National: Phish and Chips: Why Cyber Attacks Are So Difficult to Trace Back to Hackers | Scientific American

Cyber attacks may not be a new phenomenon but the recent successes scored against high-profile targets including CitiGroup, Google, RSA and government contractors such as Lockheed Martin underscore the targets' current failure to block security threats enabled by the Internet. Malicious hackers use the very same technology that enables online banking, entertainment and myriad other communication services to attack these very applications, steal user data, and then cover their own tracks.

One common practice that attackers employ to evade detection is to break into poorly secured computers and use those hijacked systems as proxies through which they can launch and route attacks worldwide. Although such attacks are an international problem, there is no international response, which frustrates local law enforcement seeking cooperation from countries where these  proxy servers typically reside.

Editorials: Opposing view: ID laws ensure election integrity | Hans A. von Spakovsky/ USAToday.com

Why are states such as Texas and Kansas passing voter ID laws? Quite simply, to ensure the integrity of our election process.

Our View: Republican ID laws smack of vote suppression

All Americans who are eligible to vote must have the opportunity to do so. But it's equally important that their ballots are not stolen or diluted by fraudulent votes. That is one of the reasons that Americans — by an overwhelming margin, across all racial and ethnic lines — support such common-sense reform.

Voter ID can significantly defeat and deter impersonation fraud at the polls, voting under fictitious names, double-voting by individuals registered in more than one state, and voting by non-citizens. As the Supreme Court has pointed out, "flagrant examples of such fraud … have been documented throughout this nation's history."

Editorials: A nationwide assault on voting rights | Elisabeth MacNamara/The Washington Post

The June 5 news article “La. redistricting seen as a crucial test” missed a crucial point: what our democracy would look like without the critical protections afforded by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

By all accounts, a nationwide assault on voters’ rights is underway. State laws are being passed at an alarming rate that make it harder for millions of eligible voters to cast ballots by shortening early-voting periods, requiring photo IDs and erecting burdensome barriers to voter registration efforts.

Editorials: Our view: Republican ID laws smack of vote suppression | USAToday.com

Except, that is, when Republicans want to impose tighter rules for their political benefit. A case in point is the flurry of states —six so far this year— rushing to pass laws requiring voters to bring government-issued photo IDs to polling places. All have Republican governors and GOP-controlled legislatures.

Opposing View: ID laws ensure election integrity

Supporters say this is necessary to prevent voter fraud. But the operative question is: Why, at a time of economic distress and state budget shortfalls, is this such a priority? The answer has less to do with prevention than with suppression.

National: Shrinking The Vote: Using Election Reform To Decrease Turnout | Daily Kos

As the U.S population grows and the number of eligible voters continues to climb with each election cycle, a disturbing trend of limiting voter access to the polls is taking place. With 2012 on the horizon, states are already gearing up to ensure that barriers are installed across the voting process, from restrictions on voter registration to strict requirements at the polls. It's been called “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”

Legislators justify the vast majority of this legislation by claiming they are merely attempting to prevent widespread voter fraud. The Brennan Center for Justice conducted the most extensive analysis of voter fraud allegations and concluded that proponents of voter ID laws could not find "a proven example of a single vote cast at the polls in someone else’s name that could be stopped by a pollsite photo ID rule."

National: Outdated and Failing: Modernizing Our Voting System for the Rising Electorate | Rock the Vote Blog

Day after day, from college campuses to high school classrooms, we hear stories about needless bureaucratic barriers that prevent young people from voting. For young Americans, the greatest barrier to participation is the out-dated process itself. Our complicated registration process varies state-by-state, and our country’s antiquated, paper-based electoral system is riddled with restrictive rules and red tape that don’t reflect advances in technology or meet the needs of modern life.

You’d think that the most basic element of our democracy – the very right to participate in our government that is guaranteed to all of us – would be something we would constantly work to improve. Yet somehow voting is an archaic ordeal, inconsistently implemented from place to place, and disturbingly, manipulated by whether people in power want someone like you to show up at the polls.

It doesn’t need to be this hard to vote.

National: Debunking Misinformation on Photo ID | Brennan Center for Justice

Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed (“The Case for Voter ID”) by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.  In the piece, Kobach touts restrictive voter ID bills, including the Kansas “Secure and Fair Elections Act,” which he drafted and Governor Sam Brownback signed into law a few weeks ago.  Kobach argues that (1) voter ID laws will not actually prevent any eligible citizens from voting; and (2) they will prevent in-person voter fraud, which he claims is a substantial problem.

But his arguments are built on inaccuracies, unsupported allegations, and flawed reasoning.  Because Kobach takes direct aim at the Brennan Center in this op-ed, we thought a thorough review of his claims was in order. We sent a letter to the editors at the Journal rebutting some of his claims, but the paper did not publish it.

National: Three More Jurisdictions To ‘Bailout’ From Special Voting Rights Act Supervision | The Blog of Legal Times

A Virginia city, a California irrigation district and a Texas drainage district are the latest places to come to an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice on exiting special supervision under the federal Voting Rights Act.

Today, DOJ announced it had reached agreements with the City of Bedford, Va. (PDF) and the Alta Irrigation District in California (PDF) on approving their “bailout” from special supervision; three-judge panels in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia are expected to approve both petitions.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel approved a bailout (PDF) for Jefferson County Drainage District No. 7 in Texas. The Justice Department had agreed to that petition in April.

National: Organisation appeals for expat Americans to stand up and be counted | Telegraph

The Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF), a not-for-profit group dedicated to helping Americans overseas take part in federal elections, began its “Counting Citizens” project in April this year.

Using the power of social media to spread the word, the group is appealing for expats to register on a dedicated website, and help the organisation produce a reliable estimate of the number of Americans currently living abroad

“At the moment, there no is no accurate up-to-date estimate of how many American citizens abroad there are or where they are,” said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, the president of the OVF. “Expats are not included in the US census, and previous estimates have been very rough, and often non-official.

National: New Research Result: Bubble Forms Not So Anonymous – Princeton researchers deanonymize optical scan ballots| Freedom to Tinker

by Will Clarkson Today, Joe Calandrino, Ed Felten and I are releasing a new result regarding the anonymity of fill-in-the-bubble forms. These forms, popular for their use with standardized tests, require respondents to select answer choices by filling in a corresponding bubble. Contradicting a widespread implicit assumption, we show that individuals create distinctive marks on these forms, allowing use of the marks as a biometric. Using a sample of 92 surveys, we show that an individual's markings enable unique re-identification within the sample set more than half of the time. The potential impact of this work is as diverse as use of the forms themselves, ranging from cheating detection on standardized tests to identifying the individuals behind “anonymous” surveys or election ballots.

If you've taken a standardized test or voted in a recent election, you’ve likely used a bubble form. Filling in a bubble doesn't provide much room for inadvertent variation. As a result, the marks on these forms superficially appear to be largely identical, and minor differences may look random and not replicable. Nevertheless, our work suggests that individuals may complete bubbles in a sufficiently distinctive and consistent manner to allow re-identification.

National: Clemson University research team to lead accessible voting technology project | Clemson Newsroom

A Clemson University research team has been chosen by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to lead a national effort to make voting systems more accessible.

Juan Gilbert, a professor and chairman of the Human-Centered Computing Division in Clemson's School of Computing, will direct a three-year, $4.5 million project funded by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to increase the accessibility of "new, existing and emerging technological solutions" in the design of voting systems.

Editorials: They Want to Make Voting Harder? | NYTimes.com

One of the most promising recent trends in expanding political participation has been allowing people to vote in the weeks before Election Day, either in person or by mail. Early voting, which enables people to skip long lines and vote at more convenient times, has been increasingly popular over the last 15 years. It skyrocketed to a third of the vote in 2008, rising particularly in the South and among black voters supporting Barack Obama.

And that, of course, is why Republican lawmakers in the South are trying desperately to cut it back. Two states in the region have already reduced early-voting periods, and lawmakers in others are considering doing so. It is the latest element of a well-coordinated effort by Republican state legislators across the country to disenfranchise voters who tend to support Democrats, particularly minorities and young people.

The biggest part of that effort, imposing cumbersome requirements that voters have a government ID, has been painted as a response to voter fraud, an essentially nonexistent problem. But Republican lawmakers also have taken a good look at voting patterns, realized that early voting might have played a role in Mr. Obama’s 2008 victory, and now want to reduce that possibility in 2012.

National: Students in Crossfire in Battles Over Voting Rights | Brennan Center for Justice

Voting is a fundamental right for all American citizens over 18.  Some states -- including Arizona and New York -- have prioritized voting rights, with student engagement policies that should serve as models for other states.  Yet even as we should be encouraging the next generation to be civically engaged, in many states students are being targeted by bills that make it harder to register and to vote.

In the current legislative cycle, a majority of state legislatures have explored increasingly restrictive voter ID legislation.  College students are particularly impacted by many of these voter identification proposals, especially when student IDs do not qualify as photo identification for voting.  But even more disturbing is a new trend of bills that seek to explicitly make voting more difficult for college students.  The most notable recent example was New Hampshire House Bill 176, which would have created a special voter residency standard for students and members of the military who lived elsewhere—including elsewhere in the state—prior to matriculating or being stationed in New Hampshire, thereby preventing students from voting in state or local elections.  The Brennan Center forcefully opposed this bill, and argued that it would likely be unconstitutional.  Fortunately, after college students of all political stripes banded together to voice their opposition, the bill died on the House floor.

National: How state legislatures could affect the 2012 elections | POLITICO.com

The push to rig the 2012 presidential election is under way.

There’s nothing illegal about it: Across the country, state legislatures are embroiled in partisan battles over election-law changes that, by design or effect, could play a significant role in determining the outcome of the presidency.

So far this year, there’s been legislation aimed at overhauling the awarding of electoral votes, requiring that candidates present a birth certificate, not to mention a wide assortment of other voting rights and administration-related measures that could easily affect enough ballots to deliver a state to one candidate or another. Experts say the explosion of such efforts in the run-up to 2012 is unprecedented — and can be traced back to a familiar wellspring.

“Florida in 2000 taught people that election administration really can make a difference in the outcome of an election,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the liberal Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

National: Most Security Measures Easy to Breach, Expert Says | NBC Chicago

When things go really, really wrong, Roger Johnston has a really, really good day. After all, he's usually the man who made them go wrong.

Johnston has a PhD, 10 patents to his name, and what every 10 year old kid would think is a dream job. As chief of the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago, he has made it is his mission to crack into every security system labeled as foolproof by their creators.

… One of the most frightening examples Johnston has turned up is in one of the nation's most treasured franchises: the right to vote. He said he's found that most voting machines have almost no security to reveal tampering. Thus, he said, it's a fairly simple matter to tinker with the electronics while machines are in storage or being transported by the truckload. He has even demonstrated how he can turn cheating mechanisms in voting machines on and off by remote control.

"It's much easier to steal the election, right at the electronic voting machine," said Johnston. "In many cases, we see security devices or electronic voting machines where we really have to wonder, 'Did anybody spend 60 seconds figuring out the security issues?"

National: Savvis lands $10M contract from Federal Election Commission | St. Louis Business Journal

Savvis Federal Systems, a subsidiary of Savvis Inc. in St. Louis, said Thursday it has been awarded a $9.8 million, five-year contract to provide information technology services for the U.S. Federal Election Commission.

Under the terms of the agreement, Savvis will provide managed hosting, security and network services to the FEC in two Savvis data centers. Savvis also will host the fec.gov website.

Editorials: Identification: More troubling than you might think | Michael Casiano/The Diamondback

In February 2010, one of my roommates had the misfortune of hearing that his basement had flooded. In it, his parents had stored many of his personal legal documents, including his birth certificate and Social Security card. After successfully getting a job, he was required to present his employer with multiple forms of identification.

Possessing only a driver's license, he had to send away for the other supporting documentation. It's easy enough for an American citizen to do so, not factoring in the time, money and hassle of getting the documents. In the time being, however, we all joked, "You're illegal!"

National: Republican States Push Revisions to Voting Laws | NYTimes.com

Less than 18 months before the next presidential election, Republican-controlled statehouses around the country are rewriting voting laws to require photo identification at the polls, reduce the number of days of early voting or tighten registration rules.

Republican legislators say the new rules, which have advanced in 13 states in the past two months, offer a practical way to weed out fraudulent votes and preserve the integrity of the ballot box. Democrats say the changes have little to do with fraud prevention and more to do with placing obstacles in the way of possible Democratic voters, including young people and minorities.

California: Transparency Project nabs federal grant; money to be used to augment post-election audit project, allow for duplication elsewhere | Times-Standard Online

A local project that uncovered a fatal flaw in Humboldt County’s old elections system just got some national recognition that may ultimately lead to its becoming the standard rather than the exception.

The federal Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) officially notified the Humboldt County Elections Office this week that it was receiving a $25,000 grant to fund and augment the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project so it can be replicated in other places. While the grant is relatively small in comparison to the $1.5 million the EAC doled out in this round of grants, its impact could be huge, according to Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich.

National: Republicans vote to end Election Assistance Commission, set up after Bush v. Gore – TheHill.com

Republicans on the Committee on House Administration have voted to eliminate the independent commission that was established to address election problems after the contested 2000 presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, has disbursed more than $3 billion in “requirements” payments to states to update voting machines and enhance election administration. But the commission has seen that funding significantly decline in recent years.

National: GOP Seeks Savings in Phasing Out Election Assistance Commission | Roll Call News

An effort by House Republicans to close the Election Assistance Commission cleared its first obstacle Wednesday. After some limited Democratic opposition, the House Administration Committee approved a bill that would remove funding from the EAC and transfer much of its responsibilities to the Federal Election Commission.

The bill, which was approved by voice vote, is expected to receive a vote on the House floor next month, and Republicans are optimistic of its passage. “Now is simply the time to end the EAC and to save the American taxpayers $14 million a year,” said Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the bill’s sponsor. “It doesn’t get any easier to find an example of wasteful spending.”

National: Defense Department offers $15 million to improve overseas voting | Stars and Stripes

Defense Department officials late last week announced more than $15 million in grants designed to improve how voter registration forms and absentee ballots are sent to overseas voters, in an effort to solve problems well in advance of the 2012 presidential election.

Bob Carey, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, said officials don’t have any set plans on how many grants they’ll award or exactly what the final projects will look like. The grants are open to state and local election officials, and the parameters call for using new technologies to decrease the delivery time for registration, ballot requests and changes of address.

National: States Toughen ID Rules for Voters | Wall Street Journal

More states will require voters to show photo identification at the polls next year, as part of a wave of laws that will increase scrutiny of voters in next year’s elections.

Stricter voter-ID measures are moving forward in at least half a dozen states after Republicans gained control of many statehouses and governors’ mansions in November. The push is part of a long-running debate between those who argue U.S. voting systems are subject to voter abuse and those who say imposing tighter restrictions will disenfranchise legitimate voters.

National: Gingrich Calls For Young Americans To Pass Test Before They Can Vote | Hispanically Speaking News

Last week, former GOP House Speaker and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich suggested that American citizens should have to pass a test in American history before they could earn the right to vote. Despite rampant criticism from both sides of the aisle, Gingrich reiterated his support for poll tests yesterday at a town hall meeting in Marshalltown, IA.

Speaking in front of a crowd made up largely of senior citizens, Gingrich reiterated his argument that since immigrants need to pass a test to become American citizens, “young Americans” should be forced to do the same “before they start voting.” A majority of the crowd seemed to approve, giving Gingrich resounding applause.

National: Gingrich Walks Back Support For Poll Tests Just A Day After Reiterating Support For Them | ThinkProgress

Former GOP House Speaker and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich walked back his support for poll tests Friday, just a day after reiterating support for making young Americans pass an American history test in order to gain voting rights.

In a brief interview at a campaign stop, ThinkProgress asked Gingrich about his comments the day before when he said, “it wouldn’t be bad to have a test for young Americans before they can vote.”

Editorials: Kitty Kent: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Make Sure They Can’t Vote | Associated Content

In state after Republican-controlled state (now more than two-thirds of all states), there’s a tactical imperative high on the legislative agenda. No, it’s not job creation; it is, in fact, more

along the lines of empire creation. That lofty ideal of the “permanent Republican majority” is again enjoying a chilling resurgence. Under the guise of prevention of “voter fraud,” onerous and costly “voter ID” bills are in various stages of life in state houses across the country, reports the New York Times. In a few states, bills have already passed and are law.

Editorials: Carl Bialik: The Mathematical Debate Over Instant Runoff and Other Alternative Voting Systems | Wall Street Journal

My print column this week examines the debate over voting systems that theorists and reformers have backed to replace the system prevalent in the U.S. and many other places, in which each voter gets one vote and the candidate with the most votes wins. Among possible alternative systems include some where voters rank candidates and others where they assign candidates scores.

Instant runoff, the focus of my column, has gotten the most traction so far. But some mathematicians point out that the system could give rise to various troubling results. Two significant ones: Voters who decide to shift their support from one candidate to a second can hurt that second candidate; and voters can get a worse outcome if they choose to show up to the polls, inadvertently helping their least-favorite candidate (the no-show paradox). Robert Z. Norman, Dartmouth College professor emeritus of mathematics, has simulated three-candidate elections in which each candidate has at least 25% of support and finds that each of these apparent paradoxes occur about one in five times.

National: Congressman Gregg Harper seeks to eliminate Election Assitance Commission | The Daily Caller

With America facing a debt crisis, legislatures have gone spelunking for areas of government to cut. Mississippi Republican Rep. Gregg Harper has surfaced with a proposal to eliminate what Ronald Reagan once quipped was the nearest thing to eternal life: a government agency.

Harper’s bill would terminate the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which Congress created in 2002 to implement the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The act was passed primarily to distribute funds to update equipment, a job which Harper says is essentially complete. He is not the only one that believes that. Last year, the National Association of Secretaries of State reaffirmed a 2005 resolution requesting that Congress eliminate the EAC since the body had “served its purpose.”

National: U.S. Supreme Court Advances one Election Law Case that has Long been Stalled | Ballot Access News

On May 11, the U.S. Supreme Court revealed that it has placed Dallas County v Texas Democratic Party, 10-755, on its May 26 conference. The conference will probably decide whether to hear the case.

The issue is whether Dallas County’s new rules concerning its vote-counting machines should have been submitted to the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department. The Texas Democratic Party doesn’t like the Dallas County vote-counting machines, because the machines have a tendency to trick some voters into voting just for a single candidate, even though the voter believes he or she has activated the straight-ticket device and has voted for all partisan office.

Editorials: Chris Kromm: The new war on voting rights | Facing South

Last November, the big themes of the 2010 elections were jobs and the economy. But in states across the South and country, many of the most pitched legislative battles have focused on another issue entirely: voting rights.

With Republicans taking power or strengthening their hand in many state legislatures — and the 2012 elections looming on the horizon — GOP leaders are seizing the opportunity to push a raft of measures they claim will restore integrity to the voting process.

But the new voting bills share some important features: They all work to restrict the franchise and shrink the electorate — in most cases, in ways that would decrease Democratic votes.