TECH21

Monday, March 3, 2003

Scientists question electronic voting
Henry Norr
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Search in: Oddly enough, Silicon Valley has been a laggard when it · Printer-friendly version
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comes to applying the technology it’s famous for to the election
SFGate Home process. Now it’s finally beginning to catch up, and it has MORE BIZ | TECH
Today’s Chronicle suddenly become the locus of an overdue -- and profoundly
important -- debate about the mechanics of democracy in the
Intel spends big to point
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more laptop users to the
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wireless way.
The crux of the discussion is whether Santa Clara County, the
News & Features heart of the valley, should follow the lead of other jurisdictions
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that are moving to all- electronic voting or instead choose
Opinion technology finds new
Politics systems that combine the convenience of digital balloting with
life.
Technology the auditability afforded by paper ballots.
Crime
Science Scientists question
The county supervisors last week came up with a compromise
Weird News electronic voting.
Polls that left everyone involved a little confused but at least opened
Photo Gallery the door to future requirements for a tangible audit trail -- a
Stirring up racial
Columnists major, if only partial, victory for critics of the all-electronic
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approach.
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Personal Shopper Santa Clara County is one of nine California counties still
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relying on punch-card voting machines, the technology that
by FCC.
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Personals Mac Q&A: Keeping
Real Estate other programs hidden
Rentals A year ago, a federal judge ordered that the state replace all
when switching apps .
Vehicles such equipment by the 2004 presidential election.
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So the county government began looking at alternatives, and its
Regional staff came up with a $20 million plan to buy touch-screen
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Weather voting machines. Such terminals let users make their choices by
Live Views tapping the screen next to the candidates and measures they Get Quote:
Maps support. The results are tallied automatically, so -- in theory - -
Bay Area Traveler an accurate count is available almost instantly when the polls
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Reno & Tahoe close.
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Outdoors Alameda, Riverside and Plumas counties have already chosen Symbol Lookup
that seemingly cutting-edge technology. Most other counties in
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the state are moving in the same direction, taking advantage of
financing offered by Proposition 41, the $200 million Voting Main Business & Finance
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Movies Modernization Bond Act California voters approved a year ago, portfolio, funds and more...
Music & Nightlife and the $3.9 billion Help America Vote Act that Congress
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enacted in October. SFGate Technology: It’s a
high-tech world - - we just
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Books But a funny thing happened on the way to the paperless future:
Comics Some of high technology’s best and brightest -- computer
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scientists who know better than anyone else what computers
can do but also how they can be misused -- came out against
Living Santa Clara County’s plan. They were joined by Kim
Health Alexander, founder and president of the respected, nonpartisan
Health Alexander, founder and president of the respected, nonpartisan
Home & Garden California Voter Foundation, and other concerned citizens. RETAIL
Gay & Lesbian EXCELLENT PAY &
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Their objection, as David Dill, professor of computer science at
ANDERSON’S
Resources Stanford and leader of the campaign, puts it on his Web site:
Search & Archives The machines the county planned to buy, like those other
Feedback/Contacts jurisdictions around the country are installing, "pose an SALES
Corrections Outside Nations largest
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unacceptable risk that errors or deliberate election- rigging will
go undetected, since they do not provide a way for the voters to maint. suppl
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Site Index verify independently that the machine correctly records and
counts the votes they have cast." (See the box on E3 for Dill’s SALES
Chronicle Services Web site and others sites discussed below.) REGIONAL SALES
Missed Delivery PHARMA & BIOTECH
Vacation Hold Join
Subscribe Dill, Alexander and their associates are not opposed to
Contact touch-screen voting.
CONSTRUCTION
Advertising After all, as proponents of the technology argue, it does offer Project Engineer/ Estimator
Advertise Online American Bridge
Place Print Ad many advantages over the alternatives, including the ability to
Media Kit display ballots in multiple languages, potentially easier access
for people with disabilities, easy ways for voters to correct MEDICAL
mistakes or change their minds, and the possibility of RECEPTION MANAGER,
programmed safeguards against human errors that could exp’d for lrg Sun
disqualify a ballot (such as voting for multiple candidates in a
single race). ENGINEER
LLNL is currently seeking
Critics contend, though, that it’s possible to preserve these a Civil...
advantages, yet reduce the risk of accidental or malicious LLNL
miscounting by choosing touch- screen systems that also
produce a "voter-verifiable audit trail" -- in plain English, a
HOTELS
paper ballot. The voter could review it to ensure its accuracy, and Restaurants AVALON
then deposit it in a ballot box. Later, the ballots could be used HOTEL AND SPA
to spot- check the totals reported electronically. If disputes
arose, they would even be available for manual recounting.
PLANNING
CHIEF, PLANNING &
Technologically, there’s no great challenge here -- adding STEWARDSHIP
printing is "hardly a moon shot," as Dill put it. Sacramento E. BAY REGIONAL
County is already testing machines that print out ballots, and PARK
Mendocino and Sonoma counties are insisting on this capability
in their new equipment, according to Alexander. But a move in
HEALTH
that direction by the county that’s virtually synonymous with PROJECT MANAGERS &
digital technology would undoubtedly give the idea a big boost. PROJECT CONTROLLE

In January, when Alexander and Dill got involved, Santa Clara

ENGINEERING
County had already been working on its plan for months, and ASSOC. CIVIL
the county supervisors were on the verge of a final vote. By all ENGINEER
accounts, the supervisors and county election officials initially EAST BAY MUD
responded to their arguments with skepticism, if not irritation.

It quickly became clear, though, that the opposition couldn’t be EDUCATION

dismissed as uninformed Luddites. Dill, who says he began JOB OPENINGS
working on the issue in the fall without even knowing about the COLLEGE OF MARIN
county’s plans, had already put a powerful presentation of his
case on the Web in response to reports of problems with PUBLIC SECTOR
paperless voting equipment in Georgia. Administrative Support
Assistant
In consultation with other experts and his Stanford colleagues, VA Medical Center
he had also written a petition urging that voting machines not
be purchased or used unless they provide a voter-verifiable PHARMACIST
audit trail. When such machines are already in use, the petition Inpatient Supervisor
 Inpatient Supervisor
stated, they should be replaced or modified to provide such a VA Medical Center
record. And Dill had collected the signatures of scores -- now
hundreds -- of eminent technologists, including many of the
best-known names in computer science, security and election CONSTRUCTION
technology. PROJECT MANAGER for
nationwide multi

Such formidable opposition caught the eye of Kevin Shelley,

California’s new secretary of state. Last month he appointed a NURSING
task force to advise him and the board charged with certifying IMMEDIATE OPENING
voting equipment in the state on security and auditability issues Prof’l Healthcare
raised by touch-screen voting. Among the members of the task
force, which held its initial meeting last week, are Dill and AUTO SMOG TECH
Alexander. OWNERSHIP
OPPORTUNITY
Santa Clara County supervisors first put off a vote, then last
week came up with a split decision. They directed the county LOANS
administration to proceed with plans to buy touch screens from LOAN OFFICER I
Sequoia Voting Systems in Oakland, as the staff had NAT’L COOPERATIVE
recommended all along, and they didn’t mandate the addition
of printing equipment.
DENTIST
UPSCALE OFFICE
But by a 3-2 vote the supes also accepted an amendment laying REDWOOD CITY
the groundwork for ballot printing in the future. It directed the
staff to ensure that the contract with Sequoia calls for the
company to provide printing equipment at no extra charge if the RESTAURANT
state eventually requires it. And it called on the staff to develop TDS Foods, experts in high
profile c
a pilot program for printing user-verifiable ballots beginning
with the November election.
TECHNICIAN
Altogether, the decision was far from a ringing endorsement of FIELD SERVICE
TECHNICIAN
the critics’ arguments. But in Alexander’s words "the very fact
BRINKMANN
that the county stopped, listened and responded is a victory."

OLD ARGUMENT, NEW URGENCY MANAGEMENT

Doctoral Level
Psycologist!
Dill was by no means the first scientist to challenge the move RHR International
toward paperless voting. Among others, Peter Neumann,
principal scientist at SRI International’s Computer Science
ACCOUNTING
Laboratory and a leading expert on the risks associated with CONTROLLER S.F. Mgmt
high technology, and Rebecca Mercuri, a software developer Consulting Co.
and Bryn Mawr professor who wrote her dissertation on
electronic voting systems, have been arguing for years that
SOCIAL SERVICES
there’s no reliable way to guarantee the security and integrity
Senior Program Officer
of all-electronic counting systems.
P/PV
I used to think their concerns were worth worrying about but
not all that likely to materialize in the real world. Now I’ve PHARMACY
changed my tune: I’m convinced that the dangers are real, not Full time Staff Pharmacist
just hypothetical, and that it’s critical that our voting systems Chronimed
be fortified against them.
ESTIMATOR
One factor that changed my mind was the way the Florida American Bridge
situation finally played out. But numerous subsequent Manufacturing is..
revelations have also influenced me: American Bridge

-- Problems with Florida’s new touch-screen equipment have About Top Jobs
been amply documented. To cite just two: Votes cast for the View All Top Jobs
Democratic candidate for governor in one precinct during last
fall’s gubernatorial race were credited to Jeb Bush because of a
"misaligned" touch screen. No one knows how many votes
were misrecorded. In city council elections in Palm Beach last
March, when a losing candidate challenged the results, a local 02/26/2003 - Fired
programmer sues employer
judge denied the challenger and his consultant, Mercuri, the over integrity of voting
opportunity to inspect the machines, citing the rights of the software .
manufacturer, Sequoia, to protect its trade secrets.
11/04/2002 - After early
troubles, close scrutiny for new
-- Bev Harris, a Seattle publicist who has become a leading high-tech voting systems .
muckraker on voting-technology issues via her "Black Box
Voting" Web site, uncovered some disturbing facts (since 11/04/2002 - After early
confirmed by other sources) about Sen. Chuck Hagel, R- Neb.: troubles, close scrutiny for new
high-tech voting systems .
He was part owner and former chairman and chief executive of
the company that made all the equipment that counted the votes more related articles...
during his last two runs for office, yet he failed to list his ties to
the company on federal disclosure forms.

-- Jason Kitcat, a British developer who for three years led an

open-source project to develop secure vote-counting software,
recently abandoned the project. "The more I have coded,
researched, discussed and read," he wrote on his Web site
(www.free-project.org), "the more I’ve realised that . . . I’m
much better off focusing on the dangers all such technologies
present to processes such as voting."

-- Just last week Dan Spillane, an engineer formerly employed

by VoteHere, a Bellevue, Wash., manufacturer of touch-screen
machines, sued the company for wrongful termination,
charging that he was fired for pointing out some 250 defects,
including many that could interfere with the accuracy of
reported results. He also charged that the company, which is
run by a former senior military aide to Vice President Dick
Cheney and whose board includes former CIA Director Robert
Gates, misled auditors certifying its products.

In a declaration filed in support of Susan Marie Weber, a

Riverside County resident who is challenging the legality of
paperless voting, Neumann wrote that "The shining lure of
these ’hype-tech’ voting schemes is only a technological fool’s
gold that will create new problems far more intractable than
those they claim to solve."

I’m convinced he’s right. The good news is that he, Dill,
Alexander and others in the growing movement to challenge
such systems are bringing the problems to light. Let’s hope that
Santa Clara County’s decision last week, tentative as it was,
turns out to be the beginning of a new realism about what high
tech can and can’t do to preserve democracy.

THE CASE AGAINST

ALL-ELECTRONIC VOTING
Internationally renowned computer scientists as well as election
experts and activists are taking to the Web to point up the
dangers of voting equipment that doesn’t produce paper ballots
for verifications.
-- Professor David Dill’s Web site calls for voting machines
that provide a "voter-verifiable audit trail." It includes an
excellent "frequently asked questions" page:
verify.stanford.edu/evote.html

-- The Voting Technology section of the California Voter

Foundation, an excellent compendium of news, links and
analysis by foundation President Kim Alexander:
www.calvoter.org/votingtechnology.html

-- "Election Guardians," a site devoted mainly to the suit filed

by Riverside County resident Susan Marie Weber challenging
the legality of that county’s all-electronic system:
www.electionguardians.org

-- "Black Box Voting," a site run by publicist and author Bev

Harris, including exposes of Sen. Chuck Hagel’s previously
undisclosed involvement with the company that made the
machines that count all votes in his home state:

www.blackboxvoting.com

-- Excellent recent articles by Salon.com’s Farhad Manjoo on

touch-screen voting technology and problems recently revealed
by Harris and others: www.
salon.com/tech/feature/2002/11/05/voting_machines/index.html
and www.salon.
com/tech/feature/2003/02/20/voting_machines/index.html

-- "Electronic Voting" site of Rebecca Mercuri, a specialist on

election technologies and a leading critic of all-electronic
systems: mainline.brynmawr. edu/rmercuri/evote.html

-- Links to resolutions and documents debated by the Santa

Clara County Board of Supervisors:
www.sccgov.org/agenda/view/0,5310,ccid%253D215948,00.
html -- scroll to item 30. Supervisor Peter McHugh’s successful
amendment supporting voter-verified paper audit trail is listed
as "2/25/03 Supp Info 4."

-- Links to papers on election risks by Peter Neumann,

principal scientist at SRI International’s Computer Science
Laboratory: www.csl.sri. com/users/neumann/neumann.html#5!

-- Report of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project (July

2001), endorsing use of optical-scan equipment:
www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/index. html Source: Chronicle
research

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