Philippines: Comelec plans to introduce internet voting in 2016 polls | Sun Star

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is looking to introduce internet voting in the 2016 national and local polls. Commissioner Lucenito Tagle, chairman of the poll body’s Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting (COAV), said they are looking to utilize the internet technology in the next polls based on Republic Act (RA) 10590 or the amended Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2013. “This is the best way we can increase voter participation sa overseas absentee voting… that is why we want to pilot test this internet voting after we were authorized by this new law,” he said. If approved, those who will be able to use the new mode in voting are seafarers and those working in areas distant from Philippine embassies and consulates. “As of now, there is about a 50-50 percent chance of us being able to conduct the internet voting pilot testing,” he said.

Virginia: Legislation would allow deployed troops to email vote | The Virginian-Pilot

Virginia’s General Assembly – especially the Republican-controlled House of Delegates – has been slow to embrace the idea of electronic voting. But it appears a small window may be opening up for one class of citizens to vote by email: military service members who are deployed overseas. Under current law, they must follow the same procedure as anyone else who is absent on Election Day: Obtain an absentee ballot, fill it out and send it in by snail mail. That can be difficult, if not impossible, for service members in active combat zones.

Maryland: Experts remain concerned about Maryland election fraud threat | Baltimore Sun

By now, just about everyone connected to the Internet is familiar with this process: Required to fill out and sign a form of some kind, you ask for and receive a hyperlink via email. You open the link, find the form you need (perhaps a pdf), download it, print it, fill it out and mail it off. That’s a common practice, though increasingly old-school by today’s online standards. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly risky about the transaction; few would think twice about conducting business that way. But while integrity is important in all transactional realms, it rises to precious when we’re talking about voting. And that’s why a similar process, new this year and slated to be part of Maryland’s primary election in June, has some civic-minded computer security experts sounding alarms about the potential for fraud. … The three experts who wrote to the board about this in 2012 were David Jefferson, a computer scientist based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; J. Alex Halderman, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan; and Barbara Simons, a retired IBM computer scientist and an expert on electronic voting. They are part of network of vigilant computer security experts who independently assess state elections systems and report their concerns.

South Dakota: Election changes win Senate’s OK | Capital Journal

The state Senate unanimously approved two sets of important reforms for South Dakota elections Tuesday. One would allow members of the armed forces to vote with digital technology rather than by U.S. mail. The other would establish a backup system for spring elections interrupted by bad weather or some other emergency. The two measures, SB 34 and SB 35, now go to the House of Representatives for consideration. They are proposed by the state Board of Elections, including Secretary of State Jason Gant.

Slovakia: No postal or internet vote in presidential election | The Slovak Spectator

Voters in Slovak presidential elections won’t be able to vote by post, even after the new election rules currently being prepared by the Interior Ministry are introduced. “There’s a problem with the second round. There’s too little time [between the first and second rounds], it can’t be managed,” Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák told the TASR newswire. Moreover, voters aren’t able to take part via electronic voting. Kaliňák said that he doesn’t intend to there isn’t enough interest in this form of voting to make it worthwhile.

Canada: Newmarket rejects Internet voting | York Region

Newmarket will take paper over getting plugged in during October’s municipal election. Council rejected a staff recommendation that called on the municipality to authorize the use of Internet voting in time for the election, meaning traditional paper ballots will be used, instead of the online method. “I don’t think the confidence of the community is there yet,” Mayor Tony Van Bynen said. Councillors want the issue addressed early in the next term, giving plenty of time for implementation in the 2018 election.

Canada: Toronto studies internet voting | Metro

Toronto is working on a system to let people with disabilities vote over the Internet, but members of the disabled community are urging the city to provide that option to all eligible voters. “There’s no reason to create a system just for people with disabilities,” said John Rae, a board member of ARCH Disability Law Centre. “If we’re going to start Internet voting, it should be available to all citizens,” said Rae, who is blind. … While increasing participation is a worthy goal, Councillor David Shiner said he’s concerned about voter fraud. “The concern with Internet voting is knowing who’s really on the other end,” said Shiner. “I’m really concerned about abuses.” Shiner doesn’t think traditional voting at a polling place isn’t that onerous since it’s usually only a short walk. “Making a small effort to get out to a polling station isn’t too much to ask,” said Shiner, chair of council’s government management committee.

Canada: Niagara-on-the-Lake rejects Internet voting plan | WBFO

Voters in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario will still head to the polls in October to vote rather than pull out their smart phones or laptops. Some votes may have switched Monday night as councilors debated a plan to head towards voting on the Web this fall. There would have been two-regular polling places but most voters would have used their computer systems.

Missouri: Online Voter Registration in Missouri | Northwest Missourian

As the midterm elections loom closer and closer, voter registration becomes increasingly important. Online voter registration is a recent concept in Missouri after going into effect December 20th. It was successfully pushed by Secretary of State Jason Kander in an effort to boost turnout rates, but there are some that feel it can cause issues. Beth Walker, the Nodaway County clerk and election authority, feels the idea may skew the numbers of voter turnout. “So many people register… but they are not wanting to go to the polls,” Walker said. “People are going to have to believe that their vote matters.” Another question that has been brought up is if online registration will lead to online voting. “There is a high possibility that we could see electronic voting in the near future,” Walker said. “This is in part because we have created a society to make everything easy.”

Voting Blogs: New Overseas Vote Foundation Project to Examine Remote Online Voting | Election Academy

Last week, the Overseas Vote Foundation announced the launch of a new project aimed at taking a research-based approach to the question of whether or not absentee ballots can be securely cast over the Internet. Thanks to generous funding from the Democracy Fund, the project will be an opportunity to answer key questions about the feasibility of meeting growing calls for remote online voting. OVF’s press release has more details:

The project is called End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting: Specification and Feasibility Assessment Study (E2E VIV Project) and will examine a form of remote voting that enables a so-called “end-to-end verifiability” (E2E) property. A unique team of experts in computer science, usability, and auditing together with a selection of local election officials from key counties around the U.S. will assemble for this study.Their efforts aim to produce a system specification and set of testing scenarios, which if they meet the requirements for security, auditability, and usability, will then be placed in the public domain. At the same time, they intend to demonstrate that confidence in a voting system is built on a willingness to verify its security through testing and transparency.

National: New team seeks to take online voting from fantasy to reality | California Forward

You can do almost anything online; your banking, shop on Amazon, pay your bills. And yet one thing that forever evaded Californians is the opportunity to vote online, due to the myriad of security and privacy issues. But a new project from the Overseas Vote Foundation is putting a team together that could be the catalyst toward bringing democracy to your DSL connection. The project is called End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting: Specification and Feasibility Assessment Study, aka E2E VIV Project. It brings together experts in computer science, usability, and auditing and adds in the expertise of local election officials from counties throughout the U.S. to examine potential solutions to the current roadblocks toward online voting. The main challenge? How to maintain the anonymity of your vote while making sure it’s secure and stays the same from sender to recipient.

New York: City Council Members Consider Internet Voting and Free Airport WiFi | TechPresident

Even as the Presidential Commission on Election Administration is still considering improvements to the U.S. election system, politicians on the local level are also looking at ways to address voting problems that came up in recent elections. The New York City Council Technology and Government Operations Committees on Wednesday held a hearing to consider the “Promise and Perils of Internet Voting” in municipal elections. Committee Chair Bronx City Council member Fernando Cabrera said he was drawn to the potential of Internet voting to address long lines, low voter turnout and save costs, citing successful precedents in other countries such as Estonia. Voter turnout in New York City’s recent mayoral general election hit a record low of 24 percent. Election officials and advocates cited security and cultural barriers to the widespread adoption of Internet voting, but pointed to other technological improvements that could help improve the voting process. New York City Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan said he and other commissioners had not had enough time to come to a consensus on the issue. But he said he felt the cultural challenges would be one significant obstacle. “It would be a wholesale change really in the way business is done, right down to the way campaigns are run,” he said, noting the practice of poll watchers at polling places. “From a cultural perspective we’ve gotten very used to voting in a particular way … Voting is a private thing but yet a very public thing,” he said, noting the traditional gathering at polling places. “The resistance may be in the breaking down of the actual rituals more so than the technology itself.”

Voting Blogs: Targeted Attacks Hijacked ‘Vast Amounts of Data’ to Foreign Countries Earlier This Year | BradBlog

We’ve discussed, many times over the years, the madness of Internet Voting schemes. Today we’ve got yet another piece of disturbing evidence that underscores why such a scheme for American democracy would be nothing short of insane. … Now, Kim Zetter at Wired’s “Threat Level” blog offers yet another reason why the Internet, as it currently exists, is simply unfit to serve as a means for secure online voting. Her recently published article, which doesn’t focus on voting, is alarmingly headlined “Someone’s Been Siphoning Data Through a Huge Security Hole in the Internet”. And no, in this case, it’s not the NSA. At least as far as we know. Zetter details a “huge security hole” indeed, one which, as she documents, was found to have been used earlier this year to re-route “vast amounts” of U.S. Internet data all the way out to Belarus and Iceland, where it was intercepted in a classic “man-in-the-middle” fashion, before being sent on to its intended receiver. During the hijack attack, the senders and receivers of the Internet data were none the wiser, just as would likely be the case if the same gaping security hole in the Internet’s existing architecture was used to hijack votes cast over the Internet, change them, and then send them on to the server of the intended election official recipient.

Philippines: Comelec vows to improve absentee voting for 2016 polls | Phillipine Star

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is working to improve overseas absentee voting (OAV) for the 2016 presidential polls. Speaking to reporters, Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said a new system must be adopted to encourage Filipinos abroad to participate in national elections. “Voter’s registration was increasing but the turnout is still low,” he said. “That is why we have a new law already. We have taken out the (word) absentee, it’s just overseas voting. We are creating a special office for overseas voters because everybody agrees there’s really a problem.” The government must deal with the difficulty of many overseas Filipinos who have to go to Philippine embassies and other diplomatic posts to vote, he added.

Editorials: Digital voting is a game changer but we have to get it right | The Conversation

The UK may be taking its first, tentative steps towards introducing online voting with the establishment of a Commission on Digital Democracy. As so many of our routine tasks are going digital, the shift towards virtual polls seems like a natural progression. However, there are many technical issues that need to be ironed out and the stakes are very high. John Bercow, Speaker in the UK House of Commons, established the commission with a view to looking at how technology can be used to aid the democratic working of parliament, including online voting. This team would do well to take a look at what has, and has not, worked elsewhere around the world. Electronic voting can take a number of forms, including tallying votes by computer, using electronic equipment in polling stations and voting over the internet from the voter’s own computer or mobile device. Voting by phone is already used in entertainment shows, though multiple voting is possible and result-fixing has been known to happen. Internet voting is also carried out for professional societies, student unions and other forms of election. It works well when cost and desire to increase turnout are important factors and where the likelihood of an attack on the election is considered to be low. If we were to start using e-voting systems for electing political representatives, we’d need to be absolutely sure of their trustworthiness. Computer systems, including e-voting systems, can go wrong accidentally through software bugs, they can be hacked, and they can be subverted by corrupt insiders. Systems used in elections have been the subject of criticism for all these reasons, resulting in some cases from their withdrawal.

South Dakota: Soldiers will be able to vote overseas | The Argus Leader

Absentee voting proved so cumbersome for Maj. Anthony Deiss when the Army National Guardsman was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 that he admits he “didn’t take advantage of it.” But that was then. Now thanks to technological advancements that will be unveiled Monday by Secretary of State Jason Gant, South Dakota service members stationed overseas are going to have a new online option for absentee voting. And Deiss, for one, is all for it. “The right to vote is a fundamental principle of freedom, the freedoms our people are fighting for,” the Rapid City guardsman said Friday. “What better way to show that and exercise that right by giving them another option for voting in a war zone? I think that is very symbolic.”

Australia: New South Wales to spend $3.6 million on electronic voting rollout | iTnews.com.au

The NSW Government will spend $3.6 million expanding its electronic voting system iVote for the 2015 state general election. iVote was first used in a limited capacity in the 2011 state general election. The NSW Government announced earlier this year it would expand the use of the system in the 2015 election, following  hanges to relevant legislation. It today approached the market for a supplier to build and implement the new expanded voting system, and also revealed the state’s treasury had approved funding of $3.63 million for the project. Over 46,800 voters used the iVote service to cast their vote in the 2011 election – around 1 percent of total votes taken. The NSW Electoral Commission expects around 100,000 will use iVote during the 2015 state election.

Canada: Waterloo rejects online voting | The Record

City council voted unanimously Monday not to use online voting in next year’s municipal election. Council heard from the community in presentations and correspondence on the issue. Urs Hengartner, associate professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo, studies secure voting systems. In a letter to council, he expressed concern about the security of an online voting system. “Internet voting introduces even more risks, such as computer viruses, denial-of-service attacks, or vote buying or selling,” he said. “On the other hand, the claimed advantage of internet voting, higher voter turnout, still needs to be proven in practice, and results so far have been mixed.”

Australia: Australian Electoral Commission apologises for lost senate votes | ABC

The Australian Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn, in his first interview since the AEC lost 1375 ballot papers in the Western Australian senate recount, has admitted that the public’s confidence in the AEC has been damaged as a result of the debacle. Speaking with RN’s Breakfast, Mr Killesteyn said that the ‘gravity of the situation’ had not been lost on him. ‘Nearly 1400 Western Australian electors have had their Senate vote disenfranchised and I apologise unreservedly to all those electors,’ he said. ‘We’re left with a nagging and almost irreconcilable doubt about the outcome of the WA Senate election.’ Mr Killestyn added that a shift to electronic voting, where a vote is registered straight away and can’t be tampered with, was ‘inevitable.’

Australia: Time to kill paper ballots? First, let’s look at the alternatives | The Conversation

The Australian Electoral Commission’s (AEC) loss of 1,375 ballot papers for the West Australian Senate count was an unfortunate failure from an agency that already faced growing public pressure to do away with paper and pencil voting. Even before the ballots disappeared, newly minted MP Clive Palmer was loudly calling for the introduction of US-style electronic voting machines. Meanwhile, an experiment with internet voting for people with disabilities in New South Wales in 2011 caused many to question why we all can’t vote from home. But before we pulp the paper ballots, it’s worth considering what — if anything — is actually wrong with the system as it stands, as well as what the pros and cons of the alternatives may be. Australia’s current procedures for recording and counting votes have essentially remained unchanged since federation. Voters are given a piece of paper and a pencil with which to record their voting preference, and the completed ballot papers are then placed in a sealed box.

Editorials: Online voting not the solution | Times Colonist

Voting on the Internet might be the wave of the future, but it’s too soon for B.C. to catch that wave. Elections B.C. looked into the question of whether the province should move to Internet voting, and released a report last week that found the technology presents too many problems and won’t do what its advocates hope. Those who want us to vote on the Internet tout its obvious convenience as an answer to declining voter turnout. We bank, shop, book vacations and manage much of our lives on the Internet, so adding voting to the suite looks like a no-brainer. The most optimistic of its supporters hoped it could be in place in time for the municipal elections in 2014. But slow down, says Elections B.C.’s panel on Internet voting. It won’t be possible to answer all the questions before next year. It gives four recommendations in its report: Don’t bring in universal Internet voting, although limited use for people with accessibility issues could work; have a provincewide policy; set up a technical committee for evaluation and support; evaluate any system on nine essential principles. The report’s nine principles are: accessibility, ballot anonymity, individual and independent verifiability, non-reliance on the trustworthiness of the voter’s device(s), one vote per voter, only count votes from eligible voters, process validation and transparency, service availability, voter authentication and authorization. As the nine principles show, Internet voting has a lot of hurdles to clear.

Canada: Online ballots fizzle | Prince George Citizen

Elections B.C. will kick the idea around for a bit longer and is open to hearing more, but it looks as if Internet voting isn’t going anywhere. Security isn’t foolproof, as it needs to be. Cost savings are debatable, and it would likely actually wind up costing more. And most critically, there is no conclusive proof it would help increase the turnout rate in elections. That was one of the background motivations for considering the idea in the first place. The participation rate has been declining for a generation now. It ticked upward a couple of points in last May’s election, compared to the 2009 vote. But it is still scarcely more than half, which is abysmal. The idea that Internet voting could fix that is founded on a faulty premise. Experts have been trying to figure out the slumping turnout rate for years. Various authorities have delved deeply into it by all means possible, including polling non-voters on the reasons they opted out.

Canada: B.C. isn’t ready for Internet voting: report | Vancouver Sun

Internet voting requires more fine tuning – especially when it comes to eliminating security risks – before it can be widely used in provincial and municipal elections, says an independent report released Wednesday by British Columbia’s elections agency. The report, produced by a panel appointed by Elections BC, also warns that online voting may not necessarily lead to higher voter turnout and cheaper elections. The 100-page report concludes it is still too early to move to Internet voting in B.C., including for next year’s municipal elections, with security remaining the top barrier. “At the current time, we’re not there yet for universal Internet voting,” B.C.’s chief electoral officer, Keith Archer, told a news conference in Victoria. “The overall conclusion that people will likely draw from this report is it’s cautionary. It suggests that there are still lots of challenges to be worked out in the application of Internet voting in a public election in B.C.”

Editorials: Vote offline for the ballot | The Globe and Mail

Should voting be as easy as point and click? No, says a report from British Columbia published this week, which makes a compelling case against Internet voting – at least any time soon. Voter turnout has been declining for decades. There’s a widespread worry that citizens in Western democracies are starting to exercise their electoral franchise later in life, and many never acquire the habit at all. Such disengagement is unsettling. Some blame an outdated voting system. Where’s my “Vote Now” app? But a panel headed by B.C.’s Chief Electoral Officer, Keith Archer, found no correlation between voter participation and online voting, in jurisdictions where that option is available. More and easier ways to vote do not necessarily equal more votes. And, surprisingly, older people are more likely than the young to use the Internet to vote.

Editorials: Internet voting is not the magic bullet | Les Leyne/Times Colonist

Elections B.C. will kick the idea around for a bit longer and is open to hearing more, but it looks as if Internet voting isn’t going anywhere. Security isn’t foolproof, as it needs to be. Cost savings are debatable, and it would likely actually wind up costing more. And most critically, there is no conclusive proof it would help increase the turnout rate in elections. That was one of the background motivations for considering the idea in the first place. The participation rate has been declining for a generation now. It ticked upward a couple of points in last May’s election, compared to the 2009 vote. But it is still scarcely more than half, which is abysmal. The idea that Internet voting could fix that is founded on a faulty premise. Experts have been trying to figure out the slumping turnout rate for years. Various authorities have delved deeply into it by all means possible, including polling non-voters on the reasons they opted out.

Canada: Internet voting not secure enough yet: Elections BC | CTV British Columbia News

Internet voting requires more fine tuning — especially when it comes to eliminating security risks — before it can be widely used in provincial and municipal elections, says an independent report released Wednesday by British Columbia’s elections agency. The report, produced by a panel appointed by Elections BC, also warns that online voting may not necessarily lead to higher voter turnout and cheaper elections. The 100-page report concludes it is still too early to move to Internet voting in B.C., including for next year’s municipal elections, with security remaining the top barrier. “At the current time, we’re not there yet for universal Internet voting,” B.C.’s chief electoral officer, Keith Archer, told a news conference in Victoria. “The overall conclusion that people will likely draw from this report is it’s cautionary. It suggests that there are still lots of challenges to be worked out in the application of Internet voting in a public election in B.C.” The panel’s preliminary report, which kicks off six weeks of public consultations, recommends provincial and municipal governments launch a provincewide examination of Internet voting. The report says such a process should include the creation of a technical committee to evaluate online voting systems.

Canada: B.C. not ready for Internet voting, independent panel says | Georgia Straight

British Columbians hoping to vote online in upcoming elections may be disappointed by the early findings of a panel of experts convened by Elections B.C. The Independent Panel on Internet Voting, formed at the request of the B.C. government, released today (October 23) a preliminary report that says it is “not feasible” for online balloting to be used in the 2014 civic elections. Furthermore, the five-member panel, chaired by chief electoral officer Keith Archer, is recommending that the province do not introduce universal Internet voting for both provincial and civic elections at this time. “However, if Internet voting is implemented, its availability should be limited to those with specific accessibility challenges,” the panel’s report states. “If Internet voting is implemented on a limited basis, jurisdictions need to recognize that the risks to the accuracy of the voting results remain substantial.” Read the Report

Canada: B.C. electoral panel opposes online voting | The Globe and Mail

British Columbia should not adopt online voting because it won’t necessarily improve voter turnout and is less secure, a report from an electoral panel says. The 106-page report, released Wednesday, makes four recommendations for municipal and provincial elections. Chief among them is that online voting not be used at this time. “There’s no consistent relationship between the use of Internet voting and increased voter turnout in those jurisdictions that have used Internet voting,” Keith Archer, the chief electoral officer and panel chair, told reporters. “Sometimes turnout goes up, sometimes it stays the same, and sometimes it has gone down.” Online voting advocates have argued such a system would engage younger voters. But Mr. Archer said the five-person panel – which formed last year, after being invited by the provincial government to study the issue – found the people most likely to use online voting were middle-aged or older. “Those findings led the panel to conclude that moving towards Internet voting in British Columbia is likely not the panacea for the challenges of declining voter turnout that we’ve seen in the last generation or so,” he said. Mr. Archer described the report as “cautionary” and said it’s important to maintain the integrity of the electoral process. Although traditional voting is not without risk, the report said, “it is much harder to perform and conceal large-scale fraud in traditional voting than in Internet voting.”

Canada: Timmins Ontario Council approves online voting | Timmins Press

Timmins residents will be able to vote online in the 2014 municipal elections. Voting from the comfort of one’s own home will be added to the usual in-person, ballot-box method. The move was approved on Monday in a 5-4 vote at city council. With the city needing to replace old vote tabulation machines, council entered into an agreement with Dominion Voting on a contract to provide both new machines and online voting capabilities. Some councillors took issue with the lack of evidence that online voting increases the number of ballots in an election. … Coun. Gary Scripnick did a little quick math to support his opinion that online voting isn’t worth the cost for the city. “If 10% of the people out there, for whatever reason, being away at school, being disabled or not wanting to vote, decided to vote online, that means every vote would cost $30 that would be done online,” suggested Scripnick. “If somebody wants to vote, they will find a way to get to the voting station.”

Estonia: E-Voting Tests Wind Up, One Bug Fixed | ERR

Just under 2,000 people took part in the e-voting test run last week, with officials saying that casting a vote should take less than a minute. Despite its reputation as an Estonian success story, e-voting has been a controversial issue that has been challenged by political opposition, claims of security vulnerabilities and an ensuing Supreme Court case. This year’s innovation is a verification system, albeit one that only works on Android operating systems.