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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 7, 2019)
NORTHWEST East Oregonian A2 Tuesday, May 7, 2019 Microsoft offers software tools to secure elections By FRANK BAJAK Associated Press Microsoft announced an ambitious effort it says will make voting secure, ver- ifiable and subject to reli- able audits. Two of the three top U.S elections vendors have expressed interest in potentially incorporating the open-source software into their proprietary voting systems. The software kit is being developed with Galois, an Oregon-based company separately creating a secure voting system prototype under contract with the Pen- tagon’s advanced research agency, DARPA. Dubbed “Elec- tionGuard,” the Microsoft kit will be available this summer, the company says, with early prototypes ready to pilot for next year’s gen- eral elections. CEO Satya Nadella announced the initiative Monday at a developer’s conference in Seattle. Nadella said the project’s software, provided free of charge as part of Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Pro- gram, would help “modern- ize all of the election infra- structure everywhere in the world.” Microsoft also announced a cut-rate Office 365 application suite for political parties and cam- AP Photo/Elaine Thompson Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivers the keynote address at Build, the company’s annual conference for software devel- opers on Monday in Seattle. both expressed interest in partnering with Micro- soft for ElectionGuard. A spokeswoman for a third vendor, Dominion Voting Systems of Denver, said the company looks forward to “learning more” about the initiative. Anyone with an existing voting system or develop- ing a new one will be able to incorporate the Elec- tionGuard development kit — at the state or local level in the U.S. or national level for jurisdictions abroad. “It can be used with a ballot-marking device. It can be used with an optical scanner, on hand-marked paper ballots,” said Josh Benaloh, a senior cryp- tographer at Microsoft Research and key contrib- paigns for what it charges nonprofits. Both Micro- soft and Google provide anti-phishing email support for campaigns. Three little-known U.S. companies control about 90 percent of the market for election equipment, but have long faced criticism for poor security, antiquated technology and insufficient transparency around their proprietary, black-box vot- ing systems. Open-source software is inherently more secure because the under- lying code is easily scru- tinized by outside security experts. Two of the leading ven- dors, Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Nebraska, and Hart Inter- Civic of Austin, Texas, Forecast for Pendleton Area TODAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY utor to the ElectionGuard project. Benaloh helped pro- duce a National Academies of Science report last year that called for an urgent overhaul of the rickety U.S. election system, which faced serious threats from Russian hackers who in 2016 attempted to infiltrate voting administration sys- tems in several states. That report called for all U.S. elections to be held on human-readable paper ballots by 2020. It also advocated a specific form of routine postelection audits intended to ensure that votes are accurately counted. While U.S. offi- cials say there is no evi- dence of hackers tamper- ing with election results, experts say systems used by millions of U.S. vot- ers remain susceptible to tampering. One official who has been in informal conversations with the ElectionGuard proj- ect leaders is Dean Logan, who runs elections for Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, and is build- ing an open-source voting system for it. Election integrity activ- ist Susan Greenhalgh of the National Election Defense Coalition said she hoped the project would encour- age innovative thinking at Partly sunny and pleasant 77° 48° 77° 47° Sunny and beautiful Warm with plenty of sunshine Partly sunny and very warm PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 78° 47° 83° 57° 81° 50° HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 84° 51° 84° 48° 84° 46° 89° 57° 87° 51° OREGON FORECAST ALMANAC Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows. PENDLETON through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Seattle Olympia 66/47 70/44 82/53 Longview Kennewick Walla Walla 79/52 Lewiston 76/48 85/51 Astoria 62/50 Pullman Yakima 83/51 76/44 76/50 Portland Hermiston 79/53 The Dalles 84/51 Salem Corvallis 76/47 Yesterday Normals Records La Grande 71/46 PRECIPITATION John Day Eugene Bend 77/45 75/42 72/44 Ontario 81/50 Caldwell Burns 81° 42° 71° 44° 95° (1966) 27° (2000) 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date Albany 77/45 Boardman Pendleton Medford 83/50 0.00" 0.00" 0.24" 3.88" 4.20" 4.23" WINDS (in mph) 77/47 74/41 0.00" 0.00" 0.21" 7.76" 5.48" 5.32" through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Pendleton 66/40 77/46 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date HERMISTON Enterprise 77/48 82/55 75° 43° 68° 44° 93° (1992) 31° (1927) PRECIPITATION Moses Lake 74/47 Aberdeen 72/50 80/56 Tacoma Yesterday Normals Records Spokane Wenatchee 73/51 Today Wed. NNW 4-8 NW 6-12 NNW 4-8 NW 6-12 SUN AND MOON Klamath Falls 75/40 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019 Sunrise today Sunset tonight Moonrise today Moonset today 5:35 a.m. 8:09 p.m. 7:42 a.m. 11:21 p.m. First Full Last New May 11 May 18 May 26 June 3 NATIONAL EXTREMES Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states) High 93° in Pecos, Texas Low 19° in Rolla, N.D. NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY easily hackable — and does not currently work with vote-by-mail systems. ES&S told The Associ- ated Press via email that it was excited to partner with Microsoft and “still explor- ing the potentials” for incorporated the software kit its voting systems. Hart InterCivic, the No. 3 vendor, said it planned a pilot project with Micro- soft to “incorporate Elec- tionGuard functionality as an additional feature” lay- ered over its core platform. A spokeswoman for Dominion, the No. 2 ven- dor, said “We are very interested in learning more about the initiative and being able to review the various prototypes that are being planned, along with hearing more about other federally-supported efforts in the elections space.” Edgardo Cortés, a for- mer Virginia elections commissioner now with New York University’s Brennan Center, welcomed additional private sector support for election systems. “I think it’ll take a while to catch on and see how ben- eficial (ElectionGuard) ends up being,” he said. “But I think it certainly does have a great deal of potential.” Columbia University will be partnering with Micro- soft to audit the pilots. Teachers across Oregon to walk out in protests over classroom funding Associated Press Sunny much of the time and nice the level that elections are actually managed. ElectionGuard aims to provide “end-to-end” ver- ification of voting in two ways, Benaloh said. First, it lets voters confirm that their votes are accurately recorded. Second, the unique coded tracker it produces registers an encrypted ver- sion of the vote that keeps the ballot choice itself secret while ensuring votes are accurately counted. Outsiders such as election watchdog groups, politi- cal parties, journalists and voters themselves can ver- ify online that votes were properly counted without being altered. The system would also allow for reliable postelec- tion audits and recounts. Microsoft executives say they also plan to build a prototype voting system for reference. A spinoff of Galois called Free & Fair devel- oped the sophisticated post- election audits, known as “risk-limiting,” for Colo- rado, which was the first U.S. state to require the audits recommended in the National Academies of Sci- ences report. ElectionGuard is not designed to work with internet voting schemes — which experts consider too SALEM — Tens of thousands of teachers are expected to walk out across Oregon this week, adding to the string of nationwide protests over class sizes and education funding. Schools around the state, including Oregon’s larg- est district, Portland Pub- lic Schools, will close for at least part of Wednes- day as educators press for more money from lawmak- ers. Some schools will stay open, as teachers opt for sit- ins or after-school rallies. Most schools participating in the walkout will still have staff on hand to administer national Advanced Place- ment testing or provide food and care to low-income students. Oregon schools have some of the highest class sizes and lowest gradu- ation rates in the United States. Districts have just one librarian, or none at all, fewer than the recom- mended number of counsel- ors and been forced to cut programs like physical edu- cation and music. “Our educators have been trying their hardest to cover up for our funding losses and try to do more with less,” said John Lar- son, president of the Ore- gon Education Association. “We are to a point now that we can’t do that anymore. We want to show that Ore- gon isn’t immune to the problems we see in other walkouts throughout the country.” The action follows a wave of teacher activism that began in West Virginia in 2018 and was followed by Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona. Teachers in North Carolina and South Caro- lina rallied at their respec- tive state capitols last week seeking more money. But unlike other states, Oregon teachers want to make it clear they’re not pushing for pay raises or other union demands. They say they’re walking out to highlight the conditions inside the classroom and how years of lower fund- ing has affected children’s learning opportunities. Washington lawmakers approve plan to fix the mental health system OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington legislators took substantial steps to reshape the mental health system, including funding for new facilities, legisla- tion to increase the number of qualified workers, and the creation of new types of treatment centers. The Seattle Times reports that lawmakers approved the plan — which sprawls across two different state budgets, as well as several other bills — in the legislative session that ended April 28. The work comes after years of court orders and fed- eral inspections that meticu- lously documented the poor treatment of psychiatric patients in the state’s care, as well as a steep shortage of treatment beds and staff- ers to operate them. “We’ve never had a plan before,” said Rep. Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, part of a bipartisan group of law- makers who worked on the issue. “Always before, it’s just ‘we’re going to throw money at something and we’re going to put out fires.’” It remains to be seen how the complex plan comes together in the coming years. Grants will have to be awarded, facilities sited, permitted and built, and staff must be found to run them. The 2019-21 capital-con- struction budget spends roughly $33 million for pre-design and design of a new behavioral health teaching hospital at the Uni- versity of Washington. The facility would train mental health professionals while also providing as many as 150 treatment beds. That budget includes about $118 million toward building new facilities, or expanding existing ones, across the state. Among other places, it funds proj- ects in Bremerton, Cen- tralia, Colville, Edmonds, Spokane, Issaquah, Sedro-Woolley, and for the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe. That money also pro- vides for psychiatric beds at new or expanded com- munity hospitals in Everett, Auburn and Yakima. Lawmakers included some competitive grant money for projects still to be determined and funds to build a 16-bed state-run facility and a 48-bed facility that would be partly state- run. Also, there is $24 mil- lion in the state Housing Trust Fund for residential placements and case man- agement for people strug- gling with chronic mental health issues. Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. -10s -0s 0s showers t-storms 10s rain 20s flurries 30s snow 40s 50s ice 60s cold front E AST O REGONIAN — Founded Oct. 16, 1875 — 211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendleton 541-276-2211 333 E. 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