Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D. Presentation for the Open Rights Group at University College, London February 2007

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri USA : Where Are We Now? Florida Ohio

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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....)

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri VVPAT Colostomy Bag (Sequoia model circa 2006)

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri Ballot Box Transparency USA Nigeria

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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.

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri Voting machines are Serial Processors -- long lines can result First women voting in New Zealand election (1899)

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri Parallel Processing (on paper) Australia (2001)  Cost effective  Easy to understand  Independently recountable  Not limited by number of machines  Denial of service cannot occur from equipment malfunction  Same ballots used by all voters  Can be made disabled accessible

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri In the USA, Paper * remains the most common voting method Voting Systems by U.S. County * Paper includes: optically scanned, punch card, and manually counted.

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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 (?!)

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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.

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri Public Counting & Toteboards

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri 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

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri But there is more at stake than just elections....

Electronic Voting: A Challenge to Democracy? Copyright © 2007 Rebecca Mercuri For More Information... Rebecca Mercuri