[EM] danger of coercion (Re: First U.S. Scientific Election Audit...)

[Juho]

On May 16, 2007, at 18:26 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

> At 03:32 PM 5/15/2007, Juho wrote:
>> I think some very basic methods eliminate the possibility of coercion
>> quite well (e.g. ballots with only few options, no write-ins, marked
>> ballots rejected, voting only manually, at places well controlled by
>> representatives of multiple interest groups, only one person allowed
>> in the voting booth and at the ballot box at one time, and many
>> enough voters per voting location).
>
> Yes, there are ways to *reduce* the possibility of a coercer  
> verifying that the victim complied. None are guaranteed to work.

What would be the most likely scenario where the coerced person could  
not avoid being coerced? I'm assuming that a typical coercer would  
not be a member in the team that counts the votes and he/she would  
not have open access to the ballots. I also assume that vote counters  
do not necessarily count all the ballots but maybe just a relatively  
small part of them (and if really needed, we could use counters  
coming from another voting district), and that they do not have any  
special equipment nor much time to study the votes one by one. And I  
expect the votes to be packed and sealed after they have been counted.

> If the voter can handle the ballot at all, then it is possible that  
> it could be marked in a way likely to escape notice. Small  
> pinpricks have been used, apparently.
>
> Fingerprints can be used! And restricting access to ballots may  
> seem to work, but, as I pointed out, who watches the watchers? The  
> ballots are in the custody of someone, typically.... the  
> government. If you don't trust the government, if the coercion is  
> coming from an incumbent, what are you going to do?
>
> You are going to have to rely upon the fact that keeping that  
> incumbent in power through coercion depends on the fact that to be  
> effective, the coercion would *usually* have to be widespread. And  
> people tend to dislike being coerced.... you will be alienating  
> increasing numbers of people, and, if the government is at all  
> functional, and coercion is illegal, the arrest and prosecution of  
> those who attempt to coerce is the best remedy.
>
> Once again, coercion does not seem to be a problem in the U.S. I've  
> never heard of it in recent times! But voter fraud is not uncommon  
> -- the registration and voting of people not legally qualified, or  
> the mysterious voting of people who have died -- and, perhaps even  
> more common and more serious, election fraud, where ballots are  
> altered, or, more frequently, casting ballots by lawful voters is  
> impeded selectively, and properly cast ballots are not counted  
> correctly. (Or voting machines mysteriously change votes.  
> Selectively. It is bad enough when it happens at all, but when it  
> somehow seems to preferentially affect voters of one political  
> stripe, we certainly have grounds to suspect criminal activity.  
> It's fairly simple: just cause malfunctions to machines in  
> precincts loyal to the party whose votes you wish to damage.  
> Difficult to prove.
>
> It is this counting fraud that I am seeking to interdict.

The methods I recommended for coercion prevention would be quite good  
for this purpose too.

I think most stable democracies do not have any meaningful problems  
with fraud in vote counting. This should not be impossible to achieve  
if one just wants it.

> We could eliminate that as a source of election inaccuracy. Not  
> reduce it, *eliminate* it. Now, ballots can be ambiguous, for  
> various reasons. There will always be some room for disagreement,  
> due to the nature of the ballots themselves and how people use  
> them. But such ballots are actually fairly uncommon, under most  
> conditions. Excepting massive voting method changes introduced  
> without, duh, TESTING them with a sample of voters! They are not  
> ordinarily enough to turn elections.
>
> Using paper ballots, marked by hand, eliminates the whole access to  
> voting machines problem. Devices can easily be provided that will  
> print a ballot for people who need that kind of assistance. There  
> is absolutely no good reason why people should not be able to show  
> up at their precinct and vote quickly and easily. Steve Unger is  
> absolutely correct: hand-marked paper ballots are the way to go. I  
> think it is fine to make them scannable, but it is *not* necessary.
>
> In any case, and I must apologize to Ms. Dopp, the use of advanced,  
> purchased voting technology is a serious mistake, from many points  
> of view. It should not be necessary to purchase *any* equipment.  
> The cost of counting ballots by hand is actually quite low,  
> compared to the cost of purchasing relatively expensive, special  
> purpose equipment which is going to be used once a year. And once  
> you buy that equipment and set up the system to require it, you  
> then will have problems with broken machines and frustrated voters  
> who can't get access.
>
> If you must machine count, then "optical scan equipment" need not  
> be purchased. It already exists! Any fax machine can quite  
> adequately scan a ballot. What is needed is software to take the  
> ballot scan and convert it to vote data. It is not a difficult  
> problem. My guess is that the software is available off the shelf,  
> but a cooperative effort by jurisdictions to design a ballot format  
> and software, with the software being open source -- it practically  
> *must* be open source so that people will trust it -- should in  
> short order make accurate counting software widely available for a  
> standard ballot design. And if there is some glitch or failure,  
> there are now two independent sets of primary voting data sources:  
> the original ballots and the official scan.
>
> My suggestion is to allow public scanning or photography of the  
> ballots.

Is this really needed? What is the main use of those records? Are  
voters supposed to be able to recognize their own ballots? This would  
be the same as having marked ballots! (Write-ins would be quite  
recognizable but in most elections they are maybe not really relevant  
and need not be supported. Write-in votes are also revealing in the  
sense that the write-in candidates probably get relatively few votes  
each.)

> If it *really* is a matter of concern that extraneous marks on  
> ballots will be used in some nefarious way, fine. Set up a bunch of  
> PCs in the space, with a fillable PDF file and standard Acrobat  
> software running, and let people use them to print filled-out  
> ballots. Lots of people have the knowledge to make this secure, at  
> least as secure as machines provided by private companies.
>
> Once ballot images are public, election counting fraud becomes very  
> narrow in possible scope. The time available for altering ballots  
> becomes very narrow.
>
> It is not necessary to touch a ballot to scan it.
>
>> > Discarding marked ballots is dangerous because it creates a ready
>> > method for those bent on election fraud to invalidate ballots.
>>
>> In my previous mail I recommended representatives of all political
>> groupings to be present when the votes are counted. If there are
>> fraudsters with full uncontrolled access to the ballots they could do
>> many tricks like replace some ballots with new ones.
>
> There will always be someone with, potentially, uncontrolled access  
> to ballots. I really think this is standing on one's head instead  
> of just turning the paper around.
>
> There is no serious risk to privacy introduced by public ballot  
> imaging.

The first one in my mind is write-ins where the handwriting is  
recognizable.

> There is a small increase, perhaps, of risk of occasional -- not  
> organized -- vote coercion, due to the increased possibility of  
> validation by the coercer through subtle differences in marks or  
> other techniques. But any substantial increase in this would be  
> detectable. The coercion risk is not a privacy risk. You cannot  
> maintain privacy where the voter cooperates with the coercer.

In good voting methods/processes it should be and is quite hard to  
prove to others how you voted yourself.

> As another example, the voter could carry a cell phone and image  
> the filled-out ballot prior to casting it. By a combination of this  
> and external observation of the voter (does the voter obtain an  
> extra ballot?) the coercer could be relatively certain that the  
> voter had complied.

Of course cameras and video equipment should be banned in the voting  
location. It is not possible to guarantee 100% that such recording  
will not take place but one should try.

> But simply the assertion of the coercer that the coercer has some  
> unknown or mysterious means of determining how the voter has voted  
> is actually enough to place pressure on some. It is not necessary  
> for the coercer to actually verify it, and schemes to do so  
> increase risk of exposure.
>
> "I have paid off an officer who will be keeping custody of the  
> ballots, and I'll be able to tell: rub your nose with your thumb  
> and press it on the ballot." The coercer does not have to actually  
> have such an officer in place, the threat need only be credible to  
> the voter.
>
> I'll repeat this: if the reason not to allow ballot imaging is  
> "privacy," it's crazy. Ballots do not identify the voter, unless  
> the voter has taken steps to make the ballot identifiable. And  
> routinely we accept that risk, allowing voters to, for example,  
> write in a candidate for dogcatcher, such as themselves. My wife  
> wrote her own name in on a ballot in our town. I'd easily have been  
> able, with access to that ballot, to tell how she voted on  
> everything. Hmmm... maybe I should go ....

Combining multiple elections in one ballot is a risk.

> My point is that it is actually a non-issue. The ballots themselves  
> are more connected to the voter than would be images, which have  
> only extracted some superficial characteristics of the ballots,  
> essentially they will be a map of reflected light within the  
> visible. They will not show fingerprints or traces of DNA. They  
> will not show odor. (A ballot could be identified by touching it  
> with a perfume.) And *not* using images increases general access to  
> the ballots. If nothing else, the official counting should be done  
> with images, not with the actual ballots, which should be imaged,  
> then sealed in packages designed to show tampering, and with a  
> court order required to open the packages.
>
> If the images are acquired in public view, and the public can  
> itself image the ballots -- such as with a camera, which does not  
> require that the imager touch the ballots -- then only ballot  
> identification schemes that depend on visible marks (pinpricks can  
> be made effectively invisible unless you know exactly where to look  
> and how to handle the ballot to open up the hole a little) could  
> succeed, and that brings them into public view, where recognition  
> that something is amiss becoming much more likely. Previously, only  
> a few election officials had the opportunity to detect something  
> like that. With public imaging, the entire public is potentially an  
> observer, and can observe in detail and at leisure.
>
> Gad, why isn't everybody jumping on this bandwagon? I really do  
> have to get the Election Methods Free Association going.... I'd  
> have an answer to my question that makes sense.
>
>> > a coercer, under present law, can already arrange to view ballots
>> > directly.
>>
>> I guess this refers to the U.S law. This of course (in addition to
>> providing some openness) introduces also some privacy and coercion
>> related problems.
>
> Yes. U.S. law. But it is true to some degree nearly everywhere.  
> Somebody has to count the ballots! All you need to do is plant  
> someone among the counters....

The risk of allowing access to the ballots to everyone is much  
riskier than having multiple vote counters (maybe not local people)  
each counting a small portion of the votes.

Juho

> The goal of election fraud is not to get increased votes. It is to  
> win. The fraud we are most concerned about, properly, is fraud  
> which turns results. And if it does turn results, it may well be  
> putting increased control of the election process in the hands of  
> those who committed the fraud. Or those who already have power are  
> tempted to use it to maintain power. The more that the process is  
> opened to full public scrutiny, the less likely this is to succeed.  
> Massive vote coercion can only be undertaken by heavily repressive  
> governments. Not by a few individuals who want to control how their  
> spouses voted!
>
> (heh, heh, I demanded that my wife run as a write-in for the school  
> committee so I could confirm that she actually voted for ... I  
> think this was 2004. Kerry. Never can tell, after all, her father  
> was a lawyer and one of them Republicans.)
>


		
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