HomeMy WebLinkAboutRequest for Support of Open Source Voting and CAVO September 22,2016
Secretary of State Alex Padilla
1500 15`h Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: Request for Support of Open Source Voting and CAVO
Dear Secretary Padilla:
We appreciate the opportunity to speak at length with your Chief of Legislative Affairs,
James Schwab, in your offices on September W'. It was a good opportunity for us to get a
better idea of your plans, and for us to give you a better idea of what we've done and
what we are trying to accomplish. Brent Turner and I had met with you and Mr. Schwab
prior to you taking office, and this was the first chance to meet since you took office in
2015. Brigette Hunley, of the California Democratic Party,joined us.'
While we covered many things, we came to the meeting to ask you to become a member
and actively promote California Association of Voting Officials (CAVO)whose goal is to
make the voting process more transparent, trustworthy, and affordable.An essential
feature of this improved technology is the use of open source solutions.
Mr. Schwab gave an initial answer: The Secretary of State can't promote an open source
voting system (or systems)because it would compete with other systems the Secretary of
State has to certify. It would be a conflict of interest. Regarding actively promoting open
source voting and CAVO, Mr. Schwab said, "we would not be comfortable doing that."
We urge you to reconsider your position now and join us for four main reasons:
1. Open source voting technology will be better and less expensive.
2. Privatization of important aspects of the voting process has not worked well. The
Los Angeles County Voting System Assessment Project has provided important
clues about making the system public,but this needs to be statewide and with
better technical input and oversight.
3. Timing is critical.As you have pointed out, the current fleet of voting systems is
obsolete and in need of replacement.
4. You can help establish a durable repository of information and technology for the
benefit of all counties and cities in California.
Los Angeles County, the largest jurisdiction in the country, claims to be working toward
open source voting. However, this publicly funded project is geared toward an
idiosyncratic system, and the results are not likely to be easily shared with other counties
and cities.
1 Photo taken in your office,L to R,Brent Turner,Brigette Hunley,Alan Dechert;by James Schwab:
httl2://openvoting.org/ad/sos8sep.'=
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Letter from Alan Dechert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEP 2016
Page 2 of 10
Los Angeles has assembled commodity components into a highly customized and
expensive voting machine, rendering it impractical. Casting a paper ballot without having
the voter touch it has been suggested for maximum accessibility,but it is not required. In
fact, this feature is mainly vendor-driven to create a niche product.
As laudable as it may be to make voting machines as accessible as possible, there are
limits to enabling everyone to vote privately and without assistance at the poll site. If we
accept the Los Angeles voting machine requirements, it would make poll site voting so
expensive it would be eliminated. Ultimately, smart phones will maximize accessibility,
but we are not there yet.
V pointed out that you are obligated to protect proprietary systems from disclosure of
trade secrets when they are submitted to you for Certification. Mr. Schwab said "that's the
law." But you are not obligated to protect voting technology from disclosure that was
never hidden in the first place, and doesn't harbor trade secret methods to count votes.
Certification of open source systems can be easier and better than with proprietary ones.
Public universities can participate without the need to protect trade secrets in a closed
process.
To maximize efficiency and economy, we need standardization. We need standard data
formats and standard methods. How do we even know if good standards are being
followed when details like source code are systematically kept secret?
As a matter of fact the government has a direct and compelling interest toward risk
management to inspire voter confidence.A transparent and secure environment via open
source is the scientific answer to prevent against public doubts and unrest.
Here is further data and testfirlony on ten topics we discussed or touched upon:
1. Copy of handout for CAVO presentation at NACo national conference.
Brent Turner gave an invited presentation at the annual conference of the National
Association of Counties July 22 regarding The Future of Voting Technology. Los Angeles
County Registrar Recorder, Dean Logan, spoke just before Brent. Mr. Logan was
showing off their latest prototype.
The handout we prepared for this event has a good summary of the argument for open
source voting.
2 For the record,I helped organize CAVO in late 2013,and I continue to support and promote CAVO in
every way I can. I am currently an unpaid consultant to CAVO.I worked as a programmer/analyst in
the 1.990s, and worked for several years as a software test engineer at Intel's R&D center in Oregon
and at Borland International on nine commercial products used by millions of computer users.I am
familiar with product life cycle from concept to delivery and implementation. See this Wikipedia entry
for more about CAVO and my former organization,OVC,described as CAVO"predecessor;"
https,:Heii.wikil,2edia.aig/wiki/Calit grnia &so.ciatjon of voting Officials
3 llttD://oi.)eiivotinL,.oi-g/ad/iiaco-7-22-.I—
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4 httl2-.//openvotizig.org/ad/naco Islita.pcif
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Letter from Alan Dechert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEP 2016
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For example, we need the software to be shareable, and the GPL license helps facilitate
that. I explained this using Professor Juan Gilbert's example in New Hampshire.
The insert at the bottom of the first page describes three basic features that new voting
technology should have in order to be easy to share. Los Angeles lacks the three basic
features.
At an earlier presentation of the prototype I attended (June) in Los Angeles, I said that
voters like to see that their votes are counted correctly. I asked how ballots would be
tabulated with this system. They said tabulation would be addressed in the next phase.
They have a team working on what software license to use.After so many years, they
can't answer the simplest and most basic questions.
The result in Los Angeles is especially disappointing since I invested so much time and
effort to get the idea across. Over 15 years ago, Supervisor Antonovich asked the
Registrar Recorder to investigate the feasibility of my proposal (open source with
commodity components; print completed paper ballot in the voting booth)'.
I first met with Mr. Logan and his staff in March of 2008. By 2010, he said he would
form or join a consortium to help make the technology shareable.Years later there was
still no consortium, so we created CAVO. Mr. Logan can't say what open source license
he will use, and his voting booth with commodity components is over-the-top
complicated.
Mr. Logan often refers to the uniqueness of Los Angeles, including the many languages
they have to support. However, in fact, it should not matter for the software if you
support two languages or 20 languages. The software code should be the same. Language
differences are stored in resource files.
Charitably,we compare his prototype to a concept car. It incorporates many features,but
can't be considered for production as a whole. LA spent 14 million dollars on one sole
source design contract with IDEO.
Despite his Frankenstein creation, maybe it's better than nothing. Mr. Logan has been
talking about the need for a public voting system as opposed to the privatized system we
have now.
More than fifteen years after our first discussions there, Mr. Logan says he is taking his
time to "get it right." But it's not right. We need to burn the mill to end it.
2. We discussed the importance of a proper open source license in order for the
software to be shareable. For example, one of our associates, Professor Juan Gilbert,
provided New Hampshire with his "open source" Prime III voting software before he had
licensed it as General Public License (GPL). New Hampshire made modifications, but
5 See http://openvoting.ore/ad/antonovich32201.pdf
Alan Dechert t PO Sax 2754♦Granite Bay,CA 95746♦(916)792-1784•dechert@gmail.com•@dechert•dechert on fb
Letter from Alan 17echert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEP 2016
Page 4 of 10
decided not to share the changes. They weren't obligated to do so since the software
didn't have a license requiring them to do so.
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner wrote Brent Turner a laudatory letter'
regarding Prime III,but we really want to see GPL licensed software that needs to remain
public after modifications'.
I pointed out that lots of commercial software makes use of open source software with
permissive (non-GPL)licensing,but then is no longer truly open source and shareable.
For example,Apple used an open source version of Unix in their OS-X operating system.
It's great they were able to make use of the free open source software, but OS-X itself is
proprietary and not useful to the open source community.
Professor Gilbert has since assigned the GPL license to his Prime III system.
3. The Secretary of State has often pushed back against efforts forts o f open source
advocates. My experience with this office goes back to Bill Jones. His policy directory,
Chris Reynolds (still in your office), attended the presentation I gave to the Sacramento
elections office in February 2001.At that time,we believed they would be getting rid of
their punch card system. I wanted to set up a pilot program based on using free open
source software and inexpensive hardware. The SoS feedback was critical, and negative,
while the state was showing favoritism to Sequoia'.
In 2004, OVC sponsored Assembly Concurrent Resolution 242 (author, Jackie Goldberg)
which asked the Secretary of State to investigate using open source for election software
and issue a report by January 1, 2006.
Months before the deadline, we reminded Secretary McPherson of the request. We
suggested that public hearings should be held since there was little source material on this
subject. Initially, he seemed amenable to our suggestion but then backed off. He issued a
cursory review written by staff without any serious investigation or hearings—and a
month after the deadline.
Debra Bowen, then Chair of the state senate's elections committee, on February 8, 2006,
held the first hearing ever on the subject of open source software for elections.
6 See http://www.openvoting.org/ad/gardner.pdf
7 This issue came to light in the San Francisco Elections Commission meeting of December 2015.Here
are specific references from the recording athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnrHKXmbS7 The
discussion goes from about 30:50 to about 41:20 in the recording.
32:50--modifications not available(Jerdonek).
36AS--question about sharing modifications
38:30--are they happy to share it?(commissioner)
40:00--only concerned for making it work for themselves(Jerdonek)
8 For example, during the January 2001 California Assembly elections committee meeting(subject,
Could California become another Florida?), Sequoia salesman gave a presentation of touchscreen
paperless voting machine.No other vendor was giving a presentation.
Alan Dechert♦PO Box 2754♦Granite Bay,CA 95746♦(916)792-1784♦dechert@gmail.com♦@dechert♦dechert on fb
Letter frorn Alan Dechert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEP 2016
Page 5 of 10
Bowen loudly proclaimed support for open source voting'when she was running for
Secretary of State, but defaulted on her promise to make it a reality.
I mentioned to Mr. Schwab that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (especially Scott
Wiener) sounded like they were ready to join CAVO and fund open source". Then, a few
days later, they received a letter frond former Deputy Secretary of State Lowell Finley"
which contained specious and negative remarks about CAVO. This set us back more than
a year. Mr. Schwab seerned aware of the letter and pointed out it was 4 months after lie
left office.
Nonetheless, Lowell Finley was touting his credentials as "Chief Counsel to the Secretary
of State," It was very influential, and devastating to our cause.
We would like to see you reverse this trend, and make the California Secretary of State a
firm supporter of open source, and help us find a way to get it established here.
4. Progress in San Francisco with the open source voting project.
We outlined some of the progress we've made over the past 15 years getting,this concept
accepted, as well as some of the challenges. For example, in San Francisco, we were
invited to speak at the Elections Commission meeting in October of last year. Elections
Director Arntz concluded that while it looks like everyone wants open source, he could
not use it because no open source system lie needs has been certified. He said lie would
proceed with his Request for Proposals in January (which would have favored his current
proprietary vendor, Dominion). I suggested Director Arntz be replaced. The next month,
he reported that he would not go ahead with the RFP but would be doing open source
instead. Some relevant authorities at the City and County of San Francisco apparently
informed him that they really did want open source—not another round of proposals from
the usual proprietary vendors.
Since then, the SF Board of Supervisors and the Mayor have allocated $300,0!00 for some
initial work toward open source for elections. SF would be further along if Los Angeles
was more open about its findings and works.At a recent University of Florida event,
although Mr. Logan stated he had "a team working on it," he was still unable to say how
the L.A. software would be licensed.
Travis County Texas has also started funding some work toward open source for
elections. This could be useful to San Francisco and the cause generally, as along as the
software license is open source as they've advertised. We will know more about this
soon.
S. Untapped scientific talent ready to contribute to open source solutions.
Many scientists and engineers are enthusiastic about contributing to open source voting.
However, the push back on CVC and now CAVO has stifled this great resource.
9 Listen to,litti)://opeiivotiiig.oi-g/ad/Boweii-excerpt.iiiL)3
10 See http://www.cavo-us.o�i-g/News]et(er/iiewsletter2.hti-nI
11 See iitti):/lopetivotiiig,or2/ad/finley2sfl)os.j)d
Alan Dechert#PO Box 2754#Granite Bay,CA 95746*(916)792-1784*dechert@gmaiB.com*@dechert*dechert on fb
Letter from Alan Dechert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEP 2016
Page 6 of 10
I pointed out to Mr. Schwab that there were scientists and engineers waiting to help OVC,
but we needed to build momentum.
6. SB 450 is a partial solution at best—maybe not even a good solution. Mr. Schwab
gave an example suggesting it might be more efficient for a county with 1.000 precincts to
have S00 voting centers open for 10 days than have poll sites at each of the 1000
precincts.
Equipment for poll sites could be much less expensive. Taxpayers could save a lot more
with inexpensive equipment and free software, rather than cutting back on service.
I mentioned attending the August 2nd Assembly elections committee informational
briefing where you were presenting the Colorado model. The Denver Director of
Elections,Amber McReynolds, gave an extensive presentation.
After the presentation, I spoke with Ms. McReynolds and pointed out a gross error in her
presentation. Her handout12 says the "cost per vote" had gone down to $2.88 in the 2014
General election. It came out during the presentation that she really was talking about
cost per registered voter. I told her that her handout was incorrect claiming "cost per
vote." She said that the handout said, "cost per voter." I showed where it said, "cost per
vote."
There can make a very large difference between cost per vote, cost per ballot cast, and
cost per registered voter. For example, in the 2014 primary, Los Angeles had an 11
percent turnout. So, cost per ballot cast would be 9 times higher than cost per registered
voter"
Ms. McReynolds didn't make a clear distinction between ballot and vote.A vote is a
preference indicated for a particular contest(or N of M in some cases). There could be
many contests and votes on a ballot, or a few.A consolidated ballot may have many
contests, so cost per vote could be lower than a ballot with few contests.
There are trade-offs, and some designs may make the voting process a better deal for a
vendor(like Dominion).We should consider what is best for California voters.
California has 10% of the entire US population and many of the innovators in technology,
including people behind open source software. There is no reason to ship money out of
state to companies with such a poor track record.You need more and better data, as well
12 See ht :lln env tin r la co-model. df
13 This underscores a problem we see often with election officials playing loose with figures.To this day,
good basic data on cost per vote is impossible to get from election officials. Often, dose examination
of the data shows faulty or missing assumptions. Some of them treat federal and state grants as free
money and don't include amortization of these taxpayer dollars.They should also break out costs like
cost-per-vote,cost-per-registered-voter,and cost-per-ballot-cast....because they are all significant,and
different.
Alan Dechert♦PO Box 2754•Granite Bay,CA 95746•(916)792-1784 4 dechert@gmail.com♦@dechert♦dechert on fb
Letter from Alan Dechert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEP 2016
Page 7 of 10
as more discussion on this important topic before committing the state to a particular
path.
You can achieve a much better service to voters and more efficient election
administration utilizing programming talent and other resources available in Cali fornix.
7. Companies, like Samsung and Apple have spent billions to make smart phones and
tablets highly accessible for people with many different limitations. Why try to outdo
them?
There is no need for purpose-built accessible voting machines. Even if you don't think
ballots can be returned by smart phone in the foreseeable future, they could still be used
as purely accessible devices at the poll site. Tablets too have great accessibility features,
and a variety of devices, can be attached as the voter desires.
I gave Mn Schwab my touchscreen tablet with a GPL voting application to try out. If
used for elections, about the only thing we really need to add would be a molded plastic
frame that would snap-on and cover the ports (and camera) so the voter would only see
the screen. Such a device would only cost a dollar or two if made in quantity. For the
OVC demos, we used foam board partitions that cost about three dollars per booth".
I'm sure you've heard some scientists and engineers say "don't consider smart pholle
voting." However, there are plenty that will say it is feasible. We want to see you
investigate this potentially valuable method.
Last year,we gave a presentation`,'' to the EAC via phone conference. SAP hosted the call.
The NIST scientists involved with voting were also on the call. No one said it could not
be done, and they said they wanted to see more.
At this point, we don't need you to commit to smart phone voting,, but it is something you
should seriously investigate.As for the EAC, regulations and laws, all. this can change.
The benefits are potentially very large: increased voting participation, maximize ability
for voters with disabilities to vote privately and independently, and lower costs.
8. Open GIS has a similar consortium model with a variety of government agencies,
universities, nonprofits, and for-profit companies, large and small.
To illustrate a model of government support for the consortium model, we, often use the
Open GIS consortium.16 The mix of participants is very similar to what we would
anticipate with a fully functioning open source voting consortium. CAVO has the same
structure- a 501(c)(6) mutual benefit nonprofit.
14 A voting system like we advocate—with free open source software and inexpensive commonly
available hardware-would involve some custom hardware,but it would be minimal.
15 See littp://(
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16 See litti)://WWW.ODeiipeOSDatial.orp/op-c/meinbers and htti)://www.opeilgLosp
Alan Dechert#PO Box 2764+Granite Bay,CA 95746#(916)792-1784 4 dechert@gmaii.com#@dechert+dechert an fb
Letter from Alan Dechert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEP 2016
Page 8 of 10
9. Mainstream businesses and governments are finding that open source software is
meeting routine requirements at lower cost and greater efficiency. Why not for voting
too? Why pay software license fees for proprietary products when there is a free and
open source version that would do as well, or even better?
The answer to this question, has been something like, "because it requires investment to
make the transition."This should not be a show-stopper. Between federal, state, and local
investment, new system voting system purchases in the 2000s,amounted to nearly $800
million in California.
The world is practically running on open source these days. Most web servers are running
Apache, which is open source. The second most popular web server product, is also open
source (NGINX, pronounced "engine x").
Linux, an open source operating system, has taken over the task of running
supercomputers–now 99% of them running Linux.
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Mr. Turner pointed out that the federal government is turning to open source for several
applications, in the military, the legislature and in the White House.17
As you have pointed out, systems currently in use are obsolete and will need to be
replaced in the coming years. Moving to open source will require some investment now
but can drive these costs down and keep the money in California.
17 See httl)s://wwwwliitchouse.,gov/12log/2016/03/09/itveragiiig-amei-ican-iTlgenuity-thi-ough-i-eusable-
and-open-source-s-Q.ftwore
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Letter from Alan Dechert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEP 2016
Page 9 of 10
10. The Secretary of State's 2007 tap-to-bottom review raises some important
questions, like, "how was this software certified in the first place?"
This was the first time independent scientists and engineers had a chance to really
examine the software.They found that very low quality software got through the
certification process because the code was never thoroughly reviewed.
Secretary Bowen did not solve the problem. She de-certified the software, but then re-
certified it with conditions. This was an ad hoc remedy at best, and did not address the
underlying problem.You have a chance to solve the problem.
Open source may seem like a novel idea to some people in the elections world,but it is
not novel in the computer world. Peer review makes a big difference. Our experience in
New Hampshire inadvertently revealed an important issue: it's easier to keep the code
secret to avoid criticism of peer reviewers.
In summary, the new voting technology you have been promoting is based on proprietary
commercial systems that have this feature: important details of how votes are captured
and tallied are systematically denied to the public.This would be a continuation of the
status quo,which we believe is not in the public interest.
There is some progress, and we applaud your efforts and accomplishments so far.We ask
for your help to make our public-private consortium a complete success. We can identify
a few jurisdictions that want open source voting,while approaching all counties and
encouraging them to support CAVO to achieve excellent low cost—open, maintainable
and shareable—voting systems can be finished, certified and made easily available to all
counties and cities in California.
Ms. Hunley suggested that a position on the CAVO Advisory Board would be appropriate
for you, and that she wanted to work with Mr. Schwab on a response. I said it might be
better if you were a voting director for CAVO.
You have a chance to make a very positive change for the State of California. We urge
you to help us make open source voting successful in California that will be the blueprint
for the entire country.
Sincerely,
[ signed ]
Alan Dechert
Courtesy Copies (electronic
.dames Schwab, Chief of Legislative Affairs,CA Secretary of State
Tom Hicks, Chair,US Election Assistance Commission
Brian Newby, CAVO Advisory Board and Executive Director,US Election Assistance Commission
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Letter from Alan Dechert to Secretary of State Alex Padilla
22 SEC'2016
Page 10 of 10
Brigette Hunley,CAVO Advisory Board, California Democratic Party,Computer&Internet Caucus
Brent Turner, CAVO Board Secretary
Tim Mayer,CAVO Board President
Kamala Harris, California Attorney General
Gavin C. Newsom,Lieutenant Governor of California
John Chiang, California State Treasurer
Dr. Shirley Nash Weber,Chair, CA State Assembly Committee on Elections and Redistricting
Ben Allen, Chair,CA Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee
Board of Supervisors,All 58 California Counties
Bryan Desloge, President,National Association of Counties(NACo)
Matthew Chase, Executive Director of the National Association of Counties(NACo)
Neal Kelley,President,California Association of Clerks and Election Officials
Jill Rowe, President, San Francisco Elections Commission
Naomi Kelly, Chair,San Francisco Committee on Information Technology
Andrew S. Tanen baurn,Professor emeritus of computer science,Vrije Universiteit,Amsterdam
Mark Shuttleworth, Founder,Canonical Ltd
Anna G. Eshoo, Congresswoman,California's 18'h Congressional District
Pratt Wiley,Democratic National Committee
David Chasteen, Security Analyst,City and County of San Francisco
Jerry Brown, Governor of California
Matthew Boehmer,Director,Federal Voting Assistance Program
Rich Lindsey,Council of State Governments
Hank Johnson,Member of Congress
Sharon Laskowski,National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST)
Arturo Vargas,National Association of Latino Elected Officials(NALEO)
Caitlyn Maple, CA Forward
Jay Nath, San Francisco County Office of Civic Innovation
Neil McClure, Election System Analyst
Warren Slocum, President,San Mateo County Board of Supervisors
David Wheeler,Institute of Defense Analysis
Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives
Christine Pelosi, California Democratic party
Peter Harrell, Center for a New American Security--
Phil Ting, Member,California State Assembly
David Chiu,Member,California State Assembly
Bob Mulholland,DNC Member
Seamus Kraft, Open Gov Foundation
Ed Lee,Mayor of San Francisco
Eric Garcetti,Mayor of Los Angeles
Laura Maristany,National Association of Latino Elected Officials(NALEO)
Henry Berger,Special counsel to Mayor DeBlasio NYC
Ethan Jones, Chief Consultant,CA Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee
Darren Chesin, CA Senate Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendment
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