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Statistical Issues in Elections
Open Letter From The American Statistical Association
Wednesday 25 October 2006
Between races for the U.S. House of
Representatives, Senate and governorships there will
be over 500 major elections this fall, and thousands
more local and state races. On November 8th, many
Americans will wake up not knowing whether a candidate
they voted for won. Projecting from past experience,
we can expect between five to twenty federal elections
and dozens of local elections to be within plus or
minus 2% - too close to call given current technology.
Procedures for resolving the uncertainty should be
thought about now, before partisans start arguing for
methods that seem likely to benefit them.
Statisticians can help develop credible procedures.
Trustworthy elections require transparent
processes with limited opportunity for error or abuse.
Elections entail many steps, from determining voting
eligibility, to casting, recording, tallying and
reporting the vote. To improve the quality of complex
processes, America has often called on statisticians
such as Walter Shewhart in the 1920s or W. Edwards
Deming in the 1970s and 1980s.
The starting point to thinking statistically is to
identify all the steps, especially those most
susceptible to problems. As we complete our third
Federal election cycle since the difficulties of the
2000 elections, we know there are some big problems.
For example, a team funded by the National Science
Foundation tested the 5 commercially-dominant voting
systems and a University of Maryland prototype, asking
each of 1,540 participants to "vote" for an assigned
candidate. No system got better than 98.5% correct
votes, leaving a 1.5% margin of error!
In this brief letter, I address only the accuracy
of the votes to be cast next month, although for the
future, improvements to other parts of the process may
matter more. Here are two things, neither easy, but
largely doable, and important, to work on for this
November:
* Only real recounts (cross-checking paper records
against official tabulations), not just rereading
machine totals, will resolve close elections.
* Conducting random audits in all localities will
help maintain honesty, enable a factual description of
this election's accuracy, and provide the data needed
for doing better in 2008.
For more information related to improving the
process of an election please contact former ASA
President Dr. Fritz Scheuren at 202-320-3446 or our
ASA Science and Public Affairs Advisory Committee
Chair Dr. David Marker at 301-251-4398.
Sincerely,
Sallie Keller-McNulty, PhD.
President, American Statistical Association
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From Slashdot Nov 6, 2006:
An anonymous reader writes,
"Cryptographer David Chaum and his research team have invented a new voting protocol which allows voters to verify that their vote has been correctly cast and counted.
This is enabled using a surprisingly low-tech technique of cryptographic secret sharing. The secret - marked ballot - is split into two halves using a hole punch"
You take half home and can verify later via a Web interface how your particular ballot was counted.
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There is a documentary on HBO right now Nov 2006 called
"Hacking Democracy".
This documents Bev Harris of Black Box voting investigating elevtion Fraud and electronic voting. Everyone in America NEEDS to see this!!!
Information Technology and Voting - Slashdot
Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine
From Slashdot March 6, 2006:
An anonymous reader writes "Even though
many American voters are ready for open source systems at the polls,
Newsforge (a Slashdot sister site) has an interesting story about why
open source may not be ready for the polls.
From the article: 'The only open source e-voting effort that Rubin [an
e-voting expert] noted was the Open Voting Consortium (OVC). "I don't
agree with everything they are doing, but they are all about
transparency and open source," Rubin said. OVC President and CEO Alan
Dechert says it would take a large investment of time and money to
provide an alternative to traditional e-voting systems vendors, but he
says an effort known as Open Voting Solutions (OVS) is looking to do
just that.'"
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----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2006 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: Response from Senator Murray
Dear Ms. Murray,
Thank you for your thorough reply and your sincere interest in this
important issue. I agree with you, especially on the inadequacy of the
electronic voting system, particularly the desperate need in a clear paper
trail. I have come across other, different simple solutions, and a colleague
of mine has developed a very efficient and secure E-voting method (see
http://www.mailclad.com/ ). In any case, the next election is approaching
fast, and if nobody is screaming and crying about this, by the time of the
elections, when people will recall the voting shame of 2004, it will be too
late to introduce new and/or fraud-proof methods. Ignoring the voting
problem is more than hiding our heads in the sand (in order not to see) - it
is a symptom of a deeper regression, I am afraid. [Looking at the amazing
failures of the fraud-prone voting system and Katherina (the loss of a major
US city such as New Orleans!), one may wonder whether the US is
becoming just another third-world country, with a few privileged hunters and
millions of slaves...]. It is clearly in the interest of many currently privileged
people (under the current administration) to do nothing about the voting
system, and rather let the people continue sleeping. But this may be our
last chance to stay a Democracy (if it is not already too late). This is why
I am pleading with you to do whatever you can to raise this urgent issue
in any forum possible, and make this change happen.
Thanks again for your time and for your thorough approach.
Sincerely yours,
S O.
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----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2006 2:30 PM
Subject: Response from Senator Murray
Dear Dr. O:
Thank you for contacting me with your
concerns regarding electronic voting. It is good to hear from you.
As
you know, the 2000 presidential election raised questions about whether
changes are needed in the voting technologies used in the United States, and
about the role of the federal government in the decision. Currently, five
different kinds of voting technologies are used: hand- counted paper ballots,
mechanical lever machines, computer punch cards, mark-sense forms and direct
recording electronic (DRE) systems. Concerns have been raised about
several of these technologies, including ballot design, voter errors, and
counting accuracy. The primary concerns have been raised about electronic
voting machines.
The administration and production of these machines
must uphold the impartial nature of the voting system. This is why I am
concerned about verifying the votes made using DRE machines. Electronic
systems provide no way for a voter, or election officials, to verify that a
cast ballot corresponds to the vote being recorded. Noting the potential flaws
inherent in this process, many have argued that the existence of a voter
verified paper trail is a critical safeguard for the accuracy, integrity, and
security of computer-assisted elections.
As you know, the Help America
Vote Act currently requires that a permanent paper record be produced for the
voting system and that the record be available as an official record for a
recount, although it does not require that the paper record consist of
individual ballots or that the paper record be used in recounts. Several
different bills were introduced during the 109th Congress to amend the Help
America Vote Act by requiring a voter-verified ballot, including: S. 450, the
Count Every Vote Act of 2005, S. 330, the Voting Integrity and Verification
Act of 2005, and H.R. 550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility
Act of 2005. If legislation concerning this issue comes to the Senate
floor, I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind.
I share
your concerns about the integrity of our voting system. I believe that the
right to vote is one of the most sacred rights of American citizenship and
ensuring that votes are counted is essential to our democracy. Rest assured, I
will be paying close attention to this matter as it unfolds.
Again,
thank you for contacting me with your concerns. If I can be of assistance in
the future, please do not hesitate to contact me
again.
Sincerely,
Patty Murray
United States
Senator
P.S. I'd like to invite you to receive Patty Murray's
Washington View, my weekly legislative update by e-mail. If you are
interested in receiving my update, please sign up here: http://murray.senate.gov/updates.
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Voting Technology - NPR sciencefriday Podcast - 2005111112
Web Site Fri, 11 Nov 2005 20:02:00 GMT
With this week's elections behind us, we'll get an update on the state of voting technology across the country. Increasingly, communities are moving to the use of electronic voting systems for their elections, moving away from paper punch cards and mechanical lever systems. Are concerns about security flaws in electronic voting systems any closer to being resolved?
Download MP3 Here
duration 12:07
Code Breaking
Why standard Encrytion is not good enough.
Amateur Cracks Secret Nazi Code this was done by the M4 Project that uses distributed PC's.
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