ISRI Seminar Series

The PhD Program in Computation, Organizations & Society presents:

Why Don't We Have Paper Trails in Pennsylvania?

Michael I. Shamos
Distinguished Career Professor, ISRI

Monday, January 30, 2006, 12 pm, CIC DEC
(Collaborative Innovation Center, first floor)

ABSTRACT

Exactly half the states now require all voting systems to provide a
voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), which allows a voter to
confirm that her choices have been correctly interpreted by the voting
machine prior to recording a ballot and also allows manual recounting
in the event of machine failure or an allegation of tampering.
Pennsylvania does not require, but does not expressly prohibit, a
VVPAT.

Only systems that have been approved by the Secretary of the
Commonwealth can be used in Pennsylvania.  As of January 4, 2006, only
five voting systems had been approved.  None incorporates a paper
trail because every paper trail system submitted for certification has
violated one or more provisions of Pennsylvania law.  We will look at
the current state of paper trail systems to understand why no vendor
has been able to engineer a VVPAT that is usable in Pennsylvania.

On January 17, 2006, a Pennsylvania group called the Coalition for
Voting Integrity, filed suit in Commonwealth Court to enjoin the state
from requiring counties to buy or use voting machines without VVPATs,
claiming that it was "arbitrary and capricious" for Pennsylvania to
approve any system that does not produce voter-verifiable paper
records.  If the group succeeds in its lawsuit, it will be essentially
impossible to hold elections in Pennsylvania since no electronic
system exists that would satisfy both the Election Code and the
Coalition's demands other than optical scan technology.

The future of optical can systems is unclear, however, because of the
Hursti exploit, a clever attack against such machines demonstrated by
Finnish security expert Harri Hursti that resulted in Pennsylvania's
refusal to certify Diebold's OS optical scan system.  We will discuss
in detail how the Hursti exploit can be used to tamper with an
election and what kinds of countermeasures are necessary to protect
against it.


The speaker is one of two examiners of computerized voting systems for
the Pennsylvania Department of State.


BIO

Michael I. Shamos is Distinguished Career Professor in the Institute
for Software Research International and has been associated with CMU
for 30 years.  He is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar and serves as an
expert witness in computer-related cases, particularly eCommerce
patent and electronic voting litigation.  He has been an examiner of
computerized voting systems for Pennsylvania during 1980-2000 and 2004
to the present.