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E-Voting Expert Testifies
Christopher Soghoian writes "Johns Hopkins University professor Dr. Avi Rubin (of previous e-voting fame) yesterday testified before the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee.
An article in the Baltimore Sun describes his testimony, as well as that of the director of the state elections board, Linda Lamone. Mrs. Lamone was highly critical of Dr Rubin's testimony, stating that he was doing 'a great disservice to democracy. They're telling the public: Don't trust them, don't trust the voting equipment.'
This begs the question: Is it better for security researchers to avoid publicly criticizing e-voting flaws? Is public faith in the system more important than overall system security?"
If you aren't up to date on the controversy over so called "black box voting" here's just a few recent articles to give you a flavor about what is being said in the media:
.html?tw=wn_tophead_5
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61068, 00
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?story ID =3529556&thesection=news&thesubsection=wor ld
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,61045,00. ht ml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1397-2 00 3Nov5?language=printer
Why there is no need to rush
The state deadline for HAVA compliance is over two years off, the planned system wont meet expected new federal requirements (sponsored by Tom Udall and 61 other congressmen), and better, equivalently priced, systems will be available in the forseable future. Finally, the federal law and state law requires voting machines to be FEC and NIST standards compliant; these standards have not yet been set for touch screens.
STATE DEADLINE IS OVER TWO YEARS AWAY
First, some comments by the clerks office indicate a belief that Los Alamos must have touch screen systems in place for the 2004 vote. Recent information contradicts this deadline. In fact, the N.M. Secretary of States draft plan for implementation of the HAVA act, calls for a goal of January 1 2006, for placement of one touch screen DRE in every polling place. (http://www.sos.state.nm.us/Election/HAVA/HAVA03.h tm )
NEW FEDERAL LEGISLATION MAY DISQUALIFY PLANNED SEQUOIA SYSTEM
Second, federal legislation currently in committee would disqualify the proposed Sequoia voting systems equipment. In may 2003, our representative Tom Udall co-sponsored H.R. 2239, to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a voter-verified hardcopy, also know as The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003. This bill requires DRE systems to produce a voter verifiable hardcopy and the software to be fully disclosed to anyone (i.e. open source). The Sequoia system meets neither of these requirements at present (however, the next generation of Sequoia systems may possibly be able to meet this requirement.) http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
This bill has 61 co-sponsors: even if this bill fails to pass this session, the strength of this overwhelming endorsement ought to indicate to the council that Voter verifiable hardcopies and open source software are extremely desirable characteristics. Indeed this is so important that the country of Brazil, which has 400,000 electronic voting machines has decide to replace them with voter verifiable systems.
(see http://www.notablesoftware.com/Papers/BtF.html ) Australia, New Zeland, and Canada require open-source voting systems.
VASTLY BETTER TOUCH SCREEN SYSTEMS AVAILABLE AT NO ADDITONAL COST
Third, already three manufacturers offer touch screen systems, which provide paper voter verifiable records of vote and some offer software disclosure. The Avante Vote-Trakker, Accupol, and Advanced Voting Systems (Hewlet Packard) all print voter verifiable ballots. The "big three" touch screen makers ( ES&S, Diebold, Sequoia) all have prototypes that produce voter verifiable paper records that should be certified in the near future. (http://verifiedvoting.org) Finally, Vogue Election Systems, offers an alternative to touch screen systems: a HAVA compliant device that assists handicapped voters to independently mark a conventional optical scan ballot. (http://www.vogueelection.com/ )
These newer systems are not expected to be more costly that the current non-voter-verifiable systems. After pressure by California's Santa Clara county (19 million dollar contract), Sequoia voting system has agreed to implement (at no added cost) a voter verified, recountable, paper ballot addition to the touch
screen system. http://www.verifiedvoting.org/states/ca/ca-scco.as p
OTHER UNCERTAINTIE
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
In a world that has been shown to have people willing to cheat, the only way to have trust in any system is to have openness. Show me what you've got, don't expect me to believe somebody or thing I don't even know. Show me how it works. Let me take it to my experts, and have them check it for me.
I favor the paper ballot, as used here in Wisconsin. Here each voting station is just a small folding table with a curtain, and a magic marker. (Very cheap per station, never goes down, never needs a reboot.) You vote by completing a broken arrow to your choice with the magic marker. The ballot is verified by a testing box on the way out. If the ballot is readable, then it is accepted into a bin for later counting. If it is improperly marked, for example double voting for an office, it beeps and spits it back at you. You get a fresh ballot, and you can try again. The ballots can then be machine counted with knowledge that they will count right, and if human review is desired, you can manually go back through the ballots at any time. Cheep, effective, and reliable.
If all this is depressing you, check out Flak for a lift.