BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 19
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 23, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Paul Fong, Chair
AB 19 (Ting) - As Amended: April 16, 2013
SUBJECT : Internet Voting Pilot Program.
SUMMARY : Establishes processes and procedures for an Internet
Voting Pilot Program. Specifically, this bill :
1)Defines the following terms for the purpose of this bill:
a) "Internet voting" to mean the casting of a secure and
secret electronic ballot that is transmitted to the
appropriate elections official using the Internet;
b) "Internet voting system" to mean a voting system that
uses electronic ballots and allows a voter to transmit his
or her voted electronic ballot to the appropriate elections
official over the Internet;
c) "Program" to mean the Internet Voting Pilot Program
authorized by this bill;
d) "Red team or penetration testing" to mean a method of
evaluating the security of an Internet voting system,
including its hardware, storage devices, or software, by
simulating unauthorized access to the Internet voting
system; and,
e) "Top-to-bottom review" to mean a comprehensive and
scientifically rigorous examination and analysis of an
Internet voting system.
2)Permits a county, in order to test the viability of conducting
a public election via the Internet, to conduct an Internet
Voting Pilot Program under which the county may offer Internet
voting as an additional method of voting in a local election
held within the county if all of the following are satisfied:
a) The county board of supervisors authorizes the county to
conduct the program;
b) The election is a regularly scheduled or special county,
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municipal, or district primary or general election.
Provides that a local election that includes a candidate
for a federal or state office or a state measure on the
ballot is not eligible to be included in the program;
c) The program uses an Internet voting system that was
certified by the Secretary of State (SOS) prior to the
election in the county at which the system is to be first
used; and,
d) The Internet voting system is offered as an additional
and supplemental method of voting, but does not replace any
other method of voting or voting system in place within the
county.
3)Requires the program to test the viability, accuracy,
security, integrity, efficacy, accessibility, and public
acceptance of an Internet voting system certified by the SOS.
4)Permits a county, person, or corporation owning or being
interested in an Internet voting system to apply to the SOS to
examine and certify the Internet voting system. Requires the
applicant to submit to the SOS all relevant documentation and
information required by the SOS.
5)Requires the SOS, upon receiving an application to examine and
certify an Internet voting system, to conduct a top-to-bottom
review of the Internet voting system and report on its
accuracy, security, integrity, efficacy, and accessibility.
Provides that if the SOS's report states that the Internet
voting system meets the standards of accuracy, security,
integrity, efficacy, and accessibility, then the Internet
voting system is deemed to be certified by the SOS and may be
used by a county in conducting a program.
6)Requires the top-to-bottom review to include all of the
following:
a) Review and analysis of the Internet voting system's
documentation and specifications, security features, and
source code for its software and firmware;
b) Red team or penetration testing to interactively analyze
the function and performance of the Internet voting system
and identify and document any part of the Internet voting
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system that may be vulnerable to tampering or error that
could cause incorrect recording, tabulation, tallying, or
reporting of votes or that could alter critical election
data;
c) Testing and observation of the Internet voting system to
evaluate whether it is accessible to voters with
disabilities and to voters who require assistance in a
language other than English, if the language is one in
which a ballot or ballot materials are required to be made
available to voters;
d) Review of reports and available data from any
independent examination of the Internet voting system; and,
e) Review and analysis of any available data relating to
the deployment, implementation, and use of the Internet
voting system in other jurisdictions.
7)Requires the SOS to make the top-to-bottom review process and
the results of each review public.
8)Requires a county that conducts a program to evaluate the
program and the county's experience with the Internet voting
system and report thereon to the Legislature and the SOS.
Requires the report to include a summary of the demographic
information of voters who chose to use traditional voting
methods compared to those who chose to use Internet voting.
Requires the report to be submitted in accordance with
specified provisions of existing law.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Defines a "voting system" as any mechanical,
electromechanical, or electronic system and its software, or
any combination of these used to cast or tabulate votes, or
both.
2)Prohibits a voting system or part of a voting system from
being connected to the Internet at any time, or from
electronically receiving or transmitting election data through
an exterior communication network, including public telephone
system, when the communication originates from or terminates
at a polling place, satellite location, or counting center; or
from receiving or transmitting wireless communications or
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wireless data transfers.
3)Prohibits a voting system, in whole or in part, from being
used unless it has received the approval of the SOS prior to
any election at which it is to be first used.
4)Prohibits a jurisdiction from purchasing or contracting for a
voting system, in whole or in part, unless it has received the
approval of the SOS.
5)Permits a person or corporation owning or being interested in
a voting system or a part of a voting system to apply to the
SOS to examine it and report on its accuracy and efficiency to
fulfill its purpose.
6)Requires the SOS to study and adopt regulations and
specifications governing the use of voting machines, voting
devices, vote tabulating devices, and ballot marking systems
and any software used for each, including the programs and
procedures for vote tabulating and testing. Requires the
criteria for establishing the specifications and regulations
to include, but not be limited to, the following:
a) Requires the machine or device, and its software, to be
suitable for the purpose for which it is intended;
b) Requires the system to preserve the secrecy of the
ballot; and,
c) Requires the system to be safe from fraud or
manipulation.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)Purpose of the Bill : According to the author:
As voters grow accustomed to a world in which they complete
more and more personal and business tasks over the
internet, including voter registration, it is
counterintuitive that they cannot use the internet to
participate in the electoral process. In a December, 2012,
USA TODAY/Ipsos poll of non-voters which asked what
policies would have encouraged them to participate in the
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election, 28% responded that being able to vote online
would help - the top response cited. In addition to
encouraging voter turnout, online voting systems offer many
benefits to voters that traditional polling place and mail
systems do not provide, such as the ability to signal to
voters if they make an error in marking their ballot that
would have disqualified it from being counted. In a state
as diverse as California, it would allow for ballots to be
seamlessly translated into any language, improving access
for all citizens.
Many other states are exploring how technology can improve
voting efficiencies. West Virginia ran a successful online
voting pilot program in 2010 with 80% of eligible voters
participating in the election, compared to an overall
statewide turnout rate of 23%. Colorado has also passed
legislation to develop a pilot program, and six other
states - Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New
Jersey, and New York are considering online voting pilot
programs this year.
AB 19 would create a pilot program authorizing counties to
conduct a local election through an online voting system.
This pilot program would allow counties to utilize secure
voting systems with a goal of improving Election Day
efficiencies, as well as promoting increased access to and
participation in the democratic process.
2)New Online Voting System : The change to current law this bill
proposes is a major departure from what currently constitutes
a voting system. Under current law, no voting system or part
of a voting system may be connected to the Internet at any
time. This bill would fundamentally change that by allowing
the use of an Internet voting system. This measure
establishes processes and procedures for the use of an
Internet Voting Pilot Program. Specifically, this bill sets
up a process whereby an Internet voting system that is tested
and certified by the SOS, and subsequently authorized by a
county board of supervisors, could be used as a method of
voting in a local election. A system, like the one described
above, is not currently allowed for use in California
elections.
3)What is an Internet or Online Voting System ? According to the
U.S. Election Assistance Commission's September 2011 report
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entitled, "A Survey on Internet Voting," the term "Internet
voting" is used to refer to many different methods, or
channels, of voting. What the channels have in common is the
use of the communications connectivity and protocols by the
Internet. The report classifies Internet voting as a subset
of electronic voting. For the purposes of their study, an
Internet voting system was defined as any system where the
voter's ballot selections are transmitted over the Internet
from a location other than a polling place to the entity
conducting the election. Consequently, the term "remote
electronic voting" is often used as a synonym.
The report states that the remote voting location can be either
a controlled or an uncontrolled voting environment. It
defines a controlled environment to mean a situation where the
voting platform, such as the computer used for voting, was
supplied by and under the control of the entity conducting the
election. Additionally, the report describes an uncontrolled
environment to mean a situation where the voter supplies the
computer used for voting, which may be the voter's personal
computer, workplace computer, or any other public computer.
According to the survey, there are two forms in which a voter's
ballot selections can be returned - electronic ballot return,
where the entire ballot document, including the voter's
selections, are transmitted, or vote data return, where only
the voter's selections are transmitted. Furthermore, the
survey describes that there are three channels, or methods,
for electronic ballot return: a web-based communications
application which uploads a digital representation of a voted
ballot (i.e. pdf or jpeg) file to a website, a digital
facsimile, where a voter's ballot is scanned and transmitted
as a graphics file, and, email, where a digital representation
(i.e. pdf or jpeg) of a voter's ballot is transmitted via
email.
In addition, their survey outlines three methods for
presentation of the ballot and vote data return. They include
a web browser or computer application which the voter executes
to display the ballot, record selections and transmit
selections, a direct recording electronic (DRE) device or
kiosk connected to the Internet to transmit vote data, and a
Voting Over Internet Protocol approach for the voter to access
the ballot, record selections and transmit selections.
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4)California Internet Voting Task Force : In 1999, Secretary of
State Bill Jones convened the California Internet Task Force
to study the feasibility of using the Internet to conduct
elections in California. The goal of the Task Force, which
was comprised of more than two dozen experts in the field of
data security and elections and voter participation, was to
examine the feasibility of Internet voting and develop a
report that included recommendations, analysis, and suggested
technical requirements. The Task Force issued a final report
in 2000. According to the report, the implementation of
Internet voting would allow increased access to the voting
process for millions of potential voters who do not regularly
participate in our elections. However, the Task Force
concluded that technological threats to security, integrity,
and secrecy of Internet ballots are significant and very real.
Among the recommendations provided by the Task Force, was
that the election process would be best served by a strategy
of evolutionary rather than revolutionary change. The report
states that the implementation of Internet voting will be a
complex undertaking with no room for error. Consequently, the
Task Force recommended a phased-in approach that will allow
for the gradual testing of various components of technology to
authenticate voters and provide secure and secret ballots.
Other recommendations included ensuring Internet voting would
serve as a supplement to, not a replacement of, traditional
paper-based voting, be accessible to all voters, and ensure
there is large public support otherwise large levels of
skepticism may compromise the fundamental trust in the
democratic process.
The definitions of an Internet voting system and Internet voting
as proposed by this bill are substantially similar to the
recommended definitions outlined in the Task Force's report
5)Past Voting System Mishaps : In 2002, DRE devices were
certified for use in California. DREs are paperless,
electronic voting systems that electronically process and
store all election data. Many DREs, though not all, use
electronic touch screens. Due to the way in which DREs
functioned, a voter would have no way of verifying whether or
not the voting system was correctly recording his or her
votes. For example, the machine could be displaying one
candidate's name on the screen while mistakenly or maliciously
storing another candidate's name on the official electronic
record as the voter's choice. According to a Caltech/MIT
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Voting Project's 2012 report, because of these concerns,
various studies were done and a number of teams examined the
voting systems' software and found that although no overtly
malicious code was found, the systems were so poorly
engineered that they exhibited a high risk of compromise.
Furthermore, the report states that other studies that
followed showed how the systems could be controlled by
malicious parties and infected by viruses.
In 2004, in an effort to enhance voter confidence and ensure
every vote cast is counted, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley
decertified DREs, requiring the vendor to retest and recertify
its equipment. Shortly after, Governor Schwarzenegger signed
legislation requiring all touch screen electronic voting
machines to produce voter-verified paper audit trails of
electronic ballots to verify that the voter's preferences were
accurately recorded.
6)History of Top-to-Bottom Review (TTBR) : In 2007, the
Secretary of State Debra Bowen conducted a TTBR of many of the
voting systems certified for use in California. The review,
led by computer scientists from the University of California,
was launched in response to years-long serious, yet unresolved
questions, about voting system reliability, security, and
transparency. The reliance on proprietary source code for
electronic voting systems precluded open, public examination
of the entirety of voting systems and many questioned the
ability of these voting systems to protect the security of the
vote. Consequently, the TTBR was designed to restore the
public's confidence in the integrity of the electoral process
and to ensure that California voters cast their ballots on
machines that are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible.
On August 3, 2007, following the TTBR, Secretary Bowen
released the results of the TTBR and issued decertification
and recertification orders for the three voting systems
subjected to the review and strengthened the security
requirements and use conditions for certain systems.
In short, computer scientists discovered, documented, and
demonstrated source code and security vulnerabilities that
called into question the security of the voting systems. The
review cast doubt on the ability to prevent exploitation of
these vulnerabilities, or detect after the fact that these
vulnerabilities had been exploited, to manipulate voting
systems in ways that could affect the outcome of an election.
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Moreover, the review found that malicious software code might
propagate throughout an entire voting system, including
infecting the central tabulation system. Based on those
findings, the SOS decertification and recertification orders
restricted the number of DRE voting units that could be used
at a polling place to one for certain voting systems. The use
of one DRE per polling place was permitted so that elections
officials could comply with state and federal accessibility
requirements. Additionally, the SOS imposed new security
measures on all systems to limit and prevent exploitation of
voting system source code vulnerabilities. Moreover, with the
collaboration of county elections officials and voting system
vendors, new use procedures were developed to ensure
consistent, uniform implementation of security measures.
Finally, new, more stringent post-election auditing
requirements of results produced by the voting systems
examined in the review were put in place to ensure that
tampering or errors did not produce incorrect outcomes in
close contests.
After the TTBR, California's voting system testing and
approval processes were modified to be consistent with and
include practices and procedures employed in the TTBR. Any
new voting system brought forward for approval is now subject
to a testing and approval process that incorporates the
protocols for source code review in the TTBR.
7)District of Columbia Pilot and Other Security Breaches : Many
computer scientists and cyber security experts and documented
studies and reports, generally conclude that the current
architecture of the Internet and the variety of ways in which
its security can be compromised, pose a significant threat and
risk to Internet voting systems. A recent example of the
vulnerabilities of today's technology can be illustrated by
the hack on a pilot Internet voting project in Washington D.C.
The Internet voting pilot project was intended to allow
overseas absentee voters to cast their ballots using a
website. Prior to deploying the system in the general
election, Washington D.C elections officials held a unique
public mock trial during which anyone was invited to test the
system or attempt to compromise its security. Within 48 hours
of the system going live, a team of computer scientists from
the University of Michigan hacked into the system, gained
near-complete control of the election server, successfully
changed votes that had already been cast, retrieved voter
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identity passwords, and more. The attack went undected for
nearly two days.
In addition, recent security breaches have occurred at a variety
of large, sophisticated corporations, like Google and
Facebook. Reports indicate that the attack on Google targeted
email accounts and the perpetrators stole critical assets,
like its source code. Moreover, as many as two dozen other
companies were targeted with similar attacks and intrusions.
However, not only private corporations, but government
entities have been vulnerable to attacks. FBI Director Robert
Mueller said in 2010 that "hackers actively target our
government networks. They seek out technology, our
intelligence and our intellectual property."
8)Types of Attacks : As mentioned above, both public and private
entities are susceptible to attacks via the Internet. Experts
say they can happen by anyone, anywhere in the world who has a
computer and an Internet connection. According to various
studies and reports, Internet voting systems can be vulnerable
to a variety of different attacks. The most common attacks
include, but are not limited to, denial of service, Trojan
horse viruses, malware, website spoofing, and phishing.
Depending on the attack a variety of outcomes can result, all
of which could compromise the integrity of the election.
Furthermore, scientists at the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST), the technical advisors to the EAC, have
been conducting research into the use of electronic
technologies to support military and overseas voting,
including casting ballot over the Internet. In a 2008 report,
NIST analyzed the use of several electronic technologies for
different aspects of the absentee voting process. Their
research concluded that widely-deployed security technologies
and procedures could help mitigate risks associated with
electronic ballot delivery, however the risks associated with
casting ballots over the Internet were more serious and
challenging to overcome. Moreover, a more recent 2011 NIST
study concluded that malware on voters' personal computers
poses a serious threat that could compromise the secrecy or
integrity of voters' ballots. Additionally, NIST concluded
that the United States currently lacks a public infrastructure
for secure electronic voter authentication and recommended
that additional research and development is needed to overcome
these challenges before secure Internet voting will be
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feasible.
9)Secretary of State's Review Process : As mentioned above, this
bill permits the use of a new type of system that has never
been used in California. Consequently, new testing and
certification protocols and procedures will need to be
developed to ensure the system is appropriately tested and
examined. This bill attempts to address those issues by
listing broad terms that the SOS's TTBR must include, such as
testing its accuracy, security, integrity, efficacy, and
accessibility. Additionally, the bill incorporates some
testing features from the 2007 TTBR as part of its review
process for an Internet voting system. Despite all of these
requirements, the bill does not include specific safeguards or
safety measures to protect a voter's private information and
voting selections. For example, the bill does not prohibit
any vendor of an Internet voting system from capturing or
storing any voter information or ballot selection data derived
from the process of marking and transmitting the ballot. As a
result, any and all data could be permanently stored, and
could theoretically be vulnerable to manipulation. In
addition, the bill does not contain any requirements for
encryption, security, or other safeguards to protect against
the information being intercepted during transmission.
Conversely, because the definition of an Internet voting system,
as defined by this bill, falls within the definition of a
voting system, the system would be subject to existing laws
for approval by the SOS. As such, the SOS would have the
authority to establish specifications for, and regulations
governing, the Internet voting system to ensure it
accomplishes the purpose for which it is intended, preserves
the secrecy of the ballot, and ensures the system contains
safeguards to protect from fraud and manipulation.
Furthermore, if an Internet voting system does not meet the
SOS's requirements, it will not be approved for use in the
Internet Voting Pilot Program. To clarify this, the committee
may wish to amend the bill to explicitly state that an
Internet voting system constitutes a voting system as defined
by existing law, and therefore is subject to all existing laws
pertaining to voting systems.
10)Federal Testing : As mentioned above, current law requires a
voting system and any modification to a voting system to be
approved by the SOS before it can be used in any elections.
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Additionally, electronic voting systems must be certified at
the federal level by the EAC before they can be submitted to
the SOS's office for review. When a voting system is brought
to California for review, the SOS conducts a thorough
examination and review of the proposed system that includes: a
review of the application and documentation, end-to-end
functional examination and testing, volume testing under
election-like conditions of all voting devices used by the
voter, security testing that includes a full source code
review and penetration testing, accessibility examination and
testing, a public hearing and public comment period. The
SOS's review process is designed to augment, not duplicate the
EAC review and approval process. However, neither the state
nor federal standards include requirements to test and certify
Internet voting systems.
With the desire and goal to improve the voting process for
military and overseas voters, the EAC was directed to create
electronic absentee voting guidelines. In response to that
directive, it conducted a study to collect information about
experiences of other countries that used Internet voting and
Internet voting projects in the US. The goal of the research
was to collect, understand, and present information that may
be helpful in developing and establishing the guidelines.
Consequently, the report explicitly states that EAC does not
endorse, approve, or disapprove of any project or system
discussed. The report presented a broad review of the
Internet voting systems used in elections from January 2000
through November 2011. Among other information provided the
report points out that currently there is no single
comprehensive federal standard in place for developing and
testing Internet voting systems. Previous pilot programs drew
heavily from a variety of guidelines, standards, and best
practices to develop and implement Internet voting systems,
but the majority of the systems were not developed or tested
to a single standard. Since no comprehensive federal
standards are in place for testing and approving an Internet
voting system, it is unclear how the testing and certification
process would work for an Internet voting system in
California. Furthermore, it may be premature to allow an
Internet voting system for use in a local election until a
single standard is developed.
11)Transparency : From a voting security standpoint one of the
things that stands out is the need for transparency and
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verifiability of election outcomes. State and federal voting
system testing and certification helps ensure voting systems
used can mark and tally ballots accurately and securely, while
protecting the voter's privacy. However, critics argue that
front-end regulation and testing isn't enough and election
audits must be included to help ensure the integrity of
election outcomes. Consequently, one of the outcomes of the
TTBR was the inclusion of new and more stringent post-election
auditing requirements to ensure that tampering or errors did
not produce incorrect outcomes in close contests. One way in
which a post-election audit can be accomplished is by
hand-counting a large random sample of cast paper ballots
until a sufficient level of statistical confidence is
established. Existing law requires an elections official,
during the official canvass of every election in which a
voting system is used, to conduct a public manual tally of
ballots tabulated by those voting systems, including vote by
mail ballots, cast in one percent of the precincts chosen at
random by the elections official.
Election audits, aside from providing confidence in the election
results, also provide a level of transparency with respect to
election results. Current law requires a county election
official to report to the SOS the results of a one percent
manual tally conducted after each election. The report is
required to identify any discrepancies between the machine
count and the manual tally and a description of how each of
these discrepancies were resolved. Moreover, existing law
requires these manual tallies to be conducted in public and
further requires the elections official to provide a five-day
public notice of the time and place of the manual tally. All
of these steps provide transparency to the election process,
especially when conducting the audit, to protect the integrity
of the election results. It is unclear how an elections
official could conduct a meaningful public audit of the
election results of an Internet voting system. If a system
was compromised and the results were re-run on that same
system, they would potentially turn out the same.
Furthermore, the 2011 NIST report, which extensively studied
Internet voting, concluded in that Internet voting systems
cannot currently be audited with a comparable level of
confidence in the audit results as those for polling place
systems.
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12)Other States : According to information provided by the
author's office, there are a handful of states - Colorado,
Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, and New York - that have introduced
bills this legislative session dealing with Internet voting.
These proposals vary in their details, and most propose a
pilot program or a feasibility study, rather than a full-scale
Internet voting program. In addition, Connecticut, and New
Jersey, introduced legislation that proposes Internet voting
pilot program for military and overseas voters. Moreover,
according to a February report from the National Conference of
State Legislature, Texas and Mississippi have also introduced
feasibility studies on Internet voting.
The author's office also provided the committee with information
detailing West Virginia's 2010 military and overseas online
voting pilot projects. In 2010 West Virginia's Legislature
passed legislation authorizing the Uniformed Services and
Overseas Voter Pilot Program, which allowed Uniformed and
Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) voters to vote
using an online voting system. As part of the legislation,
the West Virginia SOS was charged with evaluating the pilot
program for functional effectiveness and to terminate the
program should it fail to "adequately and secretly ensure that
absent uniformed services voters and overseas voter have their
absentee ballots cast and counted in the primary election."
According to the 2010 report, 77 UOCAVA voters, from the five
participating counties, applied for an online ballot, and of
that, there was an 82 percent return rate for online voters.
Additionally, the report states that because no significant
deficiencies or concerns were identified with the primary
online voting pilot program, it recommended that the project
to be continued through the 2010 general election.
Subsequently, the West Virginia Legislature passed an
expansion bill allowing three additional counties to
participate in pilot program for the 2010 general election. A
2011 report provided that 165 UOCAVA voters, in the eight
participating counties, completed absentee applications to
vote online and, out of that, 125 (76%) cast their ballots
using the online voting pilot process.
The 2011 report provides that the online voting applications
used a form of cryptography, including separate encryption and
decryption algorithms, for creating keys to link the voter
data with ballot data. Moreover, the report acknowledges that
while neither of the two companies has submitted their
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processes for validation by the NIST Cryptographic Algorithm
Validation Program, there is no current requirement for that
review.
Other security measures taken, according to the report, include
confidentiality statements for those individuals handling data
provided or received by each vendor and the purging of all
voter-related data from the vendor systems following the
completion of the pilot program.
While neither report identifies any significant deficiencies or
concerns raised during their pilot projects, the 2011 report
states that after consideration of many factors involved in
the conduct of the pilot programs, including voter
participation and feedback, security considerations,
cost-per-voter, legislative mandates and administration
requirements, it recommends a study committee be convened to
further review those factors.
Although the West Virginia online pilot program reports are
helpful in illustrating that online voting may be a popular
option for military and overseas voters, due to its limited
scope, it is challenging to conclude whether it will be an
attractive method for all voters. Furthermore, while neither
report identified any significant deficiencies or concerns
raised during their pilot projects and the Internet voting
systems did contain similar security protocols necessary to
protect the integrity of the election, it still does not
definitively resolve the security issues discussed above.
13)Arguments in Opposition : Secretary of State Debra Bowen,
writes, in opposition:
There is widely shared agreement among private and public
computer security experts, including cyber security
officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, that
casting ballots over the Internet is not secure and cannot
be made secure. Unlike other voting systems, Internet
voting can be attacked by anyone, anywhere in the word who
has a computer and an Internet connection?
Large sophisticated corporations like Google and Citibank,
both with enormous security resources, have been
successfully hacked within the past three years and have
had critical assets such as source code stolen. Source
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codes, as you are aware, are critical to the security and
operation of voting systems.
I have many technical concerns with the language of the
bill, including how a "top-to-bottom" review of an Internet
voting system is defined. However, even if all of my
technical concerns were addressed, I would remain strongly
opposed to any measure that would permit an Internet voting
system be used in any election in California.
14)Previous Legislation : AB 2519 (Shelley) of 2000, would have
created an Internet Voting Pilot Program administered by the
SOS for the conduct of local elections in not more than three
counties. AB 2519 was vetoed by Governor Davis and in his
veto message the Governor stated "[b]efore Internet voting can
be successfully implemented, security measures to protect
against fraud and abuse must be more fully developed. Other
states are experimenting with online voting with varying
degrees of success. I am not convinced the necessary
safeguards are in place to begin this experiment in
California."
SB 908 (Runner) of 2011, would have permitted a special absentee
voter, as defined, who is temporarily living outside the
United States or is called for military services within the
United States on or after the final date to make application
for a vote by mail ballot, to return his or her ballot by
electronic mail, as specified. SB 908 failed passage in this
committee.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Everyone Counts
Opposition
California Common Cause
Secretary of State Debra Bowen
Voting Rights Task Force
Analysis Prepared by : Nichole Becker / E. & R. / (916)
319-2094
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