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Election Security

CVF has been involved with election security since 1999 when staff and board members participated in the California Secretary of State's Internet Voting Task Force. CVF played a significant role in California's move to require a voter-verified paper audit trail and led the effort to eliminate paperless electronic voting in California. Strong post-election audits are also a high priority for CVF.

CVF's recent work to secure elections includes focusing on the security and protection of election officials themselves, who have increasingly been threatened and harassed in the wake of the 2020 Presidential election.

CVF's 2021 report, Documenting and Addressing Harassment of Election Officials, shines a light on this troubling development and recommends reforms to implement to protect and defend democracy's frontline workers.
In September 2022, CVF hosted Peace at the Polls CA to promote communication between local law enforcement and election officials.
Resources and developments are featured in CVF's Resources for Supporting Election Officials and Protecting Election Officials in the News pages.
CVF also worked with the Brennan Center to enact SB 1131, giving California election workers the ability to shield their personal information from public access by enrolling in address confidentiality programs.

Below are links to CVF's and others' recommended resources to learn more about election security in the California and the United States.

Federal Resources

Know Your Voting Rights - Your Guide to Federal Voting Rights Laws from the United States Department of Justice
Chain of Custody Best Practices from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission
U.S. Voluntary Voting System Guidelines and NCSL's chart of states adhering to federal standards (2018)
US Department of Homeland Security - Election Security
Designation of Elections as Critical Infrastructure (two-page summary from the Congressional Research Service)

California Resources from the Secretary of State:

Office of Voting Systems Technology Assessment
California Regulations
Advisories to Elections Officials - CCROV's - stands for "County Clerks & Registrars of Voters"
Los Angeles County's Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) certification test reports and Secretary of State's certification conditions for VSAP 2.0 | Conditional Certification for VSAP 2.1 (Oct. 1, 2020)
Office of Election Cybersecurity
Voting Modernization Board
How How To Use Your County's Voting System
County-by-County Voting Equipment Chart (as of January 2020)
Proposed Election Regulations
Risk Limiting Audits Regulations (adopted in 2020)
California Internet Voting Task Force report, released January 2000 by Secretary of State Bill Jones
History of Voting Systems in California, by Ed Arnold, published in 1999 and accessed via the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine

CVF Resources

CVF January 10, 2020 testimony at Los Angeles County's Voting Systems for All People (VSAP) 2.0 voting system certification hearing, and CVF's September 15, 2020 public comment regarding Los Angeles County's VSAP 2.1 proposed certification
Joint Public Comment Letter dated Dec. 10, 2019, on the California Secretary of State's proposed Risk-Limiting Audit Regulations, and Joint Public Comment letter dated January 17, 2020 on the modified proposed Risk-Limiting Audit Regulations
CVF policy brief: Modernizing California's Voting Technology: A Look Back, a Look Ahead
CVF backgrounder: Public Verification of Software Vote Counts and California's Manual Count Law
CVF Archives: Voting Technology Resources

Organizations, Studies and Resources

National Conference of State Legislatures - State Laws Providing Protection for Election Officials and Staff (2023)
University of Michigan's J. Alex Halderman et al's paper, Can Voters Detect Malicious Manipulation of Ballot Marking Devices? published Jan. 2020
Center For Technology and Civic Life's post-election audits and risk-limiting audits videos
Verified Voting and The Verifier
Election Verification Network
CITED, California Institute for Technology and Democracy
Brennan Center for Justice
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs' Election Cybersecurity Playbook
Email and Internet Voting: The Overlooked Threat to Election Security
The Myth of Secure Blockchain Voting, by CVF board member David Jefferson
The Future of Voting: Accessible, Reliable, Verifiable Technology, National Academies 2018
A Procurement Guide for Better Election Cybersecurity, published by the Brennan Center
Little Hoover Commission March 4 2019 letter to Gov. Newsom and legislative leaders regarding voting equipment security

Content on the CVF web site relating to this topic:

Files:

Letter to President Barack Obama from election verification advocates following the 2012 election

CVF Testimony at Voting Modernization Board Hearing, March 15, 2019

CVF Testimony at Secretary of State's Voting System Decertification Hearing, March 19, 2019

Addressing Harassment of Election Officials

Legislative Update: CVF Urges Governor Brown to Veto AB 840

In the final weeks of this year's legislative session, last-minute amendments were made to Assembly Bill 840, authored by Assemblyman Bill Quirk (D-Hayward) which would weaken California's post-election verification law.

Sacramento Bee Editorial: Veto AB 840

Excerpt:

California elections officials are proud of the integrity of this state’s elections. Brown ought to help them keep their record of accurate vote counts by vetoing Assembly Bill 840 by Assemblyman Bill Quirk, an East Bay Democrat. The bill zipped through at the end of the legislative session without a no-vote. Legislators must not have been paying attention.

NorCal county registrars say hacking won't happen here

Excerpt:

Improving voter confidence in the elections process is part of Kim Alexander's mission at the nonprofit California Voter Foundation.

"When they say the Russians are going to come back, I don't think they're kidding about that," Alexander said.

Despite the threat of hacking in the 2018 election, Alexander said California is much better protected than other states because of paper ballots.

"The combination of a paper-based voting system and routine auditing of election results means that if something happened to our vote count and someone tried to intervene with the election, we would likely detect it," Alexander said. "And we would be able to recover from it."

Letter: Gov. Brown, don’t make it easier to meddle in our elections

Re: “Here’s how Jerry Brown can help protect vulnerable people, voting integrity and local control” (Editorials, Sept. 28) and “Brown should help ensure election integrity by signing this bill” (Another View, Sept. 30): With recent news of Russian scanning of state technology websites, this is not the time to reduce California’s manual 1 percent audit practice, which is designed to detect errors or manipulations in vote-counting software.

Assembly Bill 840 would invalidate a recent San Diego County court ruling (Lutz v. Vu) that all vote-by-mail ballots must be subject to inclusion in the 1 percent post-election manual tally, a ruling which confirms current practice of many California counties, including Inyo, Santa Clara and San Francisco.