Friends of Political Reform!
Americans Elect has entered a new phase. First, it has now gained ballot access in 25 states, and the momentum to have it in the rest of the states is unstoppable. They have a sterling legal team hard at work in every state. All the rich investors are in. Their money has been committed to creating the asset. Now the roots are firmly in the ground and growing. Now, AE is a $30M asset waiting to be used. Any organized group can grab it and use it to put one of their own on 50 state ballots.
Secondly, the investors have laid off most of their paid staff. They are intentionally giving the process over to whomever volunteers to take on the responsibility. Any organized group can become volunteers and rule by democratic means. That is what the Ackermans intended from the beginning. Soon a website, built by volunteers, will come online. Candidates will have pages, blogs, and be able to meet with voters and discuss issues. There will be debates between candidates.
As organized and purposeful volunteers, we can make Americans Elect a first attack on the two-party system! If this succeeds, we will be a threat to that system in every state in 2014 and 2016. If we can unite third parties and independents, and agree on one candidate, we can take over this asset.
This is NOT about policy. So what if a former Dem and a former Repub are the first candidates nominated by AE? So what if they are “centrists”?
Policy is not the key issue in this pregnant moment. Remember, in the 1930s Communist Mao Tse-tung joined forces with his arch-enemy and capitalist Chiang Kai-shek to fight the Japanese invaders of China. These two leaders had their priorities straight – first defeat the common enemy, then go back to fighting over how China should be governed.
Lets learn from that historic event. We can beat our common enemy! Our country is crippled by a two-party system that puts its own interests above those of the nation. They battle each other over the leadership of their system and the spoils their puppet masters reap, while the rest of the country goes down the tubes.
It doesn’t matter if AE lacks a candidate with lots of celebrity. Just because we don’t have a Second Coming of Jesus doesn’t mean we have no chance at Salvation.
We don’t have to roll over and let the two-party system walk on us. We don't have to work, like fools, within that system. If we can unify the opposition to the two-party system, and use AE to erect a viable alternative process to the selection and election of office-holders, we can then go back to disputing the best policies for our country.
This is a HUGE opportunity to begin a real revolution in our sick political system.
The sickness is due to the current PROCESS of selecting and electing candidates for office. As we all know, money rules in the two-party system. That system is the cover used by the Ruling Rich so they can govern and claim we live in a “democracy.” Now comes Americans Elect, and all the candidates are self-chosen or drafted by AE members, and they all appear before the voters FOR FREE. Imagine – winning a national primary and having no political debts, except to the voters.
The original American Dream was to have Liberty through self-government. We can realize that dream with this priceless asset now within reach.
Past conceptions of AE conjured up a trap by Wall Street. Some donors remain unidentified, because they fear economic retaliation from the agents of the Establishment. But the donors are not in control of the process. The process can’t be manipulated without detection. Don't let your concepts from yesterday blind you to today's opportunities! It is an open and transparent PROCESS, not a party.
Their online primary is in June. It is open to all - as candidates or as voters. It is a $30M asset that any organized group can use. We only need to back one candidate, and she/he will be on the ballot in all 50 states. Also, because AE will be conducting our country’s FIRST online national primary, there will be many hours of media coverage; again, free to the AE nominee! Not only that, but the AE nominee will be in an excellent position to qualify for the coming series of presidential debates.
Don't let fear cause you to loose this chance for real reform - the rich guys who pay the bills WILL NOT interfere. That would destroy their asset, because AE's success depends upon being truly democratic. The donors are business people. They aren’t going to throw away $30M by acting like dictators.
“Death to the Two-Party System!”
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist:
CEO, The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund
Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Author: Internet Voting Now!
Kindle edition
In paper
Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Gail Collins Critique of Americans Elect – Rejoinder Americans Elect Fights Back
A cute little pixy jester who writes for the New York Times recently wrote that what “makes our current politics particularly awful isn’t procedural.” She blames it all on the extremists in the Republican Party. She opines that Americans Elect is not only a mere “fantasy… But it’s too dangerous.” For her, “the whole Americans Elect concept is delusional…” and a cyber temptation for people with a “purity of heart” to waste their votes on “Fred Website.” In her view, the only way to save the nation is to re-elect Barack Obama.
In just a few hours, this opinion drew so many comments (close to 400) for and against that the NYT closed the comments section.
So, here is a comment from AE Delegate, Don Gordon, that didn’t get passed the gate before it was shut. (It’s followed by a few of other comments, as well.)
Well Gail, you should know that I’m a regular subscriber to the NYT and I’m also a Delegate Leader for Americans Elect here in Illinois. From time to time I find your opinions quite lucent and on target. Today is not one of those moments. When I opened the paper this afternoon – yes, I’m one of those dinosaurs who still read the tactile version of the NYT – I was quite dismayed that your opinions on Americans Elect were so off the target. There are so many misconceptions in your short piece that I have to be diligent in not writing a tome in response.
So, let me start by saying that overall you make the same mistake that many others have, though a few get it right. That mistake is to evaluate Americans Elect on what it is attempting to do immediately and to ignore the long term implications. You’re to be forgiven for that because our political system is so banged up that expectations are extremely high for any organization that comes along to make a change to repair that system. Part of the problem lies with Americans Elect as well. [AE spokesperson,] Ms. Malm should have made the point that not only is this about “disruption for the good” but it’s about setting in play “future disruption”. There are lessons to be learned once this is over, and those are going to be valuable lessons that Americans Elect is creating and will inform future initiatives such as this. Now on to some of your quotes…
Gail: “History suggests that this election could be decided by a small number of votes…”
Don: Ok, here we go down the rabbit hole of don’t vote for the other 3rd, 4th, 5th party candidate because they could upset MY candidate from winning – what is becoming known as the “Nader Effect”. Really, Ms. Collins? Well, I’m appalled at that assessment. Your job, my job, everyone else’s job as the electorate is to assess the candidates based on their qualifications – not party labels – and to vote for whom we think is the best qualified not the one who has the best chance of winning. And that last notion may eventually go down in the Republican dialogue as the “Romney Effect”.
Gail: “The whole Americans Elect concept is delusional…we the people are good and pure and if only we were allowed to just pick the best person…”
Don: What is delusional – actually insane by Ben Franklin’s estimation – is that we continue to cough up the same old, same old candidate choices because the Republican-Democratic Party Politburo limits our choices and prevents others from gaining any traction whatsoever regardless of how qualified they may be. To continue to pick from the pre-ordained party hacks in expectation that the system will get better is not only delusional, it is indeed insanity.
Gail: “Buddy Roemer, the former governor of Louisiana whose candidacy was so deeply unsuccessful that he couldn’t even qualify for the debates…”
Don: And should he or anyone else for that matter on the Americans Elect ticket or the Green Party or the Libertarian Party achieve ballot access in most the 50 states, they will still be denied access to the Presidential debates if they don’t achieve a 15% polling as dictated by the Republican-Democratic Party Politburo’s communication arm – The Commission On Presidential Debates.
Finally, and this is my favorite faux pas that I hear so often:
Gail: “There is the opportunity to create a presidential nominee who will promise to bring us all together … Barack Obama.”
Don: Well, you’re either delusional or naïve. I voted for Barack and I certainly didn’t drink the Kool-Aid that he – a Democrat – was going to take his partisan ideologies into Washington and convince all those Republicans that they’re on the wrong side of the aisle. I voted for Barack because he could put two sentences together and would keep the rest of the world from viewing us as some bunch of crazed cowboys. Did you really drink the Kool-Aid, Gail? Because it certainly appears from this article that you did…
Thanks, Don! Somebody needs to start fighting back for AE. RE Gail's claim that our problem is "not procedural," here are a couple of comments that did get included following Gail’s essay:
One “JRHCarmel” commented in the NYT,
“The greatest aspect of the Americans Elect process is enabling voters to match their views against those of the candidates based on a battery of policy questions that the candidates must answer. Most voters would like to tune out all the divisive rhetoric and pandering and determine which candidates most closely reflect their views without pundits, ads, or party elites directing their choices. The more of us who participate in AE, the more quickly it will evolve toward a process that places the needs of voters ahead of parties.”
Another comment in the NYT by “W.A. SpitzerFaywood,” states, in part,
“The major problem is the two party primary system which tends to select fringe candidates. This is amplified by the fact that more than a third of the voters consider themselves to be independents, and in many states are prohibited from voting in the party primaries.” His “solution” is to have a national primary, very much like the one AE is now offering. “This would force the candidates to run more toward the center where the majority of voters are truly represented, and would therefore select more moderate candidates; it would prevent a candidate from winning a general election unless they had at least 50% of the votes; and by having one primary rather than two it would not subsidies party politics, and would be less expensive.”
Finally, another critique of the NYT article comes from Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Candidate for President on the AE website
As to Ms. Collins’s fear that AE might result in votes being drawn away from Obama, Mr. Kotlikoff writes
“Gail, … Fear is no basis for choosing our leaders. Americans Elect may be the country's only hope of staving off indefinite political gridlock and watching the country continue to slide down hill. [You need to educate yourself.] For starters you could look at the policies I lay out, [and] the policy plans of the other declared candidates on Americans Elect. … America's future is no joke.”
Way to go, Laurence! Come on AE supporters, more of us need to start fighting back!
“Death to the Two-Party System!”
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund, a CA Nonprofit Foundation
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Author of Internet Voting Now!
Kindle edition: http://tinyurl.com/IntV-Now
In paper: http://tinyurl.com/IVNow2011
In just a few hours, this opinion drew so many comments (close to 400) for and against that the NYT closed the comments section.
So, here is a comment from AE Delegate, Don Gordon, that didn’t get passed the gate before it was shut. (It’s followed by a few of other comments, as well.)
Well Gail, you should know that I’m a regular subscriber to the NYT and I’m also a Delegate Leader for Americans Elect here in Illinois. From time to time I find your opinions quite lucent and on target. Today is not one of those moments. When I opened the paper this afternoon – yes, I’m one of those dinosaurs who still read the tactile version of the NYT – I was quite dismayed that your opinions on Americans Elect were so off the target. There are so many misconceptions in your short piece that I have to be diligent in not writing a tome in response.
So, let me start by saying that overall you make the same mistake that many others have, though a few get it right. That mistake is to evaluate Americans Elect on what it is attempting to do immediately and to ignore the long term implications. You’re to be forgiven for that because our political system is so banged up that expectations are extremely high for any organization that comes along to make a change to repair that system. Part of the problem lies with Americans Elect as well. [AE spokesperson,] Ms. Malm should have made the point that not only is this about “disruption for the good” but it’s about setting in play “future disruption”. There are lessons to be learned once this is over, and those are going to be valuable lessons that Americans Elect is creating and will inform future initiatives such as this. Now on to some of your quotes…
Gail: “History suggests that this election could be decided by a small number of votes…”
Don: Ok, here we go down the rabbit hole of don’t vote for the other 3rd, 4th, 5th party candidate because they could upset MY candidate from winning – what is becoming known as the “Nader Effect”. Really, Ms. Collins? Well, I’m appalled at that assessment. Your job, my job, everyone else’s job as the electorate is to assess the candidates based on their qualifications – not party labels – and to vote for whom we think is the best qualified not the one who has the best chance of winning. And that last notion may eventually go down in the Republican dialogue as the “Romney Effect”.
Gail: “The whole Americans Elect concept is delusional…we the people are good and pure and if only we were allowed to just pick the best person…”
Don: What is delusional – actually insane by Ben Franklin’s estimation – is that we continue to cough up the same old, same old candidate choices because the Republican-Democratic Party Politburo limits our choices and prevents others from gaining any traction whatsoever regardless of how qualified they may be. To continue to pick from the pre-ordained party hacks in expectation that the system will get better is not only delusional, it is indeed insanity.
Gail: “Buddy Roemer, the former governor of Louisiana whose candidacy was so deeply unsuccessful that he couldn’t even qualify for the debates…”
Don: And should he or anyone else for that matter on the Americans Elect ticket or the Green Party or the Libertarian Party achieve ballot access in most the 50 states, they will still be denied access to the Presidential debates if they don’t achieve a 15% polling as dictated by the Republican-Democratic Party Politburo’s communication arm – The Commission On Presidential Debates.
Finally, and this is my favorite faux pas that I hear so often:
Gail: “There is the opportunity to create a presidential nominee who will promise to bring us all together … Barack Obama.”
Don: Well, you’re either delusional or naïve. I voted for Barack and I certainly didn’t drink the Kool-Aid that he – a Democrat – was going to take his partisan ideologies into Washington and convince all those Republicans that they’re on the wrong side of the aisle. I voted for Barack because he could put two sentences together and would keep the rest of the world from viewing us as some bunch of crazed cowboys. Did you really drink the Kool-Aid, Gail? Because it certainly appears from this article that you did…
Thanks, Don! Somebody needs to start fighting back for AE. RE Gail's claim that our problem is "not procedural," here are a couple of comments that did get included following Gail’s essay:
One “JRHCarmel” commented in the NYT,
“The greatest aspect of the Americans Elect process is enabling voters to match their views against those of the candidates based on a battery of policy questions that the candidates must answer. Most voters would like to tune out all the divisive rhetoric and pandering and determine which candidates most closely reflect their views without pundits, ads, or party elites directing their choices. The more of us who participate in AE, the more quickly it will evolve toward a process that places the needs of voters ahead of parties.”
Another comment in the NYT by “W.A. SpitzerFaywood,” states, in part,
“The major problem is the two party primary system which tends to select fringe candidates. This is amplified by the fact that more than a third of the voters consider themselves to be independents, and in many states are prohibited from voting in the party primaries.” His “solution” is to have a national primary, very much like the one AE is now offering. “This would force the candidates to run more toward the center where the majority of voters are truly represented, and would therefore select more moderate candidates; it would prevent a candidate from winning a general election unless they had at least 50% of the votes; and by having one primary rather than two it would not subsidies party politics, and would be less expensive.”
Finally, another critique of the NYT article comes from Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Candidate for President on the AE website
As to Ms. Collins’s fear that AE might result in votes being drawn away from Obama, Mr. Kotlikoff writes
“Gail, … Fear is no basis for choosing our leaders. Americans Elect may be the country's only hope of staving off indefinite political gridlock and watching the country continue to slide down hill. [You need to educate yourself.] For starters you could look at the policies I lay out, [and] the policy plans of the other declared candidates on Americans Elect. … America's future is no joke.”
Way to go, Laurence! Come on AE supporters, more of us need to start fighting back!
“Death to the Two-Party System!”
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund, a CA Nonprofit Foundation
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Author of Internet Voting Now!
Kindle edition: http://tinyurl.com/IntV-Now
In paper: http://tinyurl.com/IVNow2011
Thursday, February 16, 2012
News Hour Internet Voting Story
Have you seen the News Hour Internet voting story?
Internet Voting: Will Democracy or Hackers Win?
They followed the exact storyline set out in my blog posts!
Here they are:
Cyber Bullying in Connecticut: A Lesson in Empathy
West Virginia Secretary of State, Natalie Tennant is the victim!
Also see,
Kelleher’s Account of Cyber Bullying in Connecticut Verified
For more on Tennant:
Internet Voting Profile in Courage: Natalie Tennant
On my continuing debate w/ David Jefferson (leader of the opposition):
My Comments on the News Hour story:
Over all, its a balanced report. But they left out one hugely important FACT - namely, Wagner, Jefferson, Halderman, Rivest et al can't give even one instance of a hacking into an actual Internet vote election. DC was just a very first trial, and it failed. But DC was NOT a real election. All over the world - Norway, Switzerland, Estonia, India, Canada, New South Wales, and other places have had Internet voting election w/o security breeches. Elections Canada, the agency that administers national elections there, has ask the gov to make all national elections online. Tennant's experience shows, along w/ the rest of the world, that Internet voting can be done securely. It will boost turnout, too!
Another thing the News Hour report doesn't tell you is how Internet voting, rightly organized, can neutralize Big Money in all US elections. Yet another is that paper based businesses, like big newspaper corporations, spread false scary stories about supposed Internet voting insecurity. This is the main reason why the USA has almost no Internet voting. If we had it, it could empower the moderate middle class like never before, end elite rule, and stop all partisan bickering in Washington. That is what my book, Internet Voting Now, is all about. But here are a couple of my old blog posts on this:
How Internet Voting Can Support Nonpartisan Politics
and
US Social Forum
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund, a CA Nonprofit Foundation
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Author of Internet Voting Now!
Kindle edition
In paper
Internet Voting: Will Democracy or Hackers Win?
They followed the exact storyline set out in my blog posts!
Here they are:
Cyber Bullying in Connecticut: A Lesson in Empathy
West Virginia Secretary of State, Natalie Tennant is the victim!
Also see,
Kelleher’s Account of Cyber Bullying in Connecticut Verified
For more on Tennant:
Internet Voting Profile in Courage: Natalie Tennant
On my continuing debate w/ David Jefferson (leader of the opposition):
My Comments on the News Hour story:
Over all, its a balanced report. But they left out one hugely important FACT - namely, Wagner, Jefferson, Halderman, Rivest et al can't give even one instance of a hacking into an actual Internet vote election. DC was just a very first trial, and it failed. But DC was NOT a real election. All over the world - Norway, Switzerland, Estonia, India, Canada, New South Wales, and other places have had Internet voting election w/o security breeches. Elections Canada, the agency that administers national elections there, has ask the gov to make all national elections online. Tennant's experience shows, along w/ the rest of the world, that Internet voting can be done securely. It will boost turnout, too!
Another thing the News Hour report doesn't tell you is how Internet voting, rightly organized, can neutralize Big Money in all US elections. Yet another is that paper based businesses, like big newspaper corporations, spread false scary stories about supposed Internet voting insecurity. This is the main reason why the USA has almost no Internet voting. If we had it, it could empower the moderate middle class like never before, end elite rule, and stop all partisan bickering in Washington. That is what my book, Internet Voting Now, is all about. But here are a couple of my old blog posts on this:
How Internet Voting Can Support Nonpartisan Politics
and
US Social Forum
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund, a CA Nonprofit Foundation
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Author of Internet Voting Now!
Kindle edition
In paper
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Oscar Internet Voting Plan Attacked With Scary Stories, But NO SCIENCE!
Here is my Letter to The Guardian Newspaper, which as far as I know was never printed by them.
On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 2:48 PM, William J. Kelleher, Ph.D. wrote:
Dear Editor of The Guardian UK:
Your recent article about the plans to have Oscar voting done online falls far below your usual standard of responsible journalism. The article presents several scary stories about what security breaches “could” happen, but offers no FACTS to back up the fear mongering.
Here is one scary story, for starters: “Computer security experts have warned [of] … cyber attacks that could falsify the outcome but remain undetected.” Well, that is scary! But has it ever really happened?
The answer is a big NO! Internet voting has been conducted in Norway, Switzerland, India, Canada, and here in the US in several places, including West Virginia. In every case, technical and political experts, including officials and the public, were satisfied with the integrity of the vote. There were no undetected Leprechauns that snuck in and changed everyone’s vote. In Estonia one voter challenged an election by Internet voting, but the court rejected the claim after studying the evidence.
Mr. Dill, whom you quote as your authority, states a perennial problem for all large voting systems when he says you can’t know if your vote for A was really counted as a vote for B. But this is not just a problem for Internet voting. Unless you can see the raised hands of all the voters in a room, you can never know how, or if, your vote was counted.
In all representative democracies, the voters must rely on their representatives to do a responsible and professional job. That is what has happened in all Internet voting trials around the world – and it will happen in the votes for Oscar, too. Responsible officials can be trusted to pick professional technicians to set up the Internet voting systems. These technicians understand all the security threats Mr. Dill dredges up. They know how to mitigate each threat, and how to protect the integrity of the election.
Unfortunately, the writer of this article seems to have slipped a bit on his journalistic integrity. He fails completely to list all the successful Internet voting projects that I mentioned. Also, in one paragraph we are told that "30" computer scientists signed a letter warning of the dangers of Internet voting for overseas Democrats. Yet the writer then reveals that he told “the Academy's chief operating officer, Ric Robertson, … of the near-total unanimity of computer experts [that Internet voting was insecure].” Give me a break!
How does any credible writer get from “30” to “near-total unanimity”? There must be thousands of computer scientists in the world, and Dill was only able to recruit 30. For every successful Internet voting event, there were dozens of experts who worked on the project, and who knew it could be done. So, no "unanimity" there. I'll bet that NOT ONE of those 30, including Mr. Dill, has ever actually worked at setting up an Internet voting system. So, what do they know? Just a bunch of theoretical scary stories!
Also, the writer of this article made a statement about the hacking incident in Washington, DC which is, at best, misleading. He tells his trusting readers that “overseas voters were invited to vote by internet in a local election in Washington, DC.” Not exactly! The Internet voting system was opened to the public for its first ever test. This was definitely NOT “a local election,” but mere practice several days before the scheduled election. The practice showed that the system wasn't ready to be used; so, it was not used for the real election.
Your readers expect some balance in the articles they read. But they won’t get that unless they read this letter to the Editor.
Yours,
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Twitter: wjkno1
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://internetvotingforall.blogspot.com/
Author of Internet Voting Now!
On Kindle
And in paper http://tinyurl.com/IVNow2011
On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 2:48 PM, William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Dear Editor of The Guardian UK:
Your recent article about the plans to have Oscar voting done online falls far below your usual standard of responsible journalism. The article presents several scary stories about what security breaches “could” happen, but offers no FACTS to back up the fear mongering.
Here is one scary story, for starters: “Computer security experts have warned [of] … cyber attacks that could falsify the outcome but remain undetected.” Well, that is scary! But has it ever really happened?
The answer is a big NO! Internet voting has been conducted in Norway, Switzerland, India, Canada, and here in the US in several places, including West Virginia. In every case, technical and political experts, including officials and the public, were satisfied with the integrity of the vote. There were no undetected Leprechauns that snuck in and changed everyone’s vote. In Estonia one voter challenged an election by Internet voting, but the court rejected the claim after studying the evidence.
Mr. Dill, whom you quote as your authority, states a perennial problem for all large voting systems when he says you can’t know if your vote for A was really counted as a vote for B. But this is not just a problem for Internet voting. Unless you can see the raised hands of all the voters in a room, you can never know how, or if, your vote was counted.
In all representative democracies, the voters must rely on their representatives to do a responsible and professional job. That is what has happened in all Internet voting trials around the world – and it will happen in the votes for Oscar, too. Responsible officials can be trusted to pick professional technicians to set up the Internet voting systems. These technicians understand all the security threats Mr. Dill dredges up. They know how to mitigate each threat, and how to protect the integrity of the election.
Unfortunately, the writer of this article seems to have slipped a bit on his journalistic integrity. He fails completely to list all the successful Internet voting projects that I mentioned. Also, in one paragraph we are told that "30" computer scientists signed a letter warning of the dangers of Internet voting for overseas Democrats. Yet the writer then reveals that he told “the Academy's chief operating officer, Ric Robertson, … of the near-total unanimity of computer experts [that Internet voting was insecure].” Give me a break!
How does any credible writer get from “30” to “near-total unanimity”? There must be thousands of computer scientists in the world, and Dill was only able to recruit 30. For every successful Internet voting event, there were dozens of experts who worked on the project, and who knew it could be done. So, no "unanimity" there. I'll bet that NOT ONE of those 30, including Mr. Dill, has ever actually worked at setting up an Internet voting system. So, what do they know? Just a bunch of theoretical scary stories!
Also, the writer of this article made a statement about the hacking incident in Washington, DC which is, at best, misleading. He tells his trusting readers that “overseas voters were invited to vote by internet in a local election in Washington, DC.” Not exactly! The Internet voting system was opened to the public for its first ever test. This was definitely NOT “a local election,” but mere practice several days before the scheduled election. The practice showed that the system wasn't ready to be used; so, it was not used for the real election.
Your readers expect some balance in the articles they read. But they won’t get that unless they read this letter to the Editor.
Yours,
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Twitter: wjkno1
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://internetvotingforall.blogspot.com/
Author of Internet Voting Now!
On Kindle
And in paper http://tinyurl.com/IVNow2011
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Americans Elect Invites Vote Buying & Selling, Rejects Voter Privacy!
AE presents itself as a bold alternative to the two-party system. “Pick a person, not a party,” they say. All you have to do is be a registered voter, and sign up on their website at AmericansElect.org. Then you will be eligible to vote ONLINE for any of the qualified candidates in their primary competition.
Up to this point, the project seems to have some promise as a democratic reform. Any registered voter can participate, no matter what party affiliation, or no party affiliation. Candidates can self-select, or be drafted, and don’t need any campaign contributions to be considered by the voters. Best of all, from my point of view, they are going to use Internet voting.
Unfortunately, the process is far from flawless. As first reported in Rick Hasen’s Election Law blog, the AE vote will NOT BE A SECRET VOTE. According to AE, “Each vote is tied to name. Necessary so we can audit the convention afterwards. This is not a secret vote (like the general election is).”
What are they thinking? Does AE have a public relations Death Wish? Let me try to put this problem in context.
Internet voting is being used all over the world. In Europe, Estonia, Switzerland, and Norway use it. In India, the state of Gujarat uses it (and in a recent election had over 77% turnout). Based on the several successful online votes in Canadian cities, Elections Canada, the agency that runs national elections, has requested that the government make Internet voting its official voting technology. In the USA, Hawaii, Kings County Washington, and West Virginia have used it. Both France and Mexico City are planning to use Internet voting for their overseas voters.
Each of these systems was set up by teams of professional technicians who knew what they were doing, and did it well. No security breaches or hackers changed any votes, or violated the privacy of any voters. These systems were set up to allow voters to log on, have their eligibility verified, and then vote on the secure servers which held the voting website. Separate modules verify the voter’s registration, and keep the record of the vote. Thus, no voter’s privacy is compromised. Also, since there are no records kept of a voter’s name and how he or she voted, no one can prove to a potential vote buyer how he or she voted.
AE declines to use this well tested Internet voting technology. Instead, they use a process that dredges up some of the worst election practices ever used. They reject the principle of voter privacy, and they will keep both an electronic and a paper copy of the voter’s name and vote together. Indeed, these records will be shared with the auditing company they have hired. Untold numbers of people will read these names and votes.
Worse still, I have been told that AE will mail out paper copies of name and vote together to each voter, so that he or she can see how his or her vote was recorded. If so, what a handy receipt this will be for a vote seller to show a vote buyer!
Haven’t the Ackermans ever heard of the “Australian Ballot”? This was once a major reform of election practices in the US. Now AE is going to ignore this reform and thereby invite a resurrection of the very corrupt practices the reform was meant to stop.
AE has a lot of promise as a democratic reform. But once people, who are eager for more democracy, see what they are getting into, who will want to support such stupidity?
There is still time to correct this misguided slipping into the worst of America’s past, when voters had no privacy and votes were bought and sold. True Internet voting is being done around the world. Even the vote for the Oscars in 2013 will be true Internet voting! Hey, AE – lets get with it!
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund, a CA Nonprofit Foundation
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Author of Internet Voting Now!
On Kindle and in paper
For my discussion with Joshua Levine about AE potential PR problems, see this
Up to this point, the project seems to have some promise as a democratic reform. Any registered voter can participate, no matter what party affiliation, or no party affiliation. Candidates can self-select, or be drafted, and don’t need any campaign contributions to be considered by the voters. Best of all, from my point of view, they are going to use Internet voting.
Unfortunately, the process is far from flawless. As first reported in Rick Hasen’s Election Law blog, the AE vote will NOT BE A SECRET VOTE. According to AE, “Each vote is tied to name. Necessary so we can audit the convention afterwards. This is not a secret vote (like the general election is).”
What are they thinking? Does AE have a public relations Death Wish? Let me try to put this problem in context.
Internet voting is being used all over the world. In Europe, Estonia, Switzerland, and Norway use it. In India, the state of Gujarat uses it (and in a recent election had over 77% turnout). Based on the several successful online votes in Canadian cities, Elections Canada, the agency that runs national elections, has requested that the government make Internet voting its official voting technology. In the USA, Hawaii, Kings County Washington, and West Virginia have used it. Both France and Mexico City are planning to use Internet voting for their overseas voters.
Each of these systems was set up by teams of professional technicians who knew what they were doing, and did it well. No security breaches or hackers changed any votes, or violated the privacy of any voters. These systems were set up to allow voters to log on, have their eligibility verified, and then vote on the secure servers which held the voting website. Separate modules verify the voter’s registration, and keep the record of the vote. Thus, no voter’s privacy is compromised. Also, since there are no records kept of a voter’s name and how he or she voted, no one can prove to a potential vote buyer how he or she voted.
AE declines to use this well tested Internet voting technology. Instead, they use a process that dredges up some of the worst election practices ever used. They reject the principle of voter privacy, and they will keep both an electronic and a paper copy of the voter’s name and vote together. Indeed, these records will be shared with the auditing company they have hired. Untold numbers of people will read these names and votes.
Worse still, I have been told that AE will mail out paper copies of name and vote together to each voter, so that he or she can see how his or her vote was recorded. If so, what a handy receipt this will be for a vote seller to show a vote buyer!
Haven’t the Ackermans ever heard of the “Australian Ballot”? This was once a major reform of election practices in the US. Now AE is going to ignore this reform and thereby invite a resurrection of the very corrupt practices the reform was meant to stop.
AE has a lot of promise as a democratic reform. But once people, who are eager for more democracy, see what they are getting into, who will want to support such stupidity?
There is still time to correct this misguided slipping into the worst of America’s past, when voters had no privacy and votes were bought and sold. True Internet voting is being done around the world. Even the vote for the Oscars in 2013 will be true Internet voting! Hey, AE – lets get with it!
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund, a CA Nonprofit Foundation
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Author of Internet Voting Now!
On Kindle and in paper
For my discussion with Joshua Levine about AE potential PR problems, see this
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Cyber Bullying in Connecticut: A Lesson in Empathy
Cyber bullying is the mean and unfair treatment of a person on the Internet. They had a feeding frenzy of it recently in Connecticut.[1] Before I report what happened there, please keep this set of questions in mind. That is, suppose a woman is the only one wearing a red dress at a party. During the event, the guy with the loudest mouth blurts out “of all the styles of dresses, the red dress is the bottom of the barrel!” How would the lone red dress wearer feel? Happy? Complimented? Attacked? Angry? Embarrassed? How would you feel? Here's what happened.
An anti-Internet voting political science department in a Connecticut university, and their allies, organized a lop-sided panel to “discuss” the pros and cons of the Northern state taking up Internet voting for their overseas military personnel. Three avidly anti-Internet voting computer science professors, and a rich lady who owns an anti-Internet voting website, were on one side of the panel. Completely alone on the other side was Natalie Tennant, Secretary of State for West Virginia.[2]
This wasn’t an actual “discussion;” instead, it was an online propaganda festival of anti-Internet voting negativity interspersed with just a few positive statements from Secretary Tennant. Ron Rivest, one of the biased computer scientists, provided some telling examples of the lack of scientific sophistication his side displayed. Early in the proceeding Professor Rivest wittily declared that the term “Internet voting” is an oxymoron, like “safe cigarettes.” Cute, but where’s the science? At no point in the day did he, or any of the opposition, present any facts about actual breaches of security in an Internet voting trial (except, of course, the DC hack, which was not an actual election [3]).
When the moderator suggested that there are several different types of voting technology, Prof Rivest blurted out that Internet voting is “the bottom of the barrel!”
Despite those comments, Secretary Tennant encouraged Connecticut to use Internet voting for its overseas military voters. She stated that the West Virginia legislature had long been concerned that members of the overseas military were unable to vote because the method of voting by mail was too inconvenient and prone to errors. After the 2009 MOVE Act required the states to set up systems for electronically sending ballots to overseas military, the state legislature began considering legislation to allow her office to set up a system of Internet voting. The resulting legislation passed unanimously.
The new law required an initial trial involving just a few counties. The first test was the primary vote in 2010. It went so well that Secretary Tennant asked the legislature to expand the number of counties involved for the general election vote, which they promptly did.
Professor Halderman interrupted Ms. Tennant and demanded to know how her office vetted the companies that provided the Internet voting service. She replied that the vendors had to agree to several conditions. One of these was that third party experts had to be allowed to inspect the equipment and operating codes the vendors used. She said the companies not only agreed to these conditions, but offered to do the whole job for free, as a demonstration project. Given that situation, the Secretary’s office decided not to exercise its right to bring in a third party inspector. She said she trusted the companies.
At one point, Prof Rivest, who had never had any personal interaction with the company representatives, declared that the vendors could be corrupt and she wouldn’t know it. Isn’t that possible, he demanded.
She said that besides trusting the vendor you have to trust every kind of vote counting machine, not just Internet voting servers. CT, for example, uses optical scanning machines to count its votes. The voter fills in a bubble with a pencil on a paper card. But suppose one of the employees feeding the cards to the scanning machine in the election office is an unscrupulous partisan. He can hide a piece of pencil lead under his finger nail, and put an extra mark on cards with votes he doesn’t like. Then the machine would reject the card as a double vote, and nobody would know that a vote had been sabotaged.
Her point, of course, is that every complex vote counting system requires some degree of trust. Election officials have to exercise their professional judgment as to when such trust is reasonable. In reply to a question from the moderator, Ms. Tennant stated that she trusted the workers in her department because it was like a small community. She trusted the system because it used military grade encryption, had an intrusion detection function, and other security checks. She also pointed out that it was a serious felony to tamper with elections, and this law is a part of the security system.
Professor Halderman pressed the matter by demanding to know if West Virginia would allow hackers a chance to try to hack into the system, like the officials did in Washington DC. She said that the system actually belonged to the companies, and that the state lacked the authority to invite hackers to freely test the system.
He: What’s so secret that venders won’t open it up?
She: I can’t answer for them, professor.
He: Why didn’t you require a public test?
She: (With a smile,) we did do some testing, and caught an inverted number.
He: In the future would you run a public trial, like DC?
She: I can’t say right now.
The website owner, Ms. Dzieduszycka-Suinat, suggested that West Virginia was using its overseas military voters as “guinea pigs.” Later Prof Rivest blurted out, with all the science he could muster, that Internet voting is “like skating on thin ice.”
Undaunted, Ms. Tennant stated in her concluding remarks that she still feels that she made the right judgment by trusting the companies. She felt that she was doing the right thing for West Virginia’s military voters. Her husband is stationed in Afghanistan, and he saw first hand how difficult voting is for many of the service members there. She has recieved letters of gratitude from military personnel. The lone defender of Internet voting on this panel, she said that if she must, for the sake of her military voters, (and I quote) “I’ll continue to sit up here and take the attacks, take the arrows ... and things like that!”
As the panelists rose from their seats to leave the stage, Ron Rivest was heard to exclaim, “Internet voting is like drunk driving,” and he burst into triumphant laughter.
[1] See video at http://www.ctvoterscount.org/secretary-of-the-states-online-voting-symposium/[2] See Natalie Tennant: Internet Voting Profile in Courage http://t.co/aRd9W3o
[3] RE: DC see http://tinyurl.com/DCin2010
Email Denise Merrill Connecticut Secretary of State and ask that she follow West Virginia’s lead to serve CT’s military voters:
denise.merrill@ct.gov
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Author of Internet Voting Now!
Kindle edition: http://tinyurl.com/IntV-Now
In paper: http://tinyurl.com/IVNow2011
PS
Cyberulling, of course, is not limited to supporters of Internet voting. See this informative article -- Cyberbullying: How Bullies Have Moved From the Playground to the Web
NEW!
For more on Alex Halderman see, in this blog,
Alex Halderman Debates Internet Voting Security w/ Me
An anti-Internet voting political science department in a Connecticut university, and their allies, organized a lop-sided panel to “discuss” the pros and cons of the Northern state taking up Internet voting for their overseas military personnel. Three avidly anti-Internet voting computer science professors, and a rich lady who owns an anti-Internet voting website, were on one side of the panel. Completely alone on the other side was Natalie Tennant, Secretary of State for West Virginia.[2]
This wasn’t an actual “discussion;” instead, it was an online propaganda festival of anti-Internet voting negativity interspersed with just a few positive statements from Secretary Tennant. Ron Rivest, one of the biased computer scientists, provided some telling examples of the lack of scientific sophistication his side displayed. Early in the proceeding Professor Rivest wittily declared that the term “Internet voting” is an oxymoron, like “safe cigarettes.” Cute, but where’s the science? At no point in the day did he, or any of the opposition, present any facts about actual breaches of security in an Internet voting trial (except, of course, the DC hack, which was not an actual election [3]).
When the moderator suggested that there are several different types of voting technology, Prof Rivest blurted out that Internet voting is “the bottom of the barrel!”
Despite those comments, Secretary Tennant encouraged Connecticut to use Internet voting for its overseas military voters. She stated that the West Virginia legislature had long been concerned that members of the overseas military were unable to vote because the method of voting by mail was too inconvenient and prone to errors. After the 2009 MOVE Act required the states to set up systems for electronically sending ballots to overseas military, the state legislature began considering legislation to allow her office to set up a system of Internet voting. The resulting legislation passed unanimously.
The new law required an initial trial involving just a few counties. The first test was the primary vote in 2010. It went so well that Secretary Tennant asked the legislature to expand the number of counties involved for the general election vote, which they promptly did.
Professor Halderman interrupted Ms. Tennant and demanded to know how her office vetted the companies that provided the Internet voting service. She replied that the vendors had to agree to several conditions. One of these was that third party experts had to be allowed to inspect the equipment and operating codes the vendors used. She said the companies not only agreed to these conditions, but offered to do the whole job for free, as a demonstration project. Given that situation, the Secretary’s office decided not to exercise its right to bring in a third party inspector. She said she trusted the companies.
At one point, Prof Rivest, who had never had any personal interaction with the company representatives, declared that the vendors could be corrupt and she wouldn’t know it. Isn’t that possible, he demanded.
She said that besides trusting the vendor you have to trust every kind of vote counting machine, not just Internet voting servers. CT, for example, uses optical scanning machines to count its votes. The voter fills in a bubble with a pencil on a paper card. But suppose one of the employees feeding the cards to the scanning machine in the election office is an unscrupulous partisan. He can hide a piece of pencil lead under his finger nail, and put an extra mark on cards with votes he doesn’t like. Then the machine would reject the card as a double vote, and nobody would know that a vote had been sabotaged.
Her point, of course, is that every complex vote counting system requires some degree of trust. Election officials have to exercise their professional judgment as to when such trust is reasonable. In reply to a question from the moderator, Ms. Tennant stated that she trusted the workers in her department because it was like a small community. She trusted the system because it used military grade encryption, had an intrusion detection function, and other security checks. She also pointed out that it was a serious felony to tamper with elections, and this law is a part of the security system.
Professor Halderman pressed the matter by demanding to know if West Virginia would allow hackers a chance to try to hack into the system, like the officials did in Washington DC. She said that the system actually belonged to the companies, and that the state lacked the authority to invite hackers to freely test the system.
He: What’s so secret that venders won’t open it up?
She: I can’t answer for them, professor.
He: Why didn’t you require a public test?
She: (With a smile,) we did do some testing, and caught an inverted number.
He: In the future would you run a public trial, like DC?
She: I can’t say right now.
The website owner, Ms. Dzieduszycka-Suinat, suggested that West Virginia was using its overseas military voters as “guinea pigs.” Later Prof Rivest blurted out, with all the science he could muster, that Internet voting is “like skating on thin ice.”
Undaunted, Ms. Tennant stated in her concluding remarks that she still feels that she made the right judgment by trusting the companies. She felt that she was doing the right thing for West Virginia’s military voters. Her husband is stationed in Afghanistan, and he saw first hand how difficult voting is for many of the service members there. She has recieved letters of gratitude from military personnel. The lone defender of Internet voting on this panel, she said that if she must, for the sake of her military voters, (and I quote) “I’ll continue to sit up here and take the attacks, take the arrows ... and things like that!”
As the panelists rose from their seats to leave the stage, Ron Rivest was heard to exclaim, “Internet voting is like drunk driving,” and he burst into triumphant laughter.
[1] See video at http://www.ctvoterscount.org/secretary-of-the-states-online-voting-symposium/[2] See Natalie Tennant: Internet Voting Profile in Courage http://t.co/aRd9W3o
[3] RE: DC see http://tinyurl.com/DCin2010
Email Denise Merrill Connecticut Secretary of State and ask that she follow West Virginia’s lead to serve CT’s military voters:
denise.merrill@ct.gov
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/IV4All
Twitter: wjkno1
Email: Internetvoting@gmail.com
Author of Internet Voting Now!
Kindle edition: http://tinyurl.com/IntV-Now
In paper: http://tinyurl.com/IVNow2011
PS
Cyberulling, of course, is not limited to supporters of Internet voting. See this informative article -- Cyberbullying: How Bullies Have Moved From the Playground to the Web
NEW!
For more on Alex Halderman see, in this blog,
Alex Halderman Debates Internet Voting Security w/ Me
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Rebuttal to David Jefferson’s Brief against Internet Voting
As Professor Hasen shows in his forthcoming book, Voting Wars, conflict over the way we conduct elections in the US is increasing. One of the areas of disagreement is whether or not the US should employ Internet voting as a means of conducting elections. Professor Hasen offers a statement against that move by the highly respected computer scientist Dr. David Jefferson. With all due respect, I offer another view.
Voting, of course, is a very serious matter. It is an essential, albeit not sufficient, requirement for democracy. Voting is one of the principle ways by which the people of a nation are empowered to have a voice in their own destinies. The process of voting, that is, the means by which a vote is conducted, must be one that commands the trust of the voters, or the results will not be legitimate. Illegitimate governments can only cause political unhappiness, and possibly political unrest and turmoil. Hence, the right to cast a vote is meaningless unless the means by which the vote is counted is trustworthy.
Dr. Jefferson alleges that Internet voting is untrustworthy, and therefore should not be used in US elections. Yet, we live in a time when the cultural and economic momentum around the world is pushing towards ever greater use of electronic technology. This is not just for social or entertainment uses. Professor of e-business and computer science at the Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Michael Shamos, who has both a Ph.D. in computer science and a law degree, observers that electronic information is replacing paper-based information throughout international law. [1]
Electronic signatures are regarded in law as just as valid and binding as hand written signatures on paper. In fact, he says, electronic records are now preferred as evidence in courts all over the world. If there is a contract dispute, emails may be used as evidence to show how a party understood the paper contract. In cases where a bank customer offers an ATM paper receipt as proof of a transaction, courts routinely rely instead on the bank’s electronic records as the definitive source of proof. Even claims to have a winning lottery ticket can be disproven by the lottery administrator’s electronic records of both where and when the ticket was sold, and the winning number. In all these cases, where electronic records are shown to have been well-maintained, they are given preference over paper, which is regarded as far easier to modify or fake.
Dr. Jefferson’s position is that despite all the movement towards a 21st Century e-world, the means by which we conduct our elections must stay rooted in the tried and true tradition of the 18th Century. That is, trek to the polling place, mark a piece of paper, deposit it in a box, and return home hoping your piece of paper will be counted as cast.
One fact that Dr. Jefferson over-looks is the long history of voting fraud committed within our paper-based system of voting over the past 200 years. Another fact he conveniently over-looks is that all over the world, where Internet voting trials have been conducted, there have been no proven instances of voting fraud. Allegations or suspicions may exist, but no charges of fraud, or even of significant error, have been accredited in any Internet voting trial conducted in this century. (RE the DC fiasco, see below.)[2]
The first trials of Internet voting were conducted in the year 2000. The Republican Party conducted a straw poll in Alaska. The Democratic Party held a primary vote in Arizona. And, the Department of Defense conducted a small online vote for overseas military personnel, who were enabled to vote in their state, local, and federal elections on their own PCs. Other nations were inspired by these pioneering US trials. Now, Elections Canada, the agency that manages national elections in that country, has requested the House of Commons to allow Internet voting for all its national elections. Numerous municipal elections have been conducted online in Canada, without any security or technical problems. A recent EAC report notes that the Swiss have held at least 36 online elections over the past several years. Internet voting trials have been done in India, France, Spain, Norway, New South Wales, and other countries. No instances of voter fraud have been shown. Tarvi Martens, who designed the Estonia Internet voting system, says it’s “more secure than Internet banking” http://t.co/Jh6Onyd
Here, then, are numerous FACTS about actual instances of successful Internet voting trials. There are many more such facts. For example, West Virginia allowed its overseas military personnel, from a few select counties, to vote online in the 2010 election. Secretary of State Natalie Tennant was so pleased with the initial trial that she asked the state legislature to expand the number of participating counties, which it promptly did.
Take a second look at Dr. Jefferson’s brief against Internet voting. See any facts in support of his claims of incurable insecurity? Does he cite even one instance of an Internet election gone wrong? How about one time when voter privacy was violated? Answer: no, not one.
Instead, he recites a litany of scary stories about what he says COULD happen. For example, “Zeus [botnets] exemplifies what could just as easily happen if online voting becomes widespread.” Or, “Anyone from a disaffected misfit individual to a national intelligence agency can remotely attack an online election …” “Anyone,” really?
Here’s a frightening thought: “Eventually someone, perhaps a partisan political operative or a foreign intelligence agency, will deploy a similar botnet to infect thousands of voters’ computers and modify their votes invisibly as they are being transmitted.”
That’s a really scary story, but has it been done in any actual Internet voting trials? Well, no – but Dr. Jefferson is certain that it COULD be done. How can he be so sure? Answer, “computer and network security experts are virtually unanimous in pointing out that online voting is an exceedingly dangerous threat to the integrity of U.S. elections.” But wait, if there is such unanimity, then why are Internet voting trials increasing world wide? Have all those systems been set up without first consulting “computer and network security experts”? Or have all those election officials gone against this unanimity, just foolishly hoping for the best? Has Natalie Tennant, her staff and advisors, and the West Virginia legislature, and its staff and advisors, all proclaimed “to heck with the experts! Let’s just do it!” Have all the responsible Swiss and Canadian officials been just as reckless?
Dr. Jefferson declares that an attacking bad guy “can probably automate that attack to allow thousands of phony votes to be recorded.” Upon what experiments, trials, or other experience does Dr. Jefferson base his probability statement? Does he have any facts, or is it just a fearful “feeling”?
The issue here is whether the United States should use electronic technology in all areas of life, but the one upon which we take the most national pride – our democracy. Moving to Internet voting is a big step, and it should not be taken without a thorough national debate. But such a debate ought to be conducted on the basis of fact and counter-fact. It should not be conducted on the basis of unsubstantiated scary stories, which conjure up such terrifying prospects that the mind shutters, and shuts itself off to all the contrary facts.
1. Dr. Shamos’s Ph.D. in computer science is from Yale University. He also teaches classes on electronic voting technology security. An elections law and patent law expert, he is licensed to practice law before the United States Supreme Court, as well as numerous federal and state courts. For 20 years, from 1980-2000, he was Pennsylvania‘s official examiner of electronic voting systems. See Shamos’s resume at,
http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/people/faculty/mshamos/resshort.htm His arguments are in a paper presented to the National Institute of Standards and Technology at,
http://vote.nist.gov/threats/papers/paper_v_electronic_records.pdf
2. The DC hacking occurred in a practice run, not an actual vote. The hacking revealed that the system had been incompetently set up by amateur technicians. For more on this see http://tinyurl.com/DCin2010
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund
Author of Internet Voting Now!
Twitter: wjkno1
Voting, of course, is a very serious matter. It is an essential, albeit not sufficient, requirement for democracy. Voting is one of the principle ways by which the people of a nation are empowered to have a voice in their own destinies. The process of voting, that is, the means by which a vote is conducted, must be one that commands the trust of the voters, or the results will not be legitimate. Illegitimate governments can only cause political unhappiness, and possibly political unrest and turmoil. Hence, the right to cast a vote is meaningless unless the means by which the vote is counted is trustworthy.
Dr. Jefferson alleges that Internet voting is untrustworthy, and therefore should not be used in US elections. Yet, we live in a time when the cultural and economic momentum around the world is pushing towards ever greater use of electronic technology. This is not just for social or entertainment uses. Professor of e-business and computer science at the Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Michael Shamos, who has both a Ph.D. in computer science and a law degree, observers that electronic information is replacing paper-based information throughout international law. [1]
Electronic signatures are regarded in law as just as valid and binding as hand written signatures on paper. In fact, he says, electronic records are now preferred as evidence in courts all over the world. If there is a contract dispute, emails may be used as evidence to show how a party understood the paper contract. In cases where a bank customer offers an ATM paper receipt as proof of a transaction, courts routinely rely instead on the bank’s electronic records as the definitive source of proof. Even claims to have a winning lottery ticket can be disproven by the lottery administrator’s electronic records of both where and when the ticket was sold, and the winning number. In all these cases, where electronic records are shown to have been well-maintained, they are given preference over paper, which is regarded as far easier to modify or fake.
Dr. Jefferson’s position is that despite all the movement towards a 21st Century e-world, the means by which we conduct our elections must stay rooted in the tried and true tradition of the 18th Century. That is, trek to the polling place, mark a piece of paper, deposit it in a box, and return home hoping your piece of paper will be counted as cast.
One fact that Dr. Jefferson over-looks is the long history of voting fraud committed within our paper-based system of voting over the past 200 years. Another fact he conveniently over-looks is that all over the world, where Internet voting trials have been conducted, there have been no proven instances of voting fraud. Allegations or suspicions may exist, but no charges of fraud, or even of significant error, have been accredited in any Internet voting trial conducted in this century. (RE the DC fiasco, see below.)[2]
The first trials of Internet voting were conducted in the year 2000. The Republican Party conducted a straw poll in Alaska. The Democratic Party held a primary vote in Arizona. And, the Department of Defense conducted a small online vote for overseas military personnel, who were enabled to vote in their state, local, and federal elections on their own PCs. Other nations were inspired by these pioneering US trials. Now, Elections Canada, the agency that manages national elections in that country, has requested the House of Commons to allow Internet voting for all its national elections. Numerous municipal elections have been conducted online in Canada, without any security or technical problems. A recent EAC report notes that the Swiss have held at least 36 online elections over the past several years. Internet voting trials have been done in India, France, Spain, Norway, New South Wales, and other countries. No instances of voter fraud have been shown. Tarvi Martens, who designed the Estonia Internet voting system, says it’s “more secure than Internet banking” http://t.co/Jh6Onyd
Here, then, are numerous FACTS about actual instances of successful Internet voting trials. There are many more such facts. For example, West Virginia allowed its overseas military personnel, from a few select counties, to vote online in the 2010 election. Secretary of State Natalie Tennant was so pleased with the initial trial that she asked the state legislature to expand the number of participating counties, which it promptly did.
Take a second look at Dr. Jefferson’s brief against Internet voting. See any facts in support of his claims of incurable insecurity? Does he cite even one instance of an Internet election gone wrong? How about one time when voter privacy was violated? Answer: no, not one.
Instead, he recites a litany of scary stories about what he says COULD happen. For example, “Zeus [botnets] exemplifies what could just as easily happen if online voting becomes widespread.” Or, “Anyone from a disaffected misfit individual to a national intelligence agency can remotely attack an online election …” “Anyone,” really?
Here’s a frightening thought: “Eventually someone, perhaps a partisan political operative or a foreign intelligence agency, will deploy a similar botnet to infect thousands of voters’ computers and modify their votes invisibly as they are being transmitted.”
That’s a really scary story, but has it been done in any actual Internet voting trials? Well, no – but Dr. Jefferson is certain that it COULD be done. How can he be so sure? Answer, “computer and network security experts are virtually unanimous in pointing out that online voting is an exceedingly dangerous threat to the integrity of U.S. elections.” But wait, if there is such unanimity, then why are Internet voting trials increasing world wide? Have all those systems been set up without first consulting “computer and network security experts”? Or have all those election officials gone against this unanimity, just foolishly hoping for the best? Has Natalie Tennant, her staff and advisors, and the West Virginia legislature, and its staff and advisors, all proclaimed “to heck with the experts! Let’s just do it!” Have all the responsible Swiss and Canadian officials been just as reckless?
Dr. Jefferson declares that an attacking bad guy “can probably automate that attack to allow thousands of phony votes to be recorded.” Upon what experiments, trials, or other experience does Dr. Jefferson base his probability statement? Does he have any facts, or is it just a fearful “feeling”?
The issue here is whether the United States should use electronic technology in all areas of life, but the one upon which we take the most national pride – our democracy. Moving to Internet voting is a big step, and it should not be taken without a thorough national debate. But such a debate ought to be conducted on the basis of fact and counter-fact. It should not be conducted on the basis of unsubstantiated scary stories, which conjure up such terrifying prospects that the mind shutters, and shuts itself off to all the contrary facts.
1. Dr. Shamos’s Ph.D. in computer science is from Yale University. He also teaches classes on electronic voting technology security. An elections law and patent law expert, he is licensed to practice law before the United States Supreme Court, as well as numerous federal and state courts. For 20 years, from 1980-2000, he was Pennsylvania‘s official examiner of electronic voting systems. See Shamos’s resume at,
http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/people/faculty/mshamos/resshort.htm His arguments are in a paper presented to the National Institute of Standards and Technology at,
http://vote.nist.gov/threats/papers/paper_v_electronic_records.pdf
2. The DC hacking occurred in a practice run, not an actual vote. The hacking revealed that the system had been incompetently set up by amateur technicians. For more on this see http://tinyurl.com/DCin2010
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund
Author of Internet Voting Now!
Twitter: wjkno1
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)