House update: Overseas voting puts ballot secrecy, safety at significant risk
By Rep. David Floyd
50th District State Representative
Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 12:15 a.m. – Senate Bill 1 is designed to help overseas voters gain access to absentee ballots. But Secretary of State Alison Grimes says she wants overseas voters to be able to return their ballot electronically. So she prevailed on the majority leaders in the House to amend the bill in a House committee to include remote electronic voting.
This, in my view, is a mistake.
The effort is laudable, not least because “overseas voters” includes those serving in the military. Of course we desire that our soldiers are able to use modern technology to quickly receive and return a voting ballot. Our military voluntarily sacrifice their freedom to help ensure ours. But this modification would sacrifice the secret ballot as well.
Section 147 of the Kentucky Constitution states that “all elections by the people shall be by secret ballot.”
Like many others here, I recognize this as yet another assault on a constitutional right. And this time, the assault is primed and pointed at those who serve their country in the United States military.
We have significant, convincing evidence that the return of a ballot by electronic means is anything but secret. The evidence against remote electronic voting includes: the likelihood of violation of ballot secrecy or integrity; the theft of a voter’s authentication credentials; and the fact that these methods are not auditable.
This is why county clerks all over the state (including ours) are fiercely opposed to the electronic return of the absentee ballot.
The US Department of Commerce tells us that information transmitted across the internet is subject to interception, and not just for reading, but also for modification. These threats are present for any transmission, and not just email.
Common Cause (a liberal advocacy group) said in January of this year, that this idea is “untested and not ready for prime time.”
The District of Columbia set up a mock online voting election and invited people to try to hack it. Within 36 hours, a computer scientist and two students did just that. They didn’t just discover who voted how – they were able to change the choices people had made!
In 2012, the US Department of Defense cancelled plans to allow internet voting by military overseas after a security team audited a 22 million dollar system and found it vulnerable to cyberattacks.
And there is no way to detect it. According to Ron Rivest, the MIT cryptography pioneer, “Vendors may come and they may say that they’ve solved the internet voting problem for you, but I think that… they are misleading you, and misleading themselves as well.”
By our election we are granted authority to make law. But authority and submission are two sides of the same coin. Yes, we are granted authority through the constitution by those who elect us, but we are also required to submit to the limitations placed on us by the constitutions of both the United States and Kentucky.
Like those in the military, our oath of office is a solemn one to support the Constitution. We dishonor our military, as well as every citizen of this Commonwealth, when we don’t live up to that oath. The amendment succeeded in the House on Monday night, but I hope that the Senate will refuse to accept the change.
The risks associated with current technology are too great. We’d be presenting our soldiers with a kind of Sophie’s Choice: choose between the sanctity of your ballot and a slight increase in the chance that it will be counted. It’s a choice they shouldn’t be forced to make.
The best part of my job is hearing from you, so call me at home or leave a message at 1-800-372-7181. Saturday’s Coffee with Dave starts at 10:00 at Blazer’s in Bloomfield. I’ll buy the coffee, and hope to see you there.
-30-
