See also the investigative piece, by Sheri Myers, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wassmerman, on the international spread of e-voting (noted just below).
MCM From the Ecological Options Network (OEN): ======== Eds. Note: For an excellent investigative backgrounder on the international spread of e-voting and the people behind it, complete with a chart of key players, check out: The Kudzu Effect: The Voting-Industrial Complex chokes our democracy by Sheri Myers, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman January 6, 2008 <http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2008/2959>http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2008/2959 You can also find it on Sheri Myers' website here: <http://www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com/kudzufiles.htm>http://www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com/kudzufiles.htm ====================== <http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/04/04/computer-experts-warn-of-sophisticated-dagdag-bawas-with-automated-polls/> Computer Experts Warn of Sophisticated Dagdag Bawas [vote rigging] with Automated Polls Posted On April 4, 2009 @ 4:40 pm Who says automated elections will eliminate cheating? An organization of computer experts in the country warned of possible automated large-scale cheating in the 2010 elections. BY RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/04/04/computer-experts-warn-of-sophisticated-dagdag-bawas-with-automated-polls/ Who says automated elections will eliminate cheating? An organization of computer experts in the country warned of possible automated large-scale cheating in the 2010 elections. The Computer Professionals' Union (CPU) said that the current automated election system (AES) is `vulnerable to insider manipulation, software engineering problems and remote or network attacks. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has chosen the optical mark reader (OMR) technology for the Automated Election System (AES) in 2010 elections. Under R.A. 9369, the Comelec is mandated to recommend the technology and choose a provider for the automated elections. According to the CPU, the OMR system that would be used by the Comelec would require deploying 80,000 Precinct Counting Optical Sensor (PCOS) machines. The PCOS includes a computer system, an OMR device which will read ballots marked by the voter, and a networking device for data transmission. This will cost the Filipino people P11 billion ($229,789,011 at the current exchange rate of $1=P47.87). "With insider access to the AES, vote manipulation can become more sophisticated, " the group said. "Dagdag-bawas (vote padding and vote shaving) or tampering can be made to appear mathematically consistent," it explained. In the manual elections, adding or subtracting to the results at the canvassing stage produces inconsistent totals when compared to the number of registered voters and actual votes cast. With the AES, the group explained, dagdag-bawas can now be made to appear consistent if direct manipulation to the data is made or by programming the system to reconcile the numbers. "Insiders can overwrite the consolidated data with results favorable to certain candidates. In the manual elections, the coordinated manipulation of municipal/provincia l canvass is limited by geographical factors. In the AES, tampering in the synchronized provincial canvass can now be done by just manipulating the consolidation servers at the municipal, provincial and national canvassing levels," the group added. Rick Bahague, CPU national coordinator, said, "Whether intentional or incidental, a software problem in the AES system can affect the machines to be used in the elections. Software bugs are commonplace and they sometimes affect the same hardware with the same configurations differently. " Bahague said that the source code of software used by the AES must be open and released to the public for review. Source codes are instructions understood by machines to do certain functions or tasks. "However, with the current timeline of Comelec, this will not happen. If source codes are released, no time for review is allotted," Bahague added. The group said that during transmission of data from municipal to provincial up to the national canvassing, there are still dangers of manipulation. Outside attackers can do advance cracking techniques to alter data being transmitted, it said. The CPU said the AES should also provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. A voter-verifiable- audit mechanism allows a voter to check consistency between his or her ballot and the recording made by the AES. In the event that machines fail, there should be a way to recount votes independently from the machines. The group said it is still possible to create a suitable AES system which the people can trust. The system, the CPU asserted, should be reviewed by a large number of independent security experts with knowledge in computer security and cryptography. Bahague said, "A suitable AES should accurately capture voter's intent to actual tally. It should be secured such that ballot secrecy is protected. It should be encrypted and digitally signed so that the ballot data is protected and difficult to tamper with. It should be able to effectively handle a large number of voters. Finally, it should release report faster than the manual elections." The CPU, along with other information and communications technologies (ICT) groups, will hold a National ICT Conference on Automated Elections System on April 22 at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. The gathering aims to gather experiences and best practices in technologies relevant to AES. The group also intends to set a baseline that will serve as a monitoring mechanism of the people on AES providers and the Comelec. (Bulatlat.com) [1] =========== Comelec's Poll Automation will Make Fraud More Dangerous http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/03/28/comelec%E2%80%99s-poll-automation-will-make-fraud-more-dangerous/ Posted By len On March 28, 2009 @ 2:35 pm In * Latest Posts, Opinion | No Comments OMR creates the danger of placing the fate of the elections in the hands of a profit-oriented multinational company - the winning bidder - and on the Comelec which remains ill-prepared to run an election technology let alone in checking fraud. BY THE CENTER FOR PEOPLE EMPOWERMENT IN GOVERNANCE (CenPEG) Posted by Bulatlat When at most 70 percent of some 50 million voters go to the polls on May 10, 2010, they won't be able to track how their votes are counted or canvassed. Winners in the national and local elections led by a new president will be declared two or three days after - and the whole nation will be at a loss in knowing whether the election results are real. Protests may probably be hard to file not only because of a lack of paper trail but also for lack of time. The trouble with the Precinct Count Optical Sensor (PCOS) adopted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for use in the 2010 elections is that it does not guarantee an open, transparent, and credible automated system. Under the PCOS, the voter shades a ballot which s/he then drops inside a ballot box. Because voters are unfamiliar with the new technology voting will be slow and is extended to 6 p.m. after which all ballot boxes are brought to the precinct counting center - about 80,000 of them all over the country. Here, the ballots are fed into the optical mark reader (OMR) for counting and an election return (ER) is generated. The ERs are then electronically transmitted via the OMR simultaneously to the municipal, provincial, and national canvassing centers and, voila, the winners are proclaimed. Engrossed with implementing Republic Act No. 9369, which mandates the automation of elections, the Comelec appears to have glossed over the fact that Filipino voters have been looking for open, transparent, and credible elections. Making the counting and canvassing of election results fast may be a positive move which the poll body claims to be addressing. But unless elections are credible - which previous polls have been bereft of due to widespread fraud - then more and more voters will shy away from the polls. Machine vulnerability Poll automation feeds the wrong impression to the public that elections will be clean and credible. Because it is a machine, it is powerless against any fraud that takes place before, during, and after the elections. And, because it is just a machine, it is vulnerable to human intervention such as software attack, glitches, and other technical problems that could result in wholesale electronic cheating. (See www.cenpeg.org for papers and PowerPoints on election automation.) The high stakes in the 2010 elections, including choosing a new president, administration attempts to make sure that the next president is friendly to Gloria M. Arroyo, as well as the 17,000 national and local seats up for grabs by some 90,000 candidates will make fraud machineries sabotage the whole electoral process using both the traditional and modern technology. If pilot tests determine what technology makes for credible elections, then the conduct and results of the August 2008 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) should make the OMR machine not suited for the coming polls. In that automated election, at least 23 common errors and other deficiencies were recorded in relation to the use of OMR and the Digital Recording Electronic (DRE). Based on the tests, the Comelec Advisory Council (CAC) in its October 2008 report found the poll body technically ill-equipped to meet the complexities of an automated election system (AES). Meanwhile, ARMM poll watchers conceded that open cheating was rampant in many precincts thus effectively influencing the outcome of the elections. Incidentally, multinationals Smartmatic and Avante whose technologies were tested in the ARMM polls are again making a bid for the P11.3 billion ($234.49 million at the March 27 exchange rate of $1:P48.19) election automation equipment to be used in the May 2010 polls. Given the expected operations of fraud machineries in the coming elections, one way by which the present Comelec can at least minimize cheating is to make poll automation open, transparent, credible, and participatory. It does not make sense that the poll body has chosen the OMR which makes counting and canvassing of votes invisible to the eye with Comelec perhaps hoping that the poll officials, machines, vendors, software developers, electronic transmission systems, and other technical services can be trusted. The technology's lack of transparent procedures and mechanisms make OMR vulnerable to fraud. Some Comelec commissioners admit that their schedule is tight thus making it inevitable that any delay in any of its calendared activities could damage the whole process. What this implies is that all the technological, human requirements and safeguards for the automated elections may not be in place on the eve of election. Serious technical and political implications are not remote. Lacks transparency The Comelec itself lacks transparency. Its hardline predisposition to adopt the OMR has prevented other groups not only from adequately presenting their critique of this technology but also from proposing other technologies which they believe is suitable to Philippine conditions while being compliant with RA 9369. According to sources, Comelec Chair Jose Melo has overruled the Open Election System (OES) being endorsed or supported by a former Comelec head, IT specialists, academic experts, and some political parties simply because it is not legally compliant with RA 9369 as far as full automation is concerned. Had any of the commissioners and advisers given the OES proponents more time, then they would have found that, compared to the PCOS, this technology is more compliant with the AES law. OES uses manual voting and open counting at the precinct level and uses tested computer technology developed by Filipino software programmers for the encoding, transmission, canvassing, and consolidation of election returns. Its added advantage is the use of a public website where election data is constantly updated and posted for public tracking and monitoring; where figures can be verified against ERs not only by voters but also poll watchers, candidates, and political parties. Aside from being cheaper and "cost effective" (P4 billion versus the PCOS's P11.3 billion), it conforms to RA 9369 which promotes the use of "the most suitable technology of demonstrated capacity" as well as "transparency, credibility, fairness, and accuracy of elections." OMR creates the danger of placing the fate of the elections in the hands of a profit-oriented multinational company - the winning bidder - and on the Comelec which remains ill-prepared to run an election technology let alone in checking fraud. It even makes poll watching harder if not futile. Voters want to see the next polls entirely different from previous rigged elections - one that is people-participatory and where they can decide on the outcome. The open and transparent features of the OES at least make it equal to the voters' democratic expectations. Posted byBulatlat.com [1] Article printed from Bulatlat: http://www.bulatlat.com/main URL to article: http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/03/28/comelec%e2%80%99s-poll-automation-will-make-fraud-more-dangerous/ URLs in this post: [1] Bulatlat.com: http://www.bulatlat.com/ ============= ____________________________ EON The Ecological Options Network "Documenting Solutions" www.eon3.net --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [email protected] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. 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