CA: Bowen Considers Decertifying Premier/Diebold GEMS

CA, Secretary of State Deborah Bowen is considering decertifying the GEMS system. But it’s complex and unclear exactly what decertificaiton would mean. This is another case of being caught between the Glitches and the Gotchas, at the mercy of a broken system of certification and an oligarchy providing inadequate products.

Update: John Gideon attempts to get a straight answer from the EAC <email exchange>

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Based on the problems discovered in Humboldt, CA, Secretary of State Deborah Bowen is considering decertifying the GEMS system.  But it’s complex and unclear exactly what decertificaiton would mean.  This is another case of being caught between the Glitches and the Gotchas, at the mercy of a broken system of certification and an oligarchy providing inadequate products.

The Eurika Times-Standard has the story <read>

Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Elections Solutions, said in a previous interview with the Times-Standard that the company had known of the programming error since 2004. Saying the certification process is too lengthy and time consuming to have had the software re-certified, Riggall said Premier instead issued “work around” orders by e-mail to its customers instructing them how to take steps to avoid the problem…

The transparency project that discovered the error passes every ballot cast in an election through an optical scanner after it’s been officially counted. The ballot images are then placed online, along with open-source software, created by volunteer Mitch Trachtenberg, that allows viewers to sort the ballots by precinct and scrutinize the vote as they see fit…

But, the possible decertification of the version of GEMS currently used in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo is raising some questions there for elections officials, especially with the state calling a special election in May. Officials in both counties said they are still looking into how they would proceed if the approval of their voting systems were to be withdrawn.

Meanwhile, some in the election watchdog community are pushing for either the Secretary of State’s Office or the federal Elections Assistance Commission to pursue punitive actions against Premier, which they say knowingly kept elections systems in place that had unacceptable error rates.

Riggall said Premier has done nothing disingenuous, and notified its customers immediately upon discovering the error in its vote counting system, carefully instructing them how to “work around” the problem.

”I don’t see that there is anything — absolutely nothing — in how we have handled this issue going back several years that has been disingenuous,” Riggall said.

Meanwhile, in Connecticut we don’t use this particular function of the GEMS system to accumulate election results.  We use GEMS for a different, unrelated function.  We have our vendor, LHS Associates us GEMS to program our elections.  We use an error prone three step system of manual transcription and addition to accomplish the accumulation of vote totals which also can and has been prone to errors.

CTVotersCount Testimony To The GAE Committee

Update: We provide Testimony Response & Clarification

The primary issues needing your attention are the post-election audits, ballot chain-of-custody, and the reporting of election results…As you consider the current audit laws and other bills before the committee effecting voting integrity and security, we encourage you to seek the best advice of legal experts, computer experts, security experts, and the experience of other states…What often is an attractive idea, also often has risky unintended consequences as well…

We want every citizen’s vote to be counted!
To be counted accurately!
And to be counted only once!

Update: 3/09/2009, comments on Secretary of The State’s Testimony <read>

Update: 2/24/2009, we provide Testimony Response & Clarification <read>

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The Government Administration and Elections Committee (GAE) held a public hearing on several elections bills on February 18, 2009.  CTVotersCount testified in favor of HB-6441 to improve the integrity of elections, while cautioning the committee about the voting integrity risks of several other bills.  The full testimony contains 17 pages of the most pertinent exhibits and references to additional supporting details <full testimony>

Update: Most of the testimony from yesterday is online <here>. Several citizens supported HR-6441 and the problems it addresses.  Others addressed concerns with the costs, effort, and details of the bill.  I am preparing a detailed response to some of the concerns raised including some suggested revised text for the bill.

Summary of my Testimony:

Chairs and members of the Committee, my name is Luther Weeks. I am the Executive Director of Connecticut Voters Count and the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition. Today I am representing Connecticut Voters Count. My testimony does not necessarily represent the views of the Coalition or its other members.

I am a Certified Moderator and have personally observed eighteen (18) post-election audits in municipalities across the state. I am also a retired computer scientist and software engineer involved in voting integrity since 2004.

I am here again to ask that you improve the election laws to provide real confidence to the voters of Connecticut. The primary issues needing your attention are the post-election audits, ballot chain-of-custody, and the reporting of election results.

Currently we have a weak chain-of-custody for ballots, dependent on unenforceable procedures that are often violated. We need stronger, enforceable protection for the ultimate record of our votes.

The election results posted on the Secretary of the State’s web site are inaccurate, difficult to check, and provide no confidence that critical results are correctly certified. These results are accumulated by an error prone three step process of transcription and addition, from polling place, to town hall, to the Secretary of the State’s Office. Advocates from across the state have found obvious errors almost everywhere they have looked.

Based on five public hearings last year and on the Coalition reports of four post-election audits, we continue to conclude that the audits as performed are inaccurate, unreliable, and ineffective. Fortunately, we can make the audits much more effective, without counting more ballots.

We remain committed to an Independent Audit Board, relieving the Secretary of the State, towns, and registrars of the audit work. However, in these fiscally challenging times we have also proposed text for HB-6441 which would make significant improvements without significant fiscal impact.

Even though most members of the GAE are lawyers, when the committee drafted campaign finance law, you sought the advice of The Brennan Center for Justice. As you consider the current audit laws and other bills before the committee effecting voting integrity and security, we encourage you to seek the best advice of legal experts, computer experts, security experts, and the experience of other states.

We don’t claim that our proposed text is perfect. One contributor is a lawyer. I am a computer expert. Yet, we turn to the collective work and experience of many others. Attached to my testimony are references endorsed by nationally recognized groups and individuals, used for drafting HB-6441. The Principles and Best Practices for Post-Election Audits created by a variety of experts, endorsed by the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, Verified Voting, the American Statistical Association, CTVotersCount, TrueVoteCT and others; and a similar document from the League of Women Voters, U.S.

We urge you to seek and follow the advice of recognized subject matter experts and the experience of other states as you consider improving our voting systems. What often is an attractive idea, also often has risky unintended consequences as well.

Summary
We want every citizen’s vote to be counted!
To be counted accurately!
And to be counted only once!

Thank you.

WSJ Article: Thwarting an Internal Hacker – Not Quite

In the end, systems will always have trusted people who can subvert them.

Excellent article on the difficulties of preventing insider fraud in the Wall Street Journal, except that the title, Thwarting an Internal Hacker, may be a bit optimistic, compared to the details in the article:  <read>

In the end, systems will always have trusted people who can subvert them. It’s important to keep in mind that incidents like this don’t happen very often; that most people are honest and honorable. Security is very much designed to protect against the dishonest minority

In the online article there is a very good list of articles and past problems with electronic voting systems.  Each word points to a separate article:

Replacing trusted people with computers doesn’t make the problem go away; it just moves it around and makes it even more complex. The computer, software, and network designers, implementers, coders, installers, maintainers, etc. are all trusted people. See any analysis of the security of electronic voting machines, or some of the frauds perpetrated against computerized gambling machines, for some graphic examples of the risks inherent in replacing people with computers.

The heart of the article is a list:

There are five basic techniques to deal with trusted people:

1. Limit the number of trusted people…

2. Ensure that trusted people are also trustworthy…

3. Limit the amount of trust each person has…

4. Give people overlapping spheres of trust. This is compartmentalization; the idea here is to limit the amount of damage a person can do if he ends up not being trustworthy. This is the concept behind giving people keys that only unlock their office or passwords that only unlock their account, as well as “need to know” and other levels of security clearance…

5. Detect breaches of trust after the fact and prosecute the guilty… This is why audit is so vital.

Our challenge in Connecticut is to protect our optical scanners  in 169 towns where expertise is scarce, most officials are very part time,  and separation with overlap of duties is challenging and expensive.  As the Coalition reports have shown, even protecting ballots with a credible chain-of-custody is yet to be accomplished.

Less challenging to overcome, yet still in place, is our dependence on our vendor LHS for programming of all our memory cards before each election – just the type of vulnerablity that provides an opening for insider fraud.

VoiceOfTheVoters Radio: Electoral College Debate

Last night VoiceOfTheVoters.org held a debate, Electoral College v. National Popular Vote. Unfortunately, most of the debate is the usual partisan arguments. It is an example of Democratic support of the National Popular Vote for the wrong reasons and Republican opposition for equally wrong reasons. The exception is Part 3.

Last night VoiceOfTheVoters.org held a debate, Electoral College v. National Popular Vote.

February 11, 2009: Electoral College v. National Popular Vote (NPV) debated by Tara Ross, attorney and author of Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College, and Jamie Raskin, MD state senator and professor of law at American U., with comments by Dan Ashby, Election Defense Alliance, and Rob Richie, FairVote. Audio:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Unfortunately, most of the debate is the usual partisan arguments.  It is an example of Democratic support of the National Popular Vote for the wrong reasons and Republican opposition for equally wrong reasons.

We do highly recommend listening to Part 3 and the excellent articulation of the risks of the national popular vote given our current state by state election systems, by Don Ashby of the Election Defense Alliance.

CTVotersCount.org opposes the National Popular Vote at this time because of the clear risks given our current variety of unequal, unreliable voting systems from state to state <read> <read> Also note the comments by anonomous bloggers on our second post.  Just like the debaters on the  VoiceOfTheVoters, those in favor of the National Popular Vote never actually provide a rational rebuttal to our concerns – there is none.

Bills In CT, MD, WA, Risk Security Despite DoD Concerns

Despite the concerns of computer technologists, legislatures in three states are considering military voting via internet, fax, and email. In 2004 the Department of Defense expressed concerns with the security of voting via internet or email, and that all three methods, internet, email, or fax put in question the secret ballot.

Risking voting integrity and the secret ballot for our troops, disenfranchises us all.
Update: Ignoring Science In WA, OpEdNews Article By Ellen Theisen

Despite the concerns of computer technologists, legislatures in three states are considering military voting via internet, fax, and email.  In 2004 the Department of Defense expressed concerns with the security of voting via internet or email, and that all three methods, internet, email, or fax put in question the secret ballot.

Risking voting integrity and the secret ballot for our troops, disenfranchises us all.

Bills: CT, MD, WA

Computer Technologists’ Statement On Internet Voting

The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the results are verifiably accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to democracy.

Excellent testimony in WA covering DoD etc:  <Ellen Theisen> <John Gideon>

Even though reports from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), and dozens of computer security experts strongly and unanimously warn of insurmountable threats to the privacy and security of ballots cast over the Internet, the Washington State legislature is proposing â and fast-tracking  a bill to allow Internet voting for its military and overseas voters (S.B.5522 and its identical companion H.B.1624).

Even though the U.S. Department of Defense cancelled its Internet voting project (SERVE) in 2004 citing security concerns, and even though the DoD has still been unable to establish the secure and private Internet voting demonstration project that Congress mandated in 2002, the Washington State legislature is seriously considering a bill that would authorize the Washington Secretary of State to create an Internet voting scheme and declare it secure and private – without any oversight or review by the legislature or the people.

BradBlog: Military and Overseas Voters as Internet Voting Guinea Pigs

Update: Ignoring Science In WA, OpEdNews Article By Ellen Theisen <read>

Clearly our SoS office has done no research into the matter. In fact, Mr. Handy said as much. They don’t want to waste time researching it if the legislature doesn’t authorize using it. So they are pushing it, telling the legislature it can be made secure and private, without any evidence or research to back them up, and even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Some in the legislature appear to be trusting their word, ignorant of the fact that the SoS has done no research. And many of them are not trusting us who have done research.

Another Discrepancy In Reported Vote Totals. And Another.

SOTS Web Site: 2876 + 0 = 2876, Town Clerk: 2862 + 103 = 2965

Update: And in Old Lyme…

Update: 2/10.  And in Old Lyme, from David Bidell again:

According to a 2/10/09 telephone call I had with the Old Lyme Assistant Town Clerk (Eileen Coffee), Joe Courtney received 350 votes in Old Lyme on the Working Families Party line and 2,612 votes on the Democratic line, for a total of 2,962 votes.  The WFP votes are not reported in the printed Statement of Vote or on the SOTS website

******Original Post 2/9/2009

David Bidell has uncovered another difference: <see most recent>

SOTS Web Site:   2876 + 0 = 2876,        Town Clerk:  2862 + 103 = 2965

According to a 2/6/09 telephone call I had with the Portland Town Clerk, John Larson received 103 votes in Portland on the Working Families line and 2,862 votes on the Democratic line, for a total of 2,965 votes.  This differs from the results reported in the printed Statement of Vote and on the SOTS website

Connecticut Voter Fraud Complaint

BradBlog.com story:

EXCLUSIVE: The New Voter Fraud Complaint Filed in CT Against the GOP’s Ann Coulter

New allegations of absentee ballot fraud in ’02 and ’04, follow on her multiple voter fraud crimes in FL in ’05, for which she was never ‘cleared’, as some media have inaccurately reported..

BradBlog.com story:

EXCLUSIVE: The New Voter Fraud Complaint Filed in CT Against the GOP’s Ann Coulter

New allegations of absentee ballot fraud in ’02 and ’04, follow on her multiple voter fraud crimes in FL in ’05, for which she was never ‘cleared’, as some media have inaccurately reported..

Imagine A National Recount. What Could Possibly Be Worse?

I’d love to discuss the Electoral College and the importance of that institution, when you imagine a National Recount.” – Mark Ritchie, Secretary of State, Minnesota

What could possibly by worse?

As we have said before, we understand the appeal of the popular election of the President.  However, CTVotersCount is conditionally opposed to the popular election of the President, in any form, unless and until there are uniform election laws, enforceable, and enforced nationwide. <The Case Against>

Yesterday, the Secretary of the State of Minnesota, Mark Ritchie touched on the same subject in a speech to the National Association of Secretaries of the State (NASS) , winter conference, February 7, 2009 in Washington, D. C.:

“I’d love to discuss the Electoral College and the importance of that institution, when you imagine a national recount.”  -Mark Ritchie

What could possibly be worse?

A close Presidential election under a national popular vote, without a National recount.

SOS Ritchie reinforces our objection to a national popular vote without uniform laws.  Many states have a recount on close vote, but that is based on state totals not national totals.  Where it would be done well, it works under the electoral college to verify that the states votes for President are awarded based on the intentions of all the voters.  However, without other changes in the law a close national total does not imply a close vote in any states and would be unlikely to be close in any but a few states.  A close popular vote to be trusted would require a national recount with uniform standards – high standards such as those demonstrated in Minnesota.

A New Approach To Voter Registration?

The United States is one of the few industrialized democracies that place the onus of registration on the voter. In other democracies, the government facilitates voting by taking upon itself the responsibility to build voter rolls of all eligible citizens. Even in the United States, voter-initiated registration did not exist until the late nineteenth century. It was instituted then in many states with the intention of suppressing unpopular voters, especially former slaves and new European immigrants, and it continues to disenfranchise many Americans to this day.

How about a simple, reliable system similar to the rest of the World?

The United States is one of the few industrialized democracies that place the onus of registration on the voter. In other democracies, the government facilitates voting by taking upon itself the responsibility to build voter rolls of all eligible citizens. Even in the United States, voter-initiated registration did not exist until the late nineteenth century. It was instituted then in many states with the intention of suppressing unpopular voters, especially former slaves and new European immigrants, and it continues to disenfranchise many Americans to this day.

The Brennan Center for Justice has produced a “Policy Summary”, Universal Voter Registration, <Summary> <.pdf>

Too often, when it comes to our election system, policymaking has devolved into partisan wrangling or become bogged down in arcane technicalities.

Today we have the opportunity for a major breakthrough for effective democracy. The 2008 election saw a record number of new voters. New election technology and the implementation of a recent federal law in the states make it possible to overcome the challenges with our voter registration system—the single greatest cause of voting prob lems in the United States. We can now truly modernize the voter registration process by upgrading to a system of universal voter registration—a system where all eligible citizens are able to vote because the government has taken the steps to make it possible for them to be on the voter rolls, permanently. Citizens must take responsibility to vote, but government should do its part by clearing away obstacles to their full participation. The current voter registration system—which is governed by a dizzying array of rules and is susceptible to error and manipulation—is the largest source of such obstacles…

The next Congress can substantially speed up the process by:

  • Establishing a national mandate for universal voter registration within each state;
  • Providing federal funds for states taking steps toward universal voter registration;
  • Requiring “permanent voter registration” systems, so that once voters are registered, they will stay on the rolls when they move; and
  • Requiring fail-safe procedures, so that eligible voters whose names do not appear on the voter rolls or whose information is not up to date can correct the rolls and vote on the same day.

An attractive idea which claims the magical combination of increasing participation in democracy, fairness,and  integrity, while saving  everyone money, reducing frustration for officials, and the public.  We will put this in our “Conditionally For” column, because we would have to see the details of any proposal and see the comments and evaluation of computer scientists, security experts, election officials, and activists.

Letters TO and FROM the Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz

Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, mailed a detailed letter to each voter who signed CTVotersCount.org petition. We respond.

Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, mailed a detailed letter on January 23rd, to each voter who signed the CTVotersCount.org petition.  We responded on February 2nd with a follow-up letter to Secretary Bysiewicz.

Secretary Bysiewicz letter: <Page1> <Page2>

Our response text:  <.pdf>

TO: The Honorable Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz
CTVotersCount Petition Signers

We have all received the attached letter from Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz.  We thank the Secretary of the State for taking the time to respond to us in a such thoughtful and detailed letter, addressing our petition.

There is much to applaud in the letter and in the operation of the Secretary of the State’s Office.

We applaud the openness of the Secretary of the State’s Office, their willingness to listen to citizens, their willingness to meet with advocates, and their efforts to improve the election and post-election audit process.  We especially appreciate the Office’s and Deputy Lesley Mara’s cooperation in supporting the start and ongoing efforts of the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition, specifically in letting us know the dates of audits scheduled by towns and responsive sharing of the audit reports.  Your work with UConn on voting security studies and memory card testing is truly unique and valuable.

Like the Secretary of the of the State’s Office, CTVotersCount works with several national, state, and Connecticut groups to improve voting integrity.  We appreciate Deputy Mara’s review of the “Principles and Best Practices for Post-Election Audits” to which we contributed and endorse.

We agree to disagree whether the audits as performed are “inaccurate, unreliable, and ineffective” and that our audit law is the “strongest in the country”.

We agree “that all audit activities should occur in public”.  We note disappointment that our request at the meeting on January 16th and via email, to have the audit follow-up site visits opened to public observation and notification provided to us, was not acted upon.

We join with you, Secretary Bysiewicz, in standing for the criticality of continuing the audits.  We appreciate your support of our petition requests to perform the audits sooner, 100% memory card pre-testing, and the institution of an independent audit board.  There are many additional items that we remain committed to as listed in our petition, the Coalition recommendations, the Principles and Best Practices, and the recently released “League of Women Voters Audit Report”.

We also join with you, Secretary Bysiewicz, in recognizing that audits are a small price to pay to provide integrity and confidence to the voters of Connecticut.

Sincerely,

Luther G. Weeks
Executive Director

CC:  The Honorable M. Jodi Rell, Governor
Co-Chars and Members, Government Administration and Elections Committee