1. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS 17-803/17-400 Electronic Voting Session 8: The 2004 Election Michael I. Shamos, Ph.D., J.D. Institute for Software Research International Carnegie Mellon University

2. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Outline How touchscreens work EIRS (Election Incident Reporting System) Election Night problems Newspaper reports Cryptography and voting

3. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Touchscreens 1.Sensor 2.Controller 3.Software driver

4. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Capacitative Touchscreens SOURCE: HOWSTUFFWORKSHOWSTUFFWORKS Glass panel with a capacitive (charge storing) material coating its surface. Circuits located at corners of the screen measure the capacitance of a person touching the overlay. Frequency changes are measured to determine the X and Y coordinates of the touch event. Very durable, high clarity. Wide range of applications, from restaurant and POS use to industrial controls and information kiosks.

5. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Capacitative Touchscreens 3M MicroTouch™ ClearTek™

6. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS 4-Wire Resistive Touchscreens SOURCE: HOWSTUFFWORKSHOWSTUFFWORKS Glass or acrylic panel coated with electrically conductive and resistive layers, separated by invisible separator dots. Electrical current passes through the screen. When pressure is applied the layers are pressed together, causing a change in the electrical current and a touch event to be registered. Durable, but less clarity. Recommended for individual, home, school, or office use, POS, restaurant systems, etc.

7. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Resistive Touchscreens 3M MicroTouch™ PL Analog Resistive Touch Screen

8. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Surface Acoustic Wave SOURCE: HOWSTUFFWORKSHOWSTUFFWORKS Advanced technology based on sending acoustic waves across a clear glass panel with a series of transducers and reflectors. When a finger touches the screen, the waves are absorbed, causing a touch event to be detected at that point. Panel is all glass -- no layers that can be worn. Highest durability and highest clarity. Recommended for public information kiosks, computer based training, or other high traffic indoor environments.

9. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Infrared Touchscreens Infrared LEDs Photo Detectors Screen is covered with a plastic layer covering criss-crossing beams of infrared light, when the screen is touched, beams are interrupted SOURCE: DEREK WATSON

10. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Near Field Imaging (Capacitative) Ideal in harsh environments, works through gloves SOURCE: 3M3M

11. VISIT SITE VIEW NOV. 2, 2004 MACHINE INCIDENTS

12. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Electronic Voting in 2004 From the evoting viewpoint, the 2004 election was not very interesting 1444 reports to the Election Incident Reporting System Reports fell into three categories: –Fantasies (allegations of fraud with no evidence) –Misunderstandings (truthful but misinterpreted allegations) –Genuine problems Problems exist that were not reported, e.g. voter privacy problems

13. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Reported Problems Machine unreliability Changed votes Lost votes

14. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Carteret County, NC UniLect Patriot DRE machine Used since 1996 Software: Intellect 2.49; Firmware: 2.54

15. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS UniLect Patriot SOURCE: UNILECTUNILECT VOTING MACHINE BALLOT SETUP UNIT PRECINCT CONTROLLER

16. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Carteret County, NC Alleged by manufacturer to have a capacity of 10,500 ballots Used in Carteret County for early voting Real capacity was only 3,005 But 7,537 people voted early Machine produces a warning when full, but does not prevent voting 4,532 votes were permanently lost

17. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Carteret County, NC What happened? Machine had redundant ballot storage in machine and on memory pack But capacity was exceeded Many fixes available –Don’t allow voting when machine is full! –Increase capacity so it is huge –Paper trail would have solved the problem No FEC Standards covering capacity

18. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Craven County, NC Election Systems & Software DRE machine Hardware: Votronic Model 1 Software: Unity 2.2 Firmware: 5.28

19. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Craven County, NC First election night tally showed 11,283 more votes for President than the 40,534 people first thought to have voted in the county Some precincts were counted twice Found by a reporter on Nov. 3 One race was affected: County Board of Commissioners District 5 seat (1067-944) Problem would have been discovered in the canvass

20. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Craven County, NC Another problem surfaced during recounts, showing that a master terminal at the Vanceboro one-stop voting site did not require a password and resulted in an incorrect total in the presidential returns there, said Tiffiney Miller, director of the Craven County Board of Elections Unexplained

21. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Franklin County, OH Columbus, OH Danaher Controls (Danaher Guardian) DRE Model: ELECTronic 1242

22. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Franklin County, OH A computer error with a voting machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes. Unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Calls were received Thursday from people who saw the error when reading the list of poll results on the election board's Web site. After Precinct 1B closed, a cartridge from one of three voting machines at the polling place generated a faulty number at a computerized reading station. The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race.

23. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Franklin County, OH County elections director said the error would have been discovered when the official canvass for the election is performed later this month. The cartridge was retested Thursday and there were no problems. He couldn't explain why the computer reader malfunctioned. Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine Thursday and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.

24. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Orlean Parish, LA New Orleans Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc Model: AVC Advantage

25. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Orleans Parish, LA Sequoia machines failed to boot up on election day and local election officials had no backup plan. EFF attorneys filed a complaint in Civil District Court attempting to force election officials in the Parish of New Orleans to keep polls open late. The NAACP also filed a complaint urging polls to remain open late to accommodate disenfranchised voters. The machines that failed in New Orleans were older Sequoia AVC Edge machines and 80 incidents of failure were recorded across a number of precincts.

26. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Boulder County, CO Hart Intercivic Optical Scan, Precinct-Based Model: BallotNow

27. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Boulder County, CO A printing error that distorted bar codes on paper ballots is being blamed for delays that made this one of the last counties in the nation to report election results. The county clerk's office and officials at a Denver printing company are examining flaws in thousands of ballots that slowed the vote count to a crawl. County Clerk Linda Salas said Monday the bad ballots were distributed at random, cropping up in some precincts, but not in others. The exact number of bad ballots is still unknown, Salas said. Scanners rejected ballots with the bad bar codes, requiring election judges to tally those votes race by race.

28. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Boulder County, CO Voting equipment was tested before the election. But the printing error occurred only on actual ballots that went to voters, not the test ballots, Salas said. Adding to the delays were attempts to figure out why the scanners were rejecting some ballots. Technicians from Hart Intercivic, which makes the scanners, and Kodak, which makes the lenses, examined the machines before the bar code error - which was not visible to the naked eye - was caught, Salas said.

29. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Thurston County, WA Election Systems & Software punched card system

30. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Thurston County, WA Elections staff recounted an estimated 81,000 ballots first tallied Election Day after learning that computer software wasn't set up properly for the first count. No errors were caused in tabulating the ballots the first time, Thurston County Auditor Kim Wyman said. The mistake did make it impossible to know exactly how many poll-site ballots were cast in each precinct of the county. A dozen staff members worked into the evening, recounting the ballots after properly setting software on the machines. They needed the data as part of their routine effort to confirm that machine-vote totals equal the totals in poll books An "F2 key" was not punched when elections workers set up the vote-counting machines prior to Tuesday's election, Wyman said.

31. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Paper Trail Problems Clark County, NV (Las Vegas) + Reno 5 machines at a Reno polling place malfunctioned at the same time due to a failure to change paper. The problem backed up lines and caused the site to stay open until about 10 p.m., three hours past closing. In Reno, at least two voters complained that their votes were erroneously recorded. Machines, which resemble ATMs or computers, began to work again after they were shut down and restarted. Two machines malfunctioned at separate polling places in Las Vegas. Audits of random machines to be completed by all 17 Nevada counties by Tuesday.

32. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Electronic Voting Ronald L. Rivest MIT CSAIL NSA June 3, 2004

33. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Outline Voting using mix-nets Randomized Partial Checking (Jakobsson/Juels/Rivest USENIX ‘02) Pedagogic variant of Chaum’s proposal SOURCE: RON RIVEST

34. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Can cryptography help? Yes – using “mix-nets” (Chaum) and “voter- verified secret ballots” (Chaum; Neff) Official ballot is electronic not paper. Ballot is encrypted version of choices. Ballots posted on public bulletin board. Voter gets paper “receipt” so she can: –Ensure that her ballot is properly posted –Detect voting machine error or fraud SOURCE: RON RIVEST

35. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Voting using mix-nets E: encrypt choices  ballot (done at each voting machine) S 1 …S k : mix-servers provide anonymity (secretly permute and re-encrypt) D: decrypt ballots (trustees threshold decrypt) ES2S2 DS1S1 SkSk Posted on bulletin board (Plaintext choices) Plaintext choices SOURCE: RON RIVEST

36. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Voter needs evidence That her vote is “cast as intended”: That her ballot is indeed encryption of her choices, and what her ballot is. This is extremely challenging, since She can’t compute much herself She can’t take away anything that would allow her to prove how she voted So: she takes away evidence that allows her (as she exits polling site) to detect whether cheating occurred, and receipt to prove what her ballot is. SOURCE: RON RIVEST

37. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Everyone needs evidence That votes are “counted as cast”: That mix-servers (“mixes”) properly permute and re-encrypt ballots. This is challenging, since Mixes cannot reveal the permutation they applied to ballots That trustees properly decrypt the permuted ballots This is relatively straightforward, using known techniques. This is “universal verifiability” SOURCE: RON RIVEST

38. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Randomized Partial Checking (Jakobsson/Juels/Rivest USENIX ‘02) SOURCE: RON RIVEST

39. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Robust mixes Provide proof (or at least strong evidence) of their correct operation. Anyone can check proof. Even if all mixes are corrupt and collude, it is infeasible for them to produce such proof (universally verifiable). Proof does not reveal input / output correspondence! Proof or evidence SOURCE: RON RIVEST

40. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS “Randomized Partial Checking Mix Conceptually very simple Very efficient Works with any cryptosystem Aimed at voting Force each mix to reveal and prove half of its input- output correspondences No complete path from input to output revealed; voter’s anonymity preserved within set of at least ½ the voters. SOURCE: RON RIVEST

41. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS RPC illustrated Mixes are paired (S 1,S 2 ), (S 3,S 4 ), etc. For each ballot B between elements of a pair (e.g. (S 1,S 2 )), produce “challenge bit” b from hash of all bulletin board contents If b = 0, first server must reveal where B came from and prove it by revealing keys/randomness. If b = 1, second server must reveal where B goes and prove it by revealing keys/randomness. ES2S2 DS1S1 SkSk SOURCE: RON RIVEST

42. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Security theorem An adversary who queries random oracle (  hash function) at most q times will have a chance of at most q 2 -t of producing a bulletin board transcript that passes public verification yet where the vote count has been altered by t votes. SOURCE: RON RIVEST

43. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Q A &

44. A pedagogical variant of Chaum’s voting proposal Used in Rivest’s class this spring as introductory example, before going into details of Chaum’s and Neff’s schemes. Captures many significant features, but not all; some problems/concerns not well handled. Intended to be simpler to explain and understand than full versions. Related to Jakobsson/Juels/Rivest RPC mix-net scheme. Main ideas (e.g. cut and choose) already present in Chaum’s scheme. SOURCE: RON RIVEST

45. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Pedagogical variant (overview) Voting machine produces ballot that is encryption of voter’s choices. Ballot is posted on bulletin board as “official cast ballot” (electronic). Voter given receipt copy of ballot. Voter given evidence that ballot correctly encodes his intended choices. Ciphertexts “mixed” for anonymity. Ciphertexts decrypted and counted (threshold decryption by trustees). SOURCE: RON RIVEST

46. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Pedagogical variant (details) Voter V i prepares choices B i Machine prints and signs B i, C i, D i, r i, s i and gives them to voter. C i is encryption of B i (randomization r i ) D i is re-encryption of C i (randomization s i ) If voter doesn’t like B i, she starts over. Voter destroys either r i or s i, and keeps the other information as evidence (paper). Voting machine signs and posts (V i, D i,”final”), and gives (paper) receipt copy to voter. Final D i ’s mixed up (mixnet), decrypted, and counted. SOURCE: RON RIVEST

47. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Pedagogical variant (details) BiBi CiCi DiDi riri sisi El-Gamal encryption and re-encryption: C i = (g r i, B i *y r i ), D i = (g r i +s i,B i *y r i +s i ) Voter keeps only one link as evidence (similar to Jakobsson/Juels/Rivest, or Chaum) Any attempt by voting machine to cheat will be detected with probability ½. Voter can check evidence on exit. Signed B i ’s are easy to get… SOURCE: RON RIVEST

48. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Pedagogical variant (details) BiBi CiCi DiDi riri El-Gamal encryption and re-encryption: C i = (g r i, B i *y r i ), D i = (g r i +s i,B i *y r i +s i ) Voter keeps only one link as evidence (similar to Jakobsson/Juels/Rivest, or Chaum) Any attempt by voting machine to cheat will be detected with probability ½. Voter can check evidence on exit. Signed B i ’s are easy to get… SOURCE: RON RIVEST

49. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Pedagogical variant (details) BiBi CiCi DiDi sisi El-Gamal encryption and re-encryption: C i = (g r i, B i *y r i ), D i = (g r i +s i,B i *y r i +s i ) Voter keeps only one link as evidence (similar to Jakobsson/Juels/Rivest, or Chaum) Any attempt by voting machine to cheat will be detected with probability ½. Voter can check evidence on exit. Signed B i ’s are easy to get… SOURCE: RON RIVEST

50. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Variant with “visual crypto” Naor/Shamir: can do “xor” visually: += + + + = = = 0 + 0 = 0 0 + 1 = 1 1 + 0 = 1 1 + 1 = 0 SOURCE: RON RIVEST

51. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Variant with visual crypto Print B i ’ and B i ’’ on transparencies Visually verify B i ’ + B i ’’ = B i Keeps D’ i, D’’ i, and either (B’ i,r’ i ) or (B’’ i,r’’ i ) B’ i D’ i r’ i B’’ i D’’ i r’’ i BiBi + SOURCE: RON RIVEST

52. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Variant with visual crypto Print B i ’ and B i ’’ on transparencies Visually verify B i ’ + B i ’’ = B i Keeps D’ i, D’’ i, and either (B’ i,r’ i ) or (B’’ i,r’’ i ) B’ i D’ i r’ i D’’ i SOURCE: RON RIVEST

53. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Variant with visual crypto Print B i ’ and B i ’’ on transparencies Visually verify B i ’ + B i ’’ = B i Keeps D’ i, D’’ i, and either (B’ i,r’ i ) or (B’’ i,r’’ i ) D’ i B’’ i D’’ i r’’ i SOURCE: RON RIVEST

54. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Variant with visual crypto Any attempt by voting machine to cheat will result in detection with probability ½. SOURCE: RON RIVEST

55. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Pedagogical variant (summary) Schemes such as these (Chaum / Neff) provide an interesting degree of “end-to-end” security: from voter’s intentions to final tally. Paper is used, but not to record official ballots or for recounts, but as commitments so fraud and error can be detected. SOURCE: RON RIVEST

56. 17-803/17-400 ELECTRONIC VOTING FALL 2004 COPYRIGHT © 2004 MICHAEL I. SHAMOS Conclusions Voting technology is in a state of transition to electronics. It seems possible to have electronic voting without: trusting machines for integrity using paper ballots for recounts revealing how any voter votes How can we do all of this well? SOURCE: RON RIVEST