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Georgia: New information enhance title as a Most Vulnerable State

article from McClatchy: Georgia election officials knew system had ‘critical vulnerabilities’ before 2016 vote

Georgia election officials got a friendly warning in August 2016 that their electronic voting system could be easily breached.

But less than a month before the November election, a state cybersecurity official fretted that “critical vulnerabilities” persisted, internal emails show.

The emails, obtained through a voting security group’s open records request, offer a glimpse into a Georgia election security team that appeared to be outmatched even as evidence grew that Russian operatives were seeking to penetrate state and county election systems across the country…

The disclosures add to alarms about the security of Georgia’s elections — not only in 2016, but also heading into this fall’s midterm elections.

Another article from McClatchy: Georgia election officials knew system had ‘critical vulnerabilities’ before 2016 vote <read>

Georgia election officials got a friendly warning in August 2016 that their electronic voting system could be easily breached.

But less than a month before the November election, a state cybersecurity official fretted that “critical vulnerabilities” persisted, internal emails show.

The emails, obtained through a voting security group’s open records request, offer a glimpse into a Georgia election security team that appeared to be outmatched even as evidence grew that Russian operatives were seeking to penetrate state and county election systems across the country…

The disclosures add to alarms about the security of Georgia’s elections — not only in 2016, but also heading into this fall’s midterm elections.

“I think these emails reveal that they recognized this system was catastrophically insecure,” said Robert McGuire, a Seattle lawyer representing citizen activists in a lawsuit that seeks to force Georgia to scrap its paperless electronic voting machines this fall and shift to paper ballots.

Secretary of State Brian Kemp, whose office oversees the state’s elections, says he was unaware of the system vulnerabilities at the time. Kemp, the Republican nominee for governor in this fall’s election, still maintains Georgia’s system is secure…

As a result, experts say, the system may be an inviting target for operatives from Russia and elsewhere to install software that manipulates votes without detection.

Georgia: Are you sure you want this man to be your Governor. Are you sure you actually can participate in that choice?

The most vulnerable state: Georgia

Electronic election suspicions in Georgia have been there since the dawn of century. Now with Secretary of State Brian Kemp running for Governor, a New Yorker article reviews the recent history of ongoing vulnerability, lack of investigation by the state, and cover-up.

Our Editorial

Has our democracy been stolen in Georgia? Will it continue to be stolen? This is not just a problem for Georgia voters. The Senators and Representatives from each state change the balance in Washington, the Electoral College votes from Georgia count toward who is our President, especially in close elections like 2000, 2004 and 2016. The fully justified suspicion alone undermines confidence in Democracy.

Instead of papering over suspicions, Georgia should be moving to paper ballots and sufficient post-election audits.

Electronic election suspicions in Georgia have been there since the dawn of century. Deserving of chapters in Bev Harris’ book Black Box voting <read> which included the suspicious loss of Senator Max Cleland and the election of Governor Sonny Perdue.

Now with Secretary of State Brian Kemp running for Governor, a New Yorker article reviews the recent history of ongoing vulnerability, lack of investigation by the state, and cover-up: Trump, Election Hacking, and the Georgia Governor’s Race <read>

The indictment also revealed—for the first time—that the Russians had targeted county Web sites in Georgia, looking for election-related vulnerabilities. (The indictment said that the hackers also looked at county Web sites in Iowa and Florida.) In one sense, this was an unremarkable fact: the top cybersecurity official in the Department of Homeland Security, Jeanette Manfra, told Congress in April that Russians hackers had likely targeted every state’s systems in 2016. But, for the past two years, Kemp has been contemptuous of efforts by the D.H.S. to shore up election systems nationally. And, though not going so far as to say that Russian interference is “all a big hoax,” as Trump has, [Secretary of the State and Candidate for Governor Brian] Kemp has been an outspoken advocate of not taking the whole thing so seriously…

Labelling elections as critical infrastructure, Kemp declared, opened the door for the federal government to “subvert the Constitution to achieve the goal of federalizing elections under the guise of security.” Georgia is one of only five states that uses voting machines that create no paper record, and thus cannot be audited, and the Center for American Progress has given it a D grade for election security. But, when D.H.S. offered cybersecurity assistance, Kemp refused it…

The suit was filed on July 3rd. Four days later, the servers at the Center for Election Systems were wiped clean. On August 9th, less than twenty-four hours after the case was moved to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, all the data on the Center’s backup servers were destroyed as well. As the Coalition said in a brief, “The State of Georgia and its officials have the legal, moral, and ethical obligation to secure the State’s electoral system. Sadly—and inexplicably—they appear to lack the will to do so.”

Our Editorial

Instead of papering over suspicions, Georgia should be moving to paper ballots and sufficient post-election audits.

Top voting vendor, ES&S, admits lying to public and election officials for years

Article from Mother Board by Kim Zetter: Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States <read>

Wyden told Motherboard that installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment “is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.”

I would add that lying about ballot boxes being left on a Moscow street corner is equivalent to flat out lying about the software installed on your products. We should expect more from companies whose hands and integrity upon which our elections depend.

Article from Mother Board by Kim Zetter: Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States <read>

Remote access software can be used to take over a computer from a distant computer for maintenance and trouble-shooting, unfortunately also from fraud.

From the article:

The nation’s top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had “provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006,” which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. “None of the employees, … including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software,” the spokesperson said.

ES&S did not respond on Monday to questions from Motherboard, and it’s not clear why the company changed its response between February and April. Lawmakers, however, have subpoena powers that can compel a company to hand over documents or provide sworn testimony on a matter lawmakers are investigating, and a statement made to lawmakers that is later proven false can have greater consequence for a company than one made to reporters.

Election-management systems are not the voting terminals that voters use to cast their ballots, but are just as critical: they sit in county election offices and contain software that in some counties is used to program all the voting machines used in the county; the systems also tabulate final results aggregated from voting machines.

We point out that because those machines can be used to “used to program all the voting machines”, they can be used to change the software used on those machines and essentially are just as risky to those machines as would be if pcAnywhere were installed on those machines as well.

Wyden told Motherboard that installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment “is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.”

I would add that lying about ballot boxes being left on a Moscow street corner is equivalent to flat 0ut lying about the software installed on your products. We should expect more from companies whose hands and integrity upon which our elections depend.

VoteAllegheny Analysis of Election Risks in One County

VoteAllegheny presents a report by Carnegie-Mellon researchers on the vulnerabilities in a single county in a swing state. The biggest takeaway for us is understanding that a top-down analysis of vulnerabilities can yield the most cost-effective areas to focus on preventing election fraud. Where we spend our resources can make a difference in the results!

As Connecticut spends $5million+ in Federal election security dollars, perhaps an independent study like this one for Connecticut would be the most effective use of the 1st $1.00, pointing to the most cost-effective use of the rest of the $5million+.

Suggestions for reading and viewing on the 4th of July

Once again, we have a suggestions for the 4th of July. A Centennial address from 1876.

Once again, we have a suggestion for the 4th of July. This time from a Republican who viewed life and our country more like a mid-20th-century Democrat. But for a strong sense of public integrity he might likely have run and become President in the late 1800’s.

Also a recent book on our heritage: Kurt Andersen’s <Fantasyland> How America Went Haywire: A 500 Year History

Robert G. Ingersoll was likely the most widely known orator of the late 1800’s, following Emerson, and preceding Mark Twain. In 1876 he gave this oration on “The Meaning of the Declaration of Independence” <read>

all things considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by man. And if it was physically brave, the moral courage of the document is almost infinitely beyond the physical. They had the courage not only, but they had the almost infinite wisdom to declare that all men are created equal. Such things had occasionally been said by some political enthusiasts in the olden time, but for the first time in the history of the world, the representatives of a nation, the representatives of a real living, breathing, hoping people, declared that all men are created equal. With one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck down all the cruel, heartless barriers that aristocracy, that priestcraft, that kingcraft had raised between man and man. They struck down with one immortal blow, that infamous spirit of caste that makes a god almost a beast, and a beast almost a god. With one word, with one blow, they wiped away and utterly destroyed all that had been done by centuries of war—centuries of hypocrisy—centuries of injustice….

“What more did they do? They then declared that each man has a right to live. And what does that mean? It means that he has the right to make his living. It means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work the land, that he stands the equal of every other human being beneath the shining stars; entitled to the product of his labor—the labor of his hand and of his brain.

What more? That every man has the right; to pursue his own happiness in his own way. Grander words than these have never been spoken by man.

Book Review: Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour Hersch

If you think it’s unfair to Hersh to reveal all his secrets in a review, don’t worry — this is not even 1/100 of what his book contains…

“Reporter” provides detailed explications of how Hersh has used these lessons [about investigated journalism], making it one of the most compelling and significant books ever written about American journalism. Almost every page will tell you something you’ve never heard before about life on earth. Sometimes it’s Hersh elaborating on what he’s already published; sometimes it’s new stories he felt he couldn’t write about when he first learned of them; and sometimes it’s the world’s most intriguing, peculiar gossip.

There is an excellent interview with Sy Hersh just released as an Intercepted podcast

Starting at about 10min in to the interview, Sy provides his take on the evidence that Russians accessed the DNC emails in the run-up to the Nov 2016 election…

I could write my own book review of Seymour Hersh’s memoir Reporter: A Memoir but Jon Schwarz has done a much better job at the Intercept that I every could Seymour Hersh’s New Memoir Is a Fascinating, Flabbergasting Masterpiece <read>. After reading that I immediately bought the book. Schwarz covers several of Hersh’s revelations. The book is full of revelations about political actors, inside jobs, and Hersh himself. Here is are two paragraphs that accurately summarize what awaits readers:

If you think it’s unfair to Hersh to reveal all his secrets in a review, don’t worry — this is not even 1/100 of what his book contains…

“Reporter” provides detailed explications of how Hersh has used these lessons [about investigated journalism], making it one of the most compelling and significant books ever written about American journalism. Almost every page will tell you something you’ve never heard before about life on earth. Sometimes it’s Hersh elaborating on what he’s already published; sometimes it’s new stories he felt he couldn’t write about when he first learned of them; and sometimes it’s the world’s most intriguing, peculiar gossip.

I was especially fascinated by Hersh’s discussions of what is required of and investigative journalist, his candor, his constant battles/debates with editors about what to publish, and how much he chose not to publish. Although I am not a reporter, let alone an investigative reporter, I take some solace in the incidents and issues with election integrity that for one reason or another I do not pursue or cover in CTVotersCount.org.

Speaking of elections. There is an excellent interview with Sy Hersh just released as an Intercepted podcast: Intercepted Live From Brooklyn With Sy Hersh, Mariame Kaba, Lee Gelernt, and Narcy <listen>

Starting at about 10min in to the interview, Sy provides his take on the evidence that Russians accessed the DNC emails in the run-up to the Nov 2016 election – He says that there is yet no evidence available implicating Russians.

Election Vulnerability: What we can learn from Ed Snowden and the NSA.

Now I have your attention, we can discuss the NSA and Ed Snowden in a bit. Let’s start with an Editorial:

Protecting Against Russian Cyber Risks is Insufficient. The attention on Cybersecurity, election hacking and Russian interference is good. There are cyber risks and Russia is capable. We should improve our cybersecurity across the board, including elections. Every vote should be backed up by a, so called, voter verified paper ballot. Yet that is far from sufficient.

Now I have your attention, we can discuss the NSA and Ed Snowden in a bit. Let’s start with an Editorial:

Cyber risks do not come from Russia alone; do not come from nation states alone; they come from hackers and political actors of all persuasions and motivations. There are also insider attacks, attacks from political actors, and their sympathizers. There is also the risk of error.

We focus too much on preventing attacks and errors, neglecting the equally important areas of detection and recovery. Ultimately prevention, at best, will always be an incomplete, never ending process. Detention and recovery means protecting paper ballots and actually using them. Using them means following up elections with sufficient post-election audits and recounts. Post-election audits with sufficient chance of detecting errors, expanding those audits when errors indicate that the apparent winners may be incorrect, expanding those audits ultimately, when necessary to full recounts. Audits should include process audits to assure that registration lists and voters checked in were accurate enough to guarantee the election was fair. When all else fails, being ready to rerun critically flawed elections.

Snowden and the NSA

This is not about what Ed Snowden did, but how he did it. Snowden was able, because as a single contractor, he had the keys to the kingdom! All the cyber expertise of the NSA came down to one individual who had the information and the capability to expose everything. The motive and opportunity. He could just have easily have gummed up the works of the entire NSA system. Most systems have such people – they know the technology and are key to keeping it working. We need them. The system needs them. How many are there? Likely a lot more than we think. In the NSA, every critical support person with access to the NSA system. Not just with password access to the official system: Also any one who supports the underlying software and hardware systems: application software, compilers, operating systems, mainframes, servers, routers, the network/phone system.

Every election office has those people and vulnerabilities. Every election official who has access to voting machines and memory cards over their lifetime. The contractors who program the memory cards. Postal employees, shippers, and contractors charged with the mail or package delivery of memory cards. The person in the mail room in town hall. How safe is the storage of the machines, memory cards, and paper ballots? How safe is town hall on weekends and overnight? Who is responsible for managing the town network and computers? Who are all the contractors in town hall? Or employed by the voting machine maintenance vendor? Are your election officials and town staff able to do what the NSA could not?

If you don’t believe this, trust me. I have been there in the bowels of a large company and working for small software companies supporting large companies and government agencies. Consider Chelsea Manning a single specialist at a computer in a war zone. Manning needed no technical expertise. None is required to program memory cards or clandestinely provide access to or conspire with those with expertise.

It’s Impossible to Know (how) Your Internet Vote Counted

As West Virginia plans, once again, to allow Internet voting for military voters, it is a good time to remind everyone that Internet voting (web page, web application, email, fax voting etc.) are all unsafe for democracy. And that block-chains cannot solve those problems.

One of those problems is that there is no guarantee that your laptop or smart phone has not been hacked in a way that alters your vote. Another challenge is the, so called, Secret Ballot.

West Virginia’s new scheme involves block-chains which entrepreneurs bent on profit claim will make Internet voting safe <read>, Several years ago Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, held a Symposium on Internet Voting including three experts and the Secretary of State of West Virginia. The problem is that block-chains fail to solve the major unsolved problems remaining preventing trusted Internet voting.

One of those problems is that there is no guarantee that your laptop or smart phone has not been hacked in a way that alters your vote, such that what you see is not what is presented and recorded by the actual voting system. A hack could fool you, the voting system, or both.

How easy is it to hack your laptop or smart phone? Check out this recent story by a computer expert, Micah Lee: It’s Impossible to Prove Your Laptop Hasn’t Been Hacked. I Spent Two Years Finding Out. <read> Do you understand the article? Lee, an expert, could not guarantee his own laptop was not hacked. Do you check your laptop to the level that Lee did for an experiment? Block-chains do not solve this.

Another challenge is the, so called, Secret Ballot – which requires that nobody can associate your vote with you. And that you cannot prove how you voted to anyone. There are Internet voting systems that let you check that your ballot was recorded properly, yet they cannot allow you to prove that to anyone else. Block-chains do not solve this.

Block-chains do provide assurance, that without a central authority, the vote sent to the voting system is not changed after it was recorded. Yet, that is unnecessary given that there is a central voting authority.

America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections

Washington Post: America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections

Though these machines are not routinely connected to the Internet, NYU’s Lawrence Norden warns that there are nonetheless ways to infiltrate them…

Having paper-friendly machines is hardly enough.

Washington Post: America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections <read>

Though these machines are not routinely connected to the Internet, NYU’s Lawrence Norden warns that there are nonetheless ways to infiltrate them, including through computers used to program the machines. Since 2016, only one state, Virginia, has phased out all of its paperless machines. Georgia lawmakers failed last month to pass a bill that would have upgraded the state’s voting machines. And though Pennsylvania is pushing upgrades, the transition will not finish until after November’s vote.

Having paper-friendly machines is hardly enough. Paper trails enable state officials to run statistically sound post-election audits of vote tallies. Yet only a handful of states require rigorous audits, with only a handful more considering them.

Officials are too comfortable that no connectivity is sufficient to protect our machines. Its a good idea, yet insufficient, as demonstrated by STUXNET. Many believe STUXNET was perpetrated by the U.S. and Israel, which they deny. In any case, it demonstrates that foreign interests of one faction/government or another can change our elections.

Recently Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, convened a Connecticut Cyber Security Task Force. Many of the comments at the first meeting give assurance that our Voter Registration System will be protected, yet some seemed to ignore the risks to anything not connected to the Internet <View on CT-N>

NPV Compact – for the 7th or 8th time: It sounds good but has Unintended Consequences

On Monday we testified against the National Popular Vote Compact. We have been testifying against it since it was first proposed in Connecticut in 2007. There are two companion bills, you can link to them from our testimony. We have been saying pretty much the same things for the last several years. Each year we hone our testimony a bit and listen to new and predominant arguments from the proponents and make small adjustments.

As I have said many times, most of the democrats (and my friends) who support the Compact are wrong. And most of the Republicans opposed, are opposed for the wrong reason. Unlike the National “Experts” that fly in each year to testify, I provide complete testimony with facts that they have not successfully disputed since 2007.

On Monday we testified against the National Popular Vote Compact. We have been testifying against it since it was first proposed in Connecticut in 2007. There are two companion bills, you can link to them from our testimony <here> We have been saying pretty much the same things for the last several years. Each year we hone our testimony a bit and listen to new and predominant arguments from the proponents and make small adjustments. Here is the excerpt I spoke on Monday, with the changes for this year highlighted:

Chairs and members of the Committee, my name is Luther Weeks, Executive Director of CTVotersCount. I am a computer scientist and a certified election moderator.

I understand the theoretical advantages of the national popular vote, yet there are extreme risks in its mismatch with our existing state-by-state voting system.

Many concepts such as Nuclear Power, GMOs, DDT, and Fracking have benefits, but also have unintended, unrecognized, and unappreciated consequences. This Compact is another.

What often appears simple is not. The Compact would cobble the national popular vote onto a flawed system designed for the Electoral College. It does not change that system. It magnifies the risks.

Developments since the 2016 election make the real dangers more apparent than ever. Most recently the risks of cyber vulnerability from foreign, domestic, and other actors. After the 2016 election, citizens and a candidate attempted to obtain recounts in three closely contested states, (Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania). Apparent, is a flawed system with errors and uncertainty, ultimately unable to prove accuracy and integrity, with strong official resistance to audits and recounts.

Six major concerns with the Compact include:

The 12^th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act govern declaring the President. They have been called a “Ticking Time Bomb” because of strict, yet, ambiguous rules, causing problems seen in 1876 and 2000. The Compact would exacerbate that risky system. (see page 6)

There is no official national popular vote number compiled in time, such that it could be used to officially and accurately determine the winner in any close election. (see page 3)

Even if there were such a number, it would aggravate the flaws in the system. The Electoral College limits the risks and damage to a few swing states. With the National Popular Vote Compact, errors, voter suppression, and fraud in all states would count against the national totals. (see page 5)

There is no national audit or recount available for close elections, to establish an accurate popular vote number. (see page 4)

With the Compact there is every reason to believe that any close election would be decided by partisian action of the Congress or the Supreme Court, as in Gore v. Bush. (see page 6)

This Compact will not make every voter equal.

Recently proponents of the Compact have highlighted the fact that the “U.S. Presidential election is the only U.S. election not decided by popular vote.”

Note that it is also the only U.S. election decided by a voting system that is not uniform in voting methods and franchise, and with votes not subject to uniform adjudication and totaling.” With the Compact, it would be the only such election in the World.

I urge you to consider the risks and chaos made possible if Connecticut were to endorse the National Popular Vote Compact, including reading the attached editorials and detailed arguments.

Thank You

As I have said many times, most of the democrats (and my friends) who support the Compact are wrong. And most of the Republicans opposed, are opposed for the wrong reason:

I would support a national popular vote amendment to the U.S. Constitution, if and only if, it provided for a uniform franchise, required sufficient voting systems, sufficient audits and recounts nationwide. And sufficient laws that were enforceable and enforced to provide a trustworthy and trusted national popular vote number. Those ifs are a large leap for our democracy, yet are reasonable, economical, realistic requirements to achieve trustworthy democracy,

Unlike the National “Experts” that fly in each year to testify, I provide complete testimony with facts that they have not successfully disputed since 2007. The experts got about 30min, 90min, and 105min of testimony and questions. I got 3min. I would put my credentials up against any of them. Here is all the testimony <here>

Let me add that there were at least three fact free arguments and statements today:

Chair Sen McLachlan early on incorrectly stated that I was not present – I was signed up as con, as number 7 on the public list. As Mark Twain would have said, “The report of my demise was premature”. Some of the media picked up on and reported his statement.
Rep Matt Lesser incorrectly stated that there was no election fraud. This is a usual proponent tactic. There is negligible votER fraud, but plenty of votING fraud, including in Connecticut. <see this recent summary>
After I testified, Chris Pearson, one of those national “experts”, testified that my contention that “There is no official national popular vote number compiled in time, such that it could be used to officially and accurately determine the winner in any close election.”, was incorrect. He made claims that continue to be refuted by the law, precedent, and practices as articulate for several years on page 3 of my testimony. Consider that there is a reason that none of the leaders from NPV have ever dared join me at any of the three well-publicized debates on the issue.