View source for Meeting - Sep 16 2004

'''ISOC-NY Public Meeting - September 16, 2004'''

==Attendees==
*Millard Clements
*Lyn Ohira
*Khrisna Picart
*David Solomonoff

==Minutes==

1. The initial discussion considered the proposed e-voting conferenceor event.

*At the end of these brief notes you will find a list of items from Lyn's web page that are related to the proposed project. Some illustration of these views are provided.
*Lyn discussed some of these items. Much is left to be done.
*There is yet no site for this event. Millard is checking some possibilities at NYU and at the Museum of Natural History.

2. There was some reading of the minutes of the August Meeting.

3. There was some discussion of possible links to the ISOC-NY Web Page.

4. No decisions were made; there was lots of discussion.

5. Time ran out.

==Appendix==

Lyns Web Page: http://www.Eskimo.com/~gnubies/isocny/


Here are some items, links that Lyn suggests we should all read
and consider:

*[EFF] Maryland Election Officials Under Fire From Voters
*EFF E-voting
*Verified Voting Foundation



ELECTRONIC MISCOUNTS OF VOTES ARE A FACT - NOT A THEORY


Technologists warn that electronic voting machines are flawed. They say we
should "trust but verify." Others disagree. For example Florida's Palm
Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore counters
technologists' analysis of electronic voting machine flaws with her claim:
"It's just a bunch of lies." But Broward County is now unable to comply
with Florida law because of the flaws technologists, Congressman Robert
Wexler (D-FL), and many others have pointed out!


Many people are very troubled by the use of uncertified software in recent
California elections. Many are concerned about the backgrounds of some
programmers and managers who control the secret voting machine software.


Our primary concern is the threat that unverifiable electronic voting
poses to elections in the United States. We have been concerned that
without a paper record verified by the voter, there would be no way of
knowing whether votes were recorded accurately and no way to do a
meaningful recount if one is necessary.


Now we are seeing these predicted problems occurring in real elections. We
are seeing election results that will remain forever in dispute because an
audit was impossible. We are seeing that electronic miscounts of votes is
no longer a theory - it's a fact.


What if the miscounts we know of are only the tip of an undetected iceberg
of electronic miscounts? They might be. We have no way of knowing.


Let's solve the problem before November 2004.
Let's pass H.R.2239/S.1980.




*David Dill (helped with suggestions, not coming this way


*[VV] NY Positions of Elected Representatives


*New Yorkers for Verified Voting NYVV (Bo Lipari)


*HR 2239: Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003
(Introduced in House)<br/>
Nadler, Jerrold  (D) Co-Sponsor 9/4/2003<br/>
Sponsor;Rep Holt, Rush D.<br/>



*S1980: Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003<br/>
(Introduced in Senate)


February 24, 2004 - Sen. Charles Schumer became the first cosponsor of
S1980


Senator Robert Graham introduced S1980 into the Senate.


A BILL


To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a voter-verified
permanent record or hardcopy under title III of such Act, and for other
purposes.



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,


This Act may be cited as the `Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility
Act of 2003'.



SEC. 2. EXTENSION OF TIME PROVIDED FOR STATES TO REQUEST PAYMENTS UNDER
TITLE I.



(a) PAYMENTS FOR ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE ADMINISTRATION OF ELECTIONS-
Section 101(a) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (42 U.S.C. 15301(a))
is amended by striking `not later than 6 months after the date of the
enactment of this Act' and inserting `not later than the Tuesday next
after the first Monday in November 2003'.



(b) PAYMENTS FOR REPLACEMENT OF PUNCH CARD OR LEVER VOTING MACHINES-
Section 102(b)(1) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 15301(b)(1)) is amended by
striking `not later than the date that is 6 months after the date of the
enactment of this Act' and inserting `not later than the Tuesday next
after the first Monday in November 2003'.



(c) EXTENSION OF PERIOD OF AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS-



(1) IN GENERAL- Section 104(a) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 15304(a)) is amended
by striking `$650,000,000' and inserting `an aggregate amount of
$650,000,000 for fiscal years 2003 and 2004'.




(2) DATE FOR TRANSFER TO ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION OF UNOBLIGATED
FUNDS- Section 104(c)(2)(B) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 15304(c)(2)(B)) is
amended by striking `September 1, 2003' and inserting `January 1, 2004'.




*NYS State Assembly: A08847a mandating voter verified paper ballots passed
the State Assembly in June 2003 and was renewed on February 23, 2004.

http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/

http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=+A08847A


*NYS State Senate: S.6207  requires voter verified paper ballots on any DREs used in New York.

http://www.senate.state.ny.us/



*Avi Rubin
**Avi Rubin E-voting page
**Analysis of an Electronic Voting System




*The National Committee for Voting Integrity (NCVI)


Authors<br/>
Tadayoshi Kohno<br/>
Adam Stubblefield<br/>
Aviel D. Rubin<br/>
Dan S. Wallach<br/>


Abstract<br/>
With significant U.S. federal funds now available to replace outdated
punch-card and mechanical voting systems, municipalities and states
throughout the U.S. are adopting paperless electronic voting systems from
a number of different vendors. We present a security analysis of the
source code to one such machine used in a significant share of the market.
Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most
minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We identify
several problems including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect
use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software
development processes. We show that voters, without any insider
privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any
mechanisms within the voting terminal software. Furthermore, we show that
even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered
and executed without access to the source code. In the face of such
attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only
concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the
insider threat is also quite considerable, showing that not only can an
insider, such as a poll worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can
also violate voter privacy and match votes with the voters who cast them.
We concluded that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general
election. Any paperless electronic voting system might suffer similar
flaws, despite any "certification" it could have otherwise received. We
suggest that the best solutions are voting systems having a
"voter-verifiable audit trail," where a computerized voting system might
print a paper ballot that can be read and verified by the voter.





*Rebecca Mercuri


Electronic Voting<br/>
Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.<br/>
Updated 3/6/04<br/>


P.O. Box 1166 -- Dept. EV<br/>
Philadelphia, PA  19105<br/>
mercuri @ acm.org<br/>


215/327-7105 or 609/895-1375<br/>
10AM-6PM U.S. Eastern Time, Mon.-Fri.  (try the 609 number first)<br/>
http://www.notablesoftware.com<br/>
------------------------------------------------------------------------<br/>
The contents of this webpage and website are Copyright  2000 - 2004 by
Rebecca Mercuri. All Rights Reserved. All material is protected by
copyright attributed to Rebecca Mercuri where she is the sole author, or
the original sources otherwise.


I am available for comment, consultation, expert testimony, and lectures
on electronic vote tabulation, and can be contacted via the information at
the top of this page.  Members of the press and researchers seeking
interviews and quotation permissions may find it helpful to look at the
guidelines posted here.  (Please note that I am no longer affiliated with
Bryn Mawr College.) I would appreciate it greatly if calls can be limited
to the hours of 10AM - 6PM, U.S. Eastern Time, weekdays.


Follow links to full text of papers and articles. Papers not linked may be
available on request. As this website is now getting rather long, I've
highlighted certain "must read" papers and articles using red asterisks
(*). For a good overview of the subject, search for these first and read
the text at their adjacent links.


Statement


I am adamantly opposed to the use of fully electronic or Internet-based
systems for use in anonymous balloting and vote tabulation applications.
The reasons for my opposition are manyfold, and are expressed in my
writings as well as those of other well-respected computer security
experts.  At the present time, it is my strong recommendation that all
election officials REFRAIN from procuring ANY system that does not provide
an indisputable paper ballot. A detailed explanation, along with my
recommendation for appropriately configured voting equipment, is provided
in the full text of this statement, available *here*.



Communities are discovering that optically scanned balloting systems,
augmented with electronic equipment (that also produce scanable paper
ballots) for use by the disabled, can be procured for less than a tenth of
the price for a fully-electronic system. Such configurations promise to
increase voter confidence by offering the best in terms of reliability,
usability and recountability as well as being highly cost-effective.