The New Jersey Voting-Machine Lawsuit and the AVC Advantage DRE Voting Machine
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NIST Voting Presentation
Improving U.S. Voting Systems NIST VOTING Mary Brady Voting Program Manager NIST [email protected] Josh Franklin Lead, NIST Voting Security [email protected] ISPAB 10/25/2017 1 Improving U.S. Voting Systems Topics • VVSG 2.0 Development • VVSG Scope • VVSG Structure • VVSG: Principles and Guidelines • Requirements & Test Assertions • Cybersecurity and Elections 2 Improving U.S. Voting Systems VVSG 2.0 Development EAC Standards Board of TGDC Board Advisors NIST Director Voting Guidelines • Tap into as many experts as possible NIST PWG’s • Get continual feedback Improving U.S. Voting Systems Together…Making It Happen NIST NASED EAC FVAP IEEE Goals Military/Overseas Voters High-level, Election plain language Process principles Common Data Format Legal Requirements Common Accessibility Threads Requirements -> verified code Improving U.S. Voting Systems NIST-EAC Public Working Groups Election Groups • Developed election process models that served as the basis for use cases and the core functions • Pre-Election (103 members) • Election: (107 members) • Post-Election: (96 members) Constituency Groups • Conducted gap analyses and developed draft VVSG 2.0 Principles and Guidelines • U&A (105 members) • Cybersecurity (121 members) • Interoperability (158 members) • Testing (84 members) 5 Improving U.S. Voting Systems Election Models 6 Improving U.S. Voting Systems Reaching Consensus on VVSG Scope Election Election Process Use Case Core WGs Models Scenarios Functions Pre, • TGDC • Standards Election, • EAC/NIST Board • PWG Chairs • Board of and Post Advisors • NASED Improving U.S. Voting Systems A New VVSG Structure EAC NASED EAC VVSG NASED Input Roundtable / TGDC, SB, BoA Subgroup / Futures Group to EAC / NIST Public Adoption NIST Meetings 8 Improving U.S. -
Black Box Voting Ballot Tampering in the 21St Century
This free internet version is available at www.BlackBoxVoting.org Black Box Voting — © 2004 Bev Harris Rights reserved to Talion Publishing/ Black Box Voting ISBN 1-890916-90-0. You can purchase copies of this book at www.Amazon.com. Black Box Voting Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century By Bev Harris Talion Publishing / Black Box Voting This free internet version is available at www.BlackBoxVoting.org Contents © 2004 by Bev Harris ISBN 1-890916-90-0 Jan. 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever except as provided for by U.S. copyright law. For information on this book and the investigation into the voting machine industry, please go to: www.blackboxvoting.org Black Box Voting 330 SW 43rd St PMB K-547 • Renton, WA • 98055 Fax: 425-228-3965 • [email protected] • Tel. 425-228-7131 This free internet version is available at www.BlackBoxVoting.org Black Box Voting © 2004 Bev Harris • ISBN 1-890916-90-0 Dedication First of all, thank you Lord. I dedicate this work to my husband, Sonny, my rock and my mentor, who tolerated being ignored and bored and galled by this thing every day for a year, and without fail, stood fast with affection and support and encouragement. He must be nuts. And to my father, who fought and took a hit in Germany, who lived through Hitler and saw first-hand what can happen when a country gets suckered out of democracy. And to my sweet mother, whose an- cestors hosted a stop on the Underground Railroad, who gets that disapproving look on her face when people don’t do the right thing. -
Electronic Voting & Counting Technologies
ELECTION TECHNOLOGY SERIES Electronic Voting & Counting Technologies A Guide to Conducting Feasibility Studies Ben Goldsmith Senior Electoral Advisor Electronic Voting & Counting Technologies Ben Goldsmith Senior Electoral Advisor International Foundation for Electoral Systems Electronic Voting & Counting Technologies A Guide to Conducting Feasibility Studies Ben Goldsmith Senior Electoral Advisor May 2011 Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Electronic Voting & Counting Technologies: A Guide to Conducting Feasibility Studies Ben Goldsmith © 2011 by IFES. All rights reserved. International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) 1850 K Street, NW Fifth Floor Washington, D.C. 20006 U.S.A. Notice of rights All rights reserved. No part of this report can be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the publisher. Printed in USA ISBN: 1-931459-64-9 Photo Credits Cover: Ripple Effect Productions Page 36: Ripple Effect Productions Garie Briones Page 51: Lean Pasion Page 1: John Lawrence Page 59: Everton Bahl Grabski Page 9: Francisco Samões Page 70: Júlio Henrique da Silva Lopes Page 17: Ripple Effect Productions Page 75: Oliver Scott-Tomlin Page 25: João Cesário ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are due to a number of colleagues and friends who were kind enough to take the time to review and comment on the initial drafts of this guide. Special thanks are due to Susanne Caarls, Peter Erben, Juhani Grossmann, Ole Holtved, Manuel Kripp, Ronan McDermott, Vladimir Pran, Amna Qayyum and Mike Yard, all of whom provided invaluable suggestions for improvements and additional areas which needed to be covered by the guide. -
On the Notion of “Software Independence” in Voting Systems
On the notion of “software independence” in voting systems Ronald L. Rivest John P. Wack Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139 [email protected] National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Information Technology Laboratory Gaithersburg, MD 20899 [email protected] DRAFT Version July 28, 2006 Abstract. This paper defines and explores the notion of “software in- dependence” in voting systems: A voting system is software-independent if an undetected change or error in its software cannot cause an undetectable change or error in an election outcome. We propose that software independent voting systems should be pre- ferred, and software-dependent voting systems should be avoided. VVPAT and some cryptographically-based voting systems are software-independent. Variations and implications of this definition are explored. This white paper is also for discussion by the Technical Guidelines Devel- opment Committee (TGDC) in its development of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) of 2007. 1 Introduction The main purpose of this paper is to introduce and carefully define the ter- minology of “software-independent” and “software-dependent” voting systems, and to discuss their properties. This paper is definitional in character; there are no “results” as such. The contribution is to help provide crisp terminology for discussing voting systems and some recommendations for its usage in the VVSG 2007, currently under development by NIST and the TGDC. This paper starts by describing the problem that software-independence ad- dresses: complex and difficult-to-test software in voting systems. It then defines what constitutes a software-independent approach to voting system design. -
Can Dres Provide Long-Lasting Security? the Case of Return-Oriented Programming and the AVC Advantage Stephen Checkoway Ariel J
Can DREs Provide Long-Lasting Security? The Case of Return-Oriented Programming and the AVC Advantage Stephen Checkoway Ariel J. Feldman Brian Kantor UC San Diego Princeton UC San Diego J. Alex Halderman Edward W. Felten Hovav Shacham U Michigan Princeton UC San Diego Abstract A secure voting machine design must withstand new at- tacks devised throughout its multi-decade service life- time. In this paper, we give a case study of the long- term security of a voting machine, the Sequoia AVC Advantage, whose design dates back to the early 80s. The AVC Advantage was designed with promising secu- rity features: its software is stored entirely in read-only memory and the hardware refuses to execute instructions fetched from RAM. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that an attacker can induce the AVC Advantage to misbehave in arbitrary ways — including changing the outcome of an election — by means of a memory cartridge contain- ing a specially-formatted payload. Our attack makes es- The AVC Advantage voting machine we studied. sential use of a recently-invented exploitation technique (which does not include the daughterboard) in machines called return-oriented programming, adapted here to the decommissioned by Buncombe County, North Carolina, Z80 processor. In return-oriented programming, short and purchased by Andrew Appel through a government snippets of benign code already present in the system auction site [2]. are combined to yield malicious behavior. Our results The AVC Advantage appears, in some respects, to of- demonstrate the relevance of recent ideas from systems fer better security features than many of the other direct- security to voting machine research, and vice versa. -
Cost of Counting the Vote
Cost of Counting the Vote The Price of Upgrading Voting Systems in 43 U.S. Counties By Aquene Freechild and Hamdi Soysal, Public Citizen’s Democracy Is For People Campaign May 31, 2018 - Amid serious concerns about whether our elections are secure from hackers and computer error, many state and local governments are looking to replace out-of-date paperless voting systems with paper ballot and electronic scanner systems. Pricing of voting equipment is often opaque, and in many cases, prices are negotiated on a local level. To bring some much-needed clarity to the issue, this report examines how much 43 county governments in 10 states paid for voting equipment. With this information in hand, local election officials and citizens can make the most of limited election equipment dollars. The states are: California, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. Our key finding: While most precinct ballot scanners cost around $5,000 to $6,000, some counties have been able to negotiate more favorable pricing. However, a few counties paid a much higher than average price for their equipment. Our key conclusion: It’s important that counties band together or engage state authorities where appropriate to negotiate prices and get the best contract terms for voting equipment. Leasing equipment is an option for county officials to address the security threats quickly without committing to buying new systems on a short time frame. Limited Federal Funding In the 2018 federal spending bill passed by Congress in March 2018, lawmakers made $380 million in election security funding available to states for replacing paperless voting systems, implementing post-election audits and securing election databases. -
Supreme Court of the United States ______
No. 19-1399 IN THE Supreme Court of the United States ______________________________ SHELBY ADVOCATES FOR VALID ELECTIONS, ET AL., Petitioners, v. TRE HARGETT, ET AL. Respondents. ______________________________ On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ______________________________ BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE INDIVIDUAL ELECTION SECURITY EXPERTS IN SUPPORT OF CERTIORARI ______________________________ Courtney Hostetler John D. Graubert Ronald Fein Counsel of Record John Bonifaz Megan C. Keenan Ben Clements Ryan Miller FREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE Jeremy Patashnik 1320 Centre St. #405 COVINGTON & BURLING LLP Newton, MA 02459 One CityCenter (617) 249-3015 850 Tenth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 [email protected] (202) 662-6000 July 22, 2020 Counsel for Amici Curiae i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ....................................... ii INTERESTS OF AMICI CURIAE .............................. 1 SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ..................................... 2 ARGUMENT ............................................................... 4 I. ABSENT IMMEDIATE REVIEW, VOTING MACHINES IN SHELBY COUNTY WILL CONTINUE TO CAUSE FLAWED ELECTIONS. ...................................... 4 A. The Voting Machines At Issue Are Fundamentally Deficient. ............................5 B. The Voting Machines At Issue Cannot Be Reliably Audited. .................................. 12 C. As a Result of the Sixth Circuit’s Ruling, the Voting Machines At Issue Will Continue To Harm Voters. ................. 15 II. THE SIXTH CIRCUIT’S DECISION CONFLICTS WITH ELEVENTH CIRCUIT PRECEDENT PERMITTING PLAINTIFFS TO CHALLENGE SIMILAR HARMS TO THEIR VOTING RIGHTS. ........... 17 CONCLUSION .......................................................... 27 APPENDIX: List of Individual Election Security Experts ............ 1a ii TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page(s) Cases Andrade v. NAACP of Austin, 345 S.W.3d 1 (Tex. 2011) ..................................... 20 City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95 (1983) ............................................... -
Auditing Technology for Electronic Voting Machines
CALTECH/MIT VOTING TECHNOLOGY PROJECT A multi-disciplinary, collaborative project of the California Institute of Technology – Pasadena, California 91125 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 AUDITING TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES Sharon B. Cohen MIT Key words: DRE, voting machine security, electronic voting, electronic voting machines, auditing technology VTP WORKING PAPER #46 May 2005 Auditing Technology for Electronic Voting Machines by Sharon B. Cohen Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degrees of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering and Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology May 19, 2005 Copyright 2005 Sharon B. Cohen. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to M.I.T. permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis and to grant others the right to do so. Author_________________________________________________________________ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science May 19, 2005 Certified by___________________________________________________________ Ted Selker Thesis Supervisor Accepted by____________________________________________________________ Arthur C. Smith Chairman, Department Committee on Graduate Theses Auditing Technology for Electronic Voting Machines by Sharon B. Cohen Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering -
Election Fraud Facts & Details
Election Fraud Facts & Details Supporting Files for all items listed can be found at the following URL: https://ufile.io/by3q159v 1 FOREIGN INFLUENCE & NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS IN US ELECTIONS 1.1 The core software utilized by Dominion, the 2nd largest US voting machine vendor, originates from intellectual property of Smartmatic; a company that was founded in communist Venezuala with links to Chavez. A. Smartmatic Ties to Hugo Chávez Warned About in 2006 B. SmartMatic Sells Sequoia Voting Systems to US Holding Company After CFIUS Probe C. Sequoia Admits that while they can change the source code (e.g. Software), Smartmatic still owns the intellectual property of the software. D. Dominion Buys Sequoia from Smartmatic and Diebold from ES&S 1.2 ES&S, Dominion, and Hart Intercivic represent 92% of voting machine market and have a long history of significant security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a nation state in ways that would be difficult to detect. E. Map - Voting Machine Usage in the US F. Defcon 27 - Voting Machine Hacking Village - Vulnerablity Report G. Defcon 26 - Voting Machine Hacking Village - Vulnerablity Report.pdf H. History of ES&S and Diebold (Now Dominion) Vulnerabilities and Voting Inconsistiencies I. Antrim-Michigan-Forensics-Report-121320-v2-Redacted 1.3 An affidavit and scholarly statistical paper attest to Smartmatic rigging Venezualian elections. Smartmatic has also been accused of rigging elections in the Philippines and India J. Venezuala Smartmatic Affidavit K. Statistical Science - 2011 - Volume 26 - Number 4 - Analysis of the 2004 Venezuala Referendum - Official Results Verses the Petition Signatures L. Smartmatic Voting Technology Firm Linked to Alleged Fraud in Elections in Philippines, Venezuela M. -
Security Evaluation of ES&S Voting Machines and Election
Security Evaluation of ES&S Voting Machines and Election Management System Adam Aviv Pavol Cernˇ y´ Sandy Clark Eric Cronin Gaurav Shah Micah Sherr Matt Blaze faviv,cernyp,saender,ecronin,gauravsh,msherr,[email protected] Department of Computer and Information Science University of Pennsylvania Abstract EVEREST was the first major study of ES&S voting sys- tems, despite the system’s popularity (ES&S claims to be This paper summarizes a security analysis of the DRE the world’s largest e-voting systems vendor [1], support- and optical scan voting systems manufactured by Election ing more than 67 million voter registrations with 97,000 Systems and Software (ES&S), as used in Ohio (and many touchscreen voting machines installed in 20 states and other jurisdictions inside and outside the US). We found 30,000 optical ballot readers present in 43 states [4]), and numerous exploitable vulnerabilities in nearly every com- only the second comprehensive study that examined all ponent of the ES&S system. These vulnerabilities enable components – from backend registration systems to fron- attacks that could alter or forge precinct results, install tend ballot casting – of any electronic voting system. In a corrupt firmware, and erase audit records. Our analysis ten week period, our seven-member team was tasked with focused on architectural issues in which the interactions analyzing the nearly 670,000 lines of source code that between various software and hardware modules leads to comprise the ES&S system, encompassing twelve pro- systemic vulnerabilities that do not appear to be easily gramming languages and five hardware platforms1. -
United States District Court Eastern District of Missouri Eastern Division
Case: 4:06-cv-00978-TCM Doc. #: 486 Filed: 07/16/08 Page: 1 of 33 PageID #: <pageID> UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI EASTERN DIVISION AVANTE INTERNATIONAL ) TECHNOLOGY CORP., ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) vs. ) Case number 4:06cv0978 TCM ) PREMIER ELECTION SOLUTIONS, ) INC., SEQUOIA VOTING SYSTEMS, ) and ELECTION SYSTEMS & ) SOFTWARE, INC., ) ) Defendants. ) MEMORANDUM AND ORDER Pending in this patent action are seven motions for summary judgment, including four that are generally applicable and three that are applicable to specific equipment. The four general motions are (1) plaintiff Avante International Technology Corporation's ("Avante") motion for summary judgment that United States Patent Numbers 6,892,944 ("the '944 patent") and 7,077,313 ("the '313 patent") are not invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 112 [Doc. 323]; (2) Diebold Election Systems' (now known as Premier Election Solutions, Inc.) and Election Systems & Software, Inc.'s ("ES&S") motion for summary judgment of non-infringement on Claims 26-28, 30, and 49-51 of the '944 patent [Doc. 332]; (3) Premier Election Solutions, Inc.'s ("Premier"), Sequoia Voting Systems' ("Sequoia"), and ES&S's motion for summary judgment of invalidity of Claims 26-28, 30, and 49-51 of the '944 patent under § 112 [Doc. 335]; and (3) all three Defendants's motion for summary judgment of invalidity of the asserted claims from the '944 patent and the '313 patent under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103 Case: 4:06-cv-00978-TCM Doc. #: 486 Filed: 07/16/08 Page: 2 of 33 PageID #: <pageID> [Doc. 338]. The three specific motions are Avante's motion for summary judgment that Premier's equipment infringes its '944 and '313 patents [Doc. -
Voting System Failures: a Database Solution
B R E N N A N CENTER FOR JUSTICE voting system failures: a database solution Lawrence Norden Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law about the brennan center for justice The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on fundamental issues of democracy and justice. Our work ranges from voting rights to campaign finance reform, from racial justice in criminal law to presidential power in the fight against terrorism. A singular institution – part think tank, part public interest law firm, part advocacy group – the Brennan Center combines scholarship, legislative and legal advocacy, and communication to win meaningful, measurable change in the public sector. about the brennan center’s voting rights and elections project The Brennan Center promotes policies that protect rights, equal electoral access, and increased political participation on the national, state and local levels. The Voting Rights and Elections Project works to expend the franchise, to make it as simple as possible for every eligible American to vote, and to ensure that every vote cast is accurately recorded and counted. The Center’s staff provides top-flight legal and policy assistance on a broad range of election administration issues, including voter registration systems, voting technology, voter identification, statewide voter registration list maintenance, and provisional ballots. The Help America Vote Act in 2002 required states to replace antiquated voting machines with new electronic voting systems, but jurisdictions had little guidance on how to evaluate new voting technology. The Center convened four panels of experts, who conducted the first comprehensive analyses of electronic voting systems.