Bev Harris Discusses Vulnerabilities in Bridgeport

Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org has posted a stimulating discussion of the election in Bridgeport and our vulnerabilities. Not the kind of national publicity we should be proud of in the Constitution State: <read>

Bev alleges no known illegalities or incorrect vote counts, but points to the vulnerabilities of our custody procedures, the sealing of our voting machines, the inadequacy or irrelevance of the inner seal, and some questions specific to Bridgeport. Whoever won or should have won, the Bridgeport mayoral primary demonstrates several vulnerabilities which do not instill confidence.

Whoever won or should have won, the procedures in Bridgeport mayoral primary have left plenty of room for fraud…

In other words, this is a “Trust Me” elections model where you are trusting private contractors…

Despite a lot of hoopla about security procedures and special testing of memory cards and seals, we received citizen reports of at least one midday voting machine replacement. This, in a location where only 270 votes separated candidates. One or two polling places was enough to do the trick…

I have not seen the seal on the canvas tote bag, but that is actually the only seal that matters (if it even matters; I have a little experiment in mind…). The seal on the voting machine itself is a sham…

By the way, the legal term for racketeering, the charge brought against our friend the Bridgeport mayor, is “conspiracy.” Next time someone calls you a conspiracy theorist, consider saying, “Well yes, in the RICO sense, I suppose I am.”

Bev was the featured guest on Voice of The Voters last night in Pennsylvania. Two of the three callers were from Connecticut, including yours truly. I briefly discussed the recent audits. She pointed out that in her opinion that audits are not really public unless we actually see the ballots as they are being counted. Food for thought.

Brad Blog Interviews Professor Steve Freeman

It is funny to hear myself speak like radical on this issue. I’ve spent my life starting businesses and teaching in such radical institutions as Harvard Business School system and Wharton. Running businesses, starting businesses and teaching business school students. But when you are talking about privatizing elections you are really giving up the security we have that elections are unfettered and free.

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Post-Election Audits – the 7.2% Audit and Other Glitches

(Note: This is an abbreviated and edited version of observations and concerns with the post-election audits recently submitted to and discussed with Lesley Mara, Deputy Secretary of the State)

It is natural for things to be learned in practice that were not anticipated in creating laws and procedures. The recent random audits are a demonstration of this. Many problems not anticipated by legislation, procedures, and yours truly. Unfortunately, the number and complexity of the problems and issues indicates that there is a need for significant changes in training, procedures, and the law.

There was no easy way to determine the dates, times, and locations of the audits other than repeatedly calling the registrar’s offices. This is especially time consuming in the case of part time registrars who don’t all return messages and don’t provide office hours on their voice mail messages. There were no other members of the public as observers in Cornwall and Hartford. The only other observer was an Assistant Registrar from an opposing party in Hartford. Voter apathy or lack of publicity? There are no notice times or publication requirements for the public audits. The only notice required is to inform the Secretary of the State’s office of the date, time, and location of an audit. For instance, a pubic audit for 9:00AM could be set at 8:45AM.

The selection of races is not required to be public. The selection of races to be audited should be public and subject to notification procedures similar to those for the audits.

The time-frame of the audits, 15 to 19 days after the election, provides too much time for the ballots and machines to be manipulated and is completely counter to the opinions of the Brennan Center. This can only be fixed in the statutes; however, the procedures can be changed to mitigate some of the difficulties: a) The random selection of districts for audit could be held much closer to day 15. b) The drawing of races should be moved much closer to the date of the audit – it could be required to be the first order of business of the same public event as the audit itself.

I was able to observe two of three audits I attempted:

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Diebold Documentation – CA Top-To-Bottom Review

Debra Bowen has recently released the “Documentation Assessment of the Diebold Voting Systems”. Having served as a software buyer and as a product manager, I can attest that software documentation is almost always an afterthought, usually poor, hard to keep up to date, and expensive to do well. Its also a very boring and mundane topic for the average software developer and untechnical user.

Yet, don’t overlook this report. There are Gems (no pun intended) and very valuable insights available from the report. Below are several excerpts to hopefully entice some to read at least a few pages of the report:

conscientious local election officials attempting to master the Diebold system will find the documentation presents numerous impediments to their managing the voting system correctly, in a manner that achieves high accuracy, security, and other core objectives…

Pursuant to the federal standards, Diebold submitted to CIBER [Independent Testing Authority] a set of voting system security policies…A comparative analysis shows that the security policies Diebold filed with CIBER were considerably more stringent and extensive than those it ultimately documented in Diebold’s product manuals..

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Senator Dodd: Keep Bush’s Hans Off Our Elections

Although I appreciate many of Christopher Dodd’s heartfelt positions he is the one person in the Senate primarily responsible for the so called, Help America Vote Act. He compounds his error as he fails to oppose Hans Von Spakovsky for the Election Assistance Commission.

Senator Feingold and Obama are standing up for us. Standing up when Harry Reid is capitulating <read about the Senate> and Feinstein taking both sides . Dodd and Feinstein are on the Rules Committee. No word on how or if he voted, but he could join Obama and Feingold and block the nomination.

Lest you think we are nitpicking, here are some of Von Spakovsky’s accomplishments: <details list><and more>

Spakovsky stalled ruling on Mississippi redistricting, effecting electoral outcomes

Spakovsky pushed through Texas re-districting that violated the Voting Rights Act

Spakovsky urged Maryland officials to reject voter registration forms of lawful voters

Spakovsky blocked an investigation into voter discrimination against Native Americans

Spakovsky approved “modern day poll tax” over objections of career staff:

Council approves raises for poll workers using new technology

Post-election audits have been called unfunded mandates by registrars and municipalities (Note: audits are actually being paid for at this time by Federal HAVA funds). But raises justified by the new optical scan machines seem to be no problem in one Connecticut town. <read>

The Common Council has approved raises for poll workers, who will be doing twice the work on Election Day now that the city has switched to an optical scanner ballot-counting system.

Voting will be as simple as filling out a Lotto ticket for the voter, but involves much more work for election officials, who have been in what registrars call “boot camp training” in the use of the new machines.
Poll workers will have to know the technology so well that they can explain it to any voter who has a question or problem. And they have to do all the troubleshooting without looking at the completed paper ballots.

TalkNationRadio – Part 4 of 4

Dori Smith completes her four part service to Connecticut Voters with two interviews. <read>

Excellent interviews with Daniel Seligson from the PEW Research Center and Prof Michael Fisher, President of TrueVoteCT.Â

However, I must take exception to Daniel Seligson’s faith in Connecticut’s audit law.  Has he read it?  Or has he fallen into the trap of believing the press releases?  You be the judge.  Review the loopholes and inadequacies covered on this site.  Read the law for yourself.

Myth-Based Voting

Your editorial “Fail-Safe Voting?”, September 20, 2007, could be titled “Myth-Based Voting?”.

Last week the Hartford Courant had a fact lite editorial, “Fail-Safe Voting”. I sent a letter to the editor to provide an accurate view. It took almost 250 words, however, I wanted to provide facts and the Courant has often run letters longer than their 200 word ‘limit’.
It does not bother me that my letter was not published. However, it is a problem when there is no responsible alternate opinion printed. In the past week there were several letters addressing the renaming of Bradley Airport, but none addressing the voting machine editorial. Here is the letter:
Your editorial “Fail-Safe Voting?”, September 20, 2007, could be titled “Myth-Based Voting?”.  

It is inaccurate to state that”So far, no one appears to have figured out how to tamper with the machines” Dr. Alex Shvartsman, UConn, consultant to Secretary Bysicwicz, independently confirmed specific vulnerabilities and recently said “The concerns are very valid and very real.”  The Brennan Center for Justice, frequently referenced by the legislature and Secretary Bysiewicz, says “One of the primary conclusions of this report is…using Trojan horses or other Software Attack Programs provide the least difficult means to affect the outcome of a statewide election using as few informed participants as possible”.

It is precisely because “It would take a conspiracy by a lot of people to stuff a ballot box.” that Brennan concluded that a software attack would be most attractive.

It is true that “The 10 percent threshold [of districts audited] is highest among states”. What is seldom noted is that only three or 20% of races are audited, or that loopholes in the law reduce the odds of detecting fraud in most local elections and all State Representative races to about 2%-4%.

Yes,”It would be a shame if, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to correct the mistakes of 2000, it were still possible to alter the results.” Let us invest the $0.25-$0.50 per voter it would take to provide a truly sufficient audit and assurance of the correct results.

Another Day, Another Loophole In PA 07-194

What if a post-election audit uncovers a problem with the machine count? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to examine the memory card and the voting machine for evidence that could be used to detect fraud or to understand the cause of the problem so it could be prevented next time?

Unfortunately, audits must start a minimum of 15 days after the election (for the most recent primary, September 26th). And there is a prohibition for unlocking the voting machines that expires 14 days after the election (for the most recent primary, September 25th). accompanied by a possible 5-year prison term.

 

So, the evidence in the memory cards or in the optical scanner can be destroyed before, during, or right after the audit, legally.

 

As we have pointed out before, holding the audits so far after the primary, and so far after the random district drawing provides plenty of time for ‘adjustments’ to make things look good in those districts chosen for audit. Now part of that can be planning the timely unlocking of the machine and memory cards before the audit report could result in an investigaton.

 

Also, are there sufficient proceedures to stop the hacking of the optical scanner itself between elections? What can be done while a machine is unlocked? What security is in place?

 

(Thanks to Mike Fisher for noticing the Sept 25 expiration date for machine locking on the Municipal Elections Calendar)

Statute details:

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FAQ: Stop! What You Are Doing Will Scare The Voters Away From The Polls.

While not a question. This statement has been raised a couple of times in the last few days. A candidate was concerned that by raising the issue of election integrity it could cut voting at the polls. A registrar called to tell me that there were a lot seniors in her town that would be afraid to vote it they came to hear me. Neither of these people have heard my presentation. In fact, the registrar said she could not make my presentation as she has a day job and only does registrar work when she is paid.

There are several answers to this statement, let me give them:

  • I encourage everyone to vote. The only only way to guarantee your vote will not be counted is to avoid voting.
  • We agree that increasing voter confidence will increase participation and that increased participation is good.
  • Do you agree that actual integrity of the system is equally important as the perception of integrity?
  • My goal is to increase voter confidence in the election system by exposing vulnerabilities and causing the process to be improved. I do not condone sweeping anything under the rug.
  • I have confidence in the reliability of the democratic process with informed voters.
  • My intention is to protect and enhance the value of everyone’s vote. While CTVotersCount is dedicated completely to voting integrity and confidence, I personally support measures to increase voter participation which do not otherwise compromise election integrity and oppose those that could easily compromise election integrity.

Update 9/26: TalkNationRadio (no transcript yet) addressed this topic today. PEW Research shows no drop-off in voting in Florida or Maryland as voters become more cynical with regard to election integrity. (Not sure how comforting this information is, yet it refutes the entire premise of the concerns being raised.)

Continue reading “FAQ: Stop! What You Are Doing Will Scare The Voters Away From The Polls.”