Other Editorials | CTVotersCount.org

Courant: Legislative Agenda for Voting

We agree that the legislature should give attention to election reform, but should consider carefully the reforms they choose. The history of voting is knee-jerk reactions to problems which bring more of the same. We should tread carefully, but consider a comprehensive solution for elections that might well include regionalization, higher training, qualifications, and civil service election management.

Hartford Courant: Agenda: For The Legislature – The state budget isn’t the only thing needing fixing <read>

Among other things it covers elections and voting:

Elections reforms. Let’s not let embarrassing memories of the Bridgeport vote-counting fiasco dim before taking corrective action in a number of election-related areas: campaign financing, voter turnout and election procedures.

The legislature should consider:

•Ending the Citizens’ Election Program’s subsidy of public money to candidates in uncontested races for the legislature and statewide offices. Giving money to candidates with no opponents is a bad use of public funds when the state faces a projected budget deficit of at least $3.5 billion.

•Taking steps to increase voter turnout — pitifully low during the 2010 primaries — by authorizing no-excuse absentee balloting (a form of early voting) and Election Day registration, once a statewide voter registry is complete. Other forms of early voting, such as by mail, should also be considered.

•Vesting the state with more power to run elections. At the very least — in light of Bridgeport’s unthinkable mistake in failing to buy enough ballots for the November election — the secretary of the state should be formally tasked with making certain that municipalities have enough ballots on hand. State law should decree that towns order an ample number — say, enough for 50 to 75 percent of registered voters — with the state paying for them.

•Ensuring that elections are run competently by requiring that local registrars are trained and certified, like town clerks. One nonpartisan certified registrar in each municipality might be the ideal. Certainly there is no need for one registrar per political party.

We agree that the legislature should give attention to election reform, but should consider carefully the reforms they choose. The history of voting is knee-jerk reactions to problems which bring more of the same. For example the well intended Help America Vote Act (HAVA) hastily passed to solve the problems of Florida in 2000, it brought some good reforms where states chose optical scan voting, along with huge costs and risks for those that chose touch screen voting. Some of the problems we are dealing with are because HAVA insufficiently researched and safe voting technology and the methods required to go with it.

Election reform should be based on solid research and experience, rather than myth. We point out that the latest research refutes the Courant’s claim that no-excuse absentee voting increases turn-out, yet in every election we learn of organized absentee vote fraud. <read> We do support election day registration because that same research demonstrates it does increase turn-out and it has not led to fraud.

We agree that the Secretary of the State should have more power to oversee elections and ballots should be ordered. But we would prefer a rigid minimum formula for ballot orders based on past turn-out in similar elections, with local officials required to follow the formula and allowed to increase the order based on local knowledge. Ordering 50% across the board would be woefully inadequate in many towns who regularly win the Democracy Cup for much higher turn-out, even 75% would not be enough in some. But either would be huge overkill in many referendums and primaries, especially in large cities.

The Courant’s idea of centralized ballot ordering would add considerable work to the Secretary of the State’s Office and should be carefully considered, planned and budgeted before it is implemented, perhaps it may even require Constitutional Amendments to accomplish. Currently ballots are ordered by towns that determine and specify the candidates and hold drawings for candidate positions on the ballot. Since ballots often differ district by district in 800 plus districts spread across 169 towns it would be quite a task for the Secretary of the State to create all orders centrally and anticipate local conditions to estimate ballot counts in a primary in Bridgeport or a referendum in New London.

We would also order caution in changing to a single elected registrar in every town. The courant has been in favor of this idea for some time. <read> Connecticut has little experience in electing non-partisan elected officials. One example is the Probate Court which most agree did not work out. The solution there was a combination of regionalization and increasing qualifications. That might work for elections as well. We note that in this same editorial, the Courant would go further for the Probate Court and make it an appointed office.

More probate reform. Connecticut should also move on to Phase 2 of its bold reform of the ancient probate court system by requiring the appointment, rather than election, of judges of probate. They should be chosen on a merit basis.

Appointment, supported by such respected figures as Hartford Judge of Probate Robert Killian, would remove a huge conflict of interest inherent in the election of judges: campaign contributions from attorneys and others with business in the probate court.

The system has been consolidated and modernized. Now it’s time to protect judges from undue influences.

We should tread carefully, but consider a comprehensive solution for elections that might well include regionalization, higher training, higher qualifications, and civil service election management. We note that probate has noting to do with politics so that electing election officials may be, if anything, more risky that electing probate judges.

Courant Editorial: “State Must Review Ballot Blunders” – We agree and disagree

We note that there are two registrars in Bridgeport, elected to use their two eyes and two brains to represent opposing interests toward voting integrity and access. Today, would the Courant maintain or reconsider its past editorial position proposing a single registrar per town, not in the interest of integrity, but in the interest of saving money?

Courant Editorial: State Must Review Ballot Blunders <read>

There are areas where we agree and disagree with the Courant:

Hartford Courant: “By all means, Gov. M. Jodi Rell should assemble a bipartisan panel to review Bridgeport’s ballot blunders — with an eye to preventing mistakes, not to casting suspicion on the outcome of the Nov. 2 governor’s election, the closest in 56 years.

Legislative leaders ought to have a say in the panel’s makeup, since they’ll have a say in the remedies.”

We agree with appointing a group to study our current election system and recommend solutions. The Legislature obviously should be involved. We are less confident that the lame duck Governor should appoint the panel. There should be a strong emphasis on addressing the whole system of election administration in Connecticut. As we said two days ago, Editorial: Understand all the Symptoms, “Explore the Options, Then Act”

CTVotersCount: “Editorials and legislators are already reacting and taking sides to solve the “ballot printing” problem. It is critical to understand the entire scope of issues and inadequacies in all aspects of the election process; then review all the options, look for local best practices in Connecticut and explore what other states do well; then and only then develop a comprehensive cure. This is the common sense way to proceed, unfortunately it is hard work from start to implementation. Otherwise we are destined to react to one problem at a time, with one expensive, disruptive band-aid after another.

In its last paragraph, the Courant hits the nail on the head:

Hartford Courant: “State leaders have to do better at ensuring competently run elections in towns and cities at risk of being overwhelmed by the task.”

And the Courant is correct in recommending a second set of eyes:

Hartford Courant: “Somewhere in the process, probably in the secretary of the state’s office, a second set of eyes should check the number of ballots ordered, at the least.”

We would go further with a recommendation that almost everything to do with election management requires a second set of eyes, usually with opposing interests: Ordering ballots, reviewing petitions, voter registrations, ballot observation and transport, when ballots are counted by hand, and every step of the way in accumulating vote totals across the state.

We note that there are two registrars in Bridgeport, elected to use their two eyes and two brains to represent opposing interests toward voting integrity and access. Today, would the Courant maintain or reconsider its past editorial position proposing a single registrar per town, not in the interest of integrity, but in the interest of saving money? See our post: Downsizing Newspaper Recommends Downsizing Registrars. As we said then:

CTVotersCount: “Most of us would agree that Central Connecticut needs more than one daily newspaper. If there was any doubt it certainly was erased this week. On Monday the “New” Hartford Courant came out with its latest and most drastic downsizing. On Tuesday an editorial suggesting among other things that we should have a single elected registrar per municipality. However, downsizing to a single registrar will serve democracy no better than the continuous downsizing of the Courant…

For a city the size of Hartford there should be no problem having three registrars and the costs should be minimal. Each city sets the budget, salary, hours, benefits, and staffing of their Registrars Of Voters Office. Hartford could simply cut staffing and perhaps cut registrars’ hours or salary when three are elected to do the job of two. Just cutting a full time staff position would go a long way toward reducing most of the $200,000…

In Connecticut, perhaps electing two official registrars paid a small stipend to provide a check and balance over a professional civil service chief election official would provide the best of both worlds and would work for large cities. This would not work for small towns – a single chief election official and staff would need to serve several small towns – a change that would not easily be accepted in New England.

What clearly won’t work is half baked solutions.”

Hartford Courant joins in fighting last [election] war

Clearly we got one thing right last month, when we said June primaries are a “Sure media winner”. If the primaries are moved to June we will reference this post when complaints are made that the campaign season is too long or to have the Legislature pay more attention to business in the 1st quarter of an election year.

In an editorial today, the Hartford Courant joins Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, in moving primary elections to June, unlimited absentee voting, and election day registration: How To Turn Up Voter Turnout – An Earlier Primary . . . . . . And two other reforms should boost interest in elections <read>

Ms. Bysiewicz is right. The Aug. 10 turnout — even with some competitive contests between strong candidates — was sickly. Fewer than one in four Democrats reported to the polls, and fewer than one in three Republicans voted.

She suggests the election calendar be changed to make the primary in June, “while children are still in school and parents are more tuned in to news and public affairs before we all go into summer vacation mode.” A June primary makes sense as long as the party conventions — whose main business is to endorse candidates — are moved back in the calendar as well — to, say, March. Keeping the conventions in late May and moving the primary elections to the first half of June would give party-endorsed candidates an even greater advantage than they now have.

The secretary of the state’s other two ideas are so-called “no-excuse” absentee balloting and Election Day registration. Both of those have resulted in increased voter turnout in states that have adopted them.

No-excuse absentee balloting is a form of early voting. It should work in Connecticut so long as political operatives are prohibited from distributing absentee ballot applications and strong-arming vulnerable residents — the elderly or incapacitated, for example — into voting for the operatives’ choices.

As CTVotersCount readers know we conditionally support Election Day Registration (EDR) – conditioned on an implementation that supports voting integrity along with voter convenience – providing election day registration in each polling place followed by the same voting methods used by other voters, as is the case in all but one of the apparently successful EDR states.

We are opposed to the expansion of all forms of mail-in voting, including no-excuse absentee voting. Abuses of absentee voting have occurred in Connecticut and occur on a larger scale in other states with significant levels of absentee voting – it is not worth the risk. Even the Courant Editorial recognizes the risks adds conditions to its endorsement. We remain opposed given the track record here and elsewhere <ref> <ref>. According to the Courant:

Absentee balloting has been used by unscrupulous politicians as an illegal vote-grabbing racket for years, especially in Hartford. Safeguards would have to be built into the system if it is expanded.

As we said last month when Secretary Bysiewicz proposed a June Primary:

This is not a voting integrity issue, yet we place it in the category of “Fighting the last [election] war” (i.e. Changes/reforms that look good when attempting to correct a recent, assumed election problem, without looking at all the consequences. ) We say “Be careful what you ask for”:

Starting in June would move the whole campaign season forward by two months: Earlier primary, earlier state conventions, earlier pre-convention announcements, gaining support, election committees etc.

Many voters complain already that campaigns are too long

Many officials complain they are always campaigning

Would the Legislature’s “Short Session” be two months shorter, or would they pay less attention to state business?

Would candidates want/need more money for longer campaigns (A sure media winner)

Would challenging primary candidates find it harder to start earlier.

Finally, its unlikely that lower turnout is due to more travel in 2010 than in 2006 – more likely, its less interest in the differences between candidates and more turnoff by campaign tactics.

Fighting the last [election]war – Be careful what you ask for!

There are several recent stories about the low turnout in the August 10th primary and Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz suggesting the primary date be changed from August to June. This is not a voting integrity issue, yet we place it in the category of “Fighting the last [election] war” (i.e. Changes/reforms that look good when attempting to correct a recent, assumed election problem, without looking at all the consequences.)

Due to the low turnout, Bysiewicz is calling for several election reforms she believes will boost voter turnout in future primary elections.

“Obviously, turning voters out to a primary in the middle of the summer when many people are on vacation is a challenge,” she said. “I believe there is much more we can do to make our elections easier and more accessible for Connecticut voters. One step we could take is to move the primary date from August to June, a time when more voters are likely to pay attention.”

This is not a voting integrity issue, yet we place it in the category of “Fighting the last [election] war” (i.e. Changes/reforms that look good when attempting to correct a recent, assumed election problem, without looking at all the consequences. ) We say “Be careful what you ask for”:

Starting in June would move the whole campaign season forward by two months: Earlier primary, earlier state conventions, earlier pre-convention announcements, gaining support, election committees etc.

Many voters complain already that campaigns are too long
Many officials complain they are always campaigning
Would the Legislature’s “Short Session” be two months shorter, or would they pay less attention to state business?
Would candidates want/need more money for longer campaigns (A sure media winner)
Would challenging primary candidates find it harder to start earlier.

Finally, its unlikely that lower turnout is due to more travel in 2010 than in 2006 – more likely, its less interest in the differences between candidates and more turnoff by campaign tactics.

Update: 9/28/2010 Susan Bysiewicz op-ed in the Courant advocating June primaries, no-excuse mail voting, and election day registration: How To Solve The Problem Of Low Voter Turnout <read>

As CTVotersCount readers know, we favor election day registration, and oppose any expansion of mail-in voting, including no-excuse absentee voting. Mail-in voting has security risks and can also unintentionally disenfranchise voters. The way to motivate voters is to give them a reason to vote.

CA Prop 14: Unsafe at any but greed?

Winsted, Connecticut native, Ralph Nader tells us why Prop 14 is good for big business and unhealthy for democracy. We place the misguided voter support of Prop 14 on our “list of good sounding ideas for fighting the last election.

Winsted, Connecticut native Ralph Nader tells why Prop 14 is good for big business and unhealthy for democracy <read>

Big Business interests shamelessly dealt our already depleted democracy a devastating blow by misleading California voters into approving Proposition 14, without their opponents being able to reach the people with rebuttals. This voter initiative provides that the November elections in that state for members of Congress and state elective offices are reserved only for the top two vote-garnering candidates in the June primary.

There are no longer any party primaries per se, only one open primary. Voters can vote for any candidate on the ballot for any office. Presidential candidates are still under the old system.

Since the two major parties are the wealthiest and have the power of incumbency and favored rules, the “top two” as this “deform” is called, will either be a Republican and a Democrat or, in gerrymandered districts, two Republicans or two Democrats.

Goodbye to voter choices for smaller third party and independent candidates on the ballot in November who otherwise would qualify, with adequate signature petitions, for the ballot. Goodbye to new ideas, different agendas, candidates and campaign practices. The two Party tyranny is now entrenched in California to serve the barons of big business who outspent their opponents twenty to one for tv and radio ads and other publicity.

To seal this voter incarceration by the two-party duopoly, Proposition 14 decreed that even write-in votes in November by contrarian citizens could no longer be counted.

We are not from California and cannot vouch for the details leading to the passage of Prop 14 as articulated by Mr. Nader. However, we can add to his arguments our vision of the dilemma facing the intelligent voter on primary day: Faced with five, ten, or thirty candidates for an office: Who do you vote for, your favorite, or one you think might have a chance at being in the top two; one that might be more acceptable than others the poll say have a chance? It is just another, perhaps more complex crap shoot.

Nader goes on to articulate the inaccurate information given to voters about the proposition. And in a side note points to one of the concerns some candidates have with mail-in voting:

The final vote was 53.7% for and 46.3% against. The pro side advertisements, distorted as they were, reached millions of more voters than did the penurious opposition.

Curiously, if the by-mail voters were taken out of the equation, more voters who went to the polls on election day voted against Prop 14 (52%) than for it (48%). Winger suggests this difference may reflect the fact that election day voters benefited from the fuller public discussion of the Proposition 14, including its negatives, in the two weeks before election day.

We attribute much of the misguided voter support of Prop 14 to its place on our “list of good sounding ideas for fighting the last election”. That is, the list of ideas that sound like they would have cured a recent disappointing result, yet are in reality just a different set of dice for a future crap shoot, with the baggage of untended consequences.

Update: Thanks to VotingNews we have this link to an analysis by a mathematics professor who calls Proposition 14 a Primary Jungle: <read>

This seems reasonable, and a “jungle primary” certainly sounds exciting. But in judging an election system, you must ask how well the system will produce a true societal choice. By that measure, the jungle primary has serious drawbacks…

These are not theoretical concerns.

France’s 2002 presidential election used a system similar to the jungle primary. Because there was a large number of left-wing candidates in the initial round of voting, the unpopular incumbent, Jacques Chirac, and the extremely right-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen led in the polls. Each was supported by fewer than one-fifth of the voters, but that was enough to make them the only two candidates in the final round. There was widespread dissatisfaction with these choices, and slogans such as “vote with a clothespin on your nose” appeared.

Every election system has drawbacks. Because the jungle primary system can prevent large portions of voters from having an acceptable choice in a general election and can determine a winner by something other than voters’ decisions, it seems inferior to the system it replaces and to a traditional open primary. Hopefully, California will discard the top-two primary system and consider different and better options.

The Day, Susan Bysiewicz, and we agree: No IRV for New London

The Day points to the complexity of issues for voters with several charter changes combined, especially Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), while referencing the Secretary of the State’s objections that IRV cannot be counted by our optical scanners and that IRV is currently illegal in Connecticut.

New London is considering a charter revision to include an elected strong mayor, Instant Runoff Voting, and other changes. We oppose IRV because it is complex to calculate for multi-district elections, confusing/misunderstood by many voters, and does not provide the touted benefits. Others point to the added costs. The Day points to the complexity of issues for voters with several charter changes combined, especially Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) , while referencing the Secretary of the State’s objections that IRV cannot be counted by our optical scanners and that IRV is currently illegal in Connecticut.

The Day: Make elected mayor clear charter choice on ballot <read>

Please New London, don’t make the same mistake twice.

Two years ago the city missed its chance to give voters a fair say on whether they wanted an elected mayor in place of a contracted city manager, sullying the ballot question with other divisive issues.

Now, it looks like the same thing could happen again. Don’t allow it. Just ask voters plain and simple – do you support an elected mayor as chief executive officer of the city? That’s all it takes. It doesn’t have to be as difficult as a Rubik’s Cube. But that’s what it’s turning out to be…

The charter review panel, headed by Robert Grills, did thoroughly examine the directly elected mayor concept and endorsed it, but they mired it with a boatload of other recommendations. And while the charter group has been a diligent, dedicated and progressive-thinking commission, its work will be for naught if it is not quickly reined in…

Questionable proposals include the so-called “rank voting” or instant run-off system for electing a mayor. Yes, commissioners endorse the idea of electing the city’s chief executive to a four-year term and giving the mayor veto and appointment powers, but they’ve muddied it by tying it to rank voting rather than using the traditional system in which the person with the most votes wins.

Allowing voters to rank mayoral candidates one, two, three, etc., may be a progressive and even noble idea, but Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz thinks it is illegal. State statutes only require a winning candidate to garner a plurality of votes, said Ms. Bysiewicz. On top of that, rank voting doesn’t work on the state’s new optical scan machines; poll workers will be manually counting ballots.

Election officials in Connecticut have shown they are not up to the challenge of accurately counting votes during the post-election audits. How well would they do in a charged atmosphere of a close IRV election?

Who are you going to believe? Scientists or Vendors?

“Enter online voting vendors looking to break into the market on the backs of these two groups. They ride in to save the day with big promises and high-tech solutions. Security becomes little more than sale pitch, like shiny chrome or electronic gadgetry in a new car. ‘You want security – we got security.’…Vendors need to stand in the corner with bankers and oil companies. Just whose elections are these anyway?”

Dan McCrea spells it out on the Huffington Post: Online Voting: All That Glitters Is Not Gold (Unless You’re a Vendor) <read>. To their credit Huffington Post published McCrea’s article, countering a recent vendor puff piece they ran:

Voting over the internet seems like a cool idea whose time has come. But, it depends on who’s doing the talking.

A computer scientist friend calls it whack-a-mole, the way online voting pitchmen keep popping up to announce they’ve fixed security problems and voting over the internet is now secure. You look at their plans and find they’re as full of holes as ever.

You knock down one story and another pops up. Whack – it’s back. Whack. It’s back again. The latest was here on Huffington Post last week, in Sheila Shayon’s seemingly-harmless puff piece for the online voting vendor, Scytl, “Digital Democracy: Scytl, MySociety Secure Funding.”

Ms. Shayon blithely pitched Scytl’s “secure solutions for electoral modernization” and the news that Scytl had closed on a $9.2m investment, “led by Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s largest venture capital investors.” They estimate the online voting market at $1.5 billion. Rival vendor, Everyone Counts, estimates the market at $16 billion over the next five years.

Calling it safe does not make it safe. Using the challenges facing those we would like to help vote, does not mean it would actually be a good idea:

But of course vendors say it is secure – and going to be very profitable. Scientists, on the other hand, say it’s not secure – and the very architecture of the internet makes secure online voting almost impossible today.

Another computer scientist friend describes email voting, the most common way to vote on the internet, this way: You’re in a stadium with eighty thousand random people. It’s time to vote. You write your selections on a post card in pencil, don’t use an envelope, and pass your card down your row to be collected.

It might work. You could have a great election. Your vote might count just as you marked your card. But confidence pretty much sucks – for a pile of obvious reasons, from innocent mishap to conspiratorial fraud to foreign-based cyber war.

Playing on public emotion, vendors have picked two special needs groups to “help” by designing online voting schemes for them. The first group is military and overseas voters, referred to as UOCAVA voters because they fall under special provisions of the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. The second group is voters with disabilities.

McCrea completes the case by referencing Scientists with objections and no money to make:

Who agrees online voting is not secure? Pretty much everyone who isn’t trying to make money on it:

Congress:..
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)…
Computer Technologists’ Statement on Internet Voting…
The Government Accountability Office (GAO)…
A comment on the May 2007 DoD report on Voting Technologies for UOCAVA Citizens, by several renowned computer scientists…

Internet Voting Called Unfair, Not Observable, and Not Transparent

“Voting methods that utilize web-based technologies and telephone-based balloting do not allow the necessary levels of observability and transparency that exist within the current election process.”

While states prepare to risk military and overseas votes on Internet, email and FAX, the National Association of Manufacturers calls it unsafe for union elections. Their concern is union members being intimidated in remote, unobserved locations. They are correct. Intimidation or the selling of votes is just one of the risks of Internet voting. <read>

Recently the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) published a request for information regarding industry solutions for procuring and implementing “secure electronic voting services for both remote and on-site elections.” The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is concerned with the Board’s intention to pursue the use of electronic systems to allow union representation elections to take place off-site and outside the supervision of the NLRB. The NAM firmly believes the current practice of NLRB-supervised elections that take place on employees’ worksites protects the integrity of the union election process and safeguards employees from intimidation and coercion from third parties…

Voting methods that utilize web-based technologies and telephone-based balloting do not allow the necessary levels of observability and transparency that exist within the current election process. Currently, union organizers are entitled to receive employees’ personal contact information from employers for the purposes of union organizing efforts. Introducingmethods of remote-access elections combined with this access to information exposes workers
to potential unwanted intimidation and harassment…

Such changes to the election process would be a drastic deviation from current practice
and run counter to the principles of fairness and balance inherent in our labor laws. We strongly
urge the Board to maintain the integrity of the current NLRB-supervised union representation
process and refrain from introducing new technologies that remove the necessary protections
currently afforded to employees.

Unsafe at any cost – Internet voting

High tech solutions to military and overseas voting seem like the equivalent of a star wars sledgehammer to hit a small nail.

Update: Rescorla adds a post explaining why pilots are of questionable value <read>

As I mentioned earlier, the DC BOEE Internet ballot return project is just the latest in a series of pilots and attempted Internet voting pilots. Superficially, this sounds like a good idea: there’s debate about whether Internet voting is a good idea, so let’s only natural that we’d try it out and see how it works. Unfortunately, this isn’t likely to tell us anything very useful; while we have extremely strong theoretical reasons for believing that Internet voting is insecure, those reasons don’t indicate that every single election is going to fail.

********

Based on the MOVE Act, many states and jurisdictions are experimenting with various forms of email, fax, and Internet voting. Washington, D.C. for example is setting up a pilot program. Eric Rescorla comments on the D.C. pilot at Educated Guesswork <read>

UOCAVA voters are often in remote locations with poor mail access, so traditional Vote By Mail doesn’t work very well, making it an apparently attractive use case for technological fixes. That’s why there have been (at least) two previous efforts to apply Internet voting technology to UOCAVA voters…

Rescorla covers various attacks: Attacks on the Server, Software Attacks on the End-User Client, and Attacks on the End-User. He concludes:

As far as I can tell, a system of this type offers significantly worse security properties than in-person voting (whether opscan or DRE), since it has all the security flaws of both plus a much larger attack surface area. [Note that the intermediate opscan step offers only marginal security benefit because it’s based on electronic records which are untrustworthy.] It also offers inferior security properties to traditional vote by mail. The primary benefit is reducing voter latency, but clearly that comes at substantial risk.

We would add than most technical solutions assume that service members who have poor mail service would have internet service along with access to equipment like printers, scanners and faxes.

Some “solutions” provide a higher level of security using kiosks, eliminating the risks of end-user equipment – imagine the cost and challenges in purchasing, installing, maintaining and securing kiosks around the world in ways that would make them more convenient than express mail. To paraphrase a statement that has been in the news lately: High tech solutions to military and overseas voting seem like the equivalent of a star wars sledgehammer to hit a small nail.

Internet Voting: U.S. Representative Rush Holt responds to the New York Times

“Rather than experimenting with less secure, less auditable methods of voting, I hope that states will use the 2010 election cycle to confirm how much more convenient, accessible and secure the Move Act, which I was otherwise pleased to support, makes military and overseas voting.”

Also, read what are troops are reading in the Stars and Stripes

U.S. Representative Rush Holt responds to the New York Times: <read>

To the Editor:

Re “States Move to Allow Overseas and Military Voters to Cast Ballots by Internet” (news article, May 9):

As you reported, as part of a broader effort to facilitate military and overseas voting, Congress authorized states to conduct pilot projects for Internet voting. Internet voting will be less secure and secret than the hard-copy ballot return for our service personnel already provided for and paid for by the law. It’s important to note that the pilot projects are voluntary.

Most states — but not all — now require a paper ballot or record for every vote cast and routine random audits of electronic vote tallies. These measures are critical to ensuring that every vote, including votes of military personnel, counts and is counted accurately.

Rather than experimenting with less secure, less auditable methods of voting, I hope that states will use the 2010 election cycle to confirm how much more convenient, accessible and secure the Move Act, which I was otherwise pleased to support, makes military and overseas voting.

Rush Holt
Member of Congress, 12th Dist., N.J.
Washington, May 18, 2010

Last summer I asked Represtentative Holt about these provisions, after he spoke at a conference in Montreal. He was surprised that the MOVE Act contained the provision for piloting (actual votes) Internet voting.

For the New York Times piece: See our earlier post: Damn the science; Damn the integrity; If it feels good do it!

Also, read what are troops are reading in the Stars and Stripes: Benefits, risks of e-mail ballots weighed <read>

An increasing number of states will offer Americans living overseas a chance to return their completed ballots over the Internet this November.

But cybersecurity experts and voter advocates contend that these well-intentioned efforts ignore the technical vulnerabilities of sending a voted ballot as an e-mail attachment, potentially subjecting this midterm contest to electronic vote rigging and hacking.

Sixteen states will allow ballots to be e-mailed back to the States, while 29 states and territories will allow the faxing of completed ballots, according to the Pentagon’s Federal Voting Assistance Program. Some states will allow this electronic transmission only in emergency situations or within certain counties.

State election officials say that despite security concerns, transmitting voted ballots over the Internet will help ensure more overseas Americans get their vote counted, improving the dismal return rates among overseas voters.

But despite the best intentions of politicians and election officials, the potential for manipulation of e-mailed ballots is rife because of the very nature of most e-mail — an easily accessible system that is used by many but understood by few, according to David Jefferson of the? Verified Voting Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to publicly verifiable elections.

“The best analogy,” Jefferson said, “is what would it be like if you conducted an election where people voted in absentee ballots with pencil, on a postcard which isn’t even in an envelope, and it was delivered hand to hand to hand to the county. That’s an analogy to how e-mail works.”

“E-mail itself isn’t secure,” said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president of the Overseas Vote Foundation. “It doesn’t go direct from one computer to another. It has quite a few stops, and at every stop the content can be manipulated.”…