Iowa Voters

Two local election officials quoted in the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald have tried to discount the striking undervote study released last week by Iowans for Voting Integrity. Both made comments that suggest they have not read the study.

Delaware County Auditor Carla Becker said “I don’t think they are allowing for voter discretion or apathy when it comes to some races. . .Judges’ elections are always the worst.”

Maybe so, but the study did not cover judges races. It covered only the race for Governor. It’s not likely that voters in touchscreen counties were so apathetic that they skipped the top race at twice the rate of neighboring counties where no touchscreens were used.

Tom O’Neill, Dubuque County deputy commissioner of elections, was quoted as saying “Iowans for Voting Integrity are concerned about undervotes, saying the touch screens are dropping votes, but they have nothing to back that up.”

Yes, they do. They have the study. It’s short. Read it here.

O’Neill went on to add, “I’m not convinced that the machines are doing it. It could be voter mistake.”

Yes, it could be. Does O’Neill approve of equipment that appears to cause so many mistakes? Why should his Dubuque county results show an undervote rate of less than one percent while neighboring Jackson county’s undervote rate is four times as high at 3.1 percent? Is it because Jackson county’s befuddled voters make more mistakes–or because Jackson county uses only touchscreens?

There’s also real news in the Telegraph-Herald story. Reporter Mary Rae Bragg reveals that counties cannot buy paper trail printers for touchscreens because the voting machine companies have stopped selling them! The vendors blame the uncertainty of pending federal legislation.

That’s just as well. Paper trail printers for touchscreens are a poor substitute for the real thing–paper ballots marked by voters. All counties should switch to that.

The judge handling Congressman King’s lawsuit against Chet Culver over English-only voting has recused herself. It’s a question of campaign finance and an argument for public financing (VOICE).

The judge (or her spouse) gave a lot of money to Chet Culver when he ran for Governor. She should not be hearing a lawsuit against Culver.

I dare say she (her husband?) should not be contributing to candidates for Governor. If we want equal justice in the courts, we can’t have judges financing candidates in the other branches of government. We don’t make our judges run for office (another case when Iowa’s system is the national envy). We shouldn’t make any candidates rely on contributions that generate such conflicts of interest.

Public financing is in the public interest. In campaign financing it is Arizona and Maine that are being envied by the nation.

Two Cleveland, Ohio, election workers got the maximum 18 month jail sentence Tuesday when they were sentenced for rigging the recount in 2004. The judge said he thought they were still protecting someone.

One outside investigator seems to agree:

Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter, appointed as an outside investigator to look into the election board in Cleveland, told that judge that the women had been uncooperative in the investigation and appealed for prison time for both.

“The defendants have never come clean,” he said.

The two women were supposed to randomly recount ballots in the Kerry-Bush race but they wanted to avoid the extra work so . . .

Prosecutors said the employees broke the law when they worked behind closed doors three days before the Dec. 16, 2004, recount to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand so they could avoid a lengthier, more expensive hand recount of all votes.

Paper trails are worthless if election workers act like this.

Iowa’s election director Sandy Steinbach has been contradicted in a report to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The report resulted in the exclusion of Ciber laboratory from its previous role as an independent testing authority(ITA) dealing in voting machines. Ciber has “tested” all of Iowa’s voting machines, according to Steinbach.

In a January 8, 2007 email to me, Steinbach said Ciber was no longer allowed to test voting machines merely because some administrative hurdles had not been cleared. She wrote:

Ciber applied for EAC certification. The reason that the Ciber did not receive EAC certification was the administrative requirements. Ciber’s technical capability is not in question. You can verify this by calling Brian Hancock at the EAC.

But the newly released report says Ciber’s technical capability is in fact the problem. It says Ciber cannot show it follows its own testing protocol and that:

“CIBER has not shown the resources to provide a reliable product. The current quality management plan requires more time to spend on managing the process than they appear to have available and it was clear during the assessment visit that they had not accepted that they have a responsibility to provide quality reviewed reports that show what was done in testing. The ITA Practice Director indicated during the assessment that their difficulties were that corporate CIBER did not allow for the personnel resource time for quality management functions . . . .

Worse than that, the report says Ciber admitted :

. . .that the testing for a product tends to either use vendor developed tests or new tests developed specifically for the product – they have no standard test methods defined. This makes their testing dependent on the vendor input and vulnerable to unique vendor interpretations . . .

In short, the feds now know that the so-called independent testing authorites, who provide a patina of legitimacy for secretive computerized voting machines, are not independent, not doing the testing, and not authorities of any sort. We critics have been saying that for years. Give us ten more points. Score now at 193-0.

The report had not been made public when Steinbach wrote her email. It became public when New York officials threatened to subpoena it.

The most puzzling part of this report is its reporter, Steve Freeman. He once served under Sandy Steinbach when they both dealt with the ITAs for the National Association of State Election Directors(NASED). Why is Freeman criticizing Ciber now after years of accepting their work at face value? Perhaps Steinbach has already explained. In her email she lamented:

Our reviewers spent literally thousands of unpaid hours and accomplished a great improvement in the quality of voting system reliability. . . .Did we have the formidable resources now in the hands of the EAC? No. Given what we had to work with the NASED program accomplished a great deal. It was not perfect. NASED, fully recognizing our own limitations (no budget or paid staff, with voluntary standards that we had to beg for years to have updated, neither the authority nor the resources to go in and audit the labs) worked for many years to gain federal interest in the voting system testing process.

So Ciber was the wizard of Oz, hiding behind a curtain of proprietary secrecy, doing wonderful things for vendors and fooling the NASED volunteers, including Steinbach. I wonder if she feels betrayed.

California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein has begun inquiring about the so-called independent lab that has tested all of Iowa’s high tech voting machines. Thus has the concern of voters (driven by computer scientists, activists, and bloggers) reached at last to the top of the Washington scene.

In a letter to the Election Assistance Commission, Feinstein asked

why the Commission failed to notify election officials or the public about a serious problem with Ciber Labs of Colorado, one of three major labs that tests much of the nation’s software used in voting equipment.

Senator Feinstein also asked for information regarding what went wrong at Ciber Labs to warrant its loss of accreditation.

You can read the Senator’s entire letter here. It’s a virtual FIOA demand from the Senate Rules Committee to the EAC.

Meanwhile another prominent Senator has taken up another favorite topic of IowaVoters: the public financing of election campaigns. Dick Durbin of Illinois will propose federal legislation for clean elections similar to those now held in Maine and Arizona for state offices.

It’s a bit of a relief to hear that our new Secretary of State took office today promising to work for a paper trail in Iowa voting booths.

To be sure, it was his main campaign promise. But his appointment of Linda Langenberg as his deputy in charge of elections raised doubts regarding his committment. In October Langenberg accused voting machine critics of practicing a “form of terrorism.”

Mauro also was quoted as indicating the paper trail “allow[s] election officials to audit results.” Let’s hope he means what this should mean: That he wants to check the paper results against the computer count in a routine way every election.

Meanwhile real reform advocates have moved beyond the paper trail solution. Election officials have opposed paper trails as unworkable and reform advocates are adopting that view. Reformers say real paper ballots are the only reliable ballot, whereas officials are still largely content to do nothing about the problem they have bought in to.

So watch out, Secretary Mauro: Paper “trails” may be yesterday’s news.

The voting machines that lost 18,000 votes in Florida last month will be examined by Iowa on Wednesday in Des Moines. Get your tickets here:

*********************************************
Notice of Meeting
State of Iowa
Board of Examiners
for Voting Machines and Electronic Voting Systems

Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Time: 10:00 am
Place: Office of the Secretary of State
First Floor, Lucas State Office Building
321 East Twelfth Street, Des Moines 50319

Agenda: Examination and Testing of Election Systems & Software Voting System Unity 3.0.1.1 & AutoMARK v 1.1, NASED #: N-2-02-22-22-006, consisting of the following components:
1. AutoMARK
2. iVotronic
3. iVotronic RTAL Booth
4. Model 100
5. Model 650

For Additional Information Contact:
Sandy Steinbach, Director of Elections
Office of the Secretary of State
Lucas State Office Building
Des Moines, Iowa 50319 (515) 281-5823
*******************************************

Members of the board include Michael Mauro (unless he has resigned now that he’s SoS-elect) and Pottawattamie’s auditor Marilyn Jo Drake.

The RTAL is the paper trail device for the ESS touchscreens. Johnson county wanted to buy this but it was not certified by Iowa for the recent election. Looks like it will try to become certified now.

Ivotronics are the machines under scrutiny in Florida for losing 18,000 votes and throwing a Congressional race into doubt.

You can go to this meeting, but the room is small, so arrive early.

Today’s New York Times has an article about the inevitability of more changes to voting machines that rely entirely on software to run elections. Of course, the article includes one Texas election official who drags her feet on the paper trail question by saying:

“Every time you introduce something perishable like paper, you inject some uncertainty into the system,” Ms. Kaufman said.

Which is more perishable:

Dead Sea scrolls or Diebold software?

The Technical Guidelines Developement Committee(TGDC), which was created by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to advise the federal Election Assistance Committee(EAC), has proposed an improvement in voting machine design. Yesterday they said–unanimously–that elections must not depend on software.

They propose that any voting equipment that gets certified under the 2008 standards must have a paper trail or some other safety feature that is not based on software. They said you can never be sure about software. They must be terrorists!

The proposed change must go through a public comment period, if the EAC agrees to adopt the TGDC’s advice

An outspoken opponent of paper trails has been appointed to oversee Iowa elections by the newly elected Secretary of State Michael Mauro. Mauro promised to get paper trails during the campaign.

It’s Linn county auditor Linda “You Terrorists!” Langenberg who has been promoted to the role of deputy secretary of state. In October Langenberg said voting machine critics were practicing a “form of terrorism” in their campaign against paperless voting. During the 2005 legislative session, Langenberg was accused by a knowledgeable source of being a principle obstacle preventing progress toward a paper trail.

Her October remarks have just drawn this belated response from Green party’s candidate for Lt Gov, Richard Johnson:

Needless to say, I was rather surprised that you, a county auditor, were so poorly informed regarding the potential hazards of these paperless electronic voting machines you were defending. I responded, along with my running mate Wendy Barth, to your comments by mentioning how easily these small computers can be compromised, or “hacked” to use the vernacular.

The article further states, Ms. Langenberg, that you believe that because these machines are never connected to the Internet they are safe from such problems. Having spent nearly a quarter century working with computers, with the last fourteen as a technology coordinator in a school with some 400 computers connected to our LAN/WAN, I can assure you that lack of Internet exposure is no guarantee against problems. . . .
Ms. Langenberg, by comparing those of us who question the reliability of paperless electronic voting to terrorists, and by accusing us of undermining voter confidence in the system, you have done the citizens of your county, and even the state, a grave disservice. . . .[T]hose of us questioning this “advancement” in voting systems do not wish to undermine voter confidence. We want to build that confidence by insuring that elected officials, such as yourself, both understand the problem and take action to prevent a similar incident[a reference to the current missing votes in Sarasota–ed] from happening in our state or, more specifically, in your county.

Looks like Johnson held his ire too long.

This is no way to improve elections, Mr Mauro. Can you explain this appointment?

Winnebago county auditor Jen Fqelstad told the local newspaper that she’s not bothered by the lines at her polling places. Voters had to wait for each other to use the touchscreen terminals because that is all they use in Winnebago county:

. . . Fjelstad said she felt the election went well, especially considering it was the first major election in which the new touch-screen voting machines were used.

“There were lines, but people have to realize there were lines before, too,” she said before adding that the county surpassed state code for the number of machines it must have on hand.

Under state law, polls must have at least one voting booth for every 350 voters who cast ballots in the last election. Fjelstad said the county had one machine for every 250 registered voters in each precinct.

I don’t know why “there were lines before.” In the past the county had paper ballots. They must have had a slow sign-in process at the polls, or were too cheap to set up enough voting booths.

Turnout this time was 50 percent. Expect longer lines in 2008. Plan to vote absentee or to ask for one of the emergency paper ballots that are available at every poll. Either way, your vote will be on paper. You’ll be protected from the fiasco currently playing out in Florida.

Wendy Barth, Green Party candidate for Governor, and her running mate Richard Johnson, both more knowledgeable about computers than most Iowa county auditors, have jointly rebutted the comments of Linn county auditor Linda Langenberg:

In a recent news article Langenberg referred to those who raise concerns about the accuracy of electronic voting machines as “terrorists.”

“As a career software engineer, I understand just how easily errors in programming code can be overlooked,” Barth responded, “and how difficult it can be to thoroughly test a piece of software this complex. In addition, it has been demonstrated by several testing groups that these machines can be compromised rather easily. Given this the concerns of the public are legitimate, and are deserving of consideration by the Auditor. I understand that Ms. Langenberg feels she deserves to be trusted, but the voting public deserve more reassurance than a simple ‘trust me.??

Barth’s running mate, Richard Johnson, added, “Having spent the last fifteen years of my career as a network engineer I can assure you that the risk of intrusion into these computers is real. There are documented instances where the computers controlling these voting machines have not only been “hacked,” to use the popular term, but where results have been changed without the operators being able to detect it. I cannot understand someone dismissing these threats so lightly.”

Recent testing by Princeton University
(http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting) has demonstrated how vulnerable these computers are, and how easily intrusion into these computers can be hidden. There have also been numerous reports of errors from these voting machines reported in Ohio, Florida, and Georgia. A number of states and counties are requiring that the machines have a verifiable paper trail that includes a receipt for the voter and a printed verification report.

At a meeting of supporters in Cedar Rapids earlier today, Barth announced, “Our campaign is calling for an independent audit of the code used to program these machines by qualified software engineers, as well as a real paper trail with receipt that can be verified by the voter as they cast their ballot. Every electronic cash register in the state prints receipts, so why not our voting machines? It is inexcusable that the gambling equipment in our casinos, which must pass regular independent inspection, is subjected to a higher level of scrutiny than our voting machines.”

Linn County auditor Linda Langenberg lashed out at voting machine critics in Tuesday’s Cedar Rapids Gazette, saying they engage in ” a form of terrorism.” She went on to add, “It’s making people lose confidence in the voting system without getting the other side from voting officials.”

Imagine that: We are unable to hear the government’s side of the argument.

Lucky for Langenberg, Gazette writer Dick Hogan reported ONLY the government’s side in his story, referring to criticism of the voting machines as “stories and rumors”. Rumors to him, maybe. He should read this blog. Or those linked on the sidebar of this blog.

And what was the Langenberg side of the story?

— That “electoral votes are never on the voting machines” and therefore it was foolish for the Diebold CEO to pledge to deliver Ohio’s votes to Bush in 2004.

— That her machines are never connected to the internet and therefore they are safe.

— That she doesn’t even use the machine modem to report results over the phone from polling place to courthouse.

Langenberg’s reassurances carry exactly as much weight as you would expect from someone who bothers to say that electoral votes are not on the voting machines.

Langenberg has not been keeping up with the news. Her Diebold ballot scanners were hacked in Florida last December, and her Diebold touchscreens were hacked by Princeton computer scientists this summer. On the 4th of July Blackboxvoting.org published complete directions on how to commandeer a Diebold touchscreen. None of these attacks required use of the internet.

Langenberg asserts, “The whole key is access (to the machines),” which she promises to strictly control.

No thanks, Ms. Langenberg. The whole key is public participation in vote counting. No one can see the machine count votes, so keeping it locked up is not reassuring to us critics.

And what is with this “terrorism” charge? Just yesterday on National Public Radio a member of the federal Election Assistance Commission said voting machine critics were “bomb throwers.” Such name-calling shows the defenders of paperless voting machines have little left to say for their products. So they resort to slander.

Did you know that once voting machines are publicly tested and are all set for the election they then get sent home with pollworkers for several days? It’s called a “sleepover” by critics of the practice. And it will still be permitted if the new Iowa rules proposed on Aug 30 go into effect unchanged.

It has become a well established fact that electronic voting equipment is hackable. Its been proven by computer scientists numerous times, most recently this week at Princeton.

Iowa and other states have reacted by slapping security tape on the most obviously vulnerable parts of the machine to “protect” against surreptitious entry. Then they continue the old practice of sending voting supplies home with the pollworkers.

Sleepovers were harmless when we began election mornings with an empty aluminum ballot box and a stack of paper ballots. Any pollworker could see that the box was empty and the ballots were still pristine.

Nowadays nary a pollworker can tell if the programming has been altered on an electronic ballot counting scanner or touchscreen. And what about the security tape? Here’s the observations of pollworker and computer scientist Avi Rubin from this week’s primary in Maryland:

Nothing happened today to change my opinion about the security of these systems, but I did have some eye opening experiences about the weaknesses of some of the physical security measures that are touted as providing the missing security. For example, I carefully studied the tamper tape that is used to guard the memory cards. In light of Hursti’s report, the security of the memory cards is critical. Well, I am 100% convinced that if the tamper tape had been peeled off and put back on, nobody except a very well trained professional would notice it. The tamper tape has a tiny version of the word “void” appear inside it after it has been removed and replaced, but it is very subtle. In fact, a couple of times, due to issues we had with the machines, the chief judge removed the tamper tape and then put it back. One time, it was to reboot a machine that was hanging when a voter was trying to vote. I looked at the tamper tape that was replaced and couldn’t tell the difference, and then it occurred to me that instead of rebooting, someone could mess with the memory card and replace the tape, and we wouldn’t have noticed. I asked if I could play with the tamper tape a bit, and they let me handle it. I believe I can now, with great effort and concentration, tell the difference between one that has been peeled off and one that has not. But, I did not see the judges using that kind of care every time they opened and closed them. As far as I’m concerned, the tamper tape does very little in the way of actual security, and that will be the case as long as it is used by lay poll workers, as opposed to CIA agents.

So Rubin has said the tape provides no security even at the polls. Think how much less good it does during a four day sleepover.

Tell the Secretary of State that we have outgrown sleepovers now that we have high tech vote manipulating devices instead of aluminum ballot boxes. Send comments on the Aug 30 rules to sos@sos.state.ia.us and put “Comments for Sandy Steinbach” in the subject line. Comment period ends Tuesday.

The new rules proposed last month fall short when it comes to touchscreens (DREs). Here are three specifics:

1. A few conscientious auditors bought printers that create voter-verifiable paper trails (see this map), but there is no Iowa law on how to use them. The new rules tell these auditors to stick their heads in the sand. They say the paper trail must be sealed up immediately after the election. It must be destroyed after a given period as other ballots are destroyed. It must never be looked at!!!

This probably means no auditor will hook up the printer after this. To do so would be to deceive the public into thinking the paper provided some backup. We ought to scrap this new rule and have a different one: that paper trails may be unofficial records but they can still be used in unofficial audits to make sure the machines are behaving. At least the auditors would know and that is something.

2. When touchscreens are tested before the election, they are often tested in “test mode” instead of “election mode”. They don’t behave the same in both modes, as I witnessed in the Pocahontas county test in May. Official testing should be done in the same mode that will be used on election day, not in the mode used at the state fair booth to “WOW” the public.

3. There is no requirement to report how many votes have been cast on paperless DREs and how many were cast on paper ballots that went into a scanner. There should be, so that we can know the size of the problem of paperless voting in Iowa.

You can comment on these rules until Tuesday. Tell the Secretary of State to a) make good use of the paper trails while we pound on the legislature to pass a paper trail requirement; b) test equipment in election mode; and c) report the extent of touchscreen use.

Comments go to sos@sos.state.ia.us. Put the name of Sandy Steinbach in the message or the subject line.