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Amid Charges Russia Hacked U.S. Election, Keith Alexander Encourages eVoting for Canada

Former NSA Chief and now CEO cyber security contractor says Canada needs more cyber security, cyber weapons, and should deploy electronic voting: Don’t let cyberattack threat deter Canada from online voting, says former head of NSA

foreign interference that may have influenced the U.S. election should not deter Canada and other countries from embracing online voting, says the former head of the U.S. National Security Agency.

Retired U.S. general Keith Alexander, speaking at a defence industry trade show in Ottawa, also said it is important the Canadian military have some kind of offensive cyber capacity, even if that ability is limited.

There is no going back to a manual voting system, Alexander said in an interview with CBC News following his remarks to defence contractors, in which he warned that both government and private sector networks are vulnerable to a rising tide of “destructive” cyberattacks…

The U.S. experience is something to learn from, he said, but it should not make countries like Canada leery of e-voting.

Former National Security Agency director Keith Alexander, seen here testifying before the U.S. Senate intelligence committee in March, says Canada may need to develop an offensive cyber security posture or the ability to shut down cyberattacks. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

foreign interference that may have influenced the U.S. election should not deter Canada and other countries from embracing online voting, says the former head of the U.S. National Security Agency.

Retired U.S. general Keith Alexander, speaking at a defence industry trade show in Ottawa, also said it is important the Canadian military have some kind of offensive cyber capacity, even if that ability is limited.

There is no going back to a manual voting system, Alexander said in an interview with CBC News following his remarks to defence contractors, in which he warned that both government and private sector networks are vulnerable to a rising tide of “destructive” cyberattacks…

The U.S. experience is something to learn from, he said, but it should not make countries like Canada leery of e-voting.

“You can create a system where people can authenticate and vote online,” said Alexander, who in addition to running the NSA during the Edward Snowden leaks, was also head of the U.S. military’s cyber command.

We agree that everyone including all levels of the U.S. Government need to beef up cyber security. Yet, no system is yet, or ever will be completely secure. There are several reason against Internet Voting at this time:

No system has proven secure and likely cannot be made secure. Especially a system used over the Internet, presumably on consumers’ computers and smart phones.
Encryption is not sufficient and is not even safe, with holes provided by organizations within the U.S. Government.
Proposed systems for public online voting implementation do not and cannot provide voter verification and publicly verifiable auditing of results.
No commercial system has successfully passed a credible security audit or open security test. Most vendors have resisted any such testing.

Meanwhile it is pretty clear that U.S. voter registration systems were hacked before the November election. Consider the latest document leaked to the Intercept: Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before the 2016 Election <read> No evidence yet that the 2017 election was manipulated or deterred by such an attack, nor actual evidence that the Russian Government was involved. There is also little evidence to the contrary. A difficult thing to prove either way. One problem with the Internet and cybersecurity is that it is easy to make it look like someone else did it. Evidence that looks like Russian hackers could come from elsewhere, and even then its a far cry from Russian hackers to determining it was the Russian Government. From the Intercept:

The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.

While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A U.S. intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis is not necessarily definitive.

The United States should make ballots verifiable—or go back to paper.

Article in The Atlantic: The Case for Standardized and Secure Voting Technology

It’s time to fix the voting process.

American voting systems have improved in recent years, but they collectively remain a giant mess. Voting is controlled by states, and typically administered by counties and local governments. Voting laws differ depending on where you are. Voting machines vary, too; there’s no standard system for the nation.

Accountability is a crapshoot. In some jurisdictions, voters use machines that create electronic tallies with no “paper trail”—that is, no tangible evidence whatsoever that the voter’s choices were honored. A “recount” in such places means asking the machine whether it was right the first time.

We need to fix all of this.

Article in The Atlantic: The Case for Standardized and Secure Voting Technology <read>

It’s time to fix the voting process.

American voting systems have improved in recent years, but they collectively remain a giant mess. Voting is controlled by states, and typically administered by counties and local governments. Voting laws differ depending on where you are. Voting machines vary, too; there’s no standard system for the nation.

Accountability is a crapshoot. In some jurisdictions, voters use machines that create electronic tallies with no “paper trail”—that is, no tangible evidence whatsoever that the voter’s choices were honored. A “recount” in such places means asking the machine whether it was right the first time.

We need to fix all of this. But state and local governments are perpetually cash-starved, and politicians refuse to spend the money that would be required to do it.

Among many other needed measures promoted by nonprofit and nonpartisan Verified Voting, Congress should require standardized voting systems around the nation. It should insist on rock-solid security, augmented by frequent audits of hardware and software. Recounts should be performed routinely and randomly to ensure that verified-voting systems work as designed. The paper ballot generated by the machine should be the official ballot.

What Congress should emphatically not do is allow or encourage online voting. The sorry state of cybersecurity in general makes clear how foolhardy it would be to go anywhere near widespread “Internet voting” in the foreseeable future…

As we have long said in Myth #9, paper alone is insufficient: “Myth #9 – If there is ever a concern we can always count the paper.”

Denise Merrill mostly right on Trump voting witch hunt commission

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill , said,“The rationale for this commission was articulated in a baseless tweet from the president that claimed millions of illegal votes were cast. The facts don’t lie. Voter fraud is extremely rare. Yet time and again, the specter of voter fraud has served as an excuse to disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters. I hope that this investigation is not a fig leaf for voter suppression and intimidation. In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

This reminds us of the Bush era witch hunt in the Justice Department for voter fraud. Several attorneys were let go because they could not find or refused to continue hunting for all but non-existent fraud.

We do question Secretary Merrill’s statement that “In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

Secretary Merrill’s Press Release <read>

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill
, said,“The rationale for this commission was articulated in a baseless tweet from the president that claimed millions of illegal votes were cast. The facts don’t lie. Voter fraud is extremely rare. Yet time and again, the specter of voter fraud has served as an excuse to disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters. I hope that this investigation is not a fig leaf for voter suppression and intimidation. In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.”

This is clearly such a witch hunt because the commission is stacked, with mostly Republicans and mostly those with dubious records. Not only the Secretary from Kansas but also the notorious Ken Blackwell. The only person on the Commission so far that we would trust is William Gardner from New Hampshire.

We do question Secretary Merrill’s statement that “In Connecticut, we will protect every eligible person’s right to vote. I stand by our process and our elections officials.” Perhaps we will protect such rights in the future. But unless the General Assembly acts or the Secretary has a sudden conversion, we will continue to leave “eligible persons” in line at EDR. See <Our testimony earlier this year>

How easy would it be to rig the next election? Very Easy

Article at Think Progress: How easy would it be to rig the next election?

In the popular imagination, this is what election hacking looks like?—?dramatic, national-scale interference that manually rewrites tallies and hands the victory to the outlier. Certainly these attacks may occur. However, they’re only one of a variety of electoral hacks possible against the United States, at a time when hacking attacks are becoming more accessible to threat-actors and nation-state-sponsored attackers are growing more brazen. Yes, hackers may attempt to change the vote totals for American elections?—?but they can also de-register voters, delete critical data, trip up voting systems to cause long lines at polling stations, and otherwise cultivate deep distrust in the legitimacy of election results. If hackers wish to rig a national election, they can do it by changing only small numbers on a state level.

Article at Think Progress: How easy would it be to rig the next election? <read>

In the popular imagination, this is what election hacking looks like?—?dramatic, national-scale interference that manually rewrites tallies and hands the victory to the outlier. Certainly these attacks may occur. However, they’re only one of a variety of electoral hacks possible against the United States, at a time when hacking attacks are becoming more accessible to threat-actors and nation-state-sponsored attackers are growing more brazen. Yes, hackers may attempt to change the vote totals for American elections?—?but they can also de-register voters, delete critical data, trip up voting systems to cause long lines at polling stations, and otherwise cultivate deep distrust in the legitimacy of election results. If hackers wish to rig a national election, they can do it by changing only small numbers on a state level.

Not just hackers! Insiders. Not just election officials. Contractors, ISPs, voting system vendors, municipal staffers…

One thing all voting machines seem to have in common is that whenever they have been subjected to aggressive testing by hackers, they have fallen apart.

Insecure voting systems are the norm, not the exception
“These machines are just so poorly engineered, the only real way to secure them is to destroy them and start over,” said the University of Michigan’s Matt Bernhard…

Voting technology provides a false sense of security?—?and opens up new vulnerabilities
As a result of the work of investigators affiliated with the TTBR and EVEREST, as well as more recent investigations by researchers like Haldeman at the University of Michigan (who installed Pac-Man on a Sequoia DRE in 2010) or Edward Felton and Andrew Appel at Princeton, paperless DRE machines have become less popular. In 2016, their use had declined more than 15 percent since the last presidential election.

But in many ways, the remaining uneasily patched DREs have been cast as the bogeyman of voting machines?—?while the other systems’ remarkable vulnerabilities have been ignored.

Meanwhile officials remain complacent <read>

What can we learn from a jurisdiction in NY that hand-counts every vote?

I recently attended a presentation by Columbia County, NY, Election Commissioner Vivian Martin on the post-election audit/recount performed after every election. It should be of interest to every citizen concerned with trust in elections and every election official: “You Can’t Count Paper Ballots” Want to bet?

After every election (using optical scanners) they count every ballot a second time by hand. What can we learn in Connecticut, “The Land of Steady Habits?

We are not necessarily convinced that we need to go as far as Columbia County. Yet, Connecticut needs a much stronger, more comprehensive, transparent audit; we need a stronger more transparent chain-of-custody; a more uniform, higher quality recanvass. There is no reason, other than “we have always done it this way”, for our current post-election schedule. We could perform rigorous automatic recounts rather than recanvasses; we need more to declare and perform recounts/recanvasses. We could emulate other states and perform audits shortly after the election, delaying rigorous/adversarial recounts to later and providing weeks for their completion.

After every election (using optical scanners) they count every ballot a second time by hand. Here are some of the high points:

They do more than just count the ballots and votes. They day after the election they review the paperwork and checkin lists.
In the next week or so they count every vote and adjudicate voters’ intent. They do this before certification, so that they can certify the actual results with voters’ intent.
They have a simple, yet strong chain-of-custody. Two people transport the ballots. There are two locks with opposing officials holding the keys. Every step is well documented.
They recruit citizens to participate in the process, who learn about elections and enjoy the process and pay.
It costs a “whooping” 1% of their budget. In our opinion, a small price to pay for insuring democracy.
They demonstrate that they can count accurately with the rigorous 4-person hashmark methods they use. (Very similar to the methods used in Connecticut for the Bridgeport Citizen Recount)
They are careful that any questions posed by counters are heard by leaders of both parties simultaneously and answers are determined jointly.
They do not count uncontested races. Other races where they see lopsided, expected results, the losing party official gets consent from their party or candidate not to count a race.

What can we learn in Connecticut, “The Land of Steady Habits?”.

Most of all we can learn that what we do and think in Connecticut is not the only way possible. (It is human nature to assume that the way we have always done it is the only way; human nature to point to other state practices to justify what we want to change, yet ignore them when we don’t.)
No municipality could do this counting, exactly the same way legally in Connecticut. It is questionable that it would be legal to open and count ballots by the choice of election officials at any time. Right after the election we have the potential for a recanvass. It would likely be questioned if similar methods were used for recanvasses, rather than the Secretary of the State procedures for rescanning.
We could use these methods for performing manual audits. Where they have been used, the Citizen Audit has shown that accuracy has been much better than when the more common, in Connecticut, ad-hoc and two-person teams have been used..
Perhaps, if Connecticut officials used better methods and learned from Columbia County, they would stop believing and arguing that “People cannot count votes accurately”.
For a low cost, Connecticut could have a credible and trustworthy chain-of-custody.
We could actually verifiably check our checkins and ballot counts.

Rep. Matt Lesser exploring run for Secretary of the State

The Middletown Press and a Facebook video by Lesser indicate he is exploring a run for Secretary of the State.

To our knowledge Lesser is the 1st candidate officially filing.

The Middletown Press and a Facebook video by Lesser indicate he is exploring a run for Secretary of the State.

To our knowledge Lesser is the 1st candidate officially filing.

Public Voting Machine Hackathon: Challenge or Sham

The worlds largest democracy has offered the public a chance to hack its unverifiable voting machines. The details are skimpy, history does not provide confidence, and while it may be a step in the right direction it is ultimately insufficient. See the article by George Washington University Professor Poorvi Vora: Hacking EVMs: The EC has issued a challenge. It must first accept the challenge it faces

Let’s not forget that such a so-called challenge was also given in 2009. The examination of EVMs should be treated as an opportunity to make the process more transparent and open. In 2009, however, when the Election Commission allowed the public to examine EVMs, the examination was hugely circumscribed so as to prevent anyone from carrying out any substantive – albeit practical – attack.

If this offer of EVM examination is simply a cosmetic offer as in 2009, and not intended to allow for a complete analysis, the trust deficit between the Indian public and Indian elections will continue to grow.

The Election Commission should demonstrate that their claims of EVM security do not rest on the very fragile assumption that all insiders with access to the EVM can be trusted. To understand what an insider with access can achieve if they try to tamper with the systems, they should provide the experts with design documents and details of the tests used to verify the design and security properties. The Election Commission’s approach so far, of keeping design details secret, is termed “security through obscurity” by computer security experts, and was debunked as far back as the late 1800s by Dutch cryptographer Auguste Kerckhoffs…

In addition to the transparency provided by public testing of EVMs before elections, there is a role for transparency after the election as well. Even if one were to believe that EVMs are tamper proof, every election outcome must be checked to ensure that the unexpected did not happen, that “mock drill data” (votes due to key presses during testing) was erased as it is supposed to be, and did not contribute to the count, that errors did not affect the outcome, that the EVMs were correctly calibrated, that somebody did not try to change the outcome and succeed, and so on.

If the VVPAT record is verified by the voter to be a faithful reproduction of the vote, is stored securely separate from the EVMs, and is publicly audited after the election, it provides strong independent confirmation that the outcome is correct.

It is not sufficient to simply print VVPAT records, nor is it sufficient for voters to carefully check them. A correctly printed VVPAT record indicates merely that the machine correctly understood the vote. It does not indicate that the vote was correctly recorded or counted. A public audit needs to be performed to determine that the VVPAT records are consistent with the declared election outcome.

There is a lot more in the article.

Surprising statements by Denise Merrill and Neil Jenkins

Denise Merrill, Secretary of the State and President of the National Association of Secretaries of State and Neil Jenkins from Homeland Security spoke on NPR on election integrity. <listen>

We disagree with both their similar statements:

.”Because our system is highly decentralized there’s no way to disrupt the voting process in any large-scale meaningful way through cyber attacks because there’s no national system to attack,” [Merrill] said Tuesday at a hearing before the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on the impact of the critical infrastructure designation.

Jenkins was quoted as saying “having thousands of elections offices each with their own systems making hacking elections nearly impossible”

Denise Merrill, Secretary of the State and President of the National Association of Secretaries of State and Neil Jenkins from Homeland Security spoke on NPR on election integrity. <listen>

We disagree with both their similar statements:

.”Because our system is highly decentralized there’s no way to disrupt the voting process in any large-scale meaningful way through cyber attacks because there’s no national system to attack,” [Merrill] said Tuesday at a hearing before the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on the impact of the critical infrastructure designation.

Jenkins was quoted as saying “having thousands of elections offices each with their own systems making hacking elections nearly impossible”

Others may wish to believe differently, but based on science, recent history, and common sense, we point out:

Secretary/President Merrill is almost correct when she says “Because our system is highly decentralized there’s no way to disrupt the voting process in any large-scale meaningful way through cyber attacks because there’s no national system to attack,” However, it is possible to attack Federal elections in a “meaningful’ way, especially a non-cyber way, in that a few thousand votes could sway a state’s electoral votes, senator, or representatives. That may or not be large-scale, but it is meaningful. Put a few of states together and it could change the apparent President and the balance in the Senate and House. In 2016 attacks in three states, PA, MI, and WI, could have done the job. In 2000, FL, and 2004, OH, just one state could have changed the result.
Elections are not as decentralized as the Secretary and Jenkins imply. It is inaccurate to say that thousands of jurisdictions have their own systems: I.e. all of Connecticut’s scanners are programmed and maintained by a single out-of-state vendor. That same vendor does the same for most of New England. Nationwide some jurisdictions are very large in many states such as LA County in CA, Cuyahoga County OH, or several FL counties. Some cities are rather large. In this past election there were major errors in Detroit. Philadelphia all votes are “counted” on unauditable touch screen machines.
A single entity is now responsible for the non-random auditing of all of Connecticut’s memory cards, reporting on our post-election election audits, and programming and supervising the software dependent machines now doing our electronic post-election “audit”.
Connecticut’s new voting machines for those with disabilities are programmed by another single entity, not tested in a meaningful end-to-end way, and are now used in most municipalities to test the optical scanners in a way that reduces the value of the pre-election tests. (Rather than an actual test of the interface, a canned set of ballots is printed by the machine. Those ballots produce huge black squares rather than filled in bubbles. When they are used to test the scanners it does not test that the scanners actually detect bubbles at the correct coordinates.)

These do not meet my definition of decentralized (or independent). I am not necessarily arguing for more centralization. I am arguing for more skepticism, more vigilance, more awareness, more transparency, and less obfuscation.

We and officials cannot prove negatives, that there were no cyber-attacks; that there were no conventional attacks; that there were no significant errors in the results reported.

Officials have not proven that the election results were accurate enough to support the . With paper ballots uniformly required, with effective post-election audits, and process audits they would be able to prove it.

*****Update 4/15/2017

Alex Halderman agrees <read>

Halderman said that most people think that the United States’ voting machines are secure because they are different in each county and they aren’t connected to the Internet. “In fact, many of these things break down,” said Halderman.

Halderman said an attacker can select the machines that are the most vulnerable or attack the third-party vendors that provide the memory cards for each machine. By using this method, an attacker could have altered the votes in 75 percent of Michigan counties, according to Halderman. He said that although he thinks that no states carried out sufficient forensics to determine whether their voting machines were hacked, he does not believe that those votes were manipulated.

NPV Forum in Greenwich

Tuesday I participated in a forum/debate on the National Popular Vote Compact. Greenwich Time has a vary fair article on the event <read>

In one of the photos I am holding a 1118 page book that is free. Instead, I recommend two books that are shorter, that are worth reading, and worth much more than you will pay for them!

I also have some comments on the uniqueness of an event where individuals claim that Connecticut voters would appreciate more money in politics.

Tuesday I participated in a forum/debate on the National Popular Vote Compact. Greenwich Time has a vary fair article on the event <read>

Nearly 150 people were curious enough about plans to change how presidential election votes are counted to devote nearly two hours Tuesday night to the discussion…

“Frankly this is something that makes sense for all the states,” said Pam Wilmot, a member of Common Cause, who had pushed for Massachusetts to be a part of the compact.

“It particularly makes sense for states like Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, Texas, Idaho and Oklahoma because they are all part of the three-fourths of states that are ignored in the current system. The current system doesn’t help small states. It doesn’t help big states. It helps battleground states.”

Countered Luther Weeks of the grassroots Ctvoterscount.org, which describes itself as dedicated to election fairness and integrity: “I understand the theoretical advantages of the popular vote, but there is a mismatch with the electoral college system and one the compact does not change. There are things like nuclear power and DDT and fracking that all sound good but have unintended consequences that might not be apparent at the beginning.”

The compact, crafted more than a decade ago, has been picking up political backing since November’s election of President Donald Trump. Despite losing the popular election by more than 3 million votes, Trump won the electoral college and the presidency.

Its bipartisan support includes former Democratic Vice President Al Gore, who famously lost the 2000 race despite winning the popular vote; former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Republican Congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr.

Actually opposition is bi-partisan as well. I noted this list from my recent testimony:

Susan Bysiewicz (D), former Connecticut Secretary of the State
Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), former California Governor
Mark Ritchie (D), Minnesota Secretary of State and former President of the National Association of Secretaries of State
Daniel Patrick Moynihan(D), former Wesleyan professor and U.S. Senator
William Cibes (D), former State University System Chancellor

In one of the photos I am holding a 1118 page book that is free. Instead, I recommend two books that are shorter, that are worth reading, and worth much more than you will pay for them!

The book Every Vote Equal is a tiresome read and quite redundant. Reading it is like being locked in a room with an infomercial blaring away 24×7. It claims to refute my claim that “There is no official national popular vote number available in time for states to choose their electors”. They leave out the “in time” and point to the Certificates of Ascertainment which are submitted to the National Archivist. That claim was repeated in the debate. Fortunately, I brought along and held up the two forms from 2016 that were signed and submitted on the date the electors vote (a week after they must be selected) and the two certificates that were signed the day after. For more see my recent testimony, page 3.

Instead I recommend Ballot Battles which articulates the partisan nature of battles over close election results. It is clear to me that it portends the battles that would ensue if the Compact were enacted. I also recommend Broken Ballots which details the risks inherent in our voting methods.

I also got in some comments on the uniqueness of an event where individuals claim that Connecticut voters would appreciate more money in politics. I did not say everything in the debate but here is what I have said:

There are valid reasons for a National Popular Vote and against the Compact, yet more money in Connecticut Politics is not one of them. I do not agree with the argument that increasing political spending in Connecticut is a benefit of the Compact:

Most Connecticut voters and several sponsors of this event want less money in Connecticut Politics, not more.
Connecticut voters do not need more calls, robo-calls, and 30 second attack ads to choose how they will vote.
I don’t think Trump’s visit to Connecticut last year, nor any other candidate in person, sways many voters who can see the same talking points on the news, almost every night.
The money raised here from Drug companies, Insurance Companies and Traders mostly would not be spent here anyway.
In any case, the money spent for adds and robo-calls would largely go to out of state political consultants, vendors, and media moguls.

Georgia on my mind. Paper not on Georgia’s radar.

Georgia and Cobb election officials are rejecting calls from advocacy groups for voters to use paper ballots while the FBI investigates a data breach at Kennesaw State University.

Voters will continue to use electronic voting machines during upcoming elections, said Candice Broce, spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. The use of paper ballots is reserved as a backup system in case there is a problem with the voting machines, she said…

Earlier this month, KSU announced a federal investigation at the Center for Elections Systems located on the Kennesaw campus to determine if there was a data breach that might have affected the center’s records, according to Tammy DeMel, spokesperson for the university.

When will they ever learn? We firmly believe that the days of paperless elections are coming to an end. It may take a few more years, yet we believe it is unlikely that any jurisdiction in the U.S. well make a major purchases of paperless voting equipment in the future. The useful life of most paperless equipment will end within the next decade or so.

Recall that the potential hacking of Georgia’s touch-screens was a very early example that started concerns with electronic voting. The dangers and suspicions were highlighted in Chapter 11 of the book, Black Box Voting, by Bev Harris. Especially, Chapter 11, Noun and Verb? rob-georgia.zip

Now Georgia is back in the news. Election officials reject advocacy groups’ call for paper ballots <read> <or here>

Georgia and Cobb election officials are rejecting calls from advocacy groups for voters to use paper ballots while the FBI investigates a data breach at Kennesaw State University.

Voters will continue to use electronic voting machines during upcoming elections, said Candice Broce, spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. The use of paper ballots is reserved as a backup system in case there is a problem with the voting machines, she said.

Cobb voters will also use the voting machines in next week’s special elections for the 1 percent special purpose local option sales tax for education and the vacant Marietta school board Ward 6 seat, said Janine Eveler, director of Cobb elections.

Earlier this month, KSU announced a federal investigation at the Center for Elections Systems located on the Kennesaw campus to determine if there was a data breach that might have affected the center’s records, according to Tammy DeMel, spokesperson for the university.

Tuesday, the watchdog group Common Cause called on Georgia election officials to use paper ballots to ensure the integrity of next month’s congressional special election on April 18. That election is to fill Georgia’s Sixth District congressional seat left vacant after Tom Price was confirmed as the Health and Human Services secretary.