Researchers: Early Voting alone DECREASES turnout

Researchers found: The convenience of Early Voting depresses turnout. Election Day Registration increases turnout. When both are combined the effect is about the same as Election Day Registration alone.

Op-Ed by researchers in the New York Times: Voting Early, but Not So Often <Op-Ed> <Full Report>

Turnout is a prime justification for early voting. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin analyzed early voting and discovered it actually decreases turnout.

From the Op-Ed

States have aggressively expanded the use of early voting, allowing people to submit their ballots before Election Day in person, by mail and in voting centers set up in shopping malls and other public places. More than 30 percent of votes cast in the 2008 presidential race arrived before Election Day itself, double the amount in 2000. In 10 states, more than half of all votes were cast early, with some coming in more than a month before the election. Election Day as we know it is quickly becoming an endangered species…

But a thorough look at the data shows that the opposite is true: early voting depresses turnout by several percentage points…Controlling for all of the other factors thought to shape voter participation, our model showed that the availability of early voting reduced turnout in the typical county by three percentage points

Early voting only adds to convenience and weakens the effect and motivation for Get Out The Vote Efforts:

Even with all of the added convenience and easier opportunities to cast ballots, turnout not only doesn’t increase with early voting, it actually falls. How can this be? The answer lies in the nature of voter registration laws, and the impact of early voting on mobilization efforts conducted by parties and other groups on Election Day.

In most states, registration and voting take place in two separate steps. A voter must first register, sometimes a month before the election, and then return another time to cast a ballot. Early voting by itself does not eliminate this two-step requirement. For voters who missed their registration deadline, the convenience of early voting is irrelevant.

Irrelevant to the current research yet relevant to the issue, we point out that early voting also changes the campaign season. With many voting early, literature, advertisements, news articles, late developments, and endorsements occurring after voting begins influence fewer and fewer votes, both in elections and primaries.

The researchers found one exception. Election Day Registration (EDR) when combined with Early Voting does increase turnout:

Fortunately, there is a way to improve turnout and keep the convenience of early voting. Our research shows that when early voting is combined with same-day registration — that is, you can register to vote and cast an early ballot on the same day — the depressive effect of early voting disappears. North Carolina and Vermont, two otherwise very different states that combined early voting with same-day registration, had turnout levels in 2008 that were much higher than the overall national figure of 58 percent of the voting-age population. Turnouts in Vermont and North Carolina were, respectively, 63 percent and 64 percent. Allowing Election-Day registration, in which voters can register at the polling place, has the same effect. Our models show that the simple presence of Election-Day registration in states like Minnesota and New Hampshire increases turnout by more than six points.

So, it seems that Election Day Registration alone has the same effect as early voting combined with EDR. Perhaps more research is needed to verify the combined effect vs. EDR alone. But for now early voting must be considered as a convenience only, and without EDR a detriment to turnout.

Of course, this is only one study and only one election. But the report sets the bar quite high for them level of detail and analysis. And the enthusiasm of 2008 would be the last type of election environment where we would expect a convenience functioning to reduce turnout.

Going forward, proponents of Early Voting, who accept this research, must embrace EDR while focusing on the convenience and prove claimed cost savings of early voting(*). CTVotersCount will continue our efforts to point out integrity risks of mail-in voting(**), and the costs associated with safe early voting.

* We have heard many claims of cost savings for mail-in voting. A case would need to be made based on each state’s proposed implementation. Perhaps it is easy to show savings for statewide all mail-in voting, yet maintaining election day polling place voting would on the surface save little, unless many polling places were closed – negating at least some existing convenience.

** As Ron Rivest has pointed out, there is a case for excuse absentee balloting including military and overseas voters. But limiting mail-in voting, limits exposure, and limits the risk.

Connecticut follows MOVE Act, avoids flaws – Others follow the money

We offer our complements to Secretary Bysiewicz, the Town Clerks, Legislators who supported the MOVE Act, Connecticut, the many other states and officials who are implementing the MOVE Act with integrity. But there is big money and momentum behind efforts in other states to exploit flaws in the Act.

Press Release from Secretary of the State, 10/13/2010: <read>

BYSIEWICZ: CONNECTICUT SUCCESSFULLY
IMPLEMENTING FEDERAL MOVE ACT TO
IMPROVE ABSENTEE BALLOTING FOR
OVERSEAS MILITARY VOTERS
SECRETARY OF THE STATE, CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION CONGRATULATE
CONNECTICUT TOWN CLERKS FOR IMPLEMENTING NEW FEDERAL DEADLINE
TO SEND GENERAL ELECTION ABSENTEE BALLOTS ELECTRONICALLY

HARTFORD: Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and several members of Connecticut’s
Congressional delegation reported today that all of Connecticut’s cities and towns have
implemented the requirements of the federal Military Overseas Voter Empowerment
(MOVE) Act and have provided absentee ballots by mail or electronically to members of
the military serving overseas, depending on their stated preference. The office of
Secretary of the State Bysiewicz surveyed municipal clerks in all 169 Connecticut cities
and towns to ensure proper implementation of the new law. This survey was conducted
following the federally mandated deadline of September 18th to send ballots by mail, fax
or email to all registered voters currently overseas or in military who applied for them.

We particularly appreciate the statement from the President of the Town Clerks Association, we expect no less from all officials:

Joseph Camposeo, Town Clerk of Manchester and President of the Connecticut Town
Clerks Association, said, “The Town Clerks of Connecticut are committed to working at
the highest level of integrity for their customers and citizens. The record clearly shows
that this commitment applies to the military absentee ballot process as well. I am proud
of our effort made by the Connecticut town clerks and trust that this manner of
compliance and efficiency will continue.”

We offer our complements to Secretary Bysiewicz, the Town Clerks, and Legislators who supported the MOVE Act, along with the many other states and officials who are implementing the MOVE Act with integrity.

We support most of the MOVE Act, yet have been constant critics of one part of the Act which provides for pilot projects for Internet voting for Military and Overseas voters. However, we have been a supporter of Connecticut’s implementation and decision to avoid the Internet voting bandwagon. We have suggested ways in which Connecticut could easily follow the lead of other states and do even better for our military and overseas voters.

We also complement Representative Rush Holt, a MOVE Act and voting integrity advocate, who supported the Act without realizing it had the dangerous Internet voting provisions, listened to our criticism, offered corrective legislation, and pointed out the risks of Internet voting to the New York Times.

Big money and momentum behind efforts in other states to exploit flaws in the Act:

Hopefully, Internet Voting Will be banned before it costs an election. The recent Washington D.C. public test clearly demonstrated that the years of warnings by computer scientists, security experts, and advocates were fully justified. A new article from TruthOut is a very readable summary of the concerns and the continuing tendency to ignore those concerns by some election officials: Computer Scientists, Election Integrity Advocates Question Feasibility of “Digital Democracy”. It is also the first article we have seen that effectively covers the money interests behind Internet voting. <read>

Despite the recent hack during public testing of DC’s Internet voting pilot and the rash of other security problems that have plagued the short history of online voting systems, elections entrepreneurs, along with some state officials and voter advocates, continue to make headway as they push for the adoption of i-voting technology. The practice – and the private voting systems industry that appears poised for more widespread adoption – has found an inroad via military and overseas voters…

The argument for technology as a tool to boost participation has already proven successful in paving the way for scandal-ridden DREs (direct-recording electronic voting machines), which were billed as the key to accessibility for voters with blindness and other disabilities. After the 2000 election, “The whole discussion really got hijacked by folks who wanted to go with e-voting for whatever reason and they basically used blind people to do it,” said journalist and blogger Brad Friedman…

Some advocates for military and overseas voters share Friedman’s skepticism. “Money and fame are real drivers, even in the election world,” wrote Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) President and CEO Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat in an email to Truthout from her base in Munich. “There are vendors who will make a lot of money, or potentially hope to make a lot of money and become celebrated in their circle, by pushing this right now.”

The Department of Defense (DoD) declined to release the dollar amounts of the contract awards granted to the six vendors – Scytl, Everyone Counts, Konnech, Aquiline, Vexcel Corporation and Credence Management Solutions – citing two exceptions to federal acquisition regulations, one of which applies as long as a single contract is not expected to exceed $100,000. The DoD awarded 20 contracts for the project…

We recommend reading the entire article.

Update: Time Magazine covers the story in a bit less depth, yet misses the money issue: Will Online Voting Turn Into an Election Day Debacle? <read>

Video-Cure for Internet voting – WARNING: Viewing may cause severe, permanent eInSecurity

For better and for worse the seriousness of the vulnerability goes well beyond what was reported two days ago; goes well beyond Internet voting in D.C; serious issues going well beyond voting.

Testimony earlier today by Prof. Alex Haldeman to Washington D.C. Council. As reported two days ago Alex and his team hacked, changed votes, and played the U. Michigan Fight Song on public test of D.C.’s proposed Internet voting system. Without their testing, the system might well have been used and possibly abused in the actual November election.

For better and for worse (*) the seriousness of the vulnerability goes well beyond what was reported two days ago; goes well beyond Internet voting in D.C; serious issues going well beyond voting.

I highly recommend taking the time to watch the video at least Alex’s testimony. which is the 1st 20min or so of the hearing. It it is also worth taking the time to listen to the questions and answers by the other experts testifying as well. WARNING: Viewing will likely raise severe, permanent distrust in any Internet system. <Video, courtesy Joe Hall>

I challenge any election official, legislator, or any voter, to listen to the entire video, then to support Internet voting and explain why these experts are wrong.

You can also read Joe Hall’s summary of the “new key insights” <here>. However, I strongly recommend taking them time for the video.

Update: Brad Friedman interviews Dr. David Jefferson <about 14 min in 1st hour>

Update: CNN demos and interview of Alex Haldeman <view>

Update: Washington Post editorial: Flaws in D.C.’s online voting system should serve as a warning to all states <read>

(*) Better because there was much more demonstrated than the hacking of a single voting system. The large, apparently common risks of many government and private networks. Worse because it demonstrates really serious vulnerabilities to the infrastructure we trust for much more than voting.

Internet Voting Faces The Music: Hats off to D.C. and Michigan

Testers submitting votes complained of the annoying music playing on their computer after votng. In short order the music was identified, leaving testers wondering why D.C. picked the Michigan Fight Song. Now all has been revealed and the problems went well beyond the music.

Will this clear demonstration of vulnerabilities cause states and Congress to sing a different Internet voting tune? We hope so, yet we doubt it.

The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics has been gearing up for a Pilot Test of Digital Votes by Mail. They agreed to have the public test the value and security of there Internet voting system originally scheduled to be pilot(*) tested for the November election.

D.C. should be applauded by agreeing to this public test prior to the pilot. Some pointed out prior to the test that the testing time was too short and the notice too short – in the real world hackers would have a much longer opportunity to succeed. I point out that the test also does not show the most vulnerable part of the system – the opportunity for insiders, election officials, software vendors, hardware vendors, communications vendors, and support staff to change votes – the vulnerability where the fewest people could change the most votes.

Testers submitting votes complained of the annoying music playing on their computer after voting. In short order the music was identified, leaving testers wondering why D.C. picked the Michigan Fight Song. Now all has been revealed and the problems went well beyond the music.

Despite the time limitations, Alex Haldeman and his team from Michigan completely compromised the system <read>

We found a vulnerability in the way the system processes uploaded ballots. We confirmed the problem using our own test installation of the web application, and found that we could gain the same access privileges as the server application program itself, including read and write access to the encrypted ballots and database…

D.C. launched the public testbed server on Tuesday, September 28. On Wednesday afternoon, we began to exploit the problem we found to demonstrate a number of attacks:

We collected crucial secret data stored on the server, including the database username and password as well as the public key used to encrypt the ballots.

We modified all the ballots that had already been cast to contain write-in votes for candidates we selected. (Although the system encrypts voted ballots, we simply discarded the encrypted files and replaced them with different ones that we encrypted using the same key.) We also rigged the system to replace future votes in the same way.

We installed a back door that let us view any ballots that voters cast after our attack. This modification recorded the votes, in unencrypted form, together with the names of the voters who cast them, violating ballot secrecy.

To show that we had control of the server, we left a “calling card” on the system’s confirmation screen, which voters see after voting. After 15 seconds, the page plays the University of Michigan fight song. Here’s a demonstration…

The specific vulnerability that we exploited is simple to fix, but it will be vastly more difficult to make the system secure. We’ve found a number of other problems in the system, and everything we’ve seen suggests that the design is brittle: one small mistake can completely compromise its security. I described above how a small error in file-extension handling left the system open to exploitation. If this particular problem had not existed, I’m confident that we would have found another way to attack the system.

One more complement to D.C.: Their primary election was September 14th. On September 27th they released the results of their post-election audit and a likely unique random forensic audit of their voting equipment. They found some incorrect firmware versions! <read>

I wonder if any banks out there would dare offer a similar public test opportunity? Power utilities? Transportation?

There are several states planning Internet voting pilots under the MOVE Act. We and others have warned of the theoretical risks of Internet voting and specifically the pilot provisions of the otherwise valuable MOVE Act. Will this clear demonstration of vulnerabilities cause states and Congress to sing a different Internet voting tune? We hope so, yet we doubt it.

Update: Comments by David Jefferson at VerifiedVoting <read>

Computer security and election experts have been saying for over 10 years that the transmission of voted ballots over the Internet cannot be made safe with any currently envisioned technology. We have been arguing mostly in vain that:

1) Attacks can be remote: Internet voting systems can be attacked remotely by any government, any criminal syndicate, or any self aggrandizing individual in the world.

2) Effective defense virtually impossible: There are innumerable modes of attack, from very easy to very sophisticated, and if anyone competent seriously tried to attack an Internet election the election officials would have essentially no chance at successfully defending. The election would be compromised

3) Attackers may change votes arbitrarily: An attack need not just prevent people from voting (bad as that would be), but could actually change large numbers of votes, allowing the attackers to determine the winner.

4) Attacks may be undetected: An attack might go completely undetected. The wrong people could be elected and no one would ever know.

Prof. Halderman demonstrated all of these points

Update: Unfortunately amid our appreciation for the D.C. testing and auditing, they seem to demonstrate what I call a Miraculous Blind Faith In Science in their response: <read>

With all due respect to Mr. Jefferson, the lesson learned is not to be more timid, but more aggressive about solving the problem in exactly the way that we have chosen. Our task is to continue pursuing a robust, secure digital means for overseas voters to cast their ballot rather than resorting to e-mail or fax. As Thomas Edison famously said, “Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.”

The burden of proof will always rest with the election officials to ensure integrity and transparency of all voting systems, but the computer science community has a heavy burden as well. The computer science community needs to understand that this toothpaste is already out of the tube and no volume of warnings can put it back. Voters are currently casting ballots by e-mail and fax. We need to work together to find a better alternative.

Even more, voters expect that there will be a day when online voting will be as simple as paying bills or paying taxes. While there will always be citizens who choose to file their taxes on paper and there will always be voters who wish to visit their local polling place on Election Day, election officials know that voters expect, one day, to cast their ballot from their laptop.

With all due respect, science and technology have their limitations. We have yet to cure the common cold, make Reagan ‘s Star Wars vision a reality, or produce gold from sea water. As we have pointed out before: Damn the science; Damn the integrity; If it feels good do it!

Update: Discussion D.C. Official vs. Pam Smith of Verified Voting <video>

*) Do not confuse Pilot testing with other for forms of testing such as demonstrations or prototype tests. Pilot testing implies using a system for actual use, but on a limited basis. An election pilot test would involve real ballots, real voters, in an actual election, counting those votes to determine the declared winner of the election and the course of democracy. We note D.C. seems also to be using the phrase testing of the Pilot for its public test, hopefully not to be confused with the Pilot itself, originally scheduled for November.

Will The World’s Largest Democracy beat the U.S. to full VVPR?

Scientists and Whistleblower(s) made their point. Now, India heading toward all voter verifiable paper records.

In late August we covered the arrest of voting integrity advocate Hari Prasad for receiving a voting machine used in India for testing. Researchers with the help of Whistleblower(s) obtained the voting machine and demonstrated its vulnerabilities.

Now, encouraging news from India, via Rop Gonggri. <read>

Yesterday there was a meeting of all the national political parties in India, and it appears the ECI has finally given in: they are now looking at alternatives where the voter sees his/her vote on a piece of paper which can be counted by hand. Here, they also did that, which was just a first step to having the machines scrapped. It’s going to be interesting to see whether the Indian government thinks they can drag on the existing solution until something new is ready. (They tried that here, didn’t work.)

Too early to cry victory, but certainly another big step forward. Now the charges against Hari Prasad, the man who spent time in jail for daring to notice that the emperor had no clothes on, need to be dropped (TODAY GENTLEMEN!) and Hari needs to be fully rehabilitated. Then a strict deadline for scrapping black-box voting needs to be imposed. Then the details of any new voting system need to be worked out. There is already talk of allowing a hand-count only if a judge permits it, which is of course far too restrictive.

Currently the U.S. is a mixture of paper ballots, optical scan paper ballots, DREs (Touch Screen) with Voter Verifiable Paper Records (VVPR(*)), and DREs with no paper voter verifiable record. India is all a simple electronic machine with no paper record.

I would not go quite as far as Rop. He would have paper ballots with all hand counting. I believe we are better off with paper ballots and optical scanning giving the record of occasional official shenanigans and the spotty record in manual counting by Connecticut officials.

(*) VVPR, Voter Verifiable Paper Records include those produced by DREs and Paper Ballots – paper ballots are much preferred, since they must be filled out by voters. The paper records produced by DREs are inconvenient to verify and are often not actually verified by voters.

Product Liability: It is not just for consumers

The opportunity is for Secretaries of State and Attorneys General in states harmed by poor products to take advantages of documented defects like those uncovered by UConn, learn of those defects based on studying submissions required by California’s law, and aggressively following Ohio’s example of redress.

Consumers can study product quality by reading Consumer Reports. When products do no perform as advertised we can recover damages under tort law, class action suits, or occasionally rely on actions by consumer protection agencies or state attorney’s general. Similar actions options are open to election officials when voting equipment proves problematic or fails to perform intended functions.

Two years ago in the Outsourced State, we discussed the Voters Unite report, Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections. Two recent developments in Ohio and California show the way aggressive election officials could obtain redress for election equipment inadequacies like those recently documented by the University of Connecticut (UConn).

Product Defect Example
Recall that memory card failures have plagued our Diebold/ES&S/Dominion AccuVote-OS optical scanners for several years. Depending on the study somewhere between 5% and over 10% of memory cards are completely unreadable when subject to pre-election testing. After years of problems reported in Florida and Connecticut (Presumably occurring but not reported in other states that also use the AccuVote-OS, such as other New England states), UConn recently released a report that a major component of the problem is a product design flaw: The battery test is not able to detect those with low power remaining. Thus when memory cards are tested before each election, the test fails to detect many cards that cannot make it through the election.

An Aggressive Secretary of State Shows The Way
Led by Secretary of State, Jennifer Brenner, Ohio recently won a settlement with Diebold over a software error that caused problems in the 2008 election. <read>

The settlement (PDF) is the result of contract claims made in a lawsuit filed by Secretary Brunner in 2008 regarding problems some counties had encountered with their Premier voting systems. It comes after months of negotiations that involved the Secretary of State’s office, 47 counties that use Premier equipment, and Premier Election Solutions, Diebold, Inc., and Data Information Management Systems, Inc. (a separate company that markets and services voter registration systems to various Ohio counties.)

Among the highlights of the settlement for counties who decide to participate:

A total $470,424 of one-time payments to the 47 counties using Premier voting equipment.

At the option of each county using Premier voting equipment, up to $2.4 million worth of free software licensing for the voting machines for two years.

Each Premier county is eligible to receive free, new AccuVote TSX DRE voting machines equal to up to 15 percent of the number of machines the county already has – which adds up to a potential 2,909 free voting machines for the counties.

A 50 percent discount in maintenance fees if a county chooses continuing voting system maintenance from Premier.

A 50 percent discount for new generation precinct-based optical scan voting machines, if a county chooses to switch from an electronic touch screen voting system to a paper ballot optical scan voting system.

County boards of elections are not bound by the settlement to select Premier as their vendor for services, and they retain the right to negotiate with other vendors who offer certified voting equipment in Ohio, even if they accept the county’s one-time payment from Premier.

New California Law Destined To Help
Led by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, California recently passed a law that is destined to discourage vendors from hiding defects in their systems and to publicize such defects to other states <read>

“Reliable voting systems are critical to a successful democracy, but also to people’s confidence in the electoral process,” said Secretary Bowen, who sponsored similar legislation that the Governor vetoed last year. “Companies that make cars, toys and thousands of other products have to report product flaws and even issue recalls of seriously troubled items. There is no reason that the same philosophy of transparency should not apply to the voting equipment on which millions of Californians rely to record and tally their votes.”…

Beginning January 1, voting system vendors and ballot manufacturers will be required to notify the California Secretary of State, in writing, of every known problem in their respective systems. In turn, the Secretary of State is required to submit a report of all disclosed problems to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), making it possible for voters and elections officials in all states to benefit from California’s transparency. Companies may be liable for civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation for failing to disclose known product flaws…

In recent years, undisclosed defects with voting or ballot systems came to light only after incidents in Humboldt, San Francisco, Sutter, Calaveras and Yolo Counties. Errors were caught by government officials or election observers, and no election results were compromised. “Voters have to put their faith in a voting system every time they cast ballots,” added Bowen. “This new law helps ensure that faith need not be blind.”

The Brennan Center for Justice recently recommended a similar solution national database, Voting System Failures: A Database Solution, as discussed on NPR. Perhaps California’s law will accomplish most of the same objectives, starting sooner.

Podcast: What’s the matter in Tennessee?

Allegations of massive election fraud, voter suppression, intimidation, and election manipulation in Shelby County, Tennessee. 10 candidates have filed a lawsuit.

Note to Connecticut voters: Instead of our check-off lists, many states require voter signed poll books. They can help resolve questions like those raised in Tennessee.

Allegations of massive election fraud, voter suppression, intimidation, and election manipulation in Shelby County, Tennessee. 10 candidates have filed a lawsuit.

Wrong database used which said voters had already voted – official explanation proves false
Over 5000 voters illegally turned away
100% unverifiable voting, 100% unverifiable poll books.
3221 more votes than voters recorded in poll books
White Republican candidates win in 70% black, democratic areas
Signed poll tapes found in trash
A month and a half after the election, the certified election results have not been released

Interview of Bev Harris by Brad Friedman. Bev says she has never heard so much lying by election officials and Bev has heard it all!

The interview starts about half way into the show. In the first half Brad defends Acorn and attacks the idea of massive voter fraud vs. election fraud <post with podcast>

All we can say is that where there is smoke [screens] there is often fire. And without transparency and credibility there will always be doubt.

Note to Connecticut voters: Instead of our check-off lists, many states require voter signed poll books. They can help resolve questions like those raised in Tennessee. In the podcast, Bev points out that the electronic poll books do not contain any voter signatures and are totally unverifiable. In Connecticut we use paper check-off lists. In many states voters must each sign paper poll books or lists, but in Connecticut it is a poll worker checking off names on the list. So we pretty much always have had the paper equivalent of the unverifiable system in use in Tennessee – there is no guarantee that a poll worker might by mistake check off the wrong name causing concern if you come in and your name is already checked off, or fraud could be created by checking off some extras and adding some corresponding ballots. An electronic system would be easier to manipulate on a large scale than a paper one. Yet a paper list with voter signatures can be verified to a much greater extent, can reduce the chance of the wrong voter being checked off or signed, and provide evidence to distinguish between a voter trying to vote twice and attempted fraud.

Do You Know A Military or Overseas Voter? Act Now!!!

Tell them they can express their voted ballots back to the U.S. from 94 countries, at a huge discount.

We recommend that all Military and Overseas voters review the information on voting at the Overseas Vote Foundation. If you know an Overseas or Military voter (or a citizen overseas or in the military that may want to vote) please extend this recommendation to them.

Also the Overseas Vote Foundation has set up a steep discount for expressing back voted ballots:

We know you’ve been waiting for it. So we’re thrilled to announce that we have teamed up again this year with FedEx Express to offer Express Your Vote in 94 countries. (Fourteen more than in 2008!)

The one-of-its-kind Express Your Vote program provides highly discounted rates for express delivery of voted ballots back to local election offices in the United States.

See their site for <Countries, Deadlines and Rates>

Governments Hide Information; People Take Risks for Democracy

This kind of intimidation will hit the hearts of volunteers and no volunteer will come forward if this kind of thing happens in future, that’s the reason I’m going to take in on, and I’ll face it, so that the volunteers get inspired by me…whatever research we have done, whatever work we have done is right

– Hari Prasad

J. Alex Halderman, Freedom To Tinker: Electronic Voting Researcher Arrested Over Anonymous Source <read view>

The Government of India, the world’s largest democracy, insists that its voting machines are safe and secure. Yet, they refuse to let researchers have access to test the machines. Apparently a concerned insider obtained a voting machine and made it available to researchers who analyzed the machine and pointed out several security flaws. So as governments do to whistle blowers and those who bring uncomfortable facts, they have arrested the Indian member of the research team in an effort to determine the source of the voting machine and to intimidate. In the words of Hari Prasad (from the video):

This kind of intimidation will hit the hearts of volunteers and no volunteer will come forward if this kind of thing happens in future, that’s the reason I’m going to take in on, and I’ll face it, so that the volunteers get inspired by me…whatever research we have done, whatever work we have done is right…

Two weeks ago at the EVT/WOTE conference there was a panel on these voting machines, shortly after the warrant for Hari was issued. It was a heated, open, and fair discussion between researchers and representatives of the Indian Government. The Election Commission is not evil, they believe they are doing the right thing, but the effect is bureaucracy protecting itself. The result of the panel was a letter from researchers and attendees to the Indian Election Commission (I am one of many signers).

Electronic Voting Researcher Arrested Over Anonymous Source

What are they hiding? Contrary to their statements, the voting machines are not tamper proof.

Video: Dan Wallach channels Stephen Colbert

Must Watch: From the EVT/WOTE conference, Dan Wallach presents today’s word: “Out of Site, Out of Mind”

Must Watch: From the EVT/WOTE conference, Dan Wallach presents today’s word: “Out of Site, Out of Mind” <video>

In addition to channeling Stephen Colbert, Dan was challenging Mark Lindeman’s performance last year of his ballad “Plaudits for Audits” <watch and listen>