Paper Vote Canada

City of Markham's Internet voting story at GTEC 2011

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:32:00 +0000

GTEC conference, October 19, 2011 from 10:00 to 11:00

Using Digital Technology to Connect with Citizens in the Town of Markham

Given the apparent decrease in voter engagement, Canadian governments are faced with seeking innovative ways to connect with the public. When used strategically, digital technologies are an effective means to engage citizens. Through the use of Internet voting and the implementation of multiple interactive online initiatives, the Town of Markham has become a leader in eDemocracy. In this session attendees will hear from the Mayor of Markham, the visionary behind Markham’s innovative use of digital technologies to engage citizens, as well as the CEO of Delvinia, the firm behind the initiatives and the only organization to collect consumer data on Internet voting in three consecutive elections.

Speaker - Frank Scarpitti, Mayor, Town of Markham

Co-presenter - Adam Froman, CEO, Delvinia

from GTEC 2011 Conference Program at a Glace

in which I help the news media

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:45:00 +0000

1) Delvinia releases a report

"Our latest DIG report examines the Town of Markham’s experience with Internet voting in the 2003, 2006 and 2010 municipal election"

http://www.delvinia.com/delvinia-releases-dig-report-on-edemocracy-and-citizen-engagement/

This is good.

In 2010, with the support of Ryerson University, Delvinia secured an Engage Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to commission Nicole Goodman, a PhD candidate specializing in Canadian political institutions and alternative voting methods, to provide a scholarly perspective on the data collected following the 2010 election as well as a comparison to the data Delvinia collected in the 2003 and 2006 elections.

It is also excellent to see academic research in this field and a rigorous report.

2) However

The DIG report is available online at www.delvinia.com/dig. The full research report is available for purchase through Delvinia. Please refer to our order form to obtain a copy of the report.

from http://www.delvinia.com/delvinia-releases-dig-report-on-edemocracy-and-citizen-engagement/

So objective fact 1: Delvinia is selling the full report.

3) However

In addition to helping the Town raise awareness of Internet voting in the 2003, 2006 and 2010 municipal elections, Delvinia also conducted in-person and online surveys to collect data regarding public attitudes, feelings and beliefs toward Internet voting in each of those elections.

from http://www.delvinia.com/should-canadians-have-the-opportunity-to-vote-online/

So objective fact 2: Delvinia was paid by the City of Markham to promote Internet voting in 2003, 2006 and 2010 (the same years in the same city concerning the same topic that the newly-released evoting report covers).

4) The correct way to report this, providing the full context, would be

Delvinia, a company paid by the City of Markham to promote Internet voting in 2003, 2006 and 2010, is now selling a detailed report about Internet voting in Markham. The report concludes Internet voting was a great success.

I am not criticising Delvinia or the report, I am just stating the objective facts of the context of the report.

So I will now help some news reporting organisations.

This is what the Star wrote

Internet voting in advance polls in Markham has helped increase overall voter turnout, engage non-voters to vote and greatly improve overall voter satisfaction, according to a research and public opinion report released Monday.

In the report by Delvinia, a digital strategy firm, voter turnout in Markham has increased by 35 per cent since the introduction of Internet voting in 2003, and much of that is attributed to the advent of online voting.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1059558

You may note that neither in this extract nor indeed anywhere in the entire article does it mention the context I provided above. The article with context would be

Internet voting in advance polls in Markham has helped increase overall voter turnout, engage non-voters to vote and greatly improve overall voter satisfaction, according to a research and public opinion report released Monday.

In the report by Delvinia, a digital strategy firm, voter turnout in Markham has increased by 35 per cent since the introduction of Internet voting in 2003, and much of that is attributed to the advent of online voting. Delvinia, a company paid by the City of Markham to promote Internet voting in 2003, 2006 and 2010, is now selling a detailed report about Internet voting in Markham.

This is what IT World Canada wrote

New data culled from Markham, Ont. voters could make a case for the introduction of Internet voting across all levels of government in Canada, according to a new report from user experience design firm Delvinia

The Toronto-based digital consultancy released the findings of its eDemocracy and Citizen Engagement report on Monday, which focused on the Town of Markham’s recent online voting initiatives. The municipality has offered online voting for its local elections since 2003.

http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/e-voting-gets-almost-unanimous-praise-study-finds/144015

And here, again, is the article with the actual full context added

New data culled from Markham, Ont. voters could make a case for the introduction of Internet voting across all levels of government in Canada, according to a new report from user experience design firm Delvinia

The Toronto-based digital consultancy released the findings of its eDemocracy and Citizen Engagement report on Monday, which focused on the Town of Markham’s recent online voting initiatives. The municipality has offered online voting for its local elections since 2003. Delvinia, a company paid by the City of Markham to promote Internet voting in 2003, 2006 and 2010, is now selling a detailed report about Internet voting in Markham.

I want to be completely up-front: I am profoundly disappointed that major Canadian news media are not providing the full context of this report. I expect the news media to provide context for ANY press release, announcement, speech, interview or think-tank report. Information without context is no foundation for democracy.

UPDATE: I should also mention, in case you think this is a minor nuance on an obscure story buried in the back pages of the paper, that "Online voting changes the game" was the Toronto Star's front-page, above-the-fold, banner full-width headline story for Monday September 26, 2011. In newspaper terms, they declared it the single most important story in the world for September 26, 2011.

May 2, 2011 - Election Day

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:06:00 +0000

Go vote, in the assurance that your vote will be accurately counted.

http://elections.ca/

Canadian online voting discussion on The Rutherford Show

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:19:00 +0000

Thursday April 28, 2011 at noon Eastern (10 Mountain) The Rutherford Show will have a discussion about online voting, including Internet voting expert Barbara Simons.

You can listen to the show live - click the large "Listen Live" icon at the top of the web page.

if I can do X online, then why not voting

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:09:00 +0000

This is a kind of typical "if I can bank online securely, why not vote online" story by Lena Almeida

Let’s boost participation by allowing online voting

Canada.com - April 15, 2011

And this is a kind of typical "hey our government cybersecurity research lab was hacked" story

Top Federal Lab Hacked in Spear-Phishing Attack

Wired Threat Level - April 20, 2011

Because the answer is, you don't bank online securely. People's online banking is hacked ALL THE TIME. Everyone's systems, including national cybersecurity facilities in the US and Canada, get broken into by determined, sophisticated attackers.

Let me make it clear, I respect Ms. Almeida's question. It is not at all obvious to someone who hasn't stepped through the properties of our current paper-based system one-by-one, and who hasn't analysed the risks of a purely Internet-based system, why online voting shouldn't be as simple as filing your taxes online.

What you CAN do with banking is have their experts follow a forensics trail, undo the unauthorized changes, and return your account to its correct state. As happened to me recently when my credit card number was stolen.

But you CANNOT DO THIS WITH A ONE-TIME, ONE-VOTE, ANONYMOUS ELECTION.
If your vote is reversable 1) it has to be personally identifiable 2) ANYONE with technical knowledge can reverse it.

So that's why you can't vote online. It's not a technical problem. There are no technical barriers to voting online. Amongst many, many other things it's a security problem. Even if you can solve the security problem, you still can't verify what code is running (so open source doesn't help). Even if you could solve the security AND the code verification problems, you still can't stop someone standing over you at home as you vote, and threatening you if you don't vote the correct way (the coercion problem). Or someone can just steal someone's voting credentials and skip the bother of threatening them (the authentication problem).

Hackers will attack your vote, it's just a question of whether they succeed. And the company or individuals writing the code could be malicious, corrupted or threatened. Or the company making the servers. Or the people in the server room. Or actively malicious insiders anywhere along the network chain. Or citizens can be systematically intimidated into voting a certain way. Or the voting credentials of huge numbers of people who don't bother to vote can simply be stolen (e.g. monitoring the mailboxes of students and other young people for convenient mailings with PIN numbers that are unlikely to be used).

Oh, and even if someone miraculously everyone involved in the long chain between you and your vote being recorded on a distant server is trustworthy and not malicious, the software can still have bugs. In fact it's pretty much guaranteed to have bugs. Bugs which may not show up until millions of real users start hammering the real system on election day. So it can still fail spectacularly. Or even worse, fail silently and undetectably, misrecording or losing votes.

But other than that, online voting is a great idea.

PS If you think the TV shows have mastered this problem, I suggest googling so you think you can dance vote hacked or head right to

How the 'Dancing' vote was hacked - MSNBC Cosmic Log - November 19, 2010

iconic

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:52:00 +0000

Just pointing to some official Elections Canada icons for the 41st General Election.

Please note: the following reproductions are a copy of the promotional icons that are published by Elections Canada and the reproductions have not been produced in affiliation with, or with the endorsement of Elections Canada.

UPDATE: Removed in accordance with May 2 deletion requirement. ENDUPDATE

In general Elections Canada could use some major website and social media help.

That would move youth turnout a lot more than online voting.

Note to self: Apparently I am to make these icons disappear after May 2, 2011.

* You are hereby granted a limited license to reproduce and display the promotional icons on your website for purposes of providing information to the public about the current general election by offering a link to Elections Canada's web site;
* The rights granted herein are for a limited term ending on May 2, 2011;
* You must reproduce the promotional icons in the format and in the color displayed herein and you may not modify, alter or adapt the promotional icons or any part of them;
* You will acquire no right or interest in the promotional icons or the copyright therein, except for the limited license granted herein; and
* You must indicate to the public that the reproduction is a copy of the promotional icons that are published by Elections Canada and that the reproduction has not been produced in affiliation with, or with the endorsement of Elections Canada.

computers never make mistakes

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 01:25:00 +0000

They do exactly what people have told them to.

Like say a former computer programmer.
Who counts the vote on a stand-alone computer. In her office.
And discovers over 7500 extra votes due to a spreadsheet copy error.

Is this kind of farce how you want to run elections?

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus' decision to go it alone in how she collects and maintains election results has some county officials raising a red flag about the integrity of the system.

Nickolaus said she decided to take the election data collection and storage system off the county's computer network - and keep it on stand-alone personal computers accessible only in her office - for security reasons.

"What it gave me was good security of the elections from start to finish, without the ability of someone unauthorized to be involved," she said.

Nonetheless, Director of Administration Norman A. Cummings said because Nickolaus has kept them out of the loop, the county's information technology specialists have not been able to verify Nickolaus' claim that the system is secure from failure.

...

In March, Nickolaus said, she moved the data off that server and into her own stand-alone system. She has a backup on a second computer, she said. In addition, she said, as she programs for elections, she does frequent backups during the day.

Nickolaus said she was a programmer for 15 years before becoming county clerk. And she said her staff knows how to operate the system, so "if I get hit by a bus, this election is going to run just fine."

from August 13, 2010 Journal Sentinel - Officials dispute reliability of Waukesha County clerk's election data system

and what happened in 2011?

David Prosser gained 7,582 votes in Waukesha County, after a major counting error of Brookfield results was detected, County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced in a stunning development this afternoon.

Nickolaus says the reason for the big change is that data transmitted from the City of Brookfield was imported but that she failed to save those results to the database. Brookfield cast 14,315 votes on April 5 -- 10,859 of those votes went to Prosser and 3,456 went to JoAnne Kloppenburg.

"The purpose of the canvass is to catch these kind of mistakes," Nickolaus said. She called it human error that is "common in this process." "I apologize," Nickolaus said.

April 7, 2011 - Journal Sentinel - Prosser's huge gain comes after Waukesha County flub is caught

Now let us imagine this story told this way:
* for security purposes, the elections official has boxes containing all the votes, in her private office
* oh and she's an expert in creating ballots
* oh and she just discovered another box of ballots over there in the corner

Do you think any elections observer in the world would buy this?
But it's all done with computers, so I guess it's impossible there could be anything suspicious.

Human nature doesn't change.
And humans program computers.
And humans create the security for computers.

Computer security does not exist in the abstract. Computers do not defend themselves or program themselves. But somehow people think it is a realm beyond human emotion and failings. In the end it's systems created by humans, used by humans, that have to resist threats from humans.

This is what happens when you vote over the Internet:
* Someone with some credentials they got somewhere votes. Hopefully it's you, with your rightful credentials. But it could be anyone who gained valid credentials, anywhere in the world.
* These credentials are used to vote. This involves your computer, full of hundreds of competing programs created by fallible humans, interacting with a website created by humans, over a network built managed and run by humans.
* The vote... or at least a vote, lands on a server... somewhere, a server running thousands of pieces of human-created software. A server installed, controlled, and managed by humans.

So the good news is, as long as you can absolutely trust every one of the thousands of people involved in that chain, and all of the one billion people on the Internet can't outsmart their security, then your vote is fine.

And the above is all if it's done WELL, not if it's some bogus "the counting computer is in my back closet" ridiculously compromised chain of custody.

Or alternatively, you could set things up so local people from competing political parties are watching one another, mark the votes on paper, watch the ballot box containing the votes, and count all the votes in public. In minutes (for a Canadian election).

So your choice is:
1. If you trust everyone who has ever created or maintained any device or software in the chain from your keyboard to the vote-counting server, and everyone with access to the server room, and everyone else in the world who is on the Internet, then Internet voting is a great choice.
2. If you trust people from your neighbourhood who have the very human motivation of competing interests, with a process that is visible to you end-to-end, and immediate local consequences if fraud is found, then you might want to vote on paper instead.

We are very very good at understanding voting risk scenarios in the physical world. We are very very bad at understanding risk in the digital world.

Where would you rather have your voting taking place?

Cyber attacks hit Canadians. Again.

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 01:02:00 +0000

The threat of cyberattack is not abstract. When there is information of value, there are now very sophisticated attackers who will attempt to penetrate your systems.

Two recent incidents are:

* the Epsilon breach in the US, where Canadian email addresses were compromised

Air Miles among firms hit by huge data breach

* the attack on four Bay Street law firms

Major law firms fall victim to cyber attacks

Now imagine that instead of email addresses and mergers and acquisitions information, the prize was the entire Canadian election, the direction of the entire Canadian economy.

Do you imagine for a second that the same sophisticated computer attackers that have already successfully broken into computer systems will somehow not decide to attack an online voting system? Keep in mind that corporations and law firms have huge financial and reputation incentives to protect their systems, and they still fail. Do you think the government will do any better? Do you think that the millions of Canadians using their personal computers to vote will have better Internet security than Bay Street law firms?

Voting over the Internet is an invitation to successful cyberattack. And following such an attack, the entire integrity of your voting system is compromised. To compromise a paper-based election you need people to physically intervene simultaneously at locations all across Canada, somehow escaping detection of all the citizens and elections officials present. It would require massive coordination and risk of detection and capture. To compromise an Internet-based election, all you need is one person with an Internet connection anywhere in the world, pushing a button.

Liberal Party platform proposes online voting

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:05:00 +0000

Links it to voter turnout (a false linkage).

A Liberal government will direct Elections Canada to develop an online voting option, starting with a pilot project for individuals serving overseas in the Canadian Armed Forces and the federal public service, and post-secondary students living outside their home ridings. The pilot will support a broader discussion with Canadians about an online voting option for every voter.

Full Liberal platform (PDF) - Chapter 4, page 73 "Modernizing the Voting System". Released April 3, 2011.

If you want a pilot of overseas online voting, look no farther than the US. The problems identified in the analysis of their online voting system - "A Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE)" - were so severe that the system was scrapped. So we can save a lot of time by not repeating their experience.

Modern is not always better. Actually working is better. We have a system that works.

Ontario man allegedly uses multiple PIN codes to vote multiple times

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 01:51:00 +0000

“Wasn't he sweet?” said Yossarian. “Maybe they should give him three votes.” - Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Ontario Provincial Police allege Peter Byvelds, 60, cast more than one vote in the Township of South Dundas' municipal election on Oct. 25. Police said he used the "pin" code of others to cast extra online votes, but did not disclose how many times he voted.

...

[Steven] Byvelds [cousin of Peter Byvelds] beat out four other candidates to become mayor, garnering 433 more votes than his nearest rival. He said it would be up to the township's chief returning officer to decide whether the charges call the election results into dispute.

South Dundas was one of several eastern Ontario municipalities to use a mix of internet and telephone voting during its election.

CBC News - Ont. man cast more than one vote in election: OPP - March 8, 2011

So now we have the cost of an investigation, and doubt is cast on the election.

But remember, Internet voting is cheap and easy!

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the catastrophic risk municipalities expose themselves to with this technology.

Or, as they say: “The municipalities are perhaps naive about the amount of risk they’re assuming,” warned ... the PaperVoteCanada.ca blog (The Hill Times, February 1, 2010).

Estonian vote-counting system fails

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:36:00 +0000

I was impressed by the Estonian presentation at the Internet Voting dialogue (event page: Internet Voting – What Can Canada Learn?). Estonia has done a good job of thinking seriously about the technical issues.

But not good enough apparently, since their Internet vote-counting system failed during the election period.

After the internet ballot-counting system temporarily crashed on Election Day evening, the National Electoral Committee said it will demand compensation from Helmes, the company responsible for the country's vote-counting software.

...

"The database did not perform queries with the prescribed speed [...] Reliability had thoroughly been tested and it worked flawlessly," said company spokesperson Evelin Lang.

Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR) - Elections Agency Fines E-Voting Company - March 7, 2011

via @VerifiedVoting

In Estonian, with video: Valimiskomisjon nõuab Helmeselt kahjude hüvitamist.

There's a bit more information in another ERR story

Estonia's much-talked-about e-innovation fell under doubt by its advocates last night, when, after preliminary results came in at 20:00, a website breakdown impeded election results from arriving for more than 1.5 hours in the most critical time.

An unprecedented software error with the web system was a blow to the trustworthyness of the elections, said National Electoral Committee Chairman Heiki Sibul. "That fact that we have a problem with something as simple as displaying the website - that is not acceptable," said Sibul on ETV, asserting nevertheless that there is no reason to doubt the results.

ERR - Electoral Committee Chief Apologizes for Website Collapse - March 7, 2011

There were also browser errors, which is a reminder that an Internet election is orders of magnitudes more complicated than a paper-based one. There are many different operating systems, web browsers, mobile devices... can you guarantee that your voting system will support all of them correctly? Or are you simply going to exclude people who have a particular set of technology?

Further hinting to the technology's imperfections, another type of error, a browser malfunction, emerged while e-voting was still in progress, due to which voters in three known instances could not view several listed candidates. The voters were, nevertheless, able to cast their votes.

ERR - Electoral Committee Chief Apologizes for Website Collapse - March 7, 2011

Although the election itself was March 6, 2011, voters could cast ballots in advance, including over the Internet. However, this option is not how the majority of votes are cast.

For a large portion of Estonians, election day is already past. More than 27 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in an early voting period, most of them via the nation's internet voting system which the tech-savvy nation first pioneered in 2005.

ERR - Estonians Head to the Ballot Box - March 6, 2011

In all, the turnout was 63%.

So you have a choice: either our paper-based system, in which results are rapidly counted and posted, as they have been decade after decade, a system that isn't broken, or a future Canadian elections official apologising when some or all of our elections system doesn't work, because of computer systems failures. If you think that Canada might somehow be exempt from these kinds of failures, keep in mind it already happened in Quebec: Report on Quebec's municipal electronic voting disaster.

organise online, act offline

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:34:00 +0000

... security and reliability problems have plagued the rollout of both electronic, kiosk-based, voting and Internet-based vote-from-home technologies in the United States. Annual political elections are hard enough to run without introducing yet more possibilities for voter fraud and abuse. Instead, new services, such as Smartvote.ch from Switzerland, use the Internet to inform voting at the polling booth.

Dr. Beth Noveck, Professor of Law - writing in her book Wiki Government, page 35

Dr. Noveck was United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer (2009-2011) and leader of the White House Open Government Initiative (@opengov). She tweets at @bethnoveck and blogs at http://cairns.typepad.com/

BC Premier-designate has online voting in platform

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 20:42:00 +0000

ONLINE VOTING

When only half of registered voters in the province participate in the democratic process something is fundamentally wrong and it’s time to look at new solutions. Canadians have repeatedly identifed online voting as an option that could increase their participation.

Our government will:

Ask Elections B.C. to name a non-partisan, expert panel to begin reviewing best practices from across Canada and around the world to investigate the potential of using an online system in British Columbia.

Online voting will only be implemented if security concerns are addressed.

pp. 12-13 "The Family First Agenda for Change" - from a copy of the document posted at http://www.scribd.com/doc/49198972/ChristyClark-FamiliesFirstAgenda

(The entire ChristyClark.ca site, including multiple blog postings that were under christyclark.ca/cc/ now redirects to http://www.christyclark.ca/designate/ - neither Google nor archive.org have copies of e.g. http://www.christyclark.ca/cc/2011/01/christy-clark-commits-to-being-most-connected-and-responsive-premier-in-canadian-history/ as it is blocked in robots.txt)

UPDATE 2011-03-06: Platform is available on Clark's site http://www.christyclark.ca/cc/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/ChristyClark-FamiliesFirstAgenda.pdf - thanks to @jordantsimmons for the link. ENDUPDATE

SIDEBAR: Thanks to @interchangepa for pointing me to this information, both in their blog post and then subsequent tweets. Also note Christy Clark is on Twitter: @christyclarkbc ENDSIDEBAR

"Only if security concerns are addressed" is reasonable-sounding, but very tricky. If this focuses on anti-virus scanning and firewalls, it will completely miss the point. First of all, it is impossible to secure consumer desktops. The number of potential attack vectors is huge. Not just network-bound attacks, but phishing as well. How bad is this situation?

IEEE Spectrum - The Risk Factor Blog - Canadian Government Restricts Web Access due to Phishing Attacks

The Treasury Board Secretariat of the Federal Government of Canada was penetrated by various attacks, to the point that Internet access is now blocked for employees.

In an environment where a Canadian government has already been successfully attacked online, does it make sense to put the entire Canadian voting infrastructure online? Does anyone imagine that those voting servers, and the desktops (and perhaps mobile devices) that connect to them, won't be an even more attractive target than the running government? Considering that the Federal Government is a completely managed computer desktop environment (all desktops overseen and monitored by system administrators) and it was still compromised, while public voters use completely unmanaged desktops, does anyone imagine the situation will be better in a public vote?

In any case, as I said, security is a distraction. Non-experts are not good at making computer security judgements, and companies with agendas can throw up all kinds of technical obfuscating arguments about secure monitoring of networks etc. etc. etc.

The real fundamental questions are core elements of our current system, which CANNOT BE REPLICATED online:

* simplicity and ease of understanding
- anyone can understand how a paper voting system works; only a tiny percentage of the population can understand how an Internet voting system works - assuming they actually are provided with all the details, which they usually aren't

This is why online voting is the OPPOSITE of open government. You can't get any more open than ballots publically cast in secret, publically counted. You can't get any more closed than bits travelling invisibly across wires, to systems people cannot see and cannot understand.

* verifiability
- anyone can verify a paper vote by recounting the ballots; no one can verify an online election, because no matter how many levels deep you dig, at the bottom the answer is "trust the numbers in the computer" - there is no outside evidence you can examine

* anonymity
- It is difficult to determine who marked a paper ballot. It is very very difficult to design a system where you can't determine exactly who submitted an electronic vote.

* non-coercion
- Does anyone imagine that someone sitting at home clicking a button on a computer can't be forced to do so by someone watching over them? Or even if force isn't used, what is the impact of peer pressure as people watch your vote on screen at "voting parties"?

The list continues - cost, ownership of voting infrastructure...

And last but not least, voter turnout.
This voter turnout issue is total BS. It's a complete backwards view of voter engagement.
If you start with the assumption that people don't vote because it is "hard" or "inconvenient" then the logical conclusion is to make it "easy" and "convenient".

The problem is this assumption is WRONG.
Voting is maybe an hour of your time outside your house. This is not a huge barrier. The same young demographic that is supposedly the problem area that is fixed by online voting is quite happy to spend many many hours outside their houses, doing things they care about.

People don't vote because they don't care. They're not engaged.

You can use online technology to tremendous effect to engage and organise people online. However this does not in any way shape or form mean that that engagement needs to end with clicking a "Like" button to elect a political party online. That online engagement can and should turn into tremendous voter turnout at the physical ballot boxes.

As we've seen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and many other countries, you can get people outside, not just for an hour, but for days and weeks with their lives in danger, if they care.

You want to fix voter turnout, get voters engaged.

If you think instead the solution is to make a voting button on a screen, you're not only missing the point, you're insulting the fundamental concepts of democratic participation.

DOMAIN NAME OUTAGE

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 20:34:00 +0000

UPDATE April 3, 2011: The domain and email should be working again. ENDUPDATE

Unfortunately I just discovered that in the ZoneEdit DNS service migration to a new platform, my papervotecanada.ca domain has gotten completely broken - no web redirects and no email. My apologies. I have contacted them to get this repaired.

In the meantime, blog URL http://papervotecanada.blogspot.com/ as well as this temporary gmail email address will work.

CNN reports on voting tech

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 02:26:00 +0000

"Use of any touch-screen voting machine is the equivalent of a 100% faith-based election. No votes cast during an election -- none -- can be verified as having been accurately recorded on such systems. Ever."

CNN - Analysis: Our votes are counted accurately -- aren't they? - By Dave Schechter - September 30, 2010

The quote comes from Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog - Pac-Man Hacked Onto a Touch-Screen Voting Machine Without Breaking 'Tamper-Evident' Seals - August 21, 2010

Incidentally, this statement also applies to Internet and telephone voting.

Arnprior voting extended by 24 hours due to technical issues

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:40:00 +0000

Many, many stories about this yesterday and today. Not just Arnprior was affected, but it's the only one that took the extraordinary step of extending voting by 24 hours. Other municipalities extended voting by an hour.

This is a serious voting system failure. I think "glitch" is a bit of an understatement. First you hand your voting system over to a private company, and then it doesn't work? That's a surrender followed by a failure, not a glitch.

Incidentally "we are just too popular a service" is not an explanation, it's an excuse.
If your system doesn't work, that is a technology planning failure. If the obvious visible parts of the system don't work, how much should we trust the parts of the system that we can't see?

CTV Ottawa - Electronic voting creates problems across eastern Ont. - Updated: Tue Oct. 26 2010 5:14:43 PM

CBC News - Technical glitch extends Arnprior vote 1 day - Last Updated: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 | 12:05 AM ET

Arnprior EMC News - Intelivote explains voting problems in Arnprior - Oct 26, 2010

Ottawa Citizen - Overloaded e-vote system means Arnprior voters get another day to cast ballots - October 26, 2010 - also republished in the Vancouver Sun

580 CFRA News - Election Extended in Arnprior - by Josh Pringle - October 26, 2010

It's interesting to compare this result with the glowing pre-election news stories about how wonderful this would all be.

Kemptville EMC News - North Grenville begins electronic voting Oct. 18 - October 14, 2010

According to director of corporate services/clerk Cahl Pominville, residents shouldn't be afraid of the process, noting that if "you can order from Sears over the phone, you can use electronic voting." ...

"It's not a big scary monster," he says of electronic voting, which will be handled by Intelivote Systems Inc. in eastern Canada. "It's been done by thousands and thousands of people in eastern Ontario in previous elections."

...

Pominville stressed that residents using the Internet voting method needn't be concerned about the security issues of the website they are being asked to visit.

"Residents will be connecting to a website in a very large, secure room in Nova Scotia," he explained. "It's a disaster-proof building that houses this kind of stuff."

Apparently it is not voting-day Internet-traffic-proof, sadly.
Incidentally, there is no difference between high real traffic and a denial of service attack - presumably a botnet could just as easily have shut this site out.
There's so much to mock about the tone and unseriousness of this article - it totally misses the point about Internet voting. The issue is not whether it's easy to click a website button or the server room is hurricane-proof. The issue is whether YOUR VOTE IS SECURE, ANONYMOUS AND CORRECTLY COUNTED. None of which the system can guarantee.

More pre-election fluff:

Arnprior EMC News - Town staff provide overview of electronic voting process Voting in municipal election runs from Oct. 18-25 - October 14, 2010

(Town clerk Jacquie Farrow-Lawrence), along with deputy-clerk Maureen Spratt, provided a demonstration of how the electronic voting system, provided by Intelivote System Inc., would work. She then explained the extensive publicity campaign that has gone into preparing the electorate for the new system.

...

"It is a secure process," Spratt explained as she proceeded to demonstrate voting by computer.

So first you pay the private company to use their Internet voting system (which turns out I guess to be a shared voting system), and then you pay to promote it to your citizens?

Plus which, define secure. Secure as in, it uses SSL? Secure as in you have a consultant report that says it's secure? Or secure as in you paid for a penetration test by computer security experts and they failed to compromise the system AND they failed to compromise the desktop endpoints that users voted? And you also paid business continuity experts to ensure it held up under denial of service AND network connection failure AND under high load?

People standing in a room counting paper is a highly resilient, low points of failure system.

Computer desktops + the entire Internet + server room(s) + the entire power grid + many many other technology elements is a many points of failure system.

legal perspective on e-voting

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:06:00 +0000

A couple good articles popped up yesterday:

* Electronic Voting and the Law: It’s Not Like E-Banking by John Gregory in Slaw ("Slaw is a cooperative Canadian weblog on all things legal")

Includes a nice section dismantling the "if we can bank electronically why not vote electronically" idea, including

Banking: If someone has tampered with bank records (or the system malfunctions), the participants can restore balance by transferring money to where it belongs. The legal system allocates loss according to negligence, or by statute, among innocent parties if the rogue can’t be found.
Voting: If someone has tampered with the election results (or the system malfunctions), it is very difficult to restore normality without running the election again, even if one can find the rogue. The rogue is never able to restore things to where they should be.

* Editorial: Time to consider municipal election reform by Glenn Kauth in Law Times

Takes on the "electronic voting will help voter turnout" myth.

previous elections have shown that few people actually decide to cast a ballot. So finding new ways to get them out to the polls seems like a good idea.

But in Calgary, we’ve already seen what it takes: an exciting election with inspiring candidates.

Twitter responses to Tony Clement on Internet voting

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 20:28:00 +0000

These are tweets I found by searching @tonyclement_mp on search.twitter.com, in reference to Minister Tony Clement tweeting about Internet voting ( http://twitter.com/TonyClement_MP/status/28473132792 ) - also see previous posting.

This is obviously not a scientific analysis or anything, just the results I could find categorized as best I can. I didn't include my own (@papervote) tweets.
One person both asked a question and was supportive of it as a way to increase participation.
Two questions were from the same person, so I only counted them once.

I have grouped into
* supporting / interested in Internet voting 5
* questioning / concerned about Internet voting 7
* retweets (either without comments or without any specific pro/con) 5
* other 1

Supporting

@TonyClement_MP hmm.. I wonder if I can too.. now that I've reviewed platforms and all the info is fresh in my mind..less than a minute ago via webjust a girl
mndTiiu

That's great! RT @TonyClement_MP Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very convenient. This Internet thing may catch onless than a minute ago via TwittelatorDawn Luhning
dawnis

@TonyClement_MP sounds ideal. is it just your munic? if not, could you post a link? tx.less than a minute ago via webLD McKenzie
uncoolmomo4

@TonyClement_MP I think, that will make more people to perticipate in politic.less than a minute ago via webTom Tun
Mrburma

Wish I could do that in TO.. RT @TonyClement_MP: Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very (cont) http://tl.gd/6kfp9sless than a minute ago via ÜberTwitterHeather Reilly
helyreilly

Questioning

@TonyClement_MP Was this a secret ballot? Bell has permission to use DPI to look at your vote. #privacy #cdnpoliless than a minute ago via webLaurel L. Russwurm
laurelrusswurm

@TonyClement_MP how do they keep it anonymous, authenticated and auditable? Otherwise online voting sounds great!less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneDean Stamler
dstamler

@TonyClement_MP hum. You may want to watch this before the next election you vote online.... http://gizmo.do/au570zless than a minute ago via TweetDeckPierre B. Gourde
PR_BG

@TonyClement_MP How do you know your vote was counted? Is it possible for scrutineers to confidently say that all votes made through?less than a minute ago via webWarren Layton
thebookpile

Probably also very hackable. RT @TonyClement_MP: Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very convenient.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckRay Kuyvenhoven
rjkuyvenhoven

@TonyClement_MP Do you have a plan to make voting more convinient, fraud free and secure?less than a minute ago via webTom Tun
Mrburma

@TonyClement_MP How was the secrecy of your ballot assured? Then: http://is.gd/gg1pC Post-Harper (or ...Now): http://is.gd/gg1t5less than a minute ago via webGlobe Genius
globegenius

@TonyClement_MP Few 'voters' have been party to court proceedings vs. Elections Canada. How was the secrecy of your ballot assured?less than a minute ago via webGlobe Genius
globegenius

Retweets

These are people retweeting Tony Clement, without indicating whether they are for or against Internet voting.

RT @TonyClement_MP: Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very convenient. This Internet thing may catch on...less than a minute ago via ÜberTwitterKyle Gerow
KyleGerow

internet is on the computer now! Haha RT @TonyClement_MP: voted in my municipal election online ... This Internet thing may catch on...less than a minute ago via ÜberTwitterPiotr Pilarski
ppilarski

RT @tonyclement_mp: Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very convenient. This Internet thing may catch on...less than a minute ago via HootSuiteMario Miniaci
MMiniaci

RT @TonyClement_MP: Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very convenient. This Internet thing may catch on...less than a minute ago via ÜberTwitterBarbara Shaw
dharmabarb

Interesting... RT @TonyClement_MP: Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very convenient. This Internet thing may catch on...less than a minute ago via HootSuiteGreg Moore
Greg_Moore

Other

Dare I ask: would you want online federal elections? RT @tonyclement_mp: Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very convenient.less than a minute ago via HootSuiteLiam Lahey
Lahey13

Canada's Minister of Industry uses Internet voting

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 11:52:00 +0000

Tony Clement, Canada's Minister of Industry and head of Canada's Digital Economy Strategy, used Internet voting in his municipal election and found it convenient.

Just voted in my municipality's election, online. Very convenient. This Internet thing may catch on...less than a minute ago via TwitterrificTony Clement
TonyClement_MP

Michael Geist on Internet voting issues

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:01:00 +0000

The enthusiasm for Internet voting is understandable. At first blush, there is a certain allure associated with the convenience of Internet voting, given the prospect of increased turnout, reduced costs and quicker reporting of results. Moreover, since other security sensitive activities such as banking and health care have gravitated online, supporters argue that elections can't be far behind.

Yet before rushing into Internet voting trials, the dangers should not be overlooked.

...

Caution on Internet voting appears prudent, since experts have identified a long and costly list of necessary precautions, including random spot checks and post-vote verification programs to preserve anonymity. Given the security risks, opening the door to provincial or federal Internet voting seems premature. In the zeal to increase voter turnout, the reliance on Internet voting could inadvertently place the validity of the election process at risk.

Toronto Star - Geist: Hackers, viruses threaten online voting validity - Monday March 8, 2010

UPDATE:
Previously

November 15, 2006 Geist on e-voting

urban renewal, greenwashing, technoyouth, and Internet voting utopianism

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:43:00 +0000

This is in reaction to the Elections Canada Internet voting event, some of the followup to it, and the ongoing trend for Canadian municipalities to adopt Internet voting (as well as the announcement that the province of Alberta will investigate it as well).

Our society loves the new. This is sometimes good, and sometimes appallingly, disastrously bad.

We had decades of "urban renewal", starting in the 50s and gaining momentum in the 60s, that with traffic planning as an essential element, very nearly destroyed the downtown cores of many cities in Canada, and actually succeeded in destroying the cores of many US cities. New is not always better. We are now, with enormous effort and expense, slowly attempting to undo some of the worse excesses of urban renewal, rebuilding and reinhabiting city cores, restricting the previously unlimited role of the fast-moving car in urban planning.

The people at the time had legitimate concerns. They found their cities old and tired, the trolleys familiar and worn. They literally could not imagine that their dense urban neighbourhoods would, rather than being improved by sweeping expressways and demolishing "urban blight", instead be turned into a dead landscape of poverty and neglect. Good intentions can have terrible consequences. We almost always cannot predict the future.

But Internet voting is an area where we actually have a tremendous asset, a community of computer security experts. UPDATE: As well, we can look the the experiences of other countries and jurisdictions. And we can look at other types of online activities. We can make some good guesses about the future. The experts tell us that computer networks are very hard to secure. Other countries show us that the complexity of a good technology implementation can lead to high expenditures with private companies, unsatisfactory results, and law suits. The ongoing, continuous security compromises of existing systems, with credit card numbers and other high-value information repeatedly stolen, tells us we are far from a world of high security on the public Internet. ENDUPDATE

We also have a recent trend of greenwashing - corporations that want to make money, but cloak it in some new language of social responsibility or environmentalism. Less paper is not always good. What consumes more resources, a single piece of paper you use once, or a computer in a data centre that is on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, requiring round-the-clock high physical and network security? In any case, since when is the foundation of democracy about how "green" your election is? Elections hinge on trustworthy results. You want a green election? How about we just all hold up our hands and someone writes the result down on a chalkboard? No paper wasted! No electricity burned! Making some vague green claims about reduced paper consumption is a diversion from critical, core process and security issues associated with Internet voting.

This is not to mention the fact that a good chunk of the supposed "savings" from Internet voting comes from eliminating polling places, from eliminating polling place workers. Do you seriously want a voting system that is less human, that involves fewer people, that has fewer eyes to identify and report problems?

In the most egregious example of Internet voting mythmaking, the myth of the technoyouth. The argument, almost always made by someone who is not young, almost always made without any supporting evidence whatsoever, goes as follows: young people "naturally" use technology, enjoy technology, interact with technology. If you can just "technologize" something, young people will use it.

This is utter nonsense. Young people like doing young people things. They do them with whatever tools are at hand. They don't think about the technology, it's background noise. They think about the activity. Making an activity that people aren't interested in available on a platform that they use, will not make them interested. The examples for this are trivial. It's a signature of the myth of the new that we are able to actually believe that somehow "the old rules" don't apply once you put a blinking light on something. You want an easy example: I watch TV. I watch shows I like on TV. I am not interested in sports. There are acres of sports on TV. You know what, this does not make me interested in sports. No one cares about technology channel for technology's sake except actual technologists. If you put boring middle-aged leaders talking about boring policies for senior citizens in a little video windows on a 20-year-old's iPhone, this is not going to make them interested in politics. It's nonsensical.

The overwhelming majority of the evidence from the few large scale examples we had at the Elections Canada Internet Voting discussion is that putting voting on the Internet doesn't magically translate into everyone who uses the Internet suddenly voting. It's just makes it easier for the people who already vote.

If you want turnout, then have a TURNOUT STRATEGY. A button on a web page is not a turnout strategy. Real turnout strategies might include:

* online and offline engagement with voters on issues they actually care about
- This is not easy. Real citizens have inconvenient interests. If you want to see how inconvenient true engagement can be, watch supposed super-Internet-connector Obama immediately dismiss even the possibility of a rational discussion about drug (specifically marijuana) policy, every single time it inevitably rises to the top of an Internet engagement attempt.

* Make election day a holiday
* Hold elections on Saturdays
* Put polling places everywhere - in workplaces, in grocery stores, wherever people actually go in their actual modern lives, not some theoretical church and community centre life that hasn't existed for decades
* Making voting mandatory, as it is in Australia

Notice how little of this involves technology.

Lastly, I want to address Internet voting utopianism. I would have thought the dotcom boom would have killed this, but it didn't. Life is not an endless progress towards a better and better world. Just because something is new, doesn't mean it is either inevitable or beneficial. The French Revolution loved their clean, modern new technology: the guillotine. There are lots of things that make no sense to do over the Internet. Just because it's there, doesn't mean you have to use it, IF IT ISN'T THE BEST SOLUTION.

Internet voting solves no problems, and introduces huge new ones, including:
* massive security issues at every step of the very long chain
* massive chain of custody issues
* massive privacy issues
* massive coercion issues
* handing over the core infrastructure of democracy to private companies and/or invisible government technologists
* creating a voting system that no one without a degree in computer science can actually understand

It will not save money except in some narrow sense. You can work numbers so that it looks like you're saving - oh look how much we save if we don't provide some education or some healthcare, as long as we ignore the huge future costs of impoverished people who are in and out of prison and huge numbers of expensive emergency room visits.

Oh look how much we save if we don't provide paper ballots - as long as we ignore the ongoing costs of data centres, legal challenges, and fundamentally undermining trust in our democracy.

Here's a simple thought experiment: would you hand a stranger $10 and ask them to deliver it to City Hall? A $100 bill? A million dollar bill? How much is your vote worth, how much is a national election worth? This is not banking, where you know the bank, they know you, and every single step along the way is auditable and reversable. This is a one-time handover of a treasure, your vote, to layer after layer of systems programmed by strangers, that you cannot inspect the internal workings of, where even the administrators of the systems can never truly know what is going on internally (a computer can always pretend to be executing one program, while actually executing another), in a system where you CANNOT VERIFY THE RESULT (because any system that lets you check how you voted, must inevitably provide the capacity for someone malicious to determine how you voted).

Internet voting is a lose-lose situation. The easier you make it to vote online, the more convenient, the less complicated, the less encumbered by multiple steps and complexity, the easier you make it for a hacker to steal the election. Worse than that, it is quite likely it is actually impossible to secure the election to the multi-billion-dollar risk level that would be appropriate, you simply cannot provide that level of assurance using the public Internet. The best you can do is involve every possible computer security expert at every step of the process, and then have a very highly informed acceptance of an extremely high level of risk. I don't see anything even close to this happening, other than in the Estonian system, which requires a unique national ID certificate for every single citizen and even then doesn't address issues like coercion.

In brief, this is really hard, maybe impossible to do well, and just as with the half-assed Windows-based electronic voting machines visited upon the American people by Diebold (now part of ES&S, an elections vendor that provides technology to Canadian elections), I don't see anyone taking even close to the level of necessary care in the current Canadian Internet voting situations.

Which brings me to my concluding point: to do this well requires an extraordinary level of computer expertise, testing, auditing, risk assessment, and 24/7/365 datacentre security, and a huge set-aside for potential legal challenges in case of fraud accusations. This inconvenient truth exposes the lie of Internet voting as being an easy, cost-saving citizen convenience, and so in most cases what I see is Internet voting advocates who are either ignorant of these issues, ignoring these issues, or deliberately trying to spin them.

Ireland ponders how to dispose of its voting machines

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:57:00 +0000

Ireland jumped into the electronic voting arena, acquiring 52 million euros worth of equipment... and then determined the risk of using them was too high. So now they're stuck.

Eight years after they were acquired for €52m, the government wants to return 7,500 barely used electronic voting machines to their manufacturer.

John Gormley, the environment minister, announced last March that he had set up an inter-departmental taskforce to deal with the disposal of the machines, after deciding they would never be used to count votes in an Irish election.

Times Online - Voting machines to be cast out - January 24, 2010

Previously:
February 10, 2005 understanding the true costs of voting machines
February 07, 2005 Ireland does things right
February 03, 2005 Canadian e-voting officials, behold your future: Ireland

six years

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:32:00 +0000

This month will be the six-year anniversary of PaperVoteCanada. The first post was February 14, 2004.

article about the Internet voting dialogue

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:22:00 +0000

Alice Funke (@punditsguide) has an article in The Hill Times - Online voting won't hike youth turnout, but 'it grows on you,' forum told - February 1, 2010

I'm quoted:

“The municipalities are perhaps naive
about the amount of risk they’re assuming,”
warned internet voting security expert Richard
Akerman of the PaperVoteCanada.ca
blog, though. “Very closely contested elections
like Al Franken’s recent race for the U.S. Senate
were only settled because people could
actually see the ballots,” he said. Had it been
conducted over the internet, “the expense of
defending the integrity of that system in the
courts would have been huge,” he claimed.

My concerns include:
* for the risk of coercion, they are acknowledging but accepting this - but have we had a serious debate about whether this is a risk that should be accepted?
* for the risk of a recount, they are simply accepting that all you can do is go and look at the digital data (the "data points" as it was described at the event) - there is nothing to actually recount - while this approach has been accepted, I can easily see an aggressive challenge that required a complete end-to-end forensic audit, which would require a level of technical expertise and time that would be, as I said in the quote, hugely expensive AND raise huge trust issues once people realised both how complex and how opaque these systems are

tweet archive

noreply@blogger.com (rakerman) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:22:00 +0000

This is the raw text of my @papervote tweets from the Elections Canada Internet Voting dialogue. (I'm archiving here because these will disappear from Twitter eventually, and also because I realise many of you prefer to get the text here rather than following in real-time or trying to page through Twitter.)

I have flipped the order so it is more readable - it's oldest first.

First tweet is at 8:54 AM Jan 26th 2010 and last one was at 4:56 PM Jan 26th 2010.
There are a total of 276 tweets.

BEGIN TWEETS

am set up on tethering and will be liveblogging under hashtag #ivotecan - there is a media section here but I only see one person so far

Elections Canada communications has very graciously allowed me to sit at the media table and get power for my netbook. #ivotecan

event is being opened #ivotecan - Elections Canada speaker up next

2/3 of Canadians likely to vote online according to recent survey - Elections Canada #ivotecan

lessons Canada can learn from other jurisdictions within Canada and outside Canada #ivotecan

Elections Canada pilot project will test secure voting via Internet for selected groups eg disabled, Canadians in other countries #ivotecan

Elections Canada emphasizing convenience of Internet voting - but "must maintain level of integrity that Canadians expect" #ivotecan

"Internet voting as an online service" #ivotecan - Elections Canada

Group is working on consistent cross-level standards (provincial, national etc.) #ivotecan

members of parliament and other experts reported to be in audience #ivotecan

Prof. Alvarez up next #ivotecan

Prof Alvarez and audience #ivotecan http://twitpic.com/zuo00

Alvarez will talk about American experience, upsides and downsides #ivotecan

Rationale for Internet Voting: evolution in US from handcounted to optiscan to paperless (nonnetworked and networked systems) #ivotecan

electronic technologies also used throughout the elections process in the United States #ivotecan

defining Internet voting: transmission of ballot over network - references his book One Click One Vote #ivotecan - public elections context

EDITORIAL NOTE: I misheard Alvarez, the book is actually Point, Click and Vote: The Future of Internet Voting. He has also written other books on the topic. END EDITORIAL NOTE

both home computer as well as kiosk Internet voting #ivotecan

Why innovate election tech? - turnout, accessibility, security (!), accuracy (!), efficiency, international access, cost #ivotecan

"How can these technologies improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of election administration?" #ivotecan

American experience - elections have vastly decentralised administration - run at the county level - not national #ivotecan

American experience - "complexity of ballots, regulations and procedures" #ivotecan - may be "dozens and dozens" of items

American experience - multiplicity of ballots, in different languages, covering huge number of items to vote upon #ivotecan

American experience - 2000 Presidential election - controversies have continued about use of electronic voting tech #ivotecan

American experience - California Internet Voting Task Force (2000) - has shaped a lot of US thinking #ivotecan

American experience - Internet voting - Alaska Republican party (Jan 2000) - Arizona Democratic party (March 2000) #ivotecan

Internet voting in 2000 Presidential election - 6 million Americans overseas (military, gov etc.) - special voting rights #ivotecan

international voting - mail transit time to and from e.g. Iraq is a big concern - Internet voting reduces transit time #ivotecan

2000 experiment was a proof of concept - focus on feasibility - electronic version of mail voting system #ivotecan - limited # participants

US international Internet voting used PKI credentials for authentication #ivotecan

not a lot of data - 91 registered, 84 voted using international Internet voting system for US in 2000 #ivotecan

"no security breaches found" for 2000 international Internet vote for US #ivotecan

followup: SERVE - Secure Electronic Voting Registration and Voting Experiment - planned to involve as many as 100,000 #ivotecan

SERVE wasn't implemented because in early 2004 study by computer security experts caused it to be cancelled #ivotecan

in early 2004 Michigan Democratic Party allowed online voting - 28.57% online votes of 162,000 votes total #ivotecan

"Controversies regarding electronic voting machines in 2004 and 2006 elections" #ivotecan

"Election admins and stakeholders reluctant to take on risks associated with voting pilots experiments or transitions to new tech" #ivotecan

ODBP - Okaloosa Distance Balloting Project, implemented in 2008. Kiosk voting for UOCAVA citizens at 3 international locations #ivotecan

there were a few problems with Okaloosa tech but tiny number (<100) voters #ivotecan

use of kiosks means you can ensure the kiosk is secure, rather than using insecure personal computers #ivotecan

(for tests) "Without better scientific design, most of the important outcome variables are difficult to assess" including security #ivotecan

"insufficient data collected" based on US Internet voting experiments to date #ivotecan

Security: What are the real vulnerabilities? How can you mitigate vulnerabilities? Need real experiments #ivotecan

next up: panel on Canadian experiences with Internet voting #ivotecan

Nicole Goodman of Carleton moderating and introducing the panel, which will discuss Canadian municipal Internet voting #ivotecan

first up: Markham's Online Voting Experience by Kimberly Kitteringham and Andrew Brouwer (Town Clerk & Deputy Town Clerk) #ivotecan

Markham Internet voting: 2006 election and plans for 2010 #ivotecan

80% of Markham residents have high-speed Internet access #ivotecan

Why online voting: electronic service delivery, multichannel service delivery, changing lifestyles, "new electorate", convenience #ivotecan

municipal turnout hovered around 30% - Internet voting a channel to encourage participation in voting process #ivotecan

online voting a way to enhance participation by people with disabilities #ivotecan - equal access to the electoral process

2003 positive Internet voting experience positive, recommended online voting for 2006 #ivotecan

Principles identified: security, accuracy, privacy, authentication/verification #ivotecan

Independent Risk Analsys by Henry Kim of York University; Gartner Group security review of IT platform #ivotecan

Dr. Kim found "similar reasonable risks" with two-step voting to in-person voting, and better characteristics than mail-in voting #ivotecan

Partnered with Election Systems & Software (ES&S) for provision of online voting; security of platform verified by Gartner Group #ivotecan

Comprehensive communications plan about Internet voting / voter awareness provided by Delvinia Interactive #ivotecan

2006 online voting only available during early voting period #ivotecan

reporting positive numbers >75% satisfaction from Delvinia survey #ivotecan found it convenient, voted from home

approx 6000 voted online in 2003, approx 10,000 voted online in 2006 #ivotecan

Change in online voting: earlier campaigning, be clear about ID requirements, change in nature of scrutineer function #ivotecan

scrutineers obviously cannot see voters receive and cast their ballot, unlike in-person voting #ivotecan

2010 Markham issuing RFP for online and tabulator vote systems - 3rd party review of online voting security - access plan #ivotecan

Markham "online voting viewed by staff as continued opportunity for service excellence and civic engagement" #ivotecan

Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) Internet voting experience next up #ivotecan
Cathy Mellet, Acting Clerk/Manager, HRM #ivotecan

HRM covers large physical area, estimated to have population over 410k by 2012 #ivotecan

4 year "e-voting journey" starting in 2004 - Jan 2007 council approved Internet/phone advance voting with "2 levels of ID verify" #ivotecan

discussing mitigating risks while taking advantage of opportunities #ivotecan

RFP in 2007, selected Intelivote for HRM #ivotecan - had to change Municipal Elections Act and HRM by-law to permit

2008 event demographics 279,000 electors; advance voting: 10% of eligible, 28% of votes cast, 88% used Internet. #ivotecan

"engagement matters to voters" HRM #ivotecan

Principles Balance: accessibility vs scrutiny, engagement vs. integrity, convenience vs security... #ivotecan

objectives: ensure integrity, ensure compliance with regulations... #ivotecan

Partnership with Elections Nova Scotia & vendor #ivotecan

HRM election system & data transfer to vendor #ivotecan - also needed support/help centre and contingency plan

something about firewalls but presentation is going way too fast for me to keep up #ivotecan

voter identification "2 shared secrets" - mailed out password + voter birthdate #ivotecan

Sept 2009 special election - "complete internet voting from advance voting to election day" - "realtime voters list", kiosk #ivotecan

"substantially increased turnout" for special election (30% vs. 10% in previous special elections) HRM #ivotecan

e-voting works, well received, cost effective, greener #ivotecan

Jon McKinstry, Sales Manager, Dominion Voting Systems - presenting City of Peterborough story #ivotecan

Peterborough population 75,600. Internet voting 4400 registered, 3500 cast a vote, total 7% of votes were cast over Internet #ivotecan

if you registered for online but didn't vote over Internet, you could still come and vote in person #ivotecan

reasons: leader in delivery of voting systems, embrace tech, increase voter participation, adapt to changing lifestyles #Ivotecan

spike in demographics for Internet voting actually people 40-50, didn't actually have a peak in younger voters #ivotecan

needed realtime strikeout of voters list so that you couldn't vote online and then vote again in person #ivotecan

wanted a system that would consolidate votes from optical scan and internet voting #ivotecan
Principles: ... going too fast for me to keep up #ivotecan

independent security audit of Dominion Voting by Digital Boundary Group (London, Ontario) #ivotecan

again a shared secret system with the secret being the year of birth being the "secret" along with a preselected q/a #ivotecan

PIN number through regular postal mail or encrypted email #ivotecan

audit: password strength, denial of service, injection, ensure intrusion detection in place, system security vulnerability scans #ivotecan

audit reported "Dominion system was a very secure solution" #ivotecan

vote: elector ID + PIN number, separate website, answer preselected question set at reg time, ?enter birthdate? (not mentioned) #ivotecan

Peterborough - ease of use - could cast ballot for 5 days, 24 hours a day #ivotecan

election help desk as well as 1-800 call centre provided by vendor #ivotecan ("about 100 calls came in")

computers also provided at city hall, library, other sites #ivotecan

enhanced features: accessible ballot with zoom, audio, JAWS compatibility #ivotecan

Lessons learned: important for officials to have "complete understanding" of process and technology #ivotecan

Lessons: important to have dedicated marketing, increase number of laptops, run longer (from advance to election day) #ivotecan

approx 15 minutes for questions #ivotecan

am sitting next to @punditsguide

Q to panel from @punditsguide : privacy - 1 destruction of e-ballots? (e-ballot could be
linked back to individual) #ivotecan

Q to panel from @punditsguide : 2 what about voters being coerced at home #ivotecan

Markham: unsupervised voting - one person in a household could do all the voting - part of the risk assessment ... #ivotecan

Markham: unsupervised voting "a risk we were willing to accept" - used education about one person, one vote, secrecy of vote #ivotecan

?Markham? - how are online ballots handled - retained for same duration as paper ballot #ivotecan

?Markham? - paraphrase: no way to connect an individual voter to how they voted in the system #ivotecan

HRM - created substantial penalitys ($10k, 2y in jail) for voter fraud, collusion, or influencing #ivotecan

HRM - asked for certificate of destruction for online ballots from vendor #ivotecan

HRM - "two separate systems" that ensure no connection between voter and votes cast #ivotecan

Q City of Toronto: How do you handle recounts? #ivotecan

Halifax - recount = paraphrase "reopen the encrypted file and look at the data points" #ivotecan

Q City of Toronto: do you capture a (screen) image of the vote as cast? A from HRM: no we just record a data point #ivotecan

A on recount from Markham: "an electronic recount of an electronic vote" #Ivotecan

something about "data as recorded when polls closed and put on memory stick for auditor" ? #ivotecan

Jeremy Clark from Waterloo - privacy question - what kind of data is kept about timing of votes - ... #ivotecan

Jeremy Clark... if you keep timing info you can look at vote time and vote recorded and correlate to figure out who cast what vote #ivotecan

answer from panel: timing is kept, it is a risk but ... someone internal would have to do this attack #ivotecan

Q from Elections Ontario: is a preaudit done - is it possible to test the system before event - and is there postevent test #ivotecan

A from HRM - "audit ballots" cast before, during and after election #ivotecan - realtime tests of the system

A from Peterborough - security tests in advance, intrusion tests etc. #ivotecan

A from Markham: similar process to Halifax #ivotecan

Q: load testing? A from HRM: yes, Oracle platform not even stressed, a non-event. Markham: similar to Halifax #ivotecan

Q did you survey people who didn't use the system? do you know why people registered to vote online but didn't? #ivotecan

A from Markham: survey appeared online right after you voted online #ivotecan

EDITORIAL NOTE: At this point I hit an unexpected Tweet cap for a new account (128 tweets). For the rest of the morning I had to move to liveblogging on FriendFeed. I will try to integrate that reporting here later, but for now you can see it by paging through http://friendfeed.com/electronic-voting-in-canada (which also includes some of these tweets)
END EDITORIAL NOTE

tweeted so much, so fast, from this new account that I got temporary twitter lockout. morning reporting at: http://bit.ly/84ynMb #ivotecan

@kirkschmidt there was a Q "risk of internal staff", the response from HRM was "this is a risk we've always had to deal with" #ivotecan

@pmarchi No one has a good (technical) answer to the coercion issue. HRM made coercion "more illegal" with $10k fine, 2y prison. #ivotecan

Just wanted to mention @punditsguide has been doing a great job of tweeting this very fast-moving event. #ivotecan

@jasonkitcat Yeah and in fact several speakers have said convenience mostly helps save existing voters time, no big turnout boost. #ivotecan

I have blogged a brief summary this this morning's very fast, info-packed set of presentations: http://bit.ly/aqPSjY #ivotecan

Tech considerations session presenters: marketer, vendor, open-source guy, tech guy (Peter Wolf of IDEA, Masters in Computer Eng) #ivotecan

Tech considerations panel: Peter Wolf stuck in snowstorm in Frankfurt or something. #ivotecan Projector also not working (tech irony).

Wolf's notes: trust, transparency, but no external evidence of system's correct operation. Hence systems depend on public trust. #ivotecan

Wolf asserts you must then extend greater trust to the entire electoral system as well as have auditors #ivotecan

Wolf: Internet voting - client computer - "nobody can know if this computer can be trusted" #ivotecan

Wolf: observers would like to get insight into operation of systems, and computer security experts may be fundamentally opposed #ivotecan

It's too bad Wolf isn't here, because his notes raise many excellent points. #ivotecan

Wolf: trade secrets may block trust in system, ability to observe operation, due to black boxes e.g. operating systems, code #ivotecan

Wolf: Opening the Black Box. Norway - public access to source codes. Council of Europe - certification guidelines / standards #ivotecan

My editorial comment: it doesn't matter if your source code is open, you can't prove that's the code that is running. #ivotecan

Wolf: commercial vendors were willing to divulge codes if made a condition of Internet voting contracts #ivotecan

Wolf: lack of common standards for certification - issue recognized by Council of Europe #ivotecan

Wolf: sequoia source code released in USA (editor's note: just google that term to find out the results of analysis of the code) #ivotecan

Adam Froman: Delvinia Interactive - marketer/comms for Markham Internet voting #ivotecan

Adam Froman admits up front he doesn't know or care about the technology. He's going to talk about the voter experience. #ivotecan

Delvinia got CANARIE grant to study the use of broadband tech for municipal services - brought $200k to the table for Markham #ivotecan

@zippyFX it's not hard to write a trojan that sends a response back claiming to be the correct software

Delvinia positioning Internet voting as an option, not a replacement for traditional paper vote #ivotecan

Delvinia studied voter attitudes. And also worked on the voter outreach. Including education about registration changes #ivotecan

Delvinia - 2003 - interactive guides - but there's a general need for voter education, regardless of whether they're voting online #ivotecan

Delvinia - web site satisfaction survey - postpolling, online surveys #ivotecan

[ED COMMENT:] In case people don't know Canadian system: scrutineers from all parties watch the open counting of the paper ballots. Many eyes. #ivotecan

Delvinia - with advanced poll, sometimes politicians would show up at people's doors and discover they had already voted #ivotecan

Delvinia: voter registration process was main barrier to Internet voting #ivotecan

@zippyFX the trojan hides in the query stream and lies. Gives the correct CRC, size, response. See e.g. rootkits.

over 90% of people who voted online in Markham said they would be interested in voting in Federal election #ivotecan

Delvinia guy makes "tech is a part of people's lives" argument #ivotecan My counterargument: educate them about the risks of Internet vote.

Delvinia has a point that the new political engagement is a "digital dialogue" with citizens. Engagement beyond vote #ivotecan

Editorial comment: don't mix social media engagement with the need to secure one-time voting experience #ivotecan

Dean Smith of Intelivote also says he will not talk about the tech side of things at all #ivotecan Small Nova Scotia company.

getting sales pitch for Intelivote now #ivotecan

Intelivote assists in writing electronic voting legislation for countries (!) #ivotecan

Intelivote - integrated polling stations, telephone and Internet voting #ivotecan

Intelivote - pitch is "more choice" #ivotecan

talking about components of election system: help center, auditors, Intelivote control, electors, candidates, officials #ivotecan

components of election system diagram shows "Intelivote system" in centre of everything, which kinda freaks me out #ivotecan

Intelivote considers it a benefit that you can vote from anywhere in the world #ivotecan

Intelivote - anecdotal report about first time visually disabled voters were able to cast vote on their own thanks to technology #ivotecan

Intelivote - 2009 by-election "almost 70% voted electronically" is I think what he said #ivotecan

33 municipal elections in Ontario used Internet and/or phone voting #ivotecan "Canada as a leader" rhetoric coming from Intelivote

Speaking of rhetorical questions: Intelivote - "Why are Canadians so open to eVoting?" #ivotecan

Intelivote pitch: choice, flexibility, immediate, auditable results, voter intent clear - no spoiled ballots, enviro friendly #ivotecan

Intelivote pitch (continued): don't have to staff polling stations #ivotecan

Jason Gallagher: open source vs. propriety in 10 minutes or less #ivotecan

err vs. proprietary that is #ivotecan

defines source code #ivotecan

Gallagher explains in proprietary code, you never get to see the source code #ivotecan

looks like @punditsguide has hit a status update limit as well. have directed to http://friendfeed.com/electronic-voting-in-canada

Gallagher explaining open source software - allows peer review of software, no vendor lockin, gives rights to software users #ivotecan

Gallagher: free to modify open source, don't have to rely on vendor #ivotecan

Gallagher: why open source for voting - transparency, not a black box, accountability, auditability, security #ivotecan

Gallagher: how can shared source code be secure? paraphrase "many eyes make bugs shallow" - don't rely on secrets #ivotecan

Gallagher: there will always be hackers, but if your system is open, you also allow people to help you to improve #ivotecan

Gallagher: proprietary advantages - ready made ./ off the shelf, someone to blame if it goes wrong #ivotecan

Q from ? Alex Sussex ? Univ of Ottawa: everyone can witness paper ballot tally. "you can't actually see software occuring" #ivotecan

Q (continued): what role do candidates play in the observability of the tally? #ivotecan

Q (continued): you don't know what's going on inside the system... what role do candidates play to convince the voters #ivotecan

A from Intelivote: candidates want to be involved... the module shows people being struck off the voters list as they vote #ivotecan

A from Intelivote: no equivalent role for scrutineers in electronic world - no recount #ivotecan

A from Delvina: you're asking the wrong question. Should be "What would you need to see equivalent to paper voting?" #ivotecan

Editorial comment: there is no equivalent to observing the internals of the system analogous to scrutineer role #ivotecan

A from computer security researcher who asked original question: "there are new ways that allow voters to engage in the auditing" #ivotecan

Intelivote: system observing itself is "placebo effect" - one electronic process is observing another electronic process #ivotecan

Intelivote does allow peer review of its code #ivotecan

Intelivote uses randomization to avoid matching timestamps to determine who voted for whom #ivotecan

Q: how do panel see Internet voting rolling out across Canada #ivotecan

A from Intelivote: says Canada (and by extension Intelivote) has reputation and experience #ivotecan

Delvinia guy says you can use open source if you have the resources to build the solution #ivotecan

Editorial summary: Intelivote guy argues "reputation and experience", Delvinia guy argues "it's inevitable anyway" #ivotecan

Q from Elections Quebec: is there established, audited open source software available #ivotecan

A: one example in Australia, project has since been cancelled. Professor found error in source code. was fixed. #ivotecan

A from Tarvi: not about open source - about auditability and transparency. Estonia does not publish its source code. #ivotecan

A from Tarvi: Estonia ready "at any second" to sign NDA and provide code for auditing purposes #ivotecan

A from Tarvi about client side code: could be very easy to create malicious client side app - don't give out client side code #ivotecan

A from the audience: more open source - Scantegrity open source system, open voting consortium, ?OSEB? - DRE software #ivotecan

break and then roundtable discussion #ivotecan

observations from Alex Treschel - should do trials, with Canada-specific-research and analysis of the results #ivotecan

Alex Treschel - make sure you are not generalising from very small data sets or experiments #ivotecan

Alex Trechsel - cautions against generalising even from e.g. Halifax to other Canadian municipalities #ivotecan

Tom Hawthorn - when is it right to move? should we lead new tech (in elections) or follow well established technologies? #ivotecan

Tom Hawthorn - experience in UK was that perhaps they hadn't thought things completely through #ivotecan

Tom Hawthorn but if you wait too long, you may miss an opportunity #ivotecan

Tom Hawthorn - need to understand who is driving the process, who is holding the budget - better if electoral admins drive #ivotecan

Tom Hawthorn - place development of voting systems / software in an international context rather than individual countries #ivotecan

Tom Hawthorn - should develop common understanding and set of benchmarks #ivotecan

Tarvi Martens - electoral system is about trust. holds the same for evoting as for paper. #ivotecan

Tarvi Martens - example of failure in Netherlands. example of failure in Lithuania due to suggesting banking credentials #ivotecan

Tarvi Martens - example of failure in ?Finland? - if you screw up deployment, you will be set back a decade or more #ivotecan

Tarvi Martens - if the deployment of your system, including the user part, does not build trust, you will fail #ivotecan

Tarvi Martens - asserts user identity is critical to system (not surprising since he is expert on computer credentials) #ivotecan

Tarvi Martens - password based systems or weak credentials are easy to attack #ivotecan

Tarvi Martens - if people succeed in compromising your system, you will have a huge setback in trust #ivotecan

Jon Pammett: a wide variety of "policy laboratories" in Canada for Internet and other voting systems experimentation #ivotecan

Jon Pammett: not an expert in tech, wondering if Internet voting will increase turnout, but it seems based on today it won't #ivotecan

Jon Pammett: Internet voting doesn't appear to address voter engagement, which is the true driver of turnout #ivotecan

Jon Pammett: concerned about (my words) consequences of Internet voting road not taken #ivotecan

[ED COMMENT:] argument from panel that mixes "tech use" with youth. In my opinion, this is a false mix. Young people are not tech experts. #ivotecan

Editorial comment: I think there needs to be better research into what actually drives voting, rather than speculating #ivotecan

Q from @punditsguide: Canada examples are municipalities which are low turnout, not highly contested elections #ivotecan

Q @punditsguide: how will this work in a much more competitive election where votes are closer #ivotecan

Q (U Calgary): assess evoting based on increased efficiency? (code for saving money) - but if used in advance voting... #ivotecan

Q (U Calgary, contd) will increase cost of elections without noticeable effect on voter turnout? #ivotecan

Q (U Calgary, 2nd question): where research has been done on impact by age, no positive impact in bringing youth vote #ivotecan

Q (U Calgary, 2nd q): seems that Internet vote is mostly middle-aged turnout. #ivotecan

Q (U Calgary): seems like greater cost and no greater turnout - then what is justification for Internet voting? #ivotecan

A (Jon): age profile data is from municipalities - young people not engaged in municipal politics #ivotecan

@jasonkitcat seems to be a dialogue between desire for turnout and issues about trust #ivotecan

A (Jon): in competitive elections - possibly true people would be more likely to attack systems #ivotecan

A (Alex): in competitive elections higher risk - try it out in less competitive contexts too (and remember Swiss cap evote at 10%) #ivotecan

A (Alex): (not exact quote) "doesn't cost that much, comparitively" for "making people happier in democracy" #ivotecan

A (Alex): also remember youth never had high turnout, but it is dramatically low in e.g. Canada #ivotecan Internet voting not a panacea

A (Tarvi): to use Internet voting in Federal election for the first time is a bad idea - start small #ivotecan

A (Tarvi): Estonia formed a group of IT security experts, every step was security, security, security #ivotecan

A (Tarvi): Estonia knew exactly the potential failure points, the risks #ivotecan

A (Tarvi): if you haven't done your security due diligence, hackers can expose issues and destroy trust in your system as in NL #ivotecan

A (Tarvi): if you reuse your system, then over the long term the costs are lower #ivotecan

A (Tarvi): Internet voting not to increase turnout, it's to PRESERVE the turnout #ivotecan

A from Markham: cost for Internet voting were "quite small", "reasonable" #ivotecan

A from Markham: did see increased turnout #ivotecan not enough data to attribute directly to Internet voting

A from Markham: hackers "a cynical argument" against Internet voting, look at opportunities instead #ivotecan

A from HRM: if you can decrease the number of poll locations you decrease cost and "risk" (training / staff risk) #ivotecan

Comment (Nicole Goodman?): We don't know how any particular Internet voting model will work in any jurisdiction, need trials #ivotecan

Comment: yes there will be a large upfront cost, and there should be since it needs to be done right #ivotecan

Comment: cheaper over the long term #ivotecan

Comment: we can't fix turnout with Internet voting but there is no one solution, young people are not homogeneous group #ivotecan

Editorial comment: cheaper over time is hard considering you need 24/7 physical & net security for data centre 365 days/yr #ivotecan

Q: what are the main arguments against Internet voting? #ivotecan (other than security)

Q (Elections Canada): can academics map when a region is "mature" enough to go on an Internet voting route #ivotecan

A (Tom): Germany ruled use of Internet voting unconstitutional as it was inherently un-understandable by avg citizen #ivotecan

A (Tom): no one knows what the cost model is going to be in the future. may see some new kinds of costs #ivotecan

A (Tom): new costs = auditors, consultants, security experts - could be very expensive #ivotecan

A (Tom): most people in elections systems are not experts in electronic systems / security design - maybe they need to be #ivotecan

A (Tarvi): in Estonia Internet voting was challenged about uniformity of voting #ivotecan

A (Tarvi): ruling was that multiple times to vote over-rides privacy concerns (not sure I understand his answer) #ivotecan

A (Alex): groups in Geneva were strongly opposed to Internet voting (computer security experts) #ivotecan

A (Alex): in Geneva they engaged in a dialogue with the computer security experts #ivotecan
http://www.e-voting.cc/ - Internet voting conference, models #ivotecan

A: an argument against Internet voting - voting in person is a communal experience #ivotecan

Editorial comment: first mention today of compulsory voting as a direction for turnout and
engagement #ivotecan

audience comment: 8 million voters in Ontario, 800000 will be voting "electronically" - "it's happening" #ivotecan

I think it's the Intelivote guy: cost savings of electronic voting #ivotecan

aaaand we're done #ivotecan

@jasonkitcat I didn't get a strong sense of a driver other than "seems like a good thing to try"

@punditsguide good to meet you as well

END TWEETS