Verified Voting Blog: Polling Place Burglary Raises Specter of Fraud

The burglary at one of Houston’s early voting locations (“Computers stolen at early polling location; Ballot board to check electronic voting machines for tampering,” Page B2, Tuesday) raises the specter of election fraud. Some computers were stolen, and as far as we know, the voting machines stored at Hester House were untouched. But if the burglars wanted to tamper with the election outcome, what could they have accomplished? In 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen put together a team to conduct a security analysis of the state’s electronic voting systems. I was part of the team analyzing the Hart InterCivic voting system — the same type we use here in Harris County. Our report concluded that the Hart system has a wide variety of security flaws and that it can be attacked in a manner that makes it hard to detect and correct. We further concluded that these attacks can be carried out by a single individual without extensive effort and without long-term access to the equipment. Our results were corroborated by a follow-up study conducted by the Ohio secretary of state.

Did the Houston burglars tamper with the voting machines? I hope not. Could they have tampered with the voting machines? Absolutely. Could we determine if tampering had occurred? Only if we got lucky and found clearly incriminating evidence, such as the burglar’s fingerprints near the connectors on the backs of the voting machines.

Verified Voting Blog: My Vote on NY Voting Machine Certification

During the week of December 7, 2009, the New York State Citizen Election Modernization Advisory Committee met and reviewed certification test data results from the state’s testing program, and to vote on recommending approval of the two voting systems to the four Commissioners of the State Board of Election. The Commissioners will vote on final certification at their December 15, 2009 meeting. On December 10, 2009, the Advisory Committee approved recommendation by a vote of 10 For and 1 Against. I was the only vote opposing the recommendation. Below is the statement I made prior to the committee vote.

I believe in New York State’s certification process. It is rightfully called the best in the nation. We have required vendors to conform to a higher standard than ever before, we have conducted extensive testing with independent oversight, and as a result we have a huge trove of data upon which we can base our decision on whether these new voting systems are ready to be certified. Just the fact that we even have this substantial set of test results against a large number of very specific standards is a credit to New York’s process. Arguably, we have more data available to us about these systems than has ever been made available to a public body such this Advisory Committee before. It is because of this comprehensive approach that we can even be talking about some of the test findings, which never would have been revealed in a typical voting system certification program.

The Voting News Daily: Next Hawaii election a slow-moving train wreck? MOVE to expedite troop ballots free, Election Center ponders e-voting

The Election Center, a group that promoted the use of paperless voting, will meet Jan 7 & 8 to discuss voter reg, provisional ballots, and “the continued push to eliminate or restrict use of DREs” (The Election Center is a group that advises election officials while accepting donations from voting vendors)…Voter Action letter to Senate…

Verified Voting Blog: Statement on New York Voting System Certification

This is my opening statement for today’s meeting of New York’s Citizen Election Modernization Advisory Committee, which was created by the State Legislature to advise the Board of Elections on adoption of the new systems. Testing is now completed and results are being evaluated, with the State Board of Elections scheduled to make a determination on certifying systems on December 15th. We have come to an important moment in New York’s saga in adopting HAVA compliant voting systems. The long and rigorous testing required by New York State’s laws and regulations, arguably the best in the nation, has now been completed. Remaining is the difficult part – determining whether the systems have met the high standards required by New York State.

We have been presented with a huge amount of data to evaluate, and have only an extremely short time in which to do so. I’m pleased the Board staff has set aside this day to answer all our questions, but I am concerned that even the long, intense session we are embarking on may be insufficient to thoroughly assess the volume of data before us. Nevertheless, I look forward to today’s session and getting answers to the literally hundreds of questions I have about the test results.

Verified Voting Blog: Tinkering with Disclosed Source Voting Systems

In October, Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc. (“Sequoia”) announced that it intended to publish the source code of their voting system software, called “Frontier”, currently under development. (Also see EKR‘s post: “Contrarianism on Sequoia’s Disclosed Source Voting System”.) Yesterday, Sequoia made good on this promise and you can now pull the source code they’ve made available from their Subversion repository here. Sequoia refers to this move in it’s release as “the first public disclosure of source code from a voting systems manufacturer”. Carefully parsed, that’s probably correct: there have been unintentional disclosures of source code (e.g., Diebold in 2003) and I know of two other voting industry companies that have disclosed source code (VoteHere, now out of business, and Everyone Counts), but these were either not “voting systems manufacturers” or the disclosures were not available publicly. Of course, almost all of the research systems (like VoteBox and Helios) have been truly open source. Groups like OSDV and OVC have released or will soon release voting system source code under open source licenses.

I wrote a paper ages ago (2006) on the use of open and disclosed source code for voting systems and I’m surprised at how well that analysis and set of recommendations has held up (the original paper is here, an updated version is in pages 11–41 of my PhD thesis). The purpose of my post here is to highlight one point of that paper in a bit of detail: disclosed source software licenses need to have a few specific features to be useful to potential voting system evaluators. I’ll start by describing three examples of disclosed source software licenses and then talk about what I’d like to see, as a tinkerer, in these agreements. The definition of an open source software product is relatively simple: for all practical purposes, anything released under an OSI-approved software license is open source, especially in the sense that one who downloads the source code will have wide latitude to copy, distribute, modify, perform, etc. the source code. What we refer to as disclosed source software is publicly released under a more restrictive license.

The Voting News Daily: Ballot Transparency Project for Arizona? Smartmatic does Mexico, Stopping MOVE Internet voting trojan

Arizona Election Transparency Project is seeking graphic ballot image scanning to protect against and expose fraud…Should the city of Aspen release the ballots from the spring City Council election to anyone who wants to see them?(the ballot images, which are already recorded)…Hawaii’s Chief Election Officer Cronin resigns, Hawaii plan would slash number of polling places….Judge…

The Voting News Daily: WV troops as internet voting guinea pigs, NY 23 election updates, Un-rigging FL districts

A chance for Floridians to redraw rigged districts…Husband of NJ state Sen. Teresa Ruiz indicted for absentee ballot fraud…Some Muscogee County GA voters given provisional ballots because of e-poll book problems…Madison County KY Judge-Executive Kent Clark on switch to paper ballots: “It’s quicker, it’s easier and it’s honest,”…“If there are any questions (about voting results…

Verified Voting Blog: Report on New York Voting System Pilot

Testimony on the voting machine pilot I gave at the New York State Senate Election Committee’s hearing on November 30, 2009. Full submitted testimony is posted here.

New York State was wise to do a pilot of our new voting systems. It provides an opportunity to work out the kinks in new systems and the procedures for managing them, allows us to learn from the inevitable mistakes, and to apply what we learn in the future. In my opinion, New York’s just concluded pilot was extremely valuable and revealed some important areas that need improvement. Certainly, privacy and ballot design issues often came up. However, given my limited speaking time I will submit comments on those two issues with my written testimony. Today I will discuss another pilot experience from which important lessons can be learned – the failure of some of the new voting machines and how New York can benefit from this failure.

Questions Raised in NY-23 Congressional Race
The NY-23 Congressional race had national attention, with 9 of 47 pilot counties holding elections in this race. Despite assurances from vendors, some of the new machines were inoperable on Election Day. In cases where machines failed, paper ballots were treated according to New York State emergency ballot rules, assuring that all votes were counted. Indeed, this is the great strength of New York’s new voting system – it ultimately relies on the marked paper ballot which contains a software independent record of voter intent.

The Voting News Daily: Gouverneur Times vs NYS Board of Elections, Arkansas paper ballot battle, Voter Verified Inc?

Benton county citizens fight to keep their paper ballots….A new Florida corporation calling itself “Voter Verified Inc” files patent infringement against ES&S (and Diebold/Premier)…Bloomberg Spent $102 Million to Win 3rd Term yet won by fewer than 5 percent points…Complaint filed with Westchester County NY Board of Elections when two candidates names were missing from ballot…

The Voting News Daily: Impossible Numbers Certified in NY-23? Florida SOS says trust us, blue ink suddenly ok, Internet voting creeps up in Canada

Reporting Error about election audits in Westport CT news story……Illinois petition challenge process must go… Voter turnout in VA Governor’s race went up in 2009… Impossible Numbers Certified in NY-23 says Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. an election fraud investigator. Phillips is known for his book, “Witness to a Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of an American…

The Voting News Daily: NJ Sequoia counties no recourse, PA mostly digital recount to cost $1.3 mill, Philippines election related massacre

New Jersey needs a lemon law for voting machines: Counties that purchased voting machines from Sequoia Voting Systems, which provides the majority of voting systems in the state, in many cases entered into contracts that leave them little recourse if the machines malfunction or require repairs, according to a report issued today by New Jersey…

Verified Voting Blog: No Voting Machine Virus in New York-23 Election

Erroneous reports are circulating that a virus caused a problem in the scanners used in the NY-23 Congressional race. The reports, based on an inaccurate article published in the Gouverneur Times, are incorrect. There was no virus in the NY-23 machines. How do I know? Well, in the first place, the Dominion ImageCast scanners in question run the Linux operating system, which is nearly immune to viruses due to its inherent ability to lock out programs that lack explicit permission to run, unlike the highly vulnerable Windows operating system. Second, the State Board of Elections gave an account of the problem at their public meeting on November 10, and which I confirmed in a phone conversation with staff earlier this week. Here’s what really happened:

Let’s be clear. While no votes were lost due the ability to independently count the paper ballots, a problem did occur that affected certain machines around the state. The issue was a bug in the Dominion source code that caused the machine to hang while creating ballot images for certain vote combinations in multiple candidate elections (the ImageCast, like the other scanner used in New York, the ES&S DS200, creates digital images of each ballot which can be reviewed after the election). So if, for example, a “vote for three candidates out of five” race was voted in a certain way, the scanner would hang. This is one reason why the defect affected some, but not all machines with ballots containing this type of race, because only certain combinations of votes caused the memory problem. But here’s the thing – the problem was discovered before the election.

The Voting News Daily: Public Opinion and Election law shocker, NY 26 absentee ballots, Acorn -Bill of Attainder

A national survey of the public’s attitudes towards basic voting rights would shock the activist community – the poll shows majority support (55%) for literacy tests…Was Acorn defunding and “bill of attainder…an example of class warfare?”…The University of Connecticut’s analysis of the state’s 2008 post election audit is out…NY 23 can Doug Hoffman un-concede?…its a…

Verified Voting Blog: Enfranchising Military Voters: Michigan Legislators Protect Verifiable, Secret Ballots

In a move to enfranchise soldiers deployed overseas, the Michigan House of Representatives has passed legislation that would allow blank absentee ballots to voters overseas by fax or e-mail. If House Bill 5279 passes the Senate and becomes law, local election officials will be able to send and receive applications for absentee ballots via fax or e-mail, and also be able to send blank absentee ballots to voters electronically. Voters will then print, mark and send the completed physical ballots to their local Michigan election officials. H5279 passed the House unanimously on November 5. Senate committee action is likely in December, according to Emily Carney, an aide to Senate Campaign and Election Oversight Committee chair Sen. Susan McManus.

House Bill 5279 implements a central recommendation of the Pew Center on the States’s January 2009 report “No Time to Vote“. The Pew report stated that Michigan currently does not allow overseas and military voters sufficient time to vote because ballots have to be sent and received via postal mail. The Pew Center recommended that Michigan allow election officials to e-mail blank absentee ballots to overseas and military voters, and accept completed ballots beyond the current election-day deadline.

Verified Voting Blog: Email Ballots – A Threat to the Security and Privacy of the Military Vote

Last week  the state Massachusetts, intending to improve military voters access to the ballot while serving overseas, approved a law which throws the integrity and security of those ballots into question by allowing their return by email. The original bill contained excellent provisions which would have helped solve one of the biggest problems facing overseas military personnel – timely receipt of absentee ballots. Currently, absentee ballots are sent by conventional mail, which can take two weeks to reach military voters. The problem is further exacerbated when soldiers are deployed in the field where they may not receive mail for long periods of time.

In its original form, the Massachusetts bill allowed military only to acquire an absentee ballot online. The downloaded blank ballot could then be printed, voted on and sent back, greatly enhancing the availability of ballots. But, in an ill conceived last minute addition, the bill was modified to also allow return of voted ballots by email. In terms of voter privacy and ballot security, email return of ballots is one of the worst choices and should never have been inserted in the bill let alone been approved. It’s not like the data wasn’t available. All lawmakers needed to do was consult a 2008 NIST research document which lays out the problems with email return of ballots in gruesome detail.

The Voting News Daily: Sarasota voting machine blues, Lackawanna GOP distrust machines, Virginia laws need overhaul

The Herald Tribune says Sarasota Florida new voting-machine problems must be remedied, and statistically significant audits should be implemented state wide…Did you think the ballot you cast in the 2008 election was secret? Think again if you live in Hawaii…Three Indiana county precinct election results flipped….Northern Kentucky set to get new scanning machines, why isn’t…

Verified Voting Blog: Comments on the California Secretary of State’s Precinct Level Data Pilot Project

Thank you for inviting comments on your Precinct Level Data Pilot Project, which seeks to provide precinct-level vote tabulation data to the public. We applaud Secretary Bowen’s pilot program. Timely precinct-level election results from California counties are crucial for establishing the integrity of California’s elections, for supporting analyses of election results and for designing and conducting post-election vote-tabulation audits. We have examined the sample data from the four counties—Orange County, Sacramento County, San Francisco County and San Luis Obispo County—that provided data for the Pilot Project.[1. See: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2009-special/precinct-data/index.htm] We submit these comments in the hope that you find them helpful as the Pilot Project goes forward.

The Voting News Daily: Did Hoffman Win NY-23? Dominion scanner issues, Lancaster VA multiple machine malfunction

A ‘Post-Racial’ America? Not yet….On the law surrounding lines at polling places…Pay to play in New Jersey ?…Ex-first selectman has lawyer probe Middlebury CT voting, machine malfunction and some ballots photocopied…They don’t float: Clark County Indiana found out the hard way that if you store voting machines in a basement they may get water damage,…

The Voting News Daily: Massachusetts passes flawed vet voting bill, Vote By Mail concerns, Johnson City NY miscount

Unfortunately Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed military internet voting bill Wednesday even after National and State Voting Rights Groups urged him not to …Verified Voting has a new blog, you can sign up for updates…. …D.C. takes up same day registration, so should Congress…Brad Friedman on Acorn and “protecting” the taxpayers….Study shows permanent mail voting…