Our present law on this matter allows return of voted ballots by [military and overseas voters] via fax, or electronic mail "in circumstances where another more secure voting method is not available or feasible." [See CRS 2010.1-8-103.5(2)(a), (4)]
-- Margit Johansson <margitjo@xxxxxxxxx>
Objections to Colorado MOVA voting system: Initial Online Forms
The software macros (digital subprograms necessary to fill out required information) of the MOVA Forms (M.F., listed below[*]) are not digitally signed by the office of the Secretary of State (SoS), hence the M.F. functionality is not accepted by the user’s computer if it is protected by a quality security system set at “High Security” (NOT set at “Very High”, which typically rejects even digital signatures and disables any macro unless the webpage is specifically, individually excepted by the user).
This fact situation leads immediately to issues of lack of reasonable security by the SoS in carrying out its responsibility to provide voting alternatives with integrity to the Military and Overseas Voter. First is the issue of why are the M.F. macros NOT digitally signed? This should be standard practice for any responsible website, and which is (finally) such for legally accountable websites providing financial services. The typical user cannot be assumed to be fully informed about accessing legitimate websites, and may easily be misled into thinking that a fraudulent website from a disguised link (which can have every VISUAL appearance of being legitimate) is actually the website that the user thinks it is, e.g. the SoS webpage for the M.F.s.
Even if it is assumed that it is inadvisable (and even irresponsible) to use an online computer without reasonable security measures, it is highly likely that AT BEST the typical user will choose “High Security”, not “Very High Security” -- which entails significant inconvenience that is rarely tolerated. Therefore it is likely that the user will TRUST that the SoS will not be a source of dreaded malware and that even though the security warning on the screen may be daunting, the SoS surely can be treated AS IF it were a previously excepted and acceptable webpage passed by the inconvenient “Very High” level of security.
Assuming that there are indeed no bribed miscreants in the SoS office in a position to emplace malware, the user could still be looking at a fraudulent webpage from that disguised link, say on a webpage claiming to be providing a public service from some (now virtually unaccountable) Mom&ApplePieParty.org. The trusted but fraudulent digitally-unsigned copy of the M.F. could conceivably be infected with malware that could wreak havoc on the misled user’s computer.
By means of simply an easily-reproduced, unverifiable, then forged online form with unsigned form-filling macros, the reasonably trusting typical user could suffer a devastating malware attack. Completely independent of further (and repeatedly cited by many concerned citizens and groups) integrity issues with respect to the MOVA voting process as a whole, at the very outset the typical user is at unacceptable risk by SoS documents with inexcusably insufficient integrity.
Let us hope implementing the new MOVA law for Colorado will correct these (and numerous other) insufficiencies – but I seriously doubt it.
Lou Puls, Museion Research, Boulder/Westcliffe
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[*]SoS online DOC versions that are macro-disabled by “High Security”: