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The Voting News Weekly for July 18-24, 2011

Monday, 25 July 2011, 5:10 pm
Column: Voting News

The Voting News Weekly for July 18-24, 2011

Tallinn Calls in Expert to Denounce E-Voting | ERR

Youth, especially students, will face new challenges in states that have passed restrictive voter ID laws, many of which specifically exclude student IDs as accepted forms of identification. Estonia's internet voting system continues to be questioned. After two recounts, the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court threw out the election for chief and called for a re-vote. Fox News offered an editorial in support of Voter ID laws, while Congressional Democrats voiced their concerns to the Department of Justice. The hardships that some individuals will face in order to vote in South Carolina were are described in an article in The State. Election integrity activists, with the support of the Secretary of State, stopped a bill that would have allow the electronic submission of voted ballots through email in California. And the Thai election commission certified Yingluck Shinawatra's election as MP, setting the stage for her to become that nation's first female Prime Minister.

Jul 23, 2011 07:11 am

Youth Vote Faces Challenges With Voter ID Legislation | The Nation

Voter fraud is an “epidemic.” It abounds, stealing elections from rightful candidates and places losers into unearned elected office. Republican dominated statehouses across the country are “combating” this problem through strict voter ID legislation, where a government-issued photo identification is required in order to vote. Seven states have already enacted legislation requiring state-issued photo ID at the polls and many more are pending.

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One of the states, Wisconsin, enacted what Milwaukee Common Council Alderwoman Milele Coggs accurately called “the most restrictive voter ID legislation in the country.” It requires photo IDs issued by the state or federal government and only allows a forgetful voter’s provisional ballot to count if they return within three days with a proper ID.

College students are some of the unintended—or intended—citizens affected by the law. They broke for Barack Obama in 2008 by an astonishing 38 points and remained loyal to Democrats in 2010 by wide margins.

The Wisconsin law does allow limited student IDs to be used as valid identification at the polls — but only those student IDs with signatures and expiration dates within two years on them. But IDs issued by the University of Wisconsin System to its 182,000 students do not have signatures. And no university has such an ID with expiration dates within two years, Heather Smith, the president of the young voter advocacy group Rock the Vote explained to The Nation.

Students would also have to jump through hoops to prove that they are current students, especially difficult for those living off-campus and those who must move every year among campus dormitories. The obstacles “start to feel intentional after awhile,” Smith said.

In Texas, student IDs are unacceptable forms of identification under the voter suppression law recently signed by Governor Rick Scott. On the other hand, concealed handgun licenses are valid.

Even having valid IDs from another state may not be enough. For the more than 40,000 out-of-state students in the University of Wisconsin system, the law “require[s] us to go to the DMV, surrender our out-of-state licenses and obtain a Wisconsin license at $28 a pop,” wrote one Wisconsin undergraduate on the Rock the Vote Blog. A state-issued voter ID card is technically free but it may take money and time to produce the proper documentation such as a birth certificate.

Access to the DMV is limited in states like Wisconsin, Smith said. Three of Wisconsin’s 72 counties—Buffalo,Menominee and Verno —don’t even have a DMV office and other single offices serve counties with hundreds of thousands of people.

The practice of requiring government-issued photo ID was controversial until 2008, when the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. The law requires a photo ID with an expiration date and must be issued by the federal or state government. For out-of-state students in Indiana, having a home state drivers license, Social Security card and voter registration card wasn’t enough to be able to vote.

Full Article: Youth Vote Faces Challenges With Voter ID Legislation | The Nation.

Tallinn Calls in Expert to Denounce E-Voting | ERR

Yesterday, July 20, the City of Tallinn bolstered its drive to bar the nation’s much-touted e-voting system from local elections, holding a press conference where prominent US computer scientist Barbara Simons said that such systems are inherently vulnerable.

The University of California, Berkeley PhD and former Association for Computing Machinery president spoke about risks such as malware, attacks on the server managing the election, insider threats and false websites.

Speaking in general terms, not about Estonia’s system in particular, she said that the nature of e-voting makes it impossible to audit or recount the votes. She also warned of the possibility of software viruses or worms that could infect a computer, casting votes without the user’s knowledge.

Along with the technical information gleaned from Simons’s presentation, those present at the press conference were also able to gain a clear sense of the agenda behind the event.

The conference was conducted in a tightly-controlled manner, ending as journalists were cut off after only three questions. A 158-page book entitled “Today’s Internet is Not Ready for E-Voting,” produced by the City Council, was also distributed to those in attendance.

Counter Arguments

Tarvi Martens, architect of the nation’s e-voting system and a key figure in the Estonian IT and infosecurity field, shrugged off the US expert’s claims.

“Her story is nothing new,” he told ERR radio. All of the risks that Simons brought up, he said, are well-known and have been taken into account.

Martens said that experiments have been run with hackers hired to attempt to crack Estonia’s voting system. “Tests have been conducted repeatedly. Only low-level problems were found and these were addressed. No one has managed to ruin anything,” he said.

If something should happen, he added, there is a backup plan. “If an attack takes place, then we have a legal basis to annul the results of e-voting […] Electronic elections have already been held five times [in Estonia] and nothing happened. Everything works correctly,” said Martens.

Martens has proposed a debate with Simons, but the challenge has gone unanswered so far.

The Battle, Continued

The July 20 press conference represents the latest of several attempts by the Tallinn City Government and its ruling Centre Party to challenge the legality of the nation’s pioneering e-voting system, which was first used in nationwide elections in 2005.

Earlier this year, questions were raised about the system when a student claimed to have found a flaw that would theoretically allow a virus to block candidates from appearing on an affected voter’s ballot screen.

The Supreme Court rejected his challenge of the March 6 parliamentary election results, however, since no actual manipulation had been found.

Days afterward, the Centre Party, which fared relatively poorly in the elections, attempted to have the results annulled based partly on the student’s findings.

In May a report by the Office of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) gave the country’s internet voting system an overall clean bill of health, but cited a number of technical and procedural holes that they recommended plugging. Parliament later set up a working group to address the issues.

Last month, the Tallinn City Council filed a motion with the Supreme Court to abolish e-voting at future local elections, this time citing legal, rather than technical, deficiencies.

Source: Tallinn Calls in Expert to Denounce E-Voting | Sci-Tech | News | ERR.

Jul 22, 2011 07:11 am

Cherokee Nation Supreme Court throws out election for chief of Oklahoma’s largest Indian tribe | The Washington Post

The Cherokee Nation’s Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the results of a disputed election to determine the chief of Oklahoma’s largest Native American tribe following weeks of legal wrangling and multiple vote tallies that each came out with a different number.

The court’s ruling means a new election will be held in Tahlequah, although a date was not set by the five-justice court. At stake is the leadership of 300,000 Cherokees, one of the largest tribes in the U.S. Uncertainty about the accuracy of the results of the June 25 election and repeated flip-flopping in terms of the declared winner has eroded confidence among Cherokee voters.

In its two-page final order, the court ruled that it was impossible to determine the winner of the election, which had drawn comparisons to the recount in the 2000 presidential election in Florida involving Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. Bush ultimately won Florida and its electoral votes by fewer than 200 votes out of 6 million cast.

In the Cherokee election, tribal councilman Bill John Baker has twice been declared winner, but so has his opponent, incumbent Principal Chief Chad Smith. The official results of the most recent recount put Smith ahead by four votes Tuesday, but that’s one fewer than in the unofficial results announced Sunday.

The principal chief, similar to a U.S. president, administers a $600 million annual tribal budget, has veto power and sets the tribe’s national agenda, which is important given that many members live outside Oklahoma.

Full Article: Cherokee Nation Supreme Court throws out election for chief of Okla.’s largest Indian tribe — The Washington Post.

Jul 21, 2011 08:18 am

States Dispute Criticism of New Voter Laws, Move to Offer Photo ID Free of Charge | FoxNews.com

Election officers in states with newly approved voter ID laws are trying to make sure voters can meet the new requirements without much hassle, pushing back on complaints that the laws are tantamount to a “poll tax.”

Seven states this year have approved new laws requiring or urging voters to show photo ID before casting their ballots. Critics have assailed these measures as a partisan Republican scheme to skew elections by disenfranchising voters who might be inclined to vote for Democrats but lack the proper identification.

But officials in those states say the criticism is unfair. All seven states are moving to offer residents at least one version of a photo ID card free of charge. Local agencies are planning various outreach efforts to get the word out about the new requirements, and the new laws generally allow voters without photo ID to fill out a provisional ballot under certain circumstances.

In Tennessee, one of the seven states, officials are going to be offering free photo IDs at local DMV offices — for voting purposes, not driving.

“We’re going to be doing a lot of outreach … to educate people about the law,” said Blake Fontenay, spokesman with the Tennessee Department of State. “We don’t feel that it’s fair to call this a poll tax when a person can get an ID free of charge.”

Among those comparing the provision to a poll tax are the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who used the term last week in discussing the South Carolina law. Former President Bill Clinton also said recently that Republican voting proposals across the country are some of the most restrictive in history since the poll tax and “all the other Jim Crow burdens.”

In addition, a local South Carolina activist reportedly described the law as an alternative to “hoods and Klan meetings” at a forum Monday sponsored by the NAACP. The Democratic Governors Association has described voter ID and other GOP-backed proposals as “voter suppression bills.”

But the states involved dispute those characterizations.

Full Article: States Dispute Criticism of New Voter Laws, Move to Offer Photo ID Free of Charge — FoxNews.com….

Jul 20, 2011 08:15 am

House Dems say state voter-ID laws a GOP plan to suppress minority votes | The Hill

Several House Democrats argued on the floor Tuesday morning that the rise of voter-identification laws across many states is a coordinated attempt by Republicans to suppress minority and elderly votes.

“These new policies are a clear attempt to prevent certain pre-determined segments of the population from exercising their right to vote,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio). “To be frank, Mr. Speaker, these efforts have an all-too familiar stench of the Jim Crow era.”

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said the voter-ID laws are a Republican response to President Obama’s election.

“Is this a serious voter problem? No,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is a cynical and malicious Republican attempt to suppress minority and elderly voters who turned out in historical numbers for the ’08 elections.”

Others said the laws are akin to a poll tax, something used more than 100 years ago in an effort to discourage minority voters. The lawmakers said the requirement of an official government identification is a cost that many cannot afford, and which interferes with their right to vote.

Full Article: House Dems say state voter-ID laws a GOP plan to suppress minority votes — The Hills Floor Action.

Jul 19, 2011 08:19 am

Many face fight to prove ID | TheState.com

Ruth Johnson remembers being sent to the pay phone in the middle of the night to call the midwife when her mother’s labor pains started. “I called the midwife. She said she was coming. She never did show up,” Johnson said, thinking back to life as a 12-year-old in Barnwell County in the late 1950s.

Before long, Ruth’s mother sent her back to the pay phone at the Hilda grocery store. The second time, the midwife admitted she had no intention of coming to help with the birth. “She said, ‘Your mama, she owes me $25 for the last baby.’” And so the baby was born in the family home, without a birth certificate — a common practice in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s in rural South Carolina, but one that is causing problems now for an older generation required to have proof of identification.

Before the government began discouraging midwifery in the 1970s, a lot of women in rural South Carolina didn’t go to hospitals to have their babies, either because of the cost, discrimination or culture. Often, the births were unrecorded, whether a midwife was in attendance or not. In some cases, names were misspelled by illiterate midwives or recorded incompletely when parents couldn’t settle on a first name right away.

But having no birth certificate, or having one where the name conflicts with other legal documents, can cause problems today proving one’s identification — and getting the photo ID required to get a job, travel, go into public buildings and, in a recent and controversial change in South Carolina, to vote.

In some cases, people who have never had a problem before must now go to family court to authenticate the names they have used all their lives.

Joseph Williams, a physician who sees mostly elderly patients in Sumter, guessed as many as 20 percent of his 3,000 to 4,000 regular patients have problems with identification. Some only know the year they were born.

“It’s extremely common for people who are over 50,” said Williams, who is 60. “Record-keeping was poor in our age group.”

Source: Many face fight to prove ID — Local / Metro — TheState.com….

Jul 19, 2011 08:15 am

Internet Voting In California? | California Progress Report

Election integrity advocates recently launched a campaign to block a bill, SB908, that would have introduced email voting for Californians living overseas. We fought it for several reasons.

First, paperless voting itself is dangerous because there is no independent way to check the results claimed by the machines, and no way to recover when something goes wrong, and it will. Voting across the Internet is worse, because it opens up the voting system to several more types of attack, from anywhere in the world, all of them dangerous. Voting by email attachment is even worse, because no attempt is made to encrypt the ballot as it travels from computer to computer across the globe on the way to its destination.

Any of these computers is quite capable of “photoshopping” or simply blocking any ballot that passes through. A ballot sent from Afghanistan could pass through computers in China, Iran, Russia, or any other country interested in “fixing” ballots headed for California. This is only one of several severe vulnerabilities in Internet voting.

Secondly, world class computer security experts have repeatedly and emphatically stated that Internet voting is dangerous. Nevertheless, Washington DC insisted on running a pilot Internet voting project last fall. DC officials prudently opened a “secured” pilot system up to red team (hack) testing. It took University of Michigan “wolverines” less than 36 hours to take complete control of everything — ballots, encryption codes, passwords, voter records, emails, the tabulator, operating system, network — everything. This was a “hardened” system using encryption that the officials were going to put into real use. What the pilot project did was put a huge exclamation point on the message that the best Internet voting system is none at all.

Thirdly, the most pernicious vulnerability comes from the people that can control the systems that collect and count the votes. Vendors program and install the voting systems. Election officials have insider access to them. Then there is the lone company that makes the uninspected and regularly “updated” operating system that runs on almost all the machines, Microsoft; plus the Chinese companies actually manufacturing the computers and the all-important chips.

Finally, if you add the Internet into the mix, we have hackers who can attack from anywhere in the world. Any of these individuals or companies have the possibility of rigging elections, and with that, decisions about how trillions of dollars are spent, and issues of war, peace, and justice. Rigging elections existed in America since long before the arrival of computers. This is not new. What is changing is the capability of fewer people to rig ever more elections from within an increasingly centralized, more powerful, and essentially invisible electronic system.

Full Article: Internet Voting In California? | California Progress Report.

Thai Panel Certifies Yingluck Election | VoA News

Thailand’s election commission endorsed the election to parliament of Pheu Thai leader Yingluck Shinawatra, Tuesday, clearing the way for her to become the nation’s first female prime minister.

The commission said it had voted unanimously to dismiss complaints that Yingluck violated election laws by involving banned politicians — including her elder brother — in her campaign. The decision eases fears of instability raised by the commission’s failure to endorse her with the majority of the July 3 election winners last week.

The commission also announced the endorsement of outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whose endorsement also was delayed last week. A total of 370 lawmakers have now been approved.

Under Thai election laws, the commission must approve at least 475 winning candidates in time for the new parliament to hold its first session by August 2. A coalition led by Yingluck’s party is expected to elect her as prime minister at that time.

Opponents had complained that Yingluck violated election laws by allowing her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, to help plan and direct the Pheu Thai campaign. Thaksin is a former prime minister who was ousted in a 2006 coup and now lives in exile to avoid prison on a corruption conviction.

Abhisit’s certification was delayed because of allegations he had participated in vote-buying, which the panel dismissed.

Full Article: Thai Panel Certifies Yingluck Election | Asia | English.

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