Voting In Your Underwear -Because Chads

Can’t Hang Online

By Chris Caravello

The First Online Voting

The March 2000 Arizona Democratic Party’s presidential preference primary.

Happened March 7-11 2000. First legally binding election to occur in the world, to

determine the Democratic Party presidential preference primary.

First time ever people were allowed to cast their vote from the location of their choice.

Traditional polling was still available. The goal was to increase turnout, as well as the dependability of the related security, privacy, and

equality of access.

How Did It Work?

In January 2000, the Arizona Democratic Party sent (via sealed first-class mail) notice of its upcoming presidential preference primary election to the state’s 849,000 registered Democrats.

unique credentials for each voter’s authentication and a detachable “vote-by-mail” application, so non-Internet users could enjoy the same convenience as their Internet-connected counterparts.

Options were to:

- vote-by-mail

- voting remotely via the Internet March 7–10

- casting a ballot at a physical polling place via Internet or paper on Election Day, March 11

Process Continued…

In Communities with low internet access, more physical polling locations than ever before were set up to encourage voter turnout.

The on-line votes had to be cast before the 11th so no technical difficulties could prevent a person from voting, they could still vote at a physical location.

Every registered Democrat in the state received a unique and randomly generated, seven-digit alphanumeric personal identification number (PIN)

The voters were given two challenge questions—possibly date of birth or last four digits of a social security number—randomly selected from a strictly confidential field of five.

Pros

Convenience was supposed to encourage people to vote. “Vote in your pajamas”

Gave people multiple options on how to cast their vote. Security measures taken were supposed to alleviate fears of

fraudulent elections. Consequences to vote tampering was jail time. The Result - 39,942 votes cast over the Internet (another 46,028

were cast through traditional means).

Cons

Several things were overlooked in preparing for this process:

Mac computers weren’t able to be used to vote! Doh! The process was not compliant with the Americans With

Disabilities Act, the blind were not able to vote due to a glitch in the online audio prompts.

Offering voting online at the actual physical polls wasted money while failing to eliminate lines and encourage online voting.

The primary relied heavily on voter access from offices and public libraries—networked computer environments that could have been compromised easily as to security and privacy.

David Jefferson, a research scientist at Compaq Computer and chairman of the Technology Committee of the California Internet Voting Task Force, concluded that the security of the Arizona election was minimal and that he could easily have breached the system and brought down the election “… in about an hour.”

Security

The biggest obstacle to using online voting according to its critics, is security.

The Arizona elections demonstrated several steps in ensuring there would be no fraudulent voting, although there is obvious room for improvement.

Supporters of online voting point to online banking as proof that secure processes for important actions do exist, and that eventually online voting will become a reality nationwide someday.

….So What Are Other Options?

Electronic Voting Machines Electronic voting machines used in Florida in the wake of 2000 voting

disaster. Diminished voter errors by having all the candidates on one screen. Sounds easy and clear right?

Florida….Go Figure

Of course, one county screwed it up. unusually high under vote rate in Sarasota County in the November,

2006 13th Congressional District race in Florida. This race featured Republican Vern Buchanan versus Democratic Christine Jennings, Buchanan was declared the winner by 369 votes, and he was sworn into the 110th Congress in January, 2007.

Sarasota County used a different ballot then other counties, one that had multiple races on some pages, and single races on others.

Additionally, there were several colors used on some pages that made the pages cluttered and distracting.

Consequently, it was found that Sarasota County voters were 5 times as likely to cast an under vote.

Other counties using confusing ballot formats also were found to have a high rate of under votes.

Study showed that there would have been between 4,584 and 4,720 fewer early voting under votes if there had been no ballot design problem in Sarasota County.

Study is confident Jennings would have won the CD 13 election if Sarasota had used the same machines as were used in Charlotte County.

Similar to the butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County in the 2000 presidential race, confusing ballot altered the course of the election.

In Conclusion

Use STANDARDS Both the touch screen voting process and the

online voting in Arizona revealed the need for standards that work across all platforms so one voters experience is not different from another's.

Technology aided voting is inevitable, its just a matter of getting the process and method correct.

So Does Anyone Vote Online?

ESTONIA! (E-Stonia) Estonia is the first to allow voters nationwide to

chose their representatives online. Started in 2005. First elections was for mayors and city councils, now

for parliament as well. special ID card and device that reads the card and

a computer with Internet access. make it easier for people in remote rural locations,

who may live far from polling stations, to vote. Like Arizona 2000, allowed voters to vote by mail or

in person.

Where the Hell is that?

Baltic State with population of 1.4 million. Have been using the ID card system since

2002 for online access to bank accounts and tax records.

Larger purpose is for Estonians to become familiar with the ID card system.

But How???

When Will the US Try Again?

NOW! Florida tries again! The Okaloosa Distance Ballot Piloting (ODBP) test program. Between Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, an estimated 600 to 700 United

States citizens used hardened laptops—PCs with no hard drive, and various other components either turned off or removed in advance to reduce security risks—located at special kiosks in Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom to cast their votes for

president. Set up with overseas citizens in mind and safer than current absentee

ballot process.

Process

Voters are required to print out an anonymous record of their vote, and turn it in to kiosk workers. In case of a problem, whether it's a major software failure or a suspected intrusion, the paper records can be checked against the electronic ballots.

Users are also allowed to print out an additional receipt, which can be used to verify that their vote made it into the final tally.

Process hoped to be ready for all US overseas citizens and soldiers by 2016 presidential election.

Vote Online = hääletama sees!