Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D. Presentation for the Open Rights Group at University College,

Electronic Voting:A Challenge to

Democracy?Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.

www.notablesoftware.com

Presentation for the Open Rights Groupat University College, London

February 2007

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy?

Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuriwww.notablesoftware.com

USA 2006-7: Where Are We Now?

Florida

Ohio



Voter Verified Paper Ballots 2/3 of US states require or will use VVPBs in 2008!

Originally proposed in order to provide an independent auditing mechanism for the electronic voting systems

Computers are not necessary – can be prepared by hand or with assistive devices

Voter checks the ballot for correctness (verifies) before depositing into the ballot box

The paper record is the official vote All ballots should be publicly counted

(and they said it would never happen....)



Vendors have deliberately designed VVPATs to FAIL

Reel-to-Reel vs. Cut & Drop

Flimsy thermal paper Easily damaged Doesn’t flag poll

workers (or voters!) when paper runs out or jams

No recount method provided



VVPAT Colostomy Bag (Sequoia model circa 2006)



Ballot Box Transparency

USA Nigeria



The Help America Vote Act HAVA did not require States to computerize voting.

Scare tactics used by USDoJ, vendors, lobbyists. Voting systems bought with HAVA money were not required

to be compliant with the new standards. There are NO systems certified to HAVA standards because these

were (deliberately?) delayed. Equipment designed to HAVA standards will not be available until

after all of the $3.8B of HAVA funds are spent. Certification performed secretly on sample machines -- no

confirmation that the ones bought are the same or are functioning properly (and many are not).

Vendors have used the excuse of “losing certification” to avoid fixing known problems with voting machines.

No federal process for decertification of defective systems. All of this has been told (repeatedly) to election officials.



Other Standards Issues The US standard was supposed to address voting equipment

performance, but instead perpetuates legacy voting system designs and metaphors.

Current and new standards fail to adequately mitigate many known insider risks and allow exposure to outsider risks.

Numerous topics continue to be marginalized, ignored or stonewalled: Security Auditability Reliability Accuracy Inspection/Certification Best Practices and Procedures



Accuracy -- Facts Every vote does NOT count! Undervote rate far exceeds

manufacturers stated “error rates”

Research is needed to develop appropriate methods for determining accuracy of election equipment

Testing is performed on pristine data sets under controlled conditions and does not reflect real voting environment

Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of 163 hours translates to a 9% chance of equipment breakdown (observable or not) in a 15-hour voting session

Denial of Service =High Tech

Disenfranchisement



Voting machines are Serial Processors -- long lines can result

First women voting in New Zealand election (1899)



Parallel Processing (on paper)

Australia (2001)

Cost effectiveEasy to understandIndependently recountableNot limited by number of machinesDenial of service cannot occur from equipment malfunctionSame ballots used by all votersCan be made disabled accessible



In the USA, Paper* remains the most common voting method

Voting Systems by U.S. County <http://www.electiondataservices.com>

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1980 1992 2000 2004

MixedFully ElectronicLever MachinesPaper

* Paper includes: optically scanned, punch card, and manually counted.



Tactile Ballots & Ballot Templates Allow visually impaired or

illiterate citizens to vote privately at the precinct or at home

Approved by the United Nations and used by the State of Rhode Island and also by various democratic countries

Stymies certification (?!)<www.aceproject.org><www.electionaccess.org/Bp/Ballot_Templates.htm>



Rebecca’s Ubiquitous Balloting System (RUBS) One blank ballot form is

used in all locations for all elections

Candidates associated with numbers

Blank ballots are available everywhere

Ballots are controlled when cast



Why Hand Counts Are Necessary Electronic vote tallying systems can be deliberately or

accidentally misprogrammed or miscalibrated.

Standards allow for the occurrence of equipment errors and malfunctions that could affect election outcomes.

Testing does not necessarily reflect actual balloting conditions or exercise all possible ballot selection combinations.

Checks and balances enable transparency and enhance confidence and trust in the election process.



Barcode Assisted Counting Printed on the ballot at the time

of scanning (or generation) Voter can use wand to visually

confirm or hear audio readout “Seals” the ballot to prevent and

discourage removal or alteration Ballot is not encrypted – but it

can be digitally signed Anonymity and inability to

demonstrate proof of vote can be maintained



Why Barcodes? Long history of successful use in many applications

1948 Drexel Institute -- Bernard Silver, Norman Woodland Speed

Wanding is 6x faster than keyboarding Accuracy and Data Integrity

<1 error in every 3.4M characters exceeds HAVA standards Ease of Use

Operators can be trained in 15 minutes Ubiquitous Implementation

Coding is publicly available and non-proprietary Encourages independent auditing

Cost Effective Wands cost under $100



Public Counting & Toteboards



Open Source

…can NOT provide sufficient verification and validation assurances.

“You can’t trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.”

-- Ken Thompson, 1984

Code Transparency Trust

but Ballot Box Transparency can INCREASE Trust



Internet Voting

…is inherently flawed because the transport medium is insecure (spoofing, monitoring, denial of service, etc., are difficult to prevent) and it is not transparent or necessarily subject to local or regional laws.

“A secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers.”

-- Bruce Schneier



But there is more at stake than just elections....



For More Information...

Rebecca Mercuri

[email protected]

www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D. Presentation for the Open Rights Group at University College,

Documents

voting technologywww

voting machines

vendors dont

voting equipment performance

legacy voting system

hava standards

new standards

hava money