Verified Voting Foundation

Last updated

The Verified Voting Foundation is a non-governmental, nonpartisan organization founded in 2004 by David L. Dill, a computer scientist from Stanford University, focused on how technology impacts the administration of US elections. [1] The organization's mission is to "strengthen democracy for all voters by promoting the responsible use of technology in elections." [1] Verified Voting works with election officials, elected leaders, and other policymakers who are responsible for managing local and state election systems to mitigate the risks associated with novel voting technologies.

Contents

History

Foundation

David L. Dill's research involves "circuit verification and synthesis and in verification methods for hard real-time systems". [2] Part of this work has required him to testify on "electronic voting before the U.S. Senate and the Commission on Federal Election Reform". [2] These interests ultimately led him to establishing the Verified Voting Foundation in 2003.

Activities

Partnerships and lobbying efforts

Verified Voting partners with an array of organizations and coalitions to help coordinate post-election audits, tabletop exercises, and election protection work on a state and local level. The organization works closely with the Brennan Center for Justice and Common Cause; in 2020 the organizations advocated together for election best practices, such as paper ballots and adequate election security funding, in key swing states. [3] Verified Voting also co-chaired the Election Protection Election Security Working Group during the 2020 election cycle, helping to monitor and respond to state-specific election security issues.

Verified Voting participates in several coalitions, including the Secure Our Vote Coalition and the National Task Force on Election Crises. Secure Our Vote helped to successfully block legislation permitting internet voting in Puerto Rico (see below for Verified Voting's stance on internet voting). Verified Voting's work with the National Task Force on Election Crises supported the Task Force's mission to develop responses to potential election crises in 2020 and guarantee a peaceful transfer of power. [3]

Verified Voting also coordinates with its partners to advocate both federal and state governments for election security. The Foundation conducts this lobbying work as part of its 501(c)4 arm. At the federal level, the organization meets with lawmakers, sends letters, and issues statements to support "federal election security provisions that provide states and local jurisdictions with the funding and assistance they need to implement best practices like paper ballots and RLAs." [3] The organization also advocates in specific states, employing a "targeted approach" that seeks to address the specific election security and voter integrity issues facing a particular state. [3] In 2020, for instance, the organization worked in Virginia to increase safe voting options amidst the pandemic, successfully advocated against internet voting legislation in New Jersey, and provided advice on RLA regulation to officials in California and Oregon. [3]

The Verifier Tool

Since 2004, Verified Voting has been collecting data on the nation's voting machines and making it available through a web-based interactive tool called "the Verifier." The Verifier is the most comprehensive publicly available set of data related to voting equipment usage in the United States. [4] [5] For each federal election cycle, the Verifier documents the specific voting equipment in use in every jurisdiction across the country. The Verifier is used by election officials, academics, organizations, the news-media, and general public as a source of information about voting technology. [6] [7] Since its inception, the Verifier has supported a number of initiatives including national election protection operations, state advocacy, policy making, reporting, and congressional research inquiries. [8] [9] To maintain the database, Verified Voting liaises with election officials, monitors local news stories, and researches certification documents. The Verifier is a critical aspect of Verified Voting's organizational infrastructure and supports the responsible use of technology in elections.

Stances

Stance on paper ballots

Verified Voting advocates for the use of voter-verified paper ballots that "create tangible and auditable records of votes cast in an election." Paper trails generated by voter-verified paper ballots "provide a reliable way to check that the computers were not compromised (whether through human error or malfeasance)," an important point given that 99% of all ballots cast in the United States are counted by a computer. [10] Verified Voting advises state and local jurisdictions to help them "implement best practices for election security." The organization advocates that election officials avoid using electronic voting systems which do not provide a paper trail. [10]

Verified Voting plays a leading role in providing states and localities with the information, expertise, and advice needed to make informed decisions about the voting equipment they use and purchase. In 2019 and 2020, the organization offered feedback on the adoption of new voting machines in California, New York, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, as well as other states, advocating in all instances for the use of voter-verified paper ballots. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

In 2022, legislators in at least six states and local jurisdictions have proposed to prohibit the use of ballot tabulating machines. The proposals stem from unproven theories that election machines around the country were hacked and votes were changed. Verified Voting, which advocates for election security measures, indicated that current hand counting of ballots is rare, and is used mostly in situations where there are few ballots to count. [16]

Stance on internet voting

Verified Voting works diligently to highlight risks of online voting and recommends that state and local governments avoid adopting these technologies. [17] The organization argues that elections held online would be "easy targets for attackers." [18] Online voting, which includes voting on a mobile app, lacks the capacity to generate a voter-verified paper record and cannot protect a voter's privacy or the integrity of their ballot. [18] Verified Voting notes that unlike other online services, election manipulation is difficult to catch because ballot secrecy prevents voters from seeing their ballots after they have submitted them, which also prevents voters from determining if their votes have been digitally altered or not. A 2016 report co-authored by the organization concluded that "as states permit the marking and transmitting of marked ballots over the Internet, the right to a secret ballot is eroded and the integrity of our elections is put at risk." [19]

The organization notes that with mobile voting, there is no way to determine the security of "the actual device that voters cast their votes on...The voter’s device may already be corrupted with malware or viruses that could interfere with ballot transmission or even spread that malware to the computer at the elections office on the receiving end of the online ballot." [20] Online technologies that rely on blockchain technology faces a similar challenge: Verified Voting argues that while "blockchain technology is designed to keep information secure once it is received," such technology "cannot defend against the multitude of threats to that information before it is entered in the blockchain." Moreover, blockchain technology prevents voters from anonymously verifying their ballot, and presents risks to "ballot secrecy if encryption keys are not properly protected or software errors allow decryption of individual ballots."

Post-election audits and risk-limiting audits

Verified Voting advises state and local governments to pilot and implement and post-election audits and risk-limiting audits (RLAs). Post-election tabulation audits routinely check voting system performance. These audits are designed to check the accuracy of a certain tabulation—not the general results of an election. [21] Risk-limiting audits, meanwhile "provide reason to trust that the final outcome matches the ballots." RLAs accomplish this by checking a "random sample of voter-verifiable paper ballots, seeking evidence that the reported election outcome was correct, if it was." [22] In this context, the 'correct' outcome is what a full hand count of the ballots would reveal. [23] Since RLAs continue checking random samples until there is convincing evidence that the outcome is correct, "contests with wide margins can be audited with very few ballots, freeing up resources for auditing closer contests, which generally require checking more ballots." [22] RLAs can also trigger full hand recounts if the audit results do not support the reported election outcome. In order to facilitate the implementation of RLAs, Verified Voting designs pilot audits and post-election audits in conjunction with specific state and local governments, and has conducted studies in Rhode Island, [24] Orange County (California), and Fairfax (Virginia). These studies have helped lead to the implementation of RLAs and audit legislation in several states. [22] The organization advocates for robust, post-election audits and also maintains an online, publicly-accessible database of all state election audit laws. [25]

Related Research Articles

A voting machine is a machine used to record votes in an election without paper. The first voting machines were mechanical but it is increasingly more common to use electronic voting machines. Traditionally, a voting machine has been defined by its mechanism, and whether the system tallies votes at each voting location, or centrally. Voting machines should not be confused with tabulating machines, which count votes done by paper ballot.

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

Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of rival candidates, or both. It differs from but often goes hand-in-hand with voter suppression. What exactly constitutes electoral fraud varies from country to country, though the goal is often election subversion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Help America Vote Act</span> 2002 election law

The Help America Vote Act of 2002, or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the House 357-48 and 92–2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 29, 2002. The bill was drafted in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election, when almost two million ballots were disqualified because they registered multiple votes or no votes when run through vote-counting machines.

An electronic voting machine is a voting machine based on electronics. Two main technologies exist: optical scanning and direct recording (DRE).

Vote counting is the process of counting votes in an election. It can be done manually or by machines. In the United States, the compilation of election returns and validation of the outcome that forms the basis of the official results is called canvassing.

An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online voting. Increasing the ease of access to absentee ballots is seen by many as one way to improve voter turnout through convenience voting, though some countries require that a valid reason, such as infirmity or travel, be given before a voter can participate in an absentee ballot. Early voting overlaps with absentee voting. Early voting includes votes cast before the official election day(s), by mail, online or in-person at voting centers which are open for the purpose. Some places call early in-person voting a form of "absentee" voting, since voters are absent from the polling place on election day.

Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verified paper record (VPR) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system. A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results. It contains the name of the candidate and symbol of the party/individual candidate. While it has gained in use in the United States compared with ballotless voting systems without it, it looks unlikely to overtake hand-marked ballots.

A DRE voting machine, or direct-recording electronic voting machine, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter. These are typically buttons or a touchscreen; and they process data using a computer program to record voting data and ballot images in memory components. After the election, it produces a tabulation of the voting data stored in a removable memory component and as printed copy. The system may also provide a means for transmitting individual ballots or vote totals to a central location for consolidating and reporting results from precincts at the central location. The device started to be massively used in 1996 in Brazil where 100% of the elections voting system is carried out using machines.

Electronic voting in Estonia gained popularity in 2001 with the "e-minded" coalition government. In 2005, it became the first nation to hold legally binding general elections over the Internet with their pilot project for municipal elections. Estonian election officials declared the electronic voting system a success and found that it withstood the test of real-world use.

End-to-end auditable or end-to-end voter verifiable (E2E) systems are voting systems with stringent integrity properties and strong tamper resistance. E2E systems often employ cryptographic methods to craft receipts that allow voters to verify that their votes were counted as cast, without revealing which candidates were voted for. As such, these systems are sometimes referred to as receipt-based systems.

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.

Electronic voting by country varies and may include voting machines in polling places, centralized tallying of paper ballots, and internet voting. Many countries use centralized tallying. Some also use electronic voting machines in polling places. Nigeria in 2023 general election used electronic voting machine in pooling stations. Very few use internet voting. Several countries have tried electronic approaches and stopped because of difficulties or concerns about security and reliability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Risk-limiting audit</span>

A risk-limiting audit (RLA) is a post-election tabulation auditing procedure which can limit the risk that the reported outcome in an election contest is incorrect. It generally involves (1) storing voter-verified paper ballots securely until they can be checked, and (2) manually examining a statistical sample of the paper ballots until enough evidence is gathered to meet the risk limit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Election audit</span>

An election audit is any review conducted after polls close for the purpose of determining whether the votes were counted accurately or whether proper procedures were followed, or both.

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.

Voatz is a for-profit, private mobile Internet voting application. The stated mission of Voatz is to "make voting not only more accessible and secure, but also more transparent, auditable and accountable." The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

<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.

Direct Recording Electronic with Integrity and Enforced Privacy (DRE-ip) is an End-to-End (E2E) verifiable e-voting system without involving any tallying authorities, proposed by Siamak Shahandashti and Feng Hao in 2016. It improves a previous DRE-i system by using a real-time computation strategy and providing enhanced privacy. A touch-screen based prototype of the system was trialed in the Gateshead Civic Centre polling station on 2 May 2019 during the 2019 United Kingdom local elections with positive voter feedback. A proposal that includes DRE-ip as a solution for large-scale elections was ranked 3rd place in the 2016 Economist Cybersecurity Challenge jointly organized by The Economist and Kaspersky Lab.

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. 1 2 "About". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-01-26.
  2. 1 2 "David L. Dill". verify.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Annual Report". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-17.
  4. ↑ "EPIC - 2020 Election Security". Electronic Privacy Information Center . Archived from the original on 2021-01-28. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
  5. ↑ Cook, Alison. "LibGuides: Elections: 2020 Presidential Election". columbusstate.libguides.com. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
  6. ↑ By. "Toolkit Advises Advocates and Election Officials on How to Secure the Nation's Voting Machines". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
  7. ↑ "T-90 Days: Recommendations for Voting During a Pandemic". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
  8. ↑ "The Business of Voting: Market Structure and Innovation in the Election Technology Industry" (PDF). Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative.
  9. ↑ Hickton, David; McNulty, Paul. "The Blue Ribbon Commission on Pennsylvania's Election Security: Study and Recommendations" (PDF). Pitt Cyber.
  10. 1 2 "Paper Records". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  11. ↑ By. "Verified Voting Comment On Los Angeles County VSAP 2.0 Certification". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  12. ↑ By. "Letter To North Carolina Board Of Elections Regarding Certification Waiver For ES&S EVS 5.2.4.0". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  13. ↑ By. "Verified Voting Praises Pennsylvania's Election Reform Package That Helps Counties Purchase Voting Machines". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  14. ↑ Pilorge, Saskia. "Opposition to certifying ES&S ExpressVote XL voting system". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  15. ↑ By. "Verified Voting Calls On Florida To Rely On Paper Ballots For Election Recounts – Not Ballot Images". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  16. ↑ Montellaro, Zach. "Trump backers push election change that would make counting slower, costlier and less accurate". POLITICO. Retrieved 2023-01-25.
  17. ↑ By. "Letter to New Jersey Governor Regarding The Use Of Internet Voting Options". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  18. 1 2 "Internet Voting". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  19. ↑ "The Secret Ballot at Risk: Recommendations for Protecting Democracy". epic.org. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  20. ↑ "Internet Voting FAQ". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  21. ↑ "Audit FAQ". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-11.
  22. 1 2 3 "Risk-Limiting Audits". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-11.
  23. ↑ "Risk-Limiting Audits". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
  24. ↑ "Pilot Implementation Study of Risk-Limiting Audit Methods in the State of Rhode Island" (PDF). Verified Voting. August 2019. p. 4.
  25. ↑ "Audit Law Database". Verified Voting. Retrieved 2021-02-11.
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.