Australia: Sydney’s Secure Logic signs $1m online voting contract | CRN

Sydney-based Secure Logic has signed a contract to host the NSW Electoral Commission’s iVote system for the next five years. Secure Logic will provide the NSWEC with infrastructure and platform-as-a-service in a deal worth $990,000. The platform will be able to be scaled during peak election periods, according to head of sales and marketing for Secure Logic, Fergus Brooks. Spanish company Scytl was awarded the contract to provide the online voting software for iVote in May last year, after the state government announced plans to expand iVote for the 2015 election.

California: Del Mar Can Accept Votes Via Internet | Courthouse News Service

Del Mar can conduct an online poll of residents today, a state judge ruled Friday, rejecting a claim that it’s an illegal election through an unapproved process. The advisory election, or poll, will ask voters to choose one of three plans for a new Civic Center, also known as the City Hall/Town Hall Project. Only Del Mar voters will be allowed to vote. A resident sued the city on Jan. 29, claiming the voting system “has not been certified by the California Secretary of State,” and that the City Council did not give final approval for it until its Jan. 20 meeting.

Utah: State GOP chairman wants caucus, not a primary | Deseret News

Utah Republican Party Chairman James Evans said Friday the party plans to hold a caucus instead of a primary election next year to choose the Republican nominee for president. “We’ll just do our own presidential caucus,” Evans said, calling the decision the party’s to make. “If the state is trying to insist on something different, then they would be out of bounds here.” It’s the latest salvo in an ongoing dispute between Utah Republicans on how best to select candidates and centers on control of the nominating process and voter turnout. Rep. John Cox, R-Ephraim, said he wants to draft a bill to hold an online primary election for president in 2016. Cox said the dates of the primary will also have to be changed to conform with new national party requirements.

California: DelMar Voter Wants to Stop Online Election Set for Tuesday | Courthouse News Service

Del Mar rushed through approval of an Internet-based city voting system and plans to use it next Tuesday, a resident says in a request for an injunction against it. The Tuesday vote will be an advisory election, in which voters will be asked to choose one of three plans for a new Civic Center, also known as the City Hall/Town Hall Project. Only Del Mar voters will be allowed to vote. Del Mar, pop. 44,000, 20 miles north of San Diego, is a wealthy community best known for its racetrack. On Thursday, Dr. Edward Mohns sued Del Mar, its city manager, its administrative services director and Everyone Counts Inc., a San Diego-based company that got the contract to set up the Internet voting system. In his lawsuit in Superior Court, Mohns says that the voting system “has not been certified by the California Secretary of State,” and that the City Council did not give final approval for it until its Jan. 20 meeting.

Canada: Internet voting doesn’t inspire the apathetic | Cambridge Times

According to a study, more people used Internet voting during the last municipal election than ever before, but the relatively new method of marking a ballot shouldn’t be regarded as a panacea to improve voter turnout and political engagement. “Of the 97 (Ontario) municipalities that used Internet voting in 2014, voter turnout increased in 52 communities and decreased in 44 from 2010,” explained Dr. Nicole Goodman, research director with the Centre for e-Democracy, which helped fund the Internet Voting Project (www.internetvotingproject.com). Results of the study, which included survey feedback from Internet voters in 43 municipalities, including Cambridge, will be released online next week. Goodman shared highlights during a webinar this past Thursday (Jan. 29) afternoon.

Editorials: Digital Democracy? – Yes, Please; but Not Online Voting | Glyn Moody/ComputerworldUK

It is a sign of the times that the Speaker of the House of Commons – not the first person that comes to mind as being part of the digital age – has established a Digital Democracy Commission to look into ways to re-imagine democracy for the connected world. With one important exception – that concerning online voting – its recommendations are sensible and to be welcomed. … Enabling people to vote online would indeed draw in many young people who otherwise wouldn’t vote, and that’s hugely important. So why am I against the idea? Well, the report quotes a good encapsulation of the key issues here by the Open Rights Group:

Voting is a uniquely difficult question for computer science: the system must verify your eligibility to vote; know whether you have already voted; and allow for audits and recounts. Yet it must always preserve your anonymity and privacy. Currently, there are no practical solutions to this highly complex problem and existing systems are unacceptably flawed.

Canada: Ontarians like online voting, but turnout boost may be minor, study suggests | The Globe and Mail

Voters and election administrators were satisfied with online ballots in many of last fall’s Ontario municipal races, according to a new study, but the digital shift’s impact on declining turnout appears to be modest. Ninety-seven municipalities across Ontario used online voting in October, most for the first time, in addition to traditional in-person voting and mail-in ballot options. Half of the municipalities participated in a study by the Internet Voting Project, which surveyed voters, candidates and election administrators. Preliminary results of the study are being released in a webinar Thursday afternoon.

Oklahoma: Election Reform Bills | KTUL

In the election process, casting your vote, and the steps the lead up to it are virtually frozen in the past. “I’ve never met a government process that can’t be modernized,” said Oklahoma State Senator David Holt, looking to kick start election reform with a series of bills that would hopefully increase voter turnout. How bad have things gotten? “In 1992 over 70% of Oklahomans voted in the Presidential election, but in 2012 only 50%, third worst in the nation,” he said. The bills would do things such as online voter registration, and voting by mail like folks do in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. … As for one day actually voting online? “We’re a ways off, decades probably,” said Holt.

International: Pirate party founder: ‘Online voting? Would you want 4chan to decide your government?’ | The Guardian

In 2012, a contest for US schools to win a gig by Taylor Swift was hijacked by members of the 4chan website, who piled ​on its online vote in an attempt to send the pop star to a school for deaf children. Now, imagine a similar stunt being pulled for a general election, if voting could be done online. Far-fetched? Not according to Rick Falkvinge, founder of Sweden’s Pirate ​party. “Voting over the internet? Would you really want 4chan to decide your next government?” he said, during a debate about democracy and technology in London, organised by the BBC as part of its Democracy Day event. Falkvinge was responding to a question about whether online voting – or even voting from smartphones – would encourage more people to vote. Besides online pranksters, his reservations included the potential ability of governments and security agencies to snoop on people’s online votes.

Estonia: E-voting for NRIs – Estonian experience and Concerns | NITI

The Supreme Court of India has directed the Government of India to enable e-voting facility for the Indians living abroad. This historical decision will let the NRIs to vote online making things better for the Electorate. Earlier, NRIs used to fly back home to cast their vote during elections but now they can vote for their favourite candidate with a click of a mouse. The Election Commission had earlier recommended e-ballot voting for Indian passport holders abroad. The Government had given voting rights to the NRIs in 2010, but as per the rule – the voter has to be present in their constituency on the day of voting. But with this things might change for better. The Central Government had told the Supreme Court that the EC’s recommendation to extend voting rights to NRIs through postal ballots have been accepted in letter and spirit. Taking note of the submissions, a bench comprising Chief Justice HL Dattu and AK Sikri asked the Government to inform it about “further steps taken to implement the suggestions.”

Iowa: Online voter registration is coming to Iowa, Pate says | Des Moines Register

Incoming Secretary of State Paul Pate says allowing Iowans to register to vote online will be a top priority when he takes office next month. The effort is already underway, and online registration should be available before next fall’s local government elections, he said. Pate, a Republican, will succeed Matt Schultz as the state’s top elections administrator after winning a statewide election in November. The transition opens a new chapter for an office that was at the center of several legal and political fights over the last four years. In an interview with The Des Moines Register, the secretary-elect outlined several elections-related priorities as well as improvements to the office’s business registration functions. His ultimate goal, he said, is to increase access to the polls and voter participation while maintaining ballot security. “All elections offices in the country really have to work harder at keeping the technology updated and balancing out participation with integrity,” he said.

Canada: Online voting unlikely in next Saskatchewan civic elections | The Star Phoenix

When it comes time for Saskatoon citizens to choose their mayor and councillors in 2016, they probably won’t be able to do so on their laptops, tablets or smartphones. Internet voting – which has become increasingly common in municipal elections across Canada – is unlikely to make a debut in any Saskatchewan cities or rural municipalities by the next election. “We’re looking down the road (from 2016),” said Rod Nasewich, legislation and regulations director for the provincial ministry of government relations. Before Internet voting or Internet voting pilot projects are permitted in the province, Saskatchewan’s Local Government Elections Act would have to be amended. Nasewich said such changes are not being pursued because “There hasn’t been a lot of widespread lobbying or support from the municipal sector for that.”

Canada: Online voting: Thunder Bay council to get yet another report | CBC News

City councillors in Thunder Bay are one step closer to approving electronic voting for the next municipal election. Councillors like Trevor Giertuga say they’ve come around to accepting online and telephone voting. “Last time I voted against internet voting, but this time, I believe I’m going to vote in favour of it,” he said. “But I don’t want to do it as a knee-jerk reaction based on frustrations from this election. I’m just changing my mind on this one.” Giertuga supported a call to ask the city clerk to examine electronic voting. Council received a very similar report about four years ago, which was turned down by council.

Verified Voting Blog: Security not yet available for online voting

California’s record low turnout for November’s elections is indeed worrisome, and incoming Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s promises to increase the voter rolls are laudable. However, the editorial board’s desire to see online voting as the natural evolution of our voting systems is misplaced.  Yes, we do bank, shop and communicate online, but a quick review of the latest headlines proves these transactions aren’t secure. Cybercrime is estimated to cost businesses billions every year. Elections are unlike financial transactions because they’re extremely vulnerable to undetectable hacking. Because we vote by secret ballot, there is no way to reconcile the votes recorded and the marks the voter actually makes with technology currently available.

Philippines: Comelec to test touchscreen voting system in 2016 polls | BusinessMirror

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Monday that it has approved the pilot-testing of touchscreen and Internet voting sytems in Pateros, Metro Manila, and select sea-based Filipinos during the 2016 elections. Both Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes and the Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting head, Commissioner Lucenito Tagle, disclosed during separate interviews that the poll body has already issued a resolution formalizing the commissioners’ consensus to test the touchscreen and Internet voting systems. “We have already issued a resolution, which is to use all the 410 Direct Recording Electronic [DRE] units in Pateros since it fits the requirements of pilot-testing,” Brillantes said. Meanwhile, Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. has to overcome yet another legal challenge in order to advance to the next stage of the bidding for additional voting machines for use in the 2016 national elections. This after the bids and awards committee of the Commission on Elections was asked to exclude the Venezuelan firm from the proceedings on grounds of eligibility.

New Jersey: Senate votes to expand early voting | NorthJersey.com

Less than six weeks after a report found New Jersey’s election system after Superstorm Sandy was chaotic and left voters vulnerable to hackers, the state Senate passed a measure to allow early voting. The legislation is seen by proponents as a more effective solution to voting in emergencies while getting in line with most other states. Rutgers University School of Law found that in the 2012 election, one week after Sandy knocked out power to power to 2.4 million homes and businesses in New Jersey, a directive to allow voting by fax and email “increased the chaos clerks experienced trying to run the election.” The report also noted that New Jersey law does not allow for Internet voting.

France: Cyber attack fails to halt leadership vote | BBC

Members of France’s centre-right UMP party have continued with an online leadership ballot despite an early cyber attack which slowed voting. A complaint was lodged with police after the attack on Friday evening, which may have prevented some members casting their vote. The party was voting online after fraud accusations beset its last ballot. Nicolas Sarkozy is tipped to win but needs a strong showing to keep his presidential re-election hopes alive. Since Mr Sarkozy’s defeat by Socialist candidate Francois Hollande in the 2012 election, the UMP has struggled to organise as an effective opposition party despite Mr Hollande’s dismal opinion ratings. Challenging Mr Sarkozy for the UMP leadership are two men, former Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire and MP Herve Mariton. The cyber attack had been “one of the risks anticipated” and had only succeeded in slowing the voting process, the party said, though Mr Mariton warned “thousands” had been unable to vote.

Canada: Scytl offers 25% discount over election problems | Cornwall Standard Freeholder

While the company responsible for the delay in releasing results from the Oct. 27 municipal elections has apologized and offered compensation, 20 municipalities in Ontario are saying it isn’t enough. Scytl Canada Inc. was awarded the contract in January 2104 to provide election services for the internet and telephone ballots. However, on election night, municipalities using the service were waiting until after 11 p.m. for results that should have been made available by 8:30 p.m. due to human error. The delay, according to Scytl, was due to an anomaly found during routine processing causing tabulation to be rerun and a thorough manual audit to be done. Five election files had been mislabeled due to human error and rather than just rename the files, Scytl reran the entire process. Scytl stands by the fact the election results are 100% accurate. Municipalities affected received a letter of apology and an offer of a 25% discount on the final payment for their services in addition to a 10% discount on a future online voting project.

Australia: E-vote won’t happen for next Oz election | The Register

Australians won’t have the chance to vote electronically any time soon, after a parliamentary committee put the idea on ice. Beloved of netizens for at least 20 years, ‘net voting – as distinct from other ways in which IT&T change our electoral processes – was pitched to the committee on the basis that people “would rather be online than in line” (as the committee’s chair Tony Smith writes in the introduction). However, there’s no chance that with only two years remaining before the next federal election, a suitable system could be selected and rolled out, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Matters says in the report posted here. Not only would the logistics be catastrophic, the report states: there’s no way to verify that someone voting over the Internet doesn’t have someone else standing over them, and the lack of privacy “opens up a market” for votes to be bought. The report notes that “technological convenience must be balanced against electoral integrity”. The report also makes the inevitable nod towards the risk of hacking.

Editorials: 2016: How digital balloting opens doors to election thieves, voter fraud | John P. Warren/Human Events

The constant kerfuffle about voting rights does get your attention, doesn’t it? To the left, it seems that attempts to embed a sense of order and integrity to our voting process is the right’s way of disenfranchising minorities and the elderly. To the right, every attempt to make voting easier and more remote—that is, you don’t have to be “there” to do it—represents just one more dilution what some say is our most precious right: to have our say at the ballot box. … With at least nine different kinds of voter fraud available—as defined by The Heritage Foundation (“Does Your Vote Count?”)—it seems there’s no dearth of opportunity for those with initiative to cheat the rest of us out of our voice at the polls. Some say there’s very little evidence of voter fraud, so what’s the big deal? …  The ninth kind of vote fraud outlined by The Heritage Foundation is “Altering The Vote Count,” and of all of different ways our votes can be stolen, this one is the most understated, threatening, invisible, and probable. For those who might challenge that statement, my answer is that our own life experience shouts an affirmative.

National: Internet Voting Hack Alters PDF Ballots in Transmission | Threatpost

Threats to the integrity of Internet voting have been a major factor in keeping the practice to a bare minimum in the United States. On the heels of the recent midterm elections, researchers at Galois, a computer science research and development firm in Portland, Ore., sent another reminder to decision makers and voters that things still aren’t where they should be. Researchers Daniel M. Zimmerman and Joseph R. Kiniry published a paper called “Modifying an Off-the-Shelf Wireless Router for PDF Ballot Tampering” that explains an attack against common home routers that would allow a hacker to intercept a PDF ballot and use another technique to modify a ballot before sending it along to an election authority. PDF ballots have been used in Internet voting trials in Alaska, and in New Jersey as an voting alternative for those displaced by Hurricane Sandy. The ballots are downloaded, filled out and emailed; the email is equivalent to putting a ballot into a ballot box. Election authorities then either print the ballots and count them by hand, or count them with an optical scanner. The Galois attack is by no means the only attack that threatens Internet voting; malware on a voter’s machine could redirect traffic or cause a denial of service condition at the election authority. But the attack described in the paper is certainly a much more quiet attack that the researchers say is undetectable, even in a forensics investigation.

National: Simple hack could alter Internet ballots | The Hill

Basic cyberattacks could tamper with electronically submitted ballots, leaving no trace behind, according to research from computer science firm Galois. On the heels of election watchdog groups criticizing Alaska’s use of ballots submitted online, Galois demonstrated that electronic ballots could be modified through simply hacking into home routers, which often have minimal security measures. “An off-the-shelf home Internet router can be easily modified to silently alter election ballots,” said the researchers, Daniel Zimmerman and Joseph Kiniry. A few states now allow voters to receive and return a ballot electronically. Election officials argue it is a way to increase voter participation, while technologists insist heightened turnout isn’t worth the high risk of fraud.

Alaska: Electronic ballots raise concerns in outstanding Alaska races | The Hill

Election watchdog groups are worried about the role electronically submitted ballots in Alaska might play in the state’s two tight federal elections. Ballots returned online are vulnerable to cyberattacks and lack a proper paper trail, said government accountability advocate Common Cause and election oversight group Verified Voting. Alaska’s gubernatorial and Senate races have both dragged on long after Election Day, with opponents split by narrow margins. Early Wednesday, The Associated Press declared former Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan (R) the winner over incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), even though 30,000 ballots remain uncounted. Begich has yet to concede. Former Valdez, Alaska, Mayor Bill Walker (I) maintains a thin lead over incumbent Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R), although the race remains too close to call. If either race “is to be determined by ballots sent over the Internet, its legitimacy is in doubt,” said Verified Voting President Pamela Smith.

Verified Voting Blog: Online voting rife with hazards

Today Americans are voting in an election that could shift control of the U.S. Senate and significantly impact the direction our nation will take in the next few years. Yet, 31 states will allow over 3 million voters to cast ballots over the Internet in this election, a practice that computer security experts in both the federal government and the private sector have warned is neither secure nor trustworthy.

Most states’ online voting is limited to military and overseas voters, but Alaska now permits all voters to vote over the Internet. With a hotly contested Senate seat in Alaska, the use of an online voting system raises serious concerns about the integrity of Alaska’s election results. Alaska’s State Election Division has even acknowledged that its “secure online voting solution” may not be all that secure by posting this disclaimer on its website: “When returning the ballot through the secure online voting solution, your are [sic] voluntarily waving [sic] your right to a secret ballot and are assuming the risk that a faulty transmission may occur.”

Unfortunately, faulty transmission is only one of the risks of Internet voting. There are countless ways ballots cast over the Internet can be hacked and modified by cyber criminals. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, at the direction of Congress, has conducted extensive research into Internet voting in the last decade and published several reports that outline all the ways votes sent over the Internet can be manipulated without detection. After warning that there are many possible attacks that could have an undiscovered large-scale impact, the institute concluded that secure Internet voting is not yet achievable.

Alaska: Online Voting Leaves Cybersecurity Experts Worried | IEEE Spectrum

Some Americans who lined up at the ballot boxes on Tuesday may have wished for the convenience of online voting. But cybersecurity experts continue to argue that such systems would be vulnerable to vote tampering — warnings that did not stop Alaska from allowing voters to cast electronic ballots in a major election that had both a Senate seat and the governorship up for grabs. There was no evidence of tampering during the first use of Alaska’s online voting system in 2012. But cybersecurity experts have gone on the record as saying that hackers could easily compromise or alter online voting results without being detected. Alaska’s own election site includes a disclaimer about votes cast through online voting or by fax. “When returning the ballot through the secure online voting solution, your are voluntarily waiving your right to a secret ballot and are assuming the risk that a faulty transmission may occur,” according to Alaska’s Division of Elections website.

Editorials: Online voting rife with hazards | Barbara Simons/USA Today

Today Americans are voting in an election that could shift control of the U.S. Senate and significantly impact the direction our nation will take in the next few years. Yet, 31 states will allow over 3 million voters to cast ballots over the Internet in this election, a practice that computer security experts in both the federal government and the private sector have warned is neither secure nor trustworthy. Most states’ online voting is limited to military and overseas voters, but Alaska now permits all voters to vote over the Internet. With a hotly contested Senate seat in Alaska, the use of an online voting system raises serious concerns about the integrity of Alaska’s election results. Alaska’s State Election Division has even acknowledged that its “secure online voting solution” may not be all that secure by posting this disclaimer on its website: “When returning the ballot through the secure online voting solution, your are [sic] voluntarily waving [sic] your right to a secret ballot and are assuming the risk that a faulty transmission may occur.” Unfortunately, faulty transmission is only one of the risks of Internet voting. There are countless ways ballots cast over the Internet can be hacked and modified by cyber criminals.

Editorials: Why we don’t have online voting (and won’t for a long while) | Michael Cochrane/World Magazine

Society deems the voting process so important that it must be 100 percent reliable. We may tolerate failures with our cars and computers, but not our elections. The degree to which an election is free and fair is the very heart of our representative form of democracy in the United States. Technological advancements that might make the voting process more efficient or convenient could also chip away at that integrity, which requires a voting system that is available, secure, and verifiable. At an early October panel discussion on internet voting hosted by the Atlantic Council, Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, addressed voting system availability. “If the equipment should happen to break down, you need something else to vote on to replace it. Otherwise people are disenfranchised by that malfunction,” she said. … “Any voting system that you use has to be able to demonstrate clearly to the loser and their supporters that they lost,” Smith said. “And to do that, you need actual evidence. Voters need to be able to see that their votes were captured the way that they meant for them to be and election officials need to be able to use that evidence to demonstrate that votes were counted correctly.”

Editorials: Dangers of Internet Voting | Kurt Hyde/New American

Yesterday’s USA Today had an article entitled “Internet Voting ‘not ready for prime time.'” The story quotes Verified Voting as saying that there are about three million people eligible to vote online in today’s elections, most of them members of the military. Numerous security risks are cited that are inherent in Internet voting. Readers of The New American have often been warned about the dangers of Internet voting. For instance, the October 9, 2000 issue carried an article entitled “Voting on the Web,” in which readers were told of the dangers to electoral integrity due to the inherent insecurity of the Internet. … There are a great number of security weaknesses in Internet voting: no voter-verified paper audit trail, denial of service attacks, spoofing, eavesdropping by servers along the way capturing people’s passwords and enabling verification of vote selling, just to name a few. There are also security weaknesses in the user devices such as laptops or smart phones. They include key-stroke monitors, stored passwords, and many others. There are numerous special interests in both the United  States and foreign counties for whom the outcome of our elections is of major importance. They have the resources to exploit these security weaknesses, and it’s well worth their investment.

National: Can we trust the Internet with our most basic civic duty? | DecodeDC

Americans across the country will participate Tuesday in one of the most basic civic duties: voting. For many, that means taking time off work, driving to a designated polling place and casting their ballot through standalone voting machines. But what if the process of voting could be vastly different? Today we can do almost anything on the Internet from banking to ordering take-out, so it only feels natural that we should be able to vote that way too. … Not all elections experts think going online is a great idea. But Thad Hall, a professor of political science at the University of Utah, is ready. You know it’s kind of the ultimate easy, convenient way to vote. And I don’t have to have a piece of paper, I don’t have to mail it back, I can send my ballot instantaneously. If Hurricane Sandy comes, I don’t have to worry about voting because I can just vote from my phone or I can vote from a computer somewhere.” But then there are the naysayers, many of them statisticians and engineers who think the Internet is too insecure for such a sacred thing as voting.

Alaska: Hackers Could Decide Who Controls Congress Thanks to Alaska’s Terrible Internet Ballots | The Intercept

When Alaska voters go to the polls tomorrow to help decide whether the U.S. Senate will remain in Democratic control, thousands will do so electronically, using Alaska’s first-in-the-nation internet voting system. And according to the internet security experts, including the former top cybersecurity official for the Department of Homeland Security, that system is a security nightmare that threatens to put control of the U.S. Congress in the hands of foreign or domestic hackers. Any registered Alaska voter can obtain an electronic ballot, mark it on their computers using a web-based interface, save the ballot as a PDF, and return it to their county elections department through what the state calls “a dedicated secure data center behind a layer of redundant firewalls under constant physical and application monitoring to ensure the security of the system, voter privacy, and election integrity.” That sounds great, but even the state acknowledges in an online disclaimer that things could go awry, warning that “when returning the ballot through the secure online voting solution, your are voluntarily waving [sic] your right to a secret ballot and are assuming the risk that a faulty transmission may occur.”