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The Voting News Weekly: September 12-18 2011

Tuesday, 20 September 2011, 3:58 pm
Column: Voting News

The Voting News Weekly: September 12-18 2011

Egypt to start parliamentary vote on November 21: Al-Ahram | Reuters

New Jersey election officials failed to improve voting system security

In an ongoing series, Princeton computer scientist Andrew Appel details how New Jersey election officials failed to improve voting system security. The Election Assistance Commission released a survey on Internet voting. The re-vote for Cherokee Nation chief will proceed despite legal challenges related to the voting rights of descendants of freed slaves. Denmark elected their first female prime minister and the Hill compared the Danish electoral process to that of the United States. The Centre for Open ICT Policy Analysis has noted, with grave a concern, similarities between Ghana’s impending e-voting system and that of the Uganda. Local councils continue to lobby for online voting in British Columbia. A referendum on same-day registration will be on the Maine ballot this November and the decision of Mahoning county Ohio to move to a paper ballot voting system reflects changes in the nationwide market for voting systems.

Sep 18, 2011 12:53 pm

Blogs: Did New Jersey election officials fail to respect court order to improve security of elections? | Freedom to Tinker

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The Gusciora case was filed in 2004 by the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic on behalf of Reed Gusciora and other public-interest plaintiffs. The Plaintiffs sought to end the use of paperless direct-recording electronic voting machines, which are very vulnerable to fraud and manipulation via replacement of their software. The defendant was the Governor of New Jersey, and as governors came and went it was variously titledGusciora v. McGreevey, Gusciora v. Corzine, Guscioria v. Christie.

In 2010 Judge Linda Feinberg issued an Opinion. She did not ban the machines, but ordered the State to implement several kinds of security measures: some to improve the security of the computers on which ballots are programmed (and results are tabulated), and some to improve the security of the computers inside the voting machines themselves.

The Plaintiffs had shown evidence that ballot-programming computers (the so-called “WinEDS laptops”) in Union County had been used to surf the Internet even on election day in 2008. This, combined with many other security vulnerabilities in the configuration of Microsoft Windows, left the computers open to intrusion by outsiders, who could then interfere with and manipulate the programming of ballots before their installation on the voting machines, or manipulate the aggregation of results after the elections. Judge Feinberg also heard testimony that so-called “Hardening Guidelines”, which had previously been prepared by Sequoia Voting Systems at the request of the State of California, would help close some of these vulnerabilities. Basically, one wipes the hard drive clean on the “WinEDS laptop”, installs a fresh copy of Microsoft Windows, runs a script to shut down Internet access and generally tighten the Windows security configuration, and finally installs a fresh copy of the WinEDS ballot software. The Court also heard testimony (from me) that installing these Guidelines requires experience in Windows system administration, and would likely be beyond the capability of some election administrators.

Among the several steps the Court ordered in 2010 was the installation of these Hardening Guidelines on every WinEDS ballot-programming computer used in public elections, within 120 days.

Two years after I testified in the Gusciora case, I served as an expert witness in a different case, Zirkle v. Henry, in a different Court, before Judge David Krell. I wanted to determine whether an anomaly in the June 2011 Cumberland County primary election could have been caused by an intruder from the Internet, or whether such intrusion could reasonably be ruled out. Thus, the question became relevant of whether Cumberland County’s WinEDS laptop was in compliance with Judge Feinberg’s Order. That is, had the Hardening Guidelines been installed before the ballot programming was done for the election in question? If so, what would the event logs say about the use of that machine as the ballot cartridges were programmed?

One of the components of the Hardening Guidelines is to turn on certain Event Logs in the Windows operating system. So, during my examination of the WinEDS laptop on August 17, I opened the Windows Event Viewer and photographed screen-shots of the logs. To my surprise, the logs commenced on the afternoon of August 16, 2011, the day before my examination. Someone had wiped the logs clean, at the very least, or possibly on August 16 someone had wiped the entire hard drive clean in installing the Hardening Guidelines. In either case, evidence in a pending court case–files on a computer that the State of New Jersey and County of Cumberland had been ordered to produce for examination–was erased. I’m told that evidence-tampering is a crime. In an affidavit dated August 24, Jason Cossaboon, a Computer Systems Analyst employed by Cumberland County, stated that he erased the event logs on August 16.

Full Article: Freedom to Tinker | Hosted by Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy.

Sep 17, 2011 12:11 pm

National: Election Assistance Commission Releases Survey of Internet Voting | EAC

The EAC Certification Division has released the technical report “A Survey of Internet Voting,” a comprehensive review of Internet voting systems used in elections worldwide between 2000 and 2011. EAC staff conducted the study to assist in the development of electronic absentee voting guidelines, specifically to assist the Commission’s efforts to identify technologies that could improve services for military and overseas voters and voters with disabilities.

[From the report]

… Risk is a difficult concept to express, understand and measure. This is apparent in the means used to address risk from one project to the next. The EAC has knowledge of 13 formal risk assessments, and seven of these risk assessments are publicly available. Nearly every project used a different assessment methodology to measure risk.

In some instances, projects compared the risks associated with various forms of Internet voting with the risks of other, more traditional voting channels. At least seven projects — Austria, DCBOEE, Geneva, Honolulu, NSW, SERVE and VOI — decided to compare the risks associated with their Internet voting projects to the risks associated with postal voting. For example, Geneva listed the risks associated with their traditional voting channel alongside the risks associated with their proposed Internet voting system. If a risk existed in both channels, it was deemed acceptable. The DCBOEE employed a similar methodology, with the additional goal of limiting the introduction of new threats to the voting process.

If new threats were introduced, they were mitigated in some way. To apply this methodology to systems used by United States military and overseas voters, a detailed risk assessment on the postal voting system in the United States is needed. As a first step, the EAC released a whitepaper titled Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act Registration and Voting Processes detailing the current postal voting system in the United States.

The EAC is in the final stages of approving a risk assessment methodology for assessing the risks associated with multiple voting channels, known as the Election Operations Assessment (EOA). It includes a user tutorial and a set of risk scenarios and assessment templates, which can be used without expert assistance. The risk scenarios can be modified and additional scenarios added, as necessary, for any type of voting channel or risk environment. One of the features of this tool is that it captures the assumptions made by the users when assigning risk values. This allows for the assumptions and risk values to be changed and the risk assessment run again to provide a sensitivity analysis of the results. Once published, the EOA will provide a useful tool for jurisdictions and other interested parties to perform voting system risk assessments.

After collecting and reviewing information for the projects highlighted in this report, the following areas remain open for discussion and analysis:

• Closer analysis of voting protocols used by Internet voting systems may be necessary to understand the security benefits provided by each voting protocol.
• There may be a need for an international standard solely dedicated to Internet voting an uncontrolled environment.
• There may be a need for a standard risk assessment methodology that local, state, and federal jurisdictions can follow.
• A uniform risk assessment methodology for all voting channels may be necessary for a comparison of the risks associated with each voting channel. Each project managed risks and the technical challenges of Internet voting in their own way.
• A dedicated forum or organization for communicating experiences or sharing information about Internet voting projects and/or innovations may need to be developed. A forum could facilitate discussion regarding obstacles and innovations in Internet voting; the creation of a standardized language to discuss Internet voting; best practices learned from those implementing pilots and continuous use systems; and an accurate history of the development of Internet voting.

Full Article: Blog Details A Survey of Internet Voting.

Sep 17, 2011 12:08 pm

Oklahoma: Cherokee Nation, Federal Government Fight Over Rights Of Freed Slave Descendants | Huffington Post

The Cherokee Nation’s election commission voted Wednesday to allow descendants of slaves once owned by tribal members to cast ballots for principal chief, but they’ll only count in the event of a court order.

Federal officials objected to a ruling last month by the tribe’s highest court that found only people of direct Cherokee ancestry could be members of the tribe and vote in the upcoming election, essentially denying ballots to some 2,800 freedmen descendants.

While the election commission’s vote doesn’t directly overturn the ruling by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court, it does allow for freedmen to cast provisional ballots in an effort to make the election results stand, regardless of how the courts ultimately rule.

“If a court decides the freedmen descendants can vote we will have the ability to certify the election,” Election Commission chairwoman Susan Plumb said. “If the court decides they cannot vote, we will still be able to preserve the election.”

The longstanding dispute between the tribe and the freedmen has only complicated the Sept. 24 special election between former Chief Chad Smith and tribal council member Bill John Baker.

Tribal Supreme Court justices tossed results of the original June 25 election after finding the winner of the contest couldn’t be determined with a mathematical certainty. A new election was ordered.

The election has drawn national interest because while the tribe is based in Tahlequah, many of its 300,000 members live outside Oklahoma.

Full Article: Cherokee Nation, Federal Government Fight Over Rights Of Freed Slave Descendants.

Sep 17, 2011 12:05 pm

Denmark: The Danish way of elections | The Hill

With the 2012 campaign in full swing, and the United States’ election day now 14 months away, let us put the brakes on for a moment and focus us on another election . Yesterday, Danes elected a new prime minister – for the first time ever a woman — and decided on the distribution of the 179 seats in parliament.

The campaign season lasted all of three weeks. There were no political ads on television. Voter participation was 87.7 percent. Compared to the United States – the land of the permanent campaign – the parliamentary democracy of Denmark offers us a glimpse of what elections could be.

Like in the United States, during campaign season here in Denmark it’s hard to drive a block without seeing wall-to-wall campaign signs. And like in America, the top issue here is overwhelmingly the economy. But the biggest difference in campaign season between our two countries – aside from the length – is the money. With a ban on political TV ads in Denmark, cash plays a much smaller role in the blitz for votes here.

And this is where the American political establishment, if it really cares about the strength of its democracy, would do well to take a breather from the already frenetic 2012 race to learn a thing or two from the Danish elections.

By shortening the official campaign period and taking television ads out of the process, you decrease the money involved in campaigns and increase the genuine democratic debate.

It’s well known that negative ads drive down turnout. (Turnout in Denmark in 2007 was 87 percent, compared to 62 percent in the United States 2008 presidential election.) Smear campaigns solidify a negative impression of all politics in the minds of the voter, which does little to stir confidence in the government.

Full Article: The Danish way of elections — The Hill’s Congress Blog.

Sep 15, 2011 12:03 pm

Ghana, Uganda: Lessons from the foiled Ugandan e-voting system | ModernGhana.com

The Centre for Open ICT Policy Analysis has noted, with grave a concern, similarities between Ghana’s impending e-voting system and that of the Uganda. The Ugandan project, also known as the voter registration database implementation system, was a failure as shown in their 2001 and 2006 elections. The District Electoral Commission (EC) of Uganda had been smoothly organising the country’s elections until in 2000 when they initiated a programme to rid the voters’ register of names of imposters, double voters, and dead voters by photographing all qualified voters. This programme was also meant to create an election database to be used to verify the 2001 elections. Therefore the government of Uganda invested $22 million on equipment, consultancy services and operations.

However, things went wrong at the early stages of the project, particularly during the bidding and delivery of equipment. This led to a strong public outcry about the transparency of the process. The public outcry came from stakeholders such as civil societies groups and the opposition political parties. Ugandan EC ignored these criticisms. And a s result a number of court cases between government and opposition groups, on one hand, and Ugandan EC and some companies, on the other hand (as it has already started in Ghana) were filed.

Despite these acrimonies Ugandan EC ignored the criticisms and proceeded to implement the project. The photographing took place for a very short period of time and many people were not captured by the system. Moreover, when the sample voters’ registers were produced by the system, they were erroneous, with some photographs not corresponding with names of voters. Not only was the system not immediately used in 2001 elections but also in 2006 elections. To make matters worse, the equipment became obsolete and the system was abandoned after the 2006 elections. The project was a complete failure and waste of resources, as it was never used.

The Ugandan e-voting system failed because the legitimate concerns raised by the interest groups were not addressed by the EC of Uganda. The Electoral Commission of Ghana must therefore take a cue from the Ugandan experience and corrects their acts.

The Centre for Open ICT Policy Analysis offers the following policy recommendations: In the first place, the EC of Ghana must not limit or reduce the life span of this project in order to meet the 2012 election deadline. Otherwise, Ghana may

be infected with Ugandan virus. The Ugandan EC started the project in 2000 and hurriedly wanted to use it for the 2001 elections. EC Ghana must move incrementally – or through what is called “Big bang” approach – because suddenly introducing a new technology and process into our environment is quite likely to fail.

Full Article: Lessons from the foiled Ugandan e-voting system — ModernGhana.com….

Sep 14, 2011 12:04 am

Canada: Nanaimo Council pushes for online voting in British Columbia | canada.com

Nanaimo council members will push for online voting when representatives from B.C. communities meet later this month to discuss provincial policy issues.

Three communities have aggressively lobbied for online voting. Coquitlam, North Vancouver City and Fort St. John have all urged the Union of B.C. Municipalities to take the issue to the provincial government. Minister of Communities Ida Chong said the B.C. Elections Act has to change to allow Internet voting.

Privacy concerns remain the largest fear against the new format, whether it be at the local, provincial or federal level. Some communities in other provinces have successfully adopted online voting, but larger scale elections are much more difficult, according to industry experts.

Nanaimo supported Vancouver’s push to try a new system in the November civic election, but the lack of support from the provincial government put an end to that.

Full Article: Council pushes for online voting in B.C.

Sep 13, 2011 07:10 am

Maine: People’s veto of same-day voter registration ban will be Question 1 in November | Bangor Daily News

Maine’s secretary of state has certified enough petition signatures to ensure a statewide people’s veto referendum in November that asks voters to support or reject a new law banning Election Day voter registration.

Charlie Summers made the announcement late Thursday afternoon, exactly 30 days after Protect Maine Votes, a coalition of progressive advocacy groups, submitted more than 80,000 signatures for consideration.

About 70,000 of those signatures were validated, well above the 57,277 required of the campaign by state law. “More than a thousand volunteers worked tirelessly to protect a system that has worked well for more than 38 years,” said Mark Gray, campaign manager for Protect Maine Votes. “There’s no reason to change it.”

Per state law, the people’s veto question will be listed first on the ballot, and it will read: “Do you want to reject the section of Chapter 399 of the Public Laws of 2011 that requires new voters to register to vote at least two business days prior to an election?”

In June, the Republican-controlled House and Senate voted largely along party lines to pass LD 1376, An Act To Preserve the Integrity of the Voter Registration and Election Process. Supporters said the aim was to improve the voting process and alleviate stress on municipal election clerks, although some, including Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster, said it would reduce voter fraud.

Supporters of same-day voter registration, however, said voter fraud is not a problem and the 38-year-old law allowing Election Day registration simply makes it easier for Mainers to vote.

“During this tough economy, a lot of people in Maine have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet,” said Barbara McDade, president of the League of Women Voters of Maine, one of the coalition members. “Election Day registration makes it possible for many hardworking Mainers to participate. Voting is fundamental to our democracy. We shouldn’t create new ways to make participation harder.”

Full Article: People’s veto of same-day voter registration ban will be Question 1 in November — Maine Politics — Bangor Daily News.

Sep 12, 2011 10:07 am

Blogs: Mahoning County’s Voting Machine Switch and the Growing Buyer’s Market in Voting Technology | PEEA

Mahoning County, OH (Youngstown) recently announced that it will be switching to optical scan voting machines for the November 2012 general election. The decision means County voters will no longer rely on touchscreen machines as the primary method of casting ballots, as they have since they were purchased in 2002.

The Mahoning story is a perfect example how the market for voting technology has changed in the years since passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), enacted by Congress in 2002 in response to the controversial 2000 Presidential election.

HAVA authorized almost $4 billion in federal funds for election improvements at the state and local level — much of which were earmarked for voting machine upgrades. Those funds — and the various mandates included in HAVA — made election offices motivated buyers and created a huge sellers’ market as vendors rushed to help states and localities spend their newfound dollars. In this environment Mahoning County’s $2.95 million purchase of 1100 touchscreen machines was typical.

After concerns about touchscreen machines — triggered, in part, by a controversial fundraising letterwritten by one company’s CEO — led to a call for such machines to produce a verifiable paper trail, many states imposed such requirements. Such a law in Ohio meant Mahoning spent over $864,000 to retrofit their machines in 2006.

Over time, however, many localities struggled with their machines’ usability — and Mahoning was no exception, as it had numerous issues with machine calibration, startup and shutdown in 2004. The machines often also proved to be less durable than expected; by 2011 Mahoning found that 200 of its original 1100 machines were no longer working.

Moreover, the readily-available money in 2002 to purchase the machines is long gone; Congress never fully funded HAVA and state and local funds that might have filled the gap evaporated in the wake of the national economic downturn.

This state of affairs — aging technology combined with tight to nonexistent fiscal resources — has changed voting technology into a buyer’s market. Faced with spending money they don’t have on machines they didn’t think they’d need, states and localities are kicking the tires and demanding a level of cost-effectiveness and performance they never would have considered a decade ago.

Full Article: Mahoning County’s Voting Machine Switch and the Growing Buyer’s Market in Voting Technology — Program for Excellence in Election Administration.

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