Voting Machine Vulnerabilities - Let's Not Downplay Them

'Letter to the Editor' submitted to the Nanaimo Daily News on Nov. 7/08. We'll have to wait and see if they publish it.

Dear Editor,
Your recent piece, Civil liberties group takes up Nanaimo vote complaint (Nanaimo Daily News, Oct. 30/2008), clearly demonstrates how poor a job the local media does in covering issues critical to the well-being of both their readers and the public at large. Having reviewed the correspondence (links are on Ron Bolin's blog, http://www.bolin08.net) and having spoken to Ms. McAllister on several occasions about her complaint, I find your paper guilty of the same thing as the Ombudsman's office in this case, failure to grasp the whole picture. Although this attitude pervades your entire story, I will use just a single sentence to demonstrate my point. You write, "(t)he provincial department found nothing wrong with how voting machines were used in Nanaimo." Now, before we even begin, I can tell you that your use of the word "nothing" convinces me that such a high standard willl not be met.
However, the main problem I have with the statement is that it might lead a reasonable person to believe that you are saying that there are no problems with using electronic voting machines in local elections. Since I know that you have been afforded the opportunity to learn about the serious concerns that security experts have repeatedly expressed about the vulnerability of these machines, I am sure that you didn't mean to leave that impression.
Lastly, a practical question - just how does one measure someone's 'intent'? This is yet another example of a legislation loophole big enough to drive a Mack truck through (just like the 'conflict of interest rules'), indicating to me that governments really aren't interested in holding anyone accountable.

B.C. 2008 Local Elections Voting Advice

Technology alone does not eliminate the possibility of corruption and incompetence in elections, it merely changes the platform on which they may occur. The voters and the election boards who serve them must be made aware of the risks of adopting electronic vote-tallying systems, insisting that the checks and balances inherent to our democracy be maintained. Rebecca Mercuri - 'Corrupted Polling'

Having trouble trying to decide who to vote for in the upcoming B.C.-wide municipal elections (Nov. 15th)?!? Well, you're not alone. One thing you should realize is that you're not required to vote for the full 'slate' of candidates, i.e, if, even after doing all your research, you just can't come up with 1 good person for Mayor, 6 (or 8) good people for Council or 7 (or 9) good people for School Board, then vote only for those you believe will ask for your opinion, search out solutions, keep you fully informed and then make the decision in the best interests of your community. That's what I'm going to do. Maybe, if the results, on top of a low voter turnout, clearly demonstrate reduced voting 'averages', someone will take note and come up with a way to improve the quality of both the candidates and the discussion. Then again, the jaded cynic in me says that if only three people vote, the candidate with two or more votes, will probably gladly take the job!
Also, if you are one of the 55+ jurisdictions where your Council/Board has decided to use electronic voting machines to record your votes and you're just not sure about how accurately they will reflect your intent, I would suggest that you at least indicate to the polling place workers that you are using a machine to exercise your most basic democratic right under protest. That, also, is what I intend to do! Hopefully, with pressure from the voters, a long-term solution to this problem will be adopted by the Ministry of Community Development long before the next election (although scheduled for 2011, your current politicians voted at the last UBCM to ask the provincial government to extend the interval to every four years).

UPDATE [08 11 15]
Well, I went and voted at Costin Hall about an hour ago and, yes, I followed my own advice. Not finding anyone worthy of my support in the Lantzville council race (you might think I would have voted for Rod Negrave as the 'spoiler' but, since his wife used to work for the Mayor's wife and current councillor, Denise Haime [and may still], I wasn't convinced of his independence from the present anti-democratic Council). According to the early results, it looks like the 'average' Lantzville voter could only find 4.6 people running for council to support. However, I am happy to report that I did, through talking to people, reviewing information on websites and attending meetings, find 5 candidates worth supporting for District 68 School Board and I wish them the best of luck. They control a much larger budget than Lantzville Council.
Although Bylaw 70, "District of Lantzville Elections and Other Voting Opportunities" says that a secrecy sleeve shall be provided "if requested by the elector", it appears that everyone was being given one. Although Ian Howat, our former Chief Administrative Officer (and now in charge of 'legislation' with the City of Nanaimo) has recently said that you can't force people to use one, I was planning on requesting one if it hadn't been offered.
When it came time to put my completed ballot into the vote counting unit, I said in a loud, clear voice to the fellow manning the Diebold (now Premier Election Solutions) Accuvote-OS vote counting unit that "I object to having to use a machine in order to exercise this the most basic of my democratic rights and responsibilities" to which he responded that I "wasn't the first, a number of people had said that". O.K. folks, so here's the challenge - let's work together over the next three years to see to it that potentially insecure voting machines like this one are not allowed to be used ANYWHERE IN B. C. unless they have been tested and certified by an approved, independent, testing lab and there is rigorous testing required at the local level before they can be deployed to count your votes. My submission to the Ministry of Community Development, which I feel is the first, major 'salvo' in this effort, should be ready to go by the end of the month. If you are interested and want to help, either post a comment here by clickng below or email me at vigilantz@hotmail.com and tell me how you would like to contribute. I'd love to actually hear from someone since I'd hate think that the 2400+ visits to my blogs so far are all Lantzville council members wondering what I am writing about them.

Nanaimo's Been Voting Electronically For Years!!!

Letter submitted to and published (with some changes - ???) by the Harbour City Star on July 12/08)

Dear Editor,
Well, you sort of got it right ("E-voting is off the ballot for Nanaimo", Harbour City Star, June 28/08). You write that Nanaimo has "put aside plans to allow people to vote by phone or computer" when it would have been more correct to state that the provincial Ministry which provides the legislative framework for local (municipal) elections, the Ministry of Community Services, to their credit, declined to grant such an important power to the City of Nanaimo in a hurry. Sober reflection and careful deliberation are essential in situations like this.
Although City staff began the mis-use of the term 'electronic voting', you do the same when you imply that the voters of Nanaimo have not been doing so before. The facts are that the City of Nanaimo has been voting electronically since at least 1999, using the democracy-challenging Diebold optical scan, electronic voting machines. The use of the phone or internet to vote requires one to add the 'remote' designation to the term.
While Ms. Harrison may be right in that remote electronic voting could "encourage higher participation", although the results where it has been tried are mixed, the one thing that we know for sure is that it would open up the most basic of our democratic rights and obligations to potential vote buying/selling, vote stealing, voter coercion, vote tampering and hacking. So far, the security experts agree that it just isn't worth the risk! Just consider how many critical security-related patches Microsoft has strongly advised you to install to your Windows/Internet Explorer software in the past month alone!
If Nanaimo is really serious about significantly increasing voter turnout, might I suggest that, as a start, they do everything in their power to treat the individual's vote with the respect it deserves. "Ensuring the reliability, security, and verifiability of public elections is fundamental to a stable democracy. Convenience and speed of vote counting are no substitute for accuracy of results and trust in the process by the electorate" - Assn. for Computing Machinery.

B.C. Electronic Voting Machine Survey Results Are In!

Beginning back in early June, with the help of a list originally supplied by blackboxvoting.org and then supplemented with one from a survey on civicinfo.bc.ca, I contacted, by email, 53 B. C. municipalities which the lists indicated were using electronic voting machines in their local elections (Council, School Board and referendum). These municipalities ranged in population from 1,655 to 579,412 (normally 2006 census - civicinfo.bc.ca).

In order to better understand their use of the machines and essential testing and security protocols, I asked each of them the following 7 questions:

1. do you use electronic voting machines for local government elections/referendum? If not, please tell me and thank you for having taken the time to read this email
2. if so, what would you say is your main reason for using them?
3. what makes(s) and model(s) of machines do you currently use? Plan to use in November 2008?
4. how long have you been using these machines?
5. what is the number of the bylaw authorizing the use of these electronic voting machines and specifying the procedures for voting and counting the votes and how can I obtain a copy of same?
6. how many machines are in use at one time and are they connected via a 'live' network to a central tabulating computer during the election?
7. how do you handle training and technical support for these machines, both in between and during the actual election/referendum? This could include items such as maintenance, repair, programming and security. How many spare machines do you have?

Interestingly enough, even after at least one 'friendly' reminder, only 36 (68%) of the 53 municipalities took the time to respond. Officials with Central Saanich and Lake Country responded in a manner but did not answer more than 1 of the questions. Those that, for reasons not shared with me, wouldn't take the 10-15 minutes to complete the survey questions, were: Chetwynd, Coquitlam, Courtenay, Hope, Kelowna, Nanaimo, North Saanich, Osoyoos, Pitt Meadows, Powell River, Qualicum Beach, Salmon Arm, Sooke, Spallumcheen, Squamish, Summerland and Vanderhoof. The widely reported insecurity of the machines aside, I think the voters in these municipalities should be very concerned that they are not only using electronic voting machines which are known to be easily compromised, but those responsible don't even care to discuss it!! That, in itself, should raise a huge, red flag flag' and could be interpreted as the staff not being fully confident in their use of the machines (if they are not prepared to be queried on it).

The results from those that did complete their survey generally show that the main reasons for using the machines are "accuracy" and "speed" (i.e. convenience) and reducing voter disenfranchisement (automatic checking of the ballot for 'overvotes' and 'undervotes'), that there are very few that have any machine-related security measures built into their electronic voting authorization bylaws and they generally seem unaware of the risks, NONE of them reported doing a random audit of the results during the election, some of them have the vendor or another third party involved in the programming of the machines, a few of them share their machines with another out-of-province jurisdiction and ALL of them use the machines to perform a recount, if necessary, i.e., there is no hand-counting of ballots. These would be some of the classic signs of an insecure installation and a 'problem waiting to happen'! On a slightly positive note, none of those that use more than a single machine connect them to a 'live' network, which reduces the possibility of a virus being introduced but doesn't entirely eliminate it.

These responses basically failed to convince me that they understood the nature of the physical and 'virtual' security issues involved in the use of these machines, e.g., no one appears to require two persons to be present when the machines/memory cards are programmed, tested and secured as well as two keys to access the machines and the programmable memory cards. They are also confusing the term "accuracy" with that of "repeatability" - the machines are very good at producing the same result over and over again (repeatability) when given the same inputs but that DOES NOT mean that they are properly reflecting the voter's intent (accuracy). While the aspect of voter disenfranchisement due to undetected overvotes/undervotes is not to be downplayed, the extent of voter disenfranchisement due to compromised machines are likely to be far greater.

I am not holding myself out as an expert on this complex issue but, based on extensive reading and having more than average knowledge of computer technology, I believe the experts. Let's pay careful attention to what wide-spread use of these machines (reportedly at about 33%) in the U.S elections in November (even though several states have 'de-certified' them due to a number of concerns, they have been forced to use them because they have nothing else that will be ready in time) produces.

How We Vote in B.C. Matters A Great Deal!!

ns, securityLetter submitted to and published (largely unedited - surprise!) by the Nanaimo Daily News (June 17/08):

Dear Editor,
It would serve the interests of democracy and the residents of Nanaimo much better if City staff and council ensured that the voting machines they now have can be trusted to produce the correct result, rather than expanding the voting options to include telephone and internet (Voters could cast votes online, Nanaimo Daily News, May 7/08; Assurances needed before e-voting system in place, May 22/08). Before rushing to make changes, City staff would do well to consider the report on e-voting produced by Elections Canada which shows that only 29% of those surveyed would use a computer (the internet) while only 36% would use the phone for registering their democratic choice before they go too far down this road strewn with land mines/false assurances. They should also look at significant problems noted in the Open Rights Group report on 'e-voting' in the U.K. elections of May 2007. The Diebold Accuvote-OS machines which the City used in the last municipal election in 2005 (and for the PNC referendum) have been widely disparaged due to serious security deficiencies. Due to the fact that they have been demonstrated to be easily 'hackable/infected' and experts at institutions no less than UC Berkeley (Wagner/Jefferson/Bishop) and Princeton (Felten) have produced reports detailing some of their short-comings and how easily they can be compromised, they should be used only with extreme care. Therefore, if the City feels that voting machines are required to count Nanaimo's ballots (the only relevant justification: quick results), they should instead dedicate their efforts to putting in place equipment, procedures and training which will ensure the integrity of the vote. Even with a large number of voters, paper ballots are good enough for both provincial and federal elections, municipal elections being the only ones to use electronic voting in B. C.There is woefully little in the Nanaimo elections bylaw (5160), which regulates the use of these machines, that would prevent or detect any such tampering with the democratic will of the people and it is highly likely that City staff and the people charged with overseeing the elections (they are usually one and the same) do not know or have not been trained to detect and thwart any such an attacks.For all of these reasons, Community Services Minister, Ida Chong should, instead of allowing the City 'by decree' to introduce more vulnerabilities into something as important as the ability to exercise our democratic rights, commit herself to ensuring that the use of electronic voting machines in B. C. municipal elections is subject to strict, uniform certification and security requirements and that those responsible for our elections, who must be impartial, fully understand and discharge their responsibilities under those regulations. If you want to be sure that your vote is properly registered in November, you must tell Nanaimo council and your MLA to make the security of your democratic choices paramount. For more on the security failings of these machines, go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org & http://www.bradblog.com and search for 'Diebold+voting'.

I would ask everyone reading this article to do as I have suggested and contact their City Council (mayor.council@nanaimo.ca), (emayne@parksville.ca), (council@lantzville.ca) or (mayor@qualicumbeach.com) and your MLA (leonard.krog.mla@leg.bc.ca or ron.cantelon.mla@leg.bc.ca) and tell them to make the security of your vote the paramount consideration in any initiative to change how we register our democratic choices at election time.

Let Every Vote Be Counted, But Only Once!!!

I sent the following 'Letter to the Editor' of the Nanaimo Daily News and was pleasantly surprised when they published it (June 17/08), pretty much as I wrote it (the only thing they changed was the reference to previous Daily News articles/letters). Although it was way over the 300 word limit they usually impose (as usual, I had edited it multiple times to try and distill it to the 'essence'), I would like to believe that they printed it because they felt it contained important information for their readers.

Dear Editor,
It would serve the interests of democracy and the residents of Nanaimo much better if City staff and council ensured that the voting machines they now have can be trusted to produce the correct result, rather than expanding the voting options to include telephone and internet (Voters could cast votes online, Nanaimo Daily News, May 7/08; Assurances needed before e-voting system in place, May 22/08). Before rushing to make changes, City staff would do well to consider the report on e-voting produced by Elections Canada which shows that only 29% of those surveyed would use a computer (the internet) while only 36% would use the phone for registering their democratic choice before they go too far down this road strewn with land mines/false assurances. They should also look at significant problems noted in the Open Rights Group report on 'e-voting' in the U.K. elections of May 2007.
The Diebold Accuvote-OS machines which the City used in the last municipal election in 2005 (and for the PNC referendum) have been widely disparaged due to serious security deficiencies. Due to the fact that they have been demonstrated to be easily 'hackable/infected' and experts at institutions no less than UC Berkeley (Wagner/Jefferson/Bishop) and Princeton (Felten) have produced reports detailing some of their short-comings and how easily they can be compromised, they should be used only with extreme care. Therefore, if the City feels that voting machines are required to count Nanaimo's ballots (the only relevant justification: quick results), they should instead dedicate their efforts to putting in place equipment, procedures and training which will ensure the integrity of the vote. Even with a large number of voters, paper ballots are good enough for both provincial and federal elections, municipal elections being the only ones to use electronic voting in B. C.
There is woefully little in the Nanaimo elections bylaw (5160), which regulates the use of these machines, that would prevent or detect any such tampering with the democratic will of the people and it is highly likely that City staff and the people charged with overseeing the elections (they are usually one and the same) do not know or have not been trained to detect and thwart any such an attacks.
For all of these reasons, Community Services Minister, Ida Chong should, instead of allowing the City 'by decree' to introduce more vulnerabilities into something as important as the ability to exercise our democratic rights, commit herself to ensuring that the use of electronic voting machines in B. C. municipal elections is subject to strict, uniform certification and security requirements and that those responsible for our elections, who must be impartial, fully understand and discharge their responsibilities under those regulations.
If you want to be sure that your vote is properly registered in November, you must tell Nanaimo council and your MLA to make the security of your democratic choices paramount.
For more on the security failings of these machines, go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org & http://www.bradblog.com and search for 'Diebold+voting'.

Who Says The Media Doesn't Have Their Own Agenda?!?

Back in the fall of 2005, when I was running for a spot on Lantzville council on a 'We Are Listening' platform against a very pro-development group primarily of accountants, I was asked by the Nanaimo News Bulletin thrice-weekly free newspaper to provide a profile of myself, which would be published in that paper, owned by the Black Press group, on Nov. 17th, two days before the election. The instructions which I received from them for formatting my piece were quite specific - a 120 word limit (not counting my photo, name, age and career) with any excess over this amount being trimmed from the end of the piece. Well, for some inexplicable reason, it didn't quite work out that way. Even though I was 8 words (1 to 2 lines) under the limit, instead of following their already established and communicated rules, they selectively removed information from the previously inviolate 'career' section.
Information such as the fact that I was a semi-retired chemical engineer (they kept the 'semi-retired' but dropped the 'chemical engineer'), which just might have been important for Lantzville residents in ascertaining my suitability in analyzing and 'overseeing' capital projects within the District. Remember, the 120 word limit was supposed to be in addition to the name, age and career!

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time (and I am sure it will not be the last) that the media appears to have insinuated their own agenda upon us. I had long ago stopped submitting 'Letters to the Editor' to this particular paper because they would invariably strip words (or whole sentences/paragraphs) from my letters, often changing the meaning and intent of what I had written. The final straw was when I told them to not publish a letter I had submitted if they couldn't run it, as written, and guess what happened?

Don't ever kid your self that the media - print, television and even internet don't have an agenda because you will be sorrily disappointed. In the United States, conservatives were so disgusted with the perceived bias of the 'left-wing' media that they came up with a solution - they would create a right-wing media which, of course, would be just as biased as what they had previously railed against. And some people would call that progress!

This Just In!
Since I don't regularly read the Nanaimo News Bulletin (due to its lack of independence and disrespectful treatment of 'Letters to the Editor'), I almost missed this! In the May 3rd edition, Lantzville's Mayor, Colin Haime, who is mentioned numerous times in my "Chutzpah' blog (http://vigilantz.blogspot.com/), offers a letter of congratulations to the News Bulletin on its 20th anniversary for its "breaking news and in-depth features on issues that impact us all... with both accuracy and professionalism reflective of a highly professional publication". Is it just me or does it seem just a little 'over-the-top' for a politician to be congratulating the media?!