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Cognitive Dissonance? Not in Connecticut when it comes to the Internet

In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the discomfort experienced when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel “disequilibrium”: frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc – Wikipedia

The state fails at protecting data, legislators to get lesson in Internet security, N.I.S.T experts say unsafe the Internet is not safe for voting, the N.S.A. and others can look at practically anything, yet local registrars, the Secretary of the State, and the State Military Department can protect Internet voting by Legislative decree.

In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the discomfort experienced when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel “disequilibrium”: frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc – Wikipedia

As CTVotersCount readers know, the Legislature passed Internet voting over the objections of the Secretary of the State. Choosing not to define it but to leave it up the Secretary and Military Department to define a secure way to accomplish it. Despite the concerns of virtually every Computer Scientist and experts from the National Institute of Standards. Who will implement the actual voting? 169 local municipalities, many with (very) part-time registrars? The Secretary of the State with the help of the State IT function? Two more interesting events this week:

The Motor Vehicle Department inadvertently released the names of job applicants on its web site, making hacking into their computers unnecessary. Courant: DMV Snafu Posts 400 Job Applicants’ Personal Info On State Website <read>

The state Department of Motor Vehicles’ commissioner has sent individual letters of apology to about 400 job applicants whose names, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and exam scores were posted on the DMV’s official website by mistake…

The DMV had intended to post a job announcement on its website about 1 p.m. on Aug. 27 for the position of “Information Technology Analyst 2.” But the following morning, someone from the DMV’s human resources unit discovered that instead of the job-vacancy posting, “a file with a spreadsheet containing the names and other information of candidates who had passed the examination for this title had been posted,” [Commissioner Melody A.] Currey said in the letter.

Wednesday at 1:00pm, in the Legislative Office Building: State Capitol Police Dept.: Internet Safety for Legislators & Staff. Apparently consisting of:

An “Internet Safety” training program available to all legislators and legislative employees. This comprehensive program is designed to heighten awareness on protecting yourself and your family from internet and technology crimes.

Sounds like a good idea. But would a similar training be available or even feasible for military and their dependents eligible for Internet voting, across the counter, the world, under the sea, and in combat situations? Let alone election officials in 169 towns, if they become responsible for Internet voting?

For more read some of your past posts on Internet Voting or Internet Security

A Nation of Laws, not Gotya’s

One court so far has ruled in favor of ballot access for one minor party in one town, using common sense to override a detail in the law. In this case, a good decision. Hopefully extended to all the similar situations in Connecticut this year. Yet, to obeyed precisely in the future.

One court so far has ruled in favor of ballot access for one minor party in one town, using common sense to override a detail in the law: Ruling Gives Boost To Minor-Party Candidates <read>

Third-party political candidates throughout the state are cheering a decision by a Superior Court judge to keep a minor party in Westport on the November ballot, saying the ruling sets a precedent for other towns where candidates have been knocked off ballots because of filing technicalities.

The order by Stamford Superior Judge Kenneth Povodator to reinstate “Save Westport Now” will likely mean third-party candidates in at least a dozen cities and towns – including Middletown and East Hampton – will remain on November ballots…
[Two other minor party chairs] said they filed their endorsement paperwork as they had in previous years. But this time they were informed by town clerks that their endorsement certificates lacked signatures. That’s because of a 2011 amendment to state election laws requiring third-party

candidates to personally sign their endorsement documents – a requirement not asked of Democrats and Republicans.

Third-party candidates were also informed by town clerks that it was too late to remedy the problem, leaving them no choice but to run as write-ins.

The touted intention of the law was to make sure that third-party endorsed candidates actually accepted endorsements – a reasonable idea for cross-endorsements, not necessarily reasonable otherwise. Reasonable or not, it looks biased against third-parties, in favor of major parties. Fairer would have been a similar requirement for all candidates for all parties. Normally, all laws should be followed and enforced. Selective enforcement should be especially avoided.

The law went into effect in 2011 but was not enforced until this year. Apparently many town clerks did not realize the change, worse neither did third parties. Sometimes the law is ambiguous and we turn to courts to resolve that ambiguity. This time the law is clear, yet more of a gotya’ than a service to democracy when those it apply to, and are charged with enforcing it are generally unaware of the requirement.

In this case, a good decision. Hopefully extended to all the similar situations in Connecticut this year. Yet, to obeyed precisely in the future.

What do voters most want to know from election webs and brochures?

?How do I register? How do I vote absentee? How do I vote? The answer might surprise you.

? How do I register? How do I vote absentee? How do I vote? The answer might surprise you.

Usage experts have surveyed the real experts – voters – to see what they want in election office brochures. The most desired information matched the result from their study last year of what information voters most desired from election office web sites.

What makes elections information helpful to voters? <read>

Whitney Quesenbery for Civic Designing

Every election department (and many advocacy groups) create flyers and small booklets to help voters learn about elections. But when we looked for guidelines for good communication with voters, we found very little. There were some political science and social psychology experiments that measured the impact of get-out-the-vote campaigns, but there was little about what questions voters have, and how to answer those questions well.

As a companion to the research on county election websites, we did a study of how new voters used election information booklets.

We recruited people who had voted for the first time in the 2008 election or later. Our participants were young people, recently naturalized citizens, and people with lower literacy. As new voters, we hoped that they would remember their first experiences clearly and would still have questions about elections.

We worked with a selection of voter education materials that we thought were pretty good: clearly written, attractively designed, with good information…

We asked our participants to choose two of them to read, marking any sections they thought were particularly good or particularly confusing. And then we talked about what they read.

They had many of the same questions as the participants in the web site study:

what’s on the ballot

where do I go vote

how do I get an absentee ballot

Many other questions were about the basic mechanics of voting, from eligibility and ID requirements, to finding their polling place, to the details of how to mark their ballot.

An ideal guide helps voters plan and act

When we sorted out all the data, we weren’t surprised to find that the overriding concern was being able to act on the information. That fits the definition of plain language: information voters can find, understand, and use.

These less experienced voters wanted specific instructions that would let them vote with confidence. For example, they weren’t sure how long your voter registration “lasts” or even that they might have options for voting, not only on Election Day, but in early voting or by mail. They liked the confirmation and reassurance of seeing information they already knew…

16 Districts in 9 Municipalites selected for post-election audit

Yesterday, we were pleased to participate in drawing the 16 districts to be audited by the Secretary of the State. Also present from the Connecticut Citizens Election Audit Coalition was Kim Hynes of Common Cause. We are also pleased to report that the drawing was held close to a week before counting begins, next Wednesday.

See the the Municipalities on the official press release <read>

Update: An earlier version said 10 Municipalities…it is 9

Secret Vote? Not on “our” Internet — just the insiders and bad guys know how you intended to vote

From Public Media: Internet S.O.S. <read>

Is the Internet on life support?

Last week we learned that U.S. and British intelligence agencies have broken the back of digital encryption — the coded technology hundreds of millions of Internet users rely on to keep their communications private.

Over the weekend, Der Spiegel reported that the NSA and its British counterpart are also hacking into smartphones to monitor our daily lives in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before the age of the iPhone.

This news, just the latest revelations from the files of Edward Snowden, only heighten our sense that we can no longer assume anything we say or do online is secure.

But that’s not all. In a case that was heard in a U.S. federal appeals court on Monday, telecommunications colossus Verizon is arguing that it has the First Amendment right to block and censor Internet users. (That’s right. Verizon is claiming that, as a corporation, it has the free speech right to silence the online expression of everybody else.)

Government and corporate forces have joined to chip away at two pillars of the open Internet.It’s come to this. Government and corporate forces have joined to chip away at two pillars of the open Internet: the control of our personal data and our right to connect and communicate without censorship or interference.

The Surveillance Industrial Complex

A series of reports coordinated among the Guardian, the New York Times and ProPublica revealed that the NSA and its British counterpart have secretly unlocked encryption technologies used by popular online services, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft…

The secret vote has not always been guaranteed in the U.S. People used to vote in public, the way the Connecticut Legislature and the U.S. Congress does, where we know every vote. Public voting systems have advantages in integrity – it is easy to know the votes were recorded and tabulated correctly when they are given and posted publicly. What could go wrong…

The problems with a public vote are vote buying and intimidation. In the old days before the Civil War, it was superficially who would provide the most food or the best beer. Yet, it was more likely intimidation that led citizens to vote the way their friends, employers, benefactors, or bullies would want. Today, most people believe the secret vote is in the public interest.

For the benefits it provides, the secret vote has some costs and risks. Polling places, ballots, and absentee ballots are constructed and managed in ways that make it difficult, hopefully close to impossible, for any voter’s vote to be determined by others and proven to others by the voter. (Absentee votes being an exception, where voters can easily, yet illegally, demonstrate their vote to a buyer, friend, or intimidator). Extra work is required in counting secret votes, keeping them secret, and risks that they are not correctly recorded or tabulated, based on fraud or error. Thus, for the secret ballot we have increased cost, risk incorrect results, and reduced credibility.

There is perhaps something even worse than the risks of the secret vote or the risks of the public vote. Voting via Internet in a way that has many of the risks of public voting, without the benefits, along with the risks of secret voting and lack of confidence in the system. That would be Internet voting with election official insiders, outside hackers, outside political interests, outside business interests, and the Government itself able to see your vote and possibly manipulate the result; no credibility and plenty of perceived intimidation.

What is perceived intimidation? We can easily envision the soldier going into a room to vote on the Internet, told by his superior several times, perhaps with a wink, “Nothing to worry about troop, the system is secure. I could not possibly know how you voted”. We can envision similar scenarios for Government employees, business employees, or church members “encouraged” to vote on computers owned by their employer, union, or church. No actual Interned insecurity required, just perceived intimidation. Less easy to envision, is that it would actually be the same for the rest of us voting at home over the Internet, knowing that many can know our vote, but we cannot be sure that our vote or anyone’s is correctly counted.

Primary education: Levers and other lessons

Tuesday was primary day in many states including Connecticut and New York. There are several election integrity lessons to be learned or learned again.

In New York City, the integrity issue was the use of lever machines in an illogical rejection optical scanners.

Tuesday was primary day in many states including Connecticut and New York. There are several election integrity lessons to be learned or learned again.

Let us start with New York City which had nationally prominent primarys for Mayor and Controller. The real voting integrity issue was the use of lever machines in an illogical rejection optical scanners. The levers were brought back, justified on the claim that it would be too difficult to reprogram and test optical scanners if a run-off primary was required, ignoring that many more lever machines would have to be individually programmed and tested. The winner is clear, yet it is a close call if the winner has reached the 40% threshold to avoid a run-off.

Some lessons:

Switching technologies, expect glitches and media hype of glitches: New York Times, At Polls return of Levers Brings Problems and Praise <read> We saw this in Connecticut when we switched to optical scan in 2007 and watched NY go through the same thing.
Levers are like touch screens in that there is no voter verified paper record, that is why they should be avoided. Maybe New Yorkers will learn this again as they attempt to determine if a run-off is necessary and find some lever machines that did not work correctly, with no recourse to determine the actual votes.
Long lines. Like touch screens, levers require enough working machines to serve voters as they arrive. Optical scan alone is not a panacea, yet the machines can handle high volume, while paper ballots can be completed and submitted even when scanners breakdown.
Polls help yet have limits in increasing confidence. We can be pretty sure of the leader in the Mayors race as everyone expected him to win, based on polls consistent with the result. Yet polls have limits in close races, since they cannot eliminate fraud and error in very close results, like this run-off uncertainty.

Closer to home we have Bridgeport, where there have been charges of absentee ballot fraud in a highly charged and important Board of Education Primary which featured a party-endorsed, outside financed, slate against an alternative slate. Previously the Mayor worked to have the Board taken over, when that was ruled illegal, he supported and initiative to replace it with an appointed Board. The appointed Board change was defeated in a previous vote, despite large outside expenditures in favor of an appointed board. Those same forces on both sides were arrayed in this primary. There were and are charges of absentee ballot fraud. In the end, the alternative slate won by a two to one margin, with likely success in November changingthe balance on the Board and likely significant education changes for the city.

Some lessons:

Once again we have votING fraud alleged. Looking at recent news we see a constant stream of charged and confirmed cases of votING fraud, by insiders and outsiders, primarily by absentee ballot. Beware of no-excuse and other forms of mail-in voting.
Also looking at that same recent news we see cases where huge searches for alleged individual votER fraud have confirmed that it is all but non-existent. Voter-ID laws are almost entirely voter suppression in effect.
We can likely be confident in the result without polling. The outsiders won by a large margin, consistent with their past victory over eliminating the elected Board.
But, what it was close overall, and the absentee vote was decisive? What if the insiders won in those circumstances? And the fact is that the absentee count favored the insider slate. Confidence and integrity would likely and justifiably be in question.
So, those charges should not be dropped. They should be investigated, and to the extent possible confirmed or refuted.

Encryption, exposed as almost useless except to spys

Several weeks ago, Glen Greenwald said there was much more to come based on the information obtained by Edward Snowdon. For several of those weeks we have had disturbing, yet relatively minor disclosures. Yet once again, Snowdon has providing something huge. We need, once again to become a nation of laws.

Yesterday the New York Times, ProPublica, and the Guardian broke a major story. Several weeks ago, Glen Greenwald said there was much more to come based on the information obtained by Edward Snowdon. For several of those weeks we have had disturbing, yet relatively minor disclosures. Yet once again, Snowdon has providing something huge. From the Times: N.S.A. Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web <read>

Because strong encryption can be so effective, classified N.S.A. documents make clear, the agency’s success depends on working with Internet companies — by getting their voluntary collaboration, forcing their cooperation with court orders or surreptitiously stealing their encryption keys or altering their software or hardware.

According to an intelligence budget document leaked by Mr. Snowden, the N.S.A. spends more than $250 million a year on its Sigint Enabling Project, which “actively engages the U.S. and foreign IT industries to covertly influence and/or overtly leverage their commercial products’ designs” to make them “exploitable.” Sigint is the acronym for signals intelligence, the technical term for electronic eavesdropping…

In one case, after the government learned that a foreign intelligence target had ordered new computer hardware, the American manufacturer agreed to insert a back door into the product before it was shipped, someone familiar with the request told The Times.

To state the obvious, this should end the myth that encryption actually protects the secret vote, and vote integrity, if it really could have in the first place. Basically:

The NSA can hack almost any encrypted communications
They have coerced companys to put in back doors in software and hardware
They compromised encryption standards
The UK and other countries share in the secret and results
Edward Snowdon did not have authorized access to the information, yet was able to obtain it
Internet banking, purchases, stock trades, etc. are all exposed and vulnerable for the public and corporations

You can also listen to Glen Greenwald and Bruce Schneier on DemocracyNow!. <read/view> They are providing further insights. Not only that we have no reason to trust companies who claim useful encryption software, but that the holes created for the NSA are available to others for whatever purpose they might want. Some sophisticated users may be able to use open-source encryption and still protect their communications.

Perhaps worse, encryption standards have been hacked by the NSA, while scientists have been hoodwinked or compromised:

Cryptographers have long suspected that the agency planted vulnerabilities in a standard adopted in 2006 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and later by the International Organization for Standardization, which has 163 countries as members.

Classified N.S.A. memos appear to confirm that the fatal weakness, discovered by two Microsoft cryptographers in 2007, was engineered by the agency. The N.S.A. wrote the standard and aggressively pushed it on the international group, privately calling the effort ‘a challenge in finesse.’

‘Eventually, N.S.A. became the sole editor,’ the memo says.

In the 90’s we had a battle in congress over the government requiring back doors in encryption hardware and software. The spies lost, the public won. But in the end we have learned that we cannot trust our government. We need, once again to become a nation of laws, as Greenwald pointed out in his book, published before he had met Edward Snowdon.

A follow-up story in the Times today: Legislation Seeks to Bar N.S.A. Tactic in Encryption <read>

An example of the usual response from the NSA. This is not news, everyone knows we do it, yet its really damaging.

A statement from the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., criticized the reports, saying that it was “not news” that the N.S.A. works to break encryption, and that the articles would damage American intelligence collection.

The reports, the statement said, “reveal specific and classified details about how we conduct this critical intelligence activity.”

“Anything that yesterday’s disclosures add to the ongoing public debate,” it continued, “is outweighed by the road map they give to our adversaries about the specific techniques we are using to try to intercept their communications in our attempts to keep America and our allies safe and to provide our leaders with the information they need to make difficult and critical national security decisions.”

But if intelligence officials felt a sense of betrayal by the disclosures, Internet security experts felt a similar letdown — at the N.S.A. actions.

It does hurt. It is the truth that hurts:

But the perception of an N.S.A. intrusion into the networks of major Internet companies, whether surreptitious or with the companies’ cooperation, could hurt business, especially in international markets.

“What buyer is going to purchase a product that has been deliberately made less secure?” asked Mr. Holt, the congressman. “Even if N.S.A. does it with the purest motive, it can ruin the reputations of billion-dollar companies.”

In addition, news that the N.S.A. is inserting vulnerabilities into widely used technologies could put American lawmakers and technology companies in a bind with regard to China.

Over the last two years, American lawmakers have accused two of China’s largest telecommunications companies, Huawei Technologies and ZTE, of doing something parallel to what the N.S.A. has done: planting back doors into their equipment to allow for eavesdropping by the Chinese government and military.

Both companies have denied collaborating with the Chinese government, but the allegations have eliminated the companies’ hopes for significant business growth in the United States. After an investigation last year, the House Intelligence Committee concluded that government agencies should be barred from doing business with Huawei and ZTE, and that American companies should avoid buying their equipment.

We will leave for another day, a discussion of the implications for voting integrity and democracy.

Common Sense: Public Transparency and Verifiability

In our last post in this series, Why Should Audits Be Independent, we ended with “When it comes to elections, are independent audits sufficient? Not really. We need public transparency and verifiability as well.” In this post, we will address transparency and verifiability.

Note: This is the eighth 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>

According to Wikipedia:

Transparency, as used in science, engineering, business, the humanities and in a social context more generally, implies openness, communication, and accountability. Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed.

According to Miriam Webster:

Verifiable: Capable of being verified: Verified: to establish the truth, accuracy, or reality of <verify the claim>

What we mean by Publicly Transparent and Verifiable is that members of the public can actually determine the election or audit outcome because the process is transparent in a way that allows the public to verify the result.

This goes beyond a call for independent audits. Independent audits require that we trust the auditors. Certainly an independent audit is more trustworthy than a non-independent audit, which in turn is seemingly better than no audit at all. Perhaps not. No audit at all, clearly provides little confidence the process beyond “trust me, and trust all officials in their integrity, in their competence, and in securing the process”.

Yet, a non-independent audit can provide a false sense of confidence. We can never be completely sure, even of an independent audit – the auditors may be biased, incompetent, sloppy, or compromised. Far fetched? We are not so sure, given the history of transgressions in all walks of live. Elections are especially vulnerable because of the central role they play in democracy and the requirement of the secret ballot, making end to end verification impossible.

But if audits, recounts, and elections are publicly transparent and verifyable, there is an alternative! Members of the public (and candidates) can judge the process and determine the results themselves. When it comes to audits and recounts, for hand counting, the public should be provided an opportunity to clearly see and verify,:

each ballot and vote on the ballot as it is being classified
that votes are correctly classified
that votes and ballots are counted correctly by counting teams in batches
that the totals are the valid sums of numbers determined by counting teams in batches
that consolidated reports are based on the numbers determined in audited or recounted districts

This is really the minimum for hand count audits and recounts. For audits and recounts (and elections) to be fully trusted, then the election day process must also be publicly transparent and verifiable and the chain-of-custody needs to also be publicly transparent and verifiable. Let us leave the voting process and the chain-of-custody for another day.

Overseas Vote Foundation, Voting Research Newsletter

Some important and fascinating information in the latest issue of the Voting Research Newsletter. In general there is some good news with regard to improvements over time in return rates of military ballots, yet several types of relevant data not collected or reported for specific states and for all states. Closer to home, Connecticut is one of the many states missing data.

Some important and fascinating information in the latest issue of the Voting Research Newsletter <read>

In general there is some good news with regard to improvements over time in return rates of military ballots, yet several types of relevant data not collected or reported for specific states and for all states. Closer to home, Connecticut is one of the many states missing data.

Some specific highlights we note (see the newsletter for charts and much more fascinating and important information):

THE IMPACT OF THE ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION OF BLANK BALLOTS IN 2012

…2012 proved to be a tipping point in the use of technology by military and overseas voters, as over 50% of survey respondents indicated using some form of electronic transmission to receive a blank ballot.

…Only 24 states were able to provide a breakdown of paper versus electronic ballots transmitted for the 2012

…Contrary to expectations of many in the election community, the preliminary data indicate that in most states (11 of the 16 respondents) electronic ballots had lower return rates.

…While the impact of electronic transmission of election material is unclear at this time, the overall ballot return rate suggests that the ability of UOCAVA voters to return their ballot on time may be a result of the MOVE Act mandate to send ballots 45 days before an election rather than electronic transmission methods.

…However, despite these improvements, about 25% of UOCAVA ballots are still not returned or their status remains unknown. Second, UOCAVA voter turnout has not increased, but appears relatively stable between 11% and 12%. Despite the new technology, the number of ballots transmitted in 2012 was lower than in 2008.

NEW FEDERAL REPORTS: LOOKING AT THE FVAP AND EAC’S 2012 REPORTS
[FVAP: Federal Voting Assistance Program. EAC: Election Assistance Commission.]
…With their 2012 report, the FVAP has done much to try and rectify the non-respondent bias in their survey.

…Unfortunately, the 2012 FVAP report does not consider overseas civilian voters. This is a significant flaw and as a result, any reported findings are overstated. The report, and its findings are limited to the population that has been studied (military) and does not take into account the diversity of the UOCAVA population, of which the FVAP is charged with fully serving.

…There are several other problematic elements in the report

…Both the FVAP and EAC reports have improved, but still suffer from inconsistencies within the reporting of the data. In 2014, the EAC and the FVAP will work together to improve the reporting process. In 2014, the EAC will consolidate their survey with FVAP’s local election official survey into one combined instrument. “The 2014 EAC survey is intended to meet the requirements of both the EAC and FVAP to collect election related statistics from local election officials.” The proposed 2014 survey is currently available for public comment.

Bankrupt city? Running out of common sense?

The worst possible action would be to throw the votes out and certify. That punishes the voters for actions of pollworkers and election supervisors. That would defy common senses and cancel democracy.

The election staff did not completely fill out write-in votes according to instructions, so a panel seems to be taking the least sensible approach, taking it out on the voters: Detroit mayor count in chaos as Wayne County refuses to certify primary results <read>

A state election panel will have to decide who really won the Detroit mayoral primary after Wayne County election officials on Tuesday refused to certify shocking new election results, which would have invalidated about 20,000 votes and handed the primary win to Benny Napoleon instead of Mike Duggan.

The county board was debating whether to invalidate more than 20,000 write-in votes that were not recorded at polling locations using hash marks, which would cause the result of the Aug. 6 primary to be flipped — with Napoleon, the Wayne County sheriff, receiving more votes than write-in candidate Duggan…

Counters for the Wayne County Board of Canvassers were unsure of what to do with votes that did not use a method known as “hash-marking,” where votes are counted individually on poll books. The 20,000 votes at issue were entered into the books with just the numerical number of votes, instead of hash marks.

The proper way for poll workers to keep track of write-in votes is shown in a manual the state provided county boards of canvassers in July 2010. The manual shows a sample poll book with hash marks corresponding with each vote cast for a declared write-in candidate. The hash marks then are to be added up for each declared write-in candidate and a total is to be recorded in each poll book.

The manual does not give instructions if hash marks are not recorded in the poll books.

It seems to us that there are two logical solutions:

Most accurate: Recount the votes in question and record them properly, recalculate, and certify.
Likely quite accurate: Accept the totals without hashmarks, unless there is a reason to believe they are incorrect. If so, recount.

The worst possible action would be to throw the votes out and certify. That punishes the voters for actions of pollworkers and election supervisors. Defies common senses and cancels democracy.