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Amid Charges Russia Hacked U.S. Election, Keith Alexander Encourages eVoting for Canada

Former NSA Chief and now CEO cyber security contractor says Canada needs more cyber security, cyber weapons, and should deploy electronic voting: Don’t let cyberattack threat deter Canada from online voting, says former head of NSA

foreign interference that may have influenced the U.S. election should not deter Canada and other countries from embracing online voting, says the former head of the U.S. National Security Agency.

Retired U.S. general Keith Alexander, speaking at a defence industry trade show in Ottawa, also said it is important the Canadian military have some kind of offensive cyber capacity, even if that ability is limited.

There is no going back to a manual voting system, Alexander said in an interview with CBC News following his remarks to defence contractors, in which he warned that both government and private sector networks are vulnerable to a rising tide of “destructive” cyberattacks…

The U.S. experience is something to learn from, he said, but it should not make countries like Canada leery of e-voting.

Former National Security Agency director Keith Alexander, seen here testifying before the U.S. Senate intelligence committee in March, says Canada may need to develop an offensive cyber security posture or the ability to shut down cyberattacks. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

foreign interference that may have influenced the U.S. election should not deter Canada and other countries from embracing online voting, says the former head of the U.S. National Security Agency.

Retired U.S. general Keith Alexander, speaking at a defence industry trade show in Ottawa, also said it is important the Canadian military have some kind of offensive cyber capacity, even if that ability is limited.

There is no going back to a manual voting system, Alexander said in an interview with CBC News following his remarks to defence contractors, in which he warned that both government and private sector networks are vulnerable to a rising tide of “destructive” cyberattacks…

The U.S. experience is something to learn from, he said, but it should not make countries like Canada leery of e-voting.

“You can create a system where people can authenticate and vote online,” said Alexander, who in addition to running the NSA during the Edward Snowden leaks, was also head of the U.S. military’s cyber command.

We agree that everyone including all levels of the U.S. Government need to beef up cyber security. Yet, no system is yet, or ever will be completely secure. There are several reason against Internet Voting at this time:

No system has proven secure and likely cannot be made secure. Especially a system used over the Internet, presumably on consumers’ computers and smart phones.
Encryption is not sufficient and is not even safe, with holes provided by organizations within the U.S. Government.
Proposed systems for public online voting implementation do not and cannot provide voter verification and publicly verifiable auditing of results.
No commercial system has successfully passed a credible security audit or open security test. Most vendors have resisted any such testing.

Meanwhile it is pretty clear that U.S. voter registration systems were hacked before the November election. Consider the latest document leaked to the Intercept: Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before the 2016 Election <read> No evidence yet that the 2017 election was manipulated or deterred by such an attack, nor actual evidence that the Russian Government was involved. There is also little evidence to the contrary. A difficult thing to prove either way. One problem with the Internet and cybersecurity is that it is easy to make it look like someone else did it. Evidence that looks like Russian hackers could come from elsewhere, and even then its a far cry from Russian hackers to determining it was the Russian Government. From the Intercept:

The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.

While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A U.S. intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis is not necessarily definitive.

The United States should make ballots verifiable—or go back to paper.

Article in The Atlantic: The Case for Standardized and Secure Voting Technology

It’s time to fix the voting process.

American voting systems have improved in recent years, but they collectively remain a giant mess. Voting is controlled by states, and typically administered by counties and local governments. Voting laws differ depending on where you are. Voting machines vary, too; there’s no standard system for the nation.

Accountability is a crapshoot. In some jurisdictions, voters use machines that create electronic tallies with no “paper trail”—that is, no tangible evidence whatsoever that the voter’s choices were honored. A “recount” in such places means asking the machine whether it was right the first time.

We need to fix all of this.

Article in The Atlantic: The Case for Standardized and Secure Voting Technology <read>

It’s time to fix the voting process.

American voting systems have improved in recent years, but they collectively remain a giant mess. Voting is controlled by states, and typically administered by counties and local governments. Voting laws differ depending on where you are. Voting machines vary, too; there’s no standard system for the nation.

Accountability is a crapshoot. In some jurisdictions, voters use machines that create electronic tallies with no “paper trail”—that is, no tangible evidence whatsoever that the voter’s choices were honored. A “recount” in such places means asking the machine whether it was right the first time.

We need to fix all of this. But state and local governments are perpetually cash-starved, and politicians refuse to spend the money that would be required to do it.

Among many other needed measures promoted by nonprofit and nonpartisan Verified Voting, Congress should require standardized voting systems around the nation. It should insist on rock-solid security, augmented by frequent audits of hardware and software. Recounts should be performed routinely and randomly to ensure that verified-voting systems work as designed. The paper ballot generated by the machine should be the official ballot.

What Congress should emphatically not do is allow or encourage online voting. The sorry state of cybersecurity in general makes clear how foolhardy it would be to go anywhere near widespread “Internet voting” in the foreseeable future…

As we have long said in Myth #9, paper alone is insufficient: “Myth #9 – If there is ever a concern we can always count the paper.”

May Post-Municipal Election Audit Drawing

A few municipalities conduct elections in May rather than November. We joined Deputy Secretary of the State Scott Bates, Assistant Secretary Peggy Reeves, and SOTS Office Interns for the drawing. Sadly, due to last year’s reduction in the audit, only one district will be audited.

We strongly object to the official press release’s characterization of Connecticut’s Post-Election Audit as “Comprehensive”. A comprehensive audit would not exempt ballots from selection for audit, it would audit the totaling of votes, and include compliance audits of all aspects of the election such as checkin lists, voter roles, and ballot security.

Here is the official Press Release<read>. We strongly object to the official press release’s characterization of Connecticut’s Post-Election Audit as “Comprehensive”. A comprehensive audit would not exempt ballots from selection for audit, it would audit the totaling of votes, and include compliance audits of all aspects of the election such as checkin lists, voter roles, and ballot security.

National Popular Vote Compact fails 90 minute debate, sanity prevails for unknown reasons

It is rare that a bill is debated that has insufficient majority caucus support to pass.

[Speaker] Aresimowicz said he’s heard from his constituents that they want the issue debated.“I’m saying let’s at least hear it out and have the discussion,” Aresimowicz said Thursday morning during a press conference in his office before the House debated the bill.

House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said he expects the vote to be close and it’s unclear what will happen.

Here, we disagree with both sides. We do not buy the Republican arguments against nor the Democratic arguments for the bill. We would support a sufficient Constitutional Amendment. The Compact approach is dangerous making, a flawed system worse. It will lead to increased voter suppression and skulduggery.v

CTNewsJunkie: House Tables Debate On National Popular Vote <read>
It is rare that a bill is debated that has insufficient majority caucus support to pass. Yet we cannot fault the Speaker’s logic:

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said at the beginning of the session that he wouldn’t allow for a debate to move forward on the National Popular Vote out of respect for the results of the November 2016 election. Trump won the election with 304 Electoral College votes.

What changed?

“My view of the president,” Aresimowicz said. “As far as credibility goes he’s damaging his own credibility, it’s not like we have to pile on here in the state of Connecticut.”

All joking aside, Aresimowicz said he’s heard from his constituents that they want the issue debated.

“I’m saying let’s at least hear it out and have the discussion,” Aresimowicz said Thursday morning during a press conference in his office before the House debated the bill.

House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said he expects the vote to be close and it’s unclear what will happen.

“We’ve asked members to think on their own about what they want to do,” Ritter said. “We think there’s a lot of merit sometimes in having things debated even if you don’t know what the outcome is going to be.”

Aresimowicz said there are members who have told them they won’t commit to vote one way or another before hearing the debate.

It’s rare that a bill would be raised for what’s likely to be hours of debate if there’s no guarantee it will be able to pass. The bill was tabled and could be raised in the future for a vote.

The Connecticut House approved legislation to join the National Popular Vote compact in 2009, but that year the Senate failed to take up the bill.

You can read the article for some of the arguments for and against. Here, we disagree with both sides. We do not buy the Republican arguments against nor the Democratic arguments for the bill. We would support a sufficient Constitutional Amendment. The Compact approach is dangerous, making a flawed system worse. It will lead to increased voter suppression and skulduggery. See our recent Op-Ed and Full Testimony.

As for 2009, that was a also rare case where the NPV Compact went down by one vote and several Democrats then changed their votes so that it would pass <read>

Denise Merrill mostly right on Trump voting witch hunt commission

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill , said,“The rationale for this commission was articulated in a baseless tweet from the president that claimed millions of illegal votes were cast. The facts don’t lie. Voter fraud is extremely rare. Yet time and again, the specter of voter fraud has served as an excuse to disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters. I hope that this investigation is not a fig leaf for voter suppression and intimidation. In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

This reminds us of the Bush era witch hunt in the Justice Department for voter fraud. Several attorneys were let go because they could not find or refused to continue hunting for all but non-existent fraud.

We do question Secretary Merrill’s statement that “In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

Secretary Merrill’s Press Release <read>

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill
, said,“The rationale for this commission was articulated in a baseless tweet from the president that claimed millions of illegal votes were cast. The facts don’t lie. Voter fraud is extremely rare. Yet time and again, the specter of voter fraud has served as an excuse to disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters. I hope that this investigation is not a fig leaf for voter suppression and intimidation. In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

This is clearly such a witch hunt because the commission is stacked, with mostly Republicans and mostly those with dubious records. Not only the Secretary from Kansas but also the notorious Ken Blackwell. The only person on the Commission so far that we would trust is William Gardner from New Hampshire.

We do question Secretary Merrill’s statement that “In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.” Perhaps we will protect such rights in the future. But unless the General Assembly acts or the Secretary has a sudden conversion, we will continue to leave “eligible persons” in line at EDR. See <Our testimony earlier this year>

Random drawing issues in the Nutmeg State

Connecticut is known as the “Nutmeg State” based on the legend of Yankee Peddlers selling wooden nutmegs to unsuspecting New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians. True or not, there is little reason to trust anyone here when it comes to random drawings. Recent history leaves us with little trust in officials and random drawings.

The Secretary of the State’s Office has improved the integrity of the post-election audit drawing, yet two problems remain.

As CTVotersCount readers know, Connecticut is known as the “Nutmeg State” based on the legend of Yankee Peddlers selling wooden nutmegs to unsuspecting New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians. True or not, there is little reason to trust anyone here when it comes to random drawings.

Lets start with the Lottery and the Lotto game. You could say it is a glitch in the system that allowed vendors to cheat. You would be correct, yet that is not the whole story. Lotto officials knew about the glitch for some time without disclosing or addressing it. But don’t feel bad for officials who are likely “draw” a healthy pension. <read>

Then there are the publicly funded charter schools led by the miraculous Capitol Prep, led at the time by the self-proclaimed “America’s most TRUSTED Educator”, Steve Perry. It seems the miracle may well be due more to lottery prep than trust in the drawing itself (although we have no reason to trust the drawing itself) <read> Then again you don’t need a phony lottery and any preparation to get ahead in Connecticut education – you can wait and cheat on the tests. To avoid proclaiming yourself, let NPR do it: <read>

Which brings us to elections and the Connecticut random audit drawing. What could possibly go wrong?

Up until this point the Connecticut post-election audit drawing has essentially used a barrel with slips of paper to draw districts for the audit. Unfortunately, it could be that officials use an inaccurate list of districts to make the slips. It has happened Post-Election Audit Flawed from the Start by Inaccurate List of Election Districts <read> Fortunately that problem has been addressed <read> Perhaps they can be eliminated completely if the new Election Night Reporting System is used as a basis for the district list in the future.

Yet two problems remain. First, the drawing list is not publicly verifiable. In the Bysiewicz Administration, advocates were solicited to arrive before the drawing and check that every district listed was actually placed in the barrel. Somehow that was dropped by the Merrill Administration. Second, drawing from a barrel is not all that random – observed by the public it may be completely above board, and yet not be random. It is difficult to shuffle/mix slips of paper such that they are actually random – slips printed together tend to stay together and thus there is a correlation where some, say from the same municipality, tend to be selected or not selected.

There are better ways of selecting districts in a more transparent way. Last year the Citizen Audit suggested solutions to the Secretary of the State’s Office based on a request by former Deputy Secretary, James Spallone:

Post-Election Audit Drawing Transparency and Randomness

We have concerns with the transparency and the randomness of the random drawing. There is a single effective solution that would improve the credibility of the drawing, the audit, and our elections.

Concerns – Transparency: We don’t mean to suggest a lack of integrity in the drawing or of any person, yet there is now a hole in the transparency of the drawing which precludes public verification. When the drawing was initiated in 2007 and for several years thereafter, observers were invited to come early and check each and every ticket placed in the raffle barrel to make sure the tickets in the barrel matched those on a list of districts provided. Once the drawing changed from business cards to strips of paper, that part of the process was also dropped.

Concerns – Randomness: Statisticians have concerns with the actual randomness of drawings from a raffle barrel. Strips of paper representing districts for the same town tend to stay together, thus increasing or decreasing their odds of being selected. From past drawings that the variation in the number of districts in towns selected in each drawing it seems from experience may have been way out of proportion (high or low) than would have been likely the case with a truly random selection.

A Single Solution: Change to a random selection, by numbering districts sequentially on a list from 0 to the number of districts (about 730). Then select the districts for audit by throwing three 10-sided dice, or a system similar to the CT Lottery drawing. A 5% audit would entail about 50 casts of the three dice, given that there is about a 70% probability that each cast would provide a useable unique selection. An example of doing this method is from the San Francisco Department of Elections, in the following videos:
Side view video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdWL8Unz5kM
Overhead view video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sufb7ykByWA

How easy would it be to rig the next election? Very Easy

Article at Think Progress: How easy would it be to rig the next election?

In the popular imagination, this is what election hacking looks like?—?dramatic, national-scale interference that manually rewrites tallies and hands the victory to the outlier. Certainly these attacks may occur. However, they’re only one of a variety of electoral hacks possible against the United States, at a time when hacking attacks are becoming more accessible to threat-actors and nation-state-sponsored attackers are growing more brazen. Yes, hackers may attempt to change the vote totals for American elections?—?but they can also de-register voters, delete critical data, trip up voting systems to cause long lines at polling stations, and otherwise cultivate deep distrust in the legitimacy of election results. If hackers wish to rig a national election, they can do it by changing only small numbers on a state level.

Article at Think Progress: How easy would it be to rig the next election? <read>

In the popular imagination, this is what election hacking looks like?—?dramatic, national-scale interference that manually rewrites tallies and hands the victory to the outlier. Certainly these attacks may occur. However, they’re only one of a variety of electoral hacks possible against the United States, at a time when hacking attacks are becoming more accessible to threat-actors and nation-state-sponsored attackers are growing more brazen. Yes, hackers may attempt to change the vote totals for American elections?—?but they can also de-register voters, delete critical data, trip up voting systems to cause long lines at polling stations, and otherwise cultivate deep distrust in the legitimacy of election results. If hackers wish to rig a national election, they can do it by changing only small numbers on a state level.

Not just hackers! Insiders. Not just election officials. Contractors, ISPs, voting system vendors, municipal staffers…

One thing all voting machines seem to have in common is that whenever they have been subjected to aggressive testing by hackers, they have fallen apart.

Insecure voting systems are the norm, not the exception
“These machines are just so poorly engineered, the only real way to secure them is to destroy them and start over,” said the University of Michigan’s Matt Bernhard…

Voting technology provides a false sense of security?—?and opens up new vulnerabilities
As a result of the work of investigators affiliated with the TTBR and EVEREST, as well as more recent investigations by researchers like Haldeman at the University of Michigan (who installed Pac-Man on a Sequoia DRE in 2010) or Edward Felton and Andrew Appel at Princeton, paperless DRE machines have become less popular. In 2016, their use had declined more than 15 percent since the last presidential election.

But in many ways, the remaining uneasily patched DREs have been cast as the bogeyman of voting machines?—?while the other systems’ remarkable vulnerabilities have been ignored.

Meanwhile officials remain complacent <read>

What can we learn from a jurisdiction in NY that hand-counts every vote?

I recently attended a presentation by Columbia County, NY, Election Commissioner Vivian Martin on the post-election audit/recount performed after every election. It should be of interest to every citizen concerned with trust in elections and every election official: “You Can’t Count Paper Ballots” Want to bet?

After every election (using optical scanners) they count every ballot a second time by hand. What can we learn in Connecticut, “The Land of Steady Habits?

We are not necessarily convinced that we need to go as far as Columbia County. Yet, Connecticut needs a much stronger, more comprehensive, transparent audit; we need a stronger more transparent chain-of-custody; a more uniform, higher quality recanvass. There is no reason, other than “we have always done it this way”, for our current post-election schedule. We could perform rigorous automatic recounts rather than recanvasses; we need more to declare and perform recounts/recanvasses. We could emulate other states and perform audits shortly after the election, delaying rigorous/adversarial recounts to later and providing weeks for their completion.

After every election (using optical scanners) they count every ballot a second time by hand. Here are some of the high points:

They do more than just count the ballots and votes. They day after the election they review the paperwork and checkin lists.
In the next week or so they count every vote and adjudicate voters’ intent. They do this before certification, so that they can certify the actual results with voters’ intent.
They have a simple, yet strong chain-of-custody. Two people transport the ballots. There are two locks with opposing officials holding the keys. Every step is well documented.
They recruit citizens to participate in the process, who learn about elections and enjoy the process and pay.
It costs a “whooping” 1% of their budget. In our opinion, a small price to pay for insuring democracy.
They demonstrate that they can count accurately with the rigorous 4-person hashmark methods they use. (Very similar to the methods used in Connecticut for the Bridgeport Citizen Recount)
They are careful that any questions posed by counters are heard by leaders of both parties simultaneously and answers are determined jointly.
They do not count uncontested races. Other races where they see lopsided, expected results, the losing party official gets consent from their party or candidate not to count a race.

What can we learn in Connecticut, “The Land of Steady Habits?”.

Most of all we can learn that what we do and think in Connecticut is not the only way possible. (It is human nature to assume that the way we have always done it is the only way; human nature to point to other state practices to justify what we want to change, yet ignore them when we don’t.)
No municipality could do this counting, exactly the same way legally in Connecticut. It is questionable that it would be legal to open and count ballots by the choice of election officials at any time. Right after the election we have the potential for a recanvass. It would likely be questioned if similar methods were used for recanvasses, rather than the Secretary of the State procedures for rescanning.
We could use these methods for performing manual audits. Where they have been used, the Citizen Audit has shown that accuracy has been much better than when the more common, in Connecticut, ad-hoc and two-person teams have been used..
Perhaps, if Connecticut officials used better methods and learned from Columbia County, they would stop believing and arguing that “People cannot count votes accurately”.
For a low cost, Connecticut could have a credible and trustworthy chain-of-custody.
We could actually verifiably check our checkins and ballot counts.

Rep. Matt Lesser exploring run for Secretary of the State

The Middletown Press and a Facebook video by Lesser indicate he is exploring a run for Secretary of the State.

To our knowledge Lesser is the 1st candidate officially filing.

The Middletown Press and a Facebook video by Lesser indicate he is exploring a run for Secretary of the State.

To our knowledge Lesser is the 1st candidate officially filing.

Public Voting Machine Hackathon: Challenge or Sham

The worlds largest democracy has offered the public a chance to hack its unverifiable voting machines. The details are skimpy, history does not provide confidence, and while it may be a step in the right direction it is ultimately insufficient. See the article by George Washington University Professor Poorvi Vora: Hacking EVMs: The EC has issued a challenge. It must first accept the challenge it faces

Let’s not forget that such a so-called challenge was also given in 2009. The examination of EVMs should be treated as an opportunity to make the process more transparent and open. In 2009, however, when the Election Commission allowed the public to examine EVMs, the examination was hugely circumscribed so as to prevent anyone from carrying out any substantive – albeit practical – attack.

If this offer of EVM examination is simply a cosmetic offer as in 2009, and not intended to allow for a complete analysis, the trust deficit between the Indian public and Indian elections will continue to grow.

The Election Commission should demonstrate that their claims of EVM security do not rest on the very fragile assumption that all insiders with access to the EVM can be trusted. To understand what an insider with access can achieve if they try to tamper with the systems, they should provide the experts with design documents and details of the tests used to verify the design and security properties. The Election Commission’s approach so far, of keeping design details secret, is termed “security through obscurity” by computer security experts, and was debunked as far back as the late 1800s by Dutch cryptographer Auguste Kerckhoffs…

In addition to the transparency provided by public testing of EVMs before elections, there is a role for transparency after the election as well. Even if one were to believe that EVMs are tamper proof, every election outcome must be checked to ensure that the unexpected did not happen, that “mock drill data” (votes due to key presses during testing) was erased as it is supposed to be, and did not contribute to the count, that errors did not affect the outcome, that the EVMs were correctly calibrated, that somebody did not try to change the outcome and succeed, and so on.

If the VVPAT record is verified by the voter to be a faithful reproduction of the vote, is stored securely separate from the EVMs, and is publicly audited after the election, it provides strong independent confirmation that the outcome is correct.

It is not sufficient to simply print VVPAT records, nor is it sufficient for voters to carefully check them. A correctly printed VVPAT record indicates merely that the machine correctly understood the vote. It does not indicate that the vote was correctly recorded or counted. A public audit needs to be performed to determine that the VVPAT records are consistent with the declared election outcome.

There is a lot more in the article.