Democratic Party PROUD of new Internet Voting Program for Overseas voters....

[2 Much Tribulation]

Few know that 50 internet votes were cast in Florida 2000 with a total of less than a hundred cast nationwide. But they were real votes. In 2004 a blue ribbon panel on Internet voting issued the SERVE report and, in what must be a record, a week later the military TERMINATED internet voting in the SERVE program.

But it's back, now, via none other than the Democratic Party. {sigh. sigh} I mean, even pro-computer folks, most of 'em, agree that internet voting just doesn't cut it.

See http://www.modbee.com/2028/story/186655.html

snip
Democrats Abroad, an official branch of the party representing overseas voters, will hold its first global presidential preference primary from Feb. 5 to 12, with ex-pats selecting the candidate of their choice by Internet as well as fax, mail and in-person at polling places in more than 100 countries.

Democrats Abroad is particularly proud of the online voting option - which provides a new alternative to the usual process of voting from overseas, a system made difficult by complicated voter registration paperwork, early deadlines and unreliable foreign mail service.

"The online system is incredibly secure: That was one of our biggest goals," said Lindsey Reynolds, executive director of Democrats Abroad. "And it does allow access to folks who ordinarily wouldn't get to participate."

U.S. citizens wanting to vote online must join Democrats Abroad before Feb. 1 and indicate their preference to vote by Internet instead of in the local primaries wherever they last lived in the United States. They must promise not to vote twice for president, but can still participate in non-presidential local elections.

snip

For an excerpt on the SERVE report and a link to the rest, see immediately below:

A Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic
Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE)

January 20, 2004
http://www.servesecurityreport.org/

Authors
Dr. David Jefferson
Dr. Aviel D. Rubin
Dr. Barbara Simons
Dr. David Wagner

EXCERPT
Our conclusions are summarized as follows:

DRE (direct recording electronic) voting systems have been widely criticized elsewhere for various deficiencies and security vulnerabilities: that their software is totally closed and proprietary; that the software undergoes insufficient scrutiny during qualification and certification; that they are especially vulnerable to various forms of insider (programmer) attacks; and that DREs have no voter-verified audit trails (paper or otherwise) that could largely circumvent these problems and improve voter confidence. All of these criticisms, which we endorse, apply directly to SERVE as well.

But in addition, because SERVE is an Internet- and PC-based system, it has numerous other fundamental security problems that leave it vulnerable to a variety of well-known cyber attacks (insider attacks, denial of service attacks, spoofing, automated vote buying, viral attacks on voter PCs, etc.), any one of which could be catastrophic.

Such attacks could occur on a large scale, and could be launched by anyone from a disaffected lone individual to a well-financed enemy agency outside the reach of U.S. law. These attacks could result in large-scale, selective voter disenfranchisement, and/or privacy violation, and/or vote buying and selling, and/or vote switching even to the extent of reversing the outcome of many elections at once, including the presidential election. With care in the design, some of the attacks could succeed and yet go completely undetected. Even if detected and neutralized, such attacks could have a devastating effect on public confidence in elections.

It is impossible to estimate the probability of a successful cyber-attack (or multiple successful attacks) on any one election. But we show that the attacks we are most concerned about are quite easy to perpetrate. In some cases there are kits readily available on the Internet that could be modified or used directly for attacking an election. And we must consider the obvious fact that a U.S. general election offers one of the most tempting targets for cyber-attack in the history of the Internet, whether the attacker's motive is overtly political or simply self-aggrandizement.

The vulnerabilities we describe cannot be fixed by design changes or bug fixes to SERVE. These vulnerabilities are fundamental in the architecture of the Internet and of the PC hardware and software that is ubiquitous today. They cannot all be eliminated for the foreseeable future without some unforeseen radical breakthrough.{...}

[Wilms]

1. Thanks for posting this.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party doesn't quite understang the dangers of evoting. Not that the overblown reaction to NH's result helps them realize that there really is a concern.

[EFerrari]

2. Weren't those ballots too late to be counted in 2004?

They probably see this as a work around.

I wouldn't worry too much about NH. That recount might remind elections officials that there is now a community of voters paying attention and that can't hurt. If I were a rich person, I'd work on finding a way to challenge the result of every primary held using evoting.

[2 Much Tribulation]

4. I worry about New Hampshire -- worry that people think recounts that are clean mean elections clean.

ANd that's just not true. As someone recently pointed out somewhere, a stuffed ballot box creates a stuffed first count, and you can recount that as many times as you like, and the recount will always match the stuffed count in the first place, and you'll never figure it out that way. Other investigations besides recounts need to happen before we can say if an election investigation can say "clean election" or not.

I don't think any investigation is overblown, ever. Why not get the facts? Of course the allegations shouldn't be exaggerated but we shouldn't need a lot to look into whether things are on the up and up especially when the counts are secretive in the first place on the machines.

[Stevepol]

5. It's not at all certain that the NH recount was clean.

The chain of custody, according to observers, wasn't clear at all, the memory cards were routinely mishandled.

And the fact that Kucinich had to pay to get a recount when an audit should be required, that is, if we want a democracy, indicates the system is in dire straits.

My hope is that every election is challenged and goes to court. Every last one of the them, no matter who wins.

[2 Much Tribulation]

6. I agree, just sayin' that even a clean recount don't prove a clean election 'is all... nt

[Wilms]

8. I don't disagree with you.

And you made the point I should have that a lot more needs to be known before we'll know much for sure.

I doesn't seem as though the affair was handled well enough (including a lack of a recount of the entire state). Perhaps it couldn't have been. Indeed Tobi recommended steering clear of a 'trap'. Now I wonder if it is one, and of our own making.

Investigation is not overblown. But the hyperbole and partisanship the effort suffered was not in the interest of truth and justice.

[mod mom]

3. At this point, they are either seriously naive or complicit with their silence.

There is certainly enough info out there to raise alarm.

[EFerrari]

7. GD discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2731720&mesg_id=2731720

[tbyg52]

9. Isn't this ridiculous?

I posted this on the election news Monday - the only reason I didn't put a "WTF" comment on it is that my computer was malfunctioning and I was very tired....

[EFerrari]

10. It is. And thanks to you posters, the word got out to DUer expats.

Thank you so much.