The Voting News Daily: HAVA scary Halloween. In DC internet voting test, hackers were the GOOD guys

In D.C.’s Web voting test, the hackers were the good guys…HAVA Scary Halloween: Ten years older and deeper in debt, yet far from credible elections..”Ballot boxing: The problem with electronic voting machines” interview w/natl experts..THE UNDEAD UNDEAD VOTER CLAIM…Overdone “undervote” warning in 67 Illinois cnties using Diebold scanners..N. Carolina voting machines hearing today. Court docs are fascinating..iVotronic expert offers insights on “Vote-Flipping”…Google tools to help you vote…Voting probs? See 866-OUR-VOTE..

All this and more in today’s voting news below…

Readers – want to help with the news? Email news (with link) to votingnews (at) earthlink.net Thanks!

AK: Alaska Supreme Court Issues Revised Order, Now Says Regulation Against Showing List of Write-in Candidates to Voters is Unlawful
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/10/30/alaska-supreme-court-issues-revised-opinion-now-says-regulation-against-showing-list-of-write-in-candidates-to-voters-is-unlawful/ On October 29, the Alaska Supreme Court issued a revised order in State of Alaska v Alaska Democratic Party and Alaska Republican Party, S-14054.

AZ: Threat of voter suppression rears ugly head in Arizona
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/102810_voter_suppression_op
What sets us apart is the fact that they’ve been instigated by the very man who is charged with maintaining law and order at… you guessed it…the polls. Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently sent out an email entitled “6 Days to STOP Illegals from Stealing the Election!” ..

CA: Absentee ballot misprint discovered*
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101030/A_NEWS/10300323
STOCKTON – A couple living in the Morada area found a misprint in an absentee ballot, a mistake elections officials say is a rare occurrence among the tens of thousands of mail-in ballots sent out in San Joaquin County in the lead-up to Election Day.

CO: Larimer County Clerk works to fix election glitch* (wrong ballot)
http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20101029/UPDATES01/101029013/1002/
NEWS01/Larimer+County+Clerk+works+to+fix+election+glitch http://tinyurl.com/2c82shx
the 52 registered voters in the complex at 321 E. Troutman Parkway should be able to vote for the House District 52 race, but got ballots that listed House District 53,

CT: HAVA Scary Halloween: Ten years older and deeper in debt, yet far from credible elections http://www.ctvoterscount.org/hava-scary-halloween-ten-years-older-and-deeper-in-debt-yet-far-from-credible-elections/ Two years ago we posted a Halloween preview: eTRICK or reTREAT? Nightmare of Elections Future. Lets look at where we are this year, and then we will calibrate (not celebrate) how far we have come.

DC: In D.C.’s Web voting test, the hackers were the good guys (xposted in Internet Voting Watch) http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/2010/10/in_dcs_web_voting_test_the_hac.html Even companies such as Google, with vast resources and expertise, have been unable to protect themselves from remote penetration attacks from China. There is no reason to believe that states and localities can do better.

IL: COUNTY CLERK: UNDERVOTED BALLOTS WILL KICK OUT*
http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?show=localnews&pnpID=469&NewsID=989164&CategoryID=7026&on=1
Bacon County…Sixty seven counties in the state use the Accuvote OS system. Since the state law mandates ballots kick out if a voter does not vote for a Constitutional State officer presents Bean with a bigger problem.

With the Accuvote system with GEMS the ballot will kick back if the voter fails to vote for any issue or candidate field.
…
During the Absentee and Early voting period in the office a majority of the ballots kicked back.
…
If they are happy with what they have voted for, all they do is ask the election judge to override the system

MN: Volunteer to Observe Minnesota’s Post-Election Audit!

Verified Voting Blog: In D.C.’s Web Voting Test, the Hackers Were the Good Guys

Last month, the District conducted an Internet voting experiment that resulted in a team from the University of Michigan infiltrating election computers so completely that they were able to modify every ballot cast and all election outcomes without ever leaving their offices. They also retrieved the username and password for every eligible overseas voter who had signed up to participate. The team even defended the system against attackers from China and Iran. More than any other event in recent years, this test illustrates the extreme national security danger of Internet voting.

Though the District's Board of Elections and Ethics prudently dropped the plan to use the most dangerous parts of the system in Tuesday's midterms, the board still claims Internet voting is the wave of the future. By contrast, the consensus of the computer security community is that there is no secure Internet voting architecture suitable for public elections. The transmission of voted ballots over the Internet, whether by Web, e-mail or other means, threatens the integrity of the election. Simply fixing the problems identified in the District's test will not prove the system secure. Almost certainly the next test will discover new vulnerabilities yielding a similar disastrous result.

People frequently ask: If we can bank online, why can't we vote online? The answer is that because every banking transaction must be associated with a customer, banks know what their customers are doing, and customers get monthly statements that can be used to detect unauthorized transactions. There is no banking equivalent of the requirement for a secret ballot untraceable to the voter. While banks have huge budgets for mitigating security problems, they still lose substantial sums due to online fraud. In addition, while banks may tolerate the costs of online theft, because they save money overall, elections cannot tolerate a "small" amount of vote theft. For more than a decade, computer security scientists have been warning of certain core dangers related to Internet voting. The successful Michigan incursion confirmed many of them.