Election Security News

Stay up to date with the latest on Verified Voting’s news and work.

State Election Officials: Recountable Process a Must for Overseas Voters

Last week, the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) adopted a resolution acknowledging both serious security and privacy concerns related to Internet voting and the need for a verifiable, recountable election process. Verified Voting applauds NASS for adopting this official position. Military and overseas voters (also called “UOCAVA voters” after the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting…

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Best Practices for Voting Systems Supporting Military and Overseas Voters

Author: Pamela Smith Given the current focus on UOCAVA implementation, the NIST draft Information System Security Best Practices for UOCAVA-Supporting Systems (referred to here as the Draft) is a timely and important document. A summary of security standards and guidelines “deemed most applicable for jurisdictions using IT systems to support UOCAVA voting” is indeed necessary at a…

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On the South Carolina Primary – A call for recountable, auditable voting systems

Last week’s surprising outcome in a party primary in South Carolina for United States Senate was accompanied by anecdotal reports of voting problems on election day, and many questions about the accuracy of the vote count. Whether specific reports of irregularities in this election are confirmed, the most important fact about South Carolina’s voting system…

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Military and Overseas Voting Update

Author: Bo Lipari For members of the military, their families, and other United States citizens living overseas, voting has always presented unique challenges. Some of these problems include reliable delivery of blank ballots to the voters, secure and timely return of voted ballots, and authenticating that ballots were completed and returned by the same person…

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California Legislation Calls for First Risk-Limiting Pilot Audits

Over the past year, election auditing experts, including Verified Voting staff, have been working with California Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s office toward improving California’s audits. Now legislation authorizing the Secretary of State to work with a minimum of five volunteer counties to conduct pilot risk-limiting audits in 2011 is making good progress. The Secretary…

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Efficient Auditing of Election Results

On March 27 and 28, 2010, Verified Voting and Common Cause sponsored a meeting of in Washington, D.C. to share experiences and ideas for improving post-election audits. The participants included election officials, statisticians, computer and political scientists, election integrity advocates, and voting system vendor technical staff. This meeting marked the first time that diverse stakeholders,…

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Comments on EAC Internet Pilot Requirements

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed UOCAVA Pilot Program Testing Requirements.  We appreciate the invitation for public input to such an important initiative.  In this letter we confine our comments to the broad outlines of the pilot program and core precepts to which we believe any pilots should adhere. The Verified Voting…

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Responsible Use of Technology for Overseas Voting

Last November, the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) contacted each State with recommendations for meeting the new requirements established in the MOVE Act with the goal of bringing the absentee voting success rate for Uniformed Service members, their families and citizens residing outside the U.S. in line with that of the general population. Verified Voting strongly supports FVAP’s…

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Judge Orders Expert Review of Voting Machines in New Jersey

Author: Pamela Smith A judge in New Jersey has ordered a new review of New Jersey’s voting systems, this time by qualified technical experts, in a partial victory for advocates challenging the systems’ constitutionality. State law requires that voting systems be “accurate and reliable.” From our vantage point, these systems don’t meet that standard; because they cannot be audited,…

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Software in Dangerous Places

Author: Dan Wallach, Rice University  This article was posted at Freedom to Tinker and is reposted here with permission of the author. Software increasingly manages the world around us, in subtle ways that are often hard to see. Software helps fly our airplanes (in some cases, particularly military fighter aircraft, software is the only thing keeping them…

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