CTVotersCount.org

Worse than Hurricane Sandy? As bad as climate denial?

A new ZD-Net Editorial: Internet voting: A really bad idea whose time has come

Summary: Believe it or not, most states have some provisions for allowing people to vote over the Internet. The pressure is on to expand it, even though a secure online voting system is impossible using today’s technology.

Climate denial might end human life or at least life as we know it. Internet voting denial can only wipe out our democracy.

A new ZD-Net Editorial: Internet voting: A really bad idea whose time has come <read>

Summary: Believe it or not, most states have some provisions for allowing people to vote over the Internet. The pressure is on to expand it, even though a secure online voting system is impossible using today’s technology.

We have been saying it over and over. In Connecticut, only the Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill gets it. The Senate and House have passed Internet voting twice, unanimously. Governor Malloy vetoed it the first time because it is risky and unconstitutional, nothing changed, yet he signed it the next time.

Its similar to ‘climate denial’, in that both ignore the risks, ignore the science. In Connecticut its thus proven that science denial is not just for Republicans – here its bipartisan and almost unanimous. We do not want to compare the two exactly. Climate denial might end human life or at least life as we know it. Internet voting denial can only wipe out our democracy.

The area on the Jersey shore where I grew up was hit very hard by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It was many weeks before some of the people could even go home. Life was a mess. And then, a little over a week later, was the 2012 election day.

The state made it clear that they would make whatever accommodations it could to help people vote if they were displaced by the storm. So far, so good, but my ears perked up when I heard about “email voting.”

Yes, the state announced that voters could email in a vote. This was part of an effort to make all non-traditional forms of voting, including mail-in and fax, easier. In fact, voters were instructed to ignore the part of the relevant web page where it says “The County Clerk cannot accept faxed or emailed copies of a Application for Vote by Mail Ballot, unless you are a Military or Overseas Voter, since an original signature is required.”

But certainly such circumstances were sui generis, and no sane state authority would contemplate Internet voting in the normal course of things, right? Wrong…

Speaking of around the world, Estonia is the current poster child for electronic voting. Estonians at home and around the world can vote online using a national ID card, a smart card. Clearly a system of digital national IDs has no chance of being adopted in the US, but for all its sophistication, the Estonian system is still vulnerable to tampering according to recent research…

In fact, it’s easy to find research by people who understand computer security pointing out the considerable risks from internet voting. There are other people who would like to increase turnout no matter what and who are happy to declare that all technical problems can be worked out by the experts. Well, the experts have spoken: Internet voting is not and cannot be made secure with current technology.

“It happens all the time.” All over the place (Part 1)

I wish we could say for sure “It doesn’t happen all the time.” We do not know for sure, its one of those unknowns, but from what we do know of those surfaced, our bet is that it is much more likely “that it happens frequently in Connecticut, say at least once or twice every statewide Election and Primary. More likely than not in our guesstimate”

A fellow integrity activist forward this a few days ago: It happens all the time: Interview with the consultant who discovered the Medford miscount <read>

Wow,” I replied. “If I’d discovered such a major error, I’d surely remember it!”

“Oh, this kind of thing happens all the time,” he said. “The details are always different, but there’s an endless number of ways the people who run our elections can botch them up. Every election has something.”

I glanced at my prepared questions and slid them into the wastebasket. Lordamighty, the guy who makes his living working with election records doesn’t even remember what I had considered a jaw-dropping discovery! Fortunately, I didn’t need to come up with new questions; Grebner was eager to talk.

“You want stories? I can tell you lots of stories.” he continued. “Everybody finds different ways not to follow the instructions.”

You read the post for a bunch of stories of election mess-ups recalled by one consultant. We just want to remind our readers and ourselves of some similar error discovered in Connecticut – what worries us are not those that are surfaced in time to correct results, or the ones surfaced eventually that did not change the results – its the ones never discovered or covered up. I wish we could say for sure “It doesn’t happen all the time.” We do not know for sure, its one of those unknowns, but from what we do know of those surfaced, our bet is that it is much more likely “that it happens frequently in Connecticut, say at least once or twice every statewide Election and Primary. More likely than not in our guesstimate”

Here are some of our posts of past errors surfaced in Connecticut and around the country, a selection from our over 900 posts:

Dan Rather Reports, was it really inadvertent hanging chads in FL 2000, a gross error, or intentional? <Aug 2007>

A New Britain Candidate’s company moving voting machines…not a great formula for confidence in our elections <Nov 2007>

A pretty obvious problem in accurate hand counting when no actual planning is involved <Nov 2007> Would we trust these people with petty cash? We trust them with our Democracy!

Half of Registrars Follow Last Minute Procedures <Jan 2008>

We won’t find many problems where there is a Blind Faith In our Scanners <Feb 2008>

Paper ballots useful, only if you don’t lose them <Jun 2008>

Gov loses election by fraud. Nice to know, but a lot better if the loser was not jailed <Apr 2008> He is still in jail. Pardon our upset and the Governor.

New Milford did not compute <Jun 2008>

It also helps confidence and integrity if the number of voters and votes is close (a Bridgeport preview of 2010?) <Jun 2008>

We will stop here, covering the 1st year of CTVotersCount. Perhaps we will continue this review soon.

Would this, could this happen in Connecticut…we hope so.

Contractor error causes wrong candidate to be declared winner, error discovered, results corrected!

Texas: Private election tabulating firm missed some votes at Ore City and New Diana <read>

Results overturned:

The original unofficial returns released Saturday night for the Ore City election showed Steve Heim leading incumbent Jeannette Orms by four votes, 48 -44, but the complete count showed they received 55 each, Ms. Weir said. Rather than having a recount or special election, either ofwhich would cost the city money, the candidates approved having the flip at a special City Council meeting set for 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, she said.

The delay also showed that Ore City voters renewed the one-fourth of one percent sales tax for street repairs by a vote of 79 to 26 in unofficial complete returns. The originally-announced count was 65 to 23

What happened?

The tie was discovered after Hart InterCivic, the firm tabulating the votes at the Upshur County Courthouse in Gilmer on Saturday night, originally failed to count the votes from one of the city’s electronic voting machines and some of the votes in the nearby New Diana bond election, Ms. Weir said.

She had discovered that the election returns she was given Saturday night did not match the total number of voters, and said she called the County Clerk’s Office on Monday to report it. A court order from 115th District Judge Lauren Parish was required to finish the count in the elections.

This is actually good news. The way we would expect the system to work!

While many would fault the system: For hiring a contractor in the first place. The contractor for placing a neophyte in charge. The neophyte for the error. But we ask for a pause to consider that the system actually worked the way we w0uld like it to:

A mistake or two were made. There are always mistakes. What is important is the system’s reaction to them.
The error was quickly discovered by officials
It was surfaced and corrected by officials

This is how the system SHOULD react. We should expect the system to find most errors and to surface them, not cover them up. We rare sure this could happen in Connecticut. But we have seen instances where it has not.

We know of a referendum where a human error caused a machine mis-count (That is often the case. No machine mal-function. No fraud. A human error causes the machine to provide an inaccurate count.) Citizens, not officials noticed a discrepancy in the number of ballots counted vs. the number of voters checked-in. Officials recounted. A bit worse than this case in Texas – since officials did not notice the error.
Same thing in 2012, an error was discovered by officials in a audit. To their credit they investigated and determined the cause. Good but best would have been if they had checked the check-in counts vs. ballots – fortunately it did not change the winners.
But then we have Bridgeport 2010 – the Governor’s race hung in the balance – everyone in the State kneWe w that. But the system did not work. There were many discrepancies between the check-in counts and ballots counted – if any checked, it was never surfaced by officials. The Secretary of the State was powerless to check or change the result. A newspaper gained access to the ballots and they were recounted with assistance of the Citizen Audit. Fortunately, the initial winner was correct – Fortunately, because the system has yet to officially recognize the correct results. Using that as an instructive example, the errors in Texas could happen in Connecticut, yet might not ever be corrected.

Estonia defends I-voting system, critics respond

Two days ago we posted the video and referenced the web by security experts showing the hacking of and their concerns with the Internet voting system used in national elections by Estonia. Yesterday there were further developments, responses, and rebuttals:

A story in the Guardian which was a summary of the information from the video and press conference <read>

The results showed that “although the Estonian system contains a number of security safeguards, these are insufficient to protect against the attacks we tried”, said Alex Halderman, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, who was an e-voting election observer in Estonia in 2013.

Those attacks included taking over voters’ PCs to cast fake votes, and hacking into the vote-counting servers to install software that would alter the final count.

Estonian voters use a combination of smartcards, with built-in chips, and smartphone verification to confirm their votes. Even so, the researchers said it was vulnerable; and Kitcat warned that e-voting might be an area which could never be guaranteed safe from hacking.

A defense by Estonia’s National Electoral Committee was quickly releases<read>

The results showed that “although the Estonian system contains a number of security safeguards, these are insufficient to protect against the attacks we tried”, said Alex Halderman, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, who was an e-voting election observer in Estonia in 2013.

Those attacks included taking over voters’ PCs to cast fake votes, and hacking into the vote-counting servers to install software that would alter the final count.

Estonian voters use a combination of smartcards, with built-in chips, and smartphone verification to confirm their votes. Even so, the researchers said it was vulnerable; and Kitcat warned that e-voting might be an area which could never be guaranteed safe from hacking…

And quickly followed by a rebuttal by the security experts <read>

Here we provide the full rebuttal, which repeats and responds to the issues raised by the Estonia Committee

The National Election Committee of Estonia have published a response to an article by The Guardian which reported the findings we have published on the Estonian e-voting system.

Here is our response to the claims of the Election Committee:

“The system has been used in six elections (municipal, national and European) without a single incident which have influenced the outcome.”

Our research argues that a well resourced attacker, such as a nation-state like Russia, would be able to undetectably steal votes in an election using the Estonian e-voting system. We maintain that the Election Committee cannot, by virtue of the failings in the systems used, irrefutably prove that the six elections thus far conducted were never influenced nor could they prove that for elections using the system in the future based on the current design.

This is one of the fundamental problems with Estonia’s design, which depends on complex software to report on votes stored invisibly within the `black boxes’ of servers. A key benefit of paper-based elections is that post-election audit and verification using proven techniques can provide a very high level of confidence in the integrity of the results.

“Estonia has conducted its online balloting in a unique spirit of transparency: every aspect of online balloting procedures is fully documented, these procedures are rigorously audited, and video documenting all conducted procedures is posted online.”

We have warmly welcomed these moves to transparency but they have not been sufficient. Video demonstrably does not cover all critical procedures conducted.
Even when a procedure has been taped, only portions of the activities were captured because there was one camera but two computer screens in use at the same time.

“In addition to opening every aspect of our balloting to observers, we have posted the source code of our voting software online.”

As confirmed at our meeting with Mr Martens and his colleagues from the Election Committee on 13th May 2014, the source code for both the voting clients and log server software has never been released. The committee never intend to release the code to those elements despite them being, by the Committee’s own admission, fundamental to its operations and security protections. Thus the claim that the source is posted online is a very partial claim. Furthermore source code availabilty, while an important basic requirement for transparency in such a system, is not in any way sufficient to ensure its security and accuracy.

“We believe that online balloting allows us to achieve a level of security greater than what is possible with paper ballots. “

The Election Committee have failed to demonstrate or prove this very significant claim. Our independent and detailed analysis of their system’s procedures, design and available source code suggests that the system provides security far below that of a well-run paper-based election.

“1. The researchers have not discovered any new attack vectors that had not already been accounted for in the design of our system as a whole.”

We disagree. The Committee are mis-portraying the client-side attack we have identified as using a ‘keylogger’ when this is not the case.

“2. It is not feasible to effectively conduct the described attacks to alter the results of the voting.”

We are surprised the Election Committee feel able to make such a strong claim given that in the same statement they also complain that they say, “At this point, we can give only preliminary answers to allegations published in the Guardian, as the researchers have not shared the full results of their work with us.” We don’t believe it is reasonable for the Committee to have such certainty in refuting our research when they acknowledge they don’t have the full details.

We regret that we have not been able to publish as much detail as we would have liked, as quickly as we would have liked. This has been a significant project which we have undertaken independently and without contact with any parties or groups in Estonia to ensure full independence. As soon as our research identified the seriousness of the vulnerabilities we prepared to explain the situation to Estonia as quickly as possible. To ensure our impartiality we wanted to make sure that nobody in Estonia had advance and unfair notice of our findings. We also felt ethically duty-bound to inform Estonia of the issues before the system was used again for the binding European Parliamentary elections later this month.

On Tuesday 13th May 2014 we privately met members of the Estonian Electronic Voting Committee to disclose technical details of our findings. We have been working hard to publish appropriate technical information in public.

“3. The electoral committee has numerous safeguards and failsafe mechanisms to detect attacks against the elections or manipulated results.”

It is unclear how meaningful or effective these claimed measures might be as the Election Committee will not disclose any details as to the type of safeguards in place. If the Committee was truly confident in the measures they would explain them to us and the citizens they are serving.

The attacks we describe are the result of architectural weaknesses in the Estonian system, and they could be virtually impossible to detect if carried out by a sophisticated state-level attacker.

“4. The website put up by the security researchers (estoniaevoting.org) contains numerous factual and detail errors, and does not provide technical details on the alleged vulnerabilities in our system.”

We are happy to correct any errors or misunderstandings but unfortunately the Election Committee have chosen not to identify what they might be referring to on our website. We remain open to hearing any corrections.

“Nevertheless, their last minute claims, published two days before the beginning of online balloting for elections to the European Parliament, give us no reason to suspend online balloting.”

We first published information late on Sunday 11th May 2014 and sent email notifications on Saturday 10th May 2014. Electronic voting in Estonia opens on Thursday 15th May 2014. Thus we dispute the claim by the Committee of ‘two days’ warning.

We look forward to the continuing debate around e-voting.
[Updated 14th May 2014 to clarify that we had privately met the Electronic Voting Committee to disclose technical information.]

Ethical Hackers 2, Internet Voting 0

Two days ago an international team of investigators demonstrated attacks and articulated weaknesses in the Estonian voting system used by 20% to 25% of voters in their national elections.

In the fall of 2010 Washington D.C. ran a brief open test of the Internet voting system it was proposing for use in that year’s November election. It was quickly hacked by a team of graduate students from the University of Michigan, lead by Professor Alex Halderman. <summary and video>

Two days ago an international team of investigators including Professor Halderman and graduate students demonstrated attacks and articulated weaknesses in the Estonian voting system used by 20% to 25% of voters in their national elections. Information is all available at https://estoniaevoting.org/

The video summary is a great way to understand what they did.

What we found alarmed us. There were staggering gaps in procedural and operational security, and the architecture of the system leaves it open to cyberattacks from foreign powers that could alter votes or leave election outcomes in dispute. We have confirmed these attacks in our lab — they are real threats. We are urgently recommending that Estonia discontinue use of the system.

They easily demonstrated attacks on the election servers and on personal computers used for voting. They found additional means of attack that they could have demonstrated. While they applauded Estonia’s efforts at transparency, they found it both insufficient and that it exposed server passwords on the Internet during the voting period.

Legislative Wrap-Up: One recommended bill passes – Electronic Check-in

It is often tricky to navigate the course of bills stuffed into other bills. At this point, as far as we can tell none of the bills we supported or opposed passed individually. We have scanned the 314 page ‘implementer bill’ checking each section and found only one bill that passed, one that we recommended – Electronic Check-in.

Every year many good bills passed by Committees never pass the General Assembly, the majority are never even brought up for debate. This year is an exception, only in that even less bills were debated than is normal for a ‘short session’. On the other hand we can usually celebrate several well-intended, but risky election bills that do not pass. Often risky bills are intentionally not debated, so that Senators and Representatives do not have to go on record for or against. Either way we celebrate when sanity prevails or insanity goes the way we find best for democracy.

It is often tricky to navigate the course of bills stuffed into other bills. At this point, as far as we can tell none of the bills we supported or opposed <here>, <here>, and <here> passed individually. We have scanned the 314 page ‘implementer bill‘ checking each section and found only one bill (Starting with Sec 23 on page 21) that passed, one that we recommended. As we said earlier:

Electronic Check-In

This bill allows for electronic check-in of voters. Once again this is a concept that we support, yet testified against the original which had many problems that went well beyond electronic check-in <testimony>

We are pleased to report that our objections have been addressed in a substitute bill approved by the Committee. So, we can fully support it going forward. <written testimony>

Common Sense: The good, bad, and ugly secret ballot

We often take for granted the idea of the secret ballot. One alternative to the secret vote is the public vote. Sometimes we would prefer a public vote, sometimes it is necessary,

Note: This is then ninth post in an occasional series on Common Sense Election Integrity, summarizing, updating, and expanding on many previous posts covering election integrity, focused on Connecticut. <next> <previous>

We often take for granted the idea of the secret ballot. We see elections in other countries with people putting a folded ballot into a ballot box. We go into a voting booth and want our privacy. Some want to conceal their vote from relatives, friends, employers, fellow union members, or church members. Yet there are alternatives and sometimes we want them, sometimes they are necessary.

Researching the history of the secret ballot, in The Hidden History of the Secret Ballot, a couple of years ago, I was surprised to learn:

It was implemented in the U.S. generally after the Civil War
It was implemented for partisan reasons – to suppress the black vote, under the assumption it would hamper the illiterate from voting.
There is also the tradition of the New England Town Meeting with voters standing or raising their hands to vote.

This year we have fought hard to protect the secret vote in Connecticut, yet not for partisan reasons. It has several benefits:

It keeps votes from being bought, sold, or intimidated – prior to the Civil War votes were regularly bought and voters under peer and other pressures to vote in particular ways.
It helps the losers accept the election result as the actual will of the people.

One alternative to the secret vote is the public vote. Sometimes we would prefer a public vote, sometimes it is necessary:

Our representatives in the Legislature, Congress, and most public bodies vote in public. Not so long ago, committees in Congress voted in secret. Members could tell both sides of the public and lobbyists that they agreed with them and it was ‘others’ who voted the wrong way, blocked, fixed, or promoted legislation. Without a public vote we would have no idea how our elected officials actually voted. No way to hold them individually to account.
Where votes are proportional, they need to be recorded and verified by ownership. Examples include stockholder votes or condo associations where some votes are based on ownership proportions.
A public vote is much easier to verify. After every close election we hear charges by the losing side or their supporters than a particular vote was incorrectly counted – by a candidate or party in Connecticut – or a government official unhappy with the declared winner in another country. Sometimes those charges may be true. In every case it reduces the trust in the process and in democracy.
On the other hand, a public vote can also lead to charges of payments or intimidation deciding the election.

The Connecticut Constitution gives us the right to the secret vote. In considering the Constitutional Amendment this year, we note that it represents a third alternative: A semi-secret vote, if anything a worse alternative than either a secret vote or a public vote with the disadvantages of each. It would allow a special, very vulnerable class of voters, deployed military, to waive their right that their vote be secret – a right we claim is not theirs, but every voters’ right that everyone’s vote be secret. It would have none of the advantages of a public vote, since nobody knows if the soldiers votes are known, only perhaps, a few insiders may know. There would be no public verification, even for the soldier.

One final example. Last year we had a petition circulated in our condo complex to ask the Board to rescind a vote to remove part of a border fence. It became very hot issue. Over two-thirds of the residents signed the petition. The contingent in favor of removing the fence charged that many people were intimidated in signing the petition, others mislead, and others did not know what they were signing. There probably were some cases where each of those concerns were justified. We have had similar changes in every public vote. There are two issues: 1) What would be the actual free choice of the majority? 2) How can the losers accept the result? The answer is to actually conduct a secret vote – yet it must be in a way that everyone trusts the process.

Judge Stevens: Missing at least one amendment to the Constitution

Retired Justice Stevens has a new book: Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution. We have not read the book, but we have seen Justice Stevens interviewed on NPR and from the table on contents understand the outlines of his six proposed amendments. From the interview he indicated his goal was correcting recent errors of the Court in following the intent of the Founders.

We say he missed a big one. The problems of our electoral system and the Gore v. Bush decision in 2000.

Perhaps it is his criteria that was too restrictive or perhaps he will issue a sequel. (Gore v. Bush was really based on decisions in 1876, not so recent. And apparently the Founders did not anticipate the partisan election systems and problems that quickly evolved). I am sure there are more than six good ideas out there, but many more bad ideas, to cure actual and perceived Constitutional problems and limitations.

As we have said here many times, we generally favor the popular election of the President with equal votes for all citizens, yet we oppose the National Popular Vote Compact <our NPV index>. The Compact would make the problems that led to Gore v. Bush worse. Making a risky system more risky. It would not, in fact, make every vote equal.

What is needed is a system that actually requires that every vote be equal, as system that we can trust that is enforceable, and enforced, one that provides uniform enfranchisement, access, security and public verifiability across all states. It would require a Constitutional Amendment that at a minimum would:

Require the direct election of the President by a uniform popular vote
Require uniform requirements for citizens to vote, uniform rules for voter check-in and identification, uniform requirements for early voting and absentee voting.
Repeal the 12th amendment which governs electoral accounting and was a major factor in the legal decisions of 1876 and 2000.
Require that votes and results be publicly verifiable, with effective and uniform election audits and with recounts for close votes, prior to the certification of the winner.
Require an effective method for mandating appropriate procedures, adjudicating issues, and certifying the winner.

For more information on what is wrong we the current system and the Constitutional limitations, we refer to our testimony and the work of Edwin B. Foley of the Moritz School of Law, referenced frequently in pages 2-6 of our testimony.

Reality: Even if somehow states agreed to a national state by state recount, the Supreme Court can be expected to rule as it did in Gore v. Bush that it would be unfair since it would not be uniform:

“Upon due consideration of the difficulties identified to this point, it is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work. It would require not only the adoption (after opportunity for argument) of adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote, and practicable procedures to implement them …there is no recount procedure in place under the State Supreme Court’s order that comports with minimal constitutional standards. Because it is evident that any recount seeking to meet the December 12 date will be unconstitutional for the reasons we have discussed, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida ordering a recount to proceed.” http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=00-949

Even though the Court claimed the decision was not to be used as a precident, on what basis would they rule differently when faced with a challenge to a far from uniform state by state recount? See Moritz School of Law Profesor Edward B. Foley’s comments on Gore v. Bush and equality: http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/comments/index.php?ID=8099 …

Quoting Professor Edward B. Foley and Nathan L. Colvin, of the Moritz School of Law, in their recent paper, “The Twelfth Amendment: A Constitutional Ticking Time Bomb”:

Although the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore averted congressional confrontation over electoral votes pursuant to the deficient framework of the Twelfth Amendment, the episode signals the possibility that a similar dispute might arise again—but this time without the saving intervention of the Supreme Court. Although the events of 2000 produced passing interest in the mechanism established by the Twelfth Amendment, since then there has been no sustained plan to prepare the nation if a dispute over electoral votes goes all the way to Congress. Nevertheless, the history of the Twelfth Amendment and the commentary on it during the nineteenth century show that the nation needs a contingency plan of this sort.…like putting off preparations to defend against a once-a-century category five hurricane, it is easy to postpone considerationof a constitutional amendment designed to protect against another debacle of the kind that occurred in 1876… it is also worth proposing a second-best legislative solution that would modify the Electoral Count Act… either of the two major political parties will want to block any measure it perceives as disadvantageous to its interest …our country has embarked on a meandering journey of ad hoc approaches to resolving electoral disputes. The decision of the Supreme Court in 2000 marked only the most recent stop on this journey but was met with as much dissatisfaction as previous historic stops such as the Electoral Commission and the Twenty-second Joint Rule. Instead of waiting for the next electoral dispute and hoping that the Court or a bipartisan split in Congress might save our country, Congress should address this historic problem with an amendment to the Constitution that clearly addresses the electoral count procedures… The starting issue for an analysis of electoral vote determination under the Constitution is ascertaining where the Constitution vests the power to count and/or determine the validity of votes, and this is where the first ambiguity comes from. There are four possible actors: (1) the Vice President of the United States acting as the President of the Senate, (2) the two houses of Congress acting together, (3) the two houses of Congress acting separately, and (4) the states.13 The text of the Twelfth Amendment is unclear on this subject, and, throughout our history, various theories have prevailed.

They also quote Justice Joseph Story:

In the original plan, as well as in the amendment, no provision is made for the discussion or decision of any questions, which may arise, as to the regularity and authenticity of the returns of the electoral votes . . . . It seems to have been taken for granted, that no question could ever arise on the subject; and that nothing more was necessary, than to open the certificates, which were produced, in the presence of both houses, and to count the names and numbers, as returned.

References:

The Twelfth Amendment: A Constitutional Ticking Time Bomb
http://www.law.miami.edu/studentorg/miami_law_review/issue_archive/pdf/vol64no2/MIA204.pdf

The Founders’ Bush V. Gore: The 1792 Election Dispute and Its Continuing Relevance
http://indylaw.indiana.edu/ilr/pdf/vol44p23.pdf

Fixing the Transcript for DemocracyNow: “Fixing” the Electoral College

In a segment last week DemocracyNow editorialized on, interviewed New Yorkers, and representatives of FairVote, on the occasion of New York joining the National Popular Vote Compact/Agreement: Fixing the Electoral College: New York Joins Pact to Elect President by Popular Vote

Unfortunately, their transcript needs at least as much fixing as our current election system. As CTVotersCount readers know, we oppose the Compact because it would make a risky system, much riskier, without providing the claimed benefits. We understand the attraction to many, like nuclear power, fracking, GMOs, and Touch Screen Voting, the national popular vote would seem to be beneficial, yet like those other ideas it has largely unrecognized and unappreciated consequences. For details and background, refer to our recent testimony to the Connecticut Legislature or review our index of past NPV posts..

As a service to our readers, we here provide some annotations to the DemocracyNow transcript, showing where we disagree with the interviewees, and some of the biased comments of the reporters.

I am a fan of DemocracyNow. Yet, like all media they are not exempt from their own biases and blinders. In a segment last week they editorialized on, interviewed New Yorkers, and representatives of FairVote, on the occasion of New York joining the National Popular Vote Compact/Agreement: Fixing the Electoral College: New York Joins Pact to Elect President by Popular Vote <read>

As a service to our readers, we here provide some annotations to the DemocracyNow transcript, showing where we disagree with the interviewees, and some of the biased comments of the reporters. Our comments are in {maroon, with curly brackets and italics} .

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: New York has become the latest state to join an agreement that would transform the way we elect the president of the United States. Under the compact for a national popular vote, states across the country have pledged to award their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote. If enough states sign on, it would guarantee the presidency goes to the candidate who wins the most votes across the country.{Not so. Gamesmanship like FL 2000 could easily cause the system to fail. Also there is no official popular vote number to use to determine the winner under the Compact} It would prevent scenarios like what happened in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but still lost the election to George W. Bush. {Al Gore also apparently won FL by the newspaper recount of all votes in the state, demonstrating under a fair count, Gore would have won FL under the Electoral College in 2000}

AMY GOODMAN: The compact will kick in only when enough states have signed on to reach a threshold of 270 electoral votes. This week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo brought the campaign a step closer, adding New York’s 29 electoral votes to those already pledged by nine other states, including California, Illinois, Massachusetts and by Washington, D.C. In a statement, Governor Cuomo said, quote, “By aligning the Electoral College with the voice of the nation’s voters, we are ensuring the equality of votes {Yes, votes, if counted accurately would be equal, but that is misleading since citizens would not be equal, since there is not an equal national franchise and different levels of ease of voting and suppression across states} and encouraging candidates to appeal to voters in all states, instead of disproportionately focusing on early contests {sorry Gov, the Compact has nothing to do with primaries} and swing [states].” New York State Senator Joseph Griffo, a Republican, sponsored the bill.

STATE SEN. JOSEPH Gur RIFFO: Potential presidential candidates concentrate more than two-thirds of their advertising budget and two-thirds of their campaign stops in just five states. Almost 100 percent of their message is seen in approximately 16 battleground states. New York has 19.5 million people, but we’re routinely ignored by campaigns. I want to empower people. I want to make New York state relevant in a national campaign again. I want democracy that creates excitement in people, not apathy. Joining the National Popular Vote compact creates that opportunity. It leverages the combined power of the states in a compact to say, “No longer can you take us for granted. No longer can you effectively disenfranchise million of Americans by ignoring us {Do your really feel disenfranchised Gov? Did you vote for President last time? Did you tell New Yorkers not to waste their time?}. No longer can you assume that you have our vote.”
{Readers, think for yourselves:

How many votes would have changed if Obama and Romney had visited Connecticut and spoke to a few thousand voters each, giving the same talking points as they did in other states, and you watched them on Local news, in addition to National news?

Do voters want more 30sec ads to help them decide who to vote for?

Have you ever visited a swing state or early primary state? The voters there would tell you they do not want more ads and phone calls to help them choose a candidate.

Ask yourself who benefits by this? Most of the money would go to media moguls, not in your state.}

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the campaign for a national popular vote, we’re joined now by Hendrik Hertzberg, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He has been writing in support of the national popular vote since 2006, serves on the board of the electoral reform organization FairVote. {Another ”journalist” who shows his bias serving on a board advocating for the NPV.}

Rick, welcome to Democracy Now!Talk about the significance of New York joining on, but also what the national popular vote is.

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: Well, it’s an important step psychologically, because now the threshold, instead of being 50 percent of the way to the threshold, we’re 61 percent of the way. So every little bit—every little bit helps. And, of course, New York is the media capital. Things don’t really happen in the brain of the media until they happen in New York. {Wow quite a statement, for someone advocating for a group that contends that New Yorkers are left out. Maybe that is why so many New York Republicans voted for the bill, considering it is the center of the media businesses which would be the chief beneficiaries, if the Compact’s advocates are correct in their assumptions of how campaigns would change.} So even though California, New Jersey, state of Washington—even though all these other states have already signed on, it’s only now starting to raise to the level of some sort of public attention. And most people don’t even know this is going on, and that includes people who are extremely well informed—don’t even—have never even heard of this, don’t realize that we’re halfway—more than halfway to solving one of the central problems of our Constitution, which is the—this Electoral College setup. {And unfortunately, the public does not understand the unanticipated consequences, with one-sided media coverage in favor of the Compact.} And the problem with the setup is not the Electoral College itself. The problem is the winner-take-all by state. That’s what creates all the anomalies. {Does anyone here see problems with voting rights inequality? Voter suppression? Campaign spending? Citizen’s United? The Media complex? Apparently not today.}

And what the National Popular Vote plan does is, by a whole bunch of states getting together to award their electors to whoever wins in all 50 states, as soon as that happens, well, then it doesn’t matter what state you live in: {Once again there is no equal franchise, state to state}. Your vote is just as much equal to go after, to campaign for. It means that, for instance, in New York, where it’s pointless to do—to do doorbell ringing, to have a coffee collection, invite your neighbors in—what difference does it make? Everybody knows which way New York is going. {Usually so in most states, but their votes count and contribute their fair share in determining the winner} But if every vote, if a vote in New York is worth the same as a vote in Ohio or Pennsylvania, you get a—that really is transformational. Even more than preventing a wrong winner is that you get grassroots politics happening in every corner of the country. {And you then get incentive for suppression and manipulation everywhere too.} And if you’re worried about political corruption, if you’re worried about campaign finance, for example, what this would do is, all those billions raised for campaigns, instead of being funneled into a handful of states, they would have to be spread out across the whole country, so their relative impact would be much less. This is an extraordinary reform. {That is an extraordinary claim, that by providing more opportunity for more money to make more of a difference, you are reducing the influence of that money? How many of the advocates for the Compact agree that Citizens United is bad for Democracy? I suspect the vast majority, yet increased influence of money is twisted to be a benefit when it comes to the Compact.}

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, what allows a group of states to be able to come together and reach a compact like this? Wouldn’t a constitutional amendment be needed for this? Explain the legality of it.

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: Well, this is based on two things in the Constitution. One is what you just mentioned, interstate compacts. There are hundreds of them. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, maybe not the best example lately, but that is an example of an interstate compact. It’s in the Constitution. The other part is that the only thing in the Constitution about electing the president is basically a one-liner that says each state shall appoint a number of electors in such manner as the Legislature thereof may determine. That’s all it says. Everything else is left to—is left to the states to figure out. And the winner-take-all notion, that’s a—that’s something that came in 20, 30 years after the Constitution was written. And it’s because a party that controls the state Legislature isn’t going to say, if given the choice between keeping all those electors for themselves or giving, you know, some portion of them to the opposition, of course they’re going to do it this way. {I am not a Constitutional lawyer. I am not a lawyer. Yet, I would agree the Compact is likely Constitutional, yet it may well be challenged to the Supreme Court. And based on the precedents of past elections, and the rules of the Electoral College, it is quite likely that the Supreme Court would be “forced” to choose the President under those challenges. See our testimony for a discussion of the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act and the Compact’s likely effects.}

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democratic New York State Senator Michael Gianaris, who is among those who oppose joining the compact for a national popular vote.

STATE SEN. MICHAEL GIANARIS: The current system allots Electoral College votes based on a state’s population, whereas a system such as the National Popular Vote will do so based on voter turnout in a presidential election, which means states that have a high number of unregistered residents would not be counted as much, or states that have low voter turnout would not be counted as much as they are under the current system. There’s also a myriad of other issues related to those that have wealth being able to saturate a big city media market to affect the outcome more than they currently do, which is already too much, as well as the possibility for some states that are unhappy with the results, potentially between Election Day and the Electoral College vote, changing their state laws to pull back out of a compact like this, which would throw the whole system into chaos. {We generally oppose the Compact for other reasons, the increased risks to the system. We do not reject these arguments out of hand. Unfortunately, the strongest arguments against the Compact are not getting a fair hearing}

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Democratic New York State Senator Michael Gianaris. Now, interesting, he’s Democrat, and the person we played for the national popular vote was a Republican. But can you answer his points? {Interesting because, in our opinion in general, Democrats are for it for the wrong reasons, and Republicans are against it for the wrong reasons. Both think their party would benefit from their positions.}

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: He’s wrong on every single one of them. You cannot withdraw from the state—interstate compact for 90 days before an election. That’s part of the deal. That’s part of the contract that you make.

The notion that—as far as turnout is concerned, right now there’s a sort of a five-to-10-point difference in the turnout between battleground states and spectator states. So when you have a nationwide vote, you’re going to see—yes, you’re going to see turnout increase, but don’t say it like it’s a bad thing.

He mentions that the Electoral College is based on—is not based on how many people vote; it’s based on population. And that’s one of—that’s sort of the original sin of the Electoral College, because the reason it’s based on population is so that the three-fifths of the slaves could be counted to give the slave owners more representation. It imports—the Electoral College mechanism imports that right—which is in the Senate and the House, right into this choice of the presidency. Now, that part of it’s gone now, but that is the original sin. {There are a lot of things in our history which are regrettable, but tying the Electoral College to slavery, is close to playing the Hitler card on other issues. Should opponents bring up disappointing or criminal Senators, Governors, and Mayors that were elected by popular vote?}

And of course it makes more sense for the president to be chosen by voters, one-by-one voters, rather than by states with a fixed number of votes. Even if only three people vote in a state and it’s got 10 electoral votes, they’ll still go to that candidate. All the National Popular Vote plan does, really, is elect the president the way we elect a dog catcher or a governor or a senator or representative. It’s not that complicated. {Unfortunately, it is much more complicated. Study our testimony on the 12^th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act, along with the effect of the Compact.}

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But my question is, given the fact that you would only need the states who equal a number of 270 votes to join the compact, and they would therefore then be decisive in terms of who would get elected if the—who wins the popular vote, but isn’t it possible just as well for the compact to be broken years down the line? In other words, for new legislatures to come in and decide to leave?

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: Sure, that would be possible, yeah. And actually, that’s one of the advantages to this maybe over a constitutional amendment. We can try it. We can try it, see if—try electing a president democratically, see if we like it. If we like it, we can keep it. If we don’t like it, we don’t have to keep it. That’s actually a plus, not a minus.

AMY GOODMAN: So, so far, now—

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: And I might add, Juan, that it’s not as if the states that are compacting are then going to decide who’s president. No, the only thing that will decide who’s president is the voters in all the states that are compacting and that are not compacting. It won’t make any difference whether you live in one of them or not. {Unless, they are not counted accurately, there was no national post-election audit, no national recount, and no national popular vote number available in time for states to choose their electors. Oooops we have none of those, so we are stuck with the “trust us” non-verification system.}

AMY GOODMAN: So, now signed on: New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Rhode Island and Washington.

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: What happens next?

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: Well, right now there’s a focus on Connecticut, where the bill is being considered. It’s kind of a one-by-one thing, state to state. {Yes, we are the next target.} Now, people may have noticed that the states that you mentioned are all blue states. And, of course, because of what happened in 2000, Republicans tend to have a—you know, they kind of—they kind of have a—react to this and think—or, suspiciously, they think maybe this is Al Gore’s revenge. {And Democrats are apparently, in general, blind to the risks, since they have been led to believe that this would have changed the outcome in FL in 2000. Yet with different voters, more voters, with a different counts, and different campaign strategies, who knows if Gore would actually have won under the NPV in 2000. Can we at least all agree that more and different voters would go to the polls under the Compact and that we have no idea what an accurate count would have been in 2000?}, in fact, there are plenty of Republicans who back this. If you believe in democracy, if you believe that the way to have an election is count the votes, see who wins, then it really doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. Yes, there are these inbred prejudices. Republicans are—maybe they’re more resistant to change. Maybe they think this is somehow an end run around the Constitution, which it is not, which it definitely is not. They have a—they have more skepticism to overcome. But this isn’t like, you know, taxing the rich, where that’s a matter of principle. It’s a matter of principle the other way: If you’re for democracy, you really ought to be for this. {Yup, anyone against this is charged with being undemocratic. And the other side says proponents are against the Founding Fathers. And then back to the opposition favoring slavery…}

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Hendrik Hertzberg is a staff writer at The New Yorker. He’s been writing in support of the national popular vote since 2006. I think you said in your last piece you had written 51 pieces on this.

HENDRIK HERTZBERG: Fifty-two as of this morning.

AMY GOODMAN: He serves on the board of the electoral reform organization FairVote. When we come back, we’re going to England and to Norway to talk about drones and who’s running the U.S. drone operation. Stay with us.

As we have said many times, we are not in theory opposed to electing the President by national popular vote. But we need a uniform voting system, a uniform national franchise, enforceable, and enforced to avoid increasing the risks inherent in the current system.

CyberDissonence? State concern of Biblical Proportions

In Connecticut, apparently: Electricity is Critical! .., when it comes to elections, the message is “What Us Worry?”

You could say the State’s concern with Electoral attack is of Biblical proportions, i.e. criticizing utilities while not noticing the XP in our own systems.

New report from the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority highlights the risks of the power grid to cyber attack: Cyber Security and Connecticut’s Public Utilities <read>

There is a profound distance in perspective between the consume r of electricity, natural gas and water , who sees consumption as a normal, secure part of life, and the U.S. Intelligence Community , which sees threats to such consumption. The latter witnesses sophisticated, daily probes and penetrations of U.S. institutions , including not only corporate information technology networks but also regional electric distribution networks and private utilities. In the August 16, 2013 New York Times , reporter Matthew L. Wald noted that both government and private experts describe the U.S. electric grid as “the glass jaw of American industry.” Such experts fear that a successful strike by an adversary “could black out vast areas of the continent for weeks; interrupt supplies of water, gasoline, diesel fuel and fresh food; shut down communications; and create disruptions of a scale that was only hinted at by Hurricane Sandy and the attacks of September 11.”…

Efforts to hack into public utilities are significant , and by many reports , growing both in volume and sophistication. Public utility regulators and state authorities ould be dereli t to ignore what national security personnel call ongoing “battlefield preparation”…

The stark fact is that the United States is vulnerable; probes are active, dangerous and widespread. T his national pregnability pertains directly to Connecticut. There is no option but to acknowledge this reality and resolve to resist, defend and take countermeasures to ensure operational security in our public utilities

The report mentions the NIST (National Institute of Standards) Cybersecurity Framework and concerns within Homeland security.

As the Legislature considers for the third year in a row, passing legislation that would enable Internet voting, ignoring the concerns of our Secretary of the State, Department of Defense, experts from NIST and Homeland Security. In 2012 Governor Malloy was concerned and vetoed the bill based on security concerns, yet in 2013 he signed a similar bill. Now the Legislature is considering a bill to eliminate our constitutional right to a secret vote. You could say the State’s concern with Electoral attack is of Biblical proportions, i.e. criticizing utilities while not noticing the XP in our own systems.

*****Update 04/28*******

As we were saying, CT State Computers and Municipal Computers running XP could be vulnerable. In fact, all computers running Microsoft Internet Explorer are vulnerable. For the latest bug XP computers may never be “safe(*)” again. Washington Post: Hackers targeting newly discovered flaw in Internet Explorer <read>

This is the first major security disaster for users who still run Microsoft XP, the 12-year-old operating system that Microsoft discontinued support for earlier this month. The short-term solutions do not work with the old operating system, and no patches will be released to fix it.

Many federal agencies still use XP despite repeated advance warnings from Microsoft that impending discontinuance of support would leave their computers vulnerable.

About 10 percent of government computers still run XP, including thousands of computers on classified military and diplomatic networks

* Remember all computers and browsers are vulnerable to as bugs and traps, as yet undiscovered by good guys.