In Focus This Week
Oregon introduces unique accessible voting system
Thousands of residents able to vote independently for the first time
By Garrett Schlein
electionline.org
For the majority of her adult life, Angel Hale was denied a right many Americans take for granted.
In 1986, Hale lost her sight and since then has been unable to cast a ballot without assistance.
All of that changed this May however, when Hale and thousands of other Oregonians with a wide range of disabilities were able to cast their ballots autonomously for the first time thanks to the implementation of Oregon’s unique Alternative Format Ballot (AFB).
“It was liberating,” Hale said by phone from her home in Oregon, the same place where she cast her independent ballot as part of the state’s vote-by-mail system.
Hale, along with other voters with visual and/or manual dexterity impairments in the state now have the ability to cast ballots at home using a computer program that requires Web access and a printer to cast and verify ballots.
The program works in conjunction with alternative devices which assist disabled voters to understand and fill out ballots. Because of this feature the AFB can work with devices like screen readers, sip-puff devices, screen enlargers, Braille displays, switches, joysticks and other assistive technologies.
The user receives the AFB as an electronic document either through e-mail or a CD. Once completed, the voter prints out the AFB and sends it through the mail using the envelopes provided. Like the rest of the state’s absentee ballots, it is placed in a secrecy envelope which is then placed inside the signature envelope, both of which provide security and identification of the voter to officials.
“AFBs are essentially a ballot in a different form which replaces paper. The ballot is processed in the same way as everyone else once sent by mail,” said Gene Newton TITLE of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) Program office in Oregon.
Newton likened the process to voting with a pen or pencil.
For Hale, voting with the new system has been anything but typical.
“The process has been incredible,” Hale said. “Besides working on the pilot for the AFB this is my first time voting independently in my life.”
People with disabilities in Oregon account for 21 percent of the voting-age population, according to Census data from 2000. Nearly half — 48.5 percent — participated in the 2000 presidential election.
Oregon’s first statewide use of AFBs in the primaries of 2008 had few reported problems although Newton did point out that one complaint in during the May 2008 primary was due to a technical difficulty.
An individual did not have ActiveX, a set of technologies by Microsoft that enables interactive content for the Web, installed on their computer thus preventing them from running the AFB program properly.
Hale said her only minor grievance was a small glitch in the software in terms of a screen cursor bouncing when changing pages, but otherwise commented the system was “fabulous” and “extremely functional”.
Overall, 70 AFB’s were requested and 37 of them were returned in the May primary.
In order to prepare the public to use AFBs, a number of organizations and county officials have been publicizing educational programs and voting instructions.
Recently, the Oregon Disability Mega-Conference held an informational session on accessible voting which aimed to highlight the process of voting using a computer and other information about tools and equipment available to voters.
The Oregon Advocacy Center Web site provides links to contact county offices to request an AFB or more information and allows Oregonians to call for a training session in regards to voting by an Oregon Advocacy Center attorney.
For those without access to a home or public computer, each county is required to have a minimum of two Accessible Computer Stations (ACS).
ACS machines provide individuals the option of having a polling place brought to them or to be set up in a fully accessible public location.
For Hale, voting at home – just as almost every Oregonian does – provides the best alternative.
“This has been the best solution for people like me to at vote on my own in my own home, Hale said. “The AFB is an absolutely incredible piece of software.”
Election Reform News This Week
A bill to allow online registration in California has rolled through the state Senate with little debate and awaits final approval by the Assembly before going to the governor. The bill would computerize the entire process by allowing the secretary of state to replace the personal signature with the digitized signatures already online for people who have received California driver’s licenses and identification cards. “While there were some early security concerns, we eased them by requiring the driver’s license number, date of birth and the last four digits of the Social Security number to be entered on the online registrations,” Sen. Ron Calderon told the San Francisco Chronicle. The bill passed unanimously in the Assembly’s election committee, with the support of two Republican members, while the Assembly appropriations committee approved it on an 11-4 vote along party lines.
By a vote of 33-5 the Massachusetts Senate approved same-day registration legislation this week. If approved by the House, the legislation would allow voters to register on election day as early as November 4. However, with only two days remaining in the legislative session, it’s unclear what will become of the bill. “I’m hopeful. I know there are a lot of strong supporters in the House and the advocates have been educating members in the House about how we can add between 225,000 and 300,000 people in the election this November,” Sen. Edward M. Augustus, Jr. told the Telegram Gazette. A late compromise would phase in same-day registration by having each city and town provide at least one location for same-day registrants to cast their ballots on Nov. 4, for this election, with a requirement for all voting places to allow registration on Election Day starting with the 2010 election. The legislation is backed by Secretary of State William F. Galvin.
The Hawaii Elections Commission reportedly will take up the issue of state Chief Election Officer Kevin Cronin’s voting status — a key qualification for his job. City Clerk Denise De Costa confirmed this week that Cronin, a Wisconsin state attorney who was hired in February by the state Elections Commission, was not a registered Hawaii voter until Friday. State law states: “The person appointed to be chief election officer shall be a citizen of the United States, a resident of the state, and a registered voter of the state.” Cronin declined to discuss his voter status except to say that the Elections Commission would take it up at their Thursday meeting. According to various media reports, Cronin oversaw last-minute candidate filings last week, which have led to at least two challenges against candidates and one disqualification. In addition, he has rejected appeals against a 43 million dollar contract with Hart InterCivic for new paper eScan and electronic eSlate voting machines.
Research and Report Summaries
electionline provides brief summaries of recent research in the field of election administration. Note some articles require a subscription. Please e-mail research links to sgreene@electionline.org.
The third USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology (EVT) workshop took place in San Jose, CA from July 28-29. A number of papers were presented, some of which have already been summarized here. Three more are summarized this week and additional papers will be included in coming weeks.
Administrative and Public Verifiability: Can We Have Both? – By Josh Benaloh, Microsoft Research, June 30, 2008: Administrative vote verification allows for specifically designated officials to publicly conduct a type of post-election audit or check. Public verification would allow for anyone to check a vote tally. The author suggests an optical scan voting system that is both administratively and publicly verifiable. While acknowledging public verification presents new complications and potential threats to privacy, the verified optical scan machine is presented as a mechanism which can maintain the benefits of administrative verifiability while adding the benefits of public verifiability.
Comparing the Auditability of Optical Scan, Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and Video (VVVAT) Ballot Systems – By Stephen N. Goggin, Michael D. Byrne Department of Psychology, Rice University and Juan E. Gilbert, Gregory Rogers, and Jerome McClendon Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Auburn University, July 2008: Comparing the auditablity of three different types of voting systems (optical scan systems, DRE systems with VVPATs and systems with video records), three characteristics are assessed – accuracy, efficiency and satisfaction. While citing accuracy as the most important characteristic, a system that costs counties too much to implement or does not have the confidence of those using them may not be effective. Using a representation of the poll worker population, the authors found that none of the three systems fared that well in producing perfect counts, with optical scan ballots faring better than the other technologies. VVPATs resulted in slower counts. They also found that people’s subjective confidence in a particular system was not related to the objective accuracy of that system.
Security Evaluation of ES&S Voting Machines and Election Management System – By Adam Aviv, Pavol Cerný, Sandy Clark, Eric Cronin, Gaurav Shah, Micah Sherr and Matt Blaze, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, July 2008: Summarizing the results of a security analysis of ES&S DRE and optical scan voting systems for the state of Ohio’s Project Everest in October 2007, the authors describe a number of vulnerabilities they found in nearly every component of the systems. This includes potential exploitation by poll workers or voters to compromise results in both individual machines and inserting malicious code that could affect the tally system for county-wide results.
Other research
The Limbaugh Effect: A Rush to Judging Cross-Party Raiding in the 2008 Democratic Nomination Contests – By Todd Donovan, Western Washington University, The Forum, The Berkeley Electronic Press, Vol. 6, Issue 2, July 2008: Donovan examines whether during March 4 primaries, particularly in Texas and Ohio, a March 3 plea by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh for Republicans to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to prolong the Democratic nomination battle led to significant numbers to engage in strategic crossover voting. Looking at exit poll data from 38 states, he finds that Republicans may have already been engaging in some strategic crossover voting in Democratic primaries before March 4 and little evidence of any sort of Limbaugh effect on the March primaries.
Opinions This Week
National: Youth vote; Internet voting; Ballot design; Veteran’s Administration, II, III; Electronic voting
Alabama: Vote fraud; Ex-felon voting
California: Deborah Bowen; San Juan County
Massachusetts: Same-day registration
Minnesota: Instant-runoff voting
Ohio: Dead voters
Virginia: Ex-felon voting
Washington: New ballots
Job Postings This Week
All job listings must be received by 12 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday for publication in our Thursday newsletter. Job listings are free but may be edited for length. Whenever possible, include Internet information. Please email job postings to mmoretti@electionline.org
Executive Director, Midwest Democracy Network— MDN is a non-partisan alliance of political reform advocates committed to improving democratic institutions in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. Partners include state-based and national advocacy groups, as well as prominent academic and policy institutions. Network members share the belief that our fundamental democratic values and principles – especially those that speak to honesty, fairness, transparency, accountability, citizen participation, competition, respect for constitutional rights and the rule of law, and the public’s need for reliable information – must be continuously reinforced and fiercely protected against those who see politics as a means to promote narrow interests rather than the common good. Toward these ends, participating organizations seek to reduce the influence of money in politics, keep our courts fair and impartial, promote open and transparent government, create fair processes for drawing congressional and legislative districts, guarantee the integrity of our election systems, promote ethical government and lobbying practices, and democratize the media. Responsibilities: Maintaining the MDN Web site; fundraising; organizing meetings; project development; maintain and diversify network partnerships; assist with capacity building and strategic planning; media outreach and communications; general management and financial oversight. Qualifications: College degree and at least five years of progressively responsible work experience. Advanced degree preferred. The position requires a detail-oriented, flexible, self-starter with a professional presentation. A qualified candidate for the position would have the following attributes: Previous non profit or management experience; strong interest in and commitment to the mission of the Network and familiarity with the Great Lakes region; proven research and written skills, particularly in grant writing; administrative experience and the ability to juggle multiple assignments; organizational and meeting planning skills; familiarity with Web sites and solid computer skills; strong communications and interpersonal skills. This is a permanent, part-time position that will require approximately 27 hours per week. We offer a competitive salary and flexible benefits package. Some travel and evening hours will be required. The MDN Executive Director will be housed with of one of the MDN partner groups. That group will serve as the MDN fiscal agent; provide basic accounting and administrative support, to ensure communication, efficiency and the ability to establish an office economically. The Executive Director will regularly consult with, report to, and be accountable to the MDN steering committee or board of directors. Application: candidates should send or fax their resume and a cover letter stating qualifications and salary requirements to Cynthia Canary, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, 325 W. Huron, Suite 500, Chicago, IL 60610; (312) 335-1067 fax; cprcanary@aol.com. No calls please. Deadline: August 8, 2008.