Electronic voting cannot be secured

A while back I argued that governments should adopt only electronic voting systems that run on open-source software.

I have to take back that advice.

“You simply can’t construct a trusted paper trail,” [Georgia Tech professor Richard] DeMillo says, “if you let a machine make a ballot for you.”

...

... some of the nation’s leading experts on computer science and elections concluded that there is no “technical mechanism currently available that can ensure that a computer application—such as one used to record or count votes—will produce accurate results.” One reason the authors noted: Malicious software “can be introduced at any point in the electronic path of a vote—from the software behind the vote-casting interface to the software tabulating votes—to prevent a voter’s vote from being recorded as intended.”

Translation: wherever computers are involved in the voting process, bad actors could corrupt the software. Whether that means some votes are ignored or altered, whether it happens at the polling place or a county central facility, the vote will have been subverted.

The problem with my original recommendation is that there is no way for people to know what the software on a given computer is actually doing. In general we cannot even know with certainty whether a computer is running the software the vendor intended.

You might object that we all use computers every day in spite of this concern, and that things pretty much work out as expected. Why, therefore, should electronic voting machines be any different?

The answer is, electronic voting machines carry out a task that is hugely important to the country, a task whose consequences affect millions. That gives bad actors a tremendous incentive to penetrate and to subvert such systems, far more incentive than they have to break into your computer or mine.

If you take the problem of subverted computers seriously you can make such subversion a lot harder. The trouble is that elected officials don't take the problem seriously. They're too ignorant of computers and software to grasp the problem's potential scope. Or worse, they're too concerned with fighting the bad press from past elections. Such seems to be the case with Georgia state senator William T. Ligon, Jr. He is not familiar with the fatal vulnerabilities of software systems, nor does he comprehend exactly how they work.

... Instead, Ligon cites the testimony of former Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox as one of the reasons he chose to back a system based on touch-screen voting machines that print out a paper ballot.

Cox told the legislature about “under votes, over votes, and stray votes. They all come with hand-marked paper ballots,” Ligon says. It is clear to him that printed ballots bring more certainty. When asked about research demonstrating that voters don’t or can’t verify their ballots when printed, Ligon said, “Voters have to take some responsibility for verifying their ballots.”

Ligon's familiar with all the fiascos that embarrassed Florida in the 2000 election but he has no clue about the ones that will engulf him and his colleagues if Georgia's electronic voting systems are cracked. All he understands is a PR nightmare from two decades ago. Talk about fighting the last war.

By ignoring voters' predictable behavior, Ligon demonstrates contempt for voting itself. Worse, the supposed verification he cites as the safeguard for election security is absolutely meaningless. The votes that will be counted are the digital ones, not the ones on the paper record. (If you were going to count paper ballots you wouldn't need software at the polling place at all: you'd make people mark their ballots the old-fashioned way.) Subverted software could print a faithful representation of the voter's choices while altering or ignoring the digital record. And again, it's the digital record of the vote that will be counted (or not).

These are not hard problems to understand, but you have to be willing to learn from experts. Ligon is not willing to learn. And he likely has a lot of company. Between willful ignorance (whether from anti-intellectualism or simply finding the concepts difficult to grasp) and a thirst for campaign contributions (electronic voting companies throw a lot of money around to entice officials to buy their products), we can expect that too many jurisdictions will make the foreseeably harmful choice to adopt vulnerable electronic voting systems.

Guys like Ligon have to be held accountable: their feet have to be held to the fire until they listen to the experts who understand these things.

In the meantime, voters must demand paper ballots, no matter how cumbersome and primitive they seem.

Glitz versus greatness

The so-called leader who ducked out of military service in Viet Nam has ordered the military to participate in Washington, D.C.'s annual Fourth of July festivities.

White House officials have said Mr. Trump’s speech is not intended to be political, but rather an homage to the military and to the United States. Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said, “The president loves America and wants to help all Americans celebrate our nation’s independence with a salute to America on the National Mall.”

If what made the United States great was its military, the United States would not have earned the respect of millions (at least before Don Trumpone waddled into the Oval Office).

The U.S. military was a relatively minor component of the nation before World War II. People didn't emigrate to the United States for more than a century because they lusted after its military hardware. They came because they heard the siren call of the nation's promise that all men could be free.

The history of this nation has been a struggle to live up to the ideals enshrined in the Constitution. Those ideals and our determination to embody them in the way we live are the wellspring of this nation's greatness.

To highlight the military on the national holiday that celebrates the country (rather than a religious event like Christmas) is to misconstrue the very nature of the country. The military is a fine institution but it's no accident that it is subordinate to the nation's civilian authority. The nation's heart is its commitment to shared ideals.

Trump comprehends none of this. He is obsessed with surface impressions, with visuals and sparkle. Fighter jets are impressive, tanks are impressive, and that makes them emblems of greatness in his eyes. If he could get a Ford-class aircraft carrier onto the streets of D.C., it would be part of his plans for the Fourth.

Anyway, Trump is uniquely incapable of uniting this nation around shared ideals. Even before his 2016 campaign he specialized in divisive, ugly rhetoric (birtherism, demonizing the Central Park Five, lying about Arab Americans cheering the fall of the World Trade Center towers) because he is incapable of inspiring others. He can only conceive of himself triumphing and others being vanquished. "Greatness" is reserved for him and his adoring followers alone.

Military parades, France's Bastille Day celebration notwithstanding, bring to mind tinpot dictators trying to distract their unhappy populaces. The comparison is all too apt in our own case, I fear.

Trying to link the military so tightly to the nation's "greatness" besmirches both. Trump will go to his grave not understanding that. The rest of us, however, must.

Pence is mistaken — as usual

The Vox piece is headlined, "Pence tells graduating Christans to be ready for attacks on their faith".

In his remarks, he warned students of the attacks they’d face just for being religious. Often, he said, they’d be asked to not only tolerate but also endorse values that go against their beliefs. He added that those who tout tolerance are often the least tolerant of traditional Christian values.

What traditional Christian values might trigger such intolerance?

Karen Pence, who sat in the crowd during the speech, received “harsh attacks” in January after she returned to teach art at a Christian school that bans LGBTQ teachers and students, Pence said in his speech. He characterized the incident as an “un-American” attack on Christian education and vowed to protect the First Amendment, which upholds freedom of religion.

Mike Pence is okay with Christians who will not tolerate the presence of LGBTQ teachers or students. He is not okay with those who object to that intolerance of LGBTQ people.

And what's the justification for calling the latter "un-American"?

Why, the fact that freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution.

Now, I thoroughly approve of the First Amendment's prohibition against the government supporting or opposing religion. However, I have deep misgivings about how far freedom of religion has been taken.

Too many religious adherents would like that freedom to extend further than it should: they celebrate idiocies like Indiana's stupendously misguided 2015 legislation prohibiting state and local laws that "substantially burden" people following their religious beliefs. Such laws provide cover for anything that a believer claims is required by his religion — including a religious business owner denying service to whomever he likes. Hello, colossally wrongheaded Hobby Lobby decision (which I've discussed at some length elsewhere: see the above link for the citations).

Answer me this, Mike Pence: why is your religious intolerance of non-heterosexuals just fine and dandy, but my thorough dislike and condemnation of bigoted Christians like you not okay? Why is the latter, in fact, positively un-American in your eyes?

Let me help you. The reason you can throw around the loaded expression "un-American" is that the Founders were wary of religious oppression by the government. They did not, however, mean to let the likes of you oppress others in the name of your religion. Your characterizing of criticism of your faith as "un-American" is nothing more or less than a grotesque misreading of the First Amendment.

In fact, the harm your wife suffered from criticism does not compare to the harm inflicted by you and your LGBTQ-hating ilk on a still-marginalized minority, harm inflicted by laws like the aforementioned 2015 one you tried to enact when you were governor of Indiana. You tried to elevate the privileges of religious adherents above that of everyone else. Talk about "un-American"!

You are so blinkered by your faith that you can't see your hypocrisy.

You also are so hung up on writ that you have lost sight of the fundamental decency that religion is supposed to inculcate. You dare to condemn people you don't know based on what they do with other consenting adults in the privacy of their bedrooms?

You're telling the world you think non-heterosexuals are evil: that is, after all, the only excuse your wife's school can have for banning them. I can guarantee you, though, that that school has employed, and admitted as students, people whose hearts are less pure than some of those it has refused to employ or to admit as students over the years. That's just the way life is. Being heterosexual doesn't make you purer, hard as it is for you to see that, Mike.

This post will not change your mind, Mike, I know that. You will continue to fear and loathe non-heterosexuals for as long as you draw breath.

However, you need to know that those of us not in the thrall of religious blindness see through your literally holier-than-thou bullshit.

Don't try waving the Constitution at us and bleating that loathing and reviling your bigotry is "un-American".

The rest of us are upholding this country's ideals by rejecting your intolerant principles.

The White House doesn't want election security

It's hardly a surprise, but now we (or at least I) have on-the-record quotations from a White House spokesperson confirming that the White House killed election-security legislation last year in the Senate.

The Rules Committee planned to advance the legislation last August but postponed it after criticism from the White House and some state officials.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said at the time that if Congress wished to continue pursuing the Secure Elections Act, it should not “violate the principles of federalism.”

“We cannot support legislation with inappropriate mandates or that moves power or funding from the states to Washington for the planning and operation of elections,” she said.

Heaven forbid that states be required to have minimum security standards for little things like our elections.

The White House simply is not a credible voice when it comes to ... well, anything these days, but particularly not when it comes to anything related to our elections. Our domestic Dear Leader is apparently so touchy about the continuing furor over Russian interference in the 2016 election that Cabinet members can't even bring the subject up in the context of protecting the next election.

The trouble is, the only one Donnie's obstinacy and indifference to electoral integrity benefits is him. The rest of us? We get him for another four years, along with who can guess what other bizarre and untrustworthy results.

Look, I know that if you support him it feels like the rest of us are out to get him come hell or high water. You think we'll say anything to boot him from office, fairly or otherwise.

But get this straight: Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

If the Russians had jumped in on Hillary's side, you would have broken out the pitchforks and the torches. You would have called on the rest of us to join you because you would have been enraged that a foreign country messed with our decision. You would have done that even if Hillary had lost, in spite of their support.

Does that give you a better idea of how the rest of us feel, knowing that the Russians interfered on Trump's behalf?

The bottom line is, the Russians have no fucking business messing with our, or anybody else's, election.

We are overdue to harden our elections against them (and other bad actors). Yet the White House killed Congress' prior attempt to respond, rather than working with Congress to fix the bill.

Even if you love Trump, you can't let him leave our elections open to interference. That would betray the entire country.

This is what ethical and moral bankruptcy look like

According to Rudy Giuiliani:

“There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians,” Mr. Giuliani said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that he would have argued against using it, “out of excess of caution.”

Guiliani would have argued against it "out of an excess of caution"? Sorry, Rudy, your ass is still very much uncovered and hanging out in the wind.

To the statement, "There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians", there is but one answer:

In the context of a campaign, yes, there fucking well is!

That you and your client won't acknowledge that, Rudy, is merely the latest proof that you and he are bereft of a moral compass. There is no "wrongdoing" in your world view except that which defies your client's will.

It is absolutely farcical that you and he bleat on about "exoneration" when there is ample hard evidence — hundreds of pages' worth in Mr. Mueller's report and in your client's own innumerable public statements — that the only thing your client didn't do was to come to a formal agreement with Russia's intelligence services to work together.

That you and he do not comprehend how appalling it was to accept any kind of foreign aid for his campaign, especially foreign aid that came in the form of illegal penetration of computer systems, loudly proclaims how indifferent you both are to the rule of law and how unfit he is to hold high office.

A lawyer indifferent to the rule of law at the very least must be disbarred.

A president indifferent to the rule of law at the very least must be turfed out of office.

Whether you each should also serve prison sentences is an excellent question.

It's not about Trump, it's about our elections

I haven't had a chance to read the Mueller report yet. However, based on the glosses I've heard from cable news (I know, such a reliable source), what's clear to me is that Don Trumpone's possibly criminal actions are a secondary matter for us citizens.

The most important thing Congress has to do for us is to prevent Russia or anybody else from messing around in our elections.

I'm not saying Don Trumpone didn't commit crimes. However, if we have to choose between pursuing him or safeguarding our elections, I regret to say that there is no choice. It will do us no good to punish Don Trumpone if Russia or North Korea or somebody else can screw us over in the 2020 election.

And unfortunately, Don Trumpone's endless emission of lies and inflammatory rhetoric coupled with his multitude of corrupt actions in and out of office have created a myriad of possible investigative trails — so many that Congress might well be unable to pursue them all in any real way.

Clearly Don Trumpone himself is not going to lift a stubby finger to prevent foreign interference. If anybody is going to act in defense of our elections, it will have to be Congress, and possibly just Democrats in Congress, I regret to say.

That defense must be Congress' priority.

Billy and Donnie, sittin' in a tree...

The Justice Department has discussed the Mueller report with the White House, per the New York Times.

Justice Department officials have had numerous conversations with White House lawyers about the conclusions made by Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, in recent days, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The talks have aided the president’s legal team as it prepares a rebuttal to the report and strategizes for the coming public war over its findings.

As Neal Katyal reminded us on Maddow tonight, Don Trumpone was a subject of the investigation. What in the hell is the Attorney General doing, sharing an investigation's findings with its subject?

Oh, but Donnie was exonerated, his defenders say. Well, that was only Barr's interpretation of the report. Nobody else has read it!

Oh, but Barr is an honorable man, Trumpers say. Really? That's not what the record indicates. Just Security has a fascinating look at an eerily similar fiasco centered on Barr during Bush 41's administration. At that time Barr announced a startling new DOJ policy permitting the FBI to conduct extraterritorial arrests. Congress wanted to look at the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo Barr had authored justifying the new policy. Barr refused, citing what he claimed was a long history of keeping OLC memoranda secret. (He was wrong, to make the kindest possible interpretation.) He offered to summarize the memo instead.

Congress was dissatisfied with the summary and subpoenaed the original memo. It eventually was released, of course, at which point everyone discovered that Barr's summary misrepresented the original memo.

Doesn't give me warm, fuzzy feelings about Barr's truthfulness or honor. Especially since Barr got his job in no small part because he wrote a memo, before being nominated for the AG job, decrying Mueller's investigation as illegitimate.

Barr is behaving as the sycophantic crony Don Trumpone always wanted in the AG job, a crony who will do everything he can to defend the boss, justice and his oath of office (to the Constitution, remember) be damned.

I don't know what Barr sees in Don Trumpone. I wonder if Barr stands to gain materially in a way no one yet sees. I otherwise cannot understand why he has torched his reputation with a majority of the public. And yes, if my own reaction is representative of those outside Don Trumpone's base, that's exactly what Barr has done to himself.