Author: David Jefferson and Barbara Simons This article was originally published in Communications of the ACM on February 24, 2016. California, home of an underabundance of rain and an overabundance of ballot initiatives, may be confronted with one or two initiatives on this November’s ballot that, if passed by the voters, will mandate the establishment…
Author: Barbara Simons Volkswagen stock plummeted today, because of accusations by the Environmental Protection Agency that VW uses software that turns on its emission control device when the software detects that one of its diesel cars is undergoing emission testing. When not being tested, the software disables the device, thereby causing the car to spew…
Author: Pamela Smith and Bruce McConnell This article was originally posted at The Colorado Statesman on August 28, 2015. Last week’s guest commentary by Secretary of State Wayne Williams in The Colorado Statesman obscured some important facts. He was responding to criticism of his new rule establishing criteria for the casting of election ballots by…
{!{types field=’publication-type’}!}{!{/types}!} {!{types field=’publication-title’}!}{!{/types}!} Date: {!{types field=’publication-date’}!}{!{/types}!} Author: {!{types field=’publication-authors’}!}{!{/types}!} Issue: {!{types field=’publication-issue’ separator=’, ‘}!}{!{/types}!} by David Jefferson, Computer Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 1, member, Verified Voting Foundation Board, Board of Directors, California Voter Foundation There is widespread pressure around the country today for the introduction of some form of Internet voting in public elections that would allow…
Author: Joseph Lorenzo Hall This past week I was at the kick-off meeting of the LA County Voting System Assessment Project’s (VSAP) Technical Advisory Committee. The VSAP is Registrar/ClerkDean Logan’s intense and groundbreaking effort to design, develop, procure and implement a publicly owned voting system. I am honored to be asked to serve on such an important body.…
Author: Barbara Simons Arapahoe County Colorado was in the news the week with the Denver Post reporting that envelopes containing absentee ballots mailed to over 230,000 voters included “I Voted” stickers, which rubbed up against the ballot and in some cases left a faint, near-linear mark that appeared exactly where voters draw a line to select their…
Author: Barbara Simons There are many ways in which Virginia 2012 could resemble the Florida 2000 – only worse. At least in 2000 there were paper ballots to recount in Florida. But only 7 out of 134 Virginia localities (Virginia terminology for counties and independent cities) do not use paperless Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines.…
Author: Barbara Simons Ohio’s status as a large battleground state means that problems in Ohio could have a significant impact nationwide. Although Ohio is in better shape than a number of states because there are no paperless voting machines,The major concern is that about half the counties use Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines, though they…
Author: Douglas W. Jones During their news conference Friday, Iowa’s Republican secretary of state, Matt Schultz, and Democratic attorney general, Tom Miller, presented evidence suggesting there are non-citizens who have registered to vote illegally and that some of these illegal registrants have voted. Clearly, further investigation is called for, and if indeed these people have voted, they should be prosecuted. I…
Author: David Jefferson There is widespread pressure around the country today for the introduction of some form of Internet voting in public elections that would allow people to vote online, all electronically, from their own personal computers or mobile devices. Proponents argue that Internet voting would offer greater speed and convenience, particularly for overseas and…
