|
Videos
June 29, 2012 By Natalie E. Tennant
Editor’s note: Natalie Tennant is the Secretary of State of West Virginia. She wrote this column for the July issue of Government Technology magazine.
In 2010, West Virginia initiated a pilot program to provide deployed military and overseas citizens the opportunity to cast their ballot quickly and securely over the Internet. That year, 31 states provided military and overseas voters enhanced ballot access. This included electronic delivery of ballots, online access to ballots, and a variety of electronic ballot return options.
During the 2010 general election, 125 West Virginia voters covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986 from eight counties cast their ballot online. That number represented a 162 percent increase over the participation in the 2010 primary. The 76 percent online-vote return rate far exceeds the average 58 percent absentee ballot return rate experienced by counties using standard mail as the ballot transmission method.
The state worked in close partnership with county clerks, representatives of the military and overseas communities and two vendor partners. The two participating online voting pilot vendors are each registered with Dun and Bradstreet and are familiar names in the election systems arena. Scytl has been a leader in election-related applications since 1994, and Everyone Counts is an established online systems business specialist.
To develop multiple security layers, the online voting systems runs on redundant servers, located locally and remotely. Each system uses 2048-bit encryption, Secure Socket Layer access to the application (a method for securing communications between a client and a server), and was developed to serve West Virginia-specific requirements with each using different programming languages and system design architectures.
The online voting applications use a form of cryptography, including separate encryption/decryption algorithms, for creating keys to link the voter data with ballot data. While neither of the two companies has submitted their processes for validation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program, there is no current requirement for this review.
To date, no significant deficiencies or concerns have been identified with the West Virginia online voting pilot.
In short, what West Virginia did worked. It was a small program that helped an admittedly small group of voters cast their ballot more conveniently. There were 125 opportunities for something to go wrong, but to our knowledge, nothing did.
There will be those who say Internet voting is far too dangerous, that it is rife with the potential for wrongdoing, that it is easily manipulated.
I, and election officials across the country, remain vigilant against assaults on every method of voting — whether it be a paper ballot, optical scan machines, touch-screen voting, Internet voting or voting by mail.
My record proves, by conducting hundreds of investigations and recently securing the guilty pleas of some elected officials, that I do not tolerate election law violation — regardless of party or position. I also believe that it is my duty to continue to improve access to voting, for all voters, overcoming barriers to the process.
Instead of continuing to focus on the shortcomings of Internet voting, opponents could help strengthen it. Computer experts could lend their skills to developing encryption software that guarantees that each ballot is securely transmitted. Election officials could help voters better understand how the process works.
Internet voting should be a safe, secure, accessible option for voters. It is time that we, as a society, agree that our voting is far too sacred to compromise — and that at some point in time this sacred right and accessible technology must intersect. I believe the time to explore that is now.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Making-the-Case-for-Online-Voting.html
.jpg)
What is Big Data? What can it do for you? 
Discover the BI capabilities you already own.
I don't think I personally would want to vote online, however, I don't see how a vote over even an unsecured network is worse than no vote at all. If it engages a part of the electorate that has dropped out of the process, then its a success even if it fails to actually reliably register their votes. One cannot help but notice that civic participation in American Idol is sometimes higher than in our democracy, even though message and data rates may apply.
Natalie Tennant is an American hero for her leadership in the use of Internet voting. Besides WV, its used in Estonia, Switzerland, France, Australia, several states in Canada, even in India! Get w/ it USA! Don't be a victim of the Moral Panic started by the Luddites. William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. Twitter: wjkno1 Blog: Internet Voting for All
While Secretary Tennant sketches a couple of security measures used in the West Virginia online voting pilot, she fails to mention that the computer security community is virtually unanimous that there is no known way to secure online elections against cyber attacks that might be perpetrated from anywhere on earth. Although she discusses the encryption used, Ms. Tennant seems to not understand that remote attacks on elections do not require breaking encryption, and that virtually none of the attacks on other corporations and agencies that one reads about all the time in newspapers ever involves breaking encryption. Ms. Tenant is careful to say that in her pilots nothing went wrong "to our knowledge". That qualification is essential because the greatest danger comes from cyber attacks that succeed without leaving any evidence that election officials can see. Such an attack was demonstrated by University of Michigan Prof. Alex Halderman in October, 2010 in an online voting pilot held in Washington, DC. He was able to gain complete remote control of the election server and replace all the ballots with phony ballots, without the election officials ever noticing until they were tipped off. The amazing story was told by Halderman at a DC City Council hearing: https://josephhall.org/nqb2/index.php/dccouncildvm Here is video of Ms. Tennant on a panel containing two world-class security experts (Halderman and MIT Prof. Ron Rivest), and you will see that they do not at all agree with her security assessments. http://ctvoterscount.org/secretary-of-the-states-online-voting-symposium/ Today, online elections are security disasters waiting to happen. We are a long, long way from being able to conduct our public elections over the Internet safely.
Scary Story: “the computer security community is virtually unanimous” that Internet voting can’t be done securely. TRUTH: Every Internet voting project named above in countries all over the world had teams of security experts working on the systems. Guess what? No sign of hacking in any one of them. The “community” Jefferson is referring to are all clingers to paper security blankets. NOT ONE of them has ever set up an Internet voting system. Arm chair philosophers and scary story tellers – no facts, no science, no experience in the field. Fact: Halderman hacked an amateur system that was never used for real voting. Get the WHOLE story about Halderman and Rivest, as told on the News Hour, at http://goo.gl/in514 and at http://t.co/vY8ji5Vo William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. Twitter: wjkno1 Blog: Internet Voting for All Author: Internet Voting Now!
I'm sure that if Secretary Tennant looked at Bank of America, RSA, Google, and all of the thousandsof companies and government agencies that have been compromised by attackers over the past few years, she'd find that nearly all of them used exactly the same security measures she brags about. What she's described is "commercial best practices" - which is a starting point, but hardly the goal. As for Dun & Bradstreet listing for Scytl and Everyone Counts - well, it's a matter of filing some basic papers. It means absolutely nothing about whether the company has any skills - it just says that they're a proper legal entity. I have no doubt that Dr. Kelleher, who is not a technical expert and has a PhD in political science, believes what he says about the technology. But those of us with advanced degrees in computer science and who have devoted our careers to inventing and improving technology, vociferously disagree. While Dr. Kelleher is right that most of the opponents of internet voting haven't set up internet voting systems, most of us *have* built real internet systems, and suffered security attacks. Which is something that he's never done, since he has no technical background to invent anything technical.
Thanks to Jeremy Epstein for his candid admission: “Dr. Kelleher is right that most of the opponents of internet voting haven't set up internet voting systems.” It is also true that the media hyper-sensationalizes every unproven rumor of any supposed hack into any system on the Web. But most are mere webpage face distortions, or entries due to human error. Security systems are rarely, if ever, breached by a direct attack. Scytl and Everyone Counts have set up at least as many successful Internet voting systems as any company on Earth – and there is NO evidence that any of their systems has ever had even ONE tiny vote altered by an outside intruder or evil insider. Don’t let yourself be a victim of the Moral Panic being caused by the Luddites. Internet voting is definitely going to be the way the whole world votes in the future. Here’s the key reason: Convenience is Empowerment. Wherever there are polling places some distance from the home of the voter, inconvenience is going to reduce participation – especially for the elderly, sick or disabled voters. Voting convenience will also facilitate a more accurate reflection of public opinion. Voters with intense views are more likely to make the trek to the polls than are voters with more moderate views. That’s a major problem in the USA currently. Highly partisan candidates win, then they can’t cooperate with each other, so nothing gets done. With the convenience of Internet voting, from home or any other place, near or far, moderate-minded voters will participate more, and then we will have a government of moderate pragmatic problem solvers, instead of gridlock caused by extreme partisans. William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. Twitter: wjkno1 Author: Internet Voting Now!
While Convenience is Empowerment, what about the depositions of Spoonamore and Mike Connell about hacking the 2004 vote in Ohio? Are we supposed to forget that one? How about the protestations of Bev Harris of Blackbox Voting about the outcome of the Florida election in 2000? Is that one mass hysteria, too? What about the writings of Mark Crispin MIller who claims US elections are being hacked? What about Richard Charnin who wrote: Proving Election Fraud? What are the safeguards that make internet voting secure? What about the election integrity of internet voting?
Our government makes gambling easy for investment banks. I do not advise the same for elections. Gambling is exciting. Gambling is especially rewarding to those who can rig the game as was done with credit default swaps. Some people can't live without excitement no matter how much they may lose if the dice come up craps. As with electronic voting since 2002 we should always look at elections as something to be assisted by computers, not run by them.
I am with the American Foundation for the Blind, and I want to applaud my fellow mountaineer Natalie Tennant for her positive stance on Internet voting. In additon to our deployed military, Internet voting can be a great accomodation for our citizens with disabilities who may not have access to transportation on election day. We can also use the comuter-based adaptive tools we use everyday at home to vote online, rather than the sometimes difficult machines used at the polls.
Thank you, SOS Tennant! Courage can be shown in many ways. Your commitment to providing access to your overseas military voters, allowing them to exercise their most important right, shows great courage. In fact, you probably demonstrate more courage on an average day than the career detractors of online voting ever will. It is surprising to see some of those detractors still referring to the symposium in Connecticut, where you were asked to participate to speak about the tremendous success of the overseas online voting project in your state. Unfortunately the "panel" discussion was not balanced in any way. Instead it was packed with avid activist detractors who, despite claims to the contrary, are NOT "world class" experts in the current state of cybersecurity. They are NOTHING of the kind. The audience at that symposium was equally packed with detractors. Dr. Kelleher's account of the "cyberbullying" that took place at the Ct. symposium is an accurate one. http://internetvotingforall.blogspot.com/2011/11/cyber-bullying-in-connecticut.html Secretary of State Tennant, one need look no further than the example of that "symposium" to see how courageous a woman you are. I'm sure that your resolve will help bring access to not only West Virginia voters but every overseas service member in this country. Rob Weber CyberTheVote
Mr. Davidson should more carefully read the folks he references. They all use such words as “could,” “might,” and “possible.” Lots of scary stories; but zero facts about actual vote losses or fraud. I am no defender of DREs, because they are in polling places and I want more convenience. Nevertheless, I agree with the great Michael Shamos that there is not a single case in which a DRE has been proven in court to have lost a vote, or had a vote changed or stolen. Lots of people have strong FEELINGS that something is wrong in our election systems, and that e-voting is untrustworthy, but feelings aren’t facts.
Nice to see Rob Weber chiming in here about the credentials of world class computer scientists and security experts. It should be noted, of course, that Weber identified himself as an IT specialist at IBM when he was interviewed by CNN. What he failed to tell them, apparently? He is a movie extra who once worked at the IBM tech support phone bank in Long Island. Other than that, yes, we should take his word and political scientist Kelleher's word over those who actually know what they're talking about...just cuz!
The smarmy Dr. Kelleher continues to mislead the nation and insult those world class scientists and security experts by sliming them as "Luddites". If you can't win your argument on facts, misrepresent and insult your opponents, I guess. Oh, and by all means toss in Switzerland and Estonia, even though the security experts hired to work with them have told me PERSONALLY that they could hack and or access those Internet Voting systems with ease. But Kelleher has never been one to let the truth get in the way of his crusade.
It’s always entertaining and sometimes quite amusing to watch our neighbours to the south debate the great issues of the day. The most rancorous used to be about publically funded health care, gun rights, the death penalty, publically subsidized post-secondary education, and taxes. Now you’ve apparently added internet voting to the list. My, but you folks sure have a lot of evils to contend with. Funny how these topics rarely get debated in Europe. Perhaps they’ve conquered their demons (economic and fiscal matters not withstanding). I suppose there must be something wrong with those countries that have some of the highest tax rates in the world, free health care and education, yet are consistently rated as having the highest standards of living anywhere on the globe, along with the lowest crime rates. How can that be? And oh yes, they vote by internet too. Meanwhile in Canada, we seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time and energy fending off American influences imported by US based big business and from locally grown ideological pundits (what we refer to as American wanna-be’s). But I don’t think we’ll have to man the bulwarks on the internet question. After all, we’ve been using internet voting at the municipal level for over ten years and in all that time, the only contested election results that ended up in court were based on another form of voting. Guess which one! Oh, and if an outsider might be allowed to make one suggestion. Any reference to computers, algorithms, databases or the internet that targets dates older than 9 months is like comparing the Hadron Collider with a microscope; it’s probably invalid!
Hey Syd! Thanks for sharing that! People in the US often fail to look out at the rest of the world and see what other countries are doing. Successful online voting has been done in France, India, Switzerland, Norway, Mexico City, and lots of other places that "Brad" fellow has probably never heard of. Here's my post on Internet voting in Markham http://tinyurl.com/IntV-Facts (There are other posts about Ms Tennant on my blog, too) Bill Kelleher Twitter: wjkno1 Author: Internet Voting Now!
Dear Syd, Sir, your eloquence is exceeded only by your wisdom. Your addition to this conversation is invaluable. We Americans like to speak of American "exceptionalism". Unfortunately when some Americans dismiss the ways that other countries outpace us they are displaying American arrogance. Attitudes toward the success of online voting in Canada are examples of such arrogance.
Syd - Which of those Canadian elections held over the Internet were the most successful? Was it the NDP leadership election held this last March (within your silly 9 month limit of when we should pay attention) that was attacked by some 10,000 computers, as described here? http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9211 As to Kelleher and Weber, keep choking that chicken, boys. No reason to be honest with folks about any of this stuff, eh? What they don't know won't hurt 'em, right? Kind of like what happens when you run a "successful" Internet election. If you're not allowed to see what's going on, then you'll never know about any failures like lost or stolen or misappropriate votes. If you never get to hear about them, that's just as good as them never having happened at all, right? Give my best to Santa and the Easter Bunny at your next monthly meeting!
I am speaking as a normal, average American voter. I may not be a Ph.D. or an expert in internet security but I am a voter who has never missed an election. I'm not arrogant nor am I ignorant. I like to believe that my vote counts. With that said, I think people need to remember to be respectful of opinions and not condescending when topics such as online voting are being discussed. Where I live the only internet service available is dial-up. Yes, dial-up still exists in my corner of West Virginia. We have no cell phone service at my home so our only other option for internet is satellite, which is not only expensive but not much faster than dial-up as well. The point of me throwing that out there is to let people know that families in rural West Virginia are still out of date when it comes to access to the internet. As for your "American hero" - I respect Ms. Tennant's efforts for bringing online voting to West Virginia and having an "open" office, but currently (as of June 2012) two counties in West Virginia have more registered voters than adult residents (Boone & Lincoln counties) so perhaps she should be focusing on cleaning up voter rolls and asking herself why there would be more registered voters than adult residents anywhere in her state. There are many holes in our voting system and for me - the every day American citizen who exercises her right to vote - I will be voting in person where I can see another human being and ask questions if I have them. I'm not sure if anyone in this forum has seen the PBS clip "Internet Voting: Will Democracy or Hackers win?" but you should take a look ... http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june12/internetvoting_02-16.html
Dear Ms. Kerns: Thanks for posting this informative information. It’s easy to overlook the problems of the rural voter. Good news! It won’t be long before the problem of rural Internet access is fixed! Here is a list of over a dozen programs in the works in states all around the US: http://www.ncsu.edu/iei/index.php/our-work/rural-people-rural-policy/rural-digital-advocacy-grants Also, many states are still working on cleaning up their voter registration rolls. Remember, all registration in the past has been on paper – zillions of filing cards and sheets of paper, all with scores of styles of hand writing. One day soon, every voter registration will be tied to one and only one voter. The voter’s finger print, or eye scan, or facial scan will make sure that each voter only votes once per election. After that, when folks move, they can re-register online. Our country is in a transition period from paper to digital. While West Virginia’s Internet voting program was only for its overseas military, Ms. Tennant, and many other folks, want everyone in the nation to have the option to vote online. Finally, here’s a surprise: the News Hour story you link to was based on my blog posts! Go to http://internetvotingforall.blogspot.com/2012/02/news-hour-internet-voting-story.html William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. Twitter: wjkno1 Author: Internet Voting Now! Internetvoting@gmail.com