Recently the U.S. Election Assistance Commission released a new "quick start" guide: "Quick Start Management Guide for Voting System Security." This is part of the EAC's effort to release management guideline information for election officials between now and the 2008 election. The guideline has quick advice for election officials on software security, policies and procedures, password maintenance, physical security, personnel security, and the security of the voting devices themselves.

There was a story in the our local San Gabriel Valley newspapers this morning about some questions raised about the new "InkaVote Plus" system that will be rolled out in Los Angeles County this fall. The interesting question raised in the story regards the international ownership of one of the firms whose technology is used in the InkaVote Plus system:

Under a deal the county signed earlier this summer, the InkaVote Plus system by Election Systems & Software includes ballot counters and software at 4,900 precincts throughout the region.

The system uses technology developed by Unisyn Voting Solutions, a subsidiary of Carlsbad-based International Lottery & Totalizator Systems Inc.

Berjaya Lottery Management, a Hong Kong-based firm that operates gambling establishments and casinos, owns 71percent of the outstanding voting stock of International Lottery, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents.

Of course, this comes on the heels of debate about the ownership of Sequoia Voting Systems, which we wrote about in June.

I had to blink 20 times after reading just the headline from this story in the Christian Science Monitor. In fact, I have pasted it as I saw it--in big type--since I doubt you will believe this either when you first see it.

Maybe election day won't be a fiasco after all

Here is the key meat of the story, in which they quote our friend Charles Stewart extensively:

Election experts have no trouble painting doomsday scenarios in which control of the House boils down to one or two close races that are thrown into recounts and legal wrangling that drag on for weeks, even into January - which could leave it up to the current Republican majority to decide whom to seat and whom not to seat.

"But that would have to be a perfect storm," says Edward Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University.

In fact, experts report the system is improving overall, even as intense scrutiny of problems threatens to undermine voter confidence in the accuracy of elections. An analysis published earlier this year by Charles Stewart, head of the political science department at MIT, found that a reduction in the "residual vote rate" - blank votes and over-votes in which too many votes are cast - led to the counting of an additional 1 million ballots in 2004, compared with 2000.

Three of the four states with big declines - Florida, Georgia, and Illinois - had made significant upgrades in their voting machines in the intervening years, and it is likely that those upgrades were a major factor, Mr. Stewart says. Florida alone saw a decline in blank votes and over-votes from 2.9 percent to 0.4 percent.

"The positive message I'm trying to bring is that if we focus on a particular problem, we can make progress," says Stewart. The problem with voting machines "hasn't been perfectly handled, but bottom line, more people were enfranchised as a consequence of what we did over the last four years."

New machines, which featured improved interface with voters and no more hanging chads, were not the only reason for improvement, Stewart notes. States with lowered residual vote rates had also done a better job of training poll workers. And voters knew to be more careful as they voted, after the problems in 2000.

The New York Times has the following story:

Three Senate Democrats proposed emergency legislation on Tuesday to reimburse states for printing paper ballots in case of problems with electronic voting machines on Nov. 7.

The proposal is a response to grass-roots pressures and growing concern by local and state officials about touch-screen machines. An estimated 40 percent of voters will use those machines in the election.

“If someone asks for a paper ballot, they ought to be able to have it,” said Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a co-sponsor of the measure with Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin.

Republican leadership aides were skeptical about the prospects for the measure. It would have to advance without opposition from any senator and then make it through the House in the short time available before Election Day.

Dozens of states are using optical-scan and touch-screen machines to comply with federal laws intended to phase out lever and punch-card machines after the hanging-chads confusion of the 2000 presidential election. Widespread problems were reported with the new technology and with the poll workers using them this year in primaries in Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio and elsewhere.

Local and state officials have expressed concern that the new systems might not be ready to handle increased turnouts. Election experts fear that the lack of a paper trail with most touch-screen machines will leave no way to verify votes in case of fraud or computer failure.

There were voter ID stories everywhere today. The New York Times has a great piece on the impact of voter ID requirements on voters in Arizona and elsewhere. To get a sense of the impact of the law in Arizona, consider this from the Times story:

In Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest in population, election officials said that 35 percent of new registrations were rejected for insufficient proof of citizenship last year and that 17 percent had been rejected so far this year. It is not known how many of the rejected registrants were not citizens or were unable to prove their citizenship because they had lost or could not locate birth certificates and other documents.

Spencer Overton, who will be attending the VTP conference on voter identification and registration in Boston, was on Talk of the Nation talking about IDs as well. The show's tease (from the NPR website) says:

You need photo identification to board a plane, write a check, even to enter some government buildings, so why not to vote? To supporters, a proposal to require photo ID at the voting booth is a way to reduce fraud. To critics, it's a 21st century poll tax.

I recently posted a notice of a program on NOW (PBS) that discussed absentee balloting.
David Brancaccio must have elections on his mind, because there have been a series of other elections related broadcasts.

Here is the list:

This week: "Taking the Initiative" profiles Howard Rich, a wealthy New Yorker who is bankrolling initiatives all over the country (including at least two in my home state of Oregon).

Previous elections related shows:

2006
Blog the Vote (September 15, 2006) Are political blogs influencing elections?

Down for the Count (September 8, 2006) Will new voting machines cause an Election Day debacle?

Block the Vote (September 1, 2006) Is your right to vote safe? New laws designed to prevent voter fraud may keep minorities, the poor, and the disabled away from the polls.


All these shows are available as podcasts.

Rick Hasen mentioned a paper on his Election Law listserv (http://electionlawblog.org/archives/006819.html) but the link is broken.

Go to http://www.allacademic.com and search on this string: " Protecting the Franchise, or Restricting it? The Effects of Voter Identification Requirements on Turnout" and you will find the paper by Timothy Vercollitti and David Andersen of Rutgers University.

The key finding is presented on page 11:

In each model, three of the voter identification requirements exert a statistically significant, negative effect on whether survey respondents said they had voted in 2004. In other words, compared to states that require voters only to state their names, the requirements to sign one’s name, provide a non-photo identification, or photo identification in the maximum requirements or affidavit in the minimum requirements exert a negative influence on turnout.

Of the other state-level factors, only the competitiveness of the presidential race had a significant effect on turnout. In terms of demographic influences, African-American voters were more likely than white voters or other voters to say they had cast a ballot, while Asian-Americans were less likely than white or other voters to say they had turned out. Hispanic voters were not statistically different from white or other voters in terms of reported turnout. Consistent with previous research, education, income, and marital status all were positive predictors of voting. Women also were more likely to say they voted than men. Among the age categories, those ages 45 to 64 and 65 and older were more likely than those ages 18 to 24 to say they voted. Respondents who had earned a high school diploma, attended some college, graduated from college or attended graduate school were all more likely to say they voted than those who had not finished high school. Respondents who had moved within six months before the interview were less likely to say they had voted.

There are so many articles out right now regarding electronic voting and the upcoming election that I thought it might be helpful to provide links and summaries to these works:

Talk of the Nation, September 22, 2006: As the election season begins in earnest, guests discuss the technology of voting machines. How can designers improve security, reliability, and usability?

The New York Times, September 24, 2006: One brand of machine leads in market share by a sizable margin: the AccuVote, made by Diebold Election Systems. Two weeks ago, however, Diebold suffered one of the worst kinds of public embarrassment for a company that began in 1859 by making safes and vaults. Edward W. Felten, a professor of computer science at Princeton, and his student collaborators conducted a demonstration with an AccuVote TS and noticed that the key to the machine’s memory card slot appeared to be similar to one that a staff member had at home.

The Washington Post, September 24, 2006: The widely publicized failure in Prince George's County to electronically transmit results from many polls after the Sept. 12 primary was compounded by a host of other errors, including failure to swiftly collect the data cards on which some votes are recorded and to properly secure voting machines. The last of the cards were not retrieved and counted until nine days after the balloting -- several from inside electronic voting machines from a Landover precinct where Robert J. McGinley, the county elections board's attorney, said security procedures were "just blatantly not followed."

The Washington Post, September 22, 2006: Faced with intense opposition to his proposal to switch from electronic voting machines to paper ballots, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) yesterday urged voters to stay away from polling places during the November general election and instead cast paper absentee ballots....The plan was denounced by some Democrats who said it was another attempt by the governor, who is up for reelection, to boost his candidacy by suppressing voter turnout and sowing doubts about the state's electronic voting system.