(CA) 6/10: SEC. STATE BOWEN ISSUES EX...

Author Message   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11087 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 2 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, June 2, 2010 - 6:39 pm:        The recent California election administrators advisory about elections audit logs (shown in its entirety at end of this article) will be helpful for elections freedom of information, as long as it is followed. It deserves to be implemented by every state. People would assume that such advisories are followed, but that is a flawed assumption. There are no consequences for noncompliance, and even if there were, citizen complaints tend not to be investigated, and even if an investigation actually takes place, enforcement and punishment are as rare as a blue steak. Nevertheless, this is an excellent advisory, and somewhat helpful. Computerized voting systems conceal the most crucial elements of elections from the public, leaving only bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence for citizens to obtain with open records requests. They don't give us those records until it's too late to have any impact on the election. Author Richard Hayes Phillips ("Witness to a Crime"), has my favorite answer to those who say "The election's over, what's your point?" "I'm a historian," he replies. "I have all the time in the world." That answer is a corrupt official's worst nightmare. We're currently left to dig through mountains of data for hints of what might have transpired. When I say "bits and pieces" I mean just that -- the audit logs do not tell you who really won the election, but they can shed light on how many memory cards were made, when they were processed, what time voting machines were turned on (and off), along with other items of circumstantial evidence. In a single election there are enough bits and pieces to fill a small wheelbarrow so that patriotic nerds can toil away, trying to put pieces together. But yes, these audit logs ARE somewhat helpful. Of course, some election officials make it as difficult as possible for the public to get copies of the audit items. Once the public does successfully assert its right to obtain the records, some counties provide the materials in the most user-unfriendly formats possible; for example, instead of exporting a table of numbers in a format that can be analyzed in a spreadsheet they say you can only have it on sheets of paper. (Spreadsheets help you automate sorting data and calculating the numbers, percentages and so forth.) Some state laws require that they release electronic records in electronic form if you request them in that form, but not-so-good officials like to convert data tables into harder to use PDF files instead of spreadsheet-friendly formats you ask for, like TXT, CSV, and TAB files. (These are just as easy to produce as a PDF.) California Secretary of State Debra Bowen's advisory tells election officials to make the materials available, and furthermore, to make the user-friendly electronic formats available when requested. It tells election officials to consult ahead of time with their vendors to find out where the audit reports are and how to access them when requested. It requires archiving backup copies, so election officials can't say they overwrote the files, and sets out retention policies so the audit logs will be kept for a period of time just like other key election records (for example, ballots). This should be very good news to citizens like Tom Courbat, who has a court battle going with Riverside County right now over refusal to provide records in a sensible format. We'd be even happier to see an advisory recommending that election officials print out all audit files and reports and post them promptly on the Internet, a suggestion from Susan Pynchon of Florida Fair Elections Coalition. This wouldn't be difficult or expensive. It would be somewhat helpful, though it doesn't get at the core problem -- concealment of the count itself. June 1,2010 County Clerk/Registrar of Voters (CC/ROV) Memorandum #10181 RE: VOTING SYSTEMS - AUDIT LOG BEST PRACTICES Attached is a document outlining a collection of best practices aimed at ensuring counties can protect and preserve their voting systems audit logs. The best practices were developed in consultation with county elections officials and voting system vendors following a review of the voting system audit logs conducted by University of California. Berkeley, computer science professor David Wagner at the request of the Secretary of State. The best practices recommendations, which includes a link to the Voting Systems Audit Log Study, are attached below for your convenience. The Secretary of State's office strongly encourages all county elections officials, if they have not already done so, to adopt these practices. If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Voting Systems Technology Assessment at (916) 653-7244 or at votingsvstems@sos.ca.gov. Attachment: 1 Best Practices For Maintaining Voting Systems Audit Logs June 1, 2010 Background In December 2007, Humboldt County elections officials learned that a problem with its voting system resulted in the unintentional deletion of 198 votes. In the course of an investigation by the Secretary of State’s Office of Voting Systems Technology Assessment (OVSTA), additional problems were discovered in the audit logs of the voting system there. Following this discovery, the Secretary of State requested specific audit log information from each voting system vendor with a system approved for use in California. The Secretary of State then engaged an independent computer science expert to analyze the audit logs of each of the voting systems based on their documentation, design and implementation, and make recommendations about actions the Secretary of State may wish to consider taking. Findings The independent researcher reported finding deficiencies in the audit log features of all approved voting systems and identified possible mitigations specific to each system. OVSTA analyzed the findings and the mitigations to determine which of them could be quickly implemented, provide the greatest benefit to the public, while allowing local elections officials to continue to use the voting systems they had purchased. A copy of the report can be found by clicking here: http://www.sos.ca.gov/voting-systems/oversight/directives/audit-log-report.pdf Mitigations Based on the findings in the researcher’s report, the Secretary of State prepared a list of recommended best practices county elections officials should implement to protect their voting system against the loss and destruction of the significant information stored in its audit logs. The mitigations listed are not specific to each voting system, but instead can be used with any voting system. The primary goals are to preserve and archive the audit logs so they are available for audits, recounts, election contests and forensic purposes. All of the listed mitigations have been discussed in detail with each voting system vendor that has a system approved for use in California and have been reviewed by the county elections official in at least one county that uses the vendor’s voting system. The Secretary of State has required each voting system vendor to include specific instructions for implementing the mitigations in future revisions of its mandatory California Use Procedures. Best Practices File location and retrieval Each county elections official should require the county’s voting system vendor to provide a list of all audit log files, the file location within the voting system, and the procedures to navigate to and retrieve them from the voting system. This information should be maintained in each county’s standard election practices and procedures documentation. Protective measures Each county elections official should protect the audit logs from possible intentional or unintentional erasure or alteration. This is voting system specific. Each county elections official should work with the county’s voting system vendor on the specific steps needed to maintain the integrity of each voting system’s audit logs. Prohibited practices Each county elections official should include information in the county’s standard election practices, procedures and training material about specific prohibited practices that could result in destruction of audit logs. Back up and archive Each county elections official should back up and archive all audit logs in their native electronic form, even if they are saved in a proprietary format. However, if the native form of the audit logs is a paper record, and there is not a way to maintain an electronic copy, each county elections official should make sure that the archived copy is a clean, unaltered, readable copy that can be examined, if necessary, at a later date. Make audit log information user friendly Each county elections official should export audit logs in formats suitable for use by elections officials and the public. If the audit log may only be exported and saved in a proprietary format, the county elections official should maintain a list of procedures, to be used when needed, on how to import the information back into the voting system component, from which it was exported, so that it may be printed out in a human readable format. Retain copies Each county elections official should maintain a copy of all audit logs for the mandated 22- month retention period following each election. http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ccrov/pdf/2010/june/10181rm.pdf * * * * * From Admin: This item is now locked. Commentary for this item has been archived in the "California - State of" section of this Web site. I have transferred comments originally posted here to that thread. You may resume your conversation about this there - here is the link: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/132/80992.html

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