Internet Voting Trojan Horse in Military Voting Bill, three states take the bait

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Internet Voting Trojan Horse in Law Intended to help Military Voters
Three states take the bait.

If internet voting takes root and spreads, the consequences are far worse than paperless electronic voting.Internet voting is about to get its nose in the tent.

If that happens, it likely will be thanks to the Move Act, a law intended to help military voters.
The Move Act, or Military and Overseas Voters Empowerment Act (S. 1415) was added to the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1390)
the Federal MOVE Act has sent a message - internet voting is ok, lets start by experimenting with the military vote.
The Federal Voting Assistance Program FVAP will oversee the program.

FVAP sent a letter to all 50 states election offices with a 2010 legislative agenda that recommends states adopt internet voting pilot programs for military.

Three states have already taken the bait and are proposing internet voting for our troops!

Alabama, Colorado, and Massachusetts.
Additionally there's a county in Washington that wishes to have full blown internet voting IF the state will lift the requirement for paper ballots.

Alabama Rep. Jimmy Martin, D-Clanton is re-introducing an internet/military voting bill.

Alabama: State may be on fast track to pass military voting bill (military internet voting) The Alabama military voting bill, House Bill 30, has
been pre-filed by Rep. Jimmy Martin, D-Clanton, for the legislative session that begins in January. He sponsored the bill last year as well

This week, we see that Colorado has passed legislation to allow internet voting pilots for military, and the pilots will be partially funded by "private" parties. Will these private parties be identified? Could any of these private parties have a conflict of interest?...

Colorado: Colorado ranks high in its effort to count military ballots
11/06/2009... In June, Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law House Bill 1205, an overseas election reform measure introduced by Rep. Marsha Looper, R- Calhan, and endorsed by Colorado Secretary of State Bernie Buescher.
...
The legislation also approves a pilot program to allow overseas military personnel to vote via the Internet. The program, which is being studied, will be funded by grants and private contributions.

Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth hopes to have their troops voting over the internet this December, 2008.

Massachusetts: Expanded bonus for combat vets gets an OK (push for internet voting this year)
No additional state funding is needed to provide the bonuses this year, according to David Falcone, spokesman for Senate President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth.
...
Mr. Falcone said depending on how quickly the state can set up a secure Internet voting system, Massachusetts service members may be able to vote over the Internet as soon as the Dec. 8 primaries for the special U.S. Senate election.

Still want to try Internet Voting? Think *twice *about it:

1. Hackers cracked military systems and cut mains power
10th November 2009...Retired Admiral Mike McConnell, who oversaw organisations including the CIA and NSA, told the CBS News programme 60 Minutes that not only do attackers have the capability to bring down the US power grid but that the country is not prepared for such an attack.
...
This time last year, an attacker was able to access US military computer systems that were directly involved in war operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This access allowed the perpetrator to spy and potential control systems. They were, in the words of Lewis, "part of the American military command."


2. Cyber attacks traced to N. Korea
The Associated Press Friday Oct 30, 2009 SEOUL, South Korea - The North
Korean government was the source of high-profile cyber attacks in July
that caused Web outages in South Korea and the United States, news
reports said
Friday.

3. RELEASE OF RESEARCH REPORT ON "CHINESE CYBER WARFARE & ESPIONAGE"
Oct 22, 2009: The Commission has approved for public release a contracted
report entitled: Capability of the People's Republic of China to Conduct
Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation.The government of the
People's Republic of China (PRC) is a decade into a sweeping military
modernization program that has transformed its ability to fight high
tech wars. THE PDF REPORT [br />
4. Preparing for cyber warfare
The scramble for position on a new, global battlefield has begun, but it's not clear yet if state secrets, financial data and privacy can be defended
...
But, in truth, cyber spying is equal opportunity and has an amazing wealth of targets to go after.

5. Security expert: no way to secure Internet voting
WBBM Newsradio 780 CHICAGO (WBBM) -- An Internet security expert says there's no way Internet voting can reliably replace paper ballots to ease the expense of election day.

John Hopkins University computer science professor Avi Rubin spoke one day after Lake County, Ind., sat out a transit referendum because county commissioners didn't have a spare half million dollars to fund the election.
...
The ultimate problem, he says, is one of authentication: there's just no guaranteed way to tell who is who at either end of the voting connection.

Rubin says banking transactions are fine on the Internet because there's a back-office trail that can always be followed. But he says there's no secure way to ensure whether the person casting or counting a private ballot, is who they claim to be.


6. VerifiedVoting.org : Computer Technologists' statement on internet voting

[clear eye]

1. K&R

Wish you had put up this very informative post during higher traffic hours (like 8:30pm EST/5:30pm PST).

I think DUers also deserve to see this critical topic explored on GD. Care to cross-post this?

[Blue State Blues]

2. K & R n/t

[Yellow Horse]

3. Thanks, all you 100% Hand Counted Paper people...

...for your denial of service attacks here on the DU Election Reform board and for splitting the movement when we should all have been working toegether. Now indeed Internet Voting has its nose in the tent, and soon the chickens will come home to roost. Internet Voting is DREs on 10,000 doses of steroids. Hope everyone is happy.

:grr:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. editing. its time for us to work together and fight the great internet satan

:)

Seriously, I'm having trouble waking up my fellow e-voting folks to remind them
that there's a worse devil at our gates.

This is probably how HAVA got passed.

Stealth on one side, and blissful ignorance on the other.