New Backup Voting System May Pose Problems
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Call it the law of unintended consequences. A new national backup system meant to ensure that millions of eligible voters are not mistakenly turned away from the polls this year, as happened in 2000, could wind up causing Election Day problems as infamous as Florida's hanging chads.
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Unreliable electronic voting systems could undermine UK democracy warns a report
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The primary day debacle in Montgomery and Prince George's counties will add momentum to regional efforts to ensure that election systems create a paper record of each vote, according to some elected officials and activists critical of paperless balloting.
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(InfoWorld) - With hotly contested nationwide elections just weeks away, several computer experts Thursday questioned the reliability and security of e-voting systems during a congressional committee hearing. Access doors of thousands of Diebold AcuVote-TS touch-screen systems can all be opened with the same key -- a type commonly used for office furniture, jukeboxes and hotel minibars, Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten told the committee. That door protects the removable memory card that stores votes. "Though some claim that election procedures will prevent the kinds of problems we identified, the rigid procedures described in vendor manuals are often ignored in practice," said Felten, co-author of a study that was highly critical of Diebold Election Systems' AccuVote TS. Also today, the Committee on House Administration took no action on legislation proposed by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) aimed at remedying e-voting vulnerabilities. The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550), introduced last February, now has more than 200 bipartisan co-sponsors. Among its various provisions, HR 550 would mandate that each machine produce a paper receipt that could be used in a recount. The bill also calls for e-voting vendors to offer greater transparency to their software. By not sending the bill to the floor for a vote, the committee missed any chance of ensuring that November's elections would produce auditable results, Holt said. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 was aimed at preventing the sort of notorious failures such as occurred in Florida in 2000 due to disputes over manually operated punch-card systems. Some $3 billion was earmarked under HAVA to fund state compliance, with most of that money going to purchase e-voting gear, said committee chairman Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) in his opening remarks for the hearing. "Though HAVA did not require the adoption of any particular kind of technology, many jurisdictions purchased electronic voting systems because they felt these systems were best able to meet the requirements of HAVA," said Ehlers. "Not surprisingly, some jurisdictions using this new equipment for the first time have encountered some difficulties," he said. Ehlers cited recent problems with e-voting gear in Montgomery County, Md. Earlier this week, Ehlers submitted an amendment to HAVA to reimburse any voting jurisdictions that print out paper ballots for voters who prefer not to cast their votes on touch-screen voting gear this November. Similar legislation was filed by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in the Senate. The bill calls for up to 75 cents to be spent per paper ballot. Ehlers estimated that it would probably cost no more than $10 million, based on the estimate of the number of voters in precincts using touch-screen gear that don't offer a paper trail. He told Computerworld he offered the amendment because he didn't expect HR 550 to be passed this year. "We thought in light of the problems we've seen, most recently in Maryland, that collectively, these problems were shaking voters' confidence," he said. "We thought if jurisdictions want to give voters another choice, we should support them in that." Ehlers declined to predict when or if the emergency amendment would pass. Like all House members, Ehlers is up for re-election this year, and his district uses e-voting gear. "Certainly, any voting system that is not verifiable and auditable is of concern," he said.
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Colorado's secretary of state has declared many of the state's electronic voting machines to be unreliable, but said Tuesday that some of them could still be used in November if a software patch is installed.
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Six U.S. states participating in Super Tuesday primary elections are at high risk for voting-machine malfunction or tampering because they don&#39;t have paper backups, according to a report released by the Verified Voting Foundation and Common Cause.Ed Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton University, added visuals to the report&#39;s findings when he published a picture on his blog showing him standing next to unattended e-voting machines in New Jersey Sunday evening. The picture, and a second photo from Monday evening of unattended e-voting machines, was a repeat performance for Felten, who also published a picture of unattended machines during the 2006 election.&quot;It&#39;s well known that paperless electronic voting machines are vulnerable to tampering if an attacker can get physical access to a machine before the election,&quot; Felten, an e-voting critic, wrote on his blog Tuesday. &quot;Most of the vendors, and a few election officials, claim that this isn&#39;t a problem because the machines are well guarded so that no would-be attacker can get to them. Which would be mildly reassuring -- if it were true.&quot;New Jersey was one of the states most at risk with the others being New York, Tennessee, Georgia, Delaware, and Arkansas, said the Common Cause/Verified Voting Foundation report. All of those states, except New York, use electronic voting machines without paper ballots in all or part of the state. New York has passed a paper record law but has not yet replaced lever machines used across most of the state, the groups said. Lever machines can malfunction and are subject to tampering, the groups said.But e-voting advocates said the Common Cause/Verified Voting Foundation report exaggerates potential problems with electronic voting machines.&quot;In the history of the United States, there has never been a case of tampering with electronic voting equipment in an actual live election environment with all of the associated procedures and election personnel, either with voter verifiable paper trails or without,&quot; said Michelle Shafer, vice president of communications and external affairs at e-voting machine vendor Sequoia Voting Systems. &quot;Election administration is about the people, procedures and the technology, not just the technology itself.&quot;In many cases, states maintain individual electronic files of all votes cast, added David Beirne, executive director of trade group, the Election Technology Council. Many states also require logic and accuracy testing both before and after an election, and many e-voting machines have redundant memory mechanisms, he added.&quot;No voting system represents a high risk for the states that are using them,&quot; he said. &quot;The main objection from Verified Voting ... is that the voter is not verifying a paper document in addition to the electronic record. The voter does verify the electronic record, and the election can be verified for its integrity through the use of the appropriate security procedures by local election officials.&quot;The report &quot;reflects a series of perceptions which are not grounded in fact,&quot; Beirne added.But the high-risk states have no choice but to trust the information that the electronic machines spit out, said Pamela Smith, president of the Verified Voting Foundation. &quot;The vote is what it is, or what the machine says it is,&quot; she said. &quot;There&#39;s no way to do a recount.&quot;In addition, another five states -- Alabama, Arizona, Massachusetts, Utah, and Oklahoma -- use paper ballots along with their e-voting machines, but don&#39;t require regular audits to check the electronic results, the groups said. Four states with primaries on Tuesday use voting machines but also require regular audits, and were listed as low-risk in the report. Those states were California, Connecticut, Illinois, and Missouri.Twenty-four states hold presidential primaries or caucuses on Tuesday, but just 15 of them use electronic voting machines.
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WASHINGTON - Voting security advocates in the U.S. are bracing for a repeat of problems in the upcoming general election that could rival Florida during the 2000 presidential race.
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Pentagon efforts to fix absentee voting problems among U.S. troops that marred the 2000 election have run into trouble as plans to use the Internet crumbled and a fax or e-mail balloting system draws fire.
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As Election Day progresses, scattered reports of malfunctions surface.
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Ohio's e-voting systems are unreliable and insecure and should be changed, according to a new report done at the request of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.
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Questions over the reliability of optical scan ballots, which are marked and scanned like a standardized test, could slow down the vote-counting process, according to election officials.
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Activists and computer programmers Wednesday demonstrated what they said were flaws with electronic voting machines that could allow hackers to change vote outcomes Nov. 2. They recommended new procedures for states and counties to put in place before Election Day.
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The success of last week's primary election using touch-screen voting machines heartens officials in other states, where e-voting has been problematic. Still, the Silver State may be in a unique situation.
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Inside the battle for a critical chunk of votes
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By Heather Civil, Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach  Feb. 8--Touch-screen voting machines, once touted as a way to cut back on the stacks of paper produced during elections, may end up making paper trails of their own.   Gov.
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Many states are facing legal challenges over possible voting problems Nov. 2. A look at some of the developments Tuesday and Wednesday:
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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The state's top elections official recommended yesterday that Ohio counties replace their touch-screen voting machines because the devices -- in use for roughly two years -- are vulnerable to manipulation.