The following is a letter California Secretary of State Debra Bowen wrote to Senator Runner concerning Runner's bill to allow email voting in California.
For more information about the bill, please click here.
April 27, 2011
The Honorable Sharon Runner
State Capitol, Room 2048
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: SMB 908 (Runner) - OPPOSE
Dear Senator Runner:
I respectfully oppose SB 908 (Runner), as amended on April 11, 2011, which allows military voters and their dependents to return voted ballots by e-mail.
One of the chief responsibilities of the Secretary of State is to maintain the security of the state's elections process and ensure every voter's ballot is counted exactly as it is cast. By allowing voters to return their ballots by e-mail, SB 908 will introduce new risks into the voting process.
According to a recent Department of Defense study, e-mail traffic "can flow through equipment owned and operated by various governments, companies and individuals in many different countries. It is easily monitored, blocked and subject to tampering."
The respected National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) notes that the e-mail return of a voted ballot cannot be considered secure. First, through something known as a "denial of service attack," a local election official's e-mail servers could be flooded with large amounts of illegitimate traffic by people whose sole goal is to prevent legitimate ballots from reaching the intended e-mail inbox by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day. Furthermore, NIST notes that malicious parties could intercept a voted ballot and modify or replace it before it reaches the election official's e-mail inbox. In these instances, the voter and elections official may never know that the voter's slections had been altered or replaced.
I believe we must continue to remove as many barriers as possible to ensure California's military voters and their dependents are able to fully participate in their democracy. However, the return of voted ballots by email is too risky given current technology and security standards.
If you have any questions please contact me, or you may reach my Deputy for Legislative and Constituent Affairs, Ronda Paschal, at (916) 653-6774
Sincerely,
Debra Bowen
Secretary of State
DB:elg:lf:tme:op
cc: Members, Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee
