National | CTVotersCount.org

Little comfort in ‘C’ grade for Connecticut for Integrity

Nor more comfort that the ‘C’ ranks us 3rd in the ‘Class’ of states.

New report from the Center for Public Integrity: How does your state rank for integrity? <read>
With the Connecticut details: Connecticut gets C- grade in 2015 State Integrity Investigation <read>

Let me start by applauding the Center for the report and Connecticut reporter Jennifer Frank for her contributions to the report. I will have some suggestions and criticisms of the report, yet having created a report on 169 Connecticut elections websites I know how challenging it is to set the criteria and perform uniform objective evaluations across several entities with multiple elevators.

Nor more comfort that the ‘C’ ranks us 3rd in the ‘Class’ of states.

It is interesting viewing the details for Connecticut, other states, and also to see the criteria and evaluation methods. My comments:

No state got an A or a B.
I do not feel as comfortable as some might think, living in Connecticut, one of only three states getting a ‘C’.
Especially sad that the state with the first FOI law, once the envy of other states and countries gets an ‘F’ on FOI, worse that poor score ranks us 7th in the Nation !
Electoral Oversight is interesting for its criteria which has only a partial relationship with our work in Election Integrity, which I would include in a comprehensive report on State Integrity.The report section on Election Oversight is focused mainly on if the state has an independent oversight entity and how that agency functions.I appreciate our State Elections Enforcement Commission and the staff there, especially when they stick their necks out in politically challenging situations. Yet, I would quibble with some of the criteria or the exact ratings. As the reports states the SEEC is resource constrained – some investigations are completed quickly others have been on the books for years with no resolution, and possibly no substantial investigation to date. (Complaints and actions short of complete investigation are apparently not open to public access)I note that for Connecticut and at least some other states, all the information was compiled by one person per state, and since it is subjective might be limited by that’s person’s understanding of the items rated and their evaluation of what they were provided.I would rather have a category like Election Integrity and a sub-category such as Evidence Based Elections including criteria such as ‘Voter Verified Paper Records/Ballots’, ‘Post-Election Audits’, ‘Recounts’, ‘Election Records Security’, ‘Public Access to Election Records’, ‘Public Observation of Elections’, and ‘Election Officials Protected from Interference’.

There is one sub-category relevant to Election Integrity included under the generally relevant category of Election Oversight: “In practice, statewide election data are accessible to the public in open data format.” In the case of Connecticut it scores the state at 25% on the category which is poor, yet I would agree, reasonable for what Connecticut provides. You can click categories and they list the criteria, and under the criteria you can click and get exactly what they found for the state. E.g. for election data:

EXPLANATION

Election returns and voter turnout from 2014 are available online on the website of the Secretary of the State’s (SOTS) office. The state does not release election results by precinct, but by municipality, down to each state House district. Results, which are handwritten by the town clerk, head moderator, or other voting official, include information, town by town, on results for any constitutional amendment questions, and the number of absentee ballots issued by the town clerk, the number of absentee ballots received and the number rejected. These results are available for download in pdf format only.

CRITERIA

A 100 score is earned if election returns and turnout are available online and can be easily accessed, downloaded in bulk, and in a machine readable format. The information must be broken down to the precinct level, with files that track the issuance and return of absentee ballots. A 50 score is earned if such information cannot be easily accessed and/or downloaded in bulk, but it can be downloaded in machine-readable format. A 0 score is earned if such information is not available online or it is but it cannot be downloaded.

SOURCE

Website of the Secretary of the State, (accessed June 10, 2015), LINK?a=3172&q=525432 Interview by phone and email exchange, Av Harris, communications director for the Secretary of the State’s Office, April 7, 2015. Email exchange, Tyler Kleykamp, Connecticut Chief Data Officer, Feb. 16, 2015

No transparent recount; No public access to ballots; No confidence

Sadly, Dorothy We are still in ~~Kansas~~ Kentucky. Many are concerned with the accuracy and result of the election for Governor of Kentucky, many are not.

once again — on Election Day yesterday. We see, again, the nightmare scenario I’ve warned about for so many years: a U.S. election where all of the pre-election polls suggest Candidate X is set to win, but Candidate Y ends up winning by a huge margin instead and nobody even bothers to verify that the computer tabulated results accurately reflect the intent of the voters.

That’s exactly what happened in Kentucky on Tuesday, where Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway was leading by a fair margin (about 3 to 5 points) in almost every pre-election poll in his race for Governor, but then ended up being announced as the loser to ‘Tea Party’ Republican candidate Matt Bevin by a landslide (almost 9 points) — according to the state’s 100% unverified computer tabulation systems…

What would be good for Kansas and Kentucky would be good for Connecticut. As just one example, recall the 2010 Citizen Audit of ballots in Bridgeport.

Because the City of Bridgeport gave the CT Post access to the ballots, we were able to recount them all and assure the state that the declared Governor was actually the choice of the voters. If Bridgeport had not agreed, we would still be wondering and questioning the legitimacy of Governor Malloy.

Unfortunately, the official Connecticut system was not able to recount those votes, and has never recognized or counted the votes of some 1,500 citizens of Bridgeport.

Sadly, Dorothy We are still in ~~Kansas~~ Kentucky.

Many are concerned with the accuracy and result of the election for Governor of Kentucky, many are not, for instance from BradBlog: Questioning the Unverified Computer Results of Kentucky’s Governor’s Race <read>

once again — on Election Day yesterday. We see, again, the nightmare scenario I’ve warned about for so many years: a U.S. election where all of the pre-election polls suggest Candidate X is set to win, but Candidate Y ends up winning by a huge margin instead and nobody even bothers to verify that the computer tabulated results accurately reflect the intent of the voters.

That’s exactly what happened in Kentucky on Tuesday, where Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway was leading by a fair margin (about 3 to 5 points) in almost every pre-election poll in his race for Governor, but then ended up being announced as the loser to ‘Tea Party’ Republican candidate Matt Bevin by a landslide (almost 9 points) — according to the state’s 100% unverified computer tabulation systems…

Bev Harris, of BlackBoxVoting.org, who I spoke with earlier today, described the higher vote totals in the down ballot races as a “significant anomaly”. She tells me that, at least until more records are requested and examined, the KY-Gov’s race “has to be looked at as a questionable outcome, particularly because of the discrepancies in the down ballot races. More votes in those races and not at the top…that just doesn’t happen.”

There are many other reasons for supporters to question the reported results in the KY-Gov’s race, as I detail during the show. Of course, the reported results could also be completely accurate. But, without public, human examination of the hand-marked paper ballots (which, thankfully, now actually exist across most of the state!) and other related records, we have yet another unverified, 100% faith-based election to leave supporters wondering if they really won or lost…

There are many other reasons for supporters to question the reported results in the KY-Gov’s race, as I detail during the show. Of course, the reported results could also be completely accurate. But, without public, human examination of the hand-marked paper ballots (which, thankfully, now actually exist across most of the state!) and other related records, we have yet another unverified, 100% faith-based election to leave supporters wondering if they really won or lost.

We’ve seen this before, of course. Too many times.

Is there a problem in Kentucky? How will we ever know, if the public does not have access to the actual ballots or the public can observe and verify a recount or a sufficient post-election audit? Of course, they cannot.

Without that satisfaction the results will always be in question. And even if the election results are completely accurate, they will always be in question. Democracy will be viewed as lacking credibility and the elected officials will always be viewed with doubt by a significant portion of the public.

We note the subsequent developments, reminiscent of our post from way back 5 days ago, also courtesy of Brad: <read>

A KY newspaper fires their well-respected pollster rather than bothering to find out if the polls were right and the results were wrong; Another reminder of why hand-marked paper ballots like those in KY are swell, but only if you bother to actually count them; We weather a few attacks from progressives who charge us with forwarding conspiracy theories and don’t think we should bother to count ballots;

We are skeptical that the information will be made available or that a sufficient audit or recount will be performed. Yet Kentucky is not Kansas Look at this recent news from Kansas: Kansas: Statistician gets support for suit over voting machine tapes <read>

A Wichita State University statistician seeking to audit voting machine tapes after finding statistical anomalies in election counts is garnering legal and other support as she pursues her lawsuit. Beth Clarkson had been pursuing the case herself, but now a Wichita lawyer has taken up her cause. Other supporters have helped set up a nonprofit foundation and an online crowdsourcing effort. A Sedgwick County judge is expected to set a trial date and filing deadlines on Monday. Clarkson, chief statistician for the university’s National Institute for Aviation Research, filed the open records lawsuit as part of her personal quest to find the answer to an unexplained pattern that transcends elections and states. She wants the tapes so she can establish a statistical model by checking the error rate on electronic voting machines used at a Sedgwick County voting station during the November 2014 general election. But top election officials for Kansas and Sedgwick County have asked the Sedgwick County District Court to block the release of voting machine tapes.

Clarkson has analyzed election returns in Kansas and elsewhere over several elections and says her findings indicate “a statistically significant” pattern that shows the larger the precinct, the larger the percentage of Republican votes. She says the pattern could indicate election fraud.

“If she is right, it’s horrifying,” her attorney, Randy Rathbun, said Friday. “And so I visited with her and she has convinced me that she is right. So somebody needed to help her out because it kind of seemed like it was bullies pushing somebody around on a schoolyard since she was obviously out of her element in a courtroom.”

What would be good for Kansas and Kentucky would be good for Connecticut. I have just returned from a League of Women Voters panel on Election Fraud. The panelists, Political Scientists and Lawyers, saw no real need for FOIability of voted ballots. As just one example, recall the 2010 Citizen Audit of ballots in Bridgeport.

Unfortunately, the official Connecticut system was not able to recount those votes, and has never recognized or counted the votes of some 1,500 citizens of Bridgeport.

******
Update: An earlier version confused Kentucky and Kansas.

It’s a Conspiracy Theory, until it is not a Theory – Voting Party Edition

Now from Seattle, this video of a “Ballot Box” with a “tamper resistant contraption“, in the hands of practically anyone: King County acknowledges using cardboard boxes to collect ballots

If you have voted Absentee, for the election tomorrow, we ask “Do you know where your ballot is, and where it has been?

Bob Fitrakis of the FreePress reminds us how “Conspiracy Theories” are used and abused:
Bob Bites Back: A history of computer voting “conspiracies” <read>

When you are lazy, ignorant and not willing to do research – accuse your more-informed opponents of being “conspiracy theorists.” A recent Columbus Dispatch editorial utilized this technique in its defense of Ohio’s antiquated and easily hacked voting apparatus.

The Dispatch, with few facts or statistics, stated that, “Secretary of State Jon Husted claims ‘…Ohio’s current voting equipment should be in fine shape through the 2016 election.’” In a subhead, the Big D also claimed “Transparent bipartisan approach should head off conspiracy theorists.”…

We live in a world where hackers can get into the Pentagon, CIA and major corporations, but we’re to believe they are stymied by antiquated, vulnerable computer voting machines programmed with secret proprietary software. If I’m a conspiracy theorist saying our voting machines are hackable and democracy is at risk – then I’m in good company with most of the major academic computer scientists in the country.

If course, that is Ohio. We on the other hand, are worried about other crazy theories, like parties after Church, at work, and the Union hall or at military installations where “We will get some candidate and issue information and then all vote our absentee votes together”. Like the concerns in Colorado from 2010.

Many Coloradans fear union hall voting brunches as much as church congregations` voting breakfasts during the two-week run-up to Election Day. The potential for voter intimidation is much greater with mailed ballots than at the polls. And while voting at the kitchen table is convenient, the secrecy of the ballot can be compromised in ways that do not exist at the polls.

I have to agree with officials that this ballot box and method does make me more interested in elections.

If you have voted Absentee, for the election tomorrow, we ask “Do you know where your ballot is, and where it has been?

As we have said: Making it harder to vote, not a good idea

New report: California: Ranked-choice voting linked to lower voter turnout <read>

The headline only articulates part of the problem:

The analysis revealed a significant relationship between RCV and decreased turnout among black and white voters, younger voters and voters who lacked a high school education… Studies have also found high rates of disqualified ballots due to voter errors. In addition, some minority groups were particularly disadvantaged by the RCV process

New report: California: Ranked-choice voting linked to lower voter turnout <read>

The headline only articulates part of the problem:

The analysis revealed a significant relationship between RCV and decreased turnout among black and white voters, younger voters and voters who lacked a high school education. RCV did not have a significant impact on more experienced voters, who had the highest levels of education and interest in the political process…

Previous studies have shown that ranked-choice ballots tend to increase incorrectly marked ballots (called overvotes) but decrease incompletely marked ballots (called undervotes). Studies have also found high rates of disqualified ballots due to voter errors. In addition, some minority groups were particularly disadvantaged by the RCV process, with correlations between overvotes and both foreign-born voters and those with a primary language other than English.

We have often warned of the problems with Instant Runoff Voting, another name for Ranked Choice Voting. In fact, complexity is one of the three issues we have with IRV <read>

Now we can add two natural consequences of that complexity, lower turnout and the effect of discrimination.

How Do We Know?

It used to be “Do you know where your children are tonight?” Now we must ask “Do you know which laws and regulations were violated yesterday?”

Laws and regulations are insufficient to protect us from individual, organized, and corporate skulduggery. The reality is thoroughly articulated by Truth-Out: Capitalism and Its Regulation Delusion: Lessons From the Volkswagen Debacle

It used to be “Do you know where your children are tonight?” Now we must ask “Do you know which laws and regulations were violated yesterday?”

VW’s massive evasion was hardly the only socially destructive mockery of regulation. Ford and other auto companies had earlier done the same as Volkswagen, gotten caught and paid fines. Other auto companies have not yet been caught, but similar evidence has surfaced about diesel vehicles produced by Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi. Exposures and punishments, if and when they occur, clearly fall far short of dissuading major capitalists from evading regulations. Thus, we now know that General Motors and Toyota did not follow regulations recently requiring notification of government agencies after crashes, injuries and deaths associated with ignitions and airbags, respectively.

As products using computer devices increase, they spread opportunities for similar evasions of regulations. New mechanisms have enabled electrical appliance makers to falsify regulated energy-use tests. Capitalist competition and profit were motivators in these and many other regulation evasions too. The problem is endemic, for example, in the food and drink industry. Since 2008’s global capitalist crash, the world has learned of parallel failures of financial regulation with horrific social consequences. Nor is the failed relationship of capitalism and regulation only a US problem; it is global.

Paraphrasing, we could say “As voting and voting support using computer devices increase, they spread opportunities for similar evasions of regulations, changing results, and voter suppression. New mechanisms could enable elections officials, vendors, and hackers to falsify pre-election testing, audits, and recounts. Capitalist competition and profit are included in the motivators for these and many other regulation evasions too.”

We said “could” because we do not know and ask “How Do We Know? How Could We Know?” that election fraud has not happened in in a particular election and will not happen? Actually we know that it has happened, but we have no estimate of how widespread and successful election fraud has been. The question is “How do we prevent and detect election manipulation?”

We recommend reading the entire article. Some of it applies more to corporations and their main business activities, yet the delusion of regulation/laws generalizes to elections:

Regulation thus represents an enduring delusion (much like taxes on profits that show parallel histories of corporate opposition and evasion). Whether it be “self-regulation,” performed by capitalist enterprises or industry organizations, or regulation by government, both amount to applying bandages when the problem is a grave internal illness. Regulations do not successfully correct or repair

As we blog forward, we will be asking those questions of our election system “How Do We Know?, “How Can We know.

Editorial: No Crisis in CT, unless we make one

There will be a time to change deliberately, once better systems are available and proven.

Last month the Brennan Center released a report: America’s Voting Technology Crisis <article> <report>

Launching several articles like this one in the Washington Post: America’s voting machines are in need of a serious upgrade <read>

It is true that many states have risky DRE (touch screen) voting machines that should never have been purchased and should have been replaced long ago. Not just because they are old and old technology, but because the were never a safe option for voting.
It is true that we only keep our smart phones for a couple of years, yet we keep our telephones, our routers, our printers, and fax machines for much longer. Even our autos are highly computerized and, as flawed as they may be, we expect them to keep going for us and others for a couple of decades.
It is true that there are better voting machines available today than those purchased years ago, yet many are relatively old technology. None have been federally certified for years, based on out-of-date standards. The newly reactivated Elections Assistance Commission is working to create new standards, while restarting and improving Federal certification.
It is also true that LA County and Travis County, TX have significant projects aimed a creating much better, and much more economical systems. None have been completed, independently evaluated, or available for purchase. Here is the fine print from the Brennan article:

Currently, [LA County chief election official, Dean] Logan is working with the design consulting firm IDEO to develop the specifications for an electronic-ballot marking device and associated components of a comprehensive, modernized voting system. Next, the county will move forward with a contract to manufacture the device. On the software side, Logan envisions the system relying on open-source software, which will be maintained in-house at the registrar’s office. Fortunately, Logan’s office has a robust IT department that maintains the county’s existing vote tabulation system, and will maintain the county’s next system.

Logan believes the project has the potential to change the voting equipment marketplace for the better. “The design approach we are taking should result in lower-cost voting systems and market expansion,” he said. “I think it has the ability to move the regulatory environment and the market to a more competitive landscape that could allow jurisdictions to replace systems at a lower cost than in the past.”

Logan plans to begin implementing the system in 2017, and achieve a complete turnover of equipment by the 2020 election cycle. Elections officials across the country told us they are watching this project closely, and are excited to see what Logan and his team develop.

The bottom line is that dramatically more capable, safe, and less expensive voting systems will become available over the next five to ten years. We could waste a lot of money and opportunity by purchasing and implementing “new” systems today, unless absolutely necessary.

Connecticut has older technology optical scan voting machines. At a huge cost we could purchase newer systems, which are incrementally improved. Meanwhile our systems seem to be functioning pretty much as well as when they were originally deployed, in 2007. (There is some anecdotal evidence that they may need more effective maintenance attention, yet the failure rate is low, and every polling place has a backup machine.) As we have said many times, Connecticut has the best type of system legally available – paper ballots, scanned under observation in the polls, followed by post-election audits and recanvasses. Even in those rare cases where a machine fails (perhaps a handful of machines in about 750 polling places in each election), voting can continue while the backup machine is fired up.

For Connecticut this is a time for our legendary “Land of Stead Habits”. A real crisis would be a knee-jerk reaction to claims of a crisis. It would be the National reaction to 2000 and the Help America Vote Act all over again – in that case Connecticut had a relatively deliberate process, that in the end made the right choice – a year earlier it would likely have resulted in DREs and years of the bad situations highlighted by Brennan.

There will be a time to change deliberately, once better systems are available and proven.

Marks questions marks: Colorado democracy black and blue

“Where their is smoke there is fire”. We say, “Where there is black and blue there is a victim” and “When it quacks like a cover up, suspicion is justified”. In this case we have ballots filled-in in black and blue with cross-outs. We suspect Colorado democracy is the victim.

Once again, a blow to those who claim there is no voting fraud. A further justification of counting votes by scanner in public in polling places, limiting mail-in voting, and limiting central scanning, while arguing for requiring adversarial election officials in every operation.

Colorado elections watchers who have been following the zig-zagging, on-again, off-again case of the 2012 Republican Primary Chaffee County ballots completed half in blue and half in black ink may get an answer soon whether or not state officials believe the ballots are evidence of election fraud.

Or they may get no answer at all…

According to the secretary of state’s office, 3,235 ballots were cast in the county election. Of those, 140 were marked partly in blue and partly in black ink, and another 43 were marked in varying ways — fully blackened squares side by side with dashed-off Xs, or neatly filled-in boxes alongside boxes scribbled over with messy scrawls — the kind of markings that show inconsistency and can raise suspicion that more than one person filled out a ballot.

In the fall of 2012 Marilyn Marks, a high-profile election integrity activist and proud thorn-in-the-side to election administrators, filed an open records request for ballots from several counties. She was concerned with the rules giving the public access to voted ballots and whether ballots could be traced to individual voters, in effect undermining the right to cast a secret ballot.

Chaffee County delivered color images of its ballots to Marks. And the images shocked her.

“They were so weird,” she said. “Here was one that was completed half in blue and then half in black. Well that’s odd, I think and move on. Then there’s another one. Then another one. What is going on here? I’m sure I said it out loud to myself.”

Marks showed the images to her lawyer and to fellow election activists, who agreed they were weird, and then she filed a complaint with the secretary of state

I agree that this is highly suspicious. I’ll go beyond that, based on my experience, this seems to be almost guaranteed fraud, likely by insiders after the fact.

I have personally reviewed thousands of ballots, perhaps 30,000, and been in the room while perhaps 100,000 have been reviewed by others in exactly 100 post-election audit counting sessions, about 10 recanvasses, as central-count Absentee Moderator, and leading the recount of 25,000 ballots in Bridgeport. I have seen a number of strange marks on ballots – they are usually brought to the attention of others in the room as they are so interesting and need adjudication to determine voters intent. I have no statistics on strange marks, yet 43/3,235 seems possible, yet high. Yet, I do not recall a single ballot in two colors or pen and pencil. So, 140/3,235 all in blue and black is way out of line with experience.

It seems there is some official agreement that this is more than suspicious:

A few weeks later, in the middle of October, secretary of state’s office investigator Michael Hagihara found himself visiting the Chaffee County clerk’s office, where he conducted a two-day investigation. He talked to the elections staff, studied voted ballots, sealed up elections office ballpoints with the ballots and reviewed video of the elections staffers tallying the votes.

In an October 24, 2012, memo, Hagihara reported on the investigation for Secretary of State Scott Gessler, Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert and Director of Elections Judd Choate. Hagihara did not believe the county elections administration staff was to blame for any irregularities — but he did find irregularities. He determined that 140 ballots out of roughly 3,235 were filled out partly with blue and partly with black ink. He said those ballots “created serious questions as to the legitimacy of the votes cast.”

Read the entire article. The questions now are if anything is being investigated and if anything will be officially resolved.

TSA provides “Security Theater” , not “Peace of Mind”

The Intercept covers the lack of security and abundance of BS from the TSA: TSA Doesn’t Care That Its Luggage Locks Have Been Hacked

In a spectacular failure of a “back door” designed to give law enforcement exclusive access to private places, hackers have made the “master keys” for Transportation Security Administration-recognized luggage locks available to anyone with a 3D printer…

Now that they’ve been hacked, however, TSA says it doesn’t really care one way or another.

What reminders and lessons can we learn from this?

The Intercept covers the lack of security and abundance of BS from the TSA: TSA Doesn’t Care That Its Luggage Locks Have Been Hacked <read>

In a spectacular failure of a “back door” designed to give law enforcement exclusive access to private places, hackers have made the “master keys” for Transportation Security Administration-recognized luggage locks available to anyone with a 3D printer…

When the locks were first introduced in 2003, TSA official Ken Lauterstein described them as part of the agency’s efforts to develop “practical solutions that contribute toward our goal of providing world-class security and world-class customer service.”

Now that they’ve been hacked, however, TSA says it doesn’t really care one way or another.

“The reported ability to create keys for TSA-approved suitcase locks from a digital image does not create a threat to aviation security,” wrote TSA spokesperson Mike England in an email to The Intercept.

“These consumer products are ‘peace of mind’ devices, not part of TSA’s aviation security regime,” England wrote.

What reminders and lessons can we learn from this?

Government lies and covers up.
“Backdoors” to security defeat security, such as backdoors to encryption. If there were no master keys then this particular hack would not have happened.
Like the Snowden revelations, publishing this information informs and protects the public. Not publishing it only serves the criminals and protects the government.
This is similar to the hack of Diebold/ES&S/Dominion AccuVote-OS optical scanners used in Connecticut – the keys were hacked by using a photo in the Diebold online catalog for extra keys. Like the TSA keys, every AccuVote-OS uses the exact same key, in the possession of thousands of election officials in every election and between elections, easily duplicated.
Except for the master keys the TSA locks would be a bit safer than the seals used to “secure” Connecticut’s scanner and ballot cases – primarily because TSA keys are used by consumers to protect their valuables from others – ballot and scanner seals are used to protect against the very same people who apply and open the seals.

For more on the vulnerability of seals see our past coverage <here> <and here>

Sierra Club pitches nonscience nonsense for obscure company

It seems that for the Sierra Club, reason and science end at the edge of the environment. They are now touting a product for Internet voting from a company that simultaneously claims that they have a product that is “a revolutionary mobile voting platform designed to securely cast votes in elections across the globe.” while running a Contest awarding $230,000 to actually accomplish that “In this Challenge, we are asking Solvers for help in overcoming the significant obstacles that stand in the way of bringing safe, secure, and easy voting to people worldwide.”

The article link from the Sierra Club goes to Huffington Post: Why You Might Vote For the Next President From Your Couch [Update: Link has been removed from Huffington Post and updated at the Sierra Club] <read> Read what you can about the company, Votem here: <read>

For many years my career in Computer Science involved evaluating software from large and small companies for use in a large company. Later for close to a decade I worked for a couple of small startups, building and marketing data communications software. One of those was successful, started by an engineer with a working product in demand before the doors opened. The other, was started by a serial entrepreneur, who I later learned was also a serial failure. He was good at getting venture capitol and publicity for attractive concepts, lacking feasibility.

My BS detectors go up when I see a company web site touting their revolutionary product, completely missing information on the company structure, missing information on principles, with no customer success stories, and touting their expertise at getting media placement! I am disappointed that the Sierra Club is sucked in.

Electronic voting is far from ready for prime time. I see that the Challenge and award is just for paper designs to solve some of the many challenges of electronic voting. Here is what top security scientists, computer scientists, and voting experts report after an exhaustive study: https://www.usvotefoundation.org/news/E2E-VIV-press

I wonder who Votem will have evaluate the submissions? If their system is already secure as their web site claims, why do they need this help?

My BS detector is confirmed by their blog trashing science and scientists?
http://votem.com/blog/

I see the first entry cites errors by Einstein and others, and claiming therefor that those skeptical about Internet voting are wrong:
http://votem.com/internet-mobile-voting-is-unachievable/

The world is full of experts. Very intelligent and well-meaning people make predictions about our world every day. And because we are all human, many experts get it wrong; and some in a very big way.

Just the same we can point to industry “experts” who have made many “errors” which coincidentally helped their products. We recall the doctors claiming the safety of tobacco, the claims that our nuclear waste problems would be solved years ago, that fracking is safe, that we would all be driving in flying cars by now, and now that some computer systems are unhackable. There are a lot more startups on the scrap heap along with failed corporate and government projects, that Einstein predictions.

The second blog post is entitled “Beware of The Experts”. The third claims support of Republican presidential candidates.

It is as if Sierra wrote positively about a Challenge by a startup energy services company to award prizes for white papers describing how to do safe fracking or building safe oil pipelines, touting they were just around the corner, leaving the impression that we might as well not bother with green technology investment and conservation.

Cyber risks of Internet voting and electronic voting

Two articles this week on cyber risks, one refuting Colorado’s Secretary of State on online voting. Another articulating the risks of hacking electronic voting in general.

Stay tuned and stay involved!

Two articles this week on cyber risks, one refuting Colorado’s Secretary of State on online voting. Another articulating the risks of hacking electronic voting in general.

From the Colorado Statesman: Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams obscured key facts in online-voting commentary <read>

Last week’s guest commentary by Secretary of State Wayne Williams in The Colorado Statesman obscured some important facts. He was responding to criticism of his new rule establishing criteria for the casting of election ballots by email.

In it, Secretary Williams implies that the federal government expanded voting by email. He writes, “The federal government, along with the Colorado General Assembly, expanded the electronic ballot transmission for military and overseas voters.” In fact the federal government has neither endorsed nor expanded the return of marked ballots over email…

Secretary Williams claims that of the nearly 3,400 ballots sent back electronically in 2014 there was not a single report of tampering. This raises two issues: First, “no report” is meaningless when tampering of online ballots can be done undetectably. Experienced hackers can penetrate a system for a very long time without detection, as seen in recently publicized successful attacks on the FBI and Pentagon. A Colorado voter whose email ballot has been altered would never know; the elections office also will never know…Second, for years there has been no state rule to guide these vulnerable voters through this security minefield, nor to spell out the very narrow parameters required by law, needlessly putting many more than even those 3,400 votes at risk…

Given our shared concern is for ensuring the safe return of military and overseas voters’ ballots, the record of other states can be instructive. Minnesota and Wisconsin consistently lead the nation in the rate of military and overseas ballots returned, and neither permits online ballot return

Read the article for more.

From WhoWhatWhy: Foreigners Could Hack U.S. Elections, Experts Say <read>

What if a foreign head of state had the power to handpick our next President? It sounds like the plot of a movie, but it actually might be in the realm of possibility.

Most people take our elections for granted. The few who don’t often suspect that one party might be trying to steal votes from the other. But they don’t envision that the theft could be coming from outside US borders.

What experts are telling us, though, is that our voting machines are so insecure that all elections, whether at the national, state, or local level, are vulnerable to being attacked by hackers in other countries.

We’ll add that maybe foreigners might scare some of the complacent, yet all these attacks could be done by Americans bent by many similar motives and more.

We also add a specific added threat on our shores of insider attack – those with access the the system who can, desire, or are intimidated into changing the results.

For example, Russia may want to prevent a hawk like John McCain, who wants weapons in the Ukraine and faces a tough battle for his job next fall, from getting reelected.

Israel’s leaders believe that the Iran nuclear deal would doom their country, so if they thought they could get away with it, would they try to put in office US representatives who share that view?…

This begs the question: Given that the security at some of our most protected institutions can be breached, and given that US elections pose an enticing target for our adversaries, what would prevent a foreign agent from hacking our ballot boxes?

The answer: Not much.

Experts indicate that the election systems in place today do not provide the adequate protection that would be able to stop a foreign hacker — a hacker anywhere, in fact — from rigging our races. Even worse, these attacks could go undetected…

Since such attacks can easily go unnoticed, evidence of remote hacks is scarce. But it’s likely they’re happening more than we know, considering that unencrypted connections over the open internet aren’t too hard for a knowledgeable college student to breach…

One report [on Internet voting], produced by computer scientists at the request of the Pentagon, examined a pilot iVoting project and concluded that an internet- and PC-based voting system presented “fundamental security problems” that couldn’t be fixed without a “radical breakthrough.”

Cyber attacks, the report concluded, “could occur on a large scale, and could be launched by anyone from a disaffected lone individual to a well-financed enemy agency outside the reach of U.S. law.”…

Despite its seemingly safe appearance, there are subtle ways the eVoting [polling place and central count voting] process could be susceptible to attack. For, in many cases, these systems actually do connect online.

John Sebes, CTO of the Open Source Elections Technology Foundation (OSET), told WhoWhatWhy that the most significant logistical issue for local officials is something called the election management system, or EMS.

As a component of the overall apparatus, the EMS is used for election data management and data entry — most likely on a PC in an elections office. Sebes said that, in theory, EMSs are never supposed to be online, but sometimes they get connected anyway. Not only do hackers then have the potential to breach election data on the PC, but malware could affect the removable media when it is taken out of the PC and inserted into the voting machines.

For now Connecticut is relatively safe from outsider attacks domestic and foreign.

While the Legislature voted for Internet voting, Secretary of the State Denise Merill maintained her staunch opposition, pointing out that Internet voting would violate our state constitutional requirement for a secret ballot. Fortunately, a constitutional amendment to change that died between committee and the floor, in 2014. It should stay that way.
Right now we do not connect our optical scanners to external equipment. In fact, their external ports are sealed. Memory cards are never in a device connected to the outside world. We do all our election results summary by addition and transcription from the printed scanner tapes. However, the Secretary of the State’s Office has plans for acquiring GEMs systems for municipalities to speed the electronic calculations of results. If, and its a big “if” right now, the GEMs systems are pristine, never were or never will be connected to the Internet, we would remain relatively safe from outsider attack. Stay tuned and involved!

Remember that we are still at risk of insider attacks, where our only protection would be adequate ballot security, audits, and recounts.