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GMO Danger: CALEA II (Government Modified Operating system)

Last week a group of computer security experts issued a warning about a proposed expansion of government spying know as CALEA II (Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Assistance) being considered for “wire” tap expansion.

The report if anything understates the risks. Further, if you believe that, in general, government can be incompetent, that makes this plan even less effective and more risky.

Abstract: The U.S. government is proposing to expand wiretap design laws broadly to Internet services , including voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services and other peer – to – peer tools that allow communications in real – time directly between individuals. This report explains how mandating wiretap capabilities in endpoints poses serious security risks. Requiring software vendors to build intercept functionality into their products is unwise and will be ineffective, with the result being serious consequences for the economic well – being and national security of the United States

This is serious. The report if anything understates the risks. To me, this crux of the problem is summarized by the dangers to operating system end points:

All networks, software , and communication tools that support “lawful intercept” include features that are designed to breach the confidentiality of communications without detection by any party involved in the communication . When parties communicate using services with such features , there is a n increased likelihood that an unauthorized and/or malicious adversary with the right technical knowledge and access to the system could capture communications contents without detection. The general nature of CALEA – style mandates and the necessarily clandestine nature of intercept mechanisms increase security risks further.

The cleverest and most dangerous cyber – attackers are those who are able to not only compromise a system but also to evade detection. T hat is also precisely the objective of a government surveillance solution: to compromise communications without detection. W e know that communications networks and services are increasingly the subject of exploitation , often because of unintended and not very well – hidden vulnerabilities . Wiretap capabilities can be uniquely dangerous precisely because they are developed to be hidden, both in design and in application. Wiretaps are designed to be kept secret from both the parties involved in the communication and also from anyone else that does not have a “need to know” in order to execute the tap (including employees of the service provider who are on the alert for system compromises) . This requirement for obscurity increases the security risks further because it increases the possibility that a malicious communications intercept could be effectuated with low risk of discovery…

Furthermore, for the many products that are open source, it will be trivial for someone to build and redistribute software without the monitoring capability. This sort of “fork” is not exceptional, but rather common. The nature of Open Source software is that people take it, make small modifications, and redistribute. To provide two especially relevant examples, Iron is a fork of Google Chrome that focuses on improved privacy , and the Tor Project maintains its own version of Firefox that is designed to allow private anonymous communications on the Internet under extremely adversarial conditions, such as dissident users in Iran or China. If U.S. software vendors are forced to introduce wiretap capability , it seems certain that there will be non – U.S. forks of popular7open source communications packages that do not allow such access. Moreover, this likelihood of non – compliant forks being developed is not limited to open source software, but also potentially relevant to proprietary, closed – source products , albeit with more effort by the fork’s developers . For instance, just as it is possible to “jailbreak” proprietary phone operating system software by downloading a program that “tweaks” the software, disabling monitoring capability in wiretap – modified software may be as easy as clicking a link and running a small program that can disable intercept functionality.

It is important to understand that because these systems are built on open standards, modified software without lawful intercept capability will be able to interoperate with systems with the intercept capability and with unmodified systems. To take an extreme example, say that all U.S. – made Web browsers support CALEA II, thus allowing wiretapping of any WebRTC session. Two users who desire unmonitorable communications need only download secure foreign – made versions of one of the major browsers and they can make secure calls using exactly the same infrastructure as those that must use compliant versions . We should expect that any user who is concerned about monitoring — including many potential monitoring targets — would obtain and use a n unmonitorable version of a given product or service . Ironically, then, potential terrorists may easily be able to u se stronger security than the U.S. government, which is less likely to install non – U.S. forks of these programs.

So,

The bad guys and all of us good guys can easily find ways of defeating the risk of compromise.
But how many of us can be sure those safe versions actually are safe? They could block the government and open up our communications to others instead. Or maybe its just another trick version from the U.S.
But the government and perhaps most businesses regulated by business would likely be required to not protective actions
This would be a great tool for interfering with the electric grid, nuclear power plants, the communications grid, etc.
How about insider trading? A great tool for learning all sorts of information which will effect interest rates, stock, or commodity prices.

If you believe that, in general, government can be incompetent, that makes this plan even less effective and more risky.

LA: Two campigns debate absentee ballot fraud. Meanwhile in Hartford and New Haven plans to prove early voting works.

In La, apparently there is evidence and no disagreement that fraud occurred. The issue is which campaign did it. Maybe it is both? Absentee voting is a convenience, not just for voters, it really helps fraudsters as well.

Cash strapped New Haven would be a bad place to test early voting in 2013. It is the first competitive election in New Haven in 20 years. Turnout is all but guaranteed to increase – early voting or not – we can predict that early voting would get the credit.

Apparently there is evidence and no disagreement that fraud occurred. The issue is which campaign did it. Maybe it is both? Absentee voting is a convenience, not just for voters, it really helps fraudsters as well.

Brad Friedman reviews the story and reflects the same concerns with mail voting that we have: Absentee Ballot Fraud Allegations in L.A. Underscore (Again) Dangers of Vote-By-Mail <read>

The BRAD BLOG has long detailed the dangers of Vote-by-Mail and absentee balloting, describing the practice as “terrible for democracy,” for a number of reasons. Among those reasons are the ease by which absentee ballots can be undetectably gamed, bought or sold, used for intimidation (“Show me that you voted this particular way or you will be fired/beaten, etc.”) or otherwise lost in the mail, never added to the optically-scanned computer tally, etc., just to name a few.

Usually when we point these matters out, we’ll get some amount of push back, most notably from someone from Oregon, where many voters love their all Vote-by-Mail elections (despite all the dangers, as demonstrated once again by the recent stories out of the state where, in one, a man was convicted of fraud after offering $20 for blank, unvoted ballots prior to the 2012 election, and another where an election official was charged with fraud after it was discovered she was filling in unvoted races in favor of Republicans while processing incoming mailed ballots.)

Those allegations in Oregon are new to us. It just confirms that claims that everything is fine with their all mail-in system are not justified.

Meanwhile in LA, from the LA Times as quoted by Brad:

Prosecutors are investigating allegations of voter fraud in Little Armenia, part of a Los Angeles City Council district where two candidates are waging a bitter battle for an open seat.

According to a spokeswoman for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, prosecutors are trying to determine whether backers of one candidate illegally filled out mail-in ballots for dozens of voters in the Armenian enclave in East Hollywood. The May 21 election will decide who succeeds Eric Garcetti, who is running for mayor…

The complaint alleges that O’Farrell campaign workers filled out voters’ ballots for their candidate while telling them they were voting for Sam Kbushyan, a candidate of Armenian descent who ran and lost during the primary election.

Kbushyan and many of his former campaign volunteers are now working on behalf of O’Farrell.

The O’Farrell campaign rebuts the allegations, saying it was [opposition candidate John] Choi workers who filled out and took ballots from voters. “These are Choi people who are doing this,” O’Farrell spokeswoman Renee Nahum said.

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, for Hartford Courant Editorial Board, anything goes, it supports the safer option in-person early voting and unlimited absentee voting : Early Voting Options May Be Premature <read>

Changes that might be in the offing could include early voting in all its manifestations: no-excuse absentee voting, voting before Election Day at the precinct or a voting center, voting by mail and so forth.

As it stands now, the Connecticut Constitution forbids early voting in statewide elections except for voters casting absentee ballots under very strict circumstances such as illness, infirmity, religious proscriptions or being absent from the state on Election Day. This narrow early-voting rule could be scrapped by the legislature if the constitutional amendment is approved by voters.

As for the early-voting pilot program in this year’s municipal elections being pushed by three New Haven representatives: Lawmakers need to ask state Attorney General George Jepsen for an opinion on its legality.

As for the early-voting pilot program in this year’s municipal elections being pushed by three New Haven representatives: Lawmakers need to ask state Attorney General George Jepsen for an opinion on its legality…

The state constitution doesn’t speak specifically to the question of voting early in municipal elections. Neither did then-Attorney General Richard Blumenthal specifically address local elections in a 2009 informal opinion to lawmakers saying a constitutional amendment would be required to permit no-excuse absentee voting in Connecticut.

The pilot might pass constitutional muster — or it might not.

Early voting will spur turnout in elections for local office. Far too few voters go to the polls to choose mayors, selectmen and members of boards of education and finance. Low turnout drains the life from municipal government, the level of government closest to the people.

We agree that the Constitutionality should be evaluated. Where we also disagree is the claim that forms of early voting increases turnout. They increase convenience, yet are proven by the best science available to actually decrease turnout.

Online voting system names winners in Canada

As the Connecticut General Assembly contemplates online voting, we should contemplate r the implications of the recent Liberal Party online vote. In this case it was a landslide. What if it was very very close? Or there were polls saying the other candidate should have won by a comfortable or small margin?

Bonus: 2,904 reasons in New York City alone, that Internet banking and Internet voting can be costly.

As the Connecticut General Assembly contemplates online voting, we should contemplate the implications of the recent Liberal Party online vote. In this case it was a landslide. What if it was very very close? Or there were polls saying the other candidate should have won by a comfortable or even a small margin? Would we trust the result? Should we?

Canada’s Liberal Party Holds Online Primaries While Security Experts Scowl <read>

Canada’s Liberal party elected a new leader last week. And for the first time in the party’s history, the voting took place online. Justin Trudeau, the telegenic son of the late Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s most famous prime minister, won in a landslide with over 80 per cent of the vote. But online voting critics say that despite the decisive results, the Internet remains an unsafe place to cast your vote.

Impossible to ensure security and anonymity

“If the Conservative party want to select the next Liberal party leader, this provides them with the perfect opportunity,” says Dr. Barbara Simons, an online voting expert, and co-author (with Douglas Jones) of Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count? “I am not saying the Conservatives would do this — I’m just saying this is a very foolish and irresponsible thing for Liberals to be doing, because they open themselves up to vote-rigging that would be almost untraceable, and impossible to prove.”

Simons draws parallels between the risks involved in voting and banking online. She points to viruses like ZeuS (“It’s my favorite virus, because it is incredibly smart,”) which has been used by criminals to steal millions of dollars from online bank accounts, leaving its victims none the wiser.

“I think many people feel that what they see on their screen is what goes out on the Internet,” says Simons. “They don’t appreciate the fact that these are different components, and there is software in between that can change the results – they can vote for candidate A, and a virus can change their vote to candidate B, and they wouldn’t know.”

Actually online voting is more risky that online banking because there is no receipt or audit available to determine if votes were counted for the correct candidate. But as Dr. Simons says, banking is risky even with bank owned ATM’s.

For those doubters here are 2,904 reasons in New York City alone, that Internet banking and Internet voting can be costly:

In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme <read>

It was a brazen bank heist, but a 21st-century version in which the criminals never wore ski masks, threatened a teller or set foot in a vault.

In two precision operations that involved people in more than two dozen countries acting in close coordination and with surgical precision, thieves stole $45 million from thousands of A.T.M.’s in a matter of hours.

In New York City alone, the thieves responsible for A.T.M. withdrawals struck 2,904 machines over 10 hours starting on Feb. 19, withdrawing $2.4 million.

The operation included sophisticated computer experts operating in the shadowy world of Internet hacking, manipulating financial information with the stroke of a few keys, as well as common street criminals, who used that information to loot the automated teller machines.

Editor’s Note: We seem to repeatedly harp on some subjects over and over, like the risks of mail-in voting and all forms of Internet voting. Yet, it also seems that the message never quite makes it that both are very vulnerable in theory and in practice. We will keep at it, working for rational discussion and evaluation.

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.