welcome
i'm so glad you're joining our talk
today thanks for watching i'm excited to
talk about what technologists need to
know about the world of election
administration
so that you can plan how best to apply
your technical skills
to help save our democracy look before
we really dig in
i want to start by just being up front
and saying let's be honest
the topic of elections it's pretty rough
topic these days no matter your
political stripes
talking about it is dicey there's a lot
to be concerned about
and there's a lot of tough conversations
to be had
jimmy fallon he put it really well when
he talked about
just kind of how drawn out everything is
and how it can make us feel he said
today felt like waking up with a
hangover and then realizing that you're
still at the bar
and i thought that was a pretty good way
of putting it other people captured
their feelings around election night
this way look i've been working in
elections for 20 years
and it definitely feels like in the last
12 months
i've probably gotten more gray hairs on
my beard and in my hair
than in the previous 12 years straight
but to settle down seriously these are
very challenging times in elections
and the stakes are high election
officials in particular have been under
more stress than
anyone even to the point of being
harassed
intimidated and threatened with violence
like never before
that has to stop it absolutely has to
stop
and we've got big issues to solve
because let's be really clear
about what's at stake
that's what's at stake our democracy
and we need to be really clear about
that so what does technology have to do
with solving that problem well with
respect to technology
none is more consequential to democracy
than election technology of course
when it works well it helps contribute
to confidence in the election outcomes
strong democracy and social cohesion but
if it's not done right it contributes
to mistrust in government toxic hyper
partisanship
and that can of course feel totally
disheartening
but i'll tell you at this moment the
osset institute is optimistic
i'm going to say that again we are
optimistic
and i'll tell you the reason why is
because we can't think of another time
when so many americans have been so
interested in the topic of election
integrity
so we actually view this as a golden
opportunity to roll up our sleeves
to try to turn down the temperature on
division and to work together to
increase
public confidence in elections but
here's part of the challenge and here's
part of how we got here
a lot of the concerns and claims that
are made about elections and election
integrity they totally lack
context about how election
administration actually works
in fact a lot of the claims are based on
a misunderstanding of how elections work
and that makes it easier for
misinformation to spread
so fundamentally here's why we're doing
this talk because
everything looks suspicious when you
don't know how anything works
today's talk is a primer on technology
in the election administration operating
environment
what's common what's not and what you
should anticipate again
so that you can best apply your skills i
want to say up front that i do recognize
that there's going to be different
levels of experience in the audience
today
for some of you this is probably going
to feel like election administration 101
but i know there's also more experienced
folks and for you i hope you'll consider
this a kind of literature review
just to remind you of what's the most
important stuff in the landscape
so let me start especially for those of
you that are newer you might be asking
okay how hard can this be right i mean
voting tech
it's not rocket science right i've seen
these voting machines
i'm going to complicate that picture for
you because the list of requirements for
modern voting systems
is long they have to support complex
data
for thousands of jurisdictions with
potentially millions of voters
within those jurisdictions there are
hundreds if not thousands of different
ballot styles
the system has to support audio for
every single text string on the ballot
and it has to support translations of
every single audio and text string
and it has to do that for potentially up
to a dozen or so
foreign languages obviously the system
has to be extremely accurate
even though it relies on imperfect
infallible technology
and in this day and age it has to be
secure enough to protect against attacks
from foreign nation states or from
domestic bad actors
but even though it has to do all of that
it still has to be usable and intuitive
enough
for average voters and poll workers and
election officials to use
even if they're not especially tech
savvy it also needs features to
accommodate voters with disabilities
in addition to the general voting
population and of course it has to
support
transparency and verifiability and
here's the kicker
it has to do that while also absolutely
protecting voter privacy
anonymity and equality and after doing
all of those functional requirements it
still has to be afford enough
affordable enough for cash-strapped
counties and townships to buy
because the federal government has
actually been pretty modest
about its funding for elections
infrastructure so you can see that's a
pretty long list
oh i totally forgot one other thing yeah
um the peaceful transfer of power
depends on public confidence in the
performance
of the voting system so if you go back
and ask
hey it's not rocket science right some
people have said
it's harder i want to emphasize
also that election technology is just
part of a much larger and more
complicated system it's just one piece
of the puzzle
because election administration is
multi-layered
the tech is not operated in a vacuum in
fact election administration and
procedures
impose all kinds of limitations on how
the technology is used
and a lot of those limitations might be
different from what you're used to
in other more traditional technology
operating environments
the other reason that the election
problem is such a tough one to solve
is because in addition to solving for
the technology challenges
elections still have to meet five really
important pillars
of u.s election administration elections
have to comply with laws
court decisions and policies at the
federal and state and local
levels of course elections have to be
administered
in a fair way they have to be totally
free from political influence or
manipulation
the outcomes have to accurately reflect
the intent of the electorate
and they have to be based on voter
centric practices
elections have to support equal
opportunity for all
eligible voters to participate in the
democratic process
and finally election administration has
to meet the bar of transparency
because in order to support confidence
and trust election officials
have to be accountable to the public so
it's a tough
problem at the osset institute we use a
shorthand
which is vast elections have to be
verifiable
accurate secure and transparent
so let's dig deeper into three big
questions what's unique about elections
in the us
how are different types of technology
used in actual elections
and given that landscape how can you
help
where can you apply your skills so let's
start by talking about what's different
about us elections
most people start with the idea that's
most important and that is election
administration in the u.s is
decentralized
there is no uniform system of election
administration
in fact depending on how you slice it
there's eight thousand to ten thousand
different elections that are going on on
a national presidential election day
there's also a limited federal role the
10th amendment of the constitution
leaves the administration of elections
up to the states
they decide the time place and manner
for how elections are actually run
so not surprisingly that leads to widely
different practices that you're going to
see
from state to state there's different
voting methods there's different male
practices
there's different prohibitions on
certain types of technology like
wireless transmission of results for
example
so as a starting point if you ask
yourself all right what does this mean
for me
it's really really important that you
get to know how elections are run
in your county your township or your
state
what's local is what matters because
those practices are going to be
different from others
as a starting point if you want to take
a quick look
verified voting has an excellent
resource
out on the web that's called the
verifier and it is a database
of all the different types of voting
technology that's implemented across the
whole country
state by state and even county by county
so it richly
shows you how much of a patchwork it is
now despite that patchwork and despite
all the diversity there are some
important common threads in election
technology
it's a mixture of network connected
infrastructure
versus other components that certainly
in terms of best practices
and are usually they're air gaps i'll
return to that topic in more detail
later but it's basically the difference
between network connected voter
registration and reporting
infrastructure
versus the voting devices themselves
another important thing to note
that's different from other environments
is that in elections a lot of these
technology components
they move around they need to be
transported from a warehouse
onto a truck out into the world so that
people can vote
it's not simply servers in a data center
for example you have
e-poll books and voting machines that
need to be taken to senior center or the
library or the civic center
so that people can vote and that means
that in this world
physical security and procedural
controls and chain of custody and
documentation
are very very important and finally the
use of removable media for data transfer
is very common in election
administration technology
i want to dig a little deeper into this
distinction between election technology
versus voting technology
the the second one voting tech is a
subset
of the broader picture and to think
about it you just need to make three
critical distinctions
there's everything that has to do with
registration and voter services before
voting
so voter registration databases or
online services
like if a voter wants to request a mail
ballot for example
that's one layer before voting that's
separate and distinct from
casting ballots and casting ballots is
also separate from
counting votes it's only the last two
things
casting ballots and counting votes that
are part of the voting system strictly
speaking and voting systems are
typically air-gapped in contrast
election technology like voter
registration systems or web-based
reporting systems on the back end
are typically network connected
some more common threads voting
technology in the u.s
is sourced by a very small number of
vendors
this is a really consolidated market
about 80 percent of the marketplace
is served by just two big vendors and if
you add the third smallest vendor those
three companies alone have about 95
percent of the market
there's also high barriers to entry
because certification and voting systems
are specialized and complicated
there are very few new market entrants
new companies
that have gotten into this industry in
the last 10 years
the other thing that many are aware of
is that the pace of innovation
is slow if you've seen voting technology
up close
even new equipment it can feel kind of
old
voting systems also are not updated very
often
they kind of feel frozen in time one
thing that surprises a lot of people is
that even the
so-called latest greatest voting
technology products the ones from the
major vendors
many of which were just bought and
implemented
as recently as 2018 2019 2020
even the newest latest greatest products
are all designed to comply
with 16 year old federal standards
that's right
16 years old all the way back to 2005
and if you
need a little perspective on what
technology was like back then
it was before the iphone had even been
invented
if you wanted a smartphone you were
using a blackberry because that was the
only thing with a physical
keyboard and 2005 is also the same year
that uh
there was a little service that was
launched for the first time
to upload videos yeah it's called
youtube
that was in 2005. and many of you may be
surprised to know that there are systems
out in the field
that were used in the 2020 election that
are running on the windows 2000
operating system
and they have not had any security
updates
in 15 years the final thing that's
important to note about voting systems
is that it's
really hard to make agile changes why is
that
it's because certification so let's dig
into that
one thing i want to be clear when i talk
about certification in this elections
context
i'm not talking about certification of
results i'm talking about the
certification of voting systems
which basically means what's necessary
to get them approved for use
and in the us we have a two-tiered
system and the fact that it's two-tiered
results in really long-time horizons
there's a federal certification layer
that is administered by the u.s
election assistance commission or the
eac
and the eac is who runs the program that
tests for compliance with the federal
standards
that are called the voluntary voting
system guidelines or the vvsg
but complying with the federal standards
the vbsg
that's just the first step that's just
table stakes or the prerequisite
for a whole separate additional state by
state process
and every state has its own unique
approval process
for voting systems with one exception
mississippi which doesn't require
certification of voting systems
approximately 40 states require some
form of testing
to the federal dbsg standards and they
again get to decide whether they want to
make that a prerequisite that's why it
is a voluntary
program this is what leads to long time
horizons a federal certification program
can three to eighteen months depending
on whether it's a relatively small
modification that's being made to a
system
or whether it's a brand new system that
maybe takes a year and a half to get
through the whole process
and state certification can also take
another
three to twelve months so when you add
those two timelines together by the time
product hits the streets for election
officials to actually buy it and use it
it's already behind the times it's
already prematurely obsolete to some
extent
because of course the threat environment
is constantly evolving
a couple other things about
certification voting systems
they end up being very rigid because
certification
creates the rigidity there's a lot of
different components in a voting system
including
back office computers that are called
the election management system
versus your actual voting devices for
example your scanners
and every single one of those components
has its own
major and minor software revision for
example
but the way certification works is the
certification
applies to a specific system
configuration
so if something in the software of any
one of those components
needs to change for some reason that
effectively results
in a totally different system
configuration which can trigger a new
round of retesting and recertification
there are some policies for truly truly
minor changes that are called
de minimis but just as an example in
voting systems
security patches cannot simply be rolled
out to already deployed systems
in the way that you can do in other
technology environments for example
so for all of these reasons net net
the big vendors prefer to kind of rest
on their old
product and to not have to go through
certification more than necessary
and so lots of times they end up just
making smaller changes around the
margins and less frequently
what it ultimately results in is these
dynamics
they incentivize doing less innovation
not more
and one last thing i want to mention
that you may be interested to know is
that open-ended penetration testing
is actually relatively rare there are
some exceptional states
california and colorado come to mind and
the eac
this year for the first time is trying
to launch a pilot pen
testing program but as far as most of
the voting systems that are out in the
field and have been used
the ones that are designed to those 2005
standards
most of those have never gone through
pen testing
in the traditional way that you think of
it
so let's talk a little bit about how the
different
layers of technology work together and
how this is a complex
you know arrangement in this diagram i
really just kind of want to
focus on two main things there's a lot
of moving parts in election technology
overall the system is more complicated
than you may think
and again there's different layers only
some of those layers are the voting
system
others have to do with pre-voting or
reporting
and that's again why you get this
combination of some of it is network
connected
and some of it is not so in this example
just
looking at the four different rows you
have voter registration
you have processes that have to happen
before voting begins namely the
preparation of ballots
the voting itself again casting and
counting
and then reporting and each one of those
has its own moving parts in voter
registration
you have voter registration databases
you have
the increasing popularity of electronic
poll books
those also have their own software
managers for the poll books
and then there's those online services
that i mentioned earlier
managing the election data and laying
out ballots is part of the election
management system
in the elections office and then when
you look at the voting ban
again precinct scanners central count
scanners
for mail ballots for example accessible
voting devices and then you also have
the tabulation system once again
a computer that is in the central
elections office and that is distinct
from web-based reporting that you know
voters in the
media use to consume those election
night results
unofficial election night's reporting is
simply receiving data exports
from the system that actually counts
ballots and it's displaying all of those
so you can see again multi-layered
complex system
as i mentioned earlier it's not just
about the technology
in fact increasingly paper records
are a really important way to compensate
for technology security vulnerabilities
and to reduce
risk now generally speaking in recent
years the trend here is positive
because in the most recent election
upward of 90 percent of the ballots cast
included some form of a paper record
compared to a few years ago
when paperless direct recording
electronic devices were more common
and if you're wondering yes there are
still paperless dres out there
that are being used and in fact some
counties just bought new generations of
paperless dres
as recently as 2017 but one thing i want
to emphasize about
paper is that not all paper records are
created equal
and the different formats present
more additional controversies and more
types of risk you have to pay attention
to the difference between
traditional format paper ballots versus
machine marked paper ballots
that encode voter choices in barcodes or
qr codes and so forth
i know there's some of the audience that
are familiar with that topic i don't
have time today to go into it
but i'll sum up this topic of paper by
saying
that given the technology
vulnerabilities that of course exist
in complex computing devices the
critical question
to keep in your mind is the paper record
a record of what the voter did or is it
a record of what a machine did
because of course we can't simply assume
that the machines are trustworthy the
other reason that paper is so important
is because of
post-election audits look with these
complex systems
it's not surprising that the increase in
consensus is
it's unlikely that we're going to plug
every single hole in the dam
and because we can't plug every hole
that's why
having robust paper trails and robust
post-election audits
are the most important thing that we can
do right now to enhance election
integrity
that is part of what's called
evidence-based elections
many of you probably heard that phrase
the idea of evidence-based elections
is that you want processes that produce
public evidence that the reported
winners really won and the reported
losers really
lost and what's central to
evidence-based elections is the idea of
software independence
there's lots of different ways to state
software independence but in a nutshell
it's the idea that the integrity of the
election outcome
cannot be dependent on trusting the
correctness of the software
it has to be capable of being
independently verified
generally speaking what happens in an
audit is you have human beings
that are reviewing a trustworthy trail
of paper records
that can reliably be said to reflect the
voter's intent
and you compare those records to the
voting system's reported totals
the gold standard for post-election
audits is the
risk limiting audit which one of its
benefits
is it's a method of doing audit and
audit that can be very efficient
because you can achieve a high
statistical confidence
that your results are correct based on
reviewing
a pretty modest number of random ballots
depending on the margin size i want to
emphasize
there is a growing interest in
post-election audits and rightly so
done correctly they are absolutely
essential
but it's really important to emphasize
that there are specific best practices
for audits although i don't have time to
go into the details here
we'll provide a link with several
resources at the end and i want to
mention
that one of the key architects of risk
limiting audits is professor of
statistics
dr philip stark he actually invented the
rla
and in full disclosure he sits on the
osad institute's board of advisors
now beyond post-election audits i want
to mention one more thing
and it again it involves process
it's important to understand that
election night results
what you're seeing and what the media is
reporting
those are not official results and
they're not the final results
they're not complete at that time the
official certification of results come
only after a routine and pretty lengthy
post-election day process that is called
the canvas i want to emphasize that
ballots cast in the united states
are counted in the united states period
and part of that counting is again the
canvas when
when election officials do the canvas
which can take weeks
they are reviewing all of the paperwork
that documents
how the election was run they're
reconciling numbers and they're
accounting for
every single ballot that was cast to
ensure
that every valid vote cast is included
in the election totals
and that invalid ones are of course not
now that we've looked at the landscape
for election technology and how it
actually gets used
let's wrap up with thinking about ways
that you can help
if you want to get more engaged to
enhance election integrity
a few starter thoughts although there's
a lot of different ways to
potentially get involved here's some
common things to bear in mind
first if you really are going to start
working more closely
in your community with local election
officials or
or making contact with the state be
prepared to be patient
remember you're dealing with critical
infrastructure and
the politics and so forth around these
issues can be delicate
you should expect a background check if
you're really going to get plugged in
and that's a good thing i also want to
remind you
learn about the practices in your state
and locality
again at the state level that's usually
the secretary of state
less common but it might also be the
board of elections
and in your immediate community that's
typically the county clerk or the
township clerk
i also want to mention that ways to get
engaged you can do that either on an
individual basis
or you might see if your local officials
would consider
being open to an advisory group some of
them do that as well
as far as ideas on how you can apply
your tech skills here's a starter list
and there's a lot more
if you have a particular expertise in
cyber security
obviously helping with network
vulnerabilities is going to be very
valuable
that really means voter registration
systems or
election night reporting systems those
are typically administered at the county
or the state level
if you also have expertise in cyber
incident contingency planning
you can help with that more and more
election officials are learning about
the importance of this
but it's new to a lot of them and they
need help and
really just kind of being a hand to hold
and being a kind of cyber navigator
could be very valuable if you're most
interested in helping with election
security in your area in your locality
there's a good reason that a lot of
people say hey a great introduction is
just a volunteer as a poll worker to
start
that will provide you with an awareness
of the overall operating environment
and give you a really good trusted
foundation to work more closely
with local staff if you're really
interested in the specific
technical vulnerabilities in the
deployed voting systems in your state
the best people to talk to are the state
certification authorities
again those are typically in the
secretary of state's office or the board
of elections
and it may also a good place to start is
that certification records
for voting systems with details of the
testing that happened
and the technical analysis and any
vulnerabilities that's usually
publicly available if you have
sufficient expertise you can also
support the standards creation process
at the national institute of standards
and technology or with the federal
cyber security and infrastructure
security agency
for example you may be surprised there
are currently no federal standards for
voter registration systems
or for electronic poll books you can
always burn up more on best practices
for post-election audits
and finally if you have expertise in
helping to protect the security of
websites
you can help election officials to
protect and secure
all their public communication channels
public websites social media and so
forth
and that can be especially valuable for
smaller counties because a lot of them
just don't have those kinds of resources
so let me leave you with some takeaway
thoughts i hope that today's talk has
helped you to see
that enhancing election integrity
involves more
than solving some really hard technology
problems
it definitely requires that but remember
the tech is just one piece of the puzzle
if i've done nothing else today i hope i
can help you understand
how the world of elections is really
complicated again there's all those
different layers
of law and policy and procedure all of
that imposes constraints
on how the technology gets used and on
what might be possible in the future
i also want to say thank you for
watching seriously
thank you the elections community really
wants and needs more technology experts
we want more security-minded and
tech-savvy people
of all genders all races all creeds all
political stripes
to step up so thank you for doing that
on that note i also want to emphasize
another important point
to have a productive partnership between
technologists and election officials
it's really really important that both
sides have a really healthy mutual
respect
i know that as technology experts you
all have a deep appreciation
for just how complex technology can be
and where the vulnerabilities might lie
but i hope that today has also helped
you to see
that's also true on the other side again
elections are a complicated business
these are professionals they care deeply
about democracy
and they have a deep level of expertise
that i hope you can also learn from
and when both sides work together that's
when great things happen
if today's talk has helped you to feel
more motivated and just to have a better
practical sense
of how to get more involved then that's
great that's what we were hoping to do
and then with your new knowledge i hope
that you can educate more people as well
together we can try to ensure that more
accurate information gets spread more
widely
and that misinformation and
misunderstandings don't
at the end of the day this is what it
takes
to increase public confidence in
elections
and to defend our democracy thank you so
much for being a part of that
and have a great rest of your day
you