American Idol, Hawaii, and Internet-based Voting

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While many of us are working to save the integrity of our election system by defeating New York's move to software-based vote counting, Hawaii and the NYC Department of Education have moved in the other direction -- internet-based voting. James Pinkerton has written an interesting commentary on the politics of vote counting, anticipating what he thinks is an inevitable move to the internet.

I include some excerpts from his piece. His questions and comments are as relevant to software-based vote-counting machines as the internet, but his solution seems as flawed as the current "certification" process.

JAMES P. PINKERTON: Will Democrats Become a Permanent Majority Thanks to Internet Voting? � FOX Forum � FOXNews.com: "So if vote fraud is already a problem, what will happen when the “vote” is simply an electronic pulse, that could have come, potentially, from anywhere in the US–or around the world? Who will oversee the e-voting process? And who will oversee the overseers?"

...But of course, the high-tech nature of digital democracy adds a new layer of complexity, as well as mystery, to the voting process. In theory, the technology is completely neutral. But theoretical technology and practical politics are two different things. Diebold, a leading manufacturer of traditional voting machines, has come under repeated fire for alleged pro-Republican bias. But the complexity of a voting machine is nothing compared to the complexity of computers and the Internet.

...So what’s needed immediately is a completely fair and transparent process to examine all facets of the transition to Internet voting. And the only way to achieve that fairness and transparency is to create a rigorously bipartisan outfit to oversee the implementation of such technology, modeled after either the Federal Election Commission, or the private Commission on Presidential Debates.

Voter fraud has always been a problem, and always will be. The integrity of our election system is based on the voters' belief that the system is impartial, observable, and secure.

A bipartisan commission of Washington lackeys sitting in a hearing room can never assure voters that a software based system -- local or internet driven -- is secure or impartial, never-mind observable. I cite the recent American Idol vote as a silly, but relevant example.

My Google Alerts for voting news were full of articles this week about the groundswell of fans who believe that AT&T manipulated the American Idol vote and that's why their favorite lost.

Just try to convince them they're wrong.

Most electronic voting systems can be hacked, CIA expert says

Now, just why is it that we're arguing about keeping our levers?

This is a story not to be missed! A CIA expert testifying before the US Election Assistance Commission...

The Raw Story | Most electronic voting systems can be hacked, CIA expert says: "'Computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results,' a summary of his remarks said.

Moreover, Stigall said that the CIA believes Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may have fixed a recent recount in his favor using such tactics. Chavez, he said, controlled most of the voting machines used and may have provided the program that was used to 'randomly' select machines for audit during a recount.

The voting machines Venezuela used were made by Smartmatic, a company that partnered with Chavez's government which was owned by US-based Sequoia systems until 2007. Sequoia also provides voting machines for the District of Columbia and 16 US states."

I hope you'll click the link and read the whole story. It makes the notion of op-scanners and paper ballots seem pretty silly.

And, here's the link to the Election Assistance Commissions transcript.

Related articles by Zemanta

• CIA Expert Decries E-Voting Security (tech.slashdot.org)
• CIA Warning: 'E-Voting Not Secure' - U.S. EAC Finally Releases Complete Transcript of Stunning Cybersecurity Expert Testimony (bradblog.com)
• US Election Assistance Commission very selective in reporting of CIA analysis of electronic voting machines (allthingsreform.org)

How SysTest Lost Its Certification to Test Optical Scanners

If you've been wondering what SysTest could do to lose its federal certification, this report on the suit Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold) filed against SysTest last month provides a glimpse.

Federal certification of election systems by independent voting system test labs is supposed to assure voters that these systems can't be hacked. The test labs are certified by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) with the National Institute of Standards and Testing (NIST).

Last October, they revoked SysTest's certification. The testing program is now suspended in New York and many other states.

According to the report from the Courthouse News Service, the EAC began questioning SysTest's procedures and requesting additional information that was not forthcoming as early as last July (08). The National Institute of Standards and Testing finally suspended SysTest last October, after an on-site review. You can read the full article by following the link, but here's an excerpt.

Courthouse News Service: "The [Premier] complaint then cites five paragraphs, attributed to the NIST report, on 'serous concerns about SysTest's performance of voting system testing.'
Excerpts include: 'the test methods being used were not fully developed, validated, mapped to the requirement of the applicable standards, and controlled under SysTest's document control policy ... it was unclear who at SysTest had the ultimate responsibility for test method development ... During the observed tests, it appeared that the testers were running the tests for the first time. ... Basic tests, such as the system ready test, were not conducted successfully. ... Some anomalies or potential problems during testing were not reported by the testers but were pointed out by members of the on-site team.' These citations are from the first two of five paragraphs."

It sure doesn't make this voter feel warm and fuzzy about the optical scanners that SysTest was certifying to replace our lever machines in New York. How about you?

How Lever Machines Provide a Reliable Count

Here's a thoughtful excerpt from an article, In Defense of Lever Voting Machines, by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. who wrote the book "Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election" about the Ohio voter machine issues. I have added formating and sub-headings to make reading easier. Use the links to read the full article.

[Link to read the full article]
I still prefer hand-counted paper ballots, but only if they are counted in full public view at the polling place on Election Night. I simply will not defend the use of paper ballots if they are transported to another location before they are counted. I would much rather have lever machines counted at the polling place than any system, paper or paperless, counted elsewhere.

Lever machines are mechanical devices. The voter pulls a lever, which turns a gear, which adds one vote to the candidate's total, much like the odometer on a car. The lever makes a sound which verifies that the vote has been recorded.

Oversight of lever machines
With lever machines, three oversight methods are always necessary to protect the integrity of the vote count. Election observers need to see:

(1) before the polls open, that the counts for all candidates and ballot propositions begin at zero, and that all the levers are functioning properly;

(2) throughout the day, that the total count matches the number of voter signatures in the book; and

(3) at the end of the day, that the machine counts are observed and recorded at the polling place, in full public view.

Honest elections officials will be doing these things anyway. It is our job, as vigilant citizens, to be sure that they do.

New York State, by law, does not allow post-election recounts. Rather, New York allows a "recanvass," that is, a comparison of the counts that were transcribed in full public view from the lever machines at each polling place on Election Night with the numbers tallied and aggregated at the county level, to be sure that all the vote totals were transcribed correctly. As explained by attorney Andi Novick:

"Since 1896, the Election Law has required contemporaneously created record evidence of the count or of fraud. A verified, completed count, publicly recorded and announced at each poll site on election night, before the aggregate of the total votes is known, is still mandated." It is "historically understood that once the ongoing public scrutiny of the poll site ended and the results of the election night count were known, the count was at greater risk of subsequent tampering."

For the same reason, in the case of hand-counted paper ballots, I distrust the idea of recounts at a central location utilizing an optical scanner, allegedly as a "check" on the original hand count at the polling place. If a discrepancy arises, which count carries the day? How do we know that ballot tampering did not occur after the ballots left the polling place and before they were run through the optical scanner?

In New York State, lever machines have a "full face ballot." Every candidate for every office, and every ballot proposition, is visible all at once. The offices are lined up in columns, and the political parties are lined up in rows, the order of which is determined by the order in which the parties' candidates finished in the preceding gubernatorial election. While this does help to perpetuate the dominance of the two major political parties, it standardizes the ballot layout all across the state. Any error in the ballot layout will be noticed, and the vote tallies will be assigned accordingly.

The levers are right next to the names of the candidates. The voter is unlikely to pull the wrong lever by mistake. Nor can votes be switched from one candidate to another, as this would be as difficult as jimmying a mechanical typewriter to type the wrong letter. Nor can votes be shifted by sending the voter to the wrong machine, because the ballot layout will be the same on every lever machine in the district. Even the blind can vote on lever machines, by feel, finding the right columns and rows by counting the number of levers.

Read the whole article here

Certified voting mess - an editorial on NY's voting issues

The decertification of SysTest is getting a lot of press these days. This excerpt from an editorial in The Daily News -- the one serving Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans Counties -- has some interesting budget numbers.

The Daily News Online > Archives > Opinion > Editorials > Editorial: Certified voting mess: "The county has been told it should be prepared to use both its old equipment (and hope none of it breaks down) and new machines (and hope SysTest regains its accreditation in time to certify them). The county must pay Sequoia more than $80,000 for computer software, licenses, fees and training of election workers. Add to that the $3,500 the company charged for having a technician on hand for 2008's elections, and the dedicated phone line required to troubleshoot any problems that came up on election days. Mr. Siebert says all the technician did was have a cup of coffee with staff, didn't show up for November's election and the hot line was never used."

Isn't this a budget cut we can all get behind?

The Last Transparent Democratic Electoral System in the United States of America Cannot Be Allowed to Perish

Image via Wikipedia

Andi Novick has written an interesting article about what contributes to making an election system transparent and theft-deterring. If you don't know Andi, she's the attorney behind the pending suit arguing that NY's Election Reform law is unconstitutional. She needs our moral and financial support. All her work has been pro bono and the costs of litigation are mounting. You can donate on the Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition site.

OpEdNews � The Last Transparent Democratic Electoral System in the United States of America Cannot Be Allowed to Perish: "This article explains what New York currently has and will lose if we fail to stop the unconstitutional Election Reform and Modernization Act (ERMA) from replacing New York's transparent lever voting system with a secret vote counting system that permits the invisible processes of software to replace the role of the public and its election officials in protecting the integrity of election outcomes. New York's lever system, as well as its manual paper counting system, has protected the constitutional right of suffrage by enabling the potential for 100% knowledge through a transparent process that anticipates and actively prevents even the opportunity for fraud and error. Every protection, as described below, is eviscerated by ERMA."

So, things are heating up in the fight to keep our levers. Spread the word, won't you?