1
Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those
who count the votes decide everything
  Joseph Stalin
2

• The goal of a voting system is to accurately
  translate voter intent into a final tally

3
Election Musts

• Every vote counts
• Every vote is counted
• Every vote accurately reflects the intent of the
  voter
• The voting public has confidence in the electoral
  system
• The paper record is the legal representation of
  the vote
• Electronic records can be audited and compared
  with the paper records
• Election equipment and systems are open for
  public review

4
What Must Go Right?

• Registration
• Polling Places
• Poll Workers
• Ballots
• Voting Mechanism
• District Tally
• Aggregate Tally
• Recount

5
Characteristics of a Perfect Voting System

• Accuracy
• Tally correctly
• Secure from interference
• Anonymity
• Ballot must be secret
• There must be no way to force someones
• Scalability
• Ability to handle large elections
• Ability to handle many mixes of candidates and
  issues
• Ability to serve disabled
• Ability to serve other languages
• Speed
• The American Way
• Schneier on Security, http//www.schneier.com/blog
  /archives/2004/11/the_problem_wit.html

6
Old-fashioned Voting Paper ballot hand
countPaper ballot machine countLevers
machine countPunch Cards machine count

• PROS
• Verifiable in recount
• Simple to administer
• Low Tech

• CONS
• Inflexible design
• Must trust poll workers
• Slow to tally
• Possible poor
• ballot design

7
Old Fashioned Troubles

• Bad Weather
• Shortage of or insufficiently trained poll
  workers
• Mail in ballots
• Super Bowl Parades

• Ballot Stuffing or lost ballots
• Unscrupulous poll workers
• Disenfranchised voters

8
Help America Vote Act"Every registered voter
deserves to have confidence that the system is
fair and elections are honest, that every vote is
recorded and that the rules are consistently
applied." --President Bush, upon signing
legislation to authorize HAVA, October 22, 2002.

• requires states to
• modernize voting equipment
• Centralize registered voter rolls
• Require drivers license to register
• Make voting machines accessible to disabled

9
THE ANSWER!Touch Screen Voting Machines
10
E-Voting

• PROS
• Easy to use
• Electronic guidance thru process
• Audio prompting
• ADA devices
• Different Languages

• CONS
• Requires high tech expertise of poll workers
• Can be hijacked
• May have software bugs
• Difficult to verify

11
Voting Machines

• Diebold AccuVote TSX
• ES S iVotronic
• Optical Scan

12
Mishaps - Arithmetic

• In Fairfax County, VA, in 2003, a programming
  error in the electronic voting machines caused
  them to mysteriously subtract 100 votes from one
  particular candidates totals.
• In Volusia County, FL in 2000, an electronic
  voting machine gave Al Gore a final vote count of
  negative 16,022 votes.
• The 2003 election in Boone County, IA, had the
  electronic vote-counting equipment showing that
  more than 140,000 votes had been cast in the Nov.
  4 municipal elections. The county has only 50,000
  residents and less than half of them were
  eligible to vote in this election

13
Mishaps Programming Code

• In San Bernardino County, CA in 2001, the
  computer looked for votes in the wrong portion of
  the ballot in 33 local elections, which meant
  that no votes registered on those ballots for
  that election. A recount was done by hand.
• 2006 Waldenburg, AK, 0 votes tallied for
  mayoral candidate
• 2006-Sarasota, FL 18,000 person undervote for a
  Congressional seat

14
Security Flaws

• Johns Hopkins University and Rice University
  researchers have discovered numerous serious
  security flaws in the Diebold Electron Systems'
  e-voting terminal
• There are several ways in which individual voters
  could vote multiple times in a given election.
• The researchers also uncovered methods permitting
  voters to "trick" the e-voting machines into
  allowing them system administrator privileges or
  even terminating an election before tallying all
  legitimate votes.
• "EFF supports electronic voting, but this report
  indicates Diebold's e-voting system isn't ready
  for prime time," said EFF Legal Director Cindy
  Cohn, who advised the security researchers. "This
  report describes how voters, election officials,
  insiders at e-voting companies, and even
  custodians at election locations could manipulate
  elections and defraud the public."
• http//www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_
  pr.php

15
Mishap - Scale

• A problem with a manual machine just affects that
  machine. A software problem, whether accidental
  or intentional, can affect many thousands of
  machines -- and skew the results of an entire
  election.

16
In 2004 Elections

• Election Systems Software (ESS) (40-50) and
  Diebold Election Systems (DES) (30-35) are
  responsible for the integrity and processing of
  around
• 80 of United States election voting
• voter registration
• printing of ballots
• the programming of the voting machines
• the counting and tabulation of the votes
• the final reporting of the results for over
• 150 million Americans.

17
2004 Election

• Florida use of E-Touch or Op-Scan machines
  could predict the outcome at the plt.0001 level
• Gahanna Ohio 20K eligible voters, 70 turnout
  21K votes counted
• Most swing states had 4-15 discrepancies between
  exit polls and results
• Florida one county has 77 registered democrats
  but republicans received 77 of vote

18
Virginia - 2006

• Jim Webb 1,175,579 votes 49.59
• George Allen 1,166,253 votes 49.20
• Difference 9,326 votes .039
• A change of 3 votes per polling place would
  change the outcome.
• There are no paper backups for Virginias DREs

19
Primaries 2008

• New Hampshire
• South Carolina

20
Voter Verified Paper Record Manual Audits
VVPR manual audits (16) VVPR required No
audit required (14) VVPR in use statewide not
required (8) Nothing required (12)
21
How Do You Insure a Good Outcome?

• Voter Verified Paper Ballot System
• Software and Hardware is opened to public
  scrutiny
• Well trained Poll Workers
• Adequate testing of machines and procedures
• Open Source Software