Theory v. Practice in Electronic Voting

1. Theory v. Practice in Electronic Voting Michael I. Shamos, Ph.D., J.D. Co-Director, Institute for eCommerce Carnegie Mellon University

2. Voting System Certification • Before voting equipment can be used or “offered for sale” in a state, it must be certified by the state • Certification procedures differ among the states • Most require examination by a statutory panel of examiners • I was an examiner for • Pennsylvania (1980-2000) • Texas (1987-2000) • West Virginia (1982) • Delaware (1989) • Nevada (1995) • Examined ~100 different voting systems

3. Outline • Voting history • Voting administration • General voting model • Vulnerabilities • Important problems

4. History of Voting • Ancient: clash of spears, division by groups, wooden tickets (tabellæ), balls in urns • “ballot” from Italian ballotta, meaning “little ball” • American colonies: voting aloud to public official • Early 1800s: Handwritten paper ballots • 1857: Australia introduces secret paper ballot • 1888: Australian ballot introduced in U.S. (KY, MA) • 1892: Mechanical lever machine to “protect mechanically the voter from rascaldom” • 1960s: Punched cards • 1970s: Optical scan • 1978: Direct-recording electronic systems • 2000: Internet voting in primaries

5. Paper Ballots • Original paper ballots were handwritten. Easy to identify voter! • Australian ballot (U.S., 1888) SOURCE: DOUGLAS W. JONES

6. Paper Ballots 10/29/1864 1/27/1925

7. BALLOT BOXES DESTROYED INJURIES IN RIOTS MORE BALLOTS CAST THAN NAMES ON THE POLL LIST New York Times, April 4, 1855

8. Voting Irregularities “The ballots shall first be counted, and, if the number of ballots exceeds the number of persons who voted … the ballots shall be placed back into the box, and one of the inspectors shall publicly draw out and destroy unopened as many ballots as are equal to such excess.” F.S. §102.061 “If two or more ballots are found folded together to present the appearance of a single ballot … if, upon comparison of the … appearance of such ballots, a majority of the inspectors are of the opinion that the ballots were voted by one person, such ballots shall be destroyed.” F.S. §102.061

9. New York Times, January 12, 1925

10. Voting is an Ill-Conditioned Problem • Consider a two-candidate election with n voters • Let e (error) be the fraction of votes that can be counted incorrectly without changing the result • Let p be the fraction of voters who prefer candidate A • As n grows and p 0.5, we must have e < 1/n to obtain the correct result • But e does not decrease as n increases

11. Florida Vote Totals8:00 a.m. Nov. 15, 2000 MARGIN WAS 300 OUT OF 5,820,684 VOTES = 1 IN 20,000 FEC STANDARDS ALLOW AN ERROR OF ~1 IN 2000 BALLOTS SOURCE: CNN.COM

12. What’s the Chance of a Repeat? • Assume we draw 6 million samples with equal probability of choosing A or B (voters are truly indifferent) • What is the probability margin(x) that | A – B | < x? • (1225 is the standard deviation of the binomial distribution with n = 6,000,000, p = 0.5) • margin(300) > 19%! • margin(16) > 1% • Final Bush-Gore margin was 537; margin(537) > 33%!

13. Voting Administration in the U.S. • Voting in the U.S. is conducted by the states • 50 states + DC + territories • Supervised by Secretaries of State through “elections bureau” • Process delegated to counties, supervised by county clerk • 3141 counties in the U.S. • ~170,000 precincts (wards, etc.), about 54/county • 205M eligible voters; 150M registered voters;105M actual voters; 1M poll workers • Federal government has only limited constitutional power over voting procedures • Certain “Federal offices,” e.g. U.S. Senator • Constitutional rights, e.g. “equal protection” • Can’t conduct elections

14. 2004 • Optical scan (34%) • DRE (31%) • Lever (14%) • Punched-card (14%) • Paper (1%) • Indeterminate: (6%) ? CARD DRE OPTICAL LEVER U.S. Voting Methods 2000-2004 2000 • Punched-card (32%) • Optical scan (28%) • Lever (16%) • DRE (12%) • Paper (1%) • Indeterminate: (11%) PAPER ? PUNCHED CARD DRE LEVER OPTICAL

17. 3. SUBMIT DEVICE AND SOFTWARE 4. CERTIFY DEVICE AND SOFTWARE 2. RECEIVE TOKEN A 1. PRESENTCREDENTIALS 5. FURNISH DEVICE TO COUNTY 6. FURNISH SOFTWARE VOTING DEVICE 12. PRESENT VOTING TOKEN B SETUP SLATE PRESENT SLATE 8. LOAD ELECTIONDATA 13. PRESENT SLATE 7. “BALLOT PROGRAMMING” 14. CAPTURE CHOICES CAPTURE VOTE 15. PROVIDE VERIFICATION 16. STORE VOTES 10. PRESENT TOKEN A 19. TRANSMIT TOTALS 11. RECEIVE VOTING TOKEN B RECORD VOTE 20. CERTIFY RESULTS ELECTION DAY 9. TURN ON DEVICE 17. TRANSMIT VOTES WINNERS TABULATION DEVICE The Voting Process REGISTRATION AUTHORITY CERTIFYING AUTHORITY VENDOR VOTER ELECTION AUTHORITY POLL AUTHORITY 18. TABULATE VOTES

18. Counting Punched Cards SOURCE: LOS ANGELES COUNTY

19. Vulnerabilities in the Process • Registration • Authentication of credentials • Registration of dead voters, voters who have moved, etc. • Registered voter tokens • Forgery • Transferability • Voting System Vendors • No requirements • No accountability • Tendency to hide behind trade secret claims to conceal defects • What’s in the software?

20. Vulnerabilities II • Certification • Role of “Independent Testing Authorities” • Federal Election Commission standards • Lack of meaningful state certification (usually check only for conformance to state law) • Lack of meaningful code review, source or object • Distribution and storage of machines • Vendor modifications and maintenance • Insider modifications and maintenance • Intruder access

21. Vulnerabilities III • Distribution and storage of software • Lack of central distribution • Presence of central distribution • Vendor, insider, intruder modification • Testing procedures • Ballot (slate) programming • Error • Delegation to vendor • Control over ballot programming (memory packs, etc.) • Connection between candidate names and voting positions

22. Vulnerabilities IV • Polling place procedures • Poll worker training • Testing procedures, verification of slate • Error recovery, irregularities, power failure • Voter education • Voting • Connection between registration token and vote? (Privacy) • Multiple voting • Tampering with machines, stuffing, alteration of ballots • Choice capture, confusion, early completion, fleeing voter • Verification • Vote storage, redundancy, ballot images

23. Vulnerabilities V • Transmission and tabulation of votes • How do they get to the tabulation device? • Authentication and accounting for memory packs • Avoiding multiple counting • Post-election procedures • Testing • Impound, custody over software, slate programming • Canvass • Retally • Recount

24. FEC Standards • Focus on mechanical reliability, not security • Example: Volume I Standard 6.4.2.,“Protection Against Malicious Software”: • “Voting systems shall deploy protection against the many forms of threats to which they may be exposed such as file and macro viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and logic bombs. Vendors shall develop and document the procedures to be followed to ensure that such protection is maintained in a current status.”

25. Complications • Ballot complexity, e.g. 135 candidates • Straight-party voting • Ballot (slate) rotation • Split precincts • Vote-for-many • Language • Write-in votes • Spoiled, invalid, damaged, defaced ballots • Open ballot • W.V. Constitution “In all elections by the people, the mode of voting shall be by ballot; but the voter shall be left free to vote by either open, sealed or secret ballot, as he may elect.”

26. Complications • Absentee voting • Early voting • Challenged voters • Disabled access, e.g. audio ballots • Huge variety of state-imposed requirements

27. What’s an Audit Trail? • Two types: • A. Record of voting system events, e.g. opening of polls • B. Record of ballot images • In Maryland, a voting system must be “be capable of creating a paper record of all votes cast in order that an audit trail is available in the event of a recount.” Md. Election Law § 9-102(c)(1)(vi) • This is done by storing complete ballot images in randomized order

28. What’s a Recount? • Purpose: “verify” that the original tabulation was correct • Three kinds of recounts: • A. Physical ballots exist: Count them again. • B. Computer records exist: Tabulate them again. • C. No physical ballots or computer records exist (e.g. lever machines): Read the counters again

29. MOST STATES REQUIRE NO STATES REQUIRE (except coercion is a crime) Desirable Voting System Characteristics • Secret • Accurate • Eligible voters • Vote once only • Tamper-proof • Reliable • Auditable • No vote-buying (receipt-free) • Verifiable • Non-coercible • Transparent

30. Role of Cryptography in Voting • Profound • BUT: • To be adopted, protocols must deal with ALL vulnerabilities, not just theoretically convenient ones • Transparency problem: not enough people understand cryptography or the claims made for it • Requires reliance on a small community of experts • Naming problem: few politicians will vote for “homomorphic” anything

31. Absentee Voting • Of the 105 million registered voters, ~ 5 million are unable to vote on Election Day because of inability to comply with absentee voting requirements • Almost 5% of the electorate wants to vote but can’t • Bush-Gore was decided by a margin of 0.01% in Florida, 1/500 of the non-voting absentee population • The biggest problem in voting is not tampering or paper trails, but how to include the absentees

32. Q A &

33. Voting Law Environment • U.S. Constitution • Federal law • State constitutions • State law • State administrative regulations • Local practices

34. Constitutional Review • Presidential elections: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.” U.S. Const. Art II, §1 • “The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.” U.S. Const. Art II, §1 • Tuesday after the first Monday in November 3 U.S. §1. • If no winner on election day, “the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may direct.” 3 U.S. §2.

35. Federal Election Comission • Role of the FEC in voting in the United States • None! • The FEC • enforces campaign financing laws • assists states with voter registration

36. Functions of a Voting System 1. Present candidates and issues to the voter (HCI) 2. Capture the voter’s preferences (HCI) 3. Transport preferences to counting location 4. Add up the vote totals (tabulation) 5. Publish the vote totals (reporting) 6. Provide audit mechanisms But: vote must be secret

37. X OVERVOTE CANCELS VOTE FOR MAYOR Paper (1.7%) • Ridiculous! • Requires manual counting • Easy fraud • Ballot stuffing • Invalidation SOURCE: TOMPKINS COUNTY, NY

38. Mark Sense, Optical Scan (24.6%) TIMING MARKS START OFBALLOT

39.  Mark-Sense, Optical Scan (24.6%) • Scanning methods • Visible light • Infrared • Issues: • Dark/light marks • Some scanners require carbon-based ink • Voter intent may not be captured by machine • Machine does not see what the human sees

40. Direct-Recording Electronic (7.7%) SOURCE: SHOUP VOTING SOLUTIONS

41. Direct-Recording Electronic (7.7%) SOURCE: SHOUP VOTING SOLUTIONS

42. Punched-Card Problems • Can’t see whom you’re voting for • Registration of card in ballot frame • Must use stylus: no positive feedback on punch • Hanging chad: chad that is partially attached to the card • How may corners? • Hanging chad causes count to differ every time • Dimple: chad that is completely attached but shows evidence of an attempt to punch • Dimple can turn into a vote on multiple readings

43. (PURPLE ANNOTATIONS ADDED) LINEAR FIT WITHOUT PALM BEACH, BROWARD, MIAMI-DADE Pinellas (St. Petersburg-Clearwater) Hillsborough (Tampa) Broward (Fort Lauderdale) Miami-Dade Orange (Orlando) Buchanan Vote by County (Florida, 2000) GRAPH COURTESY OF PROF. GREG ADAMS CARNEGIE MELLON & PROF. CHRIS FASTNOW CHATHAM COLLEGE SOURCE: PROF. GREG ADAMS

44. Election Contest • The certification of election or nomination of any person to office, or of the result on any question submitted by referendum, may be contested in the circuit court by any unsuccessful candidate for such office ... or by any taxpayer, respectively. • The grounds for contesting an election under this section are: ... . • (c) Receipt of a number of illegal votes or rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election. … • (e) Any other cause or allegation which, if sustained, would show that a person other than the successful candidate was the person duly nominated or elected to the office in question or that the outcome of the election on a question submitted by referendum was contrary to the result declared by the canvassing board or election board.”F.S. §102.168. • Successful challenge results in a “judgment of ouster.”

45. Recounts in Florida • If a candidate is defeated by 1/2% or less, the board responsible for certifying the results ... shall order a recount of the votes cast with respect to such office. F.S. §102.166(3)(c). Or: candidate may protest to county canvassing board • “If there is a discrepancy which could affect the outcome of an election, the canvassing board may recount the ballots on the automatic tabulating equipment.” F.S. §102.166(3)(c). • “The county canvassing board may authorize a manual recount.”F.S. §102.166(4)(c). • “Each duplicate ballot shall be compared with the original ballot to ensure the correctness of the duplicate.” F.S. §101.5615.

46. Manual Recount • “If the manual recount indicates an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election, the county canvassing board shall: • (a) Correct the error and recount the remaining precincts with the vote tabulation system; • (b) Request the Department of State to verify the tabulation software; or • (c) Manually recount all ballots.” F.S. §102.166(5) • “Procedures for a manual recount are as follows: • (a) The county canvassing board shall appoint as many counting teams of at least two electors as is necessary to manually recount the ballots. • (b) If a counting team is unable to determine a voter's intent in casting a ballot, the ballot shall be presented to the county canvassing board for it to determine the voter's intent.” F.S. §102.166(7)