussion and evaluation in Edmonton, Alberta. Should they jump on the bandwagon and double the cost of elections to accept the risks of Internet voting? For now, Edmonton is solidly on the side of science, rejecting Internet voting for very good reasons.

Like DDT, Nuclear Power, Fast Food, and GMOs, Internet voting has some very attractive, beneficial aspects, yet there are often unknown, overlooked, or downplayed real or potential problems. It takes a lot of careful research and evaluation to determine the net current and future risks and benefits.

We have written recently of the debates, the costs, the risks, and the Citizen Jury lacking technical participation.

http://tinyurl.com/EdRejects

EDMONTON JOURNAL

Edmonton council defeats proposal for Internet voting this fall

– The future of Internet voting in Alberta is unclear after Edmonton city council turned down a proposal Wednesday to allow online ballots as part of October’s civic election.

Although city staff insisted the system was extensively tested over the past year, including a mock “jelly bean” election and confirmation by a citizen jury, councillors worried the process isn’t entirely secure.

“The fact is, if major banks can be hacked, what’s guaranteeing our voting system wouldn’t be hacked?” Coun. Kerry Diotte asked.

There were also fears someone could collect other voters’ email addresses, picture identification and passwords, then cast multiple ballots in a hotly contested race.

“If you want to coerce someone, it’s easier to do that with Internet voting than it is at a voting station,” Coun. Tony Caterina said.

“At this point in 2013, I don’t think you’re ready to answer all these questions.”

There was little support for the initial proposal to permit Internet ballots before the Oct. 21 election in advance polls, which attracted 15,000 people in 2010.

But council voted 11-2 against a compromise motion to allow it just for special ballots, used three years ago by about 800 shut-ins, election workers and people away from Edmonton for an extended period.

Don Iveson and Ben Henderson were the only councillors to favour the move, arguing electronic ballots are as secure as the paper version.

“I think there’s, frankly, some paranoia about the technology because it’s unknown,” Iveson said.

“I understand the instinct to want to test it further, but those risks that people will behave badly aren’t going to go away.”

City clerk Alayne Sinclair said an outside consulting company was hired to try to breach the jelly bean election system, but along with a NAIT computing class and 10 other hackers, they didn’t succeed.

While one computer programmer says he cast two ballots in the mock election, showing it’s vulnerable to fraud, he appears to have done this by registering twice, which wasn’t being controlled, Sinclair said.

“We were told by the professionals that for all of the time people say they can penetrate the system, there’s no example anywhere that anyone has.”

Providing Internet ballots would have cost $400,000.

The city has already paid $400,000 to test the system developed by Spain’s Scytl, but Coun. Linda Sloan had philosophical as well as money concerns.

“Do we really want to configure a system where people can vote in their pyjamas? … Voting is an act of civic engagement,” she said.

“I’m not convinced this is a direction we want to take, particularly because it privatizes both the act and the system of voting.”

The province has been working with Edmonton, St. Albert and Strathcona County since last year on how to introduce Alberta’s first Internet voting, already used in dozens of centres in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Grande Prairie, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, Airdrie, and Lethbridge were also studying the idea.

Officials in the two capital region municipalities don’t know what will happen now that their largest partner has backed out.

“The intention of the pilot was to have the three of us do it together,” said Jacqueline Roblin, Strathcona County’s manager of legislative services.

“Now that Edmonton is no longer on board, I’m not sure how this will proceed.”

But Kalina Kamenova, who spent months working on public consultation for the scheme as research director at the University of Alberta’s Centre for Public Involvement, said she thinks city council made the wrong decision.

Most councillor concerns were already addressed by the 17-member citizen jury, which after days of discussions and hearing from experts supported online voting, Kamenova wrote in an email.

“It is surprising that councillors went against the verdict of the citizen jury and overlooked Edmontonians’ overwhelming support for this innovative voting option,” she wrote, emphasizing this is her opinion.

“It makes you wonder why so much money is being spent by the city for public involvement when citizens’ input doesn’t really have any impact on decision-making.”

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Oversease Vote Foundation and US Vote Summit

There were several panels discussing the statistics from the November election and what is next. Two talks were particularly interesting, contrasting, and relevant. Take a look yourself and contemplate the difference between a successful, economical, conventional system to serve overseas voters and an expensive, risky, and unproven system of Internet voting yet to be implemented.

The 7th Annual Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) Summit was held on Jan 24th at George Washington University. Not sure, but it looked to me like the auditorium used for Crossfire. The Summit atmosphere was collaborative not confrontational.

Here is the agenda: <agenda> The Summit can be viewed here: <videos>
Anyone seriously interested in absentee voting methods and success can benefit from watching the entire Summit.

The OVF does a great job serving military and overseas voters, providing a web site to help work through the registration and absentee voting process for overseas and military voters. <OVF web> Last year they expanded their services to similarly serve all U.S. Voters <U.S. Vote web>

The good news from the Summit was that overseas and military voters are becoming more successful in voting. This is largely due to states efforts to comply with the MOVE Act (Military and Overseas Voters Empowerment Act) and to the efforts of the OVF itself.

There were several panels discussing the statistics from the November election and what is next. Two talks were particularly interesting, contrasting, and relevant:

Mark Ritchie, Secretary of State of Minnesota. Minnesota has one of the highest levels of voter turnout – with Election Day Registration, without early voting, without no-excuse absentee voting. Similarly they have the highest success rate for overseas and military voting – without Internet voting – they fully support the MOVE Act in electronic ballot delivery, using a special version of the OVF system to provide support and a web interface to those voters. They have an above 99% success rate for absentee voting, with military and overseas voters slightly better than domestic voters! See Ritchie’s talk in segment 2 <video> We also note Ritchie’s general understanding that in Minnesota when a good suggestion is made, that it is acted upon.
Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky Secretary of State made the case for Internet voting in support of our troops. Kentucky also uses the OVF system. She toured Iraq with several other Secretaries of the State and concluded Kentucky can improve its performance for military voters by implementing Internet voting. We note also her call out to West Virginia’s Secretary for their success in Internet voting. We also note that our understanding is that the West Virginia Legislature is yet to endorse the continued use of that expensive pilot. The talk is 1hr and 29 min into segment 3 <video>

Take a look yourself and contemplate the difference between a successful, economical, conventional system to serve overseas voters and an expensive, risky, and unproven system of Internet voting yet to be implemented.

OP-ED: Voting Requires Vigilance. Popular Isn’t Always Prudent

Our Op-Ed published yesterday by CTNewsJunkie, outlining the integrity risks of the National Popular Vote Compact, now being considered by the Connecticut Legislature, for the fourth time since 2007.

Our Op-Ed published yesterday by CTNewsJunkie, outlining the integrity risks of the National Popular Vote Compact, now being considered by the Connecticut Legislature, for the fourth time since 2007: Voting Requires Vigilance. Popular Isn’t Always Prudent <read>

by Luther Weeks | Jan 21, 2013 7:16pm
Posted to: Opinion

One third of Americans vote on machines, without the paper ballots we use in Connecticut. Our president is chosen based on faith in those unverifiable machines, vote accounting, and unequal enfranchisement in 50 independent states and the District of Columbia.

In 2000, we witnessed the precarious underpinnings of this state-by-state voting system combined with the flawed mechanism of the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Accounting Act. The Supreme Court ruled votes could not be recounted in Florida, because even that single state did not have uniform recount procedures. What could possibly make this system riskier?

The National Popular Vote Compact now being considered in states, including Connecticut, would have such states award their electoral votes to a purported national popular vote winner. The Compact would take effect once enough states signed on, equaling more than one-half the Electoral College. Then the President elected would be the one with the most purported popular votes. Sounds good and fair at first glance. Looking at the touted benefits and none of the risks many legislators, advocates, and media influence the public to make the Compact popular in some polls. Popular is not always prudent. Voting requires vigilance.

The Compact, cobbled on an already precarious system, would exacerbate its flaws, adding additional risks. Currently errors, voter suppression, and fraud can only sway the result in the few swing states. With the Compact errors, suppression, and fraud in every state would count toward the popular vote total.

Compact supporters overlook and proponents befog the reality that there would be no official national popular vote total available in time for states to choose their electors. The only official popular vote total is the sum of the Certificates of Attainment sent by each state to the national Archivist. They cannot be used for choosing electors, since certificates are not required to be sent until seven days after electors are chosen and are not required to arrive in Washington until fifteen days after the electors must be chosen. Supreme Court decisions in 2000 and 1876 stress that these dates must be strictly followed.

Even if the totals could be obtained in time from each state, they would not be audited and could not be recounted. Compact proponents obfuscate this by describing how some states routinely perform audits or recounts. They conveniently ignore that about one-third of the states do not have audits and recounts; many voting machines cannot be audited; state recounts are based on close-vote margins within a state, so even in those states, recounts would not be triggered by a close national vote. Just as critical, there would be insufficient time for recounts or audits given the strict Constitutional deadlines. The Supreme Court would likely reject any recount going beyond state borders, using the same reasoning used to reject the 2000 Florida recount, as insufficiently uniform.

Additional legal challenges and maneuvers under the Compact would also be available for partisans bent on sending any reasonably close election to the Supreme Court or Congress. States not signing the Compact could delay certifying and transmitting results until the latest deadline. Partisans could dispute results in their states or sue their Secretary of State for using uncertified results from other states, delaying reporting or negating the state’s Electoral College vote.

Nothing is available, but legal challenges, even in Compact states, to deter a future partisan Secretary of State from failing to follow the Compact.

Supporters and opponents debate other contentions for and against the Compact, most of which are subjective and speculative. e.g. Which is more ideal, the current Federal system or the popular vote? Would small states or large states benefit more from the Compact? Where would candidates campaign and join with PACs in media buys? How equal would every voter actually be, given the state-by-state system of voter enfranchisement, disenfranchisement, suppression, and registration?

An accurate, fair, and credible popular vote requires a uniform, workable national voting system we can trust. That is, a system with uniform enfranchisement, paper ballots, effective audits, and national recounts, enforceable and provably enforced as a prerequisite to a considering a national popular vote.

Luther Weeks is executive director of CTVotersCount.

If it feels good, do it! – Oh! No! Canada!

Based on the theory that if voters like Internet voting and nobody has recognized a problem, it should be implemented, no matter what the cost, no matter what risks identified by experts. The voting version of unhealthy living, If it tastes good, eat it!. Technically know as common sense, that works sometimes, and at other times brings us common sense ideas like the earth revolving around the sun.

A couple of years ago we posted: Damn the science; Damn the integrity; If it feels good do it. Based on the theory that if voters like Internet voting and nobody has recognized a problem, it should be implemented, no matter what the cost, no matter what risks identified by experts. The voting version of unhealthy living, If it tastes good, eat it!. Technically know as common sense, that works sometimes, and at other times brings us other commons sense ideas like the earth revolving around the sun.

Our neighbors up to the north in Warterloo and Edmonton are using that common sense to justify Internet Voting:

From the Waterloo Record: Waterloo to look into online municipal election voting <read>

WATERLOO — The City of Waterloo will investigate using online and telephone voting for the 2014 municipal elections.

Council went against the best informed person it had at the table and voted Monday to look into internet and telephone voting for the 2014 municipal election. The city will seek proposals from companies with voting technology, and wants the cities of Cambridge and Kitchener to consider using it as well.

Coun. Jeff Henry grew up in Markham which has used internet voting for several years and also been part of University of Waterloo student elections where electronic voting was used.

“My skepticism comes with knowledge,” Henry said.

He raised issues with security and democracy, similar to concerns expressed by Kitchener politicians when they debated the idea. For more than a year the city studied the process and found issues with security, cost, democracy and guideline issues.

I think this is a great idea,” Coun. Karen Scian said. “I think if we can figure out how to do it securely and figure out how to engage more people to vote and make it easier for people to vote then the whole community benefits.

Tim Jackson, a member of the Barnraisers council, urged councillors to take the jump, earning himself a spot on a committee that will review the request for proposals.

“As the most intelligent community in the world it’s almost a given that we should be embracing the concept of electronic voting,” Jackson said.

City clerk Susan Greatrix said it is expected online voting would add costs to the election process.

“I don’t anticipate there would be a reduction in election costs,” Greatrix said. “It would be much more expensive than traditional voting.”

Kitchener’s last election cost about $400,000. Adding online voting could add more than $300,000 to those costs.

Coun. Henry and Coun. Scott Witmer voted against the idea, but the proposal passed.

Nothing has been decided on which voting method will be used. That decision is expected later this year when staff have evaluated proposals on the idea.

Edmonton Journal: Internet voting option proposed for Edmonton civic election <read>

Edmonton should allow Internet voting for advance and special ballots in next October’s civic election, a report released Thursday recommends.

The proposal, following more than a year of study that included a test “jelly bean election” and the verdict of a citizen jury, would make Edmonton the first western Canadian city where candidates can be chosen online…

But the province and the 17-member citizen jury suggested allowing anyone who wants to take part in the advanced poll, starting almost two weeks before the Oct. 20 election, to register and pick their candidates online.

There were about 6,000 advanced votes in the last election out of a total 199,000 ballots cast, a turnout of 33 per cent.

“We wanted to honour the citizen jury process, and the citizen jury told us they wanted to have at least 10 days of voting,” Sinclair said.

“I guess from everyone’s perspective it’s a voting option. We want to make sure there are no barriers.”

Checks done by an outside company during last fall’s jelly bean election, which asked people to select their favourite candy colours, food and other preferences, showed the system is secure from hackers, the report said.

To ensure the process isn’t rigged, at least four out of seven members of an electoral board must produce their digital key cards and passwords to open or close the ballot box, and recounts are possible.

“Because we demonstrated it was safe and secure, the province is OK with us proceeding,” Sinclair said…

An online city survey done last fall showed three-quarters of the 400 respondents agree Edmonton should provide the option of Internet voting.

More than nine out of 10 people who opposed it were concerned about security.

We commented on the Edmonton system as part of a final exam for the Coursera course, Securing Digital Democracy. Since the course is complete and all exams graded, I can provide my answer:

1.         Threat – Imposter Sites

Someone could create a site that could easily be confused with the actual site, act like that site to provide information, register voters and accept their votes, then act like the voter to register that voter and vote on the actual Edmonton system. Reference the following FAQ:

23. How can I verify that I am accessing the actual voting system(no phishing)?

When accessing the voting system, ensure that you are accessing the following website: https://internetvoting.edmomton.ca. The voting system website will have the ‘s’ following ‘http’ indicating that the connection is encrypted and secure

1) The FAQ highlights how important it is to interact with the system through a specific URL starting with ‘https’. 2) Yet, the FAQ page itself is an ‘http’ not a ‘https’ page so that it is itself not protected and could be intercepted, to lead the unsuspecting voter to a fake site for instruction, registration, and voting. 3) This version of the FAQ above is actually a fake with the city name in the URL changed, to lead the unsuspecting voter to a criminal relay site.

2.         Threat – Coercion

A coercer could watch a voter vote under threat. One way to reduce that threat would be provide the opportunity for a voter to subsequently vote again and have that vote count, not the observed coerced vote, however, this system only allows one vote, according this FAQ:

28. Once a vote has been cast, can it be changed?

No. Once a vote has been cast [i.e. you confirm your vote] it cannot be changed. This process is the same as dropping the ballot into the ballot box in a traditional paper-based election, ensuring complete voter anonymity and secrecy of the ballot.

Ironically, this attribute which facilitates coercion is touted as related to protecting secrecy.

3.         Threat – Malware, Client Side Attack

The system provides for use of a variety of browsers and operating systems, including older windows versions, XP, and Vista, initial versions of which were subject to many security issues. Perhaps we need to ask more questions: What precautions or methods are employed to prevent or recognize client side attacks? What testing on each browser/operating system combination? Was there any open-ended testing? If so, who performed that testing? What were the results?

I am skeptical that there is any awareness of such client side or other threats. None of the FAQs address the possibility of client side or server side threats. The whole thrust of the test is voter satisfaction, not on assessing the security of the test. The public test makes no mention of testing security, makes no offer to the public to attempt to break the system, there is no guarantee that anyone successfully compromising the test will be exempt from civil or criminal penalties. This view is reinforced by noting that the research team associated with the project includes several professors of political science but none with apparent expertise in computer science, security or related fields.

Grand Theft Absentee

“Of the three methods of voting, the one that has always been the most vulnerable, the one where we know fraud has occurred historically … is in the absentee-ballot process,” Fernández Rundle told The Miami Herald on Thursday, referring also to voting early and on Election Day. Absentee voting, she added, “happens in the shadows. It happens in the dark. It’s the least monitored.”

The Miami Herald: Miami-Dade grand jury: Absentee voting fraud clouds confidence in tight election results <read>

A Miami-Dade voter drops her absentee ballot at the ballot box on Tuesday morning, November 6, 2012, at Miami-Dade Elections Department. Florida and Miami-Dade County should tighten rules for voting by mail and make it easier to vote early in order to prevent fraud and plug “gaping holes” in absentee voting, a Miami-Dade grand jury has concluded. To prove their point, grand jurors made an astounding revelation: A county software vendor discovered that a clandestine, untraceable computer program submitted more than 2,500 fraudulent, “phantom” requests for voters who had not applied for absentee ballots in the August primary. The grand jury issued 23 recommendations, from reinstating a state requirement that someone witness an absentee voter sign a ballot — thereby making it easier for law enforcement to investigate potential fraud…

“Of the three methods of voting, the one that has always been the most vulnerable, the one where we know fraud has occurred historically … is in the absentee-ballot process,” Fernández Rundle told The Miami Herald on Thursday, referring also to voting early and on Election Day. Absentee voting, she added, “happens in the shadows. It happens in the dark. It’s the least monitored.”

We have often discussed the risks of absentee voting and warned of the increased risks of unlimited absentee voting, including all-mail voting. It is refreshing to see a grand jury recognizing the risks. We also note a bit of bad news/good news here – the bad news of vote stealing via “clandestine, untraceable computer program” and the good news, in this case, of its detection by insiders – yet, perhaps less blatant or more clever theft would or has gone unnoticed, or worse actually perpetrated by insiders.

As we have said before, our concerns are mainly with the risks, yet beyond that unlimited absentee voting does not increase turn-out, and disenfranchises voters unbeknownst to them, all the added risks are thus in the name of convenience.

“Perfect Citizen” demonstrates risk of Internet for voting

Another government testament to the risks we face with dependency on the Internet for vital systems. We hope in this particular case that the effort is actually increasing the safety of systems we all depend upon.

CNet: Revealed: NSA targeting domestic computer systems in secret test <read>

Newly released files show a secret National Security Agency program is targeting the computerized systems that control utilities to discover security vulnerabilities, which can be used to defend the United States or disrupt the infrastructure of other nations.

The NSA’s so-called Perfect Citizen program conducts “vulnerability exploration and research” against the computerized controllers that control “large-scale” utilities including power grids and natural gas pipelines, the documents show. The program is scheduled to continue through at least September 2014.

The Perfect Citizen files obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and provided to CNET shed more light on how the agency aims to defend — and attack — embedded controllers. The NSA is reported to have developed Stuxnet, which President Obama secretly ordered to be used against Iran’s nuclear program, with the help of Israel.

U.S. officials have warned for years, privately and publicly, about the vulnerability of the electrical grid to cyberattacks. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional committee in February: “I know what we [the U.S.] can do and therefore I am extraordinarily concerned about the cyber capabilities of other nations.” If a nation gave such software to a fringe group, Dempsey said, “the next thing you know could be into our electrical grid.”

As we have pointed out before, the Internet is vulnerable, states, counties, cities have nowhere near the capabilities of large utilities and the Federal government to protect their networks. Unlike, online banking which is subject to frequent successful attacks, Internet voting attack is harder to detect and correct. Here a story of a voting related Internet breakdown in a state system that was detected, yet authorities remain unable to determine a cause.

For those who are legitimately skeptical of Government security, we point out that Stuxnet was likely developed by our Government and is itself subject to undetected theft, as are any reports of infrastructure vulnerability documented by this “Perfect” program.

Risk Limiting Audits: Why and How

A recent, paper by the Risk Limiting Audit Working Group, endorsed by The American Statistical Association, articulates and outlines various types of post-election audits, their requirements, and relative advantages.

We cannot help but think that our Coalition audit reports contributed to statements in the section entitled: Trustworthy audits: the virtue lies in the details:

A recent, paper by the Risk Limiting Audit Working Group, endorsed by The American Statistical Association, articulates and outlines various types of post-election audits, their requirements, and relative advantages. <read>

The paper compares and describes three types of risk limiting audits. One table summarizes and simplifies the amount of work required for each type of audit:

We say the table simplifies the comparison, because there are a lot of details behind accomplishing a ballot level comparison audit, which would be the obvious choice all other things being equal.

CTVotersCount strongly supports advances in electronic auditing which provide the opportunity for states to exploit the advantages of ballot level auditing, perhaps combined with our current selection of 10% of districts statewide after each election, that would likely provide Connecticut with a much more comprehensive, accurate audit than the one we have today…provided it is enacted and accomplished to meet appropriate standards of ballot security and public verifiability.

We will have more to say on this in future posts. The technology is maturing, with several states providing public tests of machine auditing. We can expect bills in the CT Legislature this year authorizing electronic auditing. We will work to see that they are sufficient to provide public confidence.

In addition to discussing the statistical requirements for risk limiting audits, the paper describes additional requirements and issues in areas such as ballot security, results reporting, public confidence, and vote confidentiality. Connecticut has a long way to go in several of these areas. We cannot help but think that our Coalition audit reports contributed to the following statements, in the section entitled Trustworthy audits: the virtue lies in the details:

No matter how attractive the inherent properties of an audit trail [such as paper ballots], it is only as reliable as it is secure. Past elections have been tainted by allegations – and even strong evidence – of ballot box “stuffing” after the election; anecdotes abound of ballots gone lost. Auditing or recounting an untrustworthy audit trail yields untrustworthy results. Moreover, it is highly desirable not only to assert that the audit trail has been secured, but to be able to demonstrate that it has. Some analysts speak of a compliance audit to verify that the preconditions for a risk-limiting audit have been satisfied…

Risk-limiting audits are easy to define, and in broad outline they are fairly easy to implement: Draw a sample, look at the ballots in the sample, do some math to see if more counting is required. However, some implementation details need careful attention.

Public observation and transparency

Risk-limiting audits provide one means for citizens to monitor how well election systems are functioning. Audits provide valuable information to election officials, but crucially, they inform the public and provide evidence as to whether reported election outcomes are correct. The Principles and Best Practices for Post-Election Audits state the case…

These principles impose important responsibilities both on election officials and on public observers. When all parties take these responsibilities seriously – but not grimly – audit observation builds positive relationships between election officials and the citizens they serve.

Good audits are confidence-building exercises; not-so-good audits are more like sullen skirmishes. In the past, some audit observers and would-be observers have reported events like these: never receiving advance notice of audits despite statutory or regulatory requirements; being confined in one corner of a room with no meaningful opportunity to observe; receiving no information about the procedures to be used; having no opportunity to ask basic questions; witnessing unambiguous violations of written procedures but being unable to persuade officials to refer to, or conform with, those procedures. Contrariwise, many other observers have reported interacting cordially with election officials and workers, in some cases politely making suggestions that were immediately adopted, and generally forming a favorable opinion of the audit and other election processes. Clear written procedures, made available in advance of the audit, help observers and other interested citizens understand how the audit evinces the integrity of the results…

Some states provide for partisan observers in certain election audit processes. We recommend that audits be explicitly open to non-partisan observers as well. All interested individuals and groups should be permitted to observe the audit process to the greatest possible extent. Effective audit observation can increase public confidence in the audit and in the integrity of elections, by making the process more transparent and providing an independent verification of the results.

Observability includes not only direct public observation of audits, but clear reporting of the audit findings. Election officials should systematically report audit results, identifying any differences between the audit and voting system counts, and explaining them if possible. These reports need not be long in order to be informative and reassuring.31 The audit results should be forwarded to state election officials, who in turn should compile a summary statewide report – perhaps within 30 days of completion of the audit. Among other things, this report should integrate results from local officials in a consistent, comprehensible, searchable format. Such a report may enable state officials to detect patterns of error they otherwise may have missed, or simply to document how well voting systems performed.

Connecticut law provides for public notification, and today, procedures provide for sufficient public observation. Yet, the public notification provisions are inadequate. The open observation process has led to documentation that the process is profoundly inadequate to provide confidence in our elections and election officials. Observations have also demonstrated the far from adequate ballot security as well. Official reporting of election results and audit results falls short of requirements and rigor

We reiterate that we favor automated auditing for Connecticut. Yet we continue to caution that our support is conditional on the details of any proposed solution and law. We must always “be careful what we ask for”, recognizing the devil is in the details.

Mr. President: Improve voting, shorten lines with optical scanning. Avoid the risks of Internet Voting

We have signed a second letter to President Obama addressing and recommending solutions to the concerns he shares, with the problems this past November.

We agree wholeheartedly with your call to eliminate long lines in voting. Citizens should not have to choose between waiting for hours to exercise their right to vote or being disenfranchised. However, our nation was lucky. The Presidential election results could have been much closer, and there could have been disputes about who rightfully won. Since many swing states still use computerized directrecording electronic voting machines (DREs – typically touch screens) that produce results that cannot be independently verified, recounts would have been impossible. Well-designed voting systems allow verification of the results without reliance on software.

The use of paper ballots counted by optical scan machines has proven to be effective at avoiding the problems that resulted in long lines in many states. If a voter is required to mark his or her entire ballot on a DRE, and if there is an insufficient number of DREs, long lines such as those that occurred in the recent election are inevitable…

Internet voting (the return of voted ballots over the Internet including fax and e-mail) has been proposed as a solution to long lines at the polls. But since it is vulnerable to attacks from anyone/anywhere, Internet voting must not be allowed at this time. In addition to security and accuracy risks, Internet voting threatens the secret ballot, which is key to avoiding voter coercion and vote buying and selling. The secret ballot was originally instituted not as a right that an individual can waive, but rather as an obligation of the government to protect all citizens from coercion and intimidation as they cast their votes. Because of multiple intrinsic risks, Internet voting should be forbidden unless and until proposed systems have undergone extensive, independent public review and open testing to ensure that they have solved the fundamental problems of security, privacy, authentication, and verification.

For more, we suggest reading Doug Chapin’s excellent summary You’ve Got Mail, Mr. President: Two New Letters Weigh In on Voting Technology Issues <read>

Mr. President: You recognize the problems. Please take the lead in fixing them.

Last week a group of 29 “computer scientists, lawyers, activists, academics and election officials working together to educate the public and seek the elimination of unverifiable voting systems” sent a letter to President Obama, acknowledging his recognition of problems in the recent election, and recommending solutions he could champion to address those problems.

The letter outlines the election verification problems with the current system, proposes Federal reforms/remedies basic to fixing the problems, and warns against Internet voting.

We signed the letter, completely agreeing with the diagnosis and the proposals.

There is more that could and should be done, more problems to address, yet, taken together, these proposals would be a significant improvement, and represent a significant accomplishment for Congress and the President.

Dear President Obama:

Congratulations on your re-election. We write to you as the nation’s leading experts in election verification regarding a topic central to the integrity of our representative democracy: the reliability, security and auditability of the voting technology used to administer our federal elections.

We applaud your Election Night recognition of the need to fix the problem of voters waiting in long lines for hours to cast a ballot. Citizens should not have to choose between carrying out their family and work obligations and exercising their fundamental voting rights.

Unequal access to voting rights in the U.S. is a longstanding problem that has marred too many elections. We deeply appreciate your commitment to address this fundamental flaw of our electoral process. For some voters, unequal access results from the lack of adequate time, opportunity and resources to vote. For others, it means having their ballots subjected to an insecure, unverifiable voting system.

We are computer scientists, lawyers, activists, academics and election officials working together to educate the public and seek the elimination of unverifiable voting systems. We have focused on a state-by-state basis with considerable success to implement improved voting systems and procedures. Now leadership is required at the federal level to achieve equal protection for all voters.

Although many states have eliminated paperless electronic voting machines (also known as direct record electronic, or DRE machines), a substantial number of jurisdictions continue to use them. Approximately 25 percent of voters nationwide must still cast ballots on this type of equipment, which has been widely discredited because of fundamental usability, security, accessibility, reliability and auditability issues.

It is not possible to do audits or recounts of elections conducted with paperless, electronic voting machines because they provide no independent record of how voters intended to vote. Such unverifiable systems do not belong in U.S. elections. By contrast, paper-based optical scan voting systems are far preferable. In addition to producing fast, accurate results, optical scan systems also:

are much more “low tech” than DREs: they don’t limit voting in polling places to the number of machines available or require electricity, equipment or a even a voting booth, thus reducing the potential for bottlenecks and long wait times;

create a durable paper record that the voter has directly marked;

require much less technical expertise on the part of pollworkers; and

most importantly, produce a vote count that can be meaningfully recounted and publicly and independently audited and verified.

We urge you to take steps at the federal level to eliminate the use of nonverifiable voting equipment in the U.S. as rapidly as possible. We suggest these steps include:

Reviving and re-invigorating the U.S. Election Assistance Commission with new leadership to provide better support and accountability to voters nationwide.

Supporting changes in federal law to require post-election audits of federal election results so that the hardware and software used to count ballots is routinely and independently verified everywhere. Currently, only half of the states conduct any kind of post-election audit of vote counts (meaning hand counts of voted ballots compared against corresponding electronic tallies in order to verify accuracy).

Strengthening the federal voting system testing program and expanding the role of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to provide permanent, ongoing technical support and standards development for voting systems.

Providing federal funding to states in order to retire aging and unverifiable equipment and replace it with transparent, resilient systems. Replacement systems should be resilient enough to ensure that even if software or hardware fails, it will still be available to voters, avoiding long lines – and it will be possible to determine the will of the electorate without re-running the election.

Opposing the suggestion by some that Internet voting is the “solution” to voting technology issues and overburdened polling locations. Internet voting is vulnerable to remote attacks by cyber criminals or rival nations from anywhere in the world, not auditable, and not ready for use in U.S. elections.

An Internet voting system would, like paperless DREs, also produce results that cannot be verified. In addition, the fundamental computer security problem of securely casting votes online while retaining strong ballot secrecy remains unsolved. Banks and merchants that allow online transactions accept a certain degree of fraud as part of their business expense, but we cannot accept a similar degree of fraud in the voting process. The Internet can help with voter registration, ballot delivery and voter education but it should not be used at this time to cast votes.

While insufficient voting equipment was not the only cause for long wait times, it no doubt contributed to the problems we saw on Election Day. The need to improve our voting systems is urgent. Much of the voting equipment in use today is nearing the end of its life cycle, making equipment attrition and obsolescence a serious and growing threat. Letter to President Obama regarding election reform and verification

Security problems of electronic voting systems, including both vulnerabilities specific to certain machines and vulnerabilities intrinsic to computer technology, are well established. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s recent warning of the country’s vulnerability to catastrophic cyber attacks against critical infrastructure applies at least as much to voting technology as to any other type of computer system.

We are ready to assist you however we can. If you choose to appoint a commission to review the election process we strongly urge you to include members who have technical, administrative, and policy expertise in election technology, cyber security and verification issues. We would be pleased to suggest such persons and to work with you and your staff to further the goals outlined above.

We wish you success and look forward to working with you toward our shared goal of an electoral process that inspires participation and merits the highest confidence of the American people.

Respectfully,

Kim Alexander, President & Founder, California Voter Foundation, kimalex@calvoter.org

David L Dill, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University

Ronald L. Rivest, Viterbi Professor of Computer Science, MIT

Peter McLennon, Researcher and Policy Analyst, Cook County Clerk’s Office, IL

Robert Adams, former Deputy County Clerk, Bernalillo County, NM & Member of the Election Verification Network Coordinating Committee

Peter G. Neumann, Principal Scientist, SRI International Computer Science Lab & Moderator of the Association for Computer Machinery’s “Risks” Forum

David Jefferson, Computer Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA

David Wagner, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley

Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Senior Staff Technologist, Center for Democracy & Technology, Washington, DC

Philip B. Stark, Professor and Chair, Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley

Pamela Smith, President, Verified Voting

Gregory Miller, J.D., Chief Development Officer, Open Source Digital Voting Foundation / TrustTheVote Project, Palo Alto, CA

Walter Mebane, Professor of Political Science and Professor of Statistics, University of Michigan

Earl Katz, President, Public Interest Pictures, Los Angeles, CA

Penny M. Venetis, Clinical Professor of Law, Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise Scholar & Co- Director, Constitutional Litigation Clinic, Rutgers School of Law, Newark, NJ

Candice Hoke, Election Law Professor, Cleveland State University

Jeremy Epstein, Senior Computer Scientist, SRI International

Holly Jacobson, Director, Voter Action, Seattle, WA

Paul Stokes, United Voters of New Mexico

Luther Weeks, Executive Director, CTVotersCount, Glastonbury, CT

Dan McCrea, President and Co-Founder, Florida Voters Foundation

Irene Etkin Goldman, Board Chair, Coalition for Peace Action, Princeton, NJ

John McCarthy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Computer Scientist (retired), Berkeley, CA

Michelle Mulder, Consultant to Verified Voting Foundation, Princeton, NJ

Barbara Simons, Research Staff Member, IBM Research (retired) & Member, EAC Board of Advisors

Noel Howard Runyan, President, Personal Data Systems, Campbell, CA

Collin Lynch, Ph.D. Candidate, Intelligent Systems Program, University of Pittsburgh

Harvie Branscomb, Trustee, Colorado Voter Group

Sean Flaherty, Co-Chair, Iowans for Voting Integrity

* Institutional affiliations are listed for identification purposes only; please contact Kim Alexander, kimalex@calvoter.org or 916-441-2494 for additional contact information.

Bold Steps Beyond Integrity To Improve U.S. Elections

We complete our post-election series with some steps to improve elections beyond election administration and integrity: Campaign finance reform, media reform, and restoring the rule of law.

We complete our post-election series with some steps to improve elections beyond election administration and integrity, to complement our previous posts on steps for Connecticut, and steps for the U.S.

Campaign Finance Reform. Campaign finance has long been a detriment to the fairness of U.S. Elections, along with its close relative, high finance, high access lobbying. We have just seen the tip of the iceberg brought on by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Worse is yet to come, with candidate and corporate learning from each election cycle, with ever deeper penetration into state and local elections.

The current environment has a least three bad effects: Well financed candidates have a huge edge, almost a monopoly on getting on the ballot; they campaign and vote in alignment with their wealthy and corporate backers, rather then the majority of their constituents; officials spend an inappropriate amount of time on financing their campaigns, to the detriment of their duties.

The complete solution would seem to require a Constitutional Amendment not only addressing citizenship of Corporations, but also explicitly authorizing the regulation and limitation of campaign finance. Yet, there is more that needs to be done, and can be done now: The FEC should enforce the law prohibiting coordinating with campaigns; Congress should enact stronger disclosure provisions; the IRS should tax religious organizations that cross the line in endorsing candidates; Congress can enact public financing with laws such as the Fair Elections Now Act.

Media Reform. We find this the most important basic and bold requirement for many reforms. Perhaps if we had effective media reform, the people would have the information to elect better candidates despite financing. Perhaps elected officials would act more in the public interest when the public and officials had access to more robust and complete information on domestic issues and international affairs. Media reform would likely lead to election reform in all dimensions.

Media reform is a tough nut to crack, when the media establishment is itself part of the corporate establishment benefiting form the current system as do all corporate interests, plus benefiting directly from campaign advertising and corporate advertising. But media need not be limited to the media establishment, it does not have to be limited and choked by the corporate media model. For what is possible, what our Founders intended, and how to restore the media necessary for democracy, we suggest John Nichols’ book, The Death and Life of American Journalism.

Restore the Rule of Law. When laws are not enforced, selectively, or unequally enforced we lose the basis of democracy. We have mentioned campaign finance laws for the separation of “independent” groups from campaigns, and taxing the mixing of religion and endorsement, yet election laws need to be enforced. If laws are too complex to follow then we risk selective prosecution. With financial interests bankrolling campaigns is it any wonder that Wall Street has not been prosecuted? It should be. Laws should be enforced, especially those that are blatantly ignored, with disastrous results. We reference Glen Greenwald’s With Liberty and Justice for Some.

PS: Just yesterday, Greenwald provided another example of selective prosecution, which also impacts media freedom.