Fw: DNC Report Lambast Electronic Voting!!

FYI,

 

DW

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Full Report:  "Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election 
in Ohio"  http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/06/democracy_at_ri.php
But 
read Section VII:  Electronic Voting: Accuracy, Accessibility and 
Fraud  [http://a9.g.akamai.net/7/9/8082/v001/www.democrats.org/pdfs/ohvrireport/section07.pdf]

Recommendations:
  

  
Precinct-based optical scan systems are the most 
  "accurate" voting systems available today.  They are also reasonably 
  priced and can satisfy HAVA requirements in a cost-effective manner with 
  devices such as the ES&S AutoMark (See Figure 3). 
  
Current DRE systems are not engineered to meet the 
  needs of elections. They are extremely expensive to procure and 
  maintain.  They are not sufficiently robust 
  against fraud. They are less usable to the broad population of voters than 
  earlier, simpler technologies. 
  
Existing standards and practices for the certification of 
  voting systems are insufficient to the security requirements of DRE 
  systems.  Significant effort will be needed to created the 
  next generation of standards. 
  
Few quantitative studies have been performed on the 
  usability of different voting technologies. Vendor claims of improved 
  usability should not be considered meaningful until they perform significant 
  user studies under controlled conditions.  Existing 
  anecdotal evidence, including event reports, are at best mixed in their 
  opinions of different voting systems’ usability.  Election 
  official should perform controlled, scientific studies of their own 
  populations using their own voting machines to truly understand where they 
  might be experiencing usability problems. 
  
Most voting system vendors consider their software to be 
  proprietary trade secrets and generally resist any attempts to disclose and 
  discuss their designs in public.  Private, vendor trade 
  secrets have no place in public elections. Vendors are welcome to protect 
  their intellectual property with copyrights and patents, but their full 
  designs must be subject to public scrutiny.  As elections 
  become increasingly electronic, such scrutiny is critical to maintaining 
  transparency and public confidence in elections. 
  
Computer software, at every stage in the process, might be 
  buggy and could well be malicious.  Different strategies are 
  necessary to mitigate against this threat, depending on what voting system is 
  used. 
  
    
Paperless DRE voting systems generally print 
    precinct-level tallies at the end of the election.  These 
    printouts are generally signed by the election officials working in the 
    precinct.  Those signed printouts should be treated as 
    important evidence as to the result of the election and should be preserved 
    for recounts and post-election auditing. 
    
Precinct-level optical scanners might incorrectly tally 
    votes as well.  The original marked ballots should be 
    independently counted, or at least randomly sampled and compared to the 
    electronic results, before an election result is certified. 
    
Paperless DRE systems should be upgraded to 
    voter-verified paper trail systems. The printouts should be treated in 
    exactly the same fashion as optical scan ballots: they should be carefully 
    preserved as evidence of voter intent and should be randomly sampled and 
    compared to the electronic results. 
    
“Parallel testing,” where some DRE voting systems are 
    pulled out of general use and are tested, on election day but under 
    controlled conditions, is an pragmatic and valuable test that should be 
    performed whenever such voting machines are being used. 
    
The computers used to tabulate election results are a 
    tempting target for election fraud, and as such, require more significant 
    controls, including well-chosen passwords and physical access restrictions. 
    They should never, in their entire lifetime, be connected to the Internet or 
    to any modem or communication device. Instead, an “air gap” style of 
    security should be used. Data can be released to the public through simple 
    measures such as burning a CD with election results and hand-carrying such a 
    CD to a separate, network-enabled computer. 

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Election officials need to hire “penetration testing” 
  (also called “tiger team”) consultants to examine the security of their 
  election systems.  Where such teams have been hired in the 
  past, significant vulnerabilities have been discovered.  
  Such teams should be hired on a recurring basis to audit voting 
  machines as well as the entire voting process, from registration through 
  tabulation. 
  
The timely publication of detailed precinct-level election 
  statistics is critical to the public confidence in an election result, and 
  such data is often not available in its entirety for every county.  
  Such statistics can be easily derived from local voting tabulation 
  systems and should be quickly and electronically reported in a standardized 
  fashion.