Thoughts on Senate Rules Hearing Today on E-Voting

There is a very important hearing in the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. You can listen along here. I'll update this post with my thoughts as the hearing progresses. Audio courtesy of VVF here: Hour 1, Hour 2.

The first panel is Sen. Nelson (D-FL) and Rep. Holt (D-NJ). It's pretty funny to listen to ranking member Bennet (R) say that he was confused by the ballot design and that "they really should get the marketing department in to design these screens". Of course, that might be better than the "nerds writing the code designing the screens" but it also might not be better. It's usability and user-centered design, people!

Senator Feinstein just said, "I'm going to ask the GAO and NIST to do a top to bottom analysis of the machines in FL-13." Whoa.

David Becker of PFAW seems to be going for the most-said-in-five-minutes award. :)

Brit Williams just said that there has been no hacking of voting systems in 43 years of their use because "they are not connected to the internet". With all due respect, that's pretty naive. I definitely agree with him that we need to devote more resources to training pollworkers.

Dan Wallach is very good -- both tactical and strategic -- at testifying. He used a question answer response to head off discussion of the Princeton virus hack (which we'll here Connie McCormack talk about erroneously later).

Brit Williams just said that the quintessential voting system is electronic with a robust paper trail... Sen. Nelson asked, "Should we be using these systems until we have such a system ready?" Brit Williams said, "Ideally, No. But the reality is that we have an installed base."

Connie McCormack just said, "The best track record in terms of accuracy matching votes to voter intent is from electronic machines." I don't know what data she has that compares cast votes to voter intent... I don't think it exists.

I have little respect for those -- McCormack -- who finagle extra time in Congressional hearings.

MVP for this hearing goes to Warren Stewart. Near the end, ranking member Bennett said something along the lines of, "You can't commit fraud on a DRE because all the results come in at the same time." I was aghast when I heard that... that is fundamentally naive in so many ways that it wouldn't be intellectually interesting to enumerate them; Bennett is obviously a lost cause. Warren, however, responded with, "Someone with access to the central tabulators can just as easily commit fraud on those systems, if not more easily." Bennet seemed to discount this remark and asked Connie Schmidt and Connie McCormack for their opinions on Warren's statement. They both essentially said, "Yes, you have to protect the central systems no matter how much you trust your staff."