Why we need Internet voting for military
There’s exciting news for members of the National Guard’s 81st Heavy Brigade Combat Team and their families. The unit is coming home after a nine-month deployment in Iraq. Check out these stories in the Yakima Herald-Republic and Seattle Times.
The folks in the Office of Secretary of State are among those who are happy about their return. Last summer, our Elections Division organized a major effort to ensure the 81st members were registered to vote before they went overseas.
The brigade, 3,200 soldiers from Washington and California, is expected to be released from federal service by August 18. But we haven’t heard when they’ll return to Washington. Many will be in transit from Iraq to Washington State when counties mail out military ballots on July 19 for the August 18 Primary Election, so it will be extremely difficult for ballots to catch up to these National Guard members in time. (Like all other voters, military voters have until the August 18 Primary date to send in their primary ballot.)
This is just another example why Washington should give our military and overseas voters the option to vote via the Internet, state election officials say. (Washingtonians who serve as missionaries or peace workers in primitive locations overseas face a similar problem of receiving and returning ballots in time.)
Secretary of State Sam Reed requested legislation this year (HB 1624 and SB 5522) to authorize a pilot program for online voting by military and overseas voters in some counties. Neither proposal was approved by the Legislature, but Reed plans to renew his request in the upcoming 2010 legislative session.
After being away from home for nine months and living in a very tough and sometimes hostile environment, it is a shame that many of our National Guard soldiers might not have their voices heard in the upcoming primary, election officials believe.
3 thoughts on “Why we need Internet voting for military”
It is crucial to respect the rights of our military and overseas voters to cast an effective ballot. It is equally important not to subject their ballots to an insecure methodology when other voters have the right to vote with a secure methodology. According to the recent Pew report “No Time To Vote” http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=47924 Washington is NOT one of the states whose current policies must be overhauled in order to ensure overseas voters can get their ballots back in time to be counted. Even if it were, there are at least four other areas where states can make improvements without putting voters’ ballots at risk.
As Washington’s lawmakers have already required in statute, election results must be verifiably accurate — that is, auditable with a permanent, voter-verified record that is independent of hardware or software. Several serious, potentially insurmountable, technical challenges must be met if elections conducted by transmitting votes over the internet are to be verifiable. Internet voting should only be implemented after these challenges have been overcome, and we are a long way from that day. Further, it should be the last resort after solving all the other problems which hinder prompt return of ballots, not the first.
The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the results are verifiably accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to democracy.
The problem for military is having their voter registration updated to reflect their current residency and to get a ballot TO them. Return is not so difficult and can be improved upon.
Internet voting puts military at risk of having their troop location picked up – consider that China’s new preferred weapon IS the internet, and that North Korea also is expending resources to that effort.
Lets have the DOJ act as a voter registration agency and have the paymarshals update troops registration each time a troop is processed “in” to a new location. That takes care of alot of the problem that PEW has identified. Then let the troops get the blank ballots by fax or email, thats ok, it doesn’t contain their personal information and they still can vote privately once they receive the ballot. Then, let the troops use military mail, Fed Ex or other to get their ballot back. Make sure they don’t have to pay for this too. Don’t force our troops to vote in a situation that takes away their secret ballot.
Internet Voting could expose troop position.
*10/22/09 RELEASE OF RESEARCH REPORT ON “CHINESE CYBER WARFARE & ESPIONAGE”: *The Commission has approved for public release a contracted report entitled: Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation.
The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a decade into a sweeping military modernization program that has transformed its ability to fight high tech wars. [Read THE PDF REPORT http://tinyurl.com/ygcmh9b
Reports: Cyber attacks traced to N. Korea
The Associated Press Friday Oct 30, 2009 SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean government was the source of high-profile cyber attacks in July that caused Web outages in South Korea and the United States, news reports said Friday.
http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/10/ap_nkorea_cyberattack_103009/
Congratulations to SOS Sam Reed!
The people of Washington should know that the DoD had a great Internet voting program set up and ready for the 2004 presidential election. Select overseas personnel were given secure PINs, and could register and vote via an encrypted ballot. It was as safe as e-banking!
The DoD invited 10 security experts to inspect the system. Before the inspection process was complete, four of them, led by Avi Rubin, published a hysterical “report” with the New York Times and all over the Net, claiming that the system was vulnerable to teenage hackers, that votes could by switched and no one would know, that denial of service attacks could jam the secure server, and that spies would know how everyone voted.
It was all fear-mongering, and no science. The DoD system had anticipated all those angles, and was well defended. But one nervous appointee of Bush ordered it shut down: Paul Wolfowitz.
Six of the experts refused to sign on with Rubin. Several of them thought it was a great system, including Michael Shamos, Michael Alvarez, and Ted Selker. State of the art Internet voting technology has been developed by the team at the MIT/Cal Tech voting study center, run by Alvarez and Selker.
Mr. Reed should have his technicians consult with the experts who approved of the DoD’s SERVE program, and who don’t publish their “reports” with the NYT or with Verified Voting.
To read more go to: http://ssrn.com/author=1053589
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
[email protected]
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