N E W Y O R K W O M E N ’ S B A R A S S O C I A T I O N
S
E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 3
Direct
Recording Electronic Voting Machines:
Ease
of Use vs. Ease of Computer-based Fraud
by
Teresa Hommel
Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002
(HAVA) just before the 2002 elections. HAVA allocated $3.9 billion for states
to revise their election administration, and encouraged replacement of old
lever-type and punched-card voting equipment with new machines such as optical
scanners or Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines.
DREs typically resemble big laptop computers with
touch-screen capability, like ATMs. Although optical scanners require the use
of paper ballots that can be preserved and hand counted, election officials
across the country say that voters, especially the elderly and disabled, prefer
DREs because of their relative accessibility and ease of use.
A Security
Problem
Most DREs on the market today do not provide a
"voter-verifiable audit (or paper) trail."1 This is a printout of each voter's ballot marked
with his or her choices that can be checked for accuracy before being cast,
and, after being cast, serves as the permanent record of the ballot for recount
purposes. The problem is that without a voter-verifiable paper trail,
independent recounts are prevented and the correct functioning of the machines
cannot be independently ascertained.
The major manufacturers of DREs tout as security
features their machines' ability to print post-election audit trails as well as
complete marked ballots from computer memory. Barring total incompetence of the
programmers, however, any post-election printouts should corroborate the
machine's final tallies whether correct or corrupt. Independent corroboration
of final tallies requires the counting of ballots that were confirmable by the voters
who cast them and unalterable after confirmation. Any information in a computer
can be altered.
Douglas A. Kellner, a Commissioner of the NYC Board of
Elections, says, "My big concern is that using electronic voting machines
to count ballots is akin to taking all the paper ballots and handing them over
to a couple of computer tech people to count them in a secret room, and then
tell us how it came out. That is not an acceptable way of conducting elections
in a democracy."2 The Resolution on Electronic Voting, proposed
by Dr. David Dill of Stanford University and endorsed by over a thousand
computer technologists, says that because of their insecurity, electronic voting
machines "should not be purchased or used unless they provide a
voter-verifiable audit trail; when such machines are already in use, they
should be replaced or modified to provide a voter-verifiable audit
trail."3
Inadequate
Standards
HAVA failed to specify meaningful security standards
for HAVA-funded voting machines. If Congress had waited until after last year's
elections, which saw widespread (but minimally publicized) irregularities with
new electronic voting equipment, HAVA might have included more security
requirements.
HAVA mandates new standards to be developed, but they
will be voluntary. Moreover, the first draft may not be ready until 2006--after
most of the new machines will have been
purchased (HAVA-funded voting machines must be in
place for the November, 2004, election unless a state applies for an extension,
and then the new machines must be in place in 2006).
Most DREs in current use are produced by three
companies: Sequoia Voting Systems, ES&S (Election Systems & Software), and
Diebold. These machines were certified according to older standards that are
clearly inadequate--the Diebold software revealed as faulty in a study released
on July 23, 2003, by computer scientists at Johns Hopkins University had been certified.4
The worst security errors found by the
Johns Hopkins scientists had been called to Diebold's attention five years ago
by Dr. Douglas W. Jones of the University of Iowa and a member of Iowa's board
of examiners for voting systems. Says Dr. Jones, "[T]his story ...
represents a black eye for the entire system of Voting System Standards
promulgated by the Federal Election Commission and the National Association of State
Election Directors. Not only did the ... Diebold touch screen system pass all of
the tests imposed by this standards process, but it passed them many times, and
the source code auditors even gave it exceptionally high marks. Given this, should
we trust the security of any of the other direct recording electronic voting
systems on the market?"5 Dr. Jones
has called for de-certification of the Diebold equipment.
Accessibility
for the Disabled
In
With newer voting machines, audio devices are used to
enable voters who are blind or have limited vision to perceive the original
ballot. Similar audio mechanisms using a separate scanner, laser pen, or other
data-to-voice device should also enable such voters to verify their ballot
printout privately and independently.
The Process
in
In
Some observers of the process believe that a machine
has already been picked for the state. The assertion stems from close ties
between Sequoia Voting Systems and
Lee Daghlian, Director of Public Information of the
State Board of Elections, said on Sept. 3, 2003, "There is no clear cut answer
yet" to the question of what procedure will be used to purchase New York's
new voting machines with HAVA funds, or who will decide what machines to get.
three DREs offer a full face ballot, and they do not
provide a voter-verifiable paper trail at this time. At least one manufacturer could
produce such equipment, however, if it was required.
Conclusion
Computer scientists and others concerned with this
issue are working now against the short deadlines imposed by HAVA to protect
the integrity of elections in
It is my opinion that we should take a position
supporting those requirements. We should urge Governor Pataki to request his
appointee Peter Kosinski to push for voting machines that have these
capabilities; urge our state senate to pass legislation to require them (A8847
has already passed the Assembly); urge State Senator Morahan (R-38th
Dist.), Chair of the Senate Committee on Elections to introduce and support a
companion bill for A8847 in the NY State Senate; urge New York's Congressional
Representatives to co-sponsor H.R. 2239, the Voter Confidence and Increased
Accessibility Act of 2003, a bill introduced by Rush Holt (D-NJ) which would require
voting machines to provide a voter-verifiable permanent record of each ballot
cast as well as accessibility; urge Senators Clinton and Schumer to introduce a
companion bill for H.R. 2239; and pass information about this issue to other groups
in the legal community.
_____________________________
1. The concept and term were created by Dr. Rebecca
Mercuri, internationally recognized expert on electronic voting, currently
affiliated with Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
http://www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html
2. Hudson Star-Register,
3. http://www.verifiedvoting.org/resolution.asp
4. http://www.avirubin.com/vote.pdf. The software had
appeared on the Internet from an insecure ftp site maintained by Diebold.
5. http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/dieboldftp.html
6.
http://cvfieldsmbp.org/Voting%20Technology%20for%20People%20With%20 Disabilities.pdf
7. http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A08847&sh=t
8. http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996