We propose a rating service to evaluate the reliability of procedures used for elections. At present, many jurisdictions use procedures that are in dire need of improvement.

Voters need to take the lead by demanding that their votes be counted properly. However, security demands attention to detail, and individual voters do not have the expertise or the opportunity to attend to all these details. Therefore voters need a ratings service so they can know what needs to be done.

1  The Stakeholders

Responsibility for elections is rather spread out:

1.    First and foremost, voters must take responsibility. They must demand that elections be conducted properly. The power of the vote belongs to the people, and the people must defend it. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

2.    Local officials at the county, city, and precinct level generally carry out the day-to-day implementation of election procedures. Local jurisdictions provide much of the funding.

3.    The political parties generally are involved on election day, providing poll workers and poll watchers.

4.    The candidate has some rights and responsibilities. Some of these are shared with the party, but some are not ... especially in the case of a nonpartisan race (such as a nonpartisan judgeship) or a ballot question (such as a bond issue).

5.    State legislation regulates the conduct of elections, and provides funding.

6.    Federal legislation also regulates the conduct of elections, and provides some funding.

7.    In the end, it all comes down to the voters again. The voters must take responsibility for riding herd on the other actors on this list, to make sure they do their job properly.

In particular, voter responsibility does not begin or end on election day. Voters must make sure that proper procedures are in place, and make sure proper procedures are carried out; otherwise there is much too much risk that the votes cast will not be counted properly.

2  Ratings Required

Security requires attention to detail. Individual voters can look after some of the details but not others. It is impractical to expect individual voters to be up-to-speed on what kind of tamper-resistant ink should be used to mark ballots, or what kind of tamper-resistant software should be used for tallying the ballots.

Situations of this sort have arisen many times before, and we know how to deal with them.

By way of analogy: Consumers want to know whether they will be electrocuted by the appliances they buy, but most consumers do not have the technical expertise to judge electrical safety. Therefore they rely on ratings from Underwriters Laboratory and similar organizations.

There are a host of ratings agencies:

• Underwriters Laboratory.
• Consumers Union.
• Moody’s Investment Services.
• Good Housekeeping.
• County health inspectors and elevator inspectors.
• Et cetera.

We need a comparable service to inspect, evaluate, and certify election processes. See section 3 for the next level of detail.

It is important to distinguish between ultimate responsibility and delegated responsibility. The citizens have ultimate responsibility for election integrity ... but they may reasonably delegate the technical details to a trusted rating service.

3  The Rating Service: Activities, Responsibilities, etc.

The primary activity of the rating service is to inspect, evaluate, and certify election processes.¹ (When we refer to election processes, that is not limited to what happens on election day, because many of the most grievous abuses happen before or after election day.)

The ratings service must remain scrupulously impartial and nonpartisan.

The ratings would apply on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis, for each jurisdiction nationwide.

Voters cannot engage in comparison shopping for election services they way they can for appliances. Therefore one of the primary “deliverables” of the election rating service will be to publish ratings along with specific recommendations for improvement. These will be publicized well in advance of election day, so that voters and other stakeholders will have time to take remedial action.

The service will also publish proactive informational and educational material, including

• A BCP (“best current practices”) guide for voters. This will paint the “big picture” without getting mired in details. The first and foremost task is to inform voters of the hugeness and urgency of the problem ... and to offer them specific constructive suggestions on how to make things better.
• A BCP guide for poll workers and poll watchers. Reference 1 may serve as a good starting point.
• A BCP guide for election board officials, including the folks responsible for preparing the ballots and operating the tally machines.

  For example, don’t have everybody in the office login to the tally machine using the “Admin” userid, since this undercuts any notion of responsibility and accountability. Similarly, don’t install high-tech security on four of the five doors to the tally room, while leaving the fifth door unsecured. (These are not made-up examples.) See reference 2.

• Et cetera.

4  References

1.

M.A. Duniho, “Election Integrity Manual for County Chairs” ./election-integrity-manual.htm

2.

John Denker, “Free, Fair, Accurate and Trustworthy Elections” ./ffate.htm

3.

Democratic Underground, “CALIFORNIA ELECTION INTEGRITY ASSESSMENT 2008” http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_alladdress=203x496453

1

There are some agencies that purport to certify voting machines, but they have zero credibility. They squandered whatever credibility they might have had by certifying a generation of hopelessly untrustworthy machines.