Timely Reminders From the Secretary of the State and CTVotersCount

The Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz reminds voters of the importance of local elections and the importance of registering to vote in advance.

CTVotersCount reminds voters that referendums are not exempt from the risk of error and insider fraud, yet are entirely exempt from post-election audits.

The Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz reminds voters of the importance of localelections and the importance of registering to vote in advance.  Courtesy of CTNewsWire:  <read>

“Crucial budget and educational issues are facing many towns in
Connecticut as voters go to the polls to choose municipal leaders this
year, so it is imperative to register to vote!” said Secretary
Bysiewicz.  “Anyone who wants a say in the future direction of their
community in these tough times should make sure they mail registration
materials to their Registrar of Voters office by Monday April 20th or
else go to town hall and fill out the registration card in person by
8:00 p.m. on April 27th.”

CTVotersCount agrees.

We also remind voters that referendums are not exempt from the risk of error and insider fraud, yet are entirely exempt from post-election audits:

Two motivations and opportunities: <FAQ>

The Town has the budget referendum turned down frequently at $20,000+ per referendum for a turnout of a small % of registered voters.

  • All the insiders of all parties are for it
  • Many town hall jobs are dependent on it
  • The insiders convince themselves that “if the right voters showed up then it would pass”
  • They think they are helping out the town out by passing the budget and saving multiple election costs
  • All look the other way

One insider is convinced the budget is too big.

  • Convinced that “If the people really knew then they would vote it down”
  • When nobody is looking, the insider takes advantage of sole access to voting machines and ballots, to hack the machine with the Hursti Hack before the election.

A recent example, Referendum: Front Page Story, Yet Paper Ballots Will Be Ignored, <read>

Among the current exemptions from post-election audits in CT are:  Referendums, Questions, Central Count Absentee Ballots, and All Ballots Counted By Hand.   Perhaps worse, some towns where election officials have had issues counting ballots during audits are now considering going to all paper ballot referendums – saving $100’s while voting on issues of $1,000,000’s <read>

Vendors Attack Open Source with Obfuscation, Inaccuracy, Doubt

The Election Technology Council released a white paper: Open Source: Understanding Its Application In The Voting Industry. Professor Dan Wallach explains the flaws in their arguments and understanding of open source.

The Election Technology Council released a white paper: Open Source: Understanding Its Application In The Voting Industry <read>

Professor Dan Wallach explains the flaws in their arguments and understanding of open source: On open source vs. disclosed source voting systems <read>

As Dan suggests we need to rely on experts to understand complex issues.  But not just any expert.  Transparency provides access to all experts.

Nobody has ever suggested that election transparency requires the layperson to be able to understand the source code. Rather, it requires the layperson to be able to trust their newspaper, or political party, or Consumer Reports, or the League of Women Voters, to be able to retain their own experts and reach their own conclusions.

I would suggest that the indsstry paper is aimed at  laypersons, especially election officials and legislators.

Here is an example of a strawman from the industry paper, refuted by Wallach:

… taking a software product that was once proprietary and disclosing its full source code to the general public will result in a complete forfeiture of the software’s security … Although computer scientists chafe at the thought of “security through obscurity,” there remains some underlying truths to the idea that software does maintain a level of security through the lack of available public knowledge of the inner workings of a software program.

Really? No. Disclosing the source code only results in a complete forfeiture of the software’s security if there was never any security there in the first place. If the product is well-engineered, then disclosing the software will cause no additional security problems. If the product is poorly-engineered, then the lack of disclosure only serves the purpose of delaying the inevitable.

In general the industry completely turns everything around.  In Wallach’s words:

As to the “principles of intellectual property”, the ETC paper conflates and confuses copyright, patent, and trade secrets. Any sober analysis must consider these distinctly. As to the “viability of the current marketplace”, the market demands products that are meaningfully secure, usable, reliable, and affordable. So long as the present vendors fail on one or more of these counts, their markets will suffer.

This is just a taste.  There are many more details refuted and a great case made for open source in Wallach’s post <read>

Finally, we point out that CTVotersCount is made possible and more robust by open source software, WordPress.  WordPress has proven quite secure, with a community of  developers ready to quickly address security flaws.  It is also much more robust than proprietary alternatives due to a huge community of developers competing to create valuable add-one features at the rate of several a day.

Madison: AutoMark – Off The Mark for People with Disabilities

The last thing people with poor eyesight and other disabilities need is a machine that is unreliable and can’t see straight itself.

The last thing people with poor eyesight and other disabilities need is a machine that is unreliable and can’t see straight itself:  <read and view video>

Since 2006, federal law has required that every polling place have voting equipment accessible to people with disabilities. Madison and other local governments use the ES&S AutoMARK. It’s equipped with headphones so voters can hear the choices, and it lets those with limited vision view a magnified ballot, which it then marks. The ballot is printed out and can be reviewed, like any other, before it’s turned in.

Using the ES&S AutoMARK last week at his polling place at Spring Harbor Elementary on Madison’s west side, Shultz noticed the alignment was off. So when he tried to make a given choice, the machine would register a vote for the opposing candidate.

Shultz found this so jarring he filmed it with his cell phone camera. One clip shows his finger touching the oval that says “Kathleen Falk”; that causes the oval for “Nancy Mistele” to fill in. Another clip shows how his effort to select Shirley Abrahamson became a vote for Randy Koschnick.

“It was that way for every single one,” says Shultz, whose field of study includes man/machine interfaces. “To select the candidates you wanted, you had to push right below them.”

Shultz worries that people with visual impairments might not see these different choices being made. He adds that “some simple changes” in the software program, like putting spaces between the choices, could fix this problem.

Adam Gallagher, Madison’s deputy city clerk, says the AutoMARK machines are calibrated before they’re delivered to the city’s 80 polling places. Sometimes the alignment can be off, but this is easily corrected, and the poll workers “know how to do that.” The workers are urged to mark their own ballots with these machines — “anybody can use them” — to test them out.

But Shultz believes he was the first person to use the machine at his polling place that day. The AutoMARK jammed trying to print his ballot, something he’s had happen before. So he ended up voting the ordinary way, making his own marks on a ballot.

In Connecticut we have the IVS system for voters with  disabilities, which has proven expensive, unpopular with election officials, and used infrequently by voters.   The Secretary of the State’s Office is considering replacing it and presumably the AutoMark would be a contender.  We see no reason to reject it based on a single reported problem and potential problems, yet it is worth emphasizing that we need to pick something that works well for everyone involved before we make another huge investment.

Phoenix: Ballots Missing – Integrity and Confidence Also Missing

“If we are correct,” Risner wrote in his Monday letter to the Attorney General’s office, concerning the absence of as many as 19,000 paper ballots, as estimated by observers of the counting in Phoenix, “the question arises as to what happened to those ballots.” The latest mystery adds still more fuel to the already high-stakes, long-sought hand-count, and raises new questions in the nearly three-years long

Update 4/22/2009: Attorney General says Original Result ‘Affirmed”, but questions remain <BradBlog>

However, when a reporter asked about that quote from our report last week, during today’s press conference, Goddard admitted they did not examine the tapes.

“The two things we wanted to hear, we didn’t,” J.T. Waldron, a documentary filmmaker who has been covering the years-long struggle for transparency in the RTA election, told us after the conference. “First, they admit they didn’t look at the poll tapes. Second, they admit that they didn’t do any forensic examination of the ballots” to see if they were legitimate. Critics have pointed out that Pima County has, since the 2006 election, purchased a ballot-on-demand printer and could have printed out ballots to match any ‘fixed’ ’06 ballot counts. The originals were printed by an offset printer, rather than ink-jet, as used in the ballot-on-demand system, and a forensic examination of a sample of ballots, with a microscope, might have revealed any such tampering.

“He said he didn’t have enough evidence to justify a forensic examination of the ballots,” Waldron noted.

Sad,  that with a bit more transparency, we might have confidence in the assessment.

**********
Update 4/16/2009:  AP Article also quoted in BradBlog follow-up:

What may be of even greater concern is the voting machines in Pima County, which includes Tucson, are similar to those used in 12 of Arizona’s 15 counties and in hundreds of jurisdictions across the country.
If it turns out the election was rigged by manipulating Diebold Elections Systems (now Premier Election Solutions Inc.) computer election programs, as some fear, it will show weaknesses in electronic balloting that could endanger the democratic process.

We would emphasize that we should not “fear, it will show weaknesses in electronic balloting that could endanger the democratic process”.  We should welcome the information so we can take action.  And even if it turns out this particular election was not rigged and had no errors, we should be worried that the real risks and dangers to democracy are ignored.

**********Original Post

Two stories on the recount of a 2006 election in Arizona currently underway.  AZCentral has a good background article, Vote probe raises fears over ‘fix’ <read>

Under the scrutiny of criminal investigators, election workers in Phoenix have spent the past week in a painstaking recount of 120,821 ballots that were cast three years ago for a Pima County transit tax.

The primary objective is to determine whether someone rigged the election by tampering with the optical-scan polling machines in Pima County, transforming “no” votes into “yes” votes…

And, no matter what happens with the recount, state Attorney General Terry Goddard said he is convinced the equipment jeopardizes election integrity.

“These (Premier) systems are very, very bad,” Goddard said. “(They) are not state of the art in terms of security. They are not state of the art in terms of transparency.”

Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier, said his company uses the most advanced technology available and urges clients to establish security protocols. Although there are internal safety features to prevent and detect tampering, Riggall added, those must be supported by external controls over election workers who handle the equipment.

“You can manipulate any voting system devised by man,” he said, noting that even paper ballots are subject to fraud…

During an initial investigation, the Attorney General’s Office hired an independent company to analyze the machines. Experts at iBeta Software Quality Assurance found a number of “irregularities” and determined that the Premier system had “fundamental security flaws.”

They reported that a trained technician could have altered the vote and removed all evidence of the crime. However, they concluded that human error was a more likely culprit than fraud because evidence of tampering had not been erased.

The Attorney General’s Office dropped the case in 2007, but the Democratic and Libertarian parties continued private investigations and filed lawsuits for election record…

Former Pima County employee Zbigniew Osmolski filed an affidavit in July alleging that he was in a Tucson lounge when Crane admitted that he had “fixed the RTA election on the instructions of his bosses” and was fearful of indictment…

Risner noted that, according to sworn courtroom testimony, Crane routinely took voting data home during elections and had his office computer connected to the GEMS system. He also claimed that Crane purchased a hacking device before the election, one with “no other purpose than to illegally alter the programming of precinct voting machines.”

Now for the latest disturbing part from Brad Friedman, ‘Thousands of Ballots’ May be ‘Missing’ from AZ’s Criminal Investigation Ballot Count in Phoenix<read>

“If we are correct,” Risner wrote in his Monday letter to the Attorney General’s office, concerning the absence of as many as 19,000 paper ballots, as estimated by observers of the counting in Phoenix, “the question arises as to what happened to those ballots.” The latest mystery adds still more fuel to the already high-stakes, long-sought hand-count, and raises new questions in the nearly three-years long investigation into the 2006 election results.

If the ballots are indeed missing, did they ever actually exist? Was the Diebold electronic ballot box stuffed? Have ballots been surreptitiously removed by someone for some reason?

As we have said there is no reason to be confident that referendums are not subject to skull duggery: FAQ: Why Would Anyone Steal A Referendum?

Court Affirms Minnesota Recount and Election Fair

After seven weeks of trial, the factual record is devoid of any allegations of fraud, tampering, or security breeches on Election Day, during the recount process, or during the election contest.

We are not comfortable that a statewide or even a Congressonal District recount in Connecticut would result is a thorough or as credible a recount as we have seen and admire in Minnesota.

We highly recommend the 2nd video, if you are willing to invest the 87 minutes.

The full 68 page ruling <read>

The Court DECIDES, DECLARES AND ADJUDGES that Contestee Al Franken is the party to the contest who received the highest number of votes legally cast…and is therefore entitled to receive the certificate of election…Contestants’ [Coleman] Notice of Contest is dismissed with prejudice;…costs of the contest must be paid by Contestants

Pretty clear.  And some details:

The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the November 4, 2008 election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately…There is no evidence of a systemic problem of disenfranchisement in the state’s election system, including absentee balloting procedures…After seven weeks of trial, the factual record is devoid of any allegations of fraud, tampering, or security breeches on Election Day, during the recount process, or during the election contest.

Mark Ritchie
Mark Ritchie

For more information, we would highly recommend the video of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s talk to the National Association of Secretaries of State <watch>. Or a longer talk about the recount, the length of time allowed for recounts, and how a national recount could be handled. <watch> This took place at the 2009 Legislative Conference, a national meeting of county election officials.

We highly recommend the 2nd video, if you are willing to invest the 87 minutes.  It covers the Recount, Election Day Registration, Early Voting, and the National Popular Vote.

Our Opinion: The Minnesota process was thorough and fair, the actually counting of ballots was accomplished in a few days, yet the counting of disputed ballots and reviewing absentee ballots took the bulk of the 40+ days.  There needs to be a way of streamlining that part of the process with more planning ahead.  Consider the problems, pointed out in the 2nd vidoe by SOS Ritchie, that could occur with a statewide primary to be followed closely by an election, when the primary requires a recount! In the first video SOS Ritchie gives great credit to the planning and preparation for potential recounts, something we see as sorely lacking in Connecticut — We are not comfortable that a statewide or even a Congressonal District recount in Connecticut would result is a thorough or as credible a recount as we have seen and admire in Minnesota.

FL: Internet Voting Skepticism Has Promise

Opponents of Internet voting argue that security risks are too plentiful and blatant to ignore. They point to the threat of hackers and other forms of fraud, as well as glitches that could prevent votes from being counted or result in a miscount.

Those are legitimate concerns. Any efforts to expand the role of Internet voting must be vetted in the most public way possible, open to examination by the nation’s top computer experts.

Editorial, Internet voting has promise, discusses their wish for Internet voting, but in the end correctly points out that it should be subject to “open to examination by the nation’s top computer experts.”

That is all that is asked by the Technologists’ Statement On Internet Voting.

But in the Connecticut Legislature is full speed ahead for Internet voting despite the opposition of CTVotersCount, TrueVoteCT, and the Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz. See HB-5903. Hopefully, the Office of Fiscal Analysis will point out the expense of whatever process is used for Internet voting for each of our 169 municipalities. Our earlier coverage.

Fort Meyers News-Press Editorial <read>

Opponents of Internet voting argue that security risks are too plentiful and blatant to ignore. They point to the threat of hackers and other forms of fraud, as well as glitches that could prevent votes from being counted or result in a miscount.

Those are legitimate concerns. Any efforts to expand the role of Internet voting must be vetted in the most public way possible, open to examination by the nation’s top computer experts.

But it doesn’t make sense that citizens can perform so many other vital transactions online, using Web sites that are trusted to be secure, yet can’t have a secure option for voting online – or at least registering to vote.

We agree that registration and even sending ballots to the Military can be accomplished.  We are less sure of the journalists’ predictions:

Finding a way to incorporate one of the world’s greatest technological advances – the Internet – should only be a matter of time.

Sometimes technology evolves as we wish and sometimes it does not — remember Nuclear Fusion, Toxic Waste Storage…I remember a childhood friend that just kept smoking assuming “scientists will come up with a cure before I get lung cancer”.  I hope he changed his mind and quit.  Unfortunately, when we risk Democracy on  an unproven technology the cure may also be too late.



Policital Scientist Describes Obstacles To The National Popular Vote

Before scrapping a system that has been in place for more than 200 years, however, political scientist Dorothy B. James cautioned that the NPV has more than a few obstacles to overcome before becoming reality…”Until you can take care of these technical issues, then you are not going to get closer to one person one vote,” James said.

Mystic Times story on League of Women Voters forum <read>

Before scrapping a system that has been in place for more than 200 years, however, political scientist Dorothy B. James cautioned that the NPV has more than a few obstacles to overcome before becoming reality…

James also noted that the United States is a nation with an overabundance of lawyers who would dissect the wording of any NPV proposal and ultimately tie up the issue in litigation. She reminded her audience of a former president’s question on language that depended on the definition of what “is” is.

Also, she said, the NPV has no provision for recounts, which, given the current state of the contested Minnesota senate race, would seem necessary.

Even more problematic, she said, is that we have 51 different electoral systems across the nation and a general sloppiness in vote counts. Keeping track of voters is an issue.

For more on this see our earlier articles <here> <here>

Soldiers’ Votes and Democracy At Risk In CT

Despite opposition by the Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, TrueVoteCT members, CTVoters Count, and the League of Women Voters, HB-5903 was as voted out of the General Administration and Elections Committee unanimously today. The bill will allow members of the military to submit absentee votes electronically.

This not a wild theoretical concern: Ironically, CNN has just reported that the Chinese or others have software they have used to infiltrate critical computers around the world

Despite opposition in testimony by the Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, TrueVoteCT members, CTVoters Count, and the League of Women Voters,  HB-5903 was as voted out of the General Administration and Elections Committee unanimously today.  The bill will allow members of the military to submit absentee votes electronically. <testimony>  Our testimony was not listed under the bill but is available online at <CTVotersCount Testimony>.  As covered by the Secretary of the State, the Department of Defense and Goverment Accountability Office have concerns with the security of internet voting.  Our testimony referenced the Technologists Statement On Internet Voting.

Because of the increasing frequency of proposals to allow remote voting over the internet, we believe it is necessary to warn policymakers and the public that secure internet voting is a very hard technical problem, and that we should proceed with internet voting schemes only after thorough consideration of the technical and non-technical issues in doing so.

Here is the critical text from the bill:

28        (b) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a) of this section,

29   the Secretary of the State shall work in conjunction with the Sta te

30    Elections Enforcement Commission and the United States Department

31    of Defense Federal Voting Assistance Program to ensure that any

32    absent uniformed services voter, as defined in 42 USC 1973ff-6, may

33    utilize a secure electronic transmission system for the transmittal of: (1)

34    The federal postcard application form provided for pursuant to the

35    Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, 100 Stat. 924,

36    42 USC 1973ff et seq., as amended from time to time, and (2) any

37    absentee ballot issued pursuant to subsection (a) of this section or

38    section 9-140.

39      (c) The Secretary of the State, in consultation with the State Elections

40    Enforcement Commission and the Office of Military Affairs shall adopt

41    regulations,  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  chapter  54,  to

42   implement  the  provisions  of  subsection  (b)  of  this  section.  Such

43    regulations, at a minimum, shall provide that an absent uniformed

44    services voter shall not be required to submit a paper absentee ballot in

45    addition to the electronic submission of such a ballot pursuant to

46    subsection (b) of this section.

Putting soldiers’ votes at risk threatens us and democracy as well.  The election results and our democracy depend on the privacy, security, and accuracy of every vote.

This not a wild theoretical concern: Ironically,  CNN has just reported that the Chinese or others have software they have used to infiltrate critical computers around the world: <read>

One report was issued by the University of Toronto’s Munk Center for International Studies in conjunction with the Ottawa, Canada-based think tank The SecDev Group; the second came from the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.

Researchers have dubbed the cyber-espionage network GhostNet. The network can not only search a computer but see and hear the people using it, according to the Canadian report.

“GhostNet is capable of taking full control of infected computers, including searching and downloading specific files, and covertly operating attached devices, including microphones and web cameras,” the report says.

Hardly reassuring is that it might not be the Chinese Government, but could in the future be citizen hackers, the U.S. Military itself or Israel:

“Chinese cyber espionage is a major global concern… (b)ut attributing all Chinese malware to deliberate or targeted intelligence gathering operations by the Chinese state is wrong and misleading,” says the Canadian report, titled, “Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.”

“The sheer number of young digital natives online can more than account for the increase in Chinese malware,” it adds.

But the report also points out that China is among a handful of countries, also including the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom, which are “assumed” to have considerable cyber-espionage capabilities

Town Considers All Paper, No Scanners

[Easton Connecticut] is looking into using paper ballots for the upcoming budget referendums to save money.

We would recommend against all paper. Audits have shown that Connecticut election officials have difficulty counting even a few hundred ballots accurately. We also remember a very frustrating day observing the Easton election officials attempting to accurately count ballots for the audit after the November 2007 Municipal Election.

Easton Courier, Town considers paper ballots for referendums; Would likely save money due to cost of scanner ballots: <read>

[Easton Connecticut] is looking into using paper ballots for the upcoming budget referendums to save money.

The two registrars of voters, Republican Eunice K. Hanson and Democrat Nick Soares, plan to watch how the process of using paper ballots works in Monroe when that town has its budget referendum April 7.

The biggest question is how long it would take to count the paper ballots…

It costs the town at least $2,800 to hold a referendum. The major expenses are the special ballots needed for the new optical scanner voting machines and hourly pay for poll workers. The polls are open 14 hours for elections.

The ballots are 45 cents each. “That’s very costly,” Soares said, “so the biggest savings would be in the ballots….

He said hes unsure if paper ballots will save money because of the time needed to hand-count the ballots. “The new machines are quick” Soares said.

Eunice Hanson agreed. “It gives you instant results,” she said of the optical scanning devices that were supplied by the state as a way to modernize the election process. “They’re actually kind of cool. We’ve gotten used to them.”

Susan Koneff, Monroe’s Democratic registrar of voters, said paper ballots are cheaper and simpler. She said referendum results often are known within 25 minutes after the polls close.

“It’s a very efficient way to do a referendum,” Koneff said.

Koneff said the average turnout for a budget referendum in Monroe is from 3,000 to 3,500 voters. The town has about 12,000 registered voters and four polling places, she said…

Easton has 5,200 registered voters and one polling place, Samuel Staples Elementary School. While turnout obviously varies for referendums depending on the contentiousness of the issues involved, Soares said 2,500 to 2,600 people usually vote.

The town has to print a ballot for everyone in town just in case the turnout is exceptional. Extras also are needed for spoilage and, with budget referendums, for Easton property owners who live out of town.

We recommend against all paper. Audits have shown that Connecticut election officials have difficulty counting even a few hundred ballots accurately <Most recent audit report statistics>.  We also remember a very frustrating day observing the Easton election officials attempting to accurately count ballots for the audit after the November 2007 Municipal Election.

Although we disagree, election officials across Connecticut repeatedly complain that counting 10% of the ballots in audits will break the bank while they express a lack of confidence in their ability to count accurately.  It is refreshing to hear agreements that counting is not that costly.  However, we would rather see an optical scan count that can be compared to a manual count.  Counting at night after the polls close, after a 14 hour day, is much more difficult than counting for a audit after several days rest.  In addition an audit is closely observable by the public.

One final point.  We believe there is no requirment that ballots be printed for 100% of the voters in an election. An attempt to require 100% printing in law was not passed when proposed in the 2008 legislative session.

CIA Agent: Electronic Voting Risky

“I follow the vote. And wherever the vote becomes an electron and touches a computer, that’s an opportunity for a malicious actor potentially to . . . make bad things happen.”

We agree with the agent that electronic voting can be compromised, but some details in the testimony are questionable.

Update 5/7/2009 Boston Progressive Examiner: Electronic voting machines in U.S. at risk from foreign hackers attacking military computers <read>

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission should be paying attention to what has been happening at the Department of Defense. America is under cyber attack each day with thousands of attacks on defense websites. As computer technology spreads in election offices around the country the risk of foreign hacking of American elections grows.

Update 4/8/2009 Wall Street Journal: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies <read>

Last year, a senior Central Intelligence Agency official, Tom Donahue, told a meeting of utility company representatives in New Orleans that a cyberattack had taken out power equipment in multiple regions outside the U.S. The outage was followed with extortion demands, he said…

The sophistication of the U.S. intrusions — which extend beyond electric to other key infrastructure systems — suggests that China and Russia are mainly responsible, according to intelligence officials and cybersecurity specialists. While terrorist groups could develop the ability to penetrate U.S. infrastructure, they don’t appear to have yet mounted attacks, these officials say.

*************************Original post:

McClatchy:  Most electronic voting isn’t secure, CIA expert says<read>

“You heard the old adage ‘follow the money,’ ” Stigall said, according to a transcript of his hour-long presentation that McClatchy obtained. “I follow the vote. And wherever the vote becomes an electron and touches a computer, that’s an opportunity for a malicious actor potentially to . . . make bad things happen.”

Stigall said that voting equipment connected to the Internet could be hacked, and machines that weren’t connected could be compromised wirelessly. Eleven U.S. states have banned or limited wireless capability in voting equipment, but Stigall said that election officials didn’t always know it when wireless cards were embedded in their machines.

While Stigall said that he wasn’t speaking for the CIA and wouldn’t address U.S. voting systems, his presentation appeared to undercut calls by some U.S. politicians to shift to Internet balloting, at least for military personnel and other American citizens living overseas. Stigall said that most Web-based ballot systems had proved to be insecure.

We agree with the agent that electronic voting can be compromised, but some details in the testimony are questionable.

Appearing last month before a U.S. Election Assistance Commission field hearing in Orlando, Fla., a CIA cybersecurity expert suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his allies fixed a 2004 election recount, an assertion that could further roil U.S. relations with the Latin leader.

Both a Princeton/Johns Hopkins study and the Carter Center have studied the Venezuelan election and refute some of these contentions in that particular case.

PRINCETON, N.J. — An analysis of polling data from the Aug. 15 referendum in Venezuela to recall President Hugo Chávez indicates that certain forms of computer fraud were unlikely to have occurred during the electronic voting process, according to a study by computer science researchers from Johns Hopkins and Princeton universities.

Jennifer McCoy directed the Carter Center’s observer mission in Venezuela and is a Latin America expert at Georgia State University in Atlanta:

In conclusion, the vote itself was secret and free, but the CNE’s lack of openness, last-minute changes and internal divisions harmed public confidence in that vital institution both before and after the vote. Divisive rhetoric and intimidating tactics from Chavistas, and the opposition’s still-unsubstantiated claims of fraud, have exacerbated Venezuelans’ cynicism toward elections. It will take a huge effort by both sides to restore trust in this fundamental democratic right before next month’s election for governors and mayors.