The Day: Elections Panel Finalizes Norwich Registrars’ Fines

Two recent articles of interest in The Day:

From Friday, two Norwich Registrars were fined for election day errors in judgement. No matter how one feels about the appropriateness of the fine, it is good to see the Election Enforcement Commission demonstrating seriousness.

Another from Saturday showing that a “Software error” lost record of 911 calls. This is a demonstration of the value of our laws in Connecticut requiring paper records for voting. Note that “Security” is invoked to avoid providing details and that the result might be a botched prosecution of a breach of the peace charge related to a shooting death.

Statistics Can Help Ensure Accurate Elections

The American Statistical Association’s Science and Public Affairs Advisory Committee has recommended that post election audits have at least a 90% level of confidence.

Election officials need to make sure the person elected winner is the person the most voters want..Election results are most trustworthy when the entire election process can be audited, not just the vote counts…the audit should have the statistical power to trigger additional action at least nine out of 10 times when the wrong winner is declared.(emboldening added)

What is significant with this committee is that it has recommended a specific level of confidence where other reports have used 90% or 95% as examples. For instance here and here.

As I have emphasized here and here Connecticut law is, in my opinion, inadequate because it over audits some races and it is woefully inadequate in other races. For example, in races such as state representative, senator, or small to mid size municipal races, the probability of detection would be 2%-4%. or one in 50, or one in 25, which is a far cry from nine out of 10. (Note: CT Law specifies auditing 10% of races selected randomly, which is quite different than the confidence %, a measure which represents the probability an audit confirms the correct candidate has won an election)

The committee goes on to cover other areas where statistics can be used to increase the integrity and confidence in the whole process. Read the entire report here.

The President of the association, however, recommended an even higher standard of 99% confidence in a letter to Senator Feinstein who, along with Senator Dodd has proposed woefully inadequate legislation at the federal level.

Brennan Center: The Machinery Of Democracy

On August 1st the Brannan Center released a report Post-Election Audits: Restoring Trust in Elections which has been covered on CTVotersCount.org. Today we will look at the security portion of an earlier report The Machinery Of Democracy: Accessibility, Usability, and Cost and its implications for Connecticut.

The tone of the report is serious. The conclusions are serious. Like all computer voting machines, optical scan voting machines are vulnerable, they are most vulnerable to malicious software, they “pose a real danger to election integrity”, and most jurisdictions have implemented none of the counter measures recommended.

A key finding:

The Brennan Center’s Task Force on Voting System Security reviewed more than 120 potential threats to voting systems…attacks involving the insertion of software attack programs or other corrupt software are the least difficult attacks against all electronic systems currently purchased when the goal is to change the outcome of a close statewide election.

Continue reading “Brennan Center: The Machinery Of Democracy”

FAQ: We all trust ATM’s. Why don’t you trust voting machines?

This is a very understandable and legitimate question that must be answered. If there were significant problems with ATM’s we would know about them because banks or consumers would be losing money, it would be reported all over the news, and there would be investigations by regulators. The guilty would be punished, the losses restored, ATMs banned, or fixed. Computer experts need to explain the apparent inconsistency.

Two too simple answers are: We are computer experts, voting machines have unique risks, trust us. We are voting equipment vendors and election officials, we know more about voting computers and running elections than computer experts.

An accurate simple answer is that voting machines are different from ATMs in several ways, especially in their programming, usage, and implementation which are based on the different requirements of voting vs consumer banking.

Continue reading “FAQ: We all trust ATM’s. Why don’t you trust voting machines?”

A Rose By Any Other Name Could Be Just As Thorny

Diebold Election Systems, Inc. is now Premier Election Solutions, Inc. The <press release> emphasizes continuity with increased independence from the parent, Diebold. Yet, at the same time the release indicates that Election Systems has always been relatively independent.

Reuters article emphasizes that Diebold had failed to sell the Election Systems unit which has been a drag on the corporation’s earnings and reputation, speculating on a spin-off.

Continue reading “A Rose By Any Other Name Could Be Just As Thorny”

Dan Rather Reports – The Trouble With Our Fear Of Facing The Facts

On Tuesday night Dan Rather Reports on HDTV presented “The Trouble With Touch Screens”.

It is well worth watching in its 64 minute entirety. Dan Rather deserves credit for this important and detailed report, however, there are inadequacies in the report that must be acknowledged as well – it is chilling, and devastating, yet mistitled, and incomplete.

Continue reading “Dan Rather Reports – The Trouble With Our Fear Of Facing The Facts”

Has LHS Director Challenged Brad To A Debate?

“Do I seem to be irate? You bet and it has nothing to do with the legitimacy of electronic voting, which I have also questioned.”
– Ken Hajjar, Director of Sales & Marketing, LHS

Brad Friedman, a nationally know election integrity advocate has received an e-mail allegedly from Ken Hajjar, LHS, Director of Sales and Marketing. (LHS is the New England distributor of Dieblod equipment responsible for the sale to Connecticut).

Given the foul and ranting nature of the attack I would hope the letter is a fake. I would question the wisdom of relying on the author to be involved in any way in running our elections. I’ll spare the not so nice parts of the letter, you can read the whole thing and Brad’s response here.

I used to think that all of the looney idealogues(sic) were on the right. There are just as many on the left and you are one of them. … It’s not the machines that are the cause of our problems, it’s the people…Pick a forum and I’d be happy to discuss how we run elections in New England and how difficult, if not impossible it is to game the system. Bring it on.

The author of the letter does not represent the voters of New England and should not be telling anyone how we run elections.

Unfortunately, here in Connecticut we are about to have our 1st election entirely run on Diebold equipment purchased through LHS and to add to our risks the state has contracted with Diebold to program all of our elections. So in that sense Ken Hajjar, LHS, and Diebold will be running our elections, and not letting us in on how they are programmed.

Brad has accepted the challenge. We will keep you updated.

Update: Ken Hajjar responds to Brad

Continue reading “Has LHS Director Challenged Brad To A Debate?”

Kentucky AG and Sarasota FL – Diebold AccuVote-OS in Jeopardy

“Any voting systems subject to manipulation and corruption should be reexamined and decertified,” [Kentucky Attorney General Greg] Stumbo said. “Faulty electronic voting systems jeopardize the public’s confidence in Kentucky’s elections.”Stumbo’s concerns are based on serious security flaws identified by experts in California, which led to emergency decertification of the voting machines by California.

Read the entire Kentucky story

But the state has worries that hackers could breach the security of the optical scanners made by Texas-based Diebold Election Systems and used by 31 Florida counties.

If the Diebold machines are not certified Aug. 17, the only effect would be felt in Sarasota County

Read the entire Florida story

Update: Florida says Diebold corrected problem in record time.

Update: The Florida report on the Diebold corrections Not exactly a ringing endorsement:

We conclude by re-stating that this report does not contistitue a comprehensive security analysis. We limited our investigation to four specific flaws. In spite of repairs made, signigicant security vulnerablity continues to exist in the code base.