e Voting

Josh Gold

The Impetus

• Florida recount • 36 days

Funding

• The 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) – Authorized 4 billion in federal spending – Help disabled vote – doesn ’ t mandate states use all computer machines till after 2006

Problems with HAVA

• FEC Complaints: – l ack of a requirement that vote tallies be independently auditable – the allowance non-inspected trade-secret code – Less oversight than Vegas slot machines

Controversy

• Internal leaked memo from Diebold CEO Walden O'Del promising Bush the election • Cracking the Code • Hacking into VoteHere Inc Computer system • California Gubernatorial recall

Electronic or Paper?

• Nevada only state that mandated a paper trail for e ballots in 2004 election

Verification

• Mercuri Method (Rebecca Mercuri) • "voter verified paper ballot" (VVPB) – assures ability for independent audit • Vs.

• "voter verifiable audit trail" (VVAT) – self-auditing: relies on electronic record, not proven

The Sky Did Not Fall

• Predictions of rigging • Fears machines would crash • Electronic voting machines made up less than 6 percent of the 27,500 incidents

• • • • • • •

Manufacturers

Avante International Technology, Inc.

AccuPoll ~VVPB Accenture Cardamation Election.com

Election Systems and Software DFM Associates

• • • •  • • • •

Manufacturers cont.

Diebold Election Systems, Inc.

Hart Intercivic Peripheral Dynamics Safevote Sequoia Pacific Systems Smartmatic TruVote International, Inc VoteHere.net, Voting Technologies International

The AccuVote-TS

• Built by Diebold • Designed like an ATM machine • Electronically transmitted to network hub • Voters insert a smart card and make their choices by touching an area on the computer screen.

The Avante Vote Trakker

• Unique: Automatically produces a paper printout of the voters' choice • Votes also written onto internal flash memory card • Votes burnt onto a cd-rom for later being counted

The AVC Edge and the AVC Advantage

• The Edge uses a touch screen • The Advantage uses a matrix of touch sensitive switches to record votes.

• Votes saved on flash memory card • Both made by Sequoia

The Hart InterCivic eSlate 3000

• Uses a select wheel to scroll through the choice of candidates • Connects to a booth which activates the machine for each voter and stores the votes.

• • •

2004 Election

33-43% voters cast e ballots 14-17% Punch cards 34-45% optical ballots

Global Applications

• Venezuela • Chavez Recall • Smartmatic Corp.

• Australia • Open Software • Company: Software Improvements

The Future

• Paperless Balloting? • Internet Balloting?

– In 2000 the U.S. DoDefense spent $6.2M so that 84 voters could cast ballots via the internet – SERVE project for military personnel and overseas citizens • initially targeted to be used in 2004 Presidential election

Works Cited

• www.aitechnology.com/votetrakker2/ • http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3666898.stm

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3970837.stm

• http://news.com.com/More+e voting+glitches+surface/2100-1002_3 5440809.html

• http://www.fec.gov/hava/hava.htm

Works Cited cont.

• http://www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html

• http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,61 045,00.html