Electronic Voting Reform: what's our platform?

With an issue as complex as this one, there is a compelling need for a clear, easy to explain position to articulate. If it wasn't for Bev's patient explanations, I'd be as clueless as most of America of this subject.

Here's what I see as the specific reforms to push for, and why:

1) Open-source DRE election system source code. Rather than having potential vulnerabilities discovered by accident or by malevolent figures who will always be a step ahead of any one corporations' research and development, the only solution for ensuring the integrity of an electronic voting process and the veracity of such a system's reported results is software that can be reviewed and scrutinized entirely in the public domain. This approach would not damage the marketability of election systems hardware—it would have the effect of standardizing that hardware. Further, security is not compromised by the software being in the public domain. Some of the most sophisticated software encryption in the world today is based upon code and algorithms which are available to anyone. In a truly open review process the software could be vetted better than any commercial process; and its trustworthiness could be assured.

2) A voter-verifiable paper audit trail of election results. Given that the first objective (open source) would do a great deal to satisfy concerns over the reliability and trustworthiness of election returns using computerized systems, some question the need for this step. The nightmare of the miscounting of paper votes in 2000 is a valid specter to raise. Yet any fraud which may despite all efforts occur in a fully paperless system would, if it succeeded, be unprovable. There must be a method for ensuring that in the case of complete failure (or even compromise) of electronic voting systems, the intent of the voters can accurately be determined.

These are the two big points I see. What else is critical to this?

Use "touch-screen machines" to generate a voter-verifiable paper ballot. The voter puts that piece of paper in the ballot box (or optical scanner). Better yet, let the majority of your voters fill out their (optical-scannable) ballots the way they always have: with a pencil.

Shitty DRE software doesn't even enter into the equation, because the machine that helps you CAST the vote doesn't COUNT the vote.

End of story.

:dem:

Go here for a way to help:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=75525&mesg_id=75525&page=

Because you also have to have laws that REQUIRE paper be compared to the electronic versions.

That piece of paper is worthless if we don't force (at a minimum) random audits comparing the 2 sets of data.

In addition, open source takes the money drive out of the equation. The manufacturers can still make money on the hardware, but when you add in the software development, you open a door to corruption. Open source is the only way to create confidence in an electronic system.

3) STATE college Computer Science Departments should certify the code in EVERY STATE. Screw these "corporate certifiers" who hide behind a wall and refuse to speak to the press or voters. Pay the college Computer Science Department those fees for certification and help keep our CS courses the best in the world.

Who would know each state's certification requirements better?

If one state refused certification and another didn't, questions could be asked.

Certification IS a state requirement. Allow our colleges to perform it and take the corporate piracy out of the equation.

make the certification of an election system part of every compsci undergrad's core curriculum. i'll plank that as #3, any day.

righteous path. I'm thinking of some of the alumni influence in Texas.

the more checks and balances the better, and the best way is for every citizen who wants to see it be able to.

If they're looking at the same source code in Louisiana and Texas, and LA certifies and Texas doesn't something's up there.

If "republican" states are the only ones certifying, or "democratic" states, questions arise......

if there's any system that cries out for PD-based standardization, it's electronic voting systems. then tom delay can do what he likes.

and away goes the fictional republican majority! ooo, did i say that?

I'm just ever mindful of the long tentacles of the opposition. :)
So open code and independent verification would help keep us on the up and up? I'm for whatever it takes for fair elections. Been doing the happy dance all day for all the news stories breaking!!! :)

Well deserved toast to Bev and everyone that's helped. :toast:

but maybe the geeks will save us on this one. i'll never condone the wedgie-ing of one again.

sounds obvious, but if they aren't allowed to do it with optical scans, it won't help to have paper with touch screens either.

"Robust audit" = automatic random 1 percent spot check PLUS each party gets to select 2-3 precincts per county for an audit (that way they can audit anything that looks suspicious) plus automatically triggered audits for anomalies (like everyone getting 18181, or six machines in a row voting a landslide for the Communist Worker's Party.)

1) paper trail
2) Robust audits
3) Open source
and
4) Immediate moratorium on voting using electronic machines until 1) 2) and 3) are in place.

Bev

paper generated verification should be easily scannable, scan hardware (itself utilizing open software) in place in every county, automatic, routine audit comparisons of paper and database results.

and as for #4, wow. totally, as soon as i can get my head around the implications...

If you specify that the generated voter-verified paper ballots (the paper trail) is your master record, then the software that needs to be audited is that of the machine that reads/counts the paper ballots.

Then if the new touch-screen machine is a POS, you'll have upset individual voters (shouting "teacher, my ballot didn't print right! :)), but you won't corrupt the counted vote, since the voter either can try again on the POS touch-screen machine or can fill out a ballot the old-fashioned way.

If your optical scanners are a POS, you'll have an upset electorate, but if you enforce an audit requirement (per Rush's bill), you'll find the error and then you can fix it or you can count all the ballots by hand.

on edit: Yup, angka and I are in agreement... :)

:dem:

Of course! The paper ballot MUST be the master record. It's so obvious, but I honestly can't recall anyone ever actually stating it. The voter-verified paper ballot is the gold standard and nothing else.

oh my!! :eyes:

spread the word on the paper "master record"

Everything else is just "counting" methods, DRE, Optical Scanners, etc. As far as I'm concerned, if youlok at the function of a DRE it's simply combining the "selection" of a candidates and the "counting" of the ballots. I want a paper ballot in case we need to verify the selection and the ocunt!

It used to drive me nuts when James Baker (during Election 2000) kept saying that the computer counts were more accurate than the hand counts.

That's NEVER been true! The hand count is and has always been the "gold standard". It is the MOST accurate. The only reason computers were used was to speed up the counting. The hand count is the MOST accurate count. Problem is it's slow and tedious so we developed computers.

I worked plenty of election days (for a computer vendor) in the county offices on standby in case there were any problems with the punch card reader or the computer hardware or software. I know all about chads, dimpled, pregnant, and hanging. The room was always filled with chads because of the fact that partial punches and static electricity caused punched chads to hang around.

i understand completely the concern about having a database-compiled total as the primary source of results, particularly in the wake of these revelations about the diebold system.

at the same time, i also recognize the points made by proponents of the modernization of election systems (that is, the ones not looking to subvert the process) about the inefficiency and vulnerability of paper-based election systems. remember that this was the primary focus of election 'reformers' in the wake of the 2000 fraud; which needs to be asterisked with the fact that the real blame for the 2000 fiasco lay with corrupt people, not corrupt systems.

so the bottom line is i'm in favor of automating the systems. i have no fear of a computerized voting system developed and vetted in the public domain. i would have no objection to the final outcomes of elections being based upon the directly-reported database results, as long as there is (as bev suggested above) a routine audit of the database results against the paper vote records generated at the polling place and visually confirmed by each voter.

recounts of paper ballots in questionable races, and open source with verification, we could have confidence in automated systems.

Look at Title III

In a recount, paper rules.

That pretty much says PAPER will be the official record.

AND, from Darryl Wold, who served as Chairman of the FEC in D.C. during 2000, and as a Commissioner from 1998 to 2002, currently attorney on political and election law,.....

(cleaned up PDF conversion on the fly, you'll see footnotes in odd places here)

Note from Wold's pape- just a computer printout after the fact is only the content of the computer and not a record of VOTES cast; misses whether voter's INTENTION has been ACCURATELY recorded; without a voter-verified paper ballot an "audit" would only be of the MATH performed by the computer (if even that); re: Florida, the issue was not the count, but whether ballots actually reflected voter intent- something that needs to be seen and approved to be proven. ACTUAL, HARD, EVIDENCE.


THE HAVA REQUIREMENT FOR A VOTER VERIFIED PAPER RECORD

Darryl R. Wold (1)
July 23, 2003

This paper explains that the Help America Vote Act of
2002(2) requires that any voting system used in an election for Federal office must produce a paper record of the vote cast by
each voter that has been seen and verified by the voter. HAVA further
requires that this voter verified paper record be available for a manual audit of the voting system,and for any recount.

HAVA requires, in section 15481, subdivision (a)(2)(B), that:
“(i) The voting system shall produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity for such system.

“(ii) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to change the ballot or correct any error before the permanent paper record is produced.

“(iii) The paper record . . . shall be available as an official
record for any recount . . ..”

Taken together, these provisions requiring a “paper record” that is to be used for a “manual audit” for the “voting system” make it apparent that HAVA requires a paper record that is seen, verified, and turned in by the voter.

The suggestion has been made, however, that the requirement of a paper record to be used for a manual audit can be satisfied by a paper record of votes that is produced for the first time after the polls have closed – that is, a printout of what the computer has stored, and that has never been seen by the voter.

This interpretation, however, that a post-closing printout of what the computer has stored would satisfy HAVA, would permit an audit or a recount to be conducted on the content of a computer and not on a contemporaneous paper record of votes cast, and would make the requirement for a “manual audit capacity” virtually meaningless.

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1 Mr. Wold served as chairman of the Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C., during 2000, and as a Commissioner from 1998 to 2002. He is currently an attorney in private practice
in Orange County, California. His practice emphasizes political and
election law, including campaign finance compliance issues, ballot access, and recounts. His clients include AccuPoll, Inc., Irvine, California, a manufacturer of electronic voting systems.

2 Help America Vote Act of 2002 (“HAVA” in this paper),
enacted as Public Law Number 107- 252, October 29, 2002, 116 Statutes 1704, and codified at 42 U.S.C. §15301 et seq.. All references in this paper are to 42 U.S.C. §15481 unless otherwise noted.

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A paper record consisting solely of ballots printed by the computer after the closing of the polls -- and therefore never seen by the voters -- would mean that a manual audit or recount would simply amount to reviewing what was stored in the computer. The audit
or recount could not manually verify that the computer had accurately recorded the voter’s intent, or had accurately stored that information, or had accurately printed out that information. Both an audit and a recount, therefore, would miss the key element of the system – whether the voter’s intention had been accurately recorded.

At most, even a complete manual count of paper ballots printed by the computer postclosing could only verify that the computer had accurately tabulated various totals – that is, that the computer had “done the math.”

Such an audit or recount could not manually determine whether the computer had accurately made a record of voter intent – that is, that the paper record printed post-closing actually represented the votes intended to be cast by the voters.

An audit using a record of votes printed post-closing, of course, could not be considered a manual audit of the complete voting system – it would be a partial audit, at best, limited to the math performed by the computer. It would not be an audit of whether the
voters’ intent was accurately recorded by the computer – and that is the critical issue.

HAVA’s requirement of a “manual audit” compels the interpretation of “paper record” as meaning a record that has been seen and verified by the voter.

First, it is apparent from the common meaning of the words “manual audit” that HAVA requires that this audit be conducted by visual examination and counting by hand, and not by machine. A common dictionary definition of “manual” applicable to this context is “worked or done by hand and not by machine.” The term “audit” applicable to this context means “a methodical examination and review.” (Both definition’s from Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary.)

So far, therefore, we have a requirement for a methodical review by hand. The next question is: What is to be reviewed?

HAVA provides that it is the “voting system” that is to be audited (§15481(a)(2)(B)), and defines the voting system as including “the total combination” of equipment that is used “(A) to
define ballots; (B) to cast and count votes; (C) to report or display
election results; and (D) to maintain and produce any audit trail information . . .” (§15481(b)(1)). In other words, the system to be audited is the complete process of casting and counting votes. There
cannot be a “manual” audit of the casting of votes, of course, unless there is credible and contemporaneous evidence of the votes cast that can be reviewed by hand, as a check on the electronic portion of the system.

Further, the critical issue in any voting system is whether the
system has accurately reflected voter intent. The question raised in counting the votes in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election, for instance, was not whether the machines had accurately done the math –
it was whether the ballots that were counted actually reflected the voters’ intentions. That issue

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can be determined in an audit of a voting system only by examining what the voter has seen and approved -- a paper record reviewed and verified by the voter.

The importance of a paper record verified by the voter is also
emphasized by HAVA’s use of the term “audit” rather than some other term that would merely require some lower level of examination. Requiring an “audit capacity” for the voting system, including the accurate recording of the votes cast, clearly contemplates a paper record as the source document – as the original record of the voters’ actions – and not a secondary document produced after the fact as
evidence only of what is in the computer system at that time.

The distinction between an original paper record of an act and
electronic records as indirect evidence is an important one in the field of auditing, as indicated by the standards of auditing practice promulgated by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in its Statements on Auditing Standards (AICPA Professional Standards, 1998, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, New York). The AICPA’s “Standards of Field Work” require that
“Sufficient competent evidential matter is to be obtained through
inspection, observation . . . andconfirmations to afford a reasonable basis for an opinion.” (AU §150.02, ¶ 3.) Under “Nature of Evidential Matter” the standards recognize that “Corroborating evidential matter includes both written and electronic information” (AU §326.17), and that “In certain entities, some of the accounting data and corroborating evidential matters are available only in electronic form” (AU §326.18). Thus, the AICPA standards draw a distinction between a source document that is an original written record, on one hand, and an electronic record, on the other. The standards for
field work do not contemplate that an electronic record printed out after the fact is the same as an original written record.

In this light, the significance of the HAVA requirement that the system produce “a permanent paper record” for use in a “manual audit” or a recount is again apparent. HAVA does not provide for a manual audit of an electronic record of votes cast (or of a printout of an electronic record, which is the same thing). HAVA requires a permanent paper record of votes cast, and that can only be read as meaning a contemporaneous paper record, that the voter has seen and verified.

This distinction between an original paper record of a transaction or an act and electronic records as indirect evidence of that matter is also found in standards promulgated for government
auditing promulgated by the Comptroller General (Government Auditing
Standards, 2003 Revision, General Accounting Office, June 2003), which incorporate the AICPA standards for field work for financial audits (§4.01). In addition to financial audits, government audits also include performance audits. In that context, the field work standards require that “Sufficient, competent, and relevant evidence is to be obtained to provide a reasonable basis for the auditor’s
findings and conclusions” (§7.48). Guidance provided for concluding what constitutes “sufficient, competent, and relevant evidence” provides that “Evidence obtained through the auditors’ direct physical examination, observation, computation, and inspection is more
competent than evidence obtained indirectly” (§7.53, ¶ b) and “Examination of original documents provides more competent evidence than do copies” (§7.53, ¶ c). Thus, these government auditing standards also contemplate that an original written
record is the better evidence of a fact than indirect evidence or a copy. Applied to the context of an audit of a voting

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system, it is apparent that a paper ballot that the voter has seen and verified is better evidence than a printout of an electronic record that the voter who purportedly created the record hasn’t
seen.

In summary, it is apparent that the requirement of HAVA that a voting system used in a Federal election provide a paper record for a manual audit can be satisfied only by a system that produces a paper record that the voter sees and verifies, and that is retained by the election official as the record of votes cast for purposes of an audit and any recount.

This statutory requirement is not a bare legal requirement without practical significance. To the contrary, a paper record that has been reviewed and verified by the voter is an essential
element of a transparent and open voting system. A voter verified paper record that will be available for an audit of the system and for any recount greatly reduces the possibility of fraud and provides a means of detecting and correcting unintentional error in the
electronic system. Equally importantly, it assures each voter that the vote has been accurately cast, and that there is a paper record of that vote to serve as a check on the electronic system, and eliminates the suspicion of impropriety. An open and transparent voting system increases the voters’ confidence in the system and the public’s trust in the results. It is an essential element of the
democratic process by which we elect the government of this great republic.

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It just shows the ultimate conclusions.......X got ____ votes; and Y got ___ votes. The electronic report today just simply repeats what the machine told us. Doesn't show what was changed, why, who changed it...... I am not well versed in it.....but it's basic accounting.

HAVA doesn't seem to have GAAP accounting standards in mind with its requirements.........

or very cushy deadlines........justice can wait a week for recounts......(okay, not according to the S.Ct...but still)

on these counting machines?

My memory is sketchy, but I think that's Diebold standard for "margin for error" (correct me if I am wrong)

10% of the 500,000 eligible voters in my city alone is 50,000 votes...........