‘Dan Rather Reports’ new investigative report on E-Voting Tues Oct. 26th @ 8pm…Tech-Savvy College Students wanted as Poll Workers..Early voting by itself depresses the vote?…Texas E-Voting Suit Reveals Frailties of the Ballot Box..CNN asks Does Your Vote Count?.. Vote flipping: “This is a known class of problems with touch screen voting machines.” ~ Alex Halderman,…
Chuck Tyson, chair of Craven Cnty NC GOP about touchscreen machines: “They never work, they’re late reporting, they screw up, they ain’t worth a damn and we ought to go back to paper ballots,” ….Call 1-866-OUR-VOTE to get help & report problems…Security Fears Mount as E-Voting Comes of Age: “I think these systems can be…
Voting absentee by mail? Check postage!..Riverside CO CA starts 24 hour work days processing absentee ballots for Nov 2 election…Touchscreen voting flipping in Craven County NC, also in Dallas and Collin County TX..New York City’s Nov 2 ballots instructions may disenfranchise voters…Beware hinky vote by mail applications sent out in NY …Open Source Non profit…
Where’s My Ballot? There’s Still Time for Overseas Voters in 2010…Report Voter Fraud: There’s an App for that…Comprehensive Map of US Voting Equipment Released…Routt County Colorado must copy mailed ballots after error..There’s an iPhone app to report voter fraud, how about one to report voting machine failures or voter disenfranchisement?…Internet Voting — A Real Possibility?…
“Halderman’s Hackers”: How Safe is Online Voting?..Consider the hidden costs to voting by mail. A study of 2008 election shows a “lost rate” of 20% for vote by mail ballots…Small Improvements & New Problem in Connecticut Post-Election Audits..Travis County officials OK change to paper ballot after 2012..WA State Under Fire for Emailed Overseas Ballots..Afghanistan rules…
Voter-marked paper ballots dominate among U.S. voting methods, but one fourth of voters still depend on unverifiable equipment.
Verified Voting has released a new version of the Verifier, a map of voting technology used throughout the United States and territories, along with a statistical summary of voting technology that States will use this November.
DC allowed a public test of their internet voting system and shut it down after computer scientists took over the system. Other states that allow email or internet balloting for overseas voters should see if their systems can withstand a public test too..Sarasota FL’s controversial Election Sup Kathy Dent may not run again…India e-voting researcher…
Chicago official blames vendor Dominion for misspelling Rich Whitney’s name as “Rich Whitey” on IL gubernatorial ballot. Whitley asks: “Why is something as vital to our society as the integrity of the vote being left to a private, for-profit contractor?”..New Hanover NC BoE Chief says ‘no conspiracy’ causing touchscreens to flip votes. Yet voters were…
The District of Columbia is conducting a pilot project to allow overseas and military voters to download and return absentee ballots over the Internet. Before opening the system to real voters, D.C. has been holding a test period in which they’ve invited the public to evaluate the system’s security and usability. This is exactly the kind of open, public testing that many of us in the e-voting security community — including me — have been encouraging vendors and municipalities to conduct. So I was glad to participate, even though the test was launched with only three days’ notice. I assembled a team from the University of Michigan, including my PhD students, Eric Wustrow and Scott Wolchok, and Dawn Isabel, a member of the University of Michigan technical staff. Within 36 hours of the system going live, our team had found and exploited a vulnerability that gave us almost total control of the server software, including the ability to change votes and reveal voters’ secret ballots. In this post, I’ll describe what we did, how we did it, and what it means for Internet voting.
Chicago’s voting machines mis-spelled Green Pty candidate’s name as ‘Rich Whitey’. The election board is reprogramming 4,200 machines…Stunned voters watched touchscreens flip their votes in New Hanover CO NC..Vote PA needs your help in fight for paper ballots….”Overseas and military voters have unprecedented options for requesting, receiving and casting their ballots in 2010.” says Pres…
Computer scientist Dan Wallach News8 Austin TV: “Texas Supreme Court to weigh in on e-voting”…..Computer Scientists, Election Integrity Advocates Question Feasibility of “Digital Democracy”:”If I’m going to steal an election, I probably won’t mess with these little pilots…”I’m going to wait until there’s this groundswell for Internet voting.” ~ Dr. Barbara Simons….Court permits release of…
Post-election audits of electronic vote tallies are inexpensive. The process is simple: a sample of precincts (or batches of ballots that have been tallied electronically) is chosen randomly, counted by hand, and compared to the corresponding computer tally. To mention just two examples, North Carolina conducted an audit of the Presidential election in 275 precincts (almost 10% of the total precincts in the state) for a statewide total of $31,000, and Connecticut’s November 2008 audit costed 11 cents per audited race on each ballot.
Still, in these straightened times, States and counties with auditable voting systems might be concerned about the costs of manually counting ballots. In May, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission gave such jurisdictions excellent but little-noticed news: the Commission ruled that States may use Federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds to pay for the cost of post-election audits. The EAC concluded that funds allocated under either Section 101 or Section 251 of HAVA may be used to fund audits.
New: radio interview with Dr. David Jefferson, Livermore Natl Laboratories, computer scientist and cyber security expert and VerifiedVoting.org’s Internet Voting expert with NEW UNREPORTED BOMBSHELLS on breath-taking D.C. Internet Vote Hack. Iranian, Chinese Computers tried to hack D.C. Board of Elections…NY BOE survey finds thousands of voters have ‘major issues’ with new machines…Paper Trail for…
Verified Voting’s Pres.interviewed by Fox D.C. about DC Internet Voting Pilot. In spite of experts saying otherwise, DC’s BoE still thinks they can make internet voting secure. Really? Then Google & DoD may wish to hire DC officials to teach them how. The video testimony is up on YouTube, making it easier to share on…
For years, computer security experts have said that casting ballots using the Internet cannot be done securely. Now, after a team from the University of Michigan successfully hacked the Washington D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics (DCBOEE) public test of Internet voting, we have a visceral demonstration of just how serious the threats really are.…
This week, as University of Michigan computer technologists revealed in stark fashion the risks of Internet voting, Verified Voting, Common Cause, and Voter Action worked to halt an effort to expand the electronic return of voted ballots in Washington State. The Secretary of State of Washington has proposed an emergency rule that would allow voters to send their votes home to election officials via e-mail. In a letter to the Secretary this week, the three organizations and a cooperating attorney wrote that e-mail balloting is not required by Federal or State law, and exposes voters’ ballots to unacceptable risk of error or fraud.
This week, Dr. Alex Halderman and his students at the University of Michigan provided a powerful demonstration of the wisdom of avoiding the electronic submission of voted ballots for the foreseeable future. Professor Halderman’s team hacked the District of Columbia’s pilot Internet voting portal for the District’s overseas and military voters, changing the contents of encrypted ballots and re-encrypting them,discovering the identities and user PINs of voters – as well as noting attempts by users in Iran and China to gain access to the DC voting system.
Must see video testimony! DC’s Board of Elections detected the hack of their internet voting system BECAUSE Professor J. Alex Halderman & U. of Michigan students wanted the hack detected. “A real attack might be completely invisible and could have run on undetected much, much longer…”. Halderman’s team also changed the BoE password to protect…
About the DC Internet vote hack, Dr. David Jefferson says “Let there be no mistake about it: this is a major achievement, and supports in every detail the warnings that security community have been giving about Internet voting for over a decade now.”..The U. of Michigan team changed cast ballots to write-ins like HAL 900…
Verified Voting applauds the decision of the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics to suspend their plan to offer overseas voters the dangerous option of returning their voted ballots by a “digital vote by mail” Internet voting system. The District’s plans to continue other Internet-based ballot return methods (including email and fax) for the District’s military and civilian overseas voters still raise concerns among voting security experts. DC election officials made the decision after inviting technology experts to hack the Board’s prototype voting system during a trial period. The test pilot was apparently attacked successfully shortly after it began by a team of academic experts led by Prof. J. Alex Halderman at the University of Michigan.
The attack caused the University of Michigan fight song to be played for test voters when they completed the balloting process. Full details of the hack and its impact on submitted test ballots are expected to become available in the coming days. In addition to the Michigan team’s breach of the voting system, Verified Voting’s Board Chair Dr.David Jefferson documented a very serious vote loss problem that caused voters to inadvertently return blank ballots while believing that they had submitted complete ballots. The disenfranchising bug was noted in at least two widely used computer/browser configurations. It is possible that the same problem would affect voters trying to use email or some fax systems to return voted ballots.
University of Michigan Prof. Alex Halderman has now released some details about his successful attack on the District of Columbia’s proposed Internet voting system which has been under test for the last week. (See www.freedom-to-tinker.com.) It is now clear that Halderman and his team were able to completely subvert the entire DC Internet voting system remotely, gaining complete control over it and substituting fake votes of their choice for the votes that were actually cast by the test voters. What is worse, they did so without the officials even noticing for several days. Let there be no mistake about it: this is a major achievement, and supports in every detail the warnings that security community have been giving about Internet voting for over a decade now. After this there can be no doubt that the burden of proof in the argument over the security of Internet voting systems has definitely shifted to those who claim that the systems can be made secure.
D.C.’s internet “Voting System Pwned by Michigan Wolverines” in public test. Great. What would experts find if allowed to “test” W.VA.’s military/internet voting system, or other states’ email balloting?..The NY State Board of Elections is conducting a voter feedback poll. So is the New York Daily news..Trial against Shelby Co TN Elections Commission starts Wednesday..Voting…
DC Internet voting trial suspended on Oct 1 citing “usability issues”. Oddly the Univ of Michigan fight song played in voter’s browser after vote cast. This may be the tip of the iceberg..Shelby County Election-“Was this any way to hold an election?”..Interest Group Spending Is Up and Anonymous..Make sure your vote counts; cast it in…
The results of Frank Heindel’s FOIA: “Citizen’s Audit of South Carolina’s Voting System October 2010″…The Aspen Times has one of best articles I’ve ever seen on e-voting issues in “Unlocking IRV in Aspen”…Florida Case Puts Focus on Issue of Absentee Ballot Fraud…Hawaii’s eGov website listed wrong date for Nov General Election…2nd-tier parties sue New York…
The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics has suspended the public examination of DC’s internet voting pilot…NY Senate Elections Committee held a hearing on the recent primary. Lawrence Norden with Brennan Ctr for Justice makes recommendations…Judge won’t dismiss lawsuit against Shelby County TN Election Commission – “You might want to start preparing for…
ACLU faults Pima county AZ for invalidating 18% of 2008 provisional ballots..Candidate for California SOS has voted once in his life.. NYC Elections Chief Attacks Reports of Primary Day Chaos..Vote Centers for Ohio?..Dave Schechter, CNN Senior National Editor has a wide ranging analysis of today’s election systems and challenges… FVAP blogs on military vote updates……
On September 29th Senator Joseph Addabbo, chair of the Senate Elections Committee held a hearing on the recent New York State primary when new paper ballot and optical scan systems were used statewide for the first time. The hearing focused on reported problems that occurred in New York City, the largest election jurisdiction in the country with almost 4.5 million registered voters. In addition to the New York City Board of Elections, others giving testimony included the New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, the Brennan Center for Justice, the League of Women Voters of the City of New York, NYPIRG, Commissioner Doug Kellner of the State Board of Elections and others. Senator Addabbo chaired the hearing, with Senators Bill Perkins, Liz Krueger, and Daniel Squadron also attending.
California’s new law SB1404 requires vote vendors to report problems…Bo Lipari’s testimony on NY primary…Brennan Ctr letter asks vendors to self report probs…South Carolina Straight ticket warning..Charleston Co SC election office drags feet on FOIAS..Mary Mancini’s “The Worst Legislation in Tennessee!”..Fox says 7 states violating the MOVE act, may disenfranchise overseas & military voters. But…
DoD Announces Absentee Voting Week..The Persistence of Partisan Election Administration..Shelby County TN expands whistleblower law, but leaves out reference to elections..Overseas Vote Foundation AK, MI, VI overseas voters: Want to #vote in Nov.? Oct. 3 is your Registration deadline…Court orders Philippine Elections Commission to Disclose source code used in May elections… All this and more…
Hampden MA may end hand counting ballots..Benton Co MI Supervisor paid from $10 to $40 + case of beer for votes..VA Gov McDonnell outpaces Dems in restoring Va. felons’ voting rights..Internet voting spreads in Canada & so do problems. Ottawa voters blocked by “captcha” bug & some registered voters told they weren’t on the list…Experts…
Despite the impressions received from media reports, the September 14th primary was not the first time that New Yorkers voted on paper ballots and scanners. In the 2009 off-year election, 47 counties in upstate New York used the new systems as part of a pilot program. This trial run taught participants valuable lessons, and New York City’s decision to abstain led directly to many of the problems reported there. In general, things went smoother upstate than in the City. Problem reports broke down into a few main categories:
Privacy Issues – One of the big lessons from the 2009 pilot was that voters felt that their ballots were too often exposed to public view. Some of this was inevitable – using a lever machine, surrounded on all sides by panels and curtains, the voter is in an isolation booth. Today, the small privacy booths where voters fill out their ballots are open on the back side, and if not placed correctly at the poll site (for example with the open side facing a wall) one can feel exposed. It’s very important that Boards of Elections think about layout and lines of sight within the polling place. A second frequent privacy complaint concerned carrying the paper ballot in plain view over to the scanner. This can only happen if Boards of Elections do not provide sufficient supplies of ‘privacy sleeves’ (folders which conceal the completed ballot) and adequately train poll workers in their distribution and use. Lack of privacy sleeves is an administrative failure, and is really inexcusable.