Verified Voting Blog: COVID-19 and the Surge of Mail Ballots: Managing an Unprecedented Volume in the November 2020 Election

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Jurisdictions across the country have seen a significant increase in mail voting during their 2020 primary elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several jurisdictions have required additional time to tabulate results — an indication that they will likely need more time and resources for the November general election. Verified Voting completed an analysis to better understand how many jurisdictions currently counting mail ballots on hand-fed scanners or by hand may face an unprecedented volume of mail ballots for this technology in the 2020 general election. Our study concluded that it is likely that most jurisdictions could manage the increase of mail ballots for one election using their current equipment if they have the additional staff, extended canvassing time, and ability to reallocate hand-fed scanners to process ballots. All jurisdictions need resources to do this, which is why Verified Voting continues to urge Congress to pass federal funding now, and for state government officials to extend canvassing deadlines to help ensure that all votes are counted as cast.

Verified Voting Blog: COVID-19 and the Surge of Mail Ballots: Managing an Unprecedented Volume in the November 2020 Election

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Jurisdictions across the country have seen a significant increase in mail voting during their 2020 primary elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several jurisdictions have required additional time to tabulate results — an indication that they will likely need more time and resources for the November general election. Verified Voting completed an analysis to better understand how many jurisdictions currently counting mail ballots on hand-fed scanners or by hand may face an unprecedented volume of mail ballots for this technology in the 2020 general election. Our study concluded that it is likely that most jurisdictions could manage the increase of mail ballots for one election using their current equipment if they have the additional staff, extended canvassing time, and ability to reallocate hand-fed scanners to process ballots. All jurisdictions need resources to do this, which is why Verified Voting continues to urge Congress to pass federal funding now, and for state government officials to extend canvassing deadlines to help ensure that all votes are counted as cast.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting to Congress: Pass Funding Now

Voters should not have to choose between their health and their vote, and with a little more than 100 days before the election, Verified Voting continues to urge Congress to pass $3.6 billion in funding included in the HEROES Act for election officials to conduct safe and secure elections in November. 

As yesterday’s Senate Rules Committee hearing on “2020 General Election Preparations” clearly demonstrated, officials desperately need resources to ensure the election proceeds safely and securely and this is true across the political spectrum. 

Here are some snippets from the hearing [full video available here]: 

“Already limited resources must be put to use, not just to ensure the safety and security of our democracy, but to ensure the health and safety of individual voters and election workers are not at risk,” said Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee.

Senator Angus King (I-ME) highlighted the security risks of internet voting and evidence of foreign interference in the 2016 elections. He said, “I can assure you the Russians are going to try and are trying to interfere in the election of 2020… And the problem with this challenge that we face is… they don’t have to change votes. All they have to do is sow doubt. Doubt is the dagger in the heart of democracy.”

Senator Blunt agreed that having confidence in the election results is critically important. He said it is “the fabric of democracy and we have to be thinking about that all the time.”

Verified Voting offers recommendations that can be implemented to address the challenges of running a secure, verifiable election in the midst of a pandemic, but all of our recommendations require immediate resources and planning. Congress needs to act now –  the clock is ticking for election officials to have enough time to expand mail voting and ensure safe in-person voting for all voters.

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Verified Voting Blog: June Primaries Set the Stage for November; Verified Voting Outlines Recommendations to Ensure Integrity and Verifiability of Elections

The following is a statement from Verified Voting on the primaries conducted on June 2 and June 9. For additional media inquiries, please contact Aurora Matthews, aurora@newheightscommunications.com.

June 17, 2020 – The first set of primaries postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated the acute challenges associated with ensuring the accuracy, integrity and verifiability of elections. Public trust in the election results is contingent upon the principle that governs a democracy: that each voter has a free and fair opportunity to cast a ballot privately and have each ballot counted as cast. Any action that interferes with these principles undermines the democratic institution of voting. With just over four months before the general election, our democracy is at great risk if steps are not immediately taken to protect it.

We urge Congress to pass funding that election officials desperately need to bolster staffing, equipment, and other infrastructure, and we urge election officials and government at all levels to act quickly to: 

  • Ramp up vote by mail securely by following the guidance outlined in our COVID-19 election security recommendations 
  • Supply  ample emergency paper ballots and paper copies of voter registration lists at in person polling locations as a recovery plan for technology failures and managing high turnout in November 
  • Conduct post-election risk limiting audits of paper ballots to check that the ballots were counted accurately and bolster public confidence in the election outcomes
  • Plan for mitigating technology and voting equipment malfunctions, whether malicious or accidental

Since its founding, Verified Voting has advocated for the responsible use of technology in elections. Technology is a crucial component of election infrastructure – the choice of technology and its deployment directly impacts how votes are cast and counted. The responsible use of election technology can bolster public confidence in election outcomes and help voters cast their votes safely and securely. The irresponsible use of election technology not only destroys confidence in elections but also disenfranchises voters.

Our elections continue to face threats of foreign interference disrupting the integrity of our election results. But as we’ve seen this primary season, another direct form of interference with election technology — through unfair allocations, inadequate training, or incomplete preparations — is happening right now and has been happening in each and every election cycle since our organization’s founding. Failure to fix voting technology, improve the voter experience, and secure our elections is a 21st century form of disenfranchisement that can and must be corrected. Our democracy is at stake until every single eligible voter can vote safely and securely in November’s election.

 

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Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Statement for the Record House Admin Election Hearing

The following is a letter sent by Verified Voting to the House Administration Committee Subcommittee on Elections ahead of the hearing, “The Impact of COVID-19 on Voting Rights and Election Administration: Ensuring Safe and Fair Elections” on June 11, 2020. Download the letter here

June 10, 2020

The Honorable Marcia L. Fudge, Chairperson
House Administration Committee Subcommittee on Elections
1309 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20003

The Honorable Rodney Davis, Ranking Member
House Administration Committee Subcommittee on Elections
1309 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20003

Dear Chairperson Fudge, Ranking Member Davis and Members of the Subcommittee,

Verified Voting thanks you for the opportunity to submit a written statement and for this important hearing on the impact of COVID-19 on voting rights and election administration.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many aspects of American democracy. Primaries have been rescheduled, processes for absentee ballots changed, and polling sites relocated, often with less than 24 hours’ notice. Through it all, election security and verification must continue to remain a priority as election officials and policymakers around the country respond and prepare for the 2020 general election.

Meeting the challenges presented by these threats requires immediate resources and planning because election officials are scrambling to run elections that are safe for voters and poll workers alike. While Congress included some initial funding in the CARES Act for election expenditures related to COVID-19, evidence from recent primaries makes it clear that additional funding is needed immediately to help election officials administer our elections safely and securely.  Verified Voting urges Congress to appropriate additional funding that matches the predictions of $3-4 billion necessary to properly run elections amid COVID-19 – to bolster staffing, equipment, and other infrastructure desperately needed.

This year, elections officials face a dual threat of the global pandemic and the cyber security threats that have not disappeared since the 2016 election. The measure of a successful election is public confidence that the election was conducted fairly and that the results are accurate. Providing reassuring answers after the election requires careful planning before the election.

Verified Voting applauds current provisions preventing federal funding from being spent on dangerously insecure online voting systems, but election officials need resources now to implement election security best practices and further prevent jurisdictions from moving towards risky electronic “solutions” that would allow electronic transmission of voted ballots over the internet, e.g via mobile app, email or fax.

As Congress and state election officials prepare for the 2020 general election, several measures can be implemented to address the challenges of running a secure election in the midst of a pandemic. Verified Voting offers seven recommendations that center on election security and verification with any expansion of vote by mail:

 

  1. Ballot Tracking: Many voters worry about their ballots being lost in the mail. To the extent feasible, states should adopt and publicize ballot tracking systems that allow voters to locate their ballot envelopes en route from and to election offices while maintaining anonymity of their ballot selections. E.g.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Decries Efforts to Ramp Up Internet Voting; New Report from MIT and Univ. of Michigan Confirms Risks

The following is a statement from Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting about the new report from MIT and the University of Michigan, “Security Analysis of the Democracy Live Online Voting System”. For additional media inquiries, please contact Aurora Matthews, aurora@newheightscommunications.com 

 

June 8, 2020 – “Computer scientists agree that electronic transmission of voted ballots — such as internet voting and mobile app voting — cannot be made secure. Sending voted material electronically elevates the risk of tampering with the elections to unacceptable levels. 

“The new analysis of Democracy Live’s OmniBallot platform by MIT and University of Michigan confirms this conclusion. Even amidst a global pandemic, states simply cannot risk moving to internet voting. Absentee voting exists in every state and with proper preparations states should act quickly to expand absentee voting so that voting is safer for voters and poll workers alike. The Senate should take swift actions to approve additional emergency funding for elections to allow state and local election officials to make the necessary preparations for the November election so that all votes are counted as cast.  

“As voting jurisdictions move to ramp up absentee voting by mail, voters with disabilities need an accessible option to participate in elections. Verified Voting and Common Cause recently published guidance for states selecting remote ballot marking systems for voters with disabilities to ensure that all voters have access to expanded vote by mail. As the researchers point out, safer configurations exist that allow voters with disabilities to use assistive features for marking a ballot and then printing and mailing it to the jurisdiction without sending information to remote servers that could compromise the system. We support those recommendations.”

 

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Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting & California Voter Foundation’s Letter of Concern regarding California’s November election

The California Voter Foundation and Verified Voting are writing to express technological and security concerns about your bill, AB 860, which requires all counties to mail every registered voter a vote-bymail ballot for the November 3 Presidential Election. We appreciate all the hard work and negotiations that have gone into crafting both AB 860 and its companion bill, SB 423 and hope these comments help strengthen your proposal as well as planning for November. Provisional voting and VoteCal While we support the plan to mail every registered voter a ballot during this uncertain time, doing so may also result in widespread use of provisional voting in order to keep voters who received a mailed ballot from being able to cast an additional ballot. Counties could minimize the need for provisional ballots if they have access to real-time connectivity from voting sites to VoteCal, California’s statewide voter registration database, and can verify the voter’s mailed ballot has not already been received and also cancel that ballot to prevent double-voting. During the March Primary, VoteCal was inaccessible for periods during the morning and evening to several counties on Election Day, dramatically slowing down the voting process during those times. Los Angeles County’s technical issues, including problems syncing county voter data with VoteCal, contributed to long lines and hours-long wait times in some locations. If all counties will be depending on VoteCal for November to verify whether ballots have already been cast, it is imperative that this database be load- and stress-tested well in advance to ensure it can handle the amount of traffic that may occur when potentially thousands of voting sites across the state attempt to access the database in real time.

Verified Voting Blog: Election Security and an Accessible Vote By Mail Option

Guidance by Common Cause and Verified Voting published today outlines that remote accessible vote by mail options that keep voters choices private and secure already exist and should be made available to voters with disabilities as states increase access to vote by mail. Download PDF During the COVID 19 pandemic, policymakers and elections officials are working to make voting safe, secure and accessible. As many jurisdictions expand vote by mail options, members of the disability community have pointed out that traditional vote by mail programs are not accessible to all voters. Some have urged that Congress adopt options for online voting to accommodate people with disabilities. It is paramount that jurisdictions accommodate all voters with a secure and safe voting option during the pandemic, including voters with disabilities. Online voting is not secure. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and the Department of Homeland Security all agree that no practically proven method exists to securely, verifiably, or privately return voted materials over the internet. In a recently released document entitled Risk Management for Electronic Ballot Delivery, Marking and Return, all four agencies stated, “Electronic ballot return faces significant security risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of voted ballots. These risks can ultimately affect the tabulation and results and can occur at scale.” In other words, the security risk is high. Despite what vendors may say, voting by email or via web portals jeopardizes the integrity of the election results; votes can be manipulated or deleted without the voter’s knowledge and the voter’s selections could be traced back to the individual voter.

Verified Voting Blog: Letter to New Jersey Governor regarding the use of internet voting options

Download the following letter sent on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, Common Cause, and Verified Voting, to express our concern about the use of internet voting options in New Jersey elections. Dear Governor Murphy, Attorney General Grewal, Secretary Way, and Director Giles: We write concerning the use of internet voting options in recent local elections, as well as statements from state officials that this limited implementation will serve as a pilot for potential expanded use in future elections.[1] We agree with the legal conclusions expressed in Professor Penny Venetis’s May 7th letter,[2] that the use of internet voting would violate the statewide court order issued in Gusciora v. Corzine,[3] and we are aware of new litigation brought by Mercer County Assemblyman Reed Gusciora and New Jersey citizen groups arguing the same. As Judge Feinberg recognized in Gusciora, “as long as computers, dedicated to handling election matters, are connected to the Internet, the safety and security of our voting systems are in jeopardy.” While we recognize the challenges that the pandemic poses for our democracy and the need to expand voting options to ensure free and safe elections, these expansions should not be done in a way that jeopardizes election security. And the overwhelming consensus among security experts is that no method of internet voting can be conducted in a secure manner at this time. For this reason, we strongly urge you to refrain from any further use of internet or mobile voting systems in 2020.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting supports election funding, security measures in proposed HEROES Act

The following is a statement from Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting in response to the House Democrats’ proposed coronavirus response package, the HEROES Act HR 6800. For additional media inquiries, please contact Aurora Matthews, aurora@newheightscommunications.com

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May 13, 2020 — “COVID-19 created a new landscape for conducting elections and election officials need sufficient funds to ensure that voters can vote safely and know that their votes were counted accurately. We support the security measures that accompany the $3.6 billion in funding such as signature verification with opportunity to cure, ballot tracking and risk-limiting audits. Verified Voting also applauds the provisions preventing federal funding from being spent on dangerously insecure online voting systems.”

 

Verified Voting, a non-partisan election integrity organization, advocates for evidence-based elections where the majority of voters mark paper ballots, the voter verifies the ballot before casting, there is a strong chain of custody of the ballots, and robust post-election audits such as risk-limiting audits (RLAs) are conducted. Verified Voting’s COVID-19 recommendations on election security and verification can be viewed here.

 

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For additional media inquiries, please contact Aurora Matthews, aurora@newheightscommunications.com

 

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting praises federal guidance issued opposing internet voting

The following is a statement from Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting in response to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s guidance to states warning about security concerns with any voting system that uses the internet. For additional media inquiries, please contact Aurora Matthews, aurora@newheightscommunications.com

May 12, 2020 — “CISA’s new guidance validates what the election security community has long argued: that internet voting is dangerously insecure. Voting over the internet does not provide a way for jurisdictions to monitor, detect, respond, and recover from a potential attack, ” said Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting.  “Conducting an election using internet voting would jeopardize the integrity of the election results, and in these uncertain times, it matters more than ever to improve the trustworthiness of our elections. We are working to ensure that this November’s election results will be resilient, and as the guidance shows, voting over the internet is simply not a safe and secure option for voters.”

Verified Voting, a non-partisan election integrity organization, advocates for evidence-based elections where the majority of voters mark paper ballots, the voter verifies the ballot before casting, there is a strong chain of custody of the ballots, and robust post-election audits such as risk-limiting audits (RLAs) are conducted. Verified Voting’s COVID-19 recommendations on election security and verification, which can be viewed here, note that voting via the internet or mobile app should not be used.

For additional media inquiries, please contact Aurora Matthews, aurora@newheightscommunications.com

Verified Voting Blog: Groups continue to urge Puerto Rico Governor Vázquez Garced to veto internet voting bill

Today, key members from Verified Voting, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Brennan Center for Justice, and Protect Democracy met virtually with the Puerto Rico Governor’s office to urge Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced to veto P.S. 1314 before it becomes law on May 16. If passed, the bill would establish a pilot program for online voting during the 2020 election cycle, and ramp up to making online voting the default option for Puerto Rican voters by 2028. ICYMI, on March 19, three dozen experts joined Verified Voting in sending a letter to Governor Vázquez Garced outlining the dangers of internet voting  Read our blog post from March 20, or view the letter here:

DOWNLOAD ENGLISH VERSION

DOWNLOAD SPANISH VERSION

Dear Governor Vázquez Garced,

We, Verified Voting, the undersigned computer scientists and cybersecurity experts, write to urge you to veto Senate Bill 1314 which proposes implementing a system of internet voting in Puerto Rico. Under the provisions of this bill, Puerto Rico would phase in internet voting as the sole option for Puerto Rican citizens. As explained more fully below, internet voting cannot be accomplished securely and provides no meaningful way to verify that the computers captured or counted votes accurately. This concept is settled science, notwithstanding efforts to increase internet voting use in some areas. In the current climate when nation states have sought to interfere in other nations’ elections, Puerto Rico’s bill is a risky move. Indeed, last year the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate made bipartisan recommendations, among them that “states should resist pushes” to move their elections online because in their words, “no system of online voting has yet established itself as secure.” [1. See Report of The Select Committee On Intelligence United States Senate On Russian Active Measures Campaigns And Interference In The 2016 U.S. Election, Vol. 1: Russian Efforts Against Election infrastructure with Additional Views, at 59 (July, 2019) available here: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf]

Verified Voting Blog: Letter to Florida Governor – VETO CS/HB 1005

 

Download the letter here

25 March 2020

Hon. Ron DeSantis

Governor, State of Florida

The Capitol

400 S. Monroe St.

Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

 

Dear Governor DeSantis,

 

RE:  VETO CS/HB 1005 – Voting Systems

 

Florida has had more than its share of election recount problems in the past. Please don’t expose the state to new problems on your watch. CS/HB 1005 is well-intentioned but exposes Florida to new risks of hacking, elections-failure and more embarrassment. It is neither a necessary nor a well conceived change to The Florida Election Code. Please veto the bill and give stakeholders a chance to revisit the issue and make better choices.

 

CS/HB 1005 seeks to take an uncertified “retabulation” technology, currently only authorized by DoS for non-binding post-certification audits and graduate the technology’s use to the big leagues – infamous Florida recounts.

 

This change has been heavily backed by Florida’s Supervisors of Elections, their association, the Florida Supervisors of Elections (FSE) and of course by the sole source vendor, Clear Ballot Group.

 

We appreciate the supervisors’ motivation: to speed up the manual recount process. As you experienced in your own election in 2018, Florida is prone to large, burdensome recounts. Florida  is the third most populous state and the biggest swing state with a very evenly balanced electorate – thus prone to close elections.

 

But this bill is not the solution, however much the supervisors would like it to be. It is dangerous.

 

The problems with this bill:

 

  • Paper ballots: This bill does not require that recounts look at the actual paper ballots – the legal ballots of record. Rather it relies on hackable retabulation and digital images.[1] Florida has paper ballots for a reason. They provide the security we’ve come to understand does not exist with digital data. Computer scientists, cryptographers, and cyber security experts all agree, elections should rely on the paper ballots. [2]

 

  • Threat to National Security: This bill increases risks to Florida’s election security and therefore also to national security in several ways.
    • The bill makes Florida elections more dependent on hackable digital tabulation without requiring that digital information first be confirmed by a scientific check against the paper.[3] (Sponsors added language saying the paper ballots would be “available” but they failed to require a proper, scientific check to the paper ballots. “Availability” of the paper ballots is of little value by itself.)  o The bill further outsources Florida elections to third party vendors over whom Florida has little or no control. We know such vendors have been hacked in the past and here we contemplate expanding our threat profile to third party vendors when we should be reducing it.[4] 
    • This change would erode public trust in our elections. After assuring the public for nearly a decade that we rely on paper ballots, now we say never mind that – we’ll rely on these images and more computers, feeding public distrust of elections which destabilizes our democracy in exactly the ways we know the Russians and other foreign adversaries are working to do.

Verified Voting Blog: Letter to Florida Governor – Provisional Support for Florida Supervisors of Election’s (FSE’s) COVID-19-Related Requests for Executive Orders

 

Download the letter here

 

14 April 2020

Hon. Ron DeSantis

Governor, State of Florida

The Capitol

400 S. Monroe St.

Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

 

Dear Governor DeSantis,

RE:  Provisional Support for FSE 7 April 2020 COVID-19-Related Requests for Executive Orders

Verified Voting writes to lend our provisional support to the Florida Supervisors of Election’s (FSE’s) 7 April 2020 letter (attached) requesting you order several provisions, as soon as possible, to assist FSE members to address the extraordinary conditions they face to conduct the remaining 2020 elections.

We thank FSE members, their staffs and volunteers, as well as you, your staff, and all those at the Department of State who must scramble, sometimes in hazardous conditions, to conduct elections on schedule during this unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.

We support FSE’s request that you make Supervisors “a priority for the acquisition of supplies like hand sanitizer and other resources to ensure in-person voting is in accordance with CDC and FDOH guidelines.” Elections workers are indeed part of Essential Services, per EO-20-91 ESSENTIAL SERVICES LIST, making such prioritization both appropriate and essential.

It is also essential to fundamental American democracy to keep elections on schedule even during periods when it is extremely challenging to do so. There is a great body of precedent for that principle, perhaps most famously when President Lincoln refused to postpone the 1864 Presidential election in the midst of The Civil War, saying, “We cannot have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.”

With that principle in mind, we support FSE’s request for greater flexibility at the county level. Our 67 counties have unique characteristics meaning, at this extraordinary time, one set of means and methods may not fit all, even while an equal opportunity to cast a ballot must remain the standard for all.

FSE requests you reference EO-19-262 and order similar remedies today in response to COVID-19, as you did then in response to the impacts of Hurricane Michael. We agree with one important caveat.

FSE requests at bullets one, two and three that you:

  • “suspend applications of provisions of Section 101.657(1)(a) and (b), Florida Statutes, and allow each county Supervisor of Elections to designate additional or alternative Early Voting site locations.” and;
  • “Allow counties the option of beginning Early Voting up to 22 days prior to the August and November 2020 elections, notwithstanding the provisions of Section 101.657(1)(d), Florida Statutes, and allow Early Voting to continue, at the chosen locations, through 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.”
  • “concerning relocation or consolidation of polling places, suspend the provisions of sections 101.001 and 101. 71 ( 1 ), Florida Statutes, which require there to be one polling place in each precinct. This will allow the Supervisor the option to relocate or consolidate polling places with Early Voting sites.”

We respectfully request that in any order addressing the FSE’s concerns, you include explicit language effectively the same as that used in EO-19-262, namely: “so as to provide all voters … an equal opportunity to cast a ballot, insofar as is practicable” and make that applicable to both state and county authority over elections, to preserve equal protection under the law. 

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting signs onto AAAS letter opposing online voting

Verified Voting  and members of the Board and Board of Advisors signed onto a letter drafted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) urging states against using internet voting solutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the letter here:

Download the letters (pdf)

Letter to Governors and Secretaries of State on the insecurity of online voting

April 9, 2020

Dear Governors, Secretaries of State and State Election Directors,

We are writing to share information on the scientific evidence regarding the security of internet voting. Based on scientific evidence, we have serious concerns about the security of voting via the internet or mobile apps.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge to American elections. At this time, internet voting is not a secure solution for voting in the United States, nor will it be in the foreseeable future. Vote manipulation that could be undetected and numerous security vulnerabilities including potential denial of service attacks, malware intrusions, and mass privacy violations, remain possible in internet voting.

We urge you to refrain from allowing the use of any internet voting system and consider expanding access to voting by mail and early voting to better maintain the security, accuracy, and voter protections essential for American elections in the face of an unprecedented public health crisis.

Internet voting is insecure.

Internet voting, which includes email, fax, and web-based voting as well as voting via mobile apps such as Voatz, remains fundamentally insecure. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Scientists and security experts express concern regarding a number of potential vulnerabilities facing any internet voting platform, including malware and denial of service attacks; voter authentication; ballot protection and anonymization; and how disputed ballots are handled. Importantly, there is no way to conduct a valid audit of the results due to the lack of a meaningful voter-verified paper record. If a blockchain architecture is used, serious questions arise regarding what content is stored in it, how the blockchain is decrypted for public access, and how votes are ultimately transferred to some type of durable paper record.11  No scientific or technical evidence suggests that any internet voting system could or does address these concerns.

A 2018 consensus study report on election security by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), the most definitive and comprehensive report on the scientific evidence behind voting security in the U.S., stated:

“At the present time, the Internet (or any network connected to the Internet) should not be used for the return of marked ballots. Further, Internet voting should not be used in the future until and unless very robust guarantees of security and verifiability are developed and in place, as no known technology guarantees the secrecy, security, and verifiability of a marked ballot transmitted over the Internet.” 5

Federal researchers have also agreed that secure internet voting is not yet feasible.12 The Department of Defense suspended an Internet voting trial after concluding it could not ensure the legitimacy of votes cast over the Internet 13 and the Pentagon has stated it does not endorse the electronic return of voted ballots.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting releases COVID-19 election security recommendations

Download Verified Voting's guidance here The COVID-19 epidemic has impacted many aspects of American democracy. Primaries have been rescheduled, processes for absentee ballots changed, and polling sites relocated, often with less than 24 hours’ notice. Throughout it all, election officials have been and will continue to be essential workers on the front line of protecting our democracy amidst this pandemic. People have risked their lives to ensure that others can cast their ballots. Given Verified Voting’s mission, these recommendations center on election security and verification, but they can only be implemented if election officials are safe and supported.  COVID-19 and Trustworthy Elections Election security and verification must remain a priority as election officials and policymakers around the country respond to the COVID-19 epidemic. Even with changes in procedures, the measure of a successful election is public confidence that the election was conducted fairly. Hostile nation-states and others will strive to raise doubts: Were some voters denied a chance to vote? Were some votes cast illegally? Were some votes cast inaccurately? Were some ballots added, removed, or altered? Were the ballots miscounted? How do we know?  Providing reassuring answers after the election requires careful planning before the election by many stakeholders. Election officials will need time, resources, technical assistance, and support to do the work needed to secure the election.

Verified Voting Blog: Recommendations for Election Officials and Voters ahead of March 17 Primaries

The following is a statement from Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting in response to concerns around the March 17 primaries and the COVID-19 pandemic. For additional media inquiries, please contact aurora@newheightscommunications.com

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – (March 16, 2020) “We understand the growing concerns about keeping voters safe at the polls amid the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), which is why it’s more important than ever that election officials have the tools, support and funding they need to comply with the CDC’s guidelines for containing COVID-19 at polling locations. Additionally, voters should check their polling place location with their county’s election office in case the location has moved.”

For more guidelines, please visit the CDC’s ‘Recommendations for Election Polling Locations.

 

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Verified Voting Blog: Big takeaways from Super Tuesday

Verified Voting was on the front line on Tuesday, March 3 at the Election Protection National Hotline, and from our vantage point, there were some SUPER clear takeaways from Super Tuesday:

Preventing long lines. Reports in Texas and California, the two largest Super Tuesday states, showed hours-long voting wait times. The waits stemmed from problems that included connecting to voter registration databases, machine equipment failures, and too few voting machines that were overwhelmed by high turnout. Verified Voting continues to urge all jurisdictions to plan for technology failures and have enough resources (including paper ballots, equipment, poll workers) to handle high turnout and ensure that every voter can vote. Election officials can check out the Bipartisan Policy Center’s project “Improving the Voter Experience” for guidance on preventing long lines; line optimization tools are available from the Voting Technology Project and on the  Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) website.

Unnecessary scarcity. When precincts use all computerized devices for all voters, polling locations may not have enough machines to allow voters to cast their ballots relatively quickly and easily, resulting in unnecessary scarcity. Voting equipment shortages can disproportionately affect marginalized communities, and were reported in some of the largest counties in Texas, such as Bexar, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Travis counties. In addition to the increased security risks of BMDs and direct recording electronic machines (DREs), lack of availability is why we recommend that a majority of voters mark paper ballots by hand (supplemented by ballot marking devices for voters who need to use one) and oppose using ballot marking devices for all voters. Jurisdictions can avoid unnecessary scarcity with hand-marked paper ballots because they can more readily scale up in the face of heavy turnout.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Data Shows Super Tuesday Voting Systems and Polling Equipment Trends Across States

This Super Tuesday, voters in the 14 states holding primaries will encounter a range of voting methods and polling equipment. Verified Voting maintains a comprehensive database of voting systems being used across the United States (see the Verifier) and is observing a number of trends across Super Tuesday states, including:
  • California - Los Angeles County is rolling out Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP), their in-house designed and publicly-owned ballot marking device (BMD) for all voters
  • North Carolina - More than half of North Carolinians are voting with new equipment, and seven counties are using BMDs for all voters. Verified Voting opposes the use of commercially-available BMDs for all voters because research suggests few voters actually check the paper outputs with enough attention to catch errors
  • Tennessee - 70% of registered voters will vote on unverifiable direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines; a few counties are using hand-marked paper ballots or BMDs
  • Texas - 36% of registered voters are voting on unverifiable DREs, and about half of all Texans will be using new voting equipment

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Calls on Florida to Rely on Paper Ballots for Election Recounts – Not Ballot Images

Verified Voting urges the Florida legislature to amend HB 1005 and SB 1312 to require a public manual comparison audit to check that electronic election result tabulations agree with the voter-verified paper ballots to a reasonable scientific standard. Election security researchers agree that all electronic vote tabulations should routinely be manually checked against paper ballots. A retabulation system can facilitate this verification: election officials can examine a relatively small random sample of the voted paper ballots to ensure that the system counted each ballot accurately. Given heightened public concern about security threats, it is important now more than ever to demonstrate – not just assert – that computerized systems performed correctly. “For Florida recounts to give Floridians the faith in election results that they deserve, recount procedures must demonstrate, to a reasonable scientific standard, that the computers counted the paper ballots accurately,” said Dan McCrea, Florida Director of Verified Voting. “As members of the Florida legislature recognized in a public hearing – that paper is the best evidence – we urge the legislature to amend the bill to routinely check this evidence.”

Verified Voting Blog: Highlights from Verified Voting’s Quarterly Field Report

Highlights from Verified Voting’s Quarterly Field Report

Check out our state highlights from February 2020’s Verified Voting Quarterly Field Report. For the full report (including recent publications, events, and press highlights), click here. 

California

We are continuing to advise the state on proposed risk-limiting audit regulations and Director of Science and Technology Policy Mark Lindeman and Senior Advisor Pamela Smith collaborated with the California Voter Foundation and other partners in submitting a public comment letter responding to the regulations. Read the letter here. Pam Smith also provided a comment on the certification process for Los Angeles County’s VSAP 2.0 system, available here.

Florida

Florida Director Dan McCrea and Mark Lindeman joined our lobbying team January 21 and 22 for an intense two-day schedule of stops at the Tallahassee Capitol. While there, we met with numerous Senators, Representatives, key staff, and the Secretary of State on HB 1005/SB 1312, which proposes to expand the use of their insecure image audit system from post-certification audits to conducting recounts. We oppose the bill as written, and are working to pave a path forward. We also met with Representatives to advise them on the risks of opening the door to internet voting.

Verified Voting Blog: What We Don’t Know About the Voatz “Blockchain” Internet Voting System

The breakdown of the Iowa caucus’s mobile reporting app on February 3 highlights the risks of implementing new voting technologies that rely on the internet. Verified Voting advocates for the responsible use of technology in elections, and as President Marian K. Schneider noted, “The good news is that {Iowa) didn’t use (a mobile app) for voting, which means the results are available and have been preserved on paper.”

Internet voting is not secure, yet despite known vulnerabilities, internet and mobile phone voting are still being considered by some lawmakers as viable voting options. In 2019, Verified Voting Board Member David Jefferson and other authors published a paper about the risks of the Voatz mobile voting platform and the many questions that still remain unanswered. Read their 2019 paper below or download the PDF here 

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Says Situation with Iowa Caucuses Reveals Risks Associated with Technology

View the statement here: Verified Voting Statement on Iowa Caucuses

The following is a statement from Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting following the delay of the results from the Iowa caucuses. For additional media inquiries, please contact aurora@newheightscommunications.com.

“The situation with Iowa’s caucus reveals the risks associated with technology, in this case with a mobile app, but more importantly that there needs to be a low tech solution in order to recover from technological failures — no matter the cause. There needs to be a way to monitor, detect, respond and recover. It’s clear that mobile apps are not ready for prime time, but thankfully Iowa has paper records of their vote totals and will be able to release results from those records.”

 

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Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Says Situation with Iowa Caucuses Reveals Risks Associated with Technology

View the statement here: Verified Voting Statement on Iowa Caucuses

The following is a statement from Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting following the delay of the results from the Iowa caucuses. For additional media inquiries, please contact aurora@newheightscommunications.com.

“The situation with Iowa’s caucus reveals the risks associated with technology, in this case with a mobile app, but more importantly that there needs to be a low tech solution in order to recover from technological failures — no matter the cause. There needs to be a way to monitor, detect, respond and recover. It’s clear that mobile apps are not ready for prime time, but thankfully Iowa has paper records of their vote totals and will be able to release results from those records.”

Verified Voting Blog: New Verifier Map and Data

We’ve made some changes to the Verifier Map and Data. The maps now display voting equipment usage in election day polling places only and makes a distinction between jurisdictions in which most voters are hand marking paper ballots with Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) provided primarily for accessibility and those in which BMDs are used by all voters to mark ballots. The national map now displays voting system types by county rather than by state, which provides a more accurate representation of voting equipment usage. Since we started the Verifier database in 2006 we have always tracked voting equipment in terms of tabulation, distinguishing equipment in terms of paper ballot voting systems, Direct Recording Electronic voting systems, and a mix of the two systems in the same polling place. Ballot marking devices served primarily as assistive devices in jurisdictions that used a paper ballot voting system. With the advent of BMDs intended for use by all voters in 2016 and the significant increase in this voting method, we recognized the need for a different classification, and this is reflected in the new map and database.

Post Election Audits: What Is A Risk-Limiting Audit (RLA)?

Download Risk Limiting Audit 2-pager (pdf)

Today Verified Voting released a guide describing risk-limiting audits, how they are different from other types of audits, and how a risk-limiting audit is conducted. The chart also outlines the elements needed for an RLA to meaningfully support confidence in reported election outcomes. For more information on the types of risk-limiting audits, view our chart comparing RLA methods.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Comment on Los Angeles County VSAP 2.0 Certification

The following is a comment on the certification process for Los Angeles County’s VSAP 2.0 system. To view a pdf, click here.

Los Angeles County Voting Systems for All People (VSAP) 2.0 Certification
Comment of Pamela Smith, Senior Advisor, Verified Voting

January 20, 2020 Verified Voting commends Los Angeles County for the decade-long process of reimagining a voting system that must effectively serve the nation’s most populous and most diverse voting jurisdiction, as that system approaches certification and use in California’s upcoming elections. We have appreciated the opportunity to participate on the County’s Technical Advisory Committee since it was established and provide vigorous comment through the development process. We also appreciate the changes brought about by California’s lawmakers and Secretary of State Padilla to establish a more rigorous set of requirements for testing and examination of voting systems prior to approval for use. We believe, however, that there is a gap in the certification process that must be addressed for it to be fully transparent and to enable the public to more fully understand voting system compliance with California’s requirements.

The California Voting System Standards (CVSS)[1. https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/regulations/currentregulations/elections/voting-system-certification-regulations/] framework is supported by a set of regulations1 which govern a sequence of events for certification of a system, from application and provision of documentation and system/s for test, to a series of tests by qualified testing entities on security, software, functionality and more, to a set of reports to be published prior to a public hearing and comment period, and to eventual approval or denial of certification.

The required publications include test reports from the involved testing authorities, and a staff report from the Office of Voting Systems Technology Assessment (OVSTA). Reviewing these reports show test results that are characterized as failing or not complying with requirements in some instances, while the subsequent Staff report indicates that the system is in compliance, which seems contradictory at best, and it is not clear to the public how to reconcile those reports.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Comments on proposed amendments to Georgia State Election Board rules

Download as PDF

Verified Voting welcomes the opportunity to comment on the proposed amendments to Georgia’s State Election Board rules published on December 19, 2019. These amendments are wide-ranging, and we recognize that substantial work has gone into drafting them. Our comments focus on certain aspects especially relevant to cybersecurity and election verification. We substantially endorse the comments jointly submitted by the Brennan Center and Common Cause, but we have prepared these comments separately and more briefly.

Georgia’s new statewide voting system combines ballot marking devices, printers, and scanners on an unprecedented scale. The new system raises questions about voter verification and resilient election procedures about which little direct evidence exists. Accordingly, our recommendations our based on our review of this preliminary research recognizing that more research needs to occur.

Rule 183-1-12-.10 Before the Opening of the Polls

Voters will be instructed to verify their ballots, but it is unclear where or how. Providing a “station” for voters to verify their ballots – ideally, with good lighting and a magnifying glass available for any who need it – will help some voters to do so, and will encourage others even if they prefer not to use the station.

  • We recommend that election superintendents provide a verification station and/or otherwise accommodate voter verification in every polling place (and advance voting location).
  • We recommend that election superintendents provide a combination of interventions, some of which are described below, to encourage voters to check the accuracy of the printed ballots.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Statement on Ballot Marking Devices and Risk-limiting Audits

Download the pdf here

This statement is intended to clarify Verified Voting’s position regarding the use of ballot-marking devices (BMDs) in elections, and the use of risk-limiting audits (RLAs).  It is approved by the President, Board of Directors, and Staff of Verified Voting.

Ballot-marking devices

Verified Voting believes that voters should vote on paper ballots, but we recognize an important distinction between hand-marked and machine-marked ballots. Hand-marked paper ballots are not subject to inaccuracies or manipulation from software bugs or malicious code. In contrast, machine-marked paper ballots produced using BMDs might not accurately capture voter intent if the software or ballot configuration is buggy or malicious.

Verified Voting specifically opposes the purchase and deployment of new voting systems in which all in-person voters in a polling place are expected to use BMDs. The trustworthiness of an election conducted using BMDs depends critically on how many voters actually verify their ballots, and how carefully they do it. All voters who vote on BMDs should be made aware of the importance of carefully and conscientiously verifying their ballots before casting them, and should be actively encouraged to do so. However, empirical research thus far shows that few voters using BMDs carefully verify their printed ballots. Moreover, if voters do verify BMD-marked ballots and find what they believe are discrepancies, there is no reliable way to resolve whether the voters made mistakes or the BMDs did. For these and other reasons (such as cost) Verified Voting recommends that the use of BMDs be minimized.

Verified Voting Blog: Letter to Georgia Secretary of State regarding Verified Voting’s position and involvement with risk-limiting audit pilots

The following letter was sent to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on December 16, 2019. The letter addresses Verified Voting’s concerns following the November 2019 election in Georgia and provides clarity on Verified Voting’s position and involvement with risk-limiting audit pilots in the state.

Download the Letter (PDF)

Dear Secretary Raffensperger,

I am writing to address a few issues that have concerned us since the November election and so that you and your staff have clarity on Verified Voting’s position.

As an initial matter, Verified Voting did not recommend that Georgia purchase all ballot marking devices for all in-person voters. We made our position clear in a letter to the co-chairs of the SAFE Commission dated January 4, 2019 attached for your reference. Verified Voting stands by its position and notes that this continues to be our recommendation for jurisdictions who are deciding what system to purchase among commercially-available voting systems. The fact that Georgia did not follow our recommendation and purchased Dominion BMDs for all in- person voters does not change our position.

Since the summer of 2019, Verified Voting has been working with the staff of the Secretary of State to implement post-election risk-limiting audits. Mark Lindeman, Director of Science & Tech Policy at Verified Voting has been the primary contact for your staff and is a subject-matter expert on RLAs. Our work with you on the implementation phase in no way endorses Georgia’s decision to move forward with BMDs instead of our prior recommendation of both hand-marked paper ballots and ballot marking devices in the polling place.

A risk-limiting audit is a tabulation audit: it uses statistical methods to provide confidence that the paper ballots were correctly tabulated. It checks only the tabulation, namely whether a full hand-count of the cast paper ballots would reveal something different than the reported outcome. It does not check — among other things — that voters actually verified their paper ballots, or that the paper ballots being tabulated are exactly those paper ballots that should be tabulated. Nor does it check whether strong chain of custody procedures, proper ballot accounting or other processes necessary to create a trustworthy record were observed. To express or imply that doing an RLA pilot demonstrates the security of the system is simply not true.