SF Open Source Voting TAC

Meeting Minutes: December 6, 2018 (approved January 10, 2019)

Order of Business

1. Call to Order & Roll Call

Chair Jerdonek called the meeting to order at 6:03 p.m. Present: Members Hage, Jerdonek, and Wasserman. Member Kattouw arrived late during item #3 at 6:05 p.m. Member Philips was absent (excused). Also present: Secretary Chan.

2. General Public Comment

No members of the public were present during the meeting, so there was no public comment on any of the agenda items.

3. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meeting

The Committee discussed the draft minutes. Member Kattouw said item #7 should reflect that he did like the JS Foundation CLA, but that it did not include mention of patent grants.

Member Wasserman commented that the two sentences for item #9 attributed to him do not follow. The first sentence was to indicate that he felt that the Department of Technology (DT) should keep the Committee’s recommendations in mind as they work on the open source voting project to ensure that the project uses good practices. The second sentence referred to the issue of security in an unclear fashion, so it can be stricken.

With those corrections, Member Kattouw moved to approve, seconded by Member Wasserman. Upon voice vote, the motion carried unanimously 4-0.

4. Administration

Chair Jerdonek said he would check to see whether Member Philips can attend the next Commission meeting to report for TAC. If not, then Chair Jerdonek will do it. The next TAC meeting will be January 10. All present said they can make it.

Chair Jerdonek mentioned that his term on the Commission ends January 1 (with a maximum 60-day holdover), and he will apply to the Board of Supervisors for reappointment for a second term.

Secretary Chan announced that he has informed the Commission he intends to resign, but the specific date has not been set.

The Committee discussed its “tri-annual” report due to the Commission in January, but without a specific date. Member Wasserman said it should include significant things that have happened (e.g. DT’s plan, Member Philips joining, the open source results reporter being worked on) and have some “take-aways.” It was agreed to have a draft to review at the next committee meeting. Member Kattouw said he might be able to do one by the end of December, but if others have the time also, they should do it instead.

Chair Jerdonek said that he would review Member Kattouw’s pull requests to bring the recommendations document on TAC’s website up to speed with what TAC has voted on.

5. Member Reports

Member Wasserman went to a conference on open source compliance organized by KPMG. They looked at existing compliance efforts and tools. He mentioned a group called the OpenChain Project (https://www.openchainproject.org), which is one of the Linux Foundation’s projects. It seeks to put together compliance standards for open source projects. He also mentioned the TODO group (https://todogroup.org). The standards or guidelines are intended to help people and organizations using or building open source software to keep it in compliance with all the licenses attached to it in its development.

There was a discussion about how the Department carried out the random selection of precincts for the 1% public manual tally. Members Kattouw and Wasserman attended the Department’s selection for the count. They were the only members of the public in attendance. The process carried out did not follow exactly what was documented. Namely, the precincts selected are to be audited completely. The “extra” precincts are only to audit the races that were not covered in those first selected. They actually audited more than what was required by regulations.

Chair Jerdonek reported that to his knowledge DT has not yet hired the project manager.

6. Voting System Security

Member Hage spoke about the sample data he downloaded from the City. The City uses the SHA-512 hash rather than SHA-256, which TAC’s open results reporter (ORR) currently uses. Member Hage wanted to know if TAC had a preference. It affects the final presentation format.

Member Hage commented that if they had the file that contained all the hashes of the data, he could create a detached signature for the file and then sign everything. If multiple signatures were desired they could add a suffix into the signature file. He said they could try this on their sample data and track the data that’s created from that.

The Committee discussed different scenarios using digital keys. On the question of having a digital key for sign-on to their records, should there be a single key or multiple keys, single verification or multiple simultaneous verifications, etc? Chair Jerdonek wanted to have a description of the workflow and caveats (e.g. possible problem scenarios and the effect, like if one key is lost).

There was mention about the ways some certificates of authority and verification work, with different layers of access for key holders.

There was a question of whether the City needs to have a digital signature for protecting its software and hardware, and what the Committee should recommend for that. If the Committee begins to use one itself, this can go on to show how it can be used by the City. Chair Jerdonek said it would be good to develop a statement that would lay out what DT should do in regards to this question and what the costs would be.

Chair Jerdonek asked if any member could produce a paper that summarizes the issues and possible solutions. Member Hage will set up a process for the Committee’s sample data that will include a digital signature (key) and an explanation of how it will work.

7. Contributor License Agreements (CLA’s) for OSVTAC Projects

Member Kattouw reviewed the CLA, which he revised following TAC’s discussion at the last meeting. He said that it now includes the statement that they can re-license any contribution to any license approved by the open source initiative, including both permissive and copyleft licenses.

Chair Jerdonek said he has sent the draft to the Deputy City Attorney for discussion. He said that he personally had not decided whether he thinks re-licensing to a permissive license should be allowed or not. Member Hage remembered that Member Philips said more people are moving toward less restrictive licensing. Member Wasserman said that many are going with static linking versus dynamic linking, which presents problems with LGPL (the Lesser General Public License). Member Kattouw brought up that some licenses are one-way compatible, where you might be able to incorporate another’s software, but not vice versa. There was a discussion around containers and means of distribution of software.

8. Voting System Component Development

Member Hage said he completed the data converter, but he still needs to write a correlator. He’s working with the JSON files with some changes. He created a config file to work with them. He will continue to work on adjustments as he runs tests and makes changes to refine the capabilities.

Member Kattouw did some basic CSS templates (about 20 lines of CSS) and showed what it could do. He’ll store this in the ORR repo.

There was a discussion regarding the different codes necessary to identify ballot items and results (e.g. candidate contests for win/loss/leading/tie) and other terms. Member Kattouw couldn’t construct the templates that would display such status.

Chair Jerdonek felt the CSS and other demo display code should not be in the ORR repo. He suggested rendering what was already from the sample data and then run the template with the actual data Member Hage has gotten. He asked Member Hage to add the sample data repository as a sub-module of the demo repo, and then add a script to the demo repo that basically hard-codes the relative paths.

Chair Jerdonek said it will be getting more difficult to work independently. He thought maybe the Committee could list issues they needed/wanted to get done, and bring those back to be voted on at a meeting.

Member Kattouw will request the following issues: winners and leading candidates in each round, distinction between real candidates or choices and metadata like number of voters and number who cast ballots, distinction between precincts and other areas, and put June and November results into the demo repo. Chair Jerdonek asked for ORR to have the ability to display a countywide turnout relative to the number of eligible voters for a more accurate picture of voter participation. There also needs to be a general translation table to support multiple languages.

There was a discussion about the semantics of the term ‘over/under vote,’

Member Kattouw mentioned as an aside that the Department had sortable tables. Clicking any header would sort the table based on that field.

Chair Jerdonek moved for the Committee to agree that the issues Member Kattouw enumerated are things the Committee wants to work on. Member Hage seconded. Upon voice vote, the motion carried unanimously 4-0.

Chair Jerdonek further said it would be good for members to think of issues outside of the meetings.

Chair Jerdonek asked about what Member Philips was working on. Member Hage summarized the Member Philips was looking into the use of machine learning to identify target markings on a ballot.

9. Topics for future discussion

One topic was forming a subcommittee if needed to work on ORR and other components.

Adjourned at 8:38 p.m.