This week the federal Election Assistance Commission released a comprehensive survey on the 2004 election. To conduct the survey, the EAC requested voting and elections information from election officials throughout the country. According to the EAC, the 2004 Election Day Survey is "the largest and most comprehensive survey on election administration ever conducted by a U.S. governmental organization".
There are many interesting findings from the survey, which covers topics ranging from absentee and provisional voting to undervote and overvote rates. One important finding appears in Chapter 3. In this chapter, titled "Ballots Counted", under the header "Types of Voting Equipment", the EAC reports the following:
"Jurisdictions that used hand-counted paper ballots reported the highest turnout rates of any type of voting system for population-based turnout rates. However, when calculating turn-out as a percent of registered voters, those jurisdictions using optical scan voting equipment had the highest turnout rate of all voting systems. Jurisdictions that used lever machines had the lowest turnout rate for registration and voting age population based methods of calculating turnout rates. Surprisingly, jurisdictions that used electronic voting machines reported the lowest turnout rates when measured by citizen voting age population and the second lowest on overall voting age population."
This is an important finding which undercuts the claims made for many years by electronic voting proponents that using touchscreens will increase voter turnout, and will make it more difficult for e-voting proponents and manufacturers to promote their equipment for this purpose. According to the EAC, jurisdictions using hand-counted or optically-scanned paper ballots have higher voter participation rates than those using lever or electronic voting machines.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Andrew Gumbel reports on Georgia's questionable practices with Diebold
Yesterday author and reporter Andrew Gumbel published an extensive piece about Georgia's procurement of Diebold electronic voting machines and questionable activities that occurred throughout the process as well as during the first deployment of the touchscreens. His article features links to documents backing up the allegations, most of which were obtained through public records act requests by voting technology reform activists in Georgia.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Oakland Tribune editorial supports transparency in computerized vote counts
Saturday's Oakland Tribune and other Alameda Newspaper Group papers carried an editorial Saturday urging more, not fewer checks on the accuracy of votes and tabulations. This newspaper group publishes papers throughout Alameda County, where paperless touchscreen machines have been deployed countywide since 2002. This is the fourth major newspaper in a county where significant numbers of e-voting machines have been purchased to editorialize in favor of public verification of software vote counts, which would be required if SB 370/Bowen is signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Other papers in e-voting counties that have weighed in on public verification and have urged the Governor to sign SB 370 include the San Jose Mercury News (Santa Clara county), the Riverside Press Enterprise (Riverside county) and the Bakersfield Californian (Kern county). The Governor has until October 9 to sign or veto SB 370, or to allow it to become law without his signature. See Verified Voting's action alert to find out how you can help. The Alameda Newspaper Group editorial is featured below.
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California must retain election transparency
Our elections are held to transfer political power between the voters and the government, not for the convenience of local election officials.
That's the belief of Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. Her comments came after members of the California Association and Clerks and Elections Officials wrote to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger claiming that computerized touch-screen voting has made the state's manual recount law obsolete.
The clerks don't want to resort to recounts, as they have for 40 years, if the accuracy of the vote comes into question.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Apportionment Committee, said that doing away with protections and vote recounts that check accuracy is "an enormous mistake."
The clerks and election officials say the paper printouts required by state law in California and 25 other states are jam-prone and create administrative nightmares that would be "onerous and time consuming."
Instead, they propose "parallel monitoring," a system that tests the touch-screens by conducting a scripted mock election on Election Day and then checking to see if the votes were recorded properly. It does not, however, check whether the votes are recorded or tallied properly.
They also admit that computerized voting alone is vulnerable to fraudulent programming.
Alexander said any recounting or check of the vote should not be "sorted out in the back room but publicly, because we want voter confidence."
It's another argument against investing too much in touch-screen voting, which became popular after the 2000 presidential elections and the month-long crisis over the hanging chads in Florida.
Computer scientists voiced concerns as early as 2003 about relying entirely on computers for voting, as it opens the door to new problems with programming error and fraud. Their solution was the voter-verified paper trail.
But the election officials, whose responsibility it is to check and make sure that the votes are recorded and tabulated correctly, say that is what makes their job "onerous." They would prefer to do parallel monitoring.
Instead, we suggest local election officials use their insider's knowledge and insight to recommend how vendors can make such machines more accurate and verifiable. We must find ways of checking the accuracy of individual votes, the results and whether or not the process has been tampered with. If we can't, we need a simpler system of voting that can be checked for accuracy.
We need more - not fewer - checks on the accuracy of votes and tabulations. In this new era, we must preserve California's manual recount law.
----------
California must retain election transparency
Our elections are held to transfer political power between the voters and the government, not for the convenience of local election officials.
That's the belief of Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. Her comments came after members of the California Association and Clerks and Elections Officials wrote to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger claiming that computerized touch-screen voting has made the state's manual recount law obsolete.
The clerks don't want to resort to recounts, as they have for 40 years, if the accuracy of the vote comes into question.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Apportionment Committee, said that doing away with protections and vote recounts that check accuracy is "an enormous mistake."
The clerks and election officials say the paper printouts required by state law in California and 25 other states are jam-prone and create administrative nightmares that would be "onerous and time consuming."
Instead, they propose "parallel monitoring," a system that tests the touch-screens by conducting a scripted mock election on Election Day and then checking to see if the votes were recorded properly. It does not, however, check whether the votes are recorded or tallied properly.
They also admit that computerized voting alone is vulnerable to fraudulent programming.
Alexander said any recounting or check of the vote should not be "sorted out in the back room but publicly, because we want voter confidence."
It's another argument against investing too much in touch-screen voting, which became popular after the 2000 presidential elections and the month-long crisis over the hanging chads in Florida.
Computer scientists voiced concerns as early as 2003 about relying entirely on computers for voting, as it opens the door to new problems with programming error and fraud. Their solution was the voter-verified paper trail.
But the election officials, whose responsibility it is to check and make sure that the votes are recorded and tabulated correctly, say that is what makes their job "onerous." They would prefer to do parallel monitoring.
Instead, we suggest local election officials use their insider's knowledge and insight to recommend how vendors can make such machines more accurate and verifiable. We must find ways of checking the accuracy of individual votes, the results and whether or not the process has been tampered with. If we can't, we need a simpler system of voting that can be checked for accuracy.
We need more - not fewer - checks on the accuracy of votes and tabulations. In this new era, we must preserve California's manual recount law.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Wired News on the paper trail
Kim Zetter's piece published in Wired News today examines the Carter-Baker commission's recommendation to require a voter verified paper audit trail. I'd excerpt some of it but it's a must-read from start to finish and is easily accessible online.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
CA Secretary of State issues special election directives to counties
Last Friday California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson issued directives to the state's counties establishing conditions on the use of voting equipment in the Nov. 8 statewide special election. These directives reflect a continuation of the security requirements implemented by the previous secretary of state, Kevin Shelley, during the 2004 election. Secretary McPherson is continuing to require California's electronic voting counties to have a supply of paper ballots available in polling places for those voters who prefer not to vote on touchscreens. Unfortunately, these ballots can and most likely will be treated as provisional ballots, which means that voters exercising this right will have to complete a provisional ballot envelope and may worry that their right to cast a secret ballot may be compromised or that their ballot may not get counted at all. CVF is urging California voters who are concerned about using electronic voting machines to request a paper, absentee ballot and vote by mail or drop it off at the polling place on election day. See CVF's voting systems map to find out which California counties will be using electronic voting machines on November 8.
Author Andrew Gumbel comments on the Carter-Baker report
Andrew Gumbel, correspondent for the UK's Independent newspaper and author of the recently published book, Steal This Vote, is guest-blogging this week and offers some interesting comments on the Carter-Baker report as well as links to comments from other folks who have blogged on the report, such as Rick Hasen, Tova Wang and Dan Tokaji. His most recent entry focuses on how two of the county's leading opponents of the voter-verified paper trail, Cathy Cox of Georgia and Linda Lamone in Maryland, have begun to express support for the paper trail following the release of the report.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Bakersfield Californian endorses SB 370
Over the weekend the Bakersfield Californian published an editorial urging Governor Schwarzenegger to sign SB 370. The Bakersfield Californian's audience is Kern county, where local election officials purchased 1,350 Diebold TSx electronic voting machines at a cost of nearly $5 million prior to state certification. Those machines have sat unused since March 2004 while Diebold attempts to win state certification and will have to be retrofitted with a voter verified paper trail to meet new state voting security laws.
The Bakersfield Californian is the third newspaper in a major e-voting county to endorse SB 370 -- other endorsements have come from the San Jose Mercury News in Santa Clara county and the Riverside Press Enterprise. Both Riverside and Santa Clara counties have made huge electronic voting equipment purchases in recent years. Fortunately the local newspapers in these counties are paying attention to voting security issues and supporting public auditing of their voting systems in order to improve voter confidence.
Excerpts from the Bakersfield Californian editorial are featured below.
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Who counts? Machines? Voters?
If electronic touch-screen voting machines can't do the job, just unplug them. Don't compromise the electoral system to make it easier for bureaucrats to count the votes.
---
The 2000 Presidential Election fiasco involving punch-card voting in Florida prompted many states, including California, to move to the use of electronic voting machines. But challenges to the machines' accuracy and the inability to manually recount votes in a disputed election led to requiring electronic machines produce a "paper trail."
County election officials now claim printouts are unnecessary and inconvenient because they are prone to jam and are an administrative nightmare. They also say the accuracy of electronic machines should not have to be checked manually a 40-year-old procedure of hand-counting 1 percent of ballots cast in any election.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, who heads the Senate Elections and Appropriations Committee, and Kim Alexander, who heads the non-profit California Voter Foundation, are outraged.
Elections officials claim verifying computerized voting with paper would be "onerous and time-consuming," Alexander told The Oakland Tribune. "What they fail to realize is that elections are not conducted for their convenience, but for transferring power between the people and government."
The Bakersfield Californian is the third newspaper in a major e-voting county to endorse SB 370 -- other endorsements have come from the San Jose Mercury News in Santa Clara county and the Riverside Press Enterprise. Both Riverside and Santa Clara counties have made huge electronic voting equipment purchases in recent years. Fortunately the local newspapers in these counties are paying attention to voting security issues and supporting public auditing of their voting systems in order to improve voter confidence.
Excerpts from the Bakersfield Californian editorial are featured below.
-----------
Who counts? Machines? Voters?
If electronic touch-screen voting machines can't do the job, just unplug them. Don't compromise the electoral system to make it easier for bureaucrats to count the votes.
---
The 2000 Presidential Election fiasco involving punch-card voting in Florida prompted many states, including California, to move to the use of electronic voting machines. But challenges to the machines' accuracy and the inability to manually recount votes in a disputed election led to requiring electronic machines produce a "paper trail."
County election officials now claim printouts are unnecessary and inconvenient because they are prone to jam and are an administrative nightmare. They also say the accuracy of electronic machines should not have to be checked manually a 40-year-old procedure of hand-counting 1 percent of ballots cast in any election.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, who heads the Senate Elections and Appropriations Committee, and Kim Alexander, who heads the non-profit California Voter Foundation, are outraged.
Elections officials claim verifying computerized voting with paper would be "onerous and time-consuming," Alexander told The Oakland Tribune. "What they fail to realize is that elections are not conducted for their convenience, but for transferring power between the people and government."
Coverage of the Carter-Baker Commission/SB 370
Today's Oakland Tribune features an article by Ian Hoffman about the Carter-Baker commission's election reform recommendations and their potential impact on SB 370, a California bill that, if signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, will require public auditing of electronic vote counts. Excerpts from the story are featured below.
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Federal panel looks to Congress for e-voting paper trail
Schwarzenegger mulls similar bill in California
For American voters to regain faith in their elections, voters should be given a unique identification card, and electronic voting machines need a paper record that voters can check and elections officials can recount, a prestigious federal panel reported Monday.
The Commission on Federal Voting Reform's call for Congress to require a voter-verified paper trail for recounts nationwide comes as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considers signing a similar bill for California.
Election officials from Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to local registrars of voters are opposing the measure because the paper printouts don't fit the state legal definition of a ballot and because recounting them would be "onerous and time consuming."
The federal panel, chaired by former President Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, concluded that e-voting machines need to produce paper trails for recounts "to instill greater confidence" and ensure transparency in U.S. elections.
Paper-trail advocates in Congress and the California Legislature hailed the report and urged passage of a law requiring use of paper trails, including for the state's mandatory recount of 1 percent of all precincts in elections. California has had an automatic recount since the 1960s as a check on the accuracy of computerized vote tallies.
"Relying on the electronic machine's own tally to satisfy the 1 percent manual count law, as California's elections officials are doing now, undermines the 40-year-old law designed to require an independent hand audit of California's election results," said Debra Bowen, the Marina Del Ray Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee and co-authored the bill.
---
The governor's office has declined to discuss his position on the bill. He faces an Oct. 9 deadline to sign or veto it.
Paper trails are now mandatory in 25 states, and legislation is under consideration in an additional 14 states.
"If we fail to require that electronic voting machines be subject to the same audit requirements as other voting machines, then California voters' confidence in our elections is likely to continue to erode," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.
Civil rights advocates were less impressed with the Carter-Baker report, saying the panel didn't go far enough in encouraging voter participation.
The commission shied from recommending voting rights for convicted felons on probation or parole. Nor did the panel recommend same-day registration or a single, national standard on the handling of provisional ballots, a matter of controversy in the 2004 elections. Those ideas are likely to bring more voters to the polls, according to the Chief Justice Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law.
-------------
Federal panel looks to Congress for e-voting paper trail
Schwarzenegger mulls similar bill in California
For American voters to regain faith in their elections, voters should be given a unique identification card, and electronic voting machines need a paper record that voters can check and elections officials can recount, a prestigious federal panel reported Monday.
The Commission on Federal Voting Reform's call for Congress to require a voter-verified paper trail for recounts nationwide comes as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considers signing a similar bill for California.
Election officials from Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to local registrars of voters are opposing the measure because the paper printouts don't fit the state legal definition of a ballot and because recounting them would be "onerous and time consuming."
The federal panel, chaired by former President Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, concluded that e-voting machines need to produce paper trails for recounts "to instill greater confidence" and ensure transparency in U.S. elections.
Paper-trail advocates in Congress and the California Legislature hailed the report and urged passage of a law requiring use of paper trails, including for the state's mandatory recount of 1 percent of all precincts in elections. California has had an automatic recount since the 1960s as a check on the accuracy of computerized vote tallies.
"Relying on the electronic machine's own tally to satisfy the 1 percent manual count law, as California's elections officials are doing now, undermines the 40-year-old law designed to require an independent hand audit of California's election results," said Debra Bowen, the Marina Del Ray Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee and co-authored the bill.
---
The governor's office has declined to discuss his position on the bill. He faces an Oct. 9 deadline to sign or veto it.
Paper trails are now mandatory in 25 states, and legislation is under consideration in an additional 14 states.
"If we fail to require that electronic voting machines be subject to the same audit requirements as other voting machines, then California voters' confidence in our elections is likely to continue to erode," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.
Civil rights advocates were less impressed with the Carter-Baker report, saying the panel didn't go far enough in encouraging voter participation.
The commission shied from recommending voting rights for convicted felons on probation or parole. Nor did the panel recommend same-day registration or a single, national standard on the handling of provisional ballots, a matter of controversy in the 2004 elections. Those ideas are likely to bring more voters to the polls, according to the Chief Justice Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Senator Bowen blogs on SB 370 & Carter-Baker commission report
This evening Senator Debra Bowen has been blogging and discussing voting technology issues with folks online, including the new Carter-Baker commission report and SB 370, her bill that, if signed into law by the Governor, will require public auditing of electronic vote counts. There are lots of interesting questions, answers and comments to read in the series of blog entries.
Carter-Baker commission recommends paper trail
Today the Commission on Federal Election Reform released its report and recommendations for building public confidence in U.S. elections. The commission, co-chaired by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James Baker, includes members with backgrounds in a range of fields, such as elections, journalism, academia, and politicans from both major political parties.
The commission's recommendations include one of major significance: that Congress pass a law to require all voting machines be equipped with a voter-verifiable paper audit trail for recounts, backups and testing of voting machine accuracy. California has already enacted a law to require voter verified paper audit trails; if Governor Schwarzenegger signs SB 370/Bowen, California will again move to the forefront of voting technology reform, achieving a meaningful public test of voting machine accuracy as recommended by the Carter-Baker commission.
The commission's report features a chapter on voting technology, which includes sections on voting machine security, audits, voting system security, and Internet voting. See the Associated Press story and the commission's news page for more coverage of the report.
The commission's recommendations include one of major significance: that Congress pass a law to require all voting machines be equipped with a voter-verifiable paper audit trail for recounts, backups and testing of voting machine accuracy. California has already enacted a law to require voter verified paper audit trails; if Governor Schwarzenegger signs SB 370/Bowen, California will again move to the forefront of voting technology reform, achieving a meaningful public test of voting machine accuracy as recommended by the Carter-Baker commission.
The commission's report features a chapter on voting technology, which includes sections on voting machine security, audits, voting system security, and Internet voting. See the Associated Press story and the commission's news page for more coverage of the report.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Riverside Press Enterprise endorses SB 370
The Riverside Press Enterprise published an editorial on Wednesday urging the Governor to sign SB 370. The editorial is particularly meaningful coming from the local newspaper of a county that has made a practice of obscuring its voting system from public oversight. The text of the editorial is featured below.
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Faith in voting
September 14, 2005
Public confidence in the integrity of elections is worth taking the time to cultivate and maintain. So Gov. Schwarzenegger should sign SB 370, which provides a sensible way to verify the accuracy of electronic voting machines.
Yet the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, supported by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, has urged a veto. The group says such verification would be time-consuming and inaccurate. But those claims pale against the need for voter confidence in touch-screen machines' precision.
California law requires elections officials to conduct a manual recount of 1 percent of the ballots to ensure the accuracy of machine-counted vote totals. But touch-screen voting systems have typically lacked paper ballots that can be used in such a recount.
By 2006, all touch-screen machines in California must print out voters' choices, so that voters can verify their accuracy. SB 370, by Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, would use this voter-verified paper trail for the recounts.
The county election officials say the voter-verified printouts can't be trusted for accuracy. The printouts do not distinguish provisional ballots or identify pre-Election Day votes by precinct. That means the voter-verified tally would differ from the computer results, the officials say.
But surely firms that design complicated voting software can handle the simple challenge of identifying precincts or provisional ballots on a printout.
The election officials group even argues that the printer system could be programmed to provide a different result than the computer's internal audit trail. Raising questions about faulty or malicious programming makes an odd argument for not insisting on the strictest accuracy checks available.
What better way to verify the accuracy of touch-screen tallies than by comparing them with the printouts voters approved? The computer tallies do have a backup record that can be printed out, but that is like comparing a photocopy to the original. Randomly testing voting devices, a past practice, also fails to check the machines against a record of ballots actually cast.
SB 370 does mean extra time and expense for registrars, but giving voters confidence in elections more than repays that investment.
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Faith in voting
September 14, 2005
Public confidence in the integrity of elections is worth taking the time to cultivate and maintain. So Gov. Schwarzenegger should sign SB 370, which provides a sensible way to verify the accuracy of electronic voting machines.
Yet the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, supported by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, has urged a veto. The group says such verification would be time-consuming and inaccurate. But those claims pale against the need for voter confidence in touch-screen machines' precision.
California law requires elections officials to conduct a manual recount of 1 percent of the ballots to ensure the accuracy of machine-counted vote totals. But touch-screen voting systems have typically lacked paper ballots that can be used in such a recount.
By 2006, all touch-screen machines in California must print out voters' choices, so that voters can verify their accuracy. SB 370, by Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, would use this voter-verified paper trail for the recounts.
The county election officials say the voter-verified printouts can't be trusted for accuracy. The printouts do not distinguish provisional ballots or identify pre-Election Day votes by precinct. That means the voter-verified tally would differ from the computer results, the officials say.
But surely firms that design complicated voting software can handle the simple challenge of identifying precincts or provisional ballots on a printout.
The election officials group even argues that the printer system could be programmed to provide a different result than the computer's internal audit trail. Raising questions about faulty or malicious programming makes an odd argument for not insisting on the strictest accuracy checks available.
What better way to verify the accuracy of touch-screen tallies than by comparing them with the printouts voters approved? The computer tallies do have a backup record that can be printed out, but that is like comparing a photocopy to the original. Randomly testing voting devices, a past practice, also fails to check the machines against a record of ballots actually cast.
SB 370 does mean extra time and expense for registrars, but giving voters confidence in elections more than repays that investment.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Coverage of the county registrars' opposition to SB 370
Saturday's ANG newspapers featured an article by Ian Hoffman about the county registrars' association's (CACEO) opposition to SB 370/Bowen, which, if signed into law by the Governor, would require county registrars to conduct a post-election manual count of a subset of the voter verified paper records to verify the accuracy of computerized election results produced from electronic voting machines. The registrars' opposition to the bill is unfortunate, but hopefully the Governor will be persuaded to sign the bill due to strong, bipartisan support for the measure in both houses of the legislature, as well as a groundswell of grassroots support from election verification activists across the state.
Excerpts from the ANG story are featured below.
---------
Elections officials throughout California are waging 11th-hour opposition to using paper records for verifying electronic ballots, partly arguing that the printouts %u2014 as well as the electronic voting machines themselves %u2014 are vulnerable to fraudulent programming.
Writing to the governor recently, the California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials suggested that fully computerized, touch-screen voting machines, known as Direct Electronic Recording devices, or DREs, should not be checked by recounts, the method used for all other voting technologies in the state.
----
As a paperless technology, touch screens until recently provided no record to count. But in the last two years, California and 25 other states have required all touch screens to print out a voter's choices, to be reviewed by the voter and presumably used in recounts. But elections officials say the printouts are jam-prone, create administrative nightmares and shouldn't be used. Rather, they say, touch screens have made California's manual recount law obsolete.
"The law needs to be changed," said Janice Atkinson, Sonoma County assistant registrar of voters, the correspondence secretary for the election officials' association. "The one-percent (tally) still needs to apply to electronic ballot counting systems, but there needs to be some other form of verification for DREs."
Sen. Debra Bowen considers that "an enormous mistake": "The suggestion that we would remove protections that have worked for 40 years, I find that frightening," said Bowen, D-Marina Del Rey, chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Apportionment Committee.
Unlike other voting methods, which record votes on paper ballots and count them by computer, touch-screen voting systems record and count votes, using software that no state or local official or member of the public can examine.
"This technology is a lot less transparent than other voting technologies," said Bowen. "The more you do electronically, the less the public is able to observe the process."
Fully computerized touch screens soared in popularity after the 2000 elections and a crisis over discerning voter choices on punchcard ballots. Touchscreens have none of this uncertainty; a vote is recorded in memory or not. But starting in 2003, computer scientists voiced concerns that relying entirely on computers for voting opened new vulnerabilities to programming error and fraud. Their solution was the voter-verified paper trail.
In their letter to the governor, elections officials say touch screens can be fraudulently programmed to misrepresent the paper record, as well. Besides, using the paper record for recounts is a bad idea. They prefer substituting something called parallel monitoring, in which state officials remove a certain number of touch screens on Election Day and conduct a scripted mock election, then check whether the votes were recorded properly.
The problem, said Bowen, is that parallel monitoring checks a small sample of machines on the recording of votes but is silent on whether votes are tallied accurately. Recounting paper trails and comparing them against the electronic count captures the entire voting process, she said.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation, said the election officials' letter was "outrageous."
"It's pretty startling that they're admitting there's a potential for discrepancies between the electronic vote count and the paper-trail count. But we don't want those sorted out in the back room but publicly because we want voter confidence," Alexander said.
Instead, she said, elections officials complain that verifying computerized voting with paper would be "onerous and time consuming," according to the association's letter.
"What they fail to realize is that elections are not conducted for their convenience but for transferring power between the people and government," she said.
Excerpts from the ANG story are featured below.
---------
Elections officials throughout California are waging 11th-hour opposition to using paper records for verifying electronic ballots, partly arguing that the printouts %u2014 as well as the electronic voting machines themselves %u2014 are vulnerable to fraudulent programming.
Writing to the governor recently, the California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials suggested that fully computerized, touch-screen voting machines, known as Direct Electronic Recording devices, or DREs, should not be checked by recounts, the method used for all other voting technologies in the state.
----
As a paperless technology, touch screens until recently provided no record to count. But in the last two years, California and 25 other states have required all touch screens to print out a voter's choices, to be reviewed by the voter and presumably used in recounts. But elections officials say the printouts are jam-prone, create administrative nightmares and shouldn't be used. Rather, they say, touch screens have made California's manual recount law obsolete.
"The law needs to be changed," said Janice Atkinson, Sonoma County assistant registrar of voters, the correspondence secretary for the election officials' association. "The one-percent (tally) still needs to apply to electronic ballot counting systems, but there needs to be some other form of verification for DREs."
Sen. Debra Bowen considers that "an enormous mistake": "The suggestion that we would remove protections that have worked for 40 years, I find that frightening," said Bowen, D-Marina Del Rey, chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Apportionment Committee.
Unlike other voting methods, which record votes on paper ballots and count them by computer, touch-screen voting systems record and count votes, using software that no state or local official or member of the public can examine.
"This technology is a lot less transparent than other voting technologies," said Bowen. "The more you do electronically, the less the public is able to observe the process."
Fully computerized touch screens soared in popularity after the 2000 elections and a crisis over discerning voter choices on punchcard ballots. Touchscreens have none of this uncertainty; a vote is recorded in memory or not. But starting in 2003, computer scientists voiced concerns that relying entirely on computers for voting opened new vulnerabilities to programming error and fraud. Their solution was the voter-verified paper trail.
In their letter to the governor, elections officials say touch screens can be fraudulently programmed to misrepresent the paper record, as well. Besides, using the paper record for recounts is a bad idea. They prefer substituting something called parallel monitoring, in which state officials remove a certain number of touch screens on Election Day and conduct a scripted mock election, then check whether the votes were recorded properly.
The problem, said Bowen, is that parallel monitoring checks a small sample of machines on the recording of votes but is silent on whether votes are tallied accurately. Recounting paper trails and comparing them against the electronic count captures the entire voting process, she said.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation, said the election officials' letter was "outrageous."
"It's pretty startling that they're admitting there's a potential for discrepancies between the electronic vote count and the paper-trail count. But we don't want those sorted out in the back room but publicly because we want voter confidence," Alexander said.
Instead, she said, elections officials complain that verifying computerized voting with paper would be "onerous and time consuming," according to the association's letter.
"What they fail to realize is that elections are not conducted for their convenience but for transferring power between the people and government," she said.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Verified Voting seeks new President/CEO
Verified Voting was founded in February 2004 by David Dill, a Stanford computer scientist who kick-started the technology community's involvement in election verification issues.
Verified Voting has been doing instrumental work on voting verification since its inception. Grassroots Verified Voting volunteers across the nation have been active at the state and local levels to ensure the requirement and purchase of voting systems that are verifiable. These activists have played an important role throughout 2005 in getting legislation passed in state legislatures across the country requiring a voter verified paper audit trail and public auditing of election results.
Professor Dill recently announced that a president/CEO is being sought for Verified Voting. The job announcement is below. If you know someone well-suited for this position please pass this job announcement along.
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PRESIDENT AND CEO OF VERIFIED VOTING FOUNDATION AND VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG
The Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org are non-profit, non-governmental organizations with a common mission: to promote transparent, reliable and publicly verifiable elections in the United States.
The Verified Voting Foundation is an 501(c)(3) organization whose activities are primarily research and education. VerifiedVoting.org is a 501(c)(4) organization which advocates legislative reforms to increase election transparency. These organizations are primarily focused on election integrity and transparency issues and have a history of drawing on special expertise in technology, especially computer science.
We are seeking a President, who is the CEO of the organization. We are seeking a leader and manager with extensive prior management experience, a deep knowledge of election issues, and a passion for our mission.
The organization is currently headquartered in San Francisco, although headquartering in Washington, DC could be considered.
Responsibilities of the President will include:
* Being the public face of both organizations.
* Setting short-term and long-term strategy, including the definition
and planning of major projects that advance our mission.
* Fundraising from foundations and individual contributors.
* Building the organizations, recruiting high-quality staff and
volunteers for important roles within the organization, including
- communications strategy
- policy analysis
- gathering and making available timely and accurate information about
election law, voting technology, etc. to the public.
- lobbying activities at the state and Federal level.
* Cultivating and maintaining effective partnerships with a
wide variety of other organizations who are working on election
issues at the state and federal level.
* Financial administration
* Working with and expanding the board of directors.
Qualifications:
* Previous high-level executive experience.
* Demonstrated success in building a non-profit.
* Exceptional ability to communicate in speech and writing.
* In-depth knowledge of voting and democracy issues, and a passion
for our mission.
* A commitment to accuracy, objectivity, and non-partisanship.
* Comfort with technology issues, and the ability to communicate
about technology issues with technologists and the general public.
If you are interested, please email a copy of a cover letter and your resume to "davidldill@gmail.com"
Verified Voting has been doing instrumental work on voting verification since its inception. Grassroots Verified Voting volunteers across the nation have been active at the state and local levels to ensure the requirement and purchase of voting systems that are verifiable. These activists have played an important role throughout 2005 in getting legislation passed in state legislatures across the country requiring a voter verified paper audit trail and public auditing of election results.
Professor Dill recently announced that a president/CEO is being sought for Verified Voting. The job announcement is below. If you know someone well-suited for this position please pass this job announcement along.
---------------
PRESIDENT AND CEO OF VERIFIED VOTING FOUNDATION AND VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG
The Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org are non-profit, non-governmental organizations with a common mission: to promote transparent, reliable and publicly verifiable elections in the United States.
The Verified Voting Foundation is an 501(c)(3) organization whose activities are primarily research and education. VerifiedVoting.org is a 501(c)(4) organization which advocates legislative reforms to increase election transparency. These organizations are primarily focused on election integrity and transparency issues and have a history of drawing on special expertise in technology, especially computer science.
We are seeking a President, who is the CEO of the organization. We are seeking a leader and manager with extensive prior management experience, a deep knowledge of election issues, and a passion for our mission.
The organization is currently headquartered in San Francisco, although headquartering in Washington, DC could be considered.
Responsibilities of the President will include:
* Being the public face of both organizations.
* Setting short-term and long-term strategy, including the definition
and planning of major projects that advance our mission.
* Fundraising from foundations and individual contributors.
* Building the organizations, recruiting high-quality staff and
volunteers for important roles within the organization, including
- communications strategy
- policy analysis
- gathering and making available timely and accurate information about
election law, voting technology, etc. to the public.
- lobbying activities at the state and Federal level.
* Cultivating and maintaining effective partnerships with a
wide variety of other organizations who are working on election
issues at the state and federal level.
* Financial administration
* Working with and expanding the board of directors.
Qualifications:
* Previous high-level executive experience.
* Demonstrated success in building a non-profit.
* Exceptional ability to communicate in speech and writing.
* In-depth knowledge of voting and democracy issues, and a passion
for our mission.
* A commitment to accuracy, objectivity, and non-partisanship.
* Comfort with technology issues, and the ability to communicate
about technology issues with technologists and the general public.
If you are interested, please email a copy of a cover letter and your resume to "davidldill@gmail.com"
Monday, September 12, 2005
CORRECTION to blog entry from Friday, September 9
Last Friday I wrote a blog entry about the California Association of County Clerks and Election Officials' (CACEO) letter of opposition to SB 370, which, if signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, would require that voter verified paper trails be used to verify the accuracy of computerized vote counts.
The person who signed the letter on behalf of CACEO, Janice Atkinson, contacted me today to inform me that I misquoted the letter. The clerks did not write to the Governor that they "do not believe a separate, independent verification of DRE accuracy is necessary..." but that they wrote that they "do believe a separate, independent verification of DRE accuracy is necessary...". My apologies for misquoting the letter. It's one little word, but it makes a world of difference in this case. I am relieved that the registrars have not abandoned the idea of independent verification, but am still very disappointed that they suggest abandoning the manual count procedure for DREs since this is the only verification process that anyone's developed which is transparent and accessible to the general public.
The person who signed the letter on behalf of CACEO, Janice Atkinson, contacted me today to inform me that I misquoted the letter. The clerks did not write to the Governor that they "do not believe a separate, independent verification of DRE accuracy is necessary..." but that they wrote that they "do believe a separate, independent verification of DRE accuracy is necessary...". My apologies for misquoting the letter. It's one little word, but it makes a world of difference in this case. I am relieved that the registrars have not abandoned the idea of independent verification, but am still very disappointed that they suggest abandoning the manual count procedure for DREs since this is the only verification process that anyone's developed which is transparent and accessible to the general public.
Friday, September 9, 2005
County Clerks' letter explains their opposition to public verification of election results
The state election clerks' association (the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials) recently sent a letter to the Governor urging him to veto SB 370/Bowen, which would mandate the use of the voter verified paper audit trail to publicly audit computerized election results. In their letter of opposition, the clerks state that they do not believe "a separate, independent verification of DRE accuracy is necessary....". Their letter goes on to suggest that we should instead find "new methods of validating the accuracy of the equipment used to cast or tabulate votes."
The clerks assert in their letter that the voter verified paper trail is a "form of verification that is useful only when the voter is present" and then go on to say that "Using the AVVPAT to perform a 1% manual tally or full recount is neither practical nor accurarate.....Printing the internal audit trail for these purposes does nothing to verify the accuracy of the electronically captured vote, because the possibility exists that the internal audit trail and AVVPAT could be programmed to print different results."
So, to sum up: The clerks have now stated on the record that they do not believe independent verification of DRE accuracy is necessary, but that they now do believe voting equipment could be hacked or could malfunction. Their reasoning is inconsistent and more than a little frightening. Their opposition to public verification on computerized election results is appalling. The clerks also oppose SB 370 because of various administrative concerns, all of which are surmountable. In short, the clerks' letter is all about explaining how using the voter verified paper trails to perform the one percent manual count would make their jobs difficult. What the clerks' association fails to realize is that elections are not conducted for the convenience of election officials; they are conducted for the purpose of transferring power between the people and the government. To suggest that electronic voting equipment is a reliable tool to use for elections, admit that this very same equipment is subject to fraud or error and then insist that public verification of results produced by such equipment is not necessary demonstrates a failure on the part of the clerks' association to comprehend the true nature and purpose of the electoral process.
The clerks assert in their letter that the voter verified paper trail is a "form of verification that is useful only when the voter is present" and then go on to say that "Using the AVVPAT to perform a 1% manual tally or full recount is neither practical nor accurarate.....Printing the internal audit trail for these purposes does nothing to verify the accuracy of the electronically captured vote, because the possibility exists that the internal audit trail and AVVPAT could be programmed to print different results."
So, to sum up: The clerks have now stated on the record that they do not believe independent verification of DRE accuracy is necessary, but that they now do believe voting equipment could be hacked or could malfunction. Their reasoning is inconsistent and more than a little frightening. Their opposition to public verification on computerized election results is appalling. The clerks also oppose SB 370 because of various administrative concerns, all of which are surmountable. In short, the clerks' letter is all about explaining how using the voter verified paper trails to perform the one percent manual count would make their jobs difficult. What the clerks' association fails to realize is that elections are not conducted for the convenience of election officials; they are conducted for the purpose of transferring power between the people and the government. To suggest that electronic voting equipment is a reliable tool to use for elections, admit that this very same equipment is subject to fraud or error and then insist that public verification of results produced by such equipment is not necessary demonstrates a failure on the part of the clerks' association to comprehend the true nature and purpose of the electoral process.
Thursday, September 8, 2005
UK drops plans for e-voting
British media are reporting this week that the United Kingdom has dropped its plans to pursue electronic voting. In a Register story by Tim Richardson, it was reported that the "news was slipped out in a written answer during the summer recess prompting the Tories to describe plans for "widespread electronic voting and an 'e-enabled general election' by next year" as "a shambles"." It is welcome news and hopefully election officials in the U.S. are paying attention to the fact that more countries are questioning e-voting than embracing it these days. More excerpts from the Register article are below.
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Oliver Heald MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, described the Government's e-voting plans as "reckless" and "insecure".
"Past e-voting pilots in local elections have proved expensive and not delivered any significant increase in turnout," said Heald.
"The Government must retain the tried and trusted ballot box as the foundation of British democracy.
"Restoring public confidence in our electoral system is more important than spending taxpayers' money on 'Big Brother' text messaging gimmicks.
"This lack of an adequate audit trail is extremely worrying in the light of the risk of fraud already exposed with all-postal voting," he said.
But a spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) insisted that although people would not be able to vote electronically next year, the Government was still keen to monitor its future use.
"The Government believes that the time is not yet right to take forward the piloting of e-voting," said a spokesman.
"We are not ruling out piloting e-voting in the future and any future plans will be taken forward at the appropriate time."
The Government set out its plans for alternative voting back in 2002 when the late Robin Cook said he hoped it would "enhance citizens' involvement" in the democratic process.
In March, research carried out by pollsters MORI found that the vast majority of Brits reckon high-tech voting methods - such as voting by email or through a dedicated website - would make electoral fraud easier to commit.
--------
Oliver Heald MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, described the Government's e-voting plans as "reckless" and "insecure".
"Past e-voting pilots in local elections have proved expensive and not delivered any significant increase in turnout," said Heald.
"The Government must retain the tried and trusted ballot box as the foundation of British democracy.
"Restoring public confidence in our electoral system is more important than spending taxpayers' money on 'Big Brother' text messaging gimmicks.
"This lack of an adequate audit trail is extremely worrying in the light of the risk of fraud already exposed with all-postal voting," he said.
But a spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) insisted that although people would not be able to vote electronically next year, the Government was still keen to monitor its future use.
"The Government believes that the time is not yet right to take forward the piloting of e-voting," said a spokesman.
"We are not ruling out piloting e-voting in the future and any future plans will be taken forward at the appropriate time."
The Government set out its plans for alternative voting back in 2002 when the late Robin Cook said he hoped it would "enhance citizens' involvement" in the democratic process.
In March, research carried out by pollsters MORI found that the vast majority of Brits reckon high-tech voting methods - such as voting by email or through a dedicated website - would make electoral fraud easier to commit.
Thursday, September 1, 2005
CVF sends letter to Governor Schwarzenegger urging him to sign SB 370
Today the California Voter Foundation sent a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to sign SB 370/Bowen, which would require that voter-verified paper audit trails be used to verify the accuracy of software vote counts. Those wishing to contact the Governor on this bill can do so in a number of ways:
PHONE: The Governor's office has an automated phone system you can dial into, and SB 370 is now one of the bills featured in this system (it's item 3 on the phone keypad). Call 916-445-2841 and follow the instructions to register an opinion on this bill.
ONLINE: You can use the Governor's online form to contact him.
FAX: 916-445-4633
U.S. MAIL:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
PHONE: The Governor's office has an automated phone system you can dial into, and SB 370 is now one of the bills featured in this system (it's item 3 on the phone keypad). Call 916-445-2841 and follow the instructions to register an opinion on this bill.
ONLINE: You can use the Governor's online form to contact him.
FAX: 916-445-4633
U.S. MAIL:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
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