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Open Source Voting Software Released

Open source has great potential to facilitate voting integrity and independence from sole source voting equipment/software vendors and outsourcing of elections. This particular project is comprehensive including voter registration capabilities and has interest from major players.

Wired Article: Nation’s First Open Source Election Software Released <read>

Not actually the first, yet a significant development. From the Wired article:

The OSDV, co-founded by Gregory Miller and John Sebes, launched its Trust the Vote Project in 2006 and has an eight-year roadmap to produce a comprehensive, publicly owned, open source electronic election system. The system would be available for licensing to manufacturers or election districts, and would include a voter registration component; firmware for casting ballots on voting devices (either touch-screen systems with a paper trail, optical-scan machines or ballot-marking devices); and an election management system for creating ballots, administering elections and counting votes…

Miller said the foundation wasn’t looking to put voting system companies out of business but to assume the heavy burden and costs of research and development to create a trustworthy system that will meet the needs of election officials for reliability and the needs of the voting public for accessibility, transparency, security and integrity.

Open source has great potential to facilitate voting integrity and independence from sole source equipment/software vendors and outsourcing of elections. This particular project is comprehensive including voter registration capabilities and has interest from major players:

The foundation has elicited help from academics and election officials from eight states as well as voter advocacy groups, such as Rock the Vote and the League of Women Voters, to guide developers in building the system. Technology bigwigs such as Oracle, Sun and IBM have also approached the group to help with the project…

The foundation already has California, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington interested in adopting the system and is in talks with 11 other states. Florida, which has been racked by voting machine problems since the 2000 presidential debacle, has also expressed interest, as has Georgia, which uses machines made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) statewide.

Other coverage:

InformationWeek Blog: Can Open Source Software Save Democracy? <read> A good overview and summary of the business challenges for vendors. This is why we are skeptical that left on their own high quality proprietary solutions will be developed:

But the solutions aren’t necessarily obvious: only electronic voting machines are truly accessible to all voters, technicians do need reset buttons, wireless features are needed to report results in a timely manner, and a paper audit trail doesn’t ensure that votes are counted properly unless you can determine which (the electronic or paper) reflects actual voter intent.

The problems are compounded because there’s little profit margin in voting machines (which are paid for by cash-strapped local governments) and thus little incentive for voting machine vendors to invest a great deal in R&D.

And surprisingly, at least to me, from the John Birch Society: Open Source Election Software Revealed <read>

Through a collaborative effort between state and local elections officials and technology experts, the group aims to create federally certified voting software that will restore trust and transparency in elections by allowing anyone to inspect the code. Proprietary voting systems used in recent elections have come under fire for secrecy, unreliability and a host of other problems.

Al Lenge Named Director of State Elections Enforcement Commission

Al Lenge, long time Deputy Director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) was named Director, replacing retired Director Jeff Garfield.

From Jon Lender at the Hartford Courant: Al Lenge, long time Deputy Director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) was named Director, replacing retired Director Jeff Garfield <read>

Lenge has been deputy director and assistant general counsel since 1995, and previously headed the elections division at the office of the Secretary of the State.

In a statement Wednesday, the commisson called Lenge “a committed and experienced leader who has been involved in all aspects of election and campaign finance law.” Garfield said: “He brings continuity,experience and dedication to his new role and will continue to make significant contributions to the operations of the Commission with the utmost degree of professionalism.”

“I am excited and welcome this new opportunity to continue to serve the Commission and the people of the State of Connecticut in ensuring fairness and impartiality in the administration of election laws. The SEEC faces a challenging year ahead,” Lenge said in a statement. “I will draw on my experience during this critical phase of the Commission’s development and continue to build and foster relationships among staff, other state agencies and our partners. I am honored to serve as Executive Director and I especially look forward to working closely with the legislature on the major reforms concerning public campaign financing.”

This is no surprise. I doubt there is anyone more qualified. Although we have criticized the SEEC for lack of speed, we have found both Mr. Garfield and Mr. Lenge easy to work with, committed and knowledgeable. Congratulations.

IRV: Not So Fast, Not So Simple

Tutorial information about Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and associated concerns.

We have several concerns with Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). At first it seems simple and appealing, however, a closer look reveals concerns and unappreciated consequences, including:

IRV can be confusing and difficult for voters to understand. It can result in a much bigger ballot, requesting voters to rank multiple candidates and not make a mistake. A single race may take an entire ballot that today can handle an entire municipal election or a combined state and Federal election.
IRV does not solve the problems it is intended to fix. It claims to prevent the “wrong” candidates from being elected by providing a runoff until one candidate has over 50% of the votes. In reality, sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. IRV can cause different candidates to be elected than real runoff voting and different candidates to be elected than when the leading candidate from the first round is selected. Often IRV awards a race to a less popular candidate than these other methods.
IRV is complex and time consuming to count, especially in races covering multiple polling places. This is because elimination requires exact information on each ballot ranking be centrally counted or each round centrally counted. Each round is critical to the final result, thus each round may require all absentee ballots and provisional ballots be counted and perhaps require a manual recount to determine the eliminated candidate.

This last point is covered in an editorial from Minnesota – counting a municipal race my take eight weeks and involve spreadsheet calculations <read>

Minneapolis won’t have the assistance of scanning machines to tabulate votes if no candidate receives over half of the first choices, delaying results for up to eight weeks. Since Minnesota does not certify machines that can count ranked choice ballots, and because cities are prohibited from using non-certified machines, city elections workers must hand-count each ballot. Fortunately, the city attorney has assured elections officials that they can use Microsoft Excel to help tally. Otherwise, votes would still be being sorted well into 2010.

Update: It did not take 8 weeks to count. Perhaps because of IRV voters stayed away: <read>

What if they gave an election and nobody came? Well, almost nobody came to the City Election last Tuesday. R. T. Rybak got 73 percent of the vote for Mayor, but that was only 33,217 votes. That’s the smallest amount a winning candidate has gotten running for Mayor since 1910. Rybak’s total was less than 15 percent of the number of registered voters. In the last three municipal elections the LOSING candidates for Mayor polled almost as high as Rybak’s winning total

Update: But it is eight days and some races are still being counted <read>

Several races may be announced Wednesday, the paper says, but the closest council races, in the Fourth and Fifth Wards, won’t come until a later batch of counting.

Update: 17 days past the election and still counting<read>

But the biggest surprise for O’Connor and the elections staff has been how quickly the hand count process has gone. Originally, O’Connor expected that they wouldn’t be ready to announce unofficial winners until December. But they’ve been able to do so several weeks earlier than planned.

Here are some video’s that graphically explain IRV:

A clear explination of IRV, what could go wrong, what the MN Supreme Court said and what happened in Aspen Colorado <video>
A more detailed version of how a candidate can loose by gaining support <video>
We often think of IRV for a single candidate, but it can be used when we vote for several people for town council. Yet its not simple. Here is one way of counting the votes <video>
Third parties tend to like the idea of IRV. Watch this video to be disapointed <video>

Update: 3/3/2010 Burlington voters repeal IRV <read>

A raucus celebration at Norm’s Grill in the new North End Tuesday night marked a victories end to the YES on 5 campaign in Burlington. A mix of Democrats and Republicans celebrated the defeat of Instant Runoff Voting.

After a debate that brought out big names like Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean urging a NO on 5 vote, Burlington residents voted to repeal IRV by a vote of 3972 to 3669, a margin of only 303 votes.

“It was a grass roots effort and we’re really proud of the people that worked on this, we’re ecstatic,” said IRV opponent Chuck Seleen while celebrating the victory.

Wards 4 and 7 were the only two to vote YES on 5. Both had much higher voter turnout than the other wards. Mayor Bob Kiss says that is a sign most of the city still supports IRV and he suggests the city continues the discussion and possibly have yet another vote on IRV.

“This is a modest voter turnout. I think a bigger voter turnout might have a different result and particularly in the case because if you have two wards that are voting very heavily and I think other wards are more modest so if we heat up that debate we might get a better view of Burlingtonians’ real view on IRV,” Kiss said at City Hall moments after the results were tallied.

Several city councilors and election observers have suggested the IRV vote is a referendum on Kiss and his administration, as it tries to deal with the mess of Burlington Telecom. Kurt Wright, who was elected back to the city council, Tuesday, by defeating incumbent democrat Russ Ellis, says it is time Kiss gets the message.

Two comments:

Saying “Wards 4 and 7 were the only two to vote YES on 5. Both had much higher voter turnout than the other wards.” is pure spin. With equal lack of usefulness one could say that say that if more voters had come out in other districts it might well have gone down further.

Apparently Howard Dean changed his mind from his statement on this video.

Update: Report: Ranked Choice Voting Causes Confusion, Fatigue In SF’s District 10 <read>

The new system produced some surprising outcomes, and in the wake of the results there has been a flurry of criticism and praise of how RCV plays out for voters.

The Day: New London has problem with math

Actually it is more a problem of complexity and communications

New London has problem with math <read> Actually it is more a problem of complexity and communications:

The decision to consolidate seven districts into three was made late last spring as a cost-cutting move. Like every other city and town in the state, money is tight and New London is looking to trim wherever it can find savings.

The state’s statutory requirement for municipal polling places is that there be at least one for each House district. And since New London is split between the 39th and 40th districts, the city’s minimum is two, but in consolidating, it opted for three for convenience.

The savings amount to about $12,000 for each election, including costs for setting up ballots, programming voting machines, adding telephone lines, and paying poll workers. Rather than the usual 16 machines in operation in New London on Election Day, now there will be eight. And the typical contingent of about 60 poll workers will be halved to 3…

The only two districts that are physically moving are the 3rd and 4th, which previously voted at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School. The problem is, they’re moving to different places. The old 3rd is going to the new 1st, which casts ballots at New London High School. (In the past, the high school was the place to vote for the old 1st, 2nd, and 3rd districts.) And the 4th is going to the new 2nd, which used to be home to the 4th, 5th and 7th districts. So if used to vote at Bennie Dover, you need to figure out where you’re going on Nov. 3rd…

The registrar’s map delineating the new districts is virtually impossible to read, and the problem is compounded because in some neighborhoods, the odd-numbered side of a street votes in one district while the even-numbered households vote in another.

Soldiers to Choose Risking Democracy on Electronic Voting

The purpose of the secret ballot is not primarily to protect the voter of the ballot, but to protect all voters, and to protect our Democracy.

In a letter to the NC State Board of Elections, the Federal Voting Assistance Program has recommended that individual soldiers be left to determine the viability of returning their votes by email. Thanks to N.C. Voter for this story <read>

Until secure electronic transmission of voted ballots has been established, we recommend that States allow voters to return static copies of voted ballots through available electronic means. However, the decision to send a voted ballot by unsecure electronic means must rest with the individual voter based on the voter’s desire to cast his or her vote electronically or to ensure the secrecy of their ballot.

We see some problems with this.

Very few soldiers are in a position to assess the security of sending their votes over the internet. Its unlikely many are computer scientists or security experts, unlikely that many are in a position to evaluate the network they use or would have an opportunity to consider the Technologists’ Statement On Internet Voting
Even the risky, questionable amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill only includes the possibility of pilot programs.
Finally, the purpose of the secret ballot is not primarily to protect the voter of the ballot, but to protect all voters, and to protect our Democracy. Its not just my loss if my vote is lost or changed its everyone’s.

How Much Are Election Officials Paid In Norwalk?

“This is a little more than we paid in the past but is in line with the pay rate for the temporary workers hired by the Parks Department for giving out beach stickers this summer. It seems to us that it would be discriminatory to have different rates of pay for equivalent office work at City Hall.”

Story in the Hour: Part-time workers hired by registrar may get pay hike <read>

The argument for a raise seem to make sense:

“We also need to hire part-time staff for the period before the election. We are proposing a rate of $15 per hour for our deputy registers and experienced staff and a rate of $12 for any necessary new or less experienced staff,” wrote Republican Registrar Karen Doyle Lyons and Democratic Registrar Stuart W. Wells in an overview of the proposed pay scale. “This is a little more than we paid in the past but is in line with the pay rate for the temporary workers hired by the Parks Department for giving out beach stickers this summer. It seems to us that it would be discriminatory to have different rates of pay for equivalent office work at City Hall.”

Park workers presumably have a somewhat steadier, longer term job.

Here are the rates in Norwalk for election day officials:

The pay rates for election poll workers, meanwhile, would remain unchanged from 2008: Head moderator ($500); assistant moderator ($400); polling place moderator ($300); alternate moderator ($275); assistant registrar ($200); checker ($175); tabulator tender ($175); ballot clerk ($175); demonstrator ($175); interpreter (additional $75).

Presuming a ballot clerk works 16 hours @$175 that works out to just under $11 per hour, not including training time. Yet, poll workers have an even less steady job with very very long hours.

TIME: Galbraith: How the Afghan Election Was Rigged

“Once fraud occurs on the scale of what took place in Afghanistan, it is impossible to untangle.”

We are lucky to hear from Mr. Gailbrath. Had he not been fired, he might have continued to keep quiet

Time article, How the Afghan Election Was Rigged <read> by Peter W. Galbraith, formerly deputy special representative of the Secretary-General of the U.N. in Afghanistan

No one will ever know how Afghans voted in their country’s presidential elections on Aug. 20, 2009. Seven weeks after the polling, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is still trying to separate fraudulent tallies from ballots. In some provinces, many more votes were counted than were cast. E.U. election monitors characterize 1.5 million votes as suspect, which would include up to one-third of the votes cast for incumbent President Hamid Karzai. Once fraud occurs on the scale of what took place in Afghanistan, it is impossible to untangle.

Afghanistan’s fraudulent elections complicate President Obama’s job as he weighs a recommendation from General Stanley McChrystal, his top commander there, to send as many as 40,000 additional troops to support a beefed-up counterinsurgency strategy. But for that strategy to work, the U.S. needs a credible Afghan partner, which Afghanistan’s elections now seem unlikely to produce…

We are lucky to hear from Mr. Gailbrath. Had he not been fired, he might have continued to keep quiet:

Unfortunately, I am unable to provide reassuring answers. Over the past four months, I served as the deputy head of the U.N. mission in Kabul and had a firsthand view of the fraud that plagued Afghanistan’s presidential vote. Each time I proposed actions to deal with it, Kai Eide, the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, overruled me. Like any good subordinate, I respected my boss’s decision, but in private, I told him I thought he was making a mistake in downplaying the fraud. When the press learned of our disagreement (through no fault of ours), U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon removed me from my post.

I recommend reading the entire article, it is not that long. This so called ‘election’ shows an unbelievable disregard for integrity, a very thinly disguised fraud, and a superficial image of democracy.

We can have high degree of certainty that the Afghan elections were not credible. How much worse is this than the uncertainty we often have in our own elections? We need effective monitoring and reporting of all elections. Without effective monitoring and auditing we cannot have confidence in the leaders of our own democracy.

Verified Voting Statement on the Acquisition of Premier Election Solutions

“it raises greater concerns about the security, transparency and cost of elections and creates a profound anti-competitive effect in the shrinking marketplace for voting systems…We can also expect to see substantial increase in vendor control over key contract provisions.”

Update: 12/27/2009 Gainesville editorial: Bad Business <read> For once Florida is leading toward voting integrity:

Corporate mergers can be good for business. But if mergers lead to less competition and innovation, they are not necessarily good for consumers.

This is especially true when the “consumers” are voters and the product voting machines.

Case in point is the recent purchase of Diebold Inc. by Election Systems & Software. The result is that a single company will now make the voting machines used by 92 percent of Florida voters … and by two-thirds of the nation’s voters.

“Each of Florida’s 67 counties must negotiate its own contract with the vendor,” says Dan McCrea, president of Florida Voters Foundation. “With no competition, Florida counties and taxpayers are over a barrel.”

The good news is that state Attorney General Bill McCollum announced ths week that he will conduct an anti-trust investigation of the merger. Given Florida’s embarrassing showing in the 2000 presidential election, the last thing this state needs is to become a captive market for a single voting machine vendor.

Update: 12/19/2009 New York Post: U.S. opens probe of Diebold unit sale -report <read>

he U.S. Department of Justice and 14 states have opened investigations into the sale of Diebold Inc’s (DBD.N) voting machines business to Election Systems & Software that could lead to the unwinding of the September sale, the New York Post said on Saturday.

Update: 11/2/2009: Secretary Bysiewicz letter to Senator Schumer <read>

Update: 10/29/2009 New York Times Editorial: Trust, Antitrust and Your Vote <read>

The interests of voters should be part of this lawsuit. The Justice Department and state attorneys general should consider formally joining the suit, so they can argue that the combination of Election Systems & Software and Diebold would make the voting experience worse and reduce the reliability of election results. The Justice Department’s antitrust division could also make its own attempt to block the sale. The enormous market share that the newly combined company would control should by itself set off anticompetitive alarms.

Since the 2000 presidential election, the public has rightfully been skeptical about how elections are run. We fear that if any one voting machine maker is allowed to dominate the market, there will be even greater reasons to worry about the nation’s flawed voting system.

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Our friends at VerifiedVoting have released a statement articulating concerns with the acquistion of Premier Election Solutions by ES&S <read>

The recently announced acquisition of Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) by its largest competitor, Election Services & Software (ES&S), requires close scrutiny, as it raises greater concerns about the security, transparency and cost of elections and creates a profound anti-competitive effect in the shrinking marketplace for voting systems…

Without competitive alternatives, a post-merger ES&S has jurisdictions over a barrel when it comes to renewing or negotiating new contracts. We can expect higher costs for ongoing services as well as future procurement of voting equipment and support services including ballot programming, printing, equipment maintenance and supplies.

We can also expect to see substantial increase in vendor control over key contract provisions. Contracts between election jurisdictions and voting system vendors have been demonstrated in some instances to present significant barriers to election transparency. Contracts may limit jurisdictions’ access to source code, or restrict their ability to conduct independent evaluations of voting systems performance and security. There are even two known cases of a contract between a county and ES&S containing a provision that stipulated that the terms of the contract itself were confidential. Lacking the negotiating leverage that robust competition provides, counties could face pressures to accept contracts that do not provide sufficient transparency.

The merger will make a risky, expensive situation worse. Connecticut, like most jurisdictions, uses a single vendor for equipment and maintenance. We are also dependent on a single source, our distributor LHS Associates, for memory card programming. A single more dominant vendor portends additional problems. Its quite possible that the optical scanners we own, the AccuVote-OS will be discontinued. Its less likely that there will be a soluntion to our memory card problems. For more on the dangers of outsourcing our elections see the Voters Unite Report and our associated coverage.

A Candidate’s View – Early Voting, Vote-By-Mail

A candidate’s view from FL, where early voting has changed the campaign calendar, increased cost, and perhaps reduced voter knowledge along with costing some voters their votes.

As CTVotersCount readers know, we are concerned with the integrity issues associated with early voting and vote-by-mail including no excuse absentee voting. We are also concerned with the costs of early voting.

Now we have a candidate’s view from FL, where early voting has changed the campaign calendar, increased cost, and perhaps reduced voter knowledge along with costing some voters their votes: <read>

Instead of campaigns intensifying as Election Day nears, candidates have geared up to reach thousands of people voting well in advance of the polls opening. Ballots started hitting the mail on Sept. 18, and more than 57,600 have been sent.

Already, more than 5,980 people have voted by mail in the general election.

“It feels like we’re in the middle of Election Day each day,” said Kathleen Ford, who is running for mayor against Bill Foster…

It doesn’t just affect strategy. It affects the bottom line of campaigns. Being able to effectively reach mail voters makes the campaign more expensive, Ford and Foster said…

Some civic groups have yet to endorse candidates. Community forums and debates are still on tap.

Danner said he somewhat questions the early start to voting, particularly as someone who was out of the public eye without a primary race.

But returning mail ballots later doesn’t necessarily mean better voting.

Of the 701 ballots that arrived too late to be counted in the Sept. 1 primary, 70 percent came from people who received them within four weeks of the election, Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said.

The ballots take the place of early voting sites, because the city and Clark decided it would be less costly.

Some of our earlier posts:

Legislature Seriously Considering Fixing Campaign Finance Law

House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, said lawmakers have been busy finishing the budget, but plan to seriously consider addressing the issue.

Update: 11/25/2009: Rell Summons Lawmakers; Proposes Campaign Fix <CTNewsJunkie>

Rell’s proposal to the legislature amends the Citizens Election Program in accordance with the federal judge’s ruling. Rell’s proposal would eliminate additional qualifying requirements for minor-party and petitioning candidates, provide grants in the same amounts to all candidates, reduce the size of the grants, and delay the increase in the grant amounts until 2014.

Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, said he thinks the most prudent thing to do would be to eliminate the reversion clause or what many have referred to as the “time bomb,” which returns the fundraising system back to the way it was before 2005.

By eliminating the reversion clause it gives the legislature time to react properly to a decision by the Appeals Court, Spallone said. “I think its really important not to take guidance from one trial judge.”

Either the Second Circuit can reverse the lower court’s decision, uphold it, or reverse it in part or uphold it in part. By repealing simply the reversion clause it gives “us time to react properly,” Spallone said.

That being said he welcomed the governor’s interest in working together on the issue.

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Update: 10/22/2009 Government Elections and Administration Committee schedules forum. <CTNewsJunkie> <Aldon Hynes> I was there. It seems the Legislature has three choices:

Leave the law alone or make portions of the law severable.
Change the law to improve 3rd-party/independent provisions and perhaps other provisions
Change the law to completely level the playing field and fix other portions to clearly meet all the Judge’s issues in the ruling.

We were also present at the forum. Going part way, option 2, risks not going far enough and complicates the legal challenges, providing evidence that the Legislature may believe the current law is unfair. Going all the way would risks being able to restrict portions of the law in the future, and risks potential spending increases. Doing nothing increases the risks that the 2010 election will be disrupted by a sudden stop to the law. (Some candidates would presumably have public $ and would be then able to raise unlimited funds, while others would no longer be able to apply for and receive public funds).

Update: 10/12/2009: Government Elections and Administration Committee schedules forum. CTNewsJunkie story: Legislative Forum on Campaign Finance Reform <read>

Update: 10/11/2009: An Op-Ed in the Courant, retired Superior Court Judge Robert Satter gives his opinion, Election Law Needs Change – Not Defense, <read>

Blumenthal argued that such criteria were necessary to save the state from paying campaign grants to small, splinter parties. Underhill refuted that concern by pointing to the experience of Maine and Arizona, which have public campaign finance laws with no additional qualifying criteria imposed on minor party candidates. Neither of those states have had an undue number of minor party candidates qualify for campaign funding.

Underhill noted that the bill Gov. M. Jodi Rell submitted to the legislature did not contain different criteria for minor and major party candidates. The judge implied in his opinion that such a change in the law would go a long way to making it constitutional.

Underhill’s opinion is factually and legally so sound that an appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals appears fruitless. But the appeal itself casts the pall of legal uncertainty over state funding for campaigns in 2010, which for the first time will include paying for gubernatorial races.

I spent two weeks in Judge Satter’s court about 30 years ago, fortunately as Jury Forman. It was fascinating and informative, it gave me an appreciation of the Jury system.

Once again CTVotersCount.org has taken no position on the legality of the current law. We focus on election integrity. We have members on both sides.

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According to an AP Story in the News Times, Fed ruling puts Conn. candidates in limbo, <read>

“We really don’t have the luxury to wait around and see what happens in the courts,” said

Beth Rotman, director of the Citizens Election Program.

“My preference is that the legislature move quickly, expeditiously and fix the issue identified in a special session in the coming months,” she said.

House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, said lawmakers have been busy finishing the budget, but plan to seriously consider addressing the issue. He did not provide a time frame for possible legislative action..

House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, who has formed an exploratory committee, said like the other candidates, he’s wondering what’s going to happen. Cafero said the General Assembly should have included a clause in the original bill, which Republicans suggested, that would have allowed the overall program to continue if a judge found particular sections unconstitutional.

Sen. Gary LeBeau, D-East Hartford, who is exploring a run for governor as a Democrat, said he expects his fellow legislators will fix the public financing law and somehow allow the program to continue. The question, he said, is how broadly they intend to intervene.

Earlier coverage: <here> <and here>