California Association of Voting Officials

Last updated

California Association of Voting Officials (CAVO) is a non-profit organization that works with community members and voting officials to develop open source voting systems for use in public elections. In addition, CAVO provides training and education to election officials for the effective employment of open source voting technologies and management practices. [1] Utilizing proprietary software and hardware, current voting systems have been reported as being riddled with shortcomings and "...affected by critical flaws" in testing, certification, accuracy, accessibility, and security, while exhibiting a lack of transparency and conflicts of interest. [2] CAVO 's intent is to develop secure and transparent voting systems to ensure accurate vote counts coupled with the utmost in security by utilizing free open source software and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) commodity components.

Contents

Overview of voting systems

Voting systems across the United States garnered public and media attention during the 2000 United States presidential election—commonly referred to as "the year of the hanging chad"—after failing paper-based punch machines recorded 172,000 "mis-votes". After numerous recounts and the eventual interceding by the Supreme Court, jurisdictions across the country replaced manual voting machines with computerized systems. These systems have been reported as running "largely on 1990s computer designs" and are "now so antiquated (they are) in danger of breaking down". [3] [4] The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, recently published a report on the current state of crisis regarding America's elections, citing serious security and reliability flaws. While the report does not mention open source voting software, it does highlight the use of COTS components as an affordable alternative to proprietary hardware. [5] The cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, the latter under CAVO's guiding expertise, are planning on replacing their outdated systems with open source voting technology and COTS hardware, with plans for both systems to be up and running in time for the 2020 elections. [6] [7]

Founding and focus in California

CAVO was formed in December 2013 following the passing of legislation (SB360) penned by California Secretary of State Alex Padilla which paved the way for open source election systems in California. [8] Reinforcing the Help America Vote Act is an important area of CAVO's work, particularly in ensuring that all registered voters have the same opportunity for access and participation in elections. Recognizing the work by predecessor Open Voting Consortium (OVC), CAVO continues to work toward creating funding and resources for the certification and implementation of affordable and secure voting systems that are reliable, trustworthy, more easily auditable, and more convenient to use by voters of all abilities. OVC dissolved in 2011, and CAVO has now taken the lead on open source voting projects in San Francisco County and other counties throughout the state. [9] [10]

CAVO's input in New Hampshire

Most recently, New Hampshire Secretary of State William M. Gardner, directly and actively supported by CAVO, utilized open source software and COTS hardware during the 2014 State Primary and General election, reporting great success, particularly in regards to improved accessibility for voters with disabilities. [11] [12] As a result, open source voting systems will be used throughout the state of New Hampshire in the 2016 Presidential election. New Hampshire's open source voting software is called one4all and is based on the Prime III system developed by CAVO Advisory Board member Dr. Juan E. Gilbert. [13] [14]

Board of Directors, past and present

Members of CAVO's Board of Directors include Brian D. Newby, Executive Director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and Brian Fox, creator of Bash (Unix shell). Kammi Foote, elected Registrar of Voters for Inyo County and former President of CAVO, continues to advocate for voting systems that utilize open source software. [15] CAVO Secretary Brent Turner is known as a catalyst for the open source election reform movement, and contributed open source language to the 2016 California Democratic Party Platform. [16] Lawrence Rosen, a CAVO Advisory Board member, is the author of the Academic Free License and the Open Software License. Dr. Elizabeth Clarkson, a statistician at Wichita State University and a proponent of citizen-run exit polls and auditing voting systems for accuracy, [17] is also on CAVO's Advisory Board.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States presidential primary</span> Nominating process of candidates for United States presidential elections

Each of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and territories of the United States holds either primary elections or caucuses to help nominate individual candidates for president of the United States. This process is designed to choose the candidates that will represent their political parties in the general election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jefferson (proposed Pacific state)</span> Proposed U.S. state in the United States of America

The State of Jefferson is a proposed U.S. state that would span the contiguous, mostly rural area of southern Oregon and Northern California, where several attempts to separate from Oregon and California, respectively, have taken place. The region encompasses most of Northern California's land but does not include San Francisco or other Bay Area counties that account for the majority of Northern California's population.

Electronic voting is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting ballots including voting time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Fox (programmer)</span> American computer programmer

Brian Jhan Fox is an American computer programmer and free software advocate. He is the original author of the GNU Bash shell, which he announced as a beta in June 1989. He continued as the primary maintainer of bash until at least early 1993. Fox also built the first interactive online banking software in the U.S. for Wells Fargo in 1995, and he created an open source election system in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FairVote</span> U.S. electoral reform organization

FairVote is a 501(c)(3) organization and lobbying group in the United States. It was founded in 1992 as Citizens for Proportional Representation to support the implementation of proportional representation in American elections. Its focus changed over time to emphasize instant-runoff voting (IRV), a national popular vote, and universal voter registration. It changed its name to the Center for Voting and Democracy in 1993 and to FairVote in 2004.

The Open Voting Consortium (OVC) is a non-profit advocacy group dedicated to the development, maintenance, and delivery of trustable and open voting systems for use in public elections.

The Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) are guidelines adopted by the United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for the certification of voting systems. The National Institute of Standards and Technology's Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) drafts the VVSG and gives them to the EAC in draft form for their adoption.

The Libertarian Party of California (LPC) is the California affiliate of the national Libertarian Party (LP). The party chairman is Adrian Malagon, and is based in Sacramento, California, in Sacramento County. As of 2016 Libertarians represent approximately 0.7% of the state's registered voters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1880 United States presidential election in California</span>

The 1880 United States presidential election in California was held on November 2, 1880, as part of the 1880 United States presidential election. State voters chose six representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 United States elections</span>

The 2016 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Republican nominee Donald Trump defeated Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, while Republicans retained control of Congress. This marked the first and most recent time Republicans won or held unified control of the presidency and Congress since 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 California elections</span>

In California state elections, 2014 was the first year in which the top statewide offices were elected under the nonpartisan blanket primary, pursuant to Proposition 14, which passed with 53% voter approval in June 2010. Under this system, which first went into effect during the 2012 election year, all candidates appear on the same ballot, regardless of party. In the primary, voters may vote for any candidate, regardless of their party affiliation. The top two finishers, regardless of party, then advance to face each other in the general election in November.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 California Proposition 64</span> Referendum on recreational cannabis

The Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) was a 2016 voter initiative to legalize cannabis in California. The full name is the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act. The initiative passed with 57% voter approval and became law on November 9, 2016, leading to recreational cannabis sales in California by January 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 California Proposition 59</span>

California Proposition 59 is a non-binding advisory question that appeared on the 2016 California November general election ballot. It asked voters if they wanted California to work towards overturning the Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity</span> Presidential commission created by President Donald Trump in 2017

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, also called the Voter Fraud Commission, was a Presidential Commission established by Donald Trump that ran from May 11, 2017, to January 3, 2018. The Trump administration said the commission would review claims of voter fraud, improper registration, and voter suppression. The establishment of the commission followed Trump's false claim that millions of illegal immigrants had voted in the 2016 presidential election, costing him the popular vote. Vice President Mike Pence was chosen as chair of the commission and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was its vice chair and day-to-day administrator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 San Francisco mayoral special election</span>

A special election was held for Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco on June 5, 2018, to fill the remainder of the term of Ed Lee, who had died in office on December 12, 2017. Upon Lee's death, London Breed, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, became Acting Mayor of San Francisco, but a vote of six supervisors replaced Breed with Supervisor Mark Farrell. The mayoral election was held concurrently with the statewide direct primary election. In San Francisco, the election for the eighth district member of the board of supervisors was also on the ballot.

Election cybersecurity or election security refers to the protection of elections and voting infrastructure from cyberattack or cyber threat – including the tampering with or infiltration of voting machines and equipment, election office networks and practices, and voter registration databases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Haney</span> American politician

Matthew Craig Haney is an American politician from San Francisco currently serving as a member of the California State Assembly from the 17th district, covering the eastern portion of the city. A progressive member of the Democratic Party, Haney had represented District 6 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2019 to 2022 and previously served as a commissioner on the San Francisco Board of Education from 2013 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic voting in the United States</span> Facet of American elections

Electronic voting in the United States involves several types of machines: touchscreens for voters to mark choices, scanners to read paper ballots, scanners to verify signatures on envelopes of absentee ballots, and web servers to display tallies to the public. Aside from voting, there are also computer systems to maintain voter registrations and display these electoral rolls to polling place staff.

An open-source voting system (OSVS), also known as open-source voting, is a voting system that uses open-source software that is completely transparent in its design in order to be checked by anyone for bugs or issues. Free and open-source systems can be adapted and used by others without paying licensing fees, improving the odds they achieve the scale usually needed for long-term success. The development of open-source voting technology has shown a small but steady trend towards increased adoption since the first system was put into practice in Choctaw County, Mississippi in 2019.

VotingWorks is a nonprofit organization that creates and sells open-source voting systems in the U.S. They currently have three products: one for casting and counting ballots, another, named Arlo, for risk-limiting audits (RLAs), and a third for accessible at-home voting.

References

  1. ↑ Ibanez, Luis (5 Mar 2015). "Who's leading the charge for transparency in democratic elections?". Red Hat, Inc. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  2. ↑ Prandini, Marco (Summer 2012). "A Model for E-voting Systems Evaluation Based on International Standards: Definition and Experimental Validation". E-Service Journal. 8 (3): 42. doi:10.2979/eservicej.8.3.42. JSTOR   10.2979/eservicej.8.3.42.
  3. ↑ Pilkington, Ed (15 September 2015). "Hanging chad redux? US heading for 2000-style election catastrophe, report finds". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  4. ↑ Kiniry, Joe (27 April 2016). "The state of election technology is...improving". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 29 June 2016.
  5. ↑ Norden, Lawrence (15 September 2015). "America's Voting Machines At Risk". Brennan Center for Justice. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  6. ↑ Hickey, Kathleen (2 June 2016). "San Francisco funds open source voting". Government Computer News. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  7. ↑ Fried, Jason (23 October 2015). "Study on Open Source Voting Systems: Final Report". San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  8. ↑ Padilla, Alex (5 October 2013). "SB-360 - Certification of Voting Systems". California Legislative Information. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  9. ↑ Sabatini, Joshua (26 October 2015). "San Francisco could lead on open source voting". San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  10. ↑ Goldberg, Ted (9 February 2016). "S.F. Officials Push for Adoption of Pioneering Open-Source Voting System". KQED News. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  11. ↑ Gardner, William M. (13 May 2016). "one4all, New Hampshire's Open Source Accessible Voting System" (PDF). New Hampshire Department of State. Retrieved 24 June 2016.
  12. ↑ Ganley, Rick (8 February 2016). "Tablet-Based Ballot System for Blind Voters to Debut During N.H. Primary". New Hampshire Public Radio. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
  13. ↑ Gilbert, Juan E. (2 May 2016). "How universal design can help every voter cast a ballot". The Conversation. Retrieved 24 June 2016.
  14. ↑ "Technology pioneered by Dr. Juan Gilbert provides improved access for disabled voters". University of Florida College of Computer & Information Science & Engineering. 4 December 2014. Archived from the original on 11 June 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  15. ↑ Babe, Ann (6 February 2015). "Can Open-Source Voting Tech Fix The U.S. Elections System?". Forbes. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  16. ↑ Burton, John (28 February 2016). "2016 Platform: Political Reform". California Democratic Party. Archived from the original on 18 May 2016. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  17. ↑ Lefler, Dion (2 August 2016). "WSU expert runs exit poll as suspicions linger over voting machines". The Wichita Eagle. Retrieved 27 November 2016– via kansas.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.