FAQ: Why Bother Auditing Referendums & Questions?

The Connecticut post-election audit exempts, among other things, all referendums and questions. This is a mistake.

Referendums and questions may be the most vulnerable election items open to human attack via programming – often all the elected officials of both parties want the referendums passed – they may go through multiple, failed, low turn-out, budget referendums and say to themselves “if the majority of the voters turned out it would pass” and be tempted to make sure it passes. Or one tax-averse ballot programmer, a high asset individual, or even a single election official may want to make sure a new or higher tax does not pass.

Now we have an example from Puma County, AZ of a potentially corrupt election, possibly changed by the actions of a single individual ordered by an election official. Via BradBlog since the underlying link to the original article seems broken <read>

According to Osmolski’s affidavit :

During that conversation Bryan Crane told me he “fixed” the RTA, or Regional Transportation Authority election on the instructions of his bosses and he did what he was told to do. Mr. Crane expressed his concern about being indicted and said he would like to talk but couldn’t trust anyone.

The affidavit is the latest in a series of red flags concerning the RTA election. Other red flags include: (1) This was a sales tax increase, the type of vote that usually fails, and it looked like it was going down in the days prior to the election; (2) The database on the vote counting computer was erased and replaced a day into the early ballot scanning; (3) Unauthorized vote total summary reports were printed during the counting; (4) A tape of the original ballot layout stored with the Secretary of State — which could have indicated if the vote was flipped — was sent back to the County, which lost it; (5) An investigation into the election completed by the Attorney General’s office was cursory and inconclusive.

I’ll hold judgement on the merits of this particular case at least until the votes are counted, the chain-of-custody broken, or the ballots destroyed, whichever comes first.

Panel In Fairfield – What Do You Want?

Last night I was on a panel in Fairfield with Deputy Secretary of the State Lesley Mara, Dr. Alex Shvartsman from the UConn VoTeR Center, and Michael Kozik of the Secretary of the State’s Office. The event was video taped by the sponsors. If possible I will make the video availabe here. For now, here are my opening remarks, my topic was “What Do You Want”:

Fairfield Panel

Introduction

Thanks to Jody Eiseman for creating this event and to the Fairfield Democratic Town Committee for hosting it. Thanks to everyone of you in the audience for coming tonight.

I want to thank Dr. Shvartsman, Mike Kozik, and Deputy Mara for being here tonight. A bit over three years ago I was on a panel with the previous Deputy Secretary of the State. That panel directly precipitated actions that were instrumental in the passage of the paper ballot bill in 2005 and the eventual rejection of Touch Screen (DRE) voting equipment in early 2007.

CTVotersCount is committed to voting integrity and that our democracy flourishes.

Lest we forget, democracy is dependent on the voting integrity of every district in your town; dependent on the voting integrity of every district in the state; and indeed every district in the nation.

My Topic Tonight
Continue reading “Panel In Fairfield – What Do You Want?”

Truth Under Assault In Texas Hearing

Since its release last August we have covered the California Top-To-Bottom Review and its implications for Connecticut <here> <here> <here> it is an outstanding collection of reports based on research and evidence. It helped earn a deserved “Profile In Courage” award to its sponsor, Debra Bowen, Secretary of State of California.

How far will those patriotic voting machine vendors go to stretch the truth? How far to discredit a report demonstrating massive flaws in their voting systems? We have the answer. It seems that they stretch it beyond the breaking point. Dan Wallach was testifying last week about the California Top-To-Bottom Review to the Texas Legislature. <read his report>

Wow, was I disappointed. Here’s a quote from Peter Lichtenheld, speaking on behalf of Hart InterCivic:

Security reviews of the Hart system as tested in California, Colorado, and Ohio were conducted by people who were given unfettered access to code, equipment, tools and time and they had no threat model. While this may provide some information about system architecture in a way that casts light on questions of security, it should not be mistaken for a realistic approximation of what happens in an election environment. In a realistic election environment, the technology is enhanced by elections professionals and procedures, and those professionals safeguard equipment and passwords, and physical barriers are there to inhibit tampering. Additionally, jurisdiction ballot count, audit, and reconciliation processes safeguard against voter fraud.

..Did our work cast light on questions of security? Our work found a wide variety of flaws, most notably the possibility of  “viral” attacks, where a single corrupted voting machine could spread that corruption, as part of regular processes and procedures, to every other voting system. In effect, one attacker, corrupting one machine, could arrange for every voting system in the county to be corrupt in the subsequent election…

Were we given unfettered access? The big difference between what we had and what an attacker might have is that we had some (but not nearly all) source code to the system. An attacker who arranged for some equipment to “fall off the back of a truck” would be able to extract all of the software, in binary form, and then would need to go through a tedious process of reverse engineering before reaching parity with the access we had. The lack of source code has demonstrably failed to do much to slow down attackers who find holes in other commercial software products. Debugging and decompilation tools are really quite sophisticated these days. All this means is that an attacker would need additional time to do the same work that we did.

Did we have a threat model? Absolutely! See chapter three of our report, conveniently titled “Threat Model.”  The different teams working on the top to bottom report collaborated together to draft this chapter. It talks about attackers’ goals, levels of access, and different variations on how sophisticated an attacker might be. It is hard to accept that the vendors can get away with claiming that the reports did not have a threat model, when a simple check of the table of contents of the reports disproves their claim.

Meanwhile In The Real “Wild” West

Update, Another Problem, this time in FL: In the “Wild” South an Audit catches uncounted votes, almost 20% of the total <read>.

When it comes to elections, what happens in any precinct in New Mexico can determine who sits in the Oval Office and the balance in our U.S. Senate and House. What happens in any election district in Connecticut can do the same for National offices and in addition determine our Governor and the balance in the Connecticut House and Senate.

Earlier this year in the Danbury Connecticut public hearing, one member of the Government Elections and Administration Committee compared our election system to the “Wild West”. This was based on the failures to follow procedures along with the lack of consistency in the process from one Connecticut town to the next. Many of these issues were evident in the coalition observation reports and in the recent investigative report showing more ballots cast that voters checked-off in Bridgeport.

It seems that the real west, is still pretty wild with this Sun News story from New Mexico: NM revises recount procedure in close races <read>

Like Connecticut, New Mexico law does not require hand recounts. While Connecticut has recently revised procedures to eliminate hand recounts, New Mexico, faced with a close election and a concerned candidate they are rethinking their procedure:

The secretary of state’s office has revised procedures for recounts in close primary election contests, including a state Senate race in which some ballots are missing in one county.

The change came as one of the candidates in the Senate race voiced objections to the recount plan.

Secretary of State Mary Herrera said earlier this week that the recount would be conducted by having counties recheck the results of voting machines—inserting memory cards into tabulators and printing out the results. A change was announced Thursday.

Now, paper ballots will be fed into the tabulators again for the recount except in two Cibola County precincts where ballots are missing. When necessary, ballots will be counted by hand. Provisional ballots, for example, are handed tallied.

Unfortunately, that is not possible:

[Clemente Sanchez, a Grants Democrat who finished second in the Senate contest] said he remained troubled by the missing ballots in two precincts in Grants. About 180 votes were cast with the missing ballots, according to the secretary of state’s office.

“To this day nobody knows what happened to them. It amazes me,” said Sanchez.

New Mexico implemented its paper ballot voting system in 2006 to try to make voting more secure and restore the public’s confidence in elections.

Ballots are supposed to be removed from a storage bin underneath a tabulator and placed in a separate ballot box, which is to be locked and transferred to the county clerk’s office.

Apparently, the ballots in the two precincts were not locked away in ballot boxes after polls closed. Ballots are supposed to be removed from a storage bin underneath a tabulator and placed in a separate ballot box, which is to be locked and transferred to the county clerk’s office.

As in our situation in Bridgeport, election officials did not find/report the problem.

However, Sanchez said he was unhappy that candidates were not told about the missing ballots by county elections officials and that the issue was not disclosed publicly when the county canvassed its election results. Sanchez learned of the missing ballots from news reports. The missing ballots were first disclosed in a story last week by The Associated Press.

Better late than never, however, the time to revise procedures is before an election. Otherwise there could be ethical questions of bias based on the politics of the Secretary of the State and that of the loser in the initial count.

John Gideon Leaves It To Us

We get a healthy dose of news from John Gideon at VotersUnite.org and his Daily Voting News. Today he highlights the difference between a legislator and the Secretary of State in Colorado: <read>

The state Senate Majority Leader is quoted as saying this about the election integrity community, “I believe the group has gotten larger. It’s become more mainstream and people are paying more attention to them. They are an entity that’s at the table and has a voice that is listened to”. Meanwhile the Secretary of State told the newspaper, ““I think they have a fundamental belief that anything electronic, as it relates to voting, is evil and undermines our political system. They live in a world of conspiracy theories and are highly motivated. No matter what I do, so long as it leaves some form of electronic voting intact, it will be wrong by their standards”. I’ll leave it to the reader to make up their mind who is correct….

Answer below.

Continue reading “John Gideon Leaves It To Us”

Lou Dobbs Segment On NJ Ruling And E-Voting

On the occasion of the NJ ruling yesterday, Lou Dobbs interviewed the lawyer involved, Penny Venetis, and two voting advocates, David Dill and John Bonifaz. Full transcript <read>

Voting segment:

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A victory for voters. In Trenton, New Jersey, today, a court ruled that accuracy tests on paperless, electronic voting machines can be made public. The voting machine company, Sequoia, argued the information was a trade secret.

PENNY VENETIS, ATTORNEY: The courts had to step in to say it’s time now to examine the voting machines to determine whether or not they count votes accurately.

PILGRIM: After repeated electronic voting failures, 28 states are returning to paper ballots, according to an activist group who wants a return to paper ballots. According to that group, in this year’s presidential election, 61 percent of voters will be using paper ballot systems, up from 35 percent in 2004. But close to 20 states are still using electronic voting machines without a paper trail for the upcoming presidential election. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado are potential trouble spots. One of the most problem states has switched back to paper ballots.

DAVID DILL, VERIFIED VOTING.ORG: For the longest time, Florida was dominated by electronic voting, but they made a sudden transition last year when they passed a law requiring paper ballots and it’s going to be a big success story. I think that Florida is likely not to be the embarrassment of the 2008 election.

PILGRIM: The system of choice these days, optical scan machines, a paper ballot is scanned by an electronic device and then kept in case a recount is needed.

JOHN BONIFAZ, VOTERACTION.ORG: Only a paper ballot based system will give people the confidence there is transparency and accountability with the process and that the process can be recounted or audited, which is critical for ensuring the integrity of the elections.

PILGRIM: Repeated tests by prominent universities has shown machines without a paper trail cannot be counted accurately.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Now, while this is a victory in New Jersey today, and the public will have access to the accuracy testing of voting machines, New Jersey will not have paper ballots in time for the upcoming presidential election — Lou.

DOBBS: Well, I think we’ve also got to remind everybody that, when we saw the fellow looking at the ballot, that was a paper ballot.

PILGRIM: That was.

DOBBS: Causing all that trouble in Florida.

PILGRIM: That was a bad paper ballot and then they went to electronic because of that and that’s when they had even more trouble.

DOBBS: Well, it’s — seems like there is just a lot of trouble when it comes to figuring out how to cast a ballot in some quarters of Florida and other states. We hope that that won’t be a problem this year. Thank you very much, Kitty Pilgrim.

Well, the backlash against those e-voting machines has prompted some states such as Tennessee to pass laws requiring a paper trail for any type of voting. Unfortunately, Tennessee along with New York and Maryland won’t have the paper ballots either. Not until after the 2008 presidential election. In the swing state of Pennsylvania, as Kitty just reported, most of the machines are electronic and have no paper trail.

Democracy Too Important To Hide Under Trade Secrets

N.J. Star-Ledger, Judge rules public can see voting machine test results, <read>

A Superior Court judge in Trenton today agreed to overturn her ruling barring computer experts from publicizing test results of electronic voting machines.

The move was a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union and New Jersey media organizations that argued the public should be privy to the results before the presidential election.

“This is a historic moment. This is the first time a court has recognized the public’s right to examine voting computers,” said Penny Venetis, a professor at Rutgers Law Clinic who is representing the plaintiffs.

Editor’s Note

We want you to visit CTVotersCount frequently to keep up-to-date with important developments in Connecticut and beyond. Unlike a newspaper we do not have to produce something every day. However, going several days without a post we start to get restless. Our answer is to provide Frequently Asked Questions and Ironies. These are intended to explain or highlight important and timeless information. To see all past entries click on FAQ on the list under the ‘About’ tab on the right.

CT Irony #2: The Closest Races Will Never Be Audited

Nor will they ever be hand-counted. Nor will contested races.

Connecticut’s “strongest in the country” post-election audit law exempts races that are recounted or races that are contested from post-election audits. The law does not require that recounts be manual hand-to-eye counts and the Secretary of the State after some hesitation has lifted her requirement that recounts be manual.

Worse. If one race in a district is contested or subject to recount, the district is entirely exempt from the post-election audit.

  • Example #1: (Actual) When Representative Caruso contested the mayoral primary in Bridgeport, it exempted his race and all the races and districts in Bridgeport from the post-election audit entirely.
  • Example #2: (Theoretical) A state-wide race, such as Governor, Senator, or Attorney General could be close and cause a recount resulting in no post-election audit in the entire state.
  • Example #3: (Theoretical) Candidate A is the apparent winner of a fraudulently stolen race for the Connecticut House that would likely be detected by a post-election audit. But candidate B who lost the Connecticut Senate race in a senate district including the House district can conspire to block the audit of A’s race by contesting the Senate election.

Further Irony: We randomly select races to audit with no exceptions. We will audit/count races where candidates are unopposed, leaving other races unaudited.