Hack the Vote! Colorado’s Internet Voting Bill

The Colorado legislature is poised to pass an Internet Voting Bill, HB15-1130, a controversial bill that as written broadens the opportunities for voters to cast their ballot by Internet voting or “electronic transmission.” The legislations seeks to address the potential disenfranchisement of military and overseas voters in municipal elections, but some say that it creates new obstacles to election integrity while not doing enough for military voters.

HB 15-1130 is sponsored by Representatives Dan Nordberg (R) and Sue Ryden (D) in the Colorado House and Owen Hill (R) and Leroy Garcia (D) in the Colorado Senate.

Military and overseas voters are often called UOCAVA voters, in reference to the acronym for the federal legislation which stands for Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Acting. However, UOCAVA does not cover municipal elections.

The bill summary states, “The bill extends certain deadlines that govern the conduct of municipal elections to ensure that such military personnel and civilians have similar ability to vote in municipal elections as they do in federal, state, and county elections.” However, it does much more than extend certain deadlines. Critics claim that there is no definition to regulate what constitutes “electronic transmission” and that the bill fails to provide the protections offered in federal, state, and county elections.

U.S. Senate candidate, Charlie Ehler (R) shared his thoughts on the bill: “Electronic transfer of ballots could mean any of a hundred things. There is no control to verify who sent the ballot, to ensure the secrecy of the ballot, or to ensure the integrity of the election using these methods. As a retired military computer programmer who has been deployed and not able to vote, I think electronic transfer of ballots is a very bad idea.”

Despite the bill’s pro-military voting title and legislative declaration, the bill text as introduced in January included nothing on military voting, but was later amended to add electronic voting and extended deadlines for military and overseas voters.

Elena Nunez of the liberal leaning non-profit Common Cause said this during her Senate committee testimony:

“We do support the bill. We think that it’s an important way to make sure that military voters are able to vote in their local elections. But we do share concerns about electronic transmission. And if this bill were to expand the use of electronic transmission to other elections, to other classes of voters, or to allow voting over the Internet in some larger way, we’d certainly be here in opposition.”

The bill passed in the Colorado House unanimously, and passed in the Colorado Senate on both the first and second readings. In an unusual procedural maneuver, it was sent back to committee. The committee hearing is scheduled for Monday, April 13 where it is expected that amendments will be offered to resolve some of the concerns laid out by critics.

Senator Laura Woods explained to Politichicks what happened during the second reading of the bill. Amendments were prepared for the Senate floor, but were never heard for second reading. Senator Kevin Lundberg, who had possession of the amendments, was briefly away from the chamber. “We love the intent of the bill, and agree wholeheartedly with the intent, but there were some concerns in the initial draft that Representative (Dan) Nordberg and we were trying to fix.” said Woods. “It was sent back to committee so we can continue to work with both sponsors to tweak the bill and give UOCAVA voters the same protections and rights in municipal elections that they have in every other election.”

On a voice vote, Woods appeared to be the only no vote. The Senate vote on the second reading was taken during Lundberg’s absence and was called and voted on in 50 seconds, with no discussion.

A sampling of the numerous concerns laid out by critics include lack of definition in what constitutes electronic transmission, the submission of email ballots after polls close, and the length of time email ballots may be counted.

ISSUE 1 (The absence of constituting permissible methods of electronic transmission for voting)

The wording: (Section 8, Subsection 2)

TO BE VALID, A BALLOT MUST BE RECEIVED BY THE CLERK NOT LATER THAN THE CLOSE OF POLLS, OR THE VOTER SHALL SUBMIT THE BALLOT FOR MAILING, ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION, OR OTHER AUTHORIZED MEANS OF DELIVERY NOT LATER THAN 7:00 P.M. ON THE DATE OF THE ELECTION.

The problem:

The term “electronic transmission” is undefined, opening transmission methods for interpretation by both voters and the city clerk. The State Municipal Election Code reads:

“31-10-104. Powers of clerk and deputy. (1) Except where otherwise provided in this article, the clerk shall render all interpretations and shall make all initial decisions as to controversies or other matters arising in the operation of this article.”

This means a clerk in one municipality could interpret electronic transmission different than in another municipality. At a municipal level, there is no uniformity.

As for the voters, they could submit their ballot by text or Skype message, only to learn too late that the clerk does not consider it “electronic transmission.”At a voter level, it creates a convoluted understanding of the process and and could lead to litigation if their preferred method of electronic transmission is denied.

Home computers and personal devices are most at risk for security breaches, according to experts.

“It’s guaranteed that such a system [online voting] would be attacked, for sure,” Michael Coates told CNN Money in 2012. “All important systems, from financial to government, face skilled hackers. There are security flaws in every system; it’s a matter of how you detect and respond to them.” Coates is the past chair of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), former Director of Security Assurance for Mozilla, and currently the Trust and Information Security Officer at Twitter.

ISSUE 2 (The submission of ballots following the closing of polls)

The wording: (Section 8, Subsection 2)

TO BE VALID, A BALLOT MUST BE RECEIVED BY THE CLERK NOT LATER THAN THE CLOSE OF POLLS, OR THE VOTER SHALL SUBMIT THE BALLOT FOR MAILING, ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION, OR OTHER AUTHORIZED MEANS OF DELIVERY NOT LATER THAN 7:00 P.M. ON THE DATE OF THE ELECTION.

The problem:

The bill does not specify electronic delivery submission by 7:00 P.M. Mountain Time. This allows for voters in more western time zones to submit their ballots, and impact results after preliminary results are announced.

ISSUE 3 ( The lengthy time frame for receipt of email ballots)

The wording: (Section 8, Subsection 3)

A VALID BALLOT CAST IN ACCORDANCE WITH SUBSECTION (2) 27 OF THIS SECTION SHALL BE COUNTED IF IT IS RECEIVED BY THE CLOSE OF BUSINESS ON THE EIGHTH DAY AFTER AN ELECTION AT THE ADDRESS THAT THE CLERK HAS SPECIFIED.

The problem: The bill gives an email transmission eight days to be received by the county clerk as if the delivery time for electronic transmission equated back to the days of the pony express. It does not take eight days for email delivery. By allowing the county clerk additional time to mark the email as received, it may create an additional opening for tampering with email ballots and transmission times. It could allow the voter—or person taking the identity of that voter—additional time to falsely mark the email timestamp as timely sent. If this subsection was intended only for ballots sent by email, but returned by regular mail with a postmark dated and timed prior to the close of polls, then that is not reflected in the wording.

While the intention of the bill may have been to facilitate municipal elections for military and overseas voters, it does not grant them the same benefits those voters currently enjoy in State, federal, school district and special district elections. Critics state that all the provisions that protect military voters in all other elections should protect them in municipal elections, and that HB1130 falls short. These shortcomings include:

• Voters cannot register with their county as a military or overseas voter under under state law and automatically be covered by statute for all municipal elections. HB1130 does not address the mechanism by which this voter list would be made available to city clerks for issuing military and overseas ballots.
• There is no provision for military voters to receive ballot instructions, deadline information, and voter information as there is for all other mail voters.
• There is no Secretary of State oversight, enforcement or voter complaint procedure called for in HB1130. As per the state code for non-municipal elections, the voter may file a complaint for issues with voting, and this bill does grant that benefit for municipal voters.

Critics have constituents asking: How did this bill obtain such unanimity of support since its introduction in January with its liberal application of Internet voting?