Verified Voting Blog: On the Proposed ES&S Merger

Bad for the country, bad for New York

On the face of it, it would seem that the proposed merger of Premier Voting Systems (aka Diebold) and Election Systems & Software (ES&S) shouldn’t matter much to New York State. After all, Premier pulled out of the state over a year ago, and ES&S splits the state’s voting system sales with a competitor, Dominion Voting Systems. But there’s plenty of reason for New Yorkers to be wary of further consolidation of the rapidly shrinking voting machine industry. Recall the not so distant past when ES&S, along with Sequoia Voting Systems, jointly decided that paperless voting was New York’s future and offered only touch screen DREs to the state. When New Yorkers for Verified Voting organized the first ever demonstration of a paper ballot system with an accessible Ballot Marking Device and an optical scanner at the Albany State Capitol, the makers of the AutoMark ballot marking device, with whom we had arranged the demo, were ordered by ES&S to remove the scanner because it didn’t fit their product plans. The New York Daily News reported this story in 2005:

At the Capitol recently, a lobbyist managed to shut down a demonstration of optical scanning by getting his client to pull its machine from the display. Assemblywoman Sandra Galef of Westchester called the company to object and was told that New York is “a touch-screen state.” ” I said, ‘We are?’” Galef recalled. “I’m a legislator. I don’t think I’ve voted on anything.”

Verified Voting Blog: Recommendations to NIST on Post Election Audits

Verified Voting today joined with computers scientists and advocacy organizations in signing the following recommendations on post-election audits to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

We, the undersigned, participated in a working meeting on vote tabulation audits hosted by the American Statistical Association (ASA) on October 23 and 24, 2009. We write to emphasize that future iterations of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) should facilitate effective vote tabulation audits. We applaud the VVSG II's requirement for independent voter-verifiable records (IVVRs). This requirement is necessary to enable verification of election outcomes independently of the tabulation systems; it should be adopted as soon as possible. However, if election outcomes are to be verified efficiently, vote tabulation systems must meet requirements that go well beyond the draft VVSG 1.1.

Verified Voting Blog: Paper Ballots, Photocopiers, and Security

When I heard that New York City had found that a photocopy of a ballot could be successfully scanned by both of the two systems being used in New York State, my first thought was that this is Sun-Rises-in-the-East news. It didn’t surprise me, and the first line of defense against attacks involving any type of fake ballot, photocopied or printed, is well designed and implemented ballot management security procedures. But this is a complex issue which bears some discussion.

Before discussing the security threat, let’s look at a technical question – should a scanner be able to detect a photocopied ballot? One of the challenges posed by modern high resolution copiers and printers is that they are capable of producing all manner of difficult to detect counterfeits. This became an extremely serious problem in the 1990’s as convincing counterfeit currency became easy to produce using the off the shelf copiers. In response, the United States has been replacing currency with new bills containing anti-counterfeiting features. So it’s no surprise that a modern copier can create a ballot that can be successfully scanned.

The Voting News Daily: Expert:No way to secure internet voting, Talk–A Poor Substitute For Integrity?

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: Will Voters’ Choice Be Outdone by Sponsorship?…Security expert: no way to secure Internet voting…Hackers cracked military systems and cut mains power…Internet voting too dangerous, especially for our military….

D.C. passes same day voter registration…Audit finds that Venice FL ballots were counted properly…Vanderburgh County Indiana wrangles with voting monopoly ES&S over pricing…”Don’t Count Your Ballots Up in Massachusetts. That Sort Of Thing Just Isn’t Done.”…”Massachusetts does not have a post-election audit”…Ballot Design Still Matters…Bo Lipari writes about Paper Ballots, Photocopiers, and Security as pertains to New York’s voting machine pilot….Nobody could vote in the race for mayor in Limaville,Ohio…Calls for complete hand recount of Lackawanna County PA election….Gregoire pushes to make WA election results more timely…We’re still sweeping up after Nov 3 with voting glitches, snags,snafus and hiccup reports in CA, MA, NC, NY,OH AND PA…

CA: Letter: Frustrating vote
Editor: My apologies to my candidates, Michelle Gabriault-Acosta, Bill Blake and Mary-Michal Rawling. I tried to vote Tuesday but had a very frustrating experience.

I had requested a “vote by mail” ballot, which I never received. I thought, “No big deal.”

I went to my polling place a few minutes before they opened. When the polls opened, I was second in line but was unable to vote because I was marked as a mail-in voter.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/opinion/story/1155563.html

CA: Lobbyists sue to block state public financing proposition
Over the weekend the Sacramento Bee published this story by Andy Furillo reporting on recent legal actions taken by California’s association of lobbyists to block a proposition that, if passed by voters would create a public financing system for the Secretary of State’s elections in 2014 and 2018. The measure relies on fees paid by lobbyists and lobbying firms to fund the public financing system
http://calvoter.org/news/blog/2009_11_01_blogarchive.html#467239205392319216

DC: D.C. passes same day voter registration
The DC Council has unanimously passed an election reform bill that includes Same Day Registration and asks the District to look at implementing a system of universal voter registration.
http://nonprofitvote.blogspot.com/2009/11/dc-passes-same-day-voter-registration.html

FL: Venice ballots were counted properly
An audit finds no problems caused by the ink voters used
…The unusual proxy audit — one of only three that election workers could recall over the last decade — was conducted by the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections on a total of 1,028 absentee ballots.
…
“This gives me more peace of mind in the reliability of the machines,” Muntz said.
…
Dent said that future absentee ballots will carry instructions that voters only use black ink.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20091106/ARTICLE/911061021/2055/NEWS?Title=Venice-ballots-were-counted-properly

IN: Elections Board having issues with voting machines co. (ES&S)
Nov 09, 2009 …The attorney said County Clerk Susan Kirk isn’t happy with the way the company is responding to her requests.

“Part of this actually has to do with obtaining the software which is actually needed to conduct the elections,” Vanderburgh County Elections Board Attorney Doug Briody said. “We had an original contract which expired last year and so we need some additional software from them in order to go forward with elections happening in 2010.