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Absentee/Mail-In voting in the news again

Today we have two reports highlighting the worst of the risks. i.e. mass mail voting, sending ballots unsolicited to voters and tracking ballots to voters, completely eliminating the secret vote. One good thing about tracking, apparently it shows dramatically the problems with error and fraud, as well as the lack of official concern with integrity.

We have long warned readers of the election integrity risks of absentee and mail-in voting, including stories of actual cases of mail voting fraud and error, as close as Bridgeport, Hartford, and East Long Meadow. Risks include vote selling, coercion, stealing ballots from mail boxes, false requests, loss in the mail, insider abuse in town hall, and ballots rejected by innocent mistakes. We believe that absentee and mail-in voting should be limited to cases where voters are overseas, out of town, or unable to go to the polling place.

The most amazing, instructive, and sad story from Washington State: <read>

San Juan County Superior Court Judge Donald E. Eaton ruled that a controversial voting system using voter-identifying barcodes on ballots is illegal. The system has been used for years in several Washington counties. Similar lawsuits are underway in Colorado.

Local voters and the San Juan County Green Party prevailed over former Secretary of State Sam Reed and San Juan County Auditor Milene Henley in a citizen suit originally brought by Orcas Island residents Tim White and Allan Rosato in 2006. The two seek to remove the unique ballot bar codes.

The system, dubbed VoteHere Mail-in Ballot Tracker (MiBT), is a paperless election tracking, processing and auditing software package. A series of processing station time stamps purports to track each ballot from the time it was sent to the voter to the time it was counted. On March 27 Judge Eaton ruled that MiBT is an integral part of the voting system, and required to undergo rigorous certification. State law prohibits voting systems not certified under the legislature’s program of public examination and expert testing.

White and Rosato decided to pursue the suit after intensive sampling of MiBT tracking data posted online by San Juan County in 2005. They documented anomalies suggesting inconsistent, impossible and changed ballot tracks for some ten percent of voters: ballots counted before they were received, two ballots accepted from the same voter, ballots received and counted though never sent out, and dozens received and signature-accepted but not counted. The two became even more concerned when, after they presented their findings and the election was certified, much of the inconsistent tracks were suddenly “fixed” with new entries-and then returned to its original confused state two months later.

Meanwhile the Colorado Legislature is close to passing a bill including several large changes in election laws. Some may be good ideas well legislated, others good ideas poorly legislated, and still others seem to be bad ideas destined to increase election integrity risks and leave more activities to election officials behind closed doors. ‘Fraud’ Controversy Over Sweeping CO Election Reform Bill Misses Mark by a Vote-by-Mail Mile <read>

An ambitious election reform bill supported by state Democrats and the Colorado County Clerks Association, which is largely made up of Republicans, will soon land on the desk of Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, despite the objections of Republican lawmakers and the state’s extraordinarily partisan Republican Sec. of State.

The bill has now been approved by both chambers of the Colorado legislature — along party lines in each — but must be approved again in the House due to “technical” amendments from the Senate. But while it may be too late, partisans and lawmakers would have been wise to look carefully before leaping in support of this bill which offers both excellent reforms and reasons to be very concerned about one of its central provisions…

House Bill 1303 seeks to expand voter participation mainly by establishing a system that includes same-day registration up to Election Day and that mails ballots to all eligible voters in the state. Under the proposed law, voters would choose whether to mail their ballots back to the clerks, drop them off at early voting centers or fill them out at the polls on Election Day.

Tomasic goes on to explain that the bill, dubbed “The Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act”, is sponsored by Democrats in both the CO House and Senate, but it’s “based on a plan approved by a large bipartisan majority of clerks who run the state’s elections county to county. The Colorado County Clerks Association reports that 75 percent of the 64 clerks in the state support the bill. The Association is anything but a left-wing cabal: At least 44 of the clerks, some 70 percent, are Republican officeholders.”

Misgivings about a decision, or the result in retrospect?

at the end of their careers or in retirement, justices tend to figure out where they screwed up. … Now we see that in retirement, O’Connor is still pining about Bush v. Gore.

Talking Points Memo has one of several articles on Sandra Day O’Connor and Gore v. Bush How Sandra Day O’Connor’s Vote In Bush v. Gore Helped Unravel Her Own Legacy <read>

Thirteen years after her pivotal swing vote in Bush v. Gore, retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is suggesting it was a mistake for the Supreme Court to take up the case, lamenting as many scholars have that it tarnished the Court’s reputation. But there’s another, indirect casualty of the fallout from the hyper-controversial 2000 case that effectively settled the presidential election for George W. Bush: O’Connor’s own legacy.

In a bit of historical irony, when O’Connor retired in 2006, the man she helped make president replaced her with Samuel Alito, a staunch conservative who proceeded to unravel several major rulings where O’Connor had held the swing vote and had shaped the law — most notably on abortion, campaign finance and racial diversity in education…

Speaking to the Chicago Tribune editorial board last Friday, O’Connor said the Supreme Court “took the case [Bush v. Gore] and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue. Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’” She lamented that “probably the Supreme Court added to the problem” when all was said and done.

Sadly, the issue is not if George Bush did a good, poor, or disastrous job and how the decision worked out. The issue is trust in our election system; did we have a legitimate government? What the Court did was conform and harden the 1876 decision that the 12th Amendment and Electoral Count Act are more about formality that about choosing the President as the voters intended. They also followed a long tradition of courts and bodies justifying decisions that somehow usually accord with the p0litical preferences of those bodies and ‘deciders’.

National Popular Vote Risks – Think Before You Encourage Passage

We are getting the annual emails requesting that voters encourage the Connecticut General Assembly to join only eight other states and the District of Columbia that have signed on to the National Popular Vote Agreement/Compact since 2007. There are many reasons to the like the concept of one person one vote, however, there are strong reasons to require that the current system be corrected first, in order that we actually have a fair, credible, and accurate process. Without a trusted, equal, auditable, recountable uniform national election system for President, it is not worth the risks. The devil is truly in the details.

We recommend reviewing our op-ed from earlier this year: Voting Requires Vigilance. Popular Isn’t Always Prudent<read>

And William Cibes op-ed from last year The “National Popular Vote” Interstate Compact Is a Bad Idea <read>

Or Chris DeSanctis echoing Daniel Patrick Moynihan NO: Electoral College Votes Should Represent State Voters’ Choice <read>

For even more in depth discussion see our testimony, earlier this year <read>

Ironic: U.S. calls for increased election integrity … in Venezuela

This is about as ironic as it gets. First the United States has no mechanism for a full recount or audit of its national elections. Second, the call officially comes from John Kerry who overruled his friends, advisers, and supporters to throw in the towel early on the day after the Nov 2004 election, in spite of massive charges of fraud in Ohio – allegations, since largely justified.

The U.S. called for a recount of the Venezuelan election: <read>

The United States is hesitating to recognise Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela and has called for a recount of the vote from Sunday’s closely fought election. The procrastination is likely to embolden Venezuela’s opposition and enrage many on the left in Latin America, who have long accused the US of interfering in the region’s politics. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said he had yet to evaluate whether the disputed result was legitimate when asked about the matter by members of the House of Representatives. “We think there ought to be a recount,”

This is about as ironic as it gets. First the United States has no mechanism for a full recount or audit of its national elections. Only about half the states have recount laws for close votes Even those are in question since the Supreme Court ruling in Gore v. Bush that just in the one state of Florida recounts could not be completed because of time and inadequate consistency. Second, the call officially comes from John Kerry who overruled his friends, advisers, and supporters to throw in the towel early on the day after the Nov 2004 election, in spite of massive charges of fraud in Ohio – allegations, since largely justified.

We remember not so long ago another President saying “We need to fix” our election system. We recall letters from scientists, officials, and advocates calling for better audit and recounts, along with paper ballots for the country. We note the President ignored those calls from his own country for such reforms. Instead that President called only for needed, yet superficial, reforms to shorten lines on election day.

How good is Venezuela’s election system? At least one former President who should know, Jimmy Carter, calls it the best in the world! <read>

The Carter Center, founded by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in 1982, is a non-profit human rights organization with a self-described emphasis on â??seeking to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health around the world. Founder and former President Jimmy Carter recently stated “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world” Hector Vanolli, director of the Carter Center in Venezuela, says that the automization (is this a word?) of every step of the process, from pre-election voter registration, to election day voting, to post ballot tallying, along with its auditability, is what sets the Venezuelan electoral system apart from other countries.

Yet not to let a question go unanswered, Venezeula announced last night that it will audit 46% of its elections. Why 46%? Because the automatically audited 54%, way beyond what any state in the U.S. audits. <read>

Bills Approved Earlier by the GAE Committee

As promised, comments on earlier bills passed through the Government Administration and Elections Committee.

As promised, comments on other bills passed through the Government Administration and Elections Committee.

S.B. 901 Post-Election Audits This bill would allow officials to perform the post-election audit by counting with an identical AccuVote-OS scanner and memory card. Connecticut would go down as in history as the first state to effectively kill post-election audits. Machine Assisted Audits that are publicly verifiable are possible, but not this way.

S.B. 1058 Destroying Unused Absentee Ballots By Town Clerks We would like to see a comprehensive strengthening and standardization of the retention of all ballots. Currently clerks retain voted absentee ballots in manila envelopes in unnumbered tamper evident tape, for six months or twenty-two months. Polling place ballots are retained for the same period by registrars, and are sealed in bags with numbered tamper evident seals, for only fourteen days. Without comprehensive reform, this is essentially a harmless bill.

S.B. 1118 Prohibits Some Criminals From Certification As Moderators A common sense idea, although we know of none who have been. We would like to see the same criminals prevented from becoming Registrars of Voters and Registrars at minimum required to be certified as Moderators.

S.B. 6630 Allowing Delivery of Absentee Ballots At An Agreed Upon Time Codifying what is largely already the actual practice.

H.B. 6635 Requiring Election Results To Be Certified By Local Officials Seven Days After An Election We would be for this bill if an earlier or later date were chosen. Recanvasses must be complete eight days after an election. Specifying seven days is too late to cause a necessary recanvass, and too short to reflect the difference made by a recanvass. Looks like more work at a less than useful time.

S.B. 647 A Report On Laws To Be Changed For Online Voting We see no need for another report. We know it is risky, we know it is unconstitutional. Better than S.B. 283 that mandates fax and email voting this year, just like the bill vetoed by Governor Malloy last year.

S.B. 432 National Popular Vote Agreement/Compact An act we have long opposed because it would make a flawed system for electing the President even worse. We would be in favor of the popular election of the President if we had a, verifiablyaccurate, uniform, enforceable, and enforceable election system.

S.B. 433 Creating a Democracy Index A well intentioned idea to collect, publish, and track data around election performance. We like the idea, but will remain skeptical until we see what is collected, how accurately it is collected, and if the program is well done for several cycles. Otherwise it may just produce some feel good statistics or be quietly ignored. As Norman Augustine said, tong in cheek, “Most projects start off kind of slow, and then sort of taper off”.

H.B. 5999 Provisional Ballots For State And Municipal Offices A good idea, still needed even with Election Day Registration. e.g. When a voter claims to be eligible to register or to vote when already checked-off and officials question that.

H.J. 36 To Change The Constitution To Allow The Legislature To Decide Early Voting We supported this because the Legislature may be in a better position to choose and correct voting methods than the blunt method of specific Constitutional Amendment. But we wonder some times when we see inadequate early voting bills proposed to take effect before and amendment, after years of insisting an amendment is necessary. Either it is or it is not necessary – pass one set of bills with confidence or perhaps face court challenges.

Committee Approves 39 Bills In Last Meeting

The Government Administration and Elections Committee met for the last time before its deadline to consider and approve 39 bills. After an hour long Democratic caucus they discussed the bills for about three hours. In honor of the late Roger Ebert we provide graphic summaries of our comments.

The Government Administration and Elections Committee met for the last time before its deadline to consider and approve 39 bills. After an hour long Democratic caucus they discussed the bills for about three hours. <agenda> In honor of the late Roger Ebert we provide graphic summaries of our comments.

S.B. 4 Early Voting This would mandate early voting for eight days before each state (even year) election. We are not against early voting, yet this bill needs more details to protect voters and guide officials, especially in the areas of ballot security, registration, and check-in coordination. It also might be unconstitutional. It will be quite costly, especially for small towns. It also includes an unrelated provision attempting to force the Secretary of the State and Registrars to limit lines to 15 minutes at most.

S.B. 5 Campaign Finance Disclosure This bill would increase disclosure requirements for independent campaign spending, including listing top donors in advertisements. Ironically for disclosure, a similar bill last was written behind closed doors, with no opportunity for testimony, and later a “rat” provision for email and fax military voting was added. We are half-way to a better process this year, and hopefully to passage of a clean bill for cleaner campaigns.

S.B 1146 Ending Cross Endorsements From the discussion almost no member of the GAE was in favor of the bill. It seems only Senate President, Senator Williams is in favor. Several members echoed the public testimony all but uniformly against the bill. They appreciated the cross endorsements they have received, said the bill was a “solution in search of a problem”, noted cross endorsements might decrease the spoiler effect and enliven democracy. Several said maybe there was a way to reduce “voter confusion”. Our take is that there is no voter confusion, but registrar confusion and resistance to the straight-forward, yet bothersome allocation of dual votes for the same candidates to parties. Most confusing to the public, is the many members who voted for the bill after speaking against it.

S.B. 777 Allowing Voters To Be Checked-in Electronically We favor electronic check-in. It is not proven to speed up lines, it might slow them down a bit, requiring more pollworkers. But done well it can make check-in more accurate and updating who voted faster and more accurate. With connectivity it could cut down calls to the registrars office for voters who have moved, and let voters check-in in any line. We testified against the original bill because it set no standards for electronic check-in equipment and processes. UPDATED. Based on reviewing the approved bill, not yet online, we are pleased that the Committee took our advice and required approval of check-in equipment by the Secretary of the State.

S.B. 778 Consolidation of Polling Places for Primaries We are all for allowing for the consolidation of polling places for primaries. Many towns do this already for referendums. The Governor vetoed this bill last year because he said it might be confusing to voters and the provision for secret objection by candidates. We agree with the Governor on the second point, we do not see how such objections would actually remain secret. We do not know if we would veto it just for that, but would much rather see only an-on-the-record public objection.

H.B. 5600 Making Rulings, Instructions, and Opinions Issued by The Secretary of the State Enforceable We asked for something similar several years ago. We see this bill is unchanged from the original draft. We would like it to include regulations which are not currently agreed to be enforceable. We would like it to require a specific posting method for all such items and require them to cite this law. We like the provision that voter ID requirements be posted in all polling places. Overall we would be pleased to seethis become law.

S.B. 729 Pilot Program for Early Voting in Municipal Elections. Allows up to nine towns of varying sizes to apply to pilot early voting, this November. We are all for pilot programs. We are concerned that this on lacks the same security and check-in requirements of S.B. 4 discussed earlier. It requires a report by the Secretary of the State by last January, (hopefully to be corrected) . We wish that report were specifically required to cover costs, security, and check-in coordination issues. We also wonder how many towns, especially small towns will be willing to pay for a pilot. We are also concerned that it will simply result in a feel-good approval of the idea, especially if New Haven pilots in the first open mayoral race in years, almost guaranteed to increase turnout. Overall we hope some valuable lessons will be learned, but have concerns with constitutionality.

H.B 6111 Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act We testified against this bill. It was a sketchy, blank-check, with many potential provisions that required scrutiny for coordination with existing law, especially for primaries, special elections, and referendums. Maybe the GAE listened to us. The resulting bill will help military and overseas voters, but only apply to elections. We cannot be sure of all the details – registrars would know more if there were any conflicting provisions. It calls for a bit of work on the part of the Secretary of the State, but is missing deadlines for those requirements – that can be good or bad in this case. We are pleased to be able to support this bill which will help military and overseas voters.

S.B. 283 Email and Fax Military Voting. We remain opposed to all forms of Internet voting: online, fax, or email. This is the same concept stuck in the campaign finance bill last year, without hearings. The same bill vetoed by Governor Malloy because email and fax voting is risky and unconstitutional. We cannot figure out the GAE this year, passing this bill and passing earlier S.B. 647 which mandates for a report from the Secretary of the State due next January on how email and fax voting could be accomplished and how the law would need to change. One representative keeps calling this a “Veterans Bill”. This veteran does not get how it helps anyone to risk votes and destroy the secret vote guaranteed by the Connecticut Constitution.

H.B 5903 Resolving Tie Votes A sensible minor change requiring that after tie votes, only the tied candidates should be on the ballot for the run-off election.

H.J. 3 Resolution To Congress RE: Protecting Free Speech Rights of Persons Against the assault of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

So much for one day. In the next few days, I will go back and do the same for the bills approved earlier in the session. Given past practices, many of these bills may change dramatically going forward and be consolidated together or into other bills, so our assessments may change.

Op-Ed: Internet Voting Security; Wishful Thinking Doesn’t Make It True

This was a simple online poll that was easily compromised. Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved. Before we entrust critical public functions such as voting to such software, the public deserves a solid demonstration that such claims are truly substantiated, and policy makers need to be schooled in a proper skepticism about computer security. That has not yet happened.

“Internet Voting Security; Wishful Thinking Doesn’t Make It True”

Duncan Buell

On March 21, in the midst of Kentucky’s deliberation over allowing votes to be cast over the Internet, its daily poll asked its readers, “Should overseas military personnel be allowed to vote via the Internet?” This happened the day before their editorial rightly argued against Internet voting at this time.

One of the multiple choice answers was “Yes, it can be made just as secure as any balloting system.” This brings up the old adage, “we are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.” The simple fact is that Internet voting is possible – but it is definitely NOT as secure as some other balloting systems. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact. Votes cast over the Internet are easily subject to corruption in a number of different ways.

To illustrate this point, two colleagues of mine wrote simple software scripts that allowed us to vote multiple times in the paper’s opinion poll. We could have done this with repeated mouse clicks on the website, but the scripts allowed us to do it automatically, and by night’s end we had voted 60,000 times. The poll vendor’s website claims that it blocks repeated voting, but that claim is clearly not entirely true. We did not break in to change the totals. We did not breach the security of the Courier-Journal’s computers. We simply used programs instead of mouse clicks to vote on the poll website itself.

Some policy makers are wishing that the net were secure and the security promises of vendors were true, and they are not listening to the computer experts who know otherwise. Why shouldn’t we entrust computer voting security to government and its vendors? Ask that of South Carolina taxpayers; hackers have shipped overseas all tax records and identifying information from 1998 to 2012. Wishful thinking is dangerous when it causes us to fail to protect our best interests; we must defend our data just as we defend our shores.

This was a simple online poll that was easily compromised. Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved. Before we entrust critical public functions such as voting to such software, the public deserves a solid demonstration that such claims are truly substantiated, and policy makers need to be schooled in a proper skepticism about computer security. That has not yet happened.

There is an irony in hacking an online poll about whether voting can be hacked. But it points to a much-needed dialogue between policy makers and computer security experts. Elections are too important to be entrusted, without proof, to the marketing hype of an Internet voting company. The nation’s real elections should be decided by the voters in the nation’s jurisdictions, not by whichever entity – foreign or domestic – happens to have the best software bots running on any given biennial Tuesday in November.

As Professor Buell points out “Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved.”. That has been tested once, in Washington, D.C. and the result was exposure of a clearly insufficient Internet voting system.

For now we await vendors willing to subject their systems to ongoing rigorous professional and open public adversarial testing. We admit it will take a lot to satisfy us that systems are sufficiently secure from outsiders and insiders. But it seems vendors are hardly willing try.

PS: Not so long ago another newspaper’s poll was compromised, by parties and methods not disclosed, will little lessons learned by the newspaper.

Kentucky and Connecticut (for now) choose to evaluate online voting

We are not done in Connecticut, even for this year. Two other bills are still in play. A competing online voting bill, and the UMOVEA bill. The last Committee meeting that can approve bills is Friday April 5th. Perhaps the competing bill will be dropped or also changed to a study. Perhaps the UMOVEA bill was mentioned because it contains provisions to help military vote, but likely not provisions for online voting. Beyond that all bills are subject to dramatic change and consolidation prior to votes by the Senate and House. Like last year, a section authorizing online voting could be stuffed into any other bill by the Committee, even a bill otherwise especially attractive the Governor.

This week Kentucky and Connecticut chose to evaluate online, email, and fax voting for the military.

On Thursday, Kentucky the Secretary of the State is a strong proponent of Military voting. The Legislature has been pushing back and finally chose to support online delivery of ballots (required by the Federal MOVE Act for Federal elections) and to study electronic returns <read>

Kentucky military personnel serving overseas will be able to get ballots electronically under legislation approved late Tuesday in the Kentucky General Assembly. How they send them back is still to be determined. Working until the last minute of the 2013 session, legislators went back to the original Senate version of the military voting bill that allowed for electronic sending of ballots to overseas military, but snail mail return of the ballot. The legislation also establishes a task force to study electronic returns—the preferred method of Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. The task force will address safety concerns with that option.

Like many individuals and articles, the Kentucky article assumes the alternative to electronic return is “snail mail”, ignoring the option of free express return for Federal elections and the options of states paying for free express mail in other elections – hard to imagine a price approaching the $1000 a ballot typical of online military voting. Hard to imagine anything more risky than email and fax voting.

In 2011 the Connecticut Legislature went through a similar trajectory with online(*) voting opposed by Secretary of the State Merrill. Near the end of the session the bill was changed from a mandate to a requirement that the Secretary provide a report on online voting. She responded with a Symposium on Online Voting, with national experts. By our count about 50-60 voters attended, including only three legislators <video> At least one who attended was not impressed, another who did not attend was also not impressed <read> Given the developments in 2012 and 2013 very few, if any, Legislators were impressed.

Undeterred in 2012, fax and email voting, with no public hearings was stuffed into an emergency bill for campaign finance. That bill ended in a veto by Governor Malloy, based partially on the risks of such voting and the unconstitutionality of violating the right of a secret vote. <read>

On Wednesday the Connecticut GAE Committee passed a bill forward asking for a report from the Secretary of the State, not yet available online with the rest of the information on the bill:

AN ACT CONCERNING VOTING BY MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY SERVING OVERSEAS.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:

Section 1. (NEW) (Effective from passage) The Secretary of the State, in consultation with the Military Department, shall develop a method for returning any ballot issued pursuant to section 9-153f of the general statutes that (1) may be used by any elector or applicant for admission as an elector who is a member of the armed forces and expects to be living or traveling outside the several states of the United States and the District of Columbia before and on election day, or such member’s spouse or dependent if living where such member is stationed, (2) gives due consideration to the interests of maintaining the security of such ballot and the privacy of information contained on such ballot, and (3) guarantees the immediate receipt of such ballot if such method is properly utilized by such member or member’s spouse or dependent prior to the closing of polls on the day of the election or primary. Not later than January 1, 2014, the Secretary of the State shall submit a report, in accordance with section 11-4a of the general statutes, to the joint standing committees of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to elections and veterans’ and military affairs describing such method and any legislative changes necessary for its implementation.

The bill does not seem to expect the Secretary to object, but to design a method that meets the requirements of the bill. Even so, it is a tall order. A quick analysis suggests:

“Guaranteeing Immediate Receipt” would seem to preclude email voting since email is neither immediate nor guaranteed.
Also “Guaranteeing Immediate Receipt” would likely preclude a state centralized fax or web based voting system unless the law were changed to classify that central receipt as sufficient to equal official receipt by the Town Clerk, which is now required for absentee ballots.
Including “member’s spouse or dependent” would seem to preclude email or web based return by Military computers – we doubt the Military authorizes use for such dependents.
Gives “gives due consideration to the interests of maintaining the security of such ballot and the privacy of information contained on such ballot” would seem to require consideration and adherence to the Connecticut Constitution’s requirement that “The right of secret voting shall be preserved”. Short of requiring a change to the Connecticut Constitution, email and fax voting would be precluded as demonstrated by the text of last year’s bill requiring an unconstitutional waiver of secret voting for email and fax voting.
Perhaps at a huge cost, commercial online web voting systems could be judged, or better still proven to not violate the secret ballot.
Another issue, perhaps especially with online web voting, is the issue of a voter-verified-paper-record required by all voting machines in state law. In any of these online methods neither the state nor local officials have a voter-verified-paper-record. Of course that law could be changed if necessary or overridden in specific cases.

We are not done in Connecticut, even for this year. Responding to objections to only a study by some GAE Committee members, a co-chair said that two other bills were still in play. A competing online voting bill, and the UMOVEA bill. The last Committee meeting that can approve bills is Friday April 5th. Perhaps the competing bill will be dropped or also changed to a study. Perhaps the UMOVEA bill was mentioned because it contains provisions to help military vote, but likely not provisions for online voting. Beyond that all bills are subject to dramatic change and consolidation prior to votes by the Senate and House. Like last year, a section authorizing online voting could be stuffed into any other bill by the Committee, even a bill otherwise especially attractive the Governor.

* As a long time computer scientist, programming computers since 1966, the term “online” to me is an application with a person using a computer tied to a central database. To me, “Online voting” in 2013 would be a voter entering votes on a web page to be entered into a database. But the common usage for “online voting” seems to include creating a .pdf and submitting it through a web page, emailing votes, and even using fax for submitting votes. I would call that all “Internet voting”, since the phone system used for faxing and calling these days is difficult to distinguish from the internet (with a small ‘i’). But for clarity I have started using “online web voting” for any method of voting involving interactive access to a system designed specifically to collect votes or voted ballots.

Testimony on two bills – Disclosure and Early Voting

Almost all the legislators from both parties made “political hay” (that is intended as a cliche like “fox in the hen house”) out of former and future candidate for Governor, Tom Foley’s testimony on legislative ethics. He admitted authorship of questionable concepts not worded to match his intent. I can only wonder what would happen if all bills were required to identify the author? Would I have tempered my remarks on early voting, had everyone known the source of that inadequate and contradictory text? Would the result be less bills with better text?

Yesterday, the Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on several bills covering political ad disclosure, ending cross-endorsements, Legislative conflicts of interest, and early voting. I testified in favor of more disclosure and urged that early voting be sent back to the drawing board <Prepared Remarks> <Disclosure> <Early Voting>

Earlier in the session I complained about bills being too sketchy to testify for or against, including early voting. This time we had a longer early voting bill full of holes and, as I said in my testimony ,it “couples omissions with ambiguity”. George Cody, Registrar, New Canaan and I each found several glitches the other one of us missed.

Please defer action on early voting for a time when Connecticut is prepared to pay for it. And when there is time to develop and hear testimony on a detailed bill with guarantees of protection and voter service.

Almost all the legislators from both parties made “political hay” (that is intended as a cliche like “fox in the henhouse”) out of former and future candidate for Governor, Tom Foley’s testimony on legislative ethics. He admitted authorship of questionable concepts not worded to match his intent. I can only wonder what would happen if all bills were required to identify the author? Would I have tempered my remarks on early voting, had everyone known the source of that inadequate and contradictory text? Would the result be less bills with better text?

[Why NOT] Let Overseas Military Fax Votes Home ?

Connecticut does need to improve the voting process for military voters — but Internet voting is not the answer.

Every day, headlines reveal just how vulnerable and insecure any online network really is, and how sophisticated, tenacious and skilled today’s attackers are. Just last week, we learned that the U.S. has already experienced our first-ever documented attack on an election system, when a grand jury report revealed that someone hacked into the Miami-Dade primary elections system in August 2012.

Earlier in March, the Courant ran an editorial in favor of online, email, and fax early voting: Let Overseas Military Fax Votes Home <read>

We have testified twice this year against this risky, expensive, unconstitutional concept, providing information on safer, economical alternatives <here> <here>

Today, to its credit, the Courant published an op-ed by Pam Smith of VerifiedVoting. org, articulating Why Not: Internet Voting Puts Election Security At Risk <read>

Connecticut lawmakers are considering legislation to allow military voters to cast ballots over the Internet. The intention of this legislation is well-meaning — Connecticut does need to improve the voting process for military voters — but Internet voting is not the answer.

Every day, headlines reveal just how vulnerable and insecure any online network really is, and how sophisticated, tenacious and skilled today’s attackers are. Just last week, we learned that the U.S. has already experienced our first-ever documented attack on an election system, when a grand jury report revealed that someone hacked into the Miami-Dade primary elections system in August 2012.

A chilling account in The Washington Post recently reported that most government entities in Washington, including congressional offices, federal agencies, government contractors, embassies, news organizations, think tanks and law firms, have been penetrated by Chinese hackers.

They join a long list that includes the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense, Bank of America, and on and on. These organizations have huge cybersecurity budgets and the most robust security tools available, and they have been unable to prevent hacking. Contrary to popular belief, online voting systems would not be any more secure.

Not surprisingly, a senior cybersecurity official with the Department of Homeland Security warned election officials last year that online voting is premature and not advisable at this time. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (the federal body tasked with researching Internet voting) issued a statement shortly after, warning that secure Internet voting is not feasible with the tools currently available. Because the agency determined that Internet voting cannot be done securely, it has not developed testing or certification standards for systems.

So why are state lawmakers considering online voting for the military?

First, there is a mistaken perception that because we can shop and bank online, we should be able to vote online securely. But shopping or banking online are far from secure. Banks and online merchants lose billions every year to online fraud. They factor this into the cost of doing business.

There is, however, no acceptable level of vote fraud or manipulation. Moreover, elections have unique properties that are unlike banking or e-commerce. In a financial transaction, both parties can check each online transaction by reviewing a statement or receipt. But we vote by a secret ballot. Neither the voter nor the election official can verify that a ballot has been received the same way it was sent. This makes online voting especially susceptible to undetected hacking.

Second, we have seen a big push for Internet voting (including via email and digital fax) because the vendors of online voting systems have targeted state lawmakers and election officials with aggressive marketing and sales campaigns. The vendors have made extraordinary claims of security and auditability — all of which are unsubstantiated by any publicly reviewable research or documentation. None of these systems are subject to any standardized security testing or certification and claims of security are backed only by the vendors’ words.

There are things we can do to improve the voting process for our military voters without risking the integrity of their ballots or the security of our elections.

We can:

1. Move registration deadlines closer to the election. Virginia did this in 2012 and it paid big dividends, allowing service members to receive and return their ballots up to Election Day.

2. Allow our troops to use the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot to register and vote. Many states now allow service members to do both. It’s the military voter equivalent of Election Day Voter Registration. This widely used, practical reform would make absentee voting much easier for service members stationed outside of Connecticut.

3. Count military ballots postmarked by Election Day, and received seven days after. This would still give election officials enough time to count the ballots before certification, and would give our troops an opportunity to vote on Election Day.

Our legislators are right to act to improve voting for our brave men and women in uniform, but online voting is not yet the answer. Instead, the General Assembly should look to make the voting process easier and more accessible with some simple, common-sense improvements.