Electronic Voting: If It Is Good Enough For Congress

Congress is currently considering H.R. 811 "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007" which would require that all electronic voting machines used in federal elections produce a "voter verified paper audit trail." The hope is that paper audit trails would make our elections more secure by preventing certain types of digital attacks on voting machines. The problem is that they introduce new costs and risks but yield few benefits.

The activists promoting paper audit trails argue that on existing electronic voting machines, voters do not know if their ballot was cast as intended. They argue that voters need paper audit trail so that they can verify the accuracy of their ballots. However, even with a paper audit trail voters still have no way of verifying that their ballots were included in the final vote tally. The paper ballot or electronic ballot may be lost, altered or destroyed in transit to the central polling location. Historically, most election fraud occurs at this point.

Opponents of electronic voting claim that computers cannot be trusted. They have played on the public's fears to construct an image of a politically-motivated, computer-savvy criminal mastermind who can alter an election with the click of a mouse. Rep. Kucinich (D-OH) has even gone so far as to introduce legislation which would ban all electronic voting machines in federal elections. His solution: hand counted paper ballots.

The irony here is that when Congress votes on H.R. 811, each representative will cast their vote using an electronic voting system. Since 1973 the House of Representatives has used an electronic voting system for all recorded votes. So does this electronic voting system use paper trails? Of course not.

Instead of paper ballots, this system depends on a principle called "universal verifiability." Basically, any system with universal verifiability lets any voter and observer verify that the final vote tally is correct. The House of Representatives achieves universal verifiability by making the votes public. When members vote, a green or red light appears next to their name on a large electronic board behind the Speaker's desk. Everybody can observe the voting process and ensure no shenanigans occur.

Obviously this exact system would not work in a federal election because we use a private ballot. However, experts have come up with many ideas about how to both provide universal verifiability and keep everyone's ballot private. This may sound like magic to some people, but as ITIF's Daniel Castro notes in a new report, Stop the Presses: How Paper Trails Fail to Secure e-Voting, the cryptography behind these voting schemes has been peer-reviewed and tested by computer security experts. Unfortunately, since the pro-paper versus anti-paper debate has taken up so much time, Congress has paid little attention to these other solutions.

More secure voting systems are critical. However, regardless of how Congress votes, paper audit trails are not the final evolution of voting machines. The move to digital ballots is inevitable. Congress should now focus on how to improve America's voting systems so that they offer the same level of universal verifiability that each member of Congress expects when they cast their own votes.

Comments

[AllAboutVoting]

I worry that some will use the promise of 'perfect' systems as a way to continue to use 'bad' systems rather than 'good' ones.

That said, the end-to-end verifiable voting systems do exists although I do not think that they are yet ready for wide deployment. I do think:

* that they should be discussed and seriously considered
* that additional funding for basic research of E2E verifiable technologies should be supported
* that limited deployment of E2E verifiable systems should be allowed and encouraged
* laws that frustrate any of the above are misguided

I encourage people to read up on such systems.

I have some detailed reviews of the ITIF eVoting report here. Start here:

http://allaboutvoting.com/2007/09/19/buzz-about-itifs-evoting-report/

[twgbonehead]

"So does this electronic voting system use paper trails? Of course not."

No, it uses a tally-board, and the entire voting process can be viewed on C-SPAN. Not to mention that even if the tally-board isn't working, ANY congressperson has the ability to directly confirm how their vote was recorded.

(Sorry, at this stage I'm beating a dumb horse...)

[Dem02020]

As you said, their votes are cast, and they see a near instant verification of it, on an electronic board, that has their name on it, and shows how they voted.

I guess you would combine both "personal verification" and "near instant verification" there.

Also, there are so many written records that will then almost immediately do the same: Record the name of the House Member, and their vote. The most important of the written records might be the Congressional Record, but there are so many of them, such as newspapers and newsletters etc.

But the Congressional Record alone constitutes what you would call an "Official U.S. Government Certified Paper Trail".

Sometimes people bend over backwards just a little too far, when they're trying to sell you something...

[DavidF07]

Conspiracy theorists leap out of the woodwork over this issue. While Greg Palast correctly demonstrates the criminal (and the incompentent) use of some electronic voting systems, those of us who have worked for decades in administration of elections elections understand that there is no system more vulnerable to error and subversion than a paper ballot system.

Some electronic voting systems are designed so poorly that they can be hacked or modified far too easily, but that is not true for all of them.

Some cars are inherently unsafe. Those cars which are relatively safe can be made dangerous when incompentent or criminal drivers control them. Same with electronic voting. Elections administrators who invite public scrutiny throughout the process, who take security matters very seriously, and who respond to voters' concerns are the ones who can deliver what all of us should have: fair, accurate, secure elections.

[TomR]

----
...those of us who have worked for decades in administration of elections elections understand that there is no system more vulnerable to error and subversion than a paper ballot system.
----

I beg to differ. True, paper is vulnerable, but not like electronic voting. A single hacker can silectly and undetectably infect the voting results across an entire election from one voting machine, the way they've been implemented.

There's only so much paper a single person can physically get their hands on. Fraudulent paper-based elections more likely would require a conspiracy of several people which is harder to pull off.

- Tom

[twgbonehead]

Not to mention the fact that a lot of electronic-voting issues don't even get as far as the counting stage. Polls that open 5 hours late because the machines don't boot. Precincts where 5000 voters need to wait to use the 2 machines that are working, etc.

I've never been to a polling place where only 2 of the curtained desks were operational. I've never filled out a paper ballot that crashed when I tried to vote for a candidate.

Why is it that if some polling place doesn't have enough working machines to handle the voters registered in the corresponding precinct(s), that's just "minor problems getting things to work"? If a paper-only polling place ran out of ballots, there would be a major stink and investigation.

Not to mention the absolutely unconscionable waste of money buying those vote-stealers. Buy pencils instead, and leave them in the schools (for the students) after election day.

[InofTouch]

Well a lot of commotion did come out of paper ballot 2000 in the state of Florida.

It amaze me that people forget that electronic or paper, there is still something that can go wrong when voting, heck a lot of uproar came the voting process of American idol...you know it isn't a surprise that congress isn't even tech-savvy in much of the bills there trying to pass and judgment like DRM & Net Neutrality, with all the news posting that occurs here. There are alot of steps that can make the e-voting more effective and 99% fail-proof.

[twgbonehead]

Sorry, that's not what people mean by a "Paper ballot". A punch card, which is inserted into some holder and punched with a stylus?

A true paper ballot has the information presented to the voter retained on it, and is marked with a normal writing instrument. It's not something that is put into an "overlay", and it's not something that discards what the voter actually sees when he's voting as soon as it's put into the ballot box.

A punch-card may be made of paper, but calling it a paper ballot is just obfuscation.

[dmbaer]

If used properly, computers can make elections more accurate and verifiable. Unfortunately, we are using them in ways that are far from proper. A voting machine today is a programmable computer. A programmable computer in the field can be hacked. A paper trail is no guarantee that votes are properly tallied, and even worse, it can supply a false sense of security that election results have not been compromised.

We have more than adequate technology and knowledge today to do this the right way. Vote tabulation should use computers, but on centralized, secured and highly audited machines. The crooks at Enron and their ilk inspired the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which in turn has forced large U.S. enterprises to develop a rigorous understanding of how to implement trustworthy data processing solutions. The voting machines of today should be replaced with non-programmable (and non-hack-able) network appliances that connect the voter with the centralized tabulation systems.

The internet should be used for absentee balloting (or at least be offered as an alternative) allowing all voters ready access in casting their votes (think Ohio, 2004). Remote identity verification is good and getting better all the time. If we can use the internet for commerce involving billions of dollars annually, we can use it for voting purposes with equal assurance. Properly done, interactive voting presentation can also eliminate questionable ballot presentations (think butterfly ballot) with use of uniform dialogs.

Finally, we now know how to build complex systems in an open and transparent manner. The growth of open software initiatives has proven this can be done, and it’s an ideal model for a next generation of voting technologies. Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle ... all these companies would fall all over themselves to lend some of their best and brightest to assist in a noble cause like this. And when you come down to it, vote tabulation is a pretty simple computational process anyway. This is eminently doable today with current technologies and at a very reasonable cost.

[cam]

Some of your points are good.

There is a big difference between securing access to an account and securing access to an identity.

[LunaNik]

Not to sound like a Luddite, but what's wrong with paper ballots? My city (population 40,000) uses them and has election results in time for the 11:00 news, thanks to a group of senior volunteers who man the polls and count the ballots. It CAN be done. It HAS been done.

The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections proved to us that computer voting does not work, especially when the corporations who manufacture and program the computers are—public­ly!—partis­an. We have a sitting pResident whom we did not elect...twice.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There's nothing wrong with paper ballots.

[tbudha]

On paper, count them by hand. Have two seperate groups count for accuracy. Canada does it this way and they had their PM picked in 4 hours. If you count at the precinct level it'll take about an hour for 2 or 3 volunteers to count 500-600 votes. It's not rocket science.

[ncvoter]

We should vote like Congress? Really? How about Congress' own electronic voting meltdown on August

MOTION TO AJOURN -- (House of Representatives - August 03, 2007)


----------­----------­----------­----------­-------

[Page: H9668] GPO's PDF
---

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to adjourn.

The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the noes appeared to have it.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRIES

Mr. SESSIONS (during the vote). Mr. Speaker, please be advised voting is not available to Members at this time and the Republican minority would request that we have the ability to vote.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The voting machine is operational, but there is an issue with the display, the Chair has been informed, and the Clerk is working on it.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, point of parliamentary inquiry.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas.

Mr. SESSIONS. It is my understanding that the Speaker may, has options available to him or her as it relates to electronic voting to where the Speaker could make a decision to have the Clerk record those votes manually by rollcall

more meltdown here:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2007_record&page=H9668&position=all

[didereaux]

The scientists voted in the 1890's

[Samson1]

Activists opposed to electronic voting do not believe you should not trust computers, that is a straw man you have put up so you can knock it down. What we say is that you cannot trust politicians and bureaucrats with power, oh, I dunno like in Florida 2000, Ohio 2004.
The problem is that if people responsible for the security and audit of voting wish to screw with the results, how exactly do you check/audit? Allow the secretary of state in Ohio or Florida to run the audit (as state law requires)? Want to be you get an AOK answer? So, what is your answer sir?

[givemycountryback]

Our voting system worked fine until the crooks came along hell bent on stealing the election. We are missing the point as to what happened. It would not have mattered in that election(both of them) if we had carved our vote in stone. They would have stolen the election. The country did not stand up and demand accountability, as usual, so we got idiot. There is no way he won those elections. and most of the public is so apathetic they will let it happen again. He is not my president, he is a thief. I don't care what method of voting is used. I believe we do need to advance and not just use paper ballots. I work on local elections, and think it is a dated way of voting. What we need to do, is nominate people with integrity and if we cant even do that, than keep a closer eye on the crooks because they are always going to be there, no matter what form of voting we have.

[ncvoter]

"Congress should now focus on how to improve America's voting systems so that they offer the same level of universal verifiability that each member of Congress expects when they cast their own votes."

There's only one way to do that: eliminate the secret ballot!

Borderline pedantic question: when the members of Congress do vote secretly, as in a party caucus leadership election, do they use electronic voting?

[twgbonehead]

Look, there are VERY good and relatively simple methods to both preserve the secrecy of the ballot AND provide verification that the votes were counted properly. They don't need to rely on cryptographic techniques (although some advantages would come from doing so).

And the database requirements are NOT extreme. You could provide a verification trail of every presidential vote in the entire country in a database that would fit on a thumb drive.

I just don't understand why supposedly intelligent people are arguing about the relative methods of a number of different approaches, NONE of which address the issues properly, when a comprehensive system could be designed on a paper napkin over a MacDonald's lunch.

[comatoast]

In point of fact, there is NO system which can prevent villains with enough power from subverting the will of the people- electorially or otherwise. The truly sad aspect is that there are many, many people who fervently believe these same villains are their friends.

[JimReed]

"Opponents of electronic voting claim that computers cannot be trusted."

Personally, I think Republicans cannot be trusted. What are you, Republican or Democrat?

[Dem02020]

That's true: It's not so much the integrity of the machines we question, but the integrety of the people who own and maintain and operate those machines; and whether those people can be bought and bribed, or simply have politics of their own, and would let their politics interfere with their ownership and maintenance and operation of electronic voting machines.

Isn't that clever of them, to deflect from and try and misdirect our legitimate concern about the integrity of people, the integrity of themselves, into a concern about inanimate machines.

[JimReed]

Yes but in this new enlightened age they can only get away with it about 90% of the time. Progressive progress.

[Neuromancer13]

Dr. Atkinson seems to run an IT industry think tank (see link). Perhaps a little self-interest in the promotion of electronic voting?

http://www.innovationpolicy.org/index.php?s=staff

Yes, I also agree that the entire premise of this post is a straw man: that a few hundred votes collected openly is comparable to millions of secret votes.

There are many good ideas here for truly reforming the system so that it works, rather than reforming it so that well-connected companies make money. I've always thought a good solution would be for the electronic system to print out a scannable paper record, which the voter would review in the booth at the time of voting. If it was correct, the voter would drop the paper ballot into a properly secured ballot box. If the electronic votes were questioned, the paper ballots could be counted, either by electromechanical scanner (much harder to hack), or by hand. As the papers would have been machine-printed (and voter verified), there would be no hanging chads or other uncertainties.

Just my $0.02