Yearly Archives: 2014

The electronic voting system that has been used in Estonia since 2005 cannot guarantee fair elections because of fundamental security weaknesses and poor operational procedures, according to an international team of security and Internet voting researchers. The analysis performed by the team’s members, some of whom acted as observers during 2013 local elections in Estonia, revealed that sophisticated attackers, like those employed by nation states, could easily compromise the integrity of the country’s Internet voting system and influence the election outcome, often without a trace. The team chose to analyze the Estonian system because Estonia has one of the highest rates of Internet voting participation in the world — over 21 percent of the total number of votes during the last local election were cast through the electronic voting system. During their observation of the local elections and by later watching the procedural videos released by the Estonian election authority, the researchers identified a large number of poor security practices that ranged from election officials inputting sensitive passwords and PINs while being filmed to system administrators downloading critical applications over insecure connections and using personal computers to deploy servers and build the client software distributed to voters. The researchers also used open-source code released by the Estonian government to replicate the electronic voting system in their laboratory and then devised several practical server-side and client-side attacks against it.

Lithuania: President Faces New Election Runoff | Wall Street Journal

Lithuania’s Dalia Grybauskaite faces a second runoff after falling shy of the 50% of votes needed to clinch a second term in Sunday’s presidential election, which was dominated by concerns about neighboring Russia and the Baltic nation’s exposure to the Ukraine crisis. With 100% of votes counted, Ms. Grybauskaite, currently in her first five-year term as president, had collected 46.6%. Her closest rival, a Social Democrat member of the European Parliament named Zigmantas Balcytis, had 13.8%, according to results released by Lithuania’s election commission Monday. The two will face off in a second round of elections on May 25 alongside European Parliament elections. Ms. Grybauskaite, a staunch independent and former EU commissioner known as a hard-nosed critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been vocal in her opinion that Ukraine should forge deeper alliances with the West. Her anti-Putin rhetoric boosted her popularity in the latest elections, according to polls published by Lithuanian media.

India: How Secure Are India’s Elections? | Cleo Paskal/Huffington Post

According to exit polls, Narendra Modi is likely to be declared the next Prime Minister of India. The only thing that might stand in his way is an electronic voting machine (EVM). The problems with EVM security have been widely known since the large-scale irregularities in Florida during the 2000 elections. Many countries have moved to get rid of them. In 2006 Dutch TV aired a documentary showing how easy it was to hack the EVMs that were about to be used in their general election. The machines were subsequently withdrawn and the Netherlands went back to paper ballots. Germany has declared EVMs unconstitutional. And, after spending close to $75 million on its EVMs, Ireland found them to be so insecure they literally scrapped them.

Ukraine: Kyiv calls referendums a ‘farce’ as breakaway regions declare independence | Al Jazeera

Ukraine’s government condemned referendums in eastern Ukraine as a “farce” on Monday, as separatists from the pro-Moscow regions declared independence and asked to join Russia. Organizers said 89 percent of those who cast ballots Sunday in the Donetsk region and about 96 percent of those who turned out in Luhansk voted for sovereignty for the sprawling areas that lie along Russia’s border and form Ukraine’s industrial heartland. Donetsk has about 4.4 million people, and Luhansk has 2.2 million. The results were seized upon by separatists who pushed for further autonomy from Kyiv and annexation by Russia. On Monday, the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) declared the region independent and signaled a desire to follow Crimea in being annexed by Moscow.

National: Paul Diverges From His Party Over Voter ID | New York Times

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky broke Friday with fellow Republicans who have pushed for stricter voting laws as a way to crack down on fraud at the polls, saying that the focus on such measures alienates and insults African-Americans and hurts the party. “Everybody’s gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing,” Mr. Paul said in an interview. “I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.” Mr. Paul becomes the most prominent member of his party — and among the very few — to distance himself from the voting restrictions and the campaign for their passage in states under Republican control, including North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, that can determine presidential elections. Civil rights groups call the laws a transparent effort to depress black turnout.

Florida: Lawsuit that could change Florida elections begins | Florida Times-Union

A court fight over Florida’s political landscape kicked off Friday, as attorneys for the Republican-controlled Legislature and groups suing them clashed over the question of whether legislators intended to thwart the will of voters when they drew new districts for congressional seats in 2012.
Lawsuits were first filed two years ago. The trial is scheduled to start this month in a dispute that could ultimately change the current makeup of the state’s congressional delegation, where Republicans hold a sizable majority. In an effort to speed up the 11-day, non-jury proceedings, both sides were allowed to give their opening statements Friday. David King, an attorney representing the League of Women Voters and other groups suing the state, told Judge Terry Lewis that legislators used a “shadow process,” which allowed them to circumvent a constitutional mandate prohibiting legislators from drawing districts intended to protect incumbents or members of a certain political party.

Editorials: Iowa Secretary of State Just Proved That Voter ID Laws Are Unnecessary | ThinkProgress

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz (R), one of the nation’s most enthusiastic voter suppressors, released a report on Thursday outlining the results a two-year investigation into possible voter fraud, conducted by the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) at his request. But while Schultz has frequently scared Iowa voters with allegations of thousands of possible non-citizens voting in the state and living people showing up at the polls to cast ballots in the name of dead voters, the investigation revealed found an infinitesimal number of illegal votes cast and zero cases of impersonation at the polls. … Nearly two years and $250,000 later, Schultz said that 238 total cases of suspected election misconduct were investigated. Investigators “found evidence of election misconduct in 117 cases that cancelled out the votes of legitimate Iowa voters,” he notes, and 17 more cases are still being investigated. One of those cases resulted in a not-guilty verdict and four cases were dismissed. Combined, that means at most 134 instances of fraudulent voting were found in Iowa over several elections, compared with 1,589,951 votes cast in the 2012 general elections alone. That means, at most, the investigation found a 0.008427933% rate of voter fraud.

Tennessee: MicroVote executive assumes blame for election gaffe | Johnson City Press

The person responsible for a human foible that turned the 6th Commission District results upside down during Tuesday’s Republican primary has claimed full responsibility and absolved the Washington County Election Commission from any wrongdoing. Indianapolis-based MicroVote General Corp. President Jim Ries confirmed in a news release Thursday that an employee error resulted in an inaccurate vote total posted on the Washington County Election Commission website. “Official voting tallies were unaffected by this website posting error, which was unrelated to the official counting of ballots,” Ries said. “We have identified the reason that the website posting error occurred and are putting into place steps to insure that such an error does not occur in the future.” The person directly responsible for the gaffe is Bill Whitehead, MicroVote’s Tennessee project manager. Whitehead emailed Washington County Administrator of Elections Maybell Stewart on Wednesday night to say an exact explanation of what happened was forthcoming. “Not to imply that your local media would misinterpret any information, but we are always cautiously guarded about what the press will receive, as in many cases they are spin doctors and we want to protect you and everyone involved in this process from a misinterpretation,” Whitehead told Stewart.

Wisconsin: ‘John Doe’ ruling may land in U.S. Supreme Court | Wisconsin State Journal

The federal court decision halting the John Doe investigation into coordination between Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign and conservative political groups raises unique questions that could very well end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, experts say. But that same decision also conflicts in some respects with recent Supreme Court decisions, raising questions about whether in the end, the decision by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa would stand. Randa ruled last week that the type of issue advocacy done by Wisconsin Club for Growth is not subject to government control, even if it is done in coordination with a candidate’s campaign.

Australia: New South Wales Electoral Commission inks deal to use online voting technology in 2015 | ARN

NSW voters could soon be spared the trip to the polls on election day after a deal was struck to use online voting technology in the 2015 State Election. The NSW Electoral Commission has selected Syctl to provide online voting technology in the 2015 State Election to support its iVote Core voting Sytem. Scytl has developed election-specific cryptographic security technology, protected by more than 40 international patents. The online voting technology will be the cornerstone of the the iVote system, and will enable secure, accessible, transparent and auditable elections to eligible citizens across NSW. The technology will help the NSWEC realise its goal of using the iVote system to deliver a remote voting channel to eligible voters in NSW, and possibly to other jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand.

Canada: Conservative Senators to support amended elections overhaul bill | Hill Times

Conservative Senators plan to support the government’s recent amendments to the Fair Elections Act when it reaches the Senate later this week for what is likely to be a swift passage of the controversial electoral reform legislation. Conservative Senate Whip Elizabeth Marshall told The Hill Times that there were concerns within the Conservative Senate caucus before the bill was amended by the Procedure and House Affairs Committee earlier this month, but she’s hearing a lot less dissent over the legislation now that it’s headed for the Upper Chamber. “The Senators were talking before the hearings, but compared to what I heard before the report, and what I heard after… it’s subsided now with the [Senate] report, but I would expect that when the bill comes if there are any other issues or concerns they’ll be raised, because the Senators do tend to speak quite freely amongst ourselves if we have concerns,” Sen. Marshall said in an interview.

Lithuania: Grybauskaite leads pack in Lithuania presidential election | Deutsche Welle

Incumbent President Dalia Grybauskaite emerged as the candidate with the largest share of the vote in Lithuania’s presidential elections on Sunday. However, it appeared unlikely she would win an overall majority, having garnered about 45 percent of votes. Results with 97.7 percent of votes counted on Monday showed Grybauskaite scored 45.8 percent, while her nearest rival, Social Democrat MEP Zigmantas Balcytis, took 13.7 percent. Should the figures stand, the two would face each other in a runoff poll to be held on May 25. In order to secure victory in the first round of voting, Grybauskaite or one of her rivals would have to win at least 50 percent of the votes – but this would also require an overall turnout of 50 percent. Voter turnout of less than half would therefore prompt the run-off election, coinciding with European Parliament polls.

Solomon Islands: Electoral Commission says no complaints made over voter fraud | Radio Australia

Solomon Islands’ Electoral Commission says a formal complaint must be made before there is any investigation into voter rigging. Solomon Islands’ Electoral Commission says a formal complaint must be made before there is any investigation into allegations of electoral fraud. Chief electoral officer, Polycarp Haununu, says the commission has not received a single report of vote rigging, despite widespread rumours voters are selling their identification cards in exchange for political support. “Since the beginning of the registration, my office hasn’t received any formal complaints about buying of ID cards,” Mr Haununu told Pacific Beat.

Ukraine: Pro-Russian Separatists Declare Victory in East Ukraine Vote | Wall Street Journal

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine declared victory in a secession referendum Sunday, ratcheting up tensions between the West and Moscow, which by recognizing the results could push the country toward a breakup. Ukraine called the vote illegal and riddled with irregularities, and part of a wider campaign by Moscow to punish Kiev for pursuing closer relations with Europe. But Sunday’s vote saw long lines at some polling places and was immediately hailed as a triumph by separatist leaders and Russian state media. Kiev’s fledgling government is scrambling to mount presidential elections May 25, which it hopes will shore up its legitimacy, and faces growing hurdles after losing control of provinces in the east to pro-Russian rebels. Local police in the region are of dubious loyalty, and army units have stalled in their offensive against rebel strongholds.

Ukraine: Pro-Russians run vote, count vote, win vote in Ukraine’s east | The Australian

Pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine say preliminary results of a contentious referendum show nearly 90 per cent of voters have supported sovereignty for their region. Roman Lyagin, election chief of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic, said around 75 per cent of the region’s 3 million voters cast ballots Sunday. With no independent observers monitoring the vote, however, verifying the figures will prove problematic. Although the voting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions appeared mostly peaceful, armed men identified as members of the Ukrainian national guard opened fire on a crowd outside a town hall in Krasnoarmeisk, and an official with the region’s insurgents said people were killed. It was not clear how many. The bloodshed took place hours after dozens of armed men shut down the voting in the town, and it starkly showed the hair-trigger tensions in the east, where pro-Russian separatists have seized government buildings and clashed with Ukrainian forces over the past month.

Ukraine: Vote for Sovereignty in Eastern Ukraine Brings Voter Fraud Concerns | VoA News

Eastern Ukrainians began voting early Sunday in a referendum on secession, but claims quickly mounted of multiple voting. Pro-unity activists posted a video showing how easy it was to vote more than once. The head of the separatists’ election commission, Roman Lyagin, told VOA multiple voting was impossible because people had to queue for about a half-hour to vote – therefore no other precautions were necessary. Additional details of the election process, provided by Lyagin, could be cause to question the integrity of the vote.

United Kingdom: Yes or No? Scotland is teetering on a knife-edge | Telegraph

Don’t worry, Scotland is not going to vote for independence. That is what people opposed to the idea have tended to think until now. But the Yes campaign has gained ground lately, winning hearts and minds. How is it doing that? What will happen next? And will it be enough to deliver a victory that breaks up the union? Hope Street is a neat address for a campaign that was dismissed in the beginning as a lost cause, and it is where the people running Yes Scotland have their Glasgow headquarters. They are good at symbolism. The date of the referendum was chosen to take advantage of an anticipated swelling of national pride this summer, with the Commonwealth Games to follow the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, in which Robert the Bruce gave the English a kicking.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 5-11 2014

May 11, 2014

South Africa Elections Replacing voting equipment purchased as a result of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 is challenging due to a lack of advanced machines, small budgets and a burdensome regulatory process. An appeals court temporarily stayed a ruling ordering the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to modify its federal voter registration form to add special instructions for Arizona and Kansas residents about those states’ proof-of-citizenship requirements. NPR’s Pam Fessler survey the impact of voter ID laws in this week’s primaries and the New York Times looked at renewed efforts by advocates to protect voting rights. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett announced that he would not appeal a judge’s decision that the State’s voter ID law violated the fundamental right to vote. A federal trial judge has ordered Texas to turn over certain legislative records to the U.S. Department of Justice in a closely watched redistricting case. South Africa held its first election involving citizens born after the end of of apartheid, while a court in Thailand removed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from power further destabilizing the country ahead of planned elections in June.

National: Problem at the polls: Tech stuck in past | The Hill

In the world of iPads, Google Glass and even bitcoin, voting technology remains stuck in a virtual dark age. Nearly 14 years after the 2000 election recount debacle in Florida, election officials now face the challenge of replacing voting machines that are on their last legs in a rapidly changing tech world that’s moved even beyond the changes spurred by that voting mess. Transitioning to modern voting machines, however, won’t be easy due to a lack of advanced machines, small budgets and a burdensome regulatory process. The next frontier to replace aging and unreliable machines should be commercially made and software-only products, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration said in a January report. “Tablet computers such as iPads are common components of these new technologies. They can be integrated into the check-in, voting and verification processes in the polling place,” the report said.

National: Court issues temporary stay over voter citizenship | Associated Press

Kansas and Arizona residents can continue to register to vote for now using a federal form without having to provide proof of citizenship, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily stayed a ruling from U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren that orders the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to modify its federal voter registration form to add special instructions for Arizona and Kansas residents about those states’ proof-of-citizenship requirements. Circuit Judges Carlos Lucero and Jerome Holmes granted the emergency stay sought Thursday by the commission and voting rights groups, a day after Melgren rejected a similar request to suspend his ruling during the appeal. Melgren had ordered the commission on Wednesday to carry out “without further delay” his March 19 directive. The temporary halt is in effect until further order from the appeals court. The 10th Circuit judges gave Kansas and Arizona until Tuesday to respond to the commission’s request to suspend the ruling during the appeal. … In addition to the stay, the commission also asked the court Thursday to consider its appeal of the decision itself on an expedited basis, preferably in a special session this summer. The EAC argued in its filing that the decision will cause “considerable uncertainty” for voters in Arizona and Kansas in the run-up to the primaries in those states in August and the general election in November. Both states’ elections include federal offices.

National: Efforts to revive Voting Rights Act provision stall in Congress | Dallas Morning News

Ten months after the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, efforts have stalled in Congress to restore federal scrutiny of states with a history of racial bias. Freed from the need for Justice Department approval before changing election rules, even minor ones, states moved quickly to impose tight voter ID laws. But changes are also playing out quietly at the local level. In Jasper, an East Texas town with a history of racial tension, the City Council is deciding whether to annex mostly white subdivisions. In Galveston, Texas, some court districts have been eliminated. Civil rights advocates complain that these moves dilute minority populations, unfairly reducing the influence of non-white voters. Before last summer’s court ruling, such changes in nine states could not take effect without pre-approval from Washington. Defenders of the decades-old system say the oversight served as a deterrent, prompting state and local officials to think twice before imposing burdensome or even unconstitutional measures.

National: Federal Election Commission approves bitcoin donations to political committees | Washington Post

The Federal Election Commission on Thursday gave a green light to donating bitcoins to political committees, one of the first rulings by a government agency on how to treat the virtual currency. In a 6-to-0 vote, the panel said that a PAC can accept bitcoin donations, as well as purchase them, but it must sell its bitcoins and convert them into U.S. dollars before they are deposited into an official campaign account. The commission did not approve the use of bitcoin to acquire goods and services. After the vote, however, individual commissioners offered sharply divergent views on whether their decision limits bitcoin donations to small amounts — creating more uncertainty about how much of the Internet currency that political committees can accept. The FEC had deadlocked on a similar question in the fall, with the three Democratic appointees saying they wanted the agency to take more time to study the issue and develop a formal policy to govern the use of bitcoins in campaigns. At the time, some commissioners expressed concern that the virtual currency could be used to mask the identity of donors.

Delaware: Parties have own ideas to fill possible lieutenant governor vacancy | Delaware State News

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are introducing separate bills to provide a means for filling a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office. Currently, the state code fails to address the situation. One bill would mandate a special election to fill the office; the other bill would allow the governor to appoint the replacement. The gap in the code came to light after Lt. Gov. Matt Denn announced he would run for state attorney general this fall. If he wins, the lieutenant governor’s office would be vacant for two years. Republican leaders are calling for a state constitutional amendment to mandate that any such vacancy be filled through a special election, according to a news release. State Rep. Deborah Hudson, House Minority Whip, said the measure should be non-partisan. “A vacancy can occur when a member of any party occupies the office,” she said. “Vacancies in the General Assembly are filled through special elections and that process favors no party. Candidates step to the forefront, run a race, and the people decide. What’s the argument against using the democratic process?”

Illinois: 17-year-olds voted at higher rate than parents in primary – chicagotribune.com

Given the chance to vote for the first time in the March primary, 17 year olds turned out at a higher rate in Cook County than voters old enough to be their parents, according to a new study released today. A state law allowed 17 year olds who’d turn 18 by the general election to vote in the primary and elections officials and representatives of several civic groups, including the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the League of Women Voters of Chicago, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Mikva Challenge, engaged in a short-term intensive registration and education effort aimed at schools across Chicago and Cook County. As a result, more than 7,000 eligible 17-year-olds registered to vote in the city and suburban Cook County, officials said. Their turnout of about 15 percent in the very-low turnout March 18 primary exceeded turnout among 20-to-40-year-olds.

Editorials: The bright spot in those lousy March voter turnout numbers? Teens | Chicago Sun-Times

March election set a record for low voter turnout in a primary, with about 16 percent of all registered voters casting ballots across Cook County. But one bright spot in the otherwise dismal measure of civic engagement was found among newly-registered young voters, according to a study released Wednesday by a consortium of local elections officials and civic groups. The study, titled “Voting Early and Often,” found a higher percentage of registered 17- and 18-year-olds voted than did registered voters in many older age groups. The study analyzed participation by those who are registered to vote, breaking down the statistics by gender and age; it did not take into account the number of youth who are eligible, but have not registered.

Indiana: Aftermath of vote problems in Elkhart County | WSBT

Elkhart County election officials are dealing with a few problems from Tuesday’s primary election, the first time they have used vote centers. Instead of staffing and equipping 117 precincts with voting machines, 25 vote centers were set up countywide, and voters were able to cast ballots at any one of those locations. County election officials are hoping to learn from a mistake that delayed the final vote count on Tuesday. Election board members and staff reviewed the results. It was a start up process with us,” said County Election Board Chairman Wayne Kramer. “We anticipated that there would be some bumps along the way, and there were a few. None of them affected actually the process.” One did develop, though, at North Side Gym. While polls were set to close at 6 p.m., long lines continued past then. The Election Board saw that coming and delivered two additional voting machines to add to the 10 already there. “As the law permits us to do, (the machines) were ushered inside the shoot, which is the 50 foot area inside the polling place so that (voters) would be permitted to vote, and that took additional time,” Kramer said.

Iowa: Final report: 117 fraudulent votes found in investgation, 6 convictions | Des Moines Register

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s two-year investigation into voter fraud found evidence of 117 illegally cast votes, led to charges against 27 suspected fraudulent voters and has resulted in six criminal convictions, according to a report released Thursday. Those results justified the unprecedented partnership between the state’s top election official and the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation, as well as the nearly $250,000 cost of the effort, Schultz, a Republican, said. “The takeaway is that there are people who voted who weren’t supposed to,” he said. “This is a situation where we tried to do something about it. I think it was the right thing to do and I stand by that.” Critics have called the investigation a misuse of federal funds intended to expand access to voting and charged that the six convictions prove that voter fraud is a miniscule problem in a state where statewide voter turnout frequently exceeds 1 million.

Editorials: Not so smooth sailing for Mississippi voter ID? | Bill Minor/Clarion-Ledger

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann and his claque in the media were cruising along self assuredly that the state’s voter ID was home free from any federal court derailment since the Supreme Court junked a core provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act one year ago. Then suddenly things began to turn around. Last week, a federal judge in Wisconsin struck down that state’s voter ID law. And, in doing so, he provided a pathway for other states to challenge similar laws by circumventing the high court’s butchery of the 1965 act. The 90-page voter ID ruling, written by Federal District Judge Lynn Adelman of Wisconsin’s Eastern District, marked the sixth court action blocking ID voting laws in the past year, each in a Republican-controlled state. Last year, the Supreme Court had upheld constitutionality of the overall Voting Rights Act but gutted Section 5, which had required nine states, including Mississippi, to pre-clear any voting changes with the Justice Department.

Nevada: Judge hears challenges to Nevada voter ID measure | Las Vegas Sun News

Critics of a proposal pushed by conservative activist Sharron Angle to require photo identification to vote in Nevada argued Wednesday that the measure fails to inform voters of possible costs and doesn’t specify the types of identification that would be necessary. Marc Elias, a Washington, D.C., attorney, told Carson City District Judge James Russell that the description of the proposed constitutional amendment on the initiative “is extremely misleading” and falls short of legal mandates. The measure supported by Angle’s political action committee, Our Vote Nevada, would require voters to have photo identification to cast a ballot. It also would require the Legislature to direct government agencies to issue free cards to anyone who does not have valid, government-issued photo identification. After losing Nevada’s 2010 U.S. Senate race to Harry Reid, Angle said she was working on a documentary film to expose nationwide voter fraud. State election officials have said there is no evidence to support the allegations.

New Jersey: Prisoners could vote under NJ bill, as long as they’re veterans | NJ.com