For immediate release.

From John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>

Various organizations, notably the Pima County Democratic Party, have
been seeking access to the detailed results of past elections.  This
is part of a much larger effort to ensure that elections will be free,
fair, accurate, and trustworthy.  Heretofore Pima County has refused
to release the election databases.  This resulted in a trial before
Judge Michael Miller.  On Tuesday the 18th, he released his ruling.

Although at first glance it looks like a split decision, giving each
side part of what it wanted, in effect it will eventually make all the
databases available.

The election databases are public records, and as such should be
available to anyone, unless the county can show that releasing them
would cause harm.  (The Democratic Party has an even stronger claim to
the data, based on their state-mandated role as election observers,
but this was not a factor in the ruling.)

So, once you get past the technicalities, the central issue was
whether releasing the databases would cause harm.  The judge found
that the county had not proved that there would be significant harm,
while the plaintiffs had not proved there wouldn't be.  The judge
could have used this as the basis for a sweeping ruling in favor of
releasing the databases, but he chose to take a more gradual approach.

Most judges are not scientists, but Judge Miller approached this the
way a scientist would: He said let's do the experiment.  He ruled that
the county must release a couple of the databases.  Not all of them,
not none of them, just a couple.  Then we can see what happens.

The County wanted a ruling keeping all the databases secret, which
they emphatically did not get.  They must release a couple of
databases now, and the judge explicitly left open the possibility 
of releasing all of them later.

Going forward, the county simply must design its security procedures
under the assumption that every detail of the database is known to the
public.  They /should/ have been operating under this assumption all
along, in accordance with well-known 125-year-old security principles.
The database access question /will/ come up again, and next time the
County won't dare argue that security depends on the secrecy of the
database, unless they want to look completely incompetent.

Although this ruling is not in the same league as King Solomon's
split-baby decision, it does bear some similarities.  Even though at
first glance it appears to be a split decision, in effect it causes
all of the right things to happen.

=================

Everybody seems to agree that elections should be free, fair,
accurate, and trustworthy.  There should never be even the appearance
of the POSSIBILITY of impropriety.  I've yet to meet anybody who
admits to being opposed to free, fair, accurate, and trustworthy
elections.

When I cash a check at the credit union, the teller counts the money
twice, while I watch.  Then I count the money while the teller
watches.  The teller is not insulted by this.  When I count the money
I am not impugning the integrity of the teller;  I just want to count
the money.  Double-checking never hurt anybody.

There is a proverb that says we should treat ballots like money.

At the trial, some people seemed defensive, as if their integrity were
being impugned.  That's got nothing to do with it.  I don't want to
impugn anybody's character; I just want somebody to double-check the
count.

My high-school teachers always told me to check my work.

I cannot understand why the county fought this issue.  If they really
want free, fair, accurate, and trustworthy elections, they should be
delighted to have somebody check their work.  They should be
/encouraging/ people to look over the records of past elections.

It appears that the county does not yet understand the difference
between secrecy and security.  Usually secrecy is the enemy of
security.  If your ballot-counting methods are so lame that they need
to be kept secret, you urgently need better methods.

We should all be glad that Judge Miller has moved us a step in the
right direction.  But we should not have a big celebration.  This is a
very small victory.  The issue before the court was a narrow one, and
the judge issued a very narrow opinion.  This is a tiny, tiny step in
the right direction.  The big issue is free, fair, accurate, and
trustworthy elections, and that needs to remain the focus of
attention.

============

Background information:

  http://www.av8n.com/security/pima-election-security.htm
  http://www.av8n.com/security/pima-security-plan.htm

The ruling itself:
  http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/files/MillerRuling.pdf