I recently received this paper from Rui Joaquim, from the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa — INESC-ID. Rui was a participant in the Dagstuhl conference this past summer on electronic voting. Here is the abstract from their paper:

One of the major problems that prevent the widespread of Internet voting is the vulnerability of the voter’s computer. A computer connected to the Internet is exposed to virus, worms, spyware, malware and other threats that can endanger the election’s integrity. For instance, it is possible to write a virus that changes the voter’s vote to one predetermined vote on election’s day. It is possible to write such a virus so that the voter would not notice anything wrong with the voting application. This attack is very dangerous because it may pass undetected. To prevent such attack it is necessary to prevent automatic vote manipulation at voter’s computer. Here we present CodeVoting, a technique to create a secure communication channel to a smart card that prevents vote manipulation by the voter’s PC, while at the same time allows the use of any cryptographic voting protocol to protect the election’s integrity at the server side of the voting application.

As I was recently reading this paper, I realized that I’ve still not taken the time to write about the Dagstuhl conference, something I hope to do in the new year. Robert has written some about his experience at the conference, but I’ll get some of my reactions and comments posted sometime in the new year.

But one of the very interesting aspects of the Dagstuhl conference was the opportunity to meet researchers from outside the US, like Rui. There is a lot of interesting research being done outside the US these days on electronic voting, and it was a great pleasure to meet many of those researchers and to hear more about their work.

Rui is presenting this paper at a conference, so if you’d like to get a copy of this paper I suggest sending him an email (rjoaquim@cc.isel.ipl.pt).

The Washington Post has an interesting story today about the partisan nature of the argument over party identification and how that partisanship may also be playing out in the courts.

So the Uzbek’s are having an election and it is the best type possible. All four candidates have the same platform: re-elect the president!

I just got off the phone with the USA Today, checked my email, and Tova Wang dropped me this story from the St. Petersburg Times.

Even though the “official” date that absentee ballots are supposed to be mailed in Florida is a week away (Dec. 25th by my calculations), I guess, like tax day, that is just the deadline. County officials are getting those ballots out earlier. In fact, it looks like Florida law simply specifies the final date by which ballots should arrive, not any date before which they cannot be mailed.

Thus, according to one county official, “Everyone’s focused on Iowa and New Hampshire, but I can attest that as of Monday there are 604 people in Pasco that have already voted.” The Pasco absentee ballots were mailed on December 12th!

Are you wondering who those 604 voters are? I sure am, so I browsed right over to this website (https://doe.dos.state.fl.us/fvrscountyballotreports/fvrsefilings.aspx) but this provides access to the early in person and not the absentee ballot reports. To get to the absentee ballot requests (but not returns? why not?) you have to meet these criteria (Michael McDonald and I, not jokingly, once talked about registering so we could gain access):

• a canvassing board
• an election official
• a political party or official thereof
• a candidate who has filed qualification papers and is opposed in an upcoming election
• registered political committees
• registered committees of continuous existence

My dear friend Michael! Try a letter to Santa Claus. Post your wish list on Amazon. Do you really think Sarah reads your election blog??

I bought this for my “team” at EVIC: Design for Democracy: Ballot and Election Design (40.95 from Amazon).

Nothing quite says “Thanks for the year” like a book related to work!

There’s a recent paper published in the Journal of Politics, by Brad Gomez (Florida State), Thomas Hansford (UC-Merced), and George Krause (Pittsburgh). Gomez and colleagues undertake an interesting and thorough analysis of a common belief about voter turnout in the United States: that voter participation is influenced by the weather.

Brad Gomez has a pre-print of the published paper on his website, for those who do not have access to the Journal of Politics website.

Here’s the paper’s abstract:

The relationship between bad weather and lower levels of voter turnout is widely espoused by media, political practitioners, and, perhaps, even political scientists. Yet, there is virtually no solid empirical evidence linking weather to voter participation. This paper provides an extensive test of the claim. We examine the effect of weather on voter turnout in 14 U.S. presidential elections. Using GIS interpolations, we employ meteorological data drawn from over 22,000 U.S. weather stations to provide election day estimates of rain and snow for each U.S. county. We find that, when compared to normal conditions, rain significantly reduces voter participation by a rate of just less than 1% per inch, while an inch of snowfall decreases turnout by almost .5%. Poor weather is also shown to benefit the Republican party’s vote share. Indeed, the weather may have contributed to two Electoral College outcomes, the 1960 and 2000 presidential elections.

At about this time in the past, we’ve put up some ideas for holiday presents for those election geeks on your shopping list. This year I’ve found a few interesting holiday gifts, ones that I know Thad and Paul would both love to get this year.

First, for those election geeks on your shopping list who don’t have a Votomatic vote recorder with the Palm Beach butterfly ballot, here is a unique gift: for just $219.95, you can get one with an autographed letter from Dennis Kucinich!.

Or, what about a FRAMED Honorary Degree from “America’s most selective institution” — the Electoral College. All you have to do is pay $34.95, and provide the name and academic field of the your favorite election geek!

And for that election geek who loves a good board game, check out “Quo Vadis”! How can you not want to play this board game, given this exciting description: “Each player starts at the bottom of the political ladder, and tries to move up the board through the committees to reach the Senate. In true Roman fashion, the road to power is strewn with laurels; to win the player must reach the Senate and collect deals and promises, not all of which they have to keep. Players can also use Caesar’s favor to advance. But there is only room for five senators at the top….”

If that election geek on your list likes movies, especially foreign films with subtitles, take a look at the 2001 Iranian film, “Secret Ballot” (here is a link to it on amazon.com). This is a serious recommendation, I have actually shown this film to undergraduate students who enjoy it!

Finally, there’s the classic, “Point, Click and Vote.” Buy them while you can, especially before the major motion picture is released.

Happy Holidays!

This story in the Tri City Times (TN) reports on an elections system review undertaken by the Tennessee Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR). The Committee recommends:

• Use of VVPATs in Tennessee
• A pilot test of a full voting by mail system
• Strengthening auditing requirements and procedures

The memo referred to in the story can be read in full here (and the planning document is here.).

The recommendations appear to be based primarily on the results of a survey of county elections administrators in Tennessee. There are some interesting results in the survey (results are on pg 14-end).

Most county officials chose their voting system vendor on the basis of “simplicity” Opg. 17). 91% say they would choose the same vendor, if asked to do it again (pg. 14).

The biggest problem reported by officials: recruiting poll workers (pg. 15)

This may result in one of two of the most commonly suggested change in Tennessee’s election process–more absentee and early voting (to reduce pressures on election day). (The other change suggested by most officials was better tracking of UOCAVA voters, a heartening response, given the results of the recent EAC study.)

For those of you who don’t subscribe to the EAC press releases, this from Bryan Whitener

EAC Wrap-up from Austin, Texas

December 11, 2007 Public Meeting
Last week in Austin, Texas, the EAC held a public meeting and hosted meetings for its Board of Advisors and Standards Board. At the public meeting, Commissioner Rosemary Rodriguez was elected EAC chair, and Commissioner Caroline Hunter was elected vice-chair. Their terms begin in January 2008. The executive director and EAC staff provided year-end reports, and the executive director stated his intent to develop and issue internal procedures in January 2008 for the EAC’s Voting System Reports Clearinghouse. The director of the Voting System Testing and Certification Program announced that the draft Laboratory Accreditation Manual would be submitted for public comment.

The Commission voted unanimously to adopt the 2006 Election Administration and Voting Survey. (DISCLAIMER: I helped write this report). The Commission voted unanimously in favor of the EAC staff proposal to initiate the transfer of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) regulations from the Federal Election Commission. The Commission considered five requests from states to change the state instructions on the National Voter Registration Form. All five requests failed, with Commissioners Hillman and Rodriguez abstaining, citing the need to first adopt internal procedures regarding the processing of such requests. Commissioners Davidson and Hunter voted in favor of making the changes requested by the states. Click here for more information about the pending requests. The Commission discussed but did not consider an interim NVRA policy submitted by Commissioner Hillman.

To view the meeting agenda, related materials, proposals, and testimony, visit the December 11, 2007 Public Meeting page at http://www.eac.gov.

Standards Board and Board of Advisors Meetings
The Standards Board adopted 14 resolutions, and the Board of Advisors adopted 19 resolutions. These resolutions will be posted shortly on the Standards Board and Board of Advisors pages at www.eac.gov.

Roundtable Discussion
After the public meeting, EAC hosted a roundtable discussion about the proposed voluntary voting system guidelines. For more information, click here.

According to the Washington Post, John K. Tanner told his staff in a letter that he is moving to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices after nearly 32 years in the Voting Section.