Alice in Internet Voting Wonderland - no hanging chads? Also no audits, no recounts

No chads? And no audits no recounts. Finland learned the hard way in 2008 when internet votes were lost and a court overturned that election. Must we learn everything the hard way? A press release for internet voting vendor Scytl is being presented as an op-ed piece by Sheila Shayon. Her piece ran in HuffPo (no comments allowed) and in several other blogs on the "net". Shayon says with internet voting, there won't be any of those nasty old hanging chads. No paper, no proof, no truth.

See Sheila Shayon's utopian vision of internet voting, which closely resembles a Scytl press release:

Sheila Shayon: Digital Democracy: Scytl, MySociety Secure Funding We may never again have to suffer “pregnant chads,” “swinging chads” and other questionable voting protocols in an election thanks to the likes of Scytl, which calls itself a “worldwide leader in the enhancement of secure solutions for electoral modernization.”

Note to Sheila - most jurisidictions have long banned punch card voting machines, the only voting machine that creates "chads" on ballots.

To readers: Its a darn shame that many people may be willing to turn their votes over to the owners of a private corporation, while also making the election hackable by any computer criminal in the world.

There’ll be no hanging chads. In fact, with internet voting, there’ll be nothing to truly validate the election. There’s nothing tangible to audit to detect fraud or error.

If votes are lost, there’s nothing to recount. They learned that in Finland when Scytl helped them administer an Internet Voting Pilot for several municipalities in 2008. The results of that election were later overturned and a do over was run using paper ballots.

Finnish E-Voting Results Annulled By The Supreme Administrative Court
22 April, 2009 http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.8/evoting-annuled-finland
2% of results gone. Scytl was part of the pilots.

Finnish EVoting CoE Evaluation
http://www.effi.org/system/files?file=FinnishEVotingCoEComparison_Effi_20080801.pdf

Scytl website
http://www.scytl.com/categoria_ing_10.htm

When Honolulu Hawaii had an internet voting experiment, transpire dropped by 83%!

See “Low Turnout In Hawaii’s Internet Election”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2009/05/low_turnout_in_hawaiis_interne.html

What is driving the push for internet voting? Filthy lucre perhaps? Maybe the press releases claiming that Internet Voting is a $1.5 Billion industry? All that money couldn't corrupt anyone, could it? Oh, thats right, voting vendors have bribed and corrupted top election officials before. Computer technologists say internet voting is inherently insecure. See Verified Voting's informative blog posts on issues with internet voting.

If you want to be more informed on voting issues, visit Dr. Charles Correy's online book, Vote Fraud and Election Issues. Its hard hitting and you'll catch on quickly to the vulnerabilities and threats to our election systems.

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Democracy 4 Sale -HuffPo runs internet voting vendor press release as op-ed

Huffington Post runs a internet voting vendor press release as an OpEd - again. This time it is Scytl's press release. The other time was EveryoneCounts press release as an OpEd.

Huffington Post: Digital Democracy: Scytl, MySociety Secure Funding

Sheila ShayonPresident/Founder, Third Eye Media
Posted: July 14, 2010

If internet voting really is a 1.5 billion $ industry, will all of our votes be for sale? [ See Online Voting Company Scytl Raises $9.2 Million "Analysts believe that the public sector market for electronic voting systems is worth approximately $1.5 billion."

Internet voting is the most dangerous way to run elections and removes the secret ballot. With internet voting, there's no way to validate the election and results are open to hackers on a global scale. If votes are lost, then there's nothing tangible to recount:

Finnish E-Voting Results Annulled By The Supreme Administrative Court
22 April, 2009 http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.8/evoting-annuled-finland
[2% of results missing. Scytl was involved.
Finnish EVoting CoE Comparison

Scytl website

Internet voting isn't accessible to people who do not have easy computer or internet access, so less privileged people are left out.

When Honolulu Hawaii had an internet voting experiment, turnout dropped by 83%!

Low Turnout In Hawaii's Internet Election

See testimony from leading computer scientist at Verified Voting's blog on internet voting

Voter Action has some testimony from leading computer scientists about electronic ballot transmission, articles from mainstream media and a sample letter to your legislators.

Computer scientist Internet voting statement.
Statement on Internet, Email and Fax voting in Washington State by leading computer scientist, Dr. Barbara Simons.
Internet Voting, Still in Beta, The New York Times.
Broad Concerns About Internet Voting, The New York Times.
Pentagon Cancels Internet Voting Test, MSNBC.
Electricity Grid in US Penetrated by Spies, The Wall Street Journal.
A New Approach to China, The Google Blog.
Voter Action Internet voting statement.
Sample cover letter to legislators.
Talking Points on HB 2483 and SB 6238.
Hackers Attacked Colombian Vote Count

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Professor Doug Jones on National Popular Vote - two possible outcomes

There's a push by some groups to promote adoption of the National Popular Vote. Some say a way to do this is by a "compact". The idea is very appealing, but getting there could have some serious and unanticipated consequences. National e-voting expert Doug Jones has granted permission to share his comments on the National Popular Vote.

on July 12, 2010, Douglas Jones wrote:

I believe that the National Popular Vote opens a can of worms.

Specifically, despite the fact that the NPV is being adopted on a state-by-state basis for the election of state electors, I believe it will face a challenge under Federal law because the different states have differing standards for who can vote and differing standards for what votes are counted. In effect, NPV under current state election laws is not consistent with one-man-one-vote.

I believe this will lead, invariably, to a court challenge as soon as a presidential election is held with NPV rules selecting enough electors to determine the outcome. I can only see two possible outcomes:

1) A court ruling against the states' right to use NPV.

2) A court ruling requiring uniform election standards nationwide.

Option 2 would effectively federalize the conduct of elections for President, requiring the federal government to put into place a system of strong regulation, preempting the states right to set standards for voter registration, ballot interpretation and election conduct.

Option 2 would traumatic. The Federal government does not have the machinery in place to do what would be required, and the states have deeply entrenched election administrations and a deep tradition of states rights in this domain.

Doug Jones

Disclaimer: These opinions are mine and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any institutions with which I may be affiliated, including but not limited to the University of Iowa and the Technical Guidelines Development Committee.

# # #

Doug Jones Bio from Wikipedia: Douglas W. Jones is a computer scientist at the University of Iowa. His research focuses primarily on computer security, particularly electronic voting. He has also contributed to the field of computer architecture, including an implementation of a one instruction set computer.

Jones' involvement with electronic voting research began in 1994, when he was appointed to the Iowa Board of Examiners for Voting Machines and Electronic Voting Systems. He chaired the board from 1999 to 2003, and has testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights[1], the United States House Committee on Science[2] and the Federal Election Commission[3] on voting issues. In 2005 he participated as an election observer for the presidential election in Kazakhstan. He is currently a member of the ACCURATE electronic voting project.

Jones received a B.S. in physics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1973, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1976 and 1980 respectively.




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