The Voting News Daily: Touchscreen vote flips ‘a known class of problems..’ New Dan Rather e-vote report

‘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,…

The Voting News Daily: Internet Voting – A Real Possibility? iPhone App for reporting voter fraud

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?…

The Voting News Daily: “Halderman’s Hackers”: How safe, online voting? Vote by mail – 1 in 5 ballots ‘lost’

“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…

Verified Voting Blog: Hacking the D.C. Internet Voting Pilot

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.

The Voting News Daily: N Carolina Touchscreens flip votes. Will internet voting cause election debacle?

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…

The Voting News Daily: Internet voting a national security question. Unredacted AVC Edge report

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…

Verified Voting Blog: States May Use Federal HAVA Funds for Post-Election Audits

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.

The Voting News Daily: Internet Voting, totally owned. TX Court hears evoting lawsuit

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 Blog: Dangers of Internet Voting Confirmed

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.…

Verified Voting Blog: Coalition Calls For Halt to Washington State E-mail Ballot Program

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.

Verified Voting Public Commentary: Verified Voting Lauds Successful Test Hack of Internet Voting Pilot

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.

Verified Voting Blog: The meaning of Alex Halderman’s successful attack on the DC Internet voting system

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.

The Voting News Daily: India to get paper trail? DC Internet Voting Pwned – update. NY voter feedback poll

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…

The Voting News Daily: A Citizen’s Audit of S.Carolina’s Voting System. Is there ‘a ghost in the machine?’

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 Voting News Daily: D.C. halts test of internet voting pilot. Shelby Co TN election trial starts Monday

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…

Verified Voting Blog: Report from the Senate Hearings on the New York State Primary

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.

The Voting News Daily: Brennan Ctr to vote vendors- report malfunctions. SC cnty stalls election FOIAs

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…

The Voting News Daily: Travis TX judge nixes paper ballots. Philippine source code disclosure ordered

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…

Verified Voting Blog: Thoughts on the New York Primary

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.