Hey, Sal, thanks for the help. More info for you. Below is the text of a letter we sent over a month ago. Also, see our committee report here:
http://www.pimademocrats.org/votingreport/votingintegrity.htmLet me know if you get any media interest. I am trying the same here in Tucson. If we could get Jim Pederson on board it would sure help. Note our cc list on the letter.
Pima County Democratic Party
Committee on Pima County Electronic & Computerized
Vote Counting Procedures & Safeguards
c/o Pima County Democratic Party Headquarters
4639 E. 1st St., Tucson, AZ 85717
August 10, 2003
Representative Ben Miranda
Democratic Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee
Arizona House of Representatives
1700 W. Washington Street, Ste. H
Phoenix, AZ 85007-2844
Attachments:
A. Request for Proposal: OCR and DRE Voting Equipment -- Statewide: Solicitation No.: AD030150
B. Hopkins Report (
http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf)
C. Harris Report (
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm)
D. Report on Pima County Electronic Vote Counting Procedures & Safeguards (
http://www.pimademocrats.org/votingreport/votingintegrity.htm)
E. Certification process problems
F. Hopkins response to Diebold rebuttal. (
http://avirubin.com/vote/response.html)
Dear Representative Miranda,
We are writing to express our deep concerns about the Request for Proposal: OCR and DRE Voting Equipment -- Statewide: Solicitation No.: AD030150 (Attachment A), and to recommend urgently needed legislative changes in Arizona election law to improve election security. Submissions for the RFP were due July 28, 2003, and the systems to be purchased are slated to be in place and operational by the February 2004 Presidential Primaries. Hence, these matters are timely and important.
There are four areas of concern:
1. Currently there are no election systems available that comply with the 2002 Federal Election Standards.
2. Diebold, Inc. is a finalist bidder on the RFP. Two recently released reports have exposed serious security holes in the Diebold election software already in use in Arizona and now being offered in response to the RFP.
3. Legislative reform of Arizona election law is urgently needed to ensure the integrity of future Arizona elections.
4. Emergency measures are required to protect the integrity of any elections conducted on Diebold software in the near term.
Allow us to discuss these issues in turn.
1. Lack of Compliance with 2002 Federal Election Standards. The RFP states that the new equipment and software must comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA). HAVA adopted, as voluntary guidelines, the 2002 Federal Election Standards. The list of election systems found on the National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED) web site only includes systems qualified under the old 1990 standards, which are obsolete, especially with respect to election security. There are currently no systems available that comply with the 2002 Federal Standards. It makes no sense for the State of Arizona to pay tens of millions of dollars for software that is not state-of-the-art and does not comply with the latest standards.
2. Diebold Election Software Security Flaws. HAVA RFP item 5.4.7.3, concerning security, asks: “Has the system experienced any security-related exposures? If so, describe the exposures and what corrections were made." The Hopkins Report (Attachment B) and the Harris Report (Attachment C) have recently exposed serious security flaws in Diebold election software. Both studies came about because of a security failure at Diebold that resulted in software source code and other supporting files being available for months on an unprotected Internet web site. Although the site has since shut down, the software was copied to numerous public sites.
The Hopkins report focuses on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen systems, revealing multiple serious security flaws. Diebold issued a rebuttal but the Hopkins researchers say it often misses the point and does not address many of the report’s most serious findings. (See Attachment F: Hopkin’s Response to Diebold rebuttal). Diebold admits that some of the problems described in the original Hopkins report do exist with the system.
The Harris report addresses the Global Election Management System (GEMS) software used at multiple locations in Arizona in conjunction with Diebold’s optical scan system. The Harris Report found hidden backdoors, multiple sets of vote total “books” being kept, and code containing a way to change the audit trail. An audit trail is supposed to automatically log any activity and any change, and is promoted by Diebold as proof its system is secure. The inclusion of code to allow one to alter the vote totals and erase any evidence of having done so, is so far out of compliance with NASED standards and basic programming security protocol that its mere presence calls for an official investigation into how the Diebold system ever got certified in the first place.
Diebold has not issued any statement on the Harris report.
Without detailed public disclosure of the full nature and extent of these security breaches, and detailed proof of successful implementation of remedies, we strongly believe that Diebold’s bid should be disqualified. Further, we believe Diebold software currently in use in Arizona should be temporarily decertified until fully re-qualified under 2002 Federal Standards. Any elections required prior to such replacement could be issued special permits from the SoS to use the current Diebold system if the emergency security measures described below are used.
Further, in light of questions and concerns raised in this letter, we strongly recommend a thorough review of all vendor proposals with respect to election security and integrity, the rejection of any not producing voter-verified paper ballots, and the delay of any procurements until vendors and testing authorities can demonstrate the integrity of their systems.
3. Legislation Needed to Improve Security. Our report on election safeguards in Pima County (Attachment D) called for certain legislative reforms. We feel those listed below are the minimum required to ensure the integrity of the vote in future Arizona elections in the face of the new threats and challenges posed by technological developments.
A) Arizona law (ARS 16-444, A6) requires electronic voting systems to record votes on a paper ballot. Legislation is needed to require that the ballot be voter-verified. With the optical scan system, the ballot is already voter-verified, but this would not be the case with a DRE device (touch screen), unless it prints a paper ballot that is then voter-verified on the spot and placed in a secure box to be used for manual counts and recounts. Without a voter-verified paper ballot, there is no way to do a valid recount, electronic or manual.
B) Make the voter-verified paper ballot the legal document of record in all elections. Currently, ARS Title 16 makes the machine count the document of record.
C) Require manual counts in a sufficient number of precincts to establish a high likelihood of detecting scanning and counting errors, or fraudulent manipulation. This would probably entail a count of no more than ten to fifteen percent of the precincts.
D) Allow candidates to obtain manual counts and/or recounts at their own, or their campaign’s, expense.
Items C and D provide strong disincentives to electronic tampering. It is worth noting that Rep. Holt (D-NJ) introduced H.R. 2239, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 which would amend HAVA to require a paper record of votes, bans the use of undisclosed software, and calls for mandatory hand counts in a small fraction of jurisdictions. It now has 29 co-sponsors.
4) Emergency Measures for Near Term Elections. Tucson has city elections coming up in September and November. Other cities in Arizona using Diebold systems may be facing similar elections. It is important to safeguard the integrity of these elections as best we can. Although we believe the existing Diebold software should not have been certified, and that, in the wake of recent public disclosures about its flaws, it will almost certainly have to be decertified, we believe there is a way to work around the deficiencies in the near term. The following two procedures plug the holes we know to exist, and if implemented, will provide an acceptable temporary measure of election security:
For each polling place and each candidate or issue in each race, compare the polling machine paper summary tally with the final output of the GEMS system (equivalent to a canvass). This procedure checks GEMS as well as the electronic communications between polling places and GEMS.
Perform manual ballot counts in a small fraction (say 10-15%) of polling places to validate the polling machine summary tallies. This procedure checks the optical scanner and its vote accumulation software. With these two measures, we can significantly increase the chance of detecting tampering.
Recent reports on Diebold software have shown weaknesses in software security, but more importantly, they have revealed weaknesses in the procedures set up to certify election software (See Attachment E). Arizona voters can no longer be sure any NASED-qualified election system is secure and accurate. Such a state of affairs calls out for prompt and thorough reform.
Without decertification of Diebold software and recertification to 2002 Federal Standards, and without legislative reform as called for in our report, along with significant reform of the certification process; the emergency measures we are suggesting here equate to no more than a temporary fix at best. The lure of the treasure we are trying to keep safe is very strong. Do we really want to trust our national heritage to jury-rigged election systems? And do we really want to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on inferior products?
We urge expeditious action on these matters. Please contact us for additional information.
Sincerely Yours,
Pima County Democratic Party
Committee on Electronic and Computerized Vote Counting Procedures and Safeguards
(names deleted because I don't have permission to post them)
CC’s:
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard
Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer
Arizona State Director of Elections
California Secretary of State
Chairman, Arizona State Democratic Party
Chairman, Pima County Democratic Party
Pima County Recorder
Pima County Director of Elections
Pima County Board of Supervisors
Tucson Director of Elections
Tucson City Council