Scary Stories Fail to Stop Internet Voting (A Moment in American Election History)

In 2004, the Department of Defense (DoD) had an Internet voting system ready for use, in a secure location in Reston, Virginia. A test system had been tried in 2000, and had worked without a hitch.    The new system was called “SERVE,” the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment.  About 100,000 overseas military personnel and civilians from various counties in seven states volunteered to vote from their remote locations on their own PCs in the November elections.  Congress had authorized the funds in 2002, after extensive hearings concerning the need, the feasibility, and security of the proposed system.  Teams of experts from the business sector, academia, the military, and government agencies federal, state, and local, had collaborated on the project for two years.[1]

The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), a department within the DoD, had the responsibility for the project.  Just to make sure that no stone was left unturned, FAVP decided to bring in a team of civilian computer security experts, tell them how the system would work, and let them examine the secure server in Virginia.  FVAP officials knew that some of these computer scientists had criticized the very idea of Internet voting because they considered it too vulnerable to attack and manipulation.  Nevertheless, the experts who had built the system, including specialists in secure communications from the military, were confident that these outsiders would marvel at what had been accomplished.

The folks in FAVP, and all the people who had worked on SERVE, were stunned when, after only the second of a planned series of meetings, four of the computer scientists published a report, summarized in the New York Times, condemning the system as “inherently insecure” and calling for a halt to the project.[2]

The four critics were David Jefferson, Barbara Simons, David Wagner, and Avi Rubin.  While the report praised the accomplishment of FVAP and its colleagues on constructing a secure and operable server, it proclaimed that “the very architecture of the Internet” as we now know it is irreparably insecure, and any election based on Internet voting would be vulnerable to such a variety of attacks and manipulations that the public could have no confidence in it. To hold such an election would surely precipitate a crisis of legitimacy for the office-holders and the government.

During the few days following the release of the report, its conclusions were disseminated all over the web.  A widespread public distrust of any kind of electronic voting system had already developed in the US as a result of revelations about the insecurities of Diebold touch screen voting machines, and the irresponsible remarks of that company’s president, Wally O’Dell, promising to deliver Ohio’s electoral votes to Bush in 2004.[3]  After a week of controversy, and in the absence of any defensive response from the stupefied members of the SERVE team, Undersecretary of State Paul Wolfowitz, who was then politicking for the presidency of the World Bank, ordered the project stopped.

Despite its defeat in the US, Internet voting was still considered worth a try by several nations in Europe and some provinces in Canada.  Not only is online voting more convenient for the voter, who may be housebound, or out of the country, but it is far less costly for the election officials to conduct.  The cost of paper for ballots, and printing thousands, even millions, of copies would not be incurred with online voting.  Even more expensive is the cost of labor for poll site workers, renting the polling places, security guards for the collection and transport of ballots, and counting all those ballots by hand.  Then there are the machines, like punch card machines and lever machines, which require year round storage and maintenance.  Printers, ballot scanning machines, and touch screen machines (“DREs”) are at least as costly to store and maintain as the products they have replaced.  With Internet voting, only an initial investment is made for setting up the voting precinct’s secure server, and the rest is done by the voter from home or anywhere else.  Huge cost savings can be had by election administrators over the lifetime of the server, which could be decades.

Indeed, those provinces in Canada and at least eight European nations have been using Internet voting systems, without malfunction or security breeches, throughout the past decade.[4]  To be exact, there was one incident in a Toronto election in which a denial of service attack bogged down the server for about 45 minutes, until the attack was warded off and full service resumed.[5]  But this was using 2003 technology, and security savvy has improved greatly since that time.

Based on the facts of experience, then, one may wonder how wise it was to shelve the SERVE project.  The successes of the Canadian and European trials now cast doubt on the dire warnings of the four alarm bell ringers. Was there anything to their claims, or were they just part of a ploy used to sell newspapers, and get themselves, in Warhol’s famous phrase, “fifteen minutes of fame”?

On the other hand, wasn’t it better to be safe than sorry?  After all, what were the consequences of canceling SERVE?  If these consequences were not significant, then no real harm was done.  Of course, this depends upon what one considers to be “significant harm.”

Consequences

To take the measure of the harm done by canceling SERVE, remember that the war in Iraq had begun in March 2003.  By Election Day, in November of 2004, there were roughly 150,000 combat troops in Iraq.[6]  Add to that another 150,000 Americans providing some kind of support to the troops, either logistical or diplomatic, in that war-torn country, and the result is roughly 300,000 eligible US voters.  The war in Afghanistan then was still in its infancy, with about a tenth as many Americans of voting age, or roughly 30,000.[7]  The 100,000 Americans who had volunteered to vote online in the SERVE project included some of these folks in combat zones.

When SERVE was shut down, all the men and women in harm’s way, as well as the other overseas volunteers, lost their opportunity to vote conveniently, and had to vote by mail or not at all.

This lost opportunity is not the only harm the cancellation of SERVE caused.  Nothing on the scale of SERVE has come along for overseas voters since 2004; hence, the frustrations of overseas voters have continued almost unabated for the six years since that project was shut down.  I say “almost” because, as I will discuss below, some remedial steps are now being taken.

Overseas Americans have always had a hard time voting.  From the days when Ben Franklin, John Jay, and Thomas Jefferson were diplomats in Europe, to now, Americans abroad have had to rely on snail mail to vote, if they could.  Many states made no provision for absentee voting until well into the 20^th Century.  During WWII the federal government did its best to help GIs to participate in the democracy they were fighting and sometimes dying for.  A law was passed requiring the states to provide absentee ballots for our citizens in uniform.  But a few years later, when the law expired, it was not renewed.

Finally, Congress enacted the Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Voting Act in 1986.  States were supposed to provide absentee ballots to their overseas citizens, upon request, in time for the citizen to vote and return it by mail.  But a shocking number of states have displayed a callous indifference to their citizens abroad, including soldiers during the wars we were fighting.  One study, released in 2009, found that 25 states and the District of Columbia routinely sent out absentee ballots so late that by the time the voters received them it was too late for most of the voted ballots to be returned and counted.[8] Even when absentee ballots could be mailed back in time to be counted, they were often set aside and ignored, or not counted unless the race was so close that they could make a difference.

In 2002, Congress had intended the SERVE project to be the beginning of the end of this abuse and neglect.  If SERVE had been successful in 2004, like the European and Canadian trials have been, then 100,000 overseas Americans would have finally been included in our democratic process.  Beyond that, the opportunity to vote conveniently would probably have been expanded to every overseas American by 2008.  Of course, that didn’t happen.

Returning to SERVE

Since 2004, pressure has been mounting in the states and in Congress to treat our men and women in uniform, and at war, as well as all Americans abroad, with more dignity, and to honor their right to take part in our democratic processes.  As a result, some states began taking the initiative to improve conditions for their overseas citizens.  Arizona, for example, became one of the leaders by offering a website with voter information.  It took requests for absentee ballots via email or fax.  It sent out ballots by fax or email.  A few other states followed, but the ballot still had to be returned by ground mail.  Then some states even began to allow voted ballots to be returned by fax or email attachment.

In October 2009, President Obama signed into law the MOVE Act; that is, the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act.  This law requires the states to, among other things, send out absentee ballots at least 45 days before a federal election (so that they can be returned in time to be counted), and to provide electronic means for requesting and sending out absentee ballots.[9]

Consequently, in 2010, 33 states offered some form of Internet voting to their overseas citizens.  About half of these allowed fax or email return of voted ballots.  In these cases, an absentee ballot can be requested, sent out, voted, and returned all on Election Day.  US troops, and all overseas Americans, certainly deserve such convenience.  However, this method of ballot return is far from ideal.  One shortcoming is that in California, and other states, for a voter to return his or her voted ballot by fax or email attachment, a privacy waiver must be signed.  Somebody in the Secretary of State’s office is going to see that “Private Jones” voted Libertarian or Socialist when the ballot comes in, and the state doesn’t want to get sued for violating the voter’s right to privacy.

A more positive omen, however, is that some states will offer voting at their secure website, just as SERVE would have done in 2004.  For example, in July of this year the website for West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie E. Tennant announced the results of her office’s recent Internet voting trial.  Five county clerks volunteered to offer the option to their overseas voters, including military and civilians. According to the announcement, this pilot program saw an 80 percent ballot return rate. Other methods of absentee voting, such as by mailed-out paper ballots, saw return rates of about 40 percent.  The website also states that “Voter response was so positive, in her report to the state legislature, Tennant asked lawmakers to consider allowing additional counties to participate in the 2010 General Election.”[10]

Much ado has been made over a hacking of Washington DC’s Internet voting server in September of 2010.  But this was during its first trial run, and no actual voting took place.  (For an accurate reporting of the event, see “Does the DC Fiasco Damn Internet Voting?” at http://tinyurl.com/DCin2010 )

The circle back to SERVE will be completed by the DoD in the near future.  Bob Carey, the new Director of FVAP, recently announced that “the decision has been made” to restore something like the old SERVE system, with all the latest updates, of course.[11]  No deadlines have been set, yet, but planning is underway.

Old Security Worries

But, one may ask, what about all those dire warnings that once brought down the SERVE project?  Have Congress, the president, the Department of Defense, the military, and all those state officials gone nuts?  Think about the warnings those four computer scientists proclaimed in 2004.

For example, David Wagner has said, “One of the problems with Internet voting is that it exposes the potential for a single individual anywhere in the world, perhaps not even on US soil and not subject to US law, to attack elections and change votes en masse. Internet voting systems also tend to be subject to worms, viruses, and phishing attacks.” (Italics added)  He also warned that, “SERVE is susceptible to large-scale election fraud that could … go completely undetected.”[12]

In the same vein, Barbara Simons warned the nation that Internet voting “is a threat to our democracy … The bottom line is we could have our president selected by [hackers in] Iran…”[13]

Wired Magazine interviewed David Jefferson about his views on SERVE, and drew attention to his concerns over a possible slippery slope.  The article stated, “If the experiment experiences no detectable attack, Jefferson fears it could mislead organizers to conclude falsely that the system is secure and ready for expansion.  ‘Just because there wasn't an attack that you detected doesn't mean there won't be one or that there wasn't one that you didn't detect,’ he said.”[14]

Now, these are scary stories.  Think of it, a hacker in Iran could swing a presidential election in the US, and go completely undetected.  Because the hacking went undetected, we would naively expand Internet voting so that all US elections could be controlled by hostile foreign governments, and we’d never know it. That’s scary!

Indeed, as late as last year David Jefferson implored the FCC not to allow even trials of Internet voting.  Using the very same scary stories from the 2004 report, he again warned of the hidden dangers awaiting such reckless experiments, and the slippery slope such trials can create.

He pled in the most earnest of terms that, although he has been a computer security expert for nearly a half century, his own mind gets “boggled” when he thinks of all the ways that Internet voting can go wrong.[15]  (One can understand how such an expert’s mind can become boggled; all those scary stories overload his flight response, and he wants to run from his own imagination!)

Today, however, the old trick bag isn’t as effective as it used to be.  Jefferson et al have cried “wolf!” once too often.  Calmer minds have been applying scientific skepticism to those scary stories.  Science, of course, asks questions and demands facts and test-based probabilities in the answers.  Thus, government officials have asked, “With all the mind boggling things that allegedly can go wrong with Internet voting, why haven’t any of them actually occurred in trials?”

The four critics have answers to this question.  First, as Wagner says, “If I was a bad guy who knew a way to hack the election, I wouldn't attack a small-scale pilot and tip my hand; I'd wait for the voting system to be used on a large scale in an important election and then attack.”[16]  In other words, the Evil Ones are skipping the small fry in Europe and Canada, and they are lying in wait for the United States to expand online voting and fall into their trap.  So, that is why there haven’t been any problems with those Internet voting trials – the bad guys just haven’t been motivated yet.  But once the US goes national with Internet voting, watch out!  Not only that hacker in Iran, but the Russian Mafia and the government of China will get into the action.  We could end up with some wild eyed Ayatollah or grey-capped Commissar in the White House, and Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces!  How scary is that?

As if that is not scary enough, Jefferson would remind us of what all four agree, that is, that an Evil One could just change or add enough votes to swing a close election, and do so without ever being detected!  Indeed, we cannot even know whether this has already been done in Europe or Canada.

But that alarming assertion incurs an epistemological problem.  If we cannot know the truth or falsity of a proposition – such as whether an election has been hacked – then the proposition is not a matter of scientific knowledge, but only mythical speculation.

The Rise of Reason

Fortunately, Reason is coming back to the debate over Internet voting, and Reason is beginning to prevail over Fear.  What might be conceivable in the airy theoretical speculations of academic computer science, hasn’t happened in the actual practice of online voting.  Why?  The security experts who construct online voting systems, as well as law enforcement experts, are just as clever as the hackers.  Indeed, one reason we know there are hackers is because they get caught by the authorities.

Cases in point: Ten years ago, in the olden days of security technology, Gary McKinnon, who was an unemployed computer programmer on the dole in England, hacked into some US military files.  As a result of his cleverness, he is now wanted by the authorities in the US.  For the past eight years he has been paying his lawyers to fight his extradition to the US, where a costly trial, and likely fines and prison time, await him.  During this unhappy experience, he even developed a sudden case of Asperger’s Syndrome (useful to appeal for pity, no doubt).[17]

Hackers beware! One former “Botnet King,” John Schiefer, was so clever that he could control thousands of PCs, and use them to send-out millions of spam emails with the click of a mouse.  He thought he could out-smart the law, but he is now serving a four year sentence in federal prison.[18]

The real reasons why Internet voting trials around the world have been successful are plain to see.  The security technology is effective, and so is law enforcement.  Where Internet voting has been tried, the rational hacker calculates, when tempted, that lawyer’s fees, fines, and time in prison aren’t worth changing a few votes in one election.  Those would-be hackers who have been foolish enough to try to hack online voting systems have failed because the security technology in place beats them.  Computer memories show when unauthorized intrusions have been attempted; thus proving that the security programs have worked.  The past successes of Internet voting are a reliable harbinger of the way it will proceed in the future.

Conclusion

Every government official knows that no voting system is going to work perfectly, someone is going to try to cheat the game, or some technical hitch could occur somewhere.  Nevertheless, the risks can be protected against, so that they are quite minimal, as the experience in Canada shows.  E-banking and e-commerce wouldn’t exist if half the scary stories told by a few alarmists were true.  When it comes to protecting profits, for example, security technology is able to stay ahead of the hackers – otherwise the banks would not still be in business.  The kind of security technology used in e-commerce can be, and has been, transferred to online voting. 

Of course, as we all know, hacking does happen.  But when hacking does occur in e-commerce, a careful examination of the facts in the case generally turns up some human error or wrongdoing, rather than a failure of the security technology.

For example, 60 Minutes had a piece on a woman who went online only to witness her bank account being drained right before her eyes.[19]  Turns out she didn’t have security software in her PC, and her son was downloading pirated music, which let the hackers into her computer.

Google’s bad experience in China was their own fault, too.  Lured into China by greed, they conspired with the Chinese government to limit the freedom of speech online.  They allowed government agents to block access to websites that either favored democracy or freedom of religion.  These agents made regular reports to their government about what they had learned of, among other things, Google’s email security codes.  With that information the government reverse engineered those codes.

Duh!  What were they expecting?  When you play with fire, you get burned.

Fortunately, local election officials in the United States are unlikely to give Chinese agents, or Russian Mafioso, much less Iranian mullahs, access to the secure servers in their state’s counties.  If all goes well with this year’s online voting trials, domestic trials are sure to begin.  Yes folks, Internet voting is coming to the USA!

PS

Written in 2011, this post was lost for a while. It is now being posted again (for the record). Now that Blockchain technology raises Internet security to new levels, maybe the optimism of this post can be renewed.

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

InternetVoting@gmail.com

Also blog at,

The Political Science Interpretivist

https://interpretat.blogspot.com/

 

 

---

[1] Electronic Elections, R. Michael Alvarez, Thad Hall. Princeton University Press, 2008

See pages 77-85, also 68-72 and 98.

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/21/technology/23CND-INTE.html, and http://www.servesecurityreport.org/.  Avi Rubin claims credit in this autobiography for having made the deal to give the New York Times an exclusive on their report.  Brave New Ballot, Avi Rubin.  Morgan Road Books, NY, 2006, page 171. 

[3] ''I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year,'' wrote the president of Diebold.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/business/machine-politics-in-the-digital-age.html?sec=technology

[4] Hall and Alvarez, ibid.  There have dozens of trials in the UK and across Europe since 2002, for “a total of eight nations.”  Page 76  “In these trials, there had not been any documented security problems, … the experiences were problem-free.”  Page 71f.

[5] “It took Election.com only 45 minutes to fix the problem…”

 http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/01/62041?currentPage=all

[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/international/middleeast/07military.html?scp=20&sq=US+soldiers+currently+in+Iraq+2004&st=nyt

[7]  http://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-troop-presence-in-afghanistan-at-17-900-and-expected-to-hold-steady-1.21700 7-9-04

[8] http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/NTTV_Report_Web.pdf 

[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/us/politics/09voting.html?scp=1&sq=states%20move%20to%20allow%20overseas%20and%20military%20voters&st=cse

[10] http://www.sos.wv.gov/news/topics/elections-candidates/Pages/ElectionOfficialsCelebrateMilitaryAndOverseasVoterWeekInParkersburgVideoIncluded.aspx

[11] csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/UOCAVA/2010/Presentations/CAREY_FVAP_Presentation_to_NIST-EAC-FVAP.pdf, at page 12. 

[12] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-anderson/an-interview-with-david-w_b_64063.html  9-12-07 Italics added. 

[13] http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=89902 

[14] http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2004/01/62041?currentPage=all 

[15] http://blog.verifiedvoting.org/2009/12/14/254and

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=6015502226 

[16] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-anderson/an-interview-with-david-w_b_64063.html

[17] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/mckinnon/ 

[18] http://losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel08/la041608usa.htm, and 

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9129054/Botnet_ringleader_gets_four_years_in_prison_for_stealing_data_from_PCs

[19] http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4908267n 

Internet Voting in Canada Today

Internet voting is currently offered as an option in municipal elections in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia.*

History

In 2003, 12 cities in Ontario offered an Internet voting option. That grew to 20 in 2006, and doubled to 44 in 2010. Then the number leapt to 97 cities in Ontario in 2014.^

In 2008, 4 cities in Nova Scotia offered an online voting option. That increased to 16 cities in 2012, and then 20 cities in 2016.

In 2014, 59 cities went entirely paperless, offering just online voting or a combination of Internet and telephone voting.

Public Opinion

Recently, Canadian political scientist Nicole Goodman and professor of communications, Heather Pyman, released a study of public opinion about online voting in Ontario.  They surveyed voters, candidates, and election administrators in 47 of the 97 cities that offered Internet voting in the October 2014 municipal elections in that province.  While over 200,000 people were involved in the process, 33,090 participated in the survey for a response rate of about 17%.

Ninety-five percent of respondents report being satisfied with the online voting process. Eighty percent were ‘very satisfied,’ suggesting a degree of enthusiasm for the Internet voting option. (p16)

98% of respondents say they would be likely to vote online in future municipal elections, 93% report being ‘very likely’ to do so.  Similar percentages would be likely/very likely to vote online in state or federal elections. (p18)

Convenience was the biggest benefit voters cited. In the comment section of the survey, respondents said they appreciated not having to wait in lines, being able to vote without losing time from work, or vote while at work, or while being out of town, and not having to deal with polling place clerks.  Some felt that online voting provided more privacy than voting on paper in a polling place. (p17) 88% cast their ballots from home, and 7% from work. (p20) The majority of online voters used their PC rather than other connected devices. (p21)

Over 95 percent say they would recommend Internet voting, with less than 5 percent saying they would ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ not do so. (p18) (Some of the latter respondents felt frustrated by the security steps required to vote online, which are mentioned below.)

14 percent of online voters indicated they either ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ would not have cast a ballot had it not been for Internet voting. (p25)

Age

While one might expect younger voters to vote online more than older voters, the actual figures are the exact opposite. Only 4 percent of online voters are aged 18 to 24 years, 8% are 25 to 34, and 14 percent are 35 to 44.  Seventy-four percent of the online voters are 45 years old or older.  

65% of Internet voter respondents report being over the age of 50. Thus, the most likely to vote online are those over 50. (p28) Because young people generally vote less, they are less likely to be users of Internet voting. (p29)

Education and Gender

Fifty-seven percent of the online voters report having at least some college education; with 55% female, and 45% male. (p29)

Security Ambiguity

No evidence has been offered of any votes or vote totals having been changed by hackers in any Canadian public election.  Security precautions have been successful.  Methods of voter authentication vary. Some only require a secret PIN.  Others call for a secret PIN, birth date, email confirmation, and a security question, which some voters found to be complicated.

37% of those voters who chose not to vote online cited security concerns.  But 32% of non-online voters reported having no concerns about the security of the technology. (p35)

54% of all respondents said they believe voting by mail is less safe than by Internet, but 28 percent feel mailing in ballots is safer, and 18 percent were not sure. (p35)

Candidates

Sixty-nine percent of candidates report being satisfied with the Internet voting process.  47% say they were ‘very satisfied.'  73% of candidates were satisfied with the security of the election. (p46)

Nearly 80% of candidates feel positive about having an Internet voting option.  But sixty percent of respondents say they are ‘completely against’ having Internet voting as the only option, 21 percent say they are mostly against that. (p51)

Administration

In general, election administrators report that their municipality chose Internet voting to make voting more accessible and convenient for voters. (p57)  But it was also more convenient for them, especially as to the speed and accuracy of the vote count. (p55) Thirty-one percent of administrators thought costs had decreased due to the adoption of online voting, 18% thought they had increased, and 14 percent believed they stayed the same. (p58)

The vast majority had confidence in the security of their Internet voting technology. (p61) As to turnout, early voting increased when online voting was offered as an option, but overall turnout only increased slightly. (The authors suggest that the general increase was around 3.5%, p65, note 15)  

Ninety-six percent of administrators were ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ satisfied with the process, and none say they were ‘not at all’ satisfied with the process. (p53)  Over 90% of administrators said they would recommend Internet voting in future municipal, provincial, and federal elections.  81% of administrators said they would ‘definitely’ recommend Internet voting for their 2018 municipal election. (p60)

Conclusion

This study showcases a group of voters, candidates, and administrators with amazing courage and pioneering spirit compared to their southern neighbors. Ontario Canadians are a model for their counter parts in the USA.  Why Internet voting would advance democracy in the US political system, and why that progress is being obstructed, is discussed in several earlier posts on this blog, such as here, here, and here.

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

Author of Internet Voting Now! Here's How. Here's Why - So You Can Kiss Citizens United Goodbye!

*Thanks to Canadian political scientist Nicole Goodman and to Prof. Heather Pyman for producing the study from which the above information is taken. The study can be accessed at The Centre for e-Democracy  (free, safe download)

^Stats from ibid, pages 10f

The Great American Spirit and Internet Voting

Election Attitude

John Patrick, Ph.D.

A Book Review

When asked about the possibilities for having Internet voting in the USA, Vint Cerf, one of the Founding Fathers of the Internet, declared to Dr. Patrick, “We can do this!”

Having an Election Attitude means believing that an election system should serve the needs of the people, our brothers and sisters, who use it.  This book applies the attitude of caring about people to an examination of the election system in the USA today. If you care about people, especially the American people, then you will be quite upset by an election system that forces voters to waste their time trekking to a distant polling place, taking buses, or fighting traffic and finding parking, only to have to wait in lines, which are sometimes very long, and where equipment problems lurk.

Even those who vote by mail can never be sure their ballots will be timely delivered by the USPS. Besides inconvenience and delivery concerns, there are other worries. Were all the millions of pieces of paper from both Post Office and polling place, that folks voted on, counted correctly, or counted at all?

As Mr. Cerf understands, if we can shop and bank online, then we CAN vote online.  Se si puede, as President Obama has often affirmed. Isn’t that The American Spirit?

This book shows how voting online can be made reality in American elections. Dr. Patrick has a Ph.D. in systems management. He was the VP of Internet Technology at IBM, with 35 years of experience in the field. He has written extensively about applying a pro-people attitude to the reform of systems. One example is his book on the US health care system (in which he criticizes, among other things, Obamacare).

Efficiency, reliability, and ease of use are some of the human needs that systems ought to satisfy. Amazon is an example of how this has been done. Consider the process of driving to a bookstore, traffic, parking, then scanning shelves for your title, then paying at the register, if the store has your book in stock. Compare that to tapping a few keys on your Smartphone, and having your book, or other item, delivered to your door. Amazon understands, respects, and satisfies human needs.

Dr. Patrick puts his expert knowledge to work to show his readers how our cumbersome antiquated 19th century voting system can be transformed into a 21st century secure and easy to use online process. This would not be done all at once, of course, but state by state and district by district, as the people demand it from their officials. Aware that the US Constitution gives authority over election administration to the states, and the states allocate that authority to their numerous local voting jurisdictions, Dr. Patrick envisions Internet voting systems emerging in every jurisdiction, offering online voting to their voters, but NOT connected to one another. Having hundreds of small, local systems, like the ones used in Norway or Estonia, would make hacking a national election on a national level impossible.  

We can vote on our PC, cell phone, or tablet, from anywhere, even out of the country, and any time during the election period. Blockchain technology is one of the examples Dr. Patrick explains as a way of making the devices voters use secure against spies and viruses. He has made a believer of me!

So, what’s the hold up? Here is where Dr. Patrick really does a service for his country. He exposes, and clearly shows, that for over a dozen years a small, well organized, well-funded group of anti-Internet voting pro-paper extremists have cleverly manipulated public opinion and forcefully intimidated federal, state, and local authorities so as to block even tiny trials of online voting. They use scary stories of what MIGHT or COULD happen with online voting. They cry, the Russian government, or a US teenager in his suburban bedroom, might or could control an election for the US President. (Maybe a hacker in Iran could elect an Ayatollah for US President!)

My, oh my! I guess we’d better not go that route. But wait! Dr. Patrick shows by historical fact that other countries have been using Internet voting for years, and NO election results have ever been shown to have been altered in any way by hackers.  Not one vote stolen or modified. (In 2014, 97 cities in Canada offered an Internet voting option. All with great success.)

One reason why online voting can be so secure is that its servers are only online for a short time – the election period. Business systems are more vulnerable because they are online 24/7/365. Hackers have time to probe for weak spots, or fool employees with trick emails that look innocent but have a link that, when clicked on, lets in the hackers. Online voting server software can have security programs that keep out spies and viruses. Security is doable.

But the well-funded extremists use the Absolute standard of Perfectly Safe Voting Systems. This is the kind of standard that would make any reasonable person afraid to get out of bed in the morning. Thus, they find all sorts of possibilities that MIGHT or COULD (but never have) go wrong.

So an Election Attitude also entails having the courage to go ahead with a Plan for Progress despite the hysteria created by the few well-funded nay-sayers. Dr. Patrick discusses several instances in which Chicken Little “experts” declared “it can’t be done!”  But stalwart pioneers persevered, and did it. One example is West Virginia Secretary of State, Natalie Tennant. She ran an online voting trial for her state’s overseas military. It went without a hitch. The voters loved it.

Besides electing officials to office, there are other benefits for those with the courage to Cyber the Vote. Imagine a weekly e-townhall meeting in every Congressional District. Constituents could conveniently interact with their representatives – even initiate and vote on proposed legislation to be introduced or voted on in Congress. Indeed, every elected office and public agency in the country could have such e-townhalls.

Presidential elections can be re-organized around Internet voting.  Imagine watching a series of debates online or on TV, and then Rank Choice Voting online; that is, rating each candidate, say 1-3, rather than one vote for one person. The least appealing candidate could be eliminated in the series until only two are left. A couple more debates and the final vote online. (I have written about this in detail.*)

Dr. Patrick mentions several possibilities he sees for the e-reform of our government – some are very interesting, some are kind of silly (like Chaum’s idea of government by polling people); some he didn’t see, but which are mentioned here.

In short, this little book shows how it can be done.  The primary obstacle is Not Technology, but the FEAR of Technology; a fear fueled by a small group of well-funded professional propagandists.  While Dr. Patrick believes that every objection deserves consideration before proceeding, sheer scary stories based on fantasy standards of perfection should not be allowed to cower a nation.  As FDR famously proclaimed, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Having an Election Attitude means having the pioneer’s courage to boldly move into the future, ready to work to realize our nation’s full potential for Democracy.

#VotersLivesMatter

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

Author, Internet Voting Now!

(On Kindle or in paper)

*For a detailed online presidential election organization plan, which would sharply sideline the power of Big Money, go here, and here.

Internet Voting and Democracy FREE E-Book!

FREE E-Book - INTERNET VOTING NOW!

Internet voting is coming to the US. There is no way to stop it. But, we as a nation can go with the flow, and direct the new technology in ways that will democratize our election practices. With Internet voting rightly organized, we can #GetMoneyOut of US politics - on all levels!

Imagine a series of elimination debates for presidential contestants. Watch the debates online or on TV, and vote online. (For all the details, start here*)

Imagine: every Congressional District having its own E-Townhall, as often as the People demand it. Indeed, we can do this in every government office.

Read or download (safe!) these chapters for FREE:

Internet Voting: The Great Security Scare 

The Original Intentions of the Framers for US Presidential Elections 

Obama's Oligarchy: And Other Deviations from the Original Intentions 

* How to Organize the Direct Election of US Presidents in a Way Which Will Restore Reason and Eliminate Costs to the Candidates, Based on Internet Voting

TO READ THESE CHAPTERS click on a title, or go to my SSRN author page, at http://ssrn.com/author=1053589 Then click on a title. When it comes up, click on "download." Each chapter is a searchable pdf file.

All comments welcome!

William Kelleher, Ph.D.
InternetVoting@gmail.com 

On Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/IntV-Now 

In paper on Amazon at, http://tinyurl.com/IVNow2011

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Misinformation about Security of E-Voting Machines

I'm no advocate for evoting machines in polling places. In fact, I think the trek to polling places is a waste of time, we could be voting online from home or anywhere. But somebody's got to say something!

US “journalists” ought to be ashamed of the totally irresponsible one-sided presentation they are giving the issue of voting machine security.  They are undermining the legitimacy of our nation’s election results. How reckless and careless can they be?!

They should be giving top priority to FACTUAL and responsible stories, not unrealistic scary stories – especially from the agents of the Verified Voting Foundation.

US Courts have heard all the scary testimony, and found each one to be false.

A fully documented account of the Maryland case, Schade v Lamone, is at How NIST has Misled Congress and the American People about Internet Voting Insecurity, http://ssrn.com/author=1053589  (free safe dwnld) The testimony of “expert” witness, Avi Rubin, was disregarded by the court, and the petition for an injunction to stop the use of evoting machines denied.

The New Jersey court in Gusciora v Corzine began its list of findings of fact by stating, “While the AVC is not a perfect voting system and there are serious issues that remain to be addressed, based on the evidence adduced at trial, the court finds the following: 

(1) No AVC has ever been demonstrated to have been hacked, other than in an academic setting, in this State or any other state. 

(2) There has never been a demonstrated incident of an attempted attack or a verified attack of any AVC voting system in the United States since its use began at least as early as 1979.” p159 (italics added) The court dismissed some of “expert” witness Andrew Appel’s claims with words like “purely hypothetical,” “fictional,” and “unrealistic.” See the opinion at http://tinyurl.com/NJEVoteOK

Hey journalists folks, Thanks for the harm you've done to our democracy.

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. 

Author, Internet Voting Now! 

PS

Consider this:

Media helped to nominate Trump with Preferential Coverage

Media is helping to finance his campaign with more Preferential Coverage

Media is Reinforcing Trump’s Campaign by Promoting Misinformation about Security of

E-voting Machines

The greedy herd stampede towards Mindless Unselfcritical Sensationalism is controlling this US presidential election, and We The People are allowing it

Internet Voting in Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Elections!

The Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment has recently announced the selection of Everyone Counts as the proposed online voting vendor for the 2016 Neighborhood Council elections.  The contract is for 50 elections with online and telephone voting options, for $552,000. A verifiable voter registration service is included.

Online voting has the ability to significantly increase participation in the Neighborhood Council system. Currently, voters who want to participate in Neighborhood Council elections are forced to vote in person on one day in a single location for a period of between 2-6 hours unless the Neighborhood Council offers vote-by-mail, which only 15 Neighborhood Councils do. On average, there were only 264 votes per Neighborhood Council in the 2014 elections when tens of thousands were eligible.

Voters will have the opportunity to vote from their computer, smart phone or telephone land line.

Besides many government elections in 165 countries Everyone Counts has conducted the voting for the Oscars and Emmy’s, which apparently require more security checks than many government elections.  In 2014 alone, Everyone Counts administered 540 primary and general US elections, delivering 5,000 ballot styles to voters across 27,000 precincts for 231 counties.

Once a voter is registered, they will be provided security information to sign-in and cast their vote online. They will only receive the ballot for which they are qualified to vote. Online voters can review their vote prior to submitting. One vote per voter.

Online voting will replace any vote-by-mail options that Neighborhood Councils may have.

If the contract is approved this March, after public discussion, it still must go to the Mayor’s Office and the CAO for final sign-off. Check the www.EmpowerLA.org calendar for more information.

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

Author: Internet Voting Now!

(on paper or in Kindle)