Here is a list of amusing security maxims from the website of  Argonne National Lab's Nuclear Engineering Division. These are tongue in cheek, but bear much truth.  See how many you think apply directly to election security. 

A special favorite:  Mr. Spock Maxim: The effectiveness of a security device, system, or program is inversely proportional to how angry or upset people get about
the idea that there might be vulnerabilities.

We've come a long ways in 5 years of e-voting activism, but still have more work to do. The Brennan Center, Common Cause and Verified Voting Foundation today issued a 50 state report card today grading states on their preparedness for the November election. States were graded by four criteria: procedures for issuing emergency paper ballots, reconciling ballot tallies, providing paper records of votes cast, and post-election audits.

I am proud to say that North Carolina ranked in the "most prepared" in all four categories, and partly because of an improvement this week in post election audit procedures. The owner of this website, David Allen, deserves high praise and thanks for North Carolina's  high grade because he actually wrote parts of NC's Public Confidence in Elections Law, which has improved our elections so much. So, thank you David. 

Here's the press release and I recommend you click on the link to the report, it provides details and maps of states color coded by their grade of readiness

Disaster averted.  West Virginia  found an error in how their machines counted certain straight ticket voting choices just in time to correct it. 

Tuesday October 14, 2008 Day before early voting, glitch found with machines 

...County Commission President Kent Carper said the problem is in the section for Supreme Court candidates.

If a person votes a straight party ticket, then deviates from the party in the Supreme Court section, the machine still counts the vote as a full straight ticket, Carper said...

Commissioner Dave Hardy said that the pre-election testing did its job:

"The system worked," Hardy said. "We did the test, it was timely reviewed by the Secretary of State's office and they identified the problem and we're fixing the problem."...

Straight ticket voting complicates elections around the country. The risk of increased miscounts is greater.  The failure of voters to follow states' specialized instructions can result in huge undervotes. 

Both North Carolina and South Carolina historically suffer unusually high undervotes in presidential elections because, by state law, voters who mark the "straight-party-ticket voting" option must also vote separately for president. Every four years, tens of thousands of voters in both states apparently forget to do this.

A simple mistake can flip the results of the election.  It all has to do with the way the ballots are set up for the computers that count them. Its all about checks and balances, and having the public come to pre-election testing to make sure many different ballot styles are tested.  Now that we are past that point in many states, we will have to rely upon voter education (for instructions), for activists to check polling place results against reported results, and for post election audits.  Just get involved and learn what your state does.

Will your vote count in 2008?  Find out by listening in on the conference call with some of the top national experts on the US voting issues.  Thursday, October 16,  at 12 PM eastern you can dial in and join the conference call lead by Lawrence Norden, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, Susannah Goodman, Common Cause, director of election reform and Pamela Smith, Verified Voting Foundation, President.

# Watchdogs Ask: Is America Ready to Vote?
Last update: 2:23 p.m. EDT Oct. 14, 2008

WASHINGTON, Oct 14, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Report
Assesses 50 States on Ability to Address Voting Machine Problems on
Election Day

With millions of Americans expected to confront an array of voting
technologies on Nov. 4, election experts from the Brennan Center for
Justice, Common Cause and Verified Voting will release on Thursday a
50-state report card that grades every state on its preparedness to
respond to Election Day voting system problems like broken machines,
software malfunctions, or long lines that result from voting equipment
breakdowns or misallocation of machines.

As the authors will explain in a conference call on Thursday, October
16, 2008 at 12PM EDT, some states still have not adopted laws and
procedures to effectively address an election system meltdown, even as
the country has invested billions of dollars to improve its voting
technology.

The good news. San Francisco gets to use their new voting machines. Results should be fairly quick. The San Francisco Department of Elections received good news Tuesday: Secretary of State Debra Bowen approved its optical scan voting machines for ranked-choice races in next month's election.

The really really bad news. San Francisco should NOT use their new voting machines.  Results may be quicker than counting by hand, but there is reason to believe the results can't be trusted.

John Gideon, Co Director of Voters Unite delivers the bad news, (which is actually admitted in the Secretary of State's report):

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/sequoia/system40/2008-10-14_system40_approval.pdf

The approval is only for San Francisco in November. The report also says
that a Source Code Review found that previously reported security
architecture issues remain issues in version 4.0. They also found no
effective mechanism to protect the integrity of data transferred between
components and a potential vulnerability for SQL injection attacks, and
a user can exploit a system weakness to gain access to the database
without going through WinEDS. They found several other vulnerabilities.

Item #25 on Page 8 is especially puzzling. "By order of the Secretary of
State, voting systems approved for use in California shall comply with
all applicable state and federal requirements, including, but not
limited to, those voting system requirements as set forth in the
California Elections Code and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and
those requirements incorporated by reference in the Help America Vote
Act of 2002. Further voting systems shall also comply with all state and
federal voting system guidelines, standards, regulations and requirement
that derive authority from or are promulgated pursuant to and in
furtherance of the California Elections Code and the Help American Vote
Act of 2002 or other applicable state or federal law when appropriate."

The Sequoia System 4.0 cannot be certified as meeting the above
requirements. Testing at the federal level had not even started as of
May 19. In fact they were still preparing the test plan at that time.

HAVA requires accessibility yet the state has waived that by allowing it
not to be tested. HAVA requires accuracy yet the state has ignored that
requirement by ignoring the fact that iBeta has not yet tested for
accuracy of the system.

Since May when the state of Washington began testing for provisional
certification the system version has changed from WinEDS 4.0.108 to
4.0.116 and this, again, is without a majority of testing taking place.
How many more version changes are going to be made before Nov. 4?
--
John Gideon
Co-Executive Director
VotersUnite.Org
www.votersunite.org

So, San Franciscans, still happy about those voting machines?

Recent reports of problems (serious ones) with Sequoia machines

October 3. 2008 NJ Judge Suppresses Report on Voting Machines' Security New Jersey Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberge has prohibited the scheduled release of a report on the security and accuracy of the Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machine.

October 2. 2008 Test Shows Palm Beach Voting Machines Not Accurate! Tests run yesterday in Palm Beach County Florida show there is a real problem with their voting machines.  The optical scan machines, made by Sequoia, can't count the same ballots the same way two times in a row!

September 22. 2008 New York. Sequoia's Sinking Ship - voting machines still not certified Even Sequoia's disabled accessible optical scanner is easily hacked - the old fashioned way by physical stuffing through a gap in the ballot box. On August 18, Rady Ananda showed how you could stuff the Sequoia optical scanners like a Thanksgiving turkey.

September 14. 2008 Pierce County Instant Runoff Voting System has new bug, says WA SOS - may affect San Francisco This email from the Secretary of State of Washington outlines another bug in the new IRV voting system for Pierce County. It affects "rank choice voting" (IRV/Instant Runoff) only.

The Connecticut Secretary of State requested that the UConn VoTeR Center perform a pre-election audit of the memory cards for the Diebold Accu-Vote Optical Scan tabulators used in the August 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections

The audit found that of 185 Diebold voter cards, 175 were found to be properly programmed, the rest contained junk data.  The machines are supposed to be able to detect this, so supposedly the cards could not be used in an election.  5.4% is a high failure rate when trying to prevent chaos on election day.  The cards were shipped to UConn directly from the vendor, LHS.

This failure rate doesn't surprise me at all. Just look at Voters Unite's llong laundry list of problems with Diebold (that we know about) over the past several years.  Standards for voting vendors are terribly low, they've been given a free pass for too long. 

Several online sites are assisting voters by helping them complete their voter registration forms, even down to giving the voters the address to send them in to after printing. The problem - these sites got their information from the EAC, the United States Federal Elections Assistance Commission. And the EAC got it wrong.

Under "where to mail voter registration form" the EAC indicates the states' elections office, when in most states, the registration form needs to be sent to the voters' County Board of Elections.  Many states' deadline to register has already passed. 

From Facing South.  Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Voting Rights Watch: Online registration sites give wrong information for 37 states

In the rush to help new voters register this year, it seems that the McCain and Obama campaigns, as well as at least one other group aimed at young voters -- Rock the Vote -- have been giving out the wrong voter registration information.

What's more, the bad instructions came from the United States Election Commission website -- and voters in 37 states could be affected.

...But the US Election Commission website, on which the others are based, gives the state secretary of state's office or equivalent -- at odds with the proper instructions in 37 states.

According to the HuffPost, states with the wrong information include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. Voter registration has ended in 19 of those states.

For an example of what could happen, there's Louisiana:

In Louisiana, the Secretary of State's Web site and literature specifically warns against sending the forms there, in underlined letters. It directs that they be sent to the parish (county) registrar.

A Louisiana Secretary of State employee said the forms addressed there would be forwarded to the proper registrar, but there was no guarantee they would get there in time to be processed for the presidential election.

But Obama campaign representatives in Louisiana, who realized the error this week, said they planned to contact the office, hoping to assure that incorrectly addressed forms were released to the proper registrar's offices in time.

BIG hat tip to Facing South, known for their investigative reporting.  Book mark their site and check for their next work.

We hope that state election officials will get these registration forms delivered to the appropriate county offices, but some forms surely won't make it in time.

John Gideon has been putting out a newsletter of voting machine and election problems for nearly 5 years now. Thanks to John's daily news, many of us from different states learned that we shared similar problems with faulty voting machines and irresponsible voting vendors.  Thanks to John's daily news - activists from different states began to find and share solutions, and ways to create solutions.  Together we face the 2008 election, and wonder if our work has made any difference, or enough of a difference, and whether our votes will count.  Today John gives an overview of what he has seen: 

For those of you who don't subscribe to "Daily Voting News" below

is my rant for today:

 

I'm 61 years old. I've been doing this work full-time for nearly the

last five years. I long for the days, before I learned so much, when I

was ignorant about dirty tricks, phony voter fraud accusations, voter

list purges, voter suppression, poorly designed and inaccurate voting

machines, absentee paper ballots that have the voters political party on

the mail-in envelope (Yes, Broward Co Florida does that and strips

privacy away from the voters and state law allows them to do it), long

lines at the polls, and every other attempt to keep voters from voting

and votes from being counted accurately, if at all. It was kinda nice

not knowing about all of those issues. Oh, maybe someone would bring up

the old story about ballot boxes floating in the bay. What bay was that?

San Francisco? Lake Michigan off of Chicago? The Hudson River? The

location seems to have changed with the person telling the story. It was

nice thinking our democracy actually worked the way our founding fathers

envisioned it would. It was nice thinking that, no matter for whom I

voted, the majority voice was heard. Now, it just feels dirty and

somewhat depressing. I know way too much. It was nice being ignorant.

--

John Gideon

Co-Executive Director

VotersUnite.Org

www.votersunite.org

Rumor control. New York Times article misleading.  The NY Times yesterday ran a thinly researched article on voter purges in several states including North Carolina, “States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal” (10/08/08) . It uses lots of vague talk like “seems,” “appears,” or “may have . . .,” without much elaboration or direct reporting.  The NY Times reporter did not cite comments from any North Carolina election officials or any local advocacy groups.

The NY Times reporter even seems to clear North Carolina in his response to my email asking what was going on. Read it here:

From: Ian Urbina

To: joyce mccloy

Subject: RE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

Date: Oct 9, 2008 9:03 AM

From what we can see in the data, NC does not seem to have any major red
flags. Best we can tell, it looks like the number of people coming off the
rolls would roughly correspond with the number of people leaving the state
or dying during that period (both of which are legitimate reasons to remove
people within 90 days before an election).

Ian

-----Original Message-----
From: joyce mccloy
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 8:54 AM
To: URBINA
Subject: FW:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1&ref=politic
s&oref=slogin

Here a North Carolina reporter does some investigating, makes some phone calls, and the story is much different: 

Times story on voter databases called 'very misleading'  Thursday, October 9  By Mark Binker  Staff Writer

Oops. He told ya wrong! The Larimer County elections dept has been giving voters the wrong information about postage costs to mail in their ballots. The head elections official, Scott Doyle says he is working with the post office to try to prevent ballots from being returned to sender.

Mail-in ballot postage cost 59 cents, not 42 cents

Return to sender

...“It has come to my attention this morning (Oct. 6) that the calculations determining the postage for returning a mail-in ballot by mail to our office were incorrect,” said Doyle. “In fact, the postage for returning a mail-in ballot is 59 cents, rather than the 42 cents stated in our earlier press release.

...This early catch also allows us to work with the post office prior to their receiving any returned ballots, to ensure all ballots are delivered to our office properly.”

...“I regret any inconvenience this may have caused Larimer County voters.” Larimer County Colorado Elections Clerk Scott Doyle on putting wrong postage advisory on absentee ballots.

Ohio-duh steals Flori-duh's Butterfly Ballot Design.  Ohio may go down in history this November when 12 counties use a butterfly ballot.  The design is hauntingly similar to the one that made Florida notorious in November 2000.  Recently the Brennan Center for Justice urged Ohio election officials to redesign a ballot planned for 12 counties. The problem - the design is a modern day butterfly ballot, splitting the presidential contest over two columns on their paper ballots for this November's election. The difference between the Ohio butterfly ballot and the Florida butterfly ballot is that Ohio is using optical scanners, and Florida was using punch card. I guess this proves that there is more than one way to spoil an election.

Potential Ballot Trouble In OH: Split Contests

By Lawrence Norden – 10/01/08

By our count, at least twelve Ohio counties have split the presidential contest over two columns on their paper ballots for this November's election. This "column split" often confuses voters and results in double voting in the presidential race — and an uncounted vote. Today the Brennan Center urged election officials and advocates in Ohio to make sure that voters are aware of the split, and to make sure they vote only once for president. Unfortunately, the design meets legal guidelines and a directive issued by the Secretary of State.

The twelve Ohio counties whose ballots spilt the presidential race over two columns are: Ashtabula, Athens, Auglaize, Champaign, Delaware, Lawrence, Logan, Madison, Ottawa, Seneca, Shelby, and Wyandot.

A picture of the butterfly ballot and some further comments after the jump

Marybeth Kuznik, Executive Director of VotePA warns "Plan On Long Lines In Bucks Co, PA". In her testimony to PA lawmakers, she warned that officials that state there  will not be enough voting machines in counties using paperless computerized machines. The state is basing its estimates on the use of lever machines, instead of considering the fact that it takes much longer vote on computerized machines.  The Intelligencer backs this up in an article today.  

Is Bucks County more concerned about their own convenience and budget, instead of making sure that all voters can cast a ballot?  Bucks County did not purchase enough machines, probably because they chose the  more expensive electronic machines. Buck's electronic machines cost from 5-10 times more optical scanners.    Bucks County's Election Director Deena Deen isn't sure how many machines Bucks County will need in November, but thinks the county would need 808 machines. The county currently has 765. But the state Elections Commissioner Chet Harhut recommended that counties using  like Bucks that use the Danaher electronic machines should have one machine per 350 voters. Deen plans  to allocate half as many machines as that in most cases.

According to today's Philadelphia Intellgencier:

Dean said polling places with 1,400 or fewer voters need two machines, 1,401 to 1,900 voters mean three machines and more than 1,900 voters require four machines.

Marybeth Kuznik, Executive Director of VotePA issues a dire warning about circumstance on the ground in PA:

"Plan On Long Lines In Bucks Co, PA". 

Yes, we are expecting long lines in a lot of places in Pennsylvania next month. With fifty of our most populous counties are using DREs (all without VVPAT, btw) and with many of these counties having purchased machines based on an excessively high recommended voter-to-machine ratio,  we know this will happen. My own county, Westmoreland (suburban Pittsburgh) is likely to be one place this will occur, but there are many more counties that will probably be affected.

New Jersey Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberge has prohibited the scheduled release of a report on the security and accuracy of the Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machine. These are "direct record electronic" machines used in most  New Jersey voting locations.  They do not have a paper ballot or "paper trail" to use to check the machine count. The  examination and subsequent report by computer scientists is our chance to find get to the root of the problems with the Sequoia machines and software.   

Judge Suppresses Report on Voting Machine Security By Andrew Appel - Posted on October 2nd, 2008

...The question of whether this report can legally be suppressed was already argued once in this Court, in June 2008, and the Court concluded then that it should be released; I will discuss this below. But as a matter of basic policy--of running a democracy--the public and legislators who want to know the basic facts about the reliability of their elections need to be able to read reports such as this one. Members of the New Jersey Legislature--who need to act now because the NJ Secretary of State is not in compliance with laws the legislature passed in 2005--have asked to read this report, but they are precluded by the Court's order. Members of the public must decide now, in time to request an absentee ballot, whether to cast their ballot by absentee (counted by optical scan) or to vote on paperless DRE voting machines. Citizens also need information so that they can communicate to their legislators their opinions about how New Jersey should conduct elections. Even the Governor and the Secretary of State of New Jersey are not permitted, by the Court's order, to read this report in order to inform their policy making.

What can New Jersey Voters do?  Request an absentee ballot:

From http://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/absentee_doe.html:

In New Jersey, any voter can now vote by Absentee Ballot for any election. You do not need a reason to vote by Absentee Ballot. Don't feel like going to the polls? Simply vote by mail. Now there is "no excuse" not to vote!

A voter may apply for an absentee ballot by completing an Absentee Ballot Application (see below) and mailing the application to their County Clerk by mail up to 7 days prior to the election. A voter may also apply in person to the County Clerk until 3:00 p.m., the day before the election. The County Clerk cannot accept faxed copies of an Absentee Ballot Application since an original signature is required.

Absentee Ballot Application (24k pdf)

The AVC Advantage (as used in New Jersey) even has a built in ballot stuffing feature (you can press a button on the back of the machine to allow you to cast more votes.)  Computer Scientist Andrew Appel has had unfettered access to these machines before, when he purchased some off of the internet, originating from Buncombe County North Carolina.  Even Sequoia's paper ballot based optical scan machines have trouble counting votes.  Perhaps the problems with Sequoia's voting machines is in the basic core of the design that the only solution is to ditch them and start fresh.  There are already many reported problems with the WinEDS software that tabulates the votes from both the electronic and the optical scan machines. 

Sequoia optical scan voting machines in Washington DC, Palm Beach County Florida, and Pierce County Washington have been in the news recently:

Earlier this month, (Washington) "DC's machines somehow managed to inflate the vote totals in some races by more than 100 percent, making up thousands of write-in votes and adding thousands of votes to the totals of candidates on the ballot." according to Government Computer News.

Thursday, October 2. 2008 Test Shows Palm Beach Voting Machines Not Accurate!

September 14. 2008 Pierce County Instant Runoff Voting System has new bug, says WA SOS - may affect San Francisco 

July 9, 2008 Instant runoff update for San Francisco: federal agency unlikely to certify any voting systems before November

June 27, 2008 Instant runoff forces Pierce County Washington to use uncertified voting systems

September 24. 2008 Palm Beach Election Nightmare Finally Over After 7th Recount