Dear Honorable Judge Jackson, Please find attached the San Francisco Elections Commission responses to the Civil Grand*

There is not a clear project owner that is responsible for building an Open Source Voting System in San Francisco, which prevents the project from making any progress. Disagree partially. [General Note / Preamble: Regarding the report's references to the "project." progress on the project, and ownership of the project, until the City and County of San Francisco makes an official commitment to starting and funding the project (anticipated with the budget signing on August 1, 2018), there hasn't been an official project to own and make progress on. Rather, the project was a proposed project, and it was being considered and assessed. Questions around slow progress, then, would better be phrased as slowness to deciding to start a project.] Regarding making progress, rather than the lack of an owner, the Commission believes that the lack of funding and a commitment from the City to start the project was the main reason for the lack of progress. In particular, there wasn't a project to own. This is in part why the Commission unanimously passed a resolution ("Open Source Voting Systems Resolution #2") at its June 20. 2018 meeting that said, in part (as well as reiterating its request for funding later in the resolution)- RESOLVED, That the Elections Commission calls on the Mayor and Board of Supervisors to state their commitment to effectively proceeding with San Francisco's open source voting system project, so that the Elections Commission, Department of Elections, and the rest of San Francisco can state publicly and unambiguously that San Francisco has decided to move forward. Regarding ownership, and assuming the City has committed to starting the project, the Commission certainly agrees that the lack of an owner would hamper progress. This is in part why the Commission in its June resolution called for the Department of Elections to be named the owner of the project once it is started, and established a policy that the project "be led by a dedicated project director / project manager who reports to the Director of Elections." Having said that, the lack of an owner technically does not prevent progress from happening. For example, the Commission's OSVTAC has been making progress even in the absence of funding, a project owner, and commitment from the City.

Progress on the Open Source Voting project has been limited because responsibility has consistently and ambiguously been passed around between organizations without a clear source of funding or a mandate for completion. Disagree partially. The Commission would rephrase this by omitting the word "clear": "without a source of funding or ...." There was no source of funding, clear or unclear. See also the response to F1 and its "General Note / Preamble" for the main reasons for the lack of progress.

Progress on the Open Source Voting project has been slow because of the large number of stakeholders, and the dispersal of their expertise, and the uncertainty each party has about the overall project. San Francisco Elections Commission Response 2017-2018 Civil Grand Jury report, "Open Source Voting in San Francisco" Disagree partially. The Open Source Voting project has a relatively small number of stakeholders compared to other technology projects in the City. For example, unlike many other technology projects which may be used by many different departments, the Department of Elections is the only Department that would even need to use the resulting system. See also the response to F1 and its "General Note / Preamble" for the main reasons for the lack of progress.

Progress on the Open Source Voting project has been slow because all parties are appropriately concerned about security, and few within San Francisco government have the technical background to accurately evaluate security concerns. Disagree wholly. While all parties may be concerned about security, this is not a reason for progress being slow. See also the response to F1 and its "General Note / Preamble" for the main reasons for the slow progress. Regarding security, the Commission believes that there are a number of people within San Francisco government with the technical background to accurately evaluate security concerns. These include OSVTAC members, the Office of the CISO, and people within the Department of Technology.

The California counties that use Ranked Choice Voting are in the same financial predicament as San Francisco when it comes to procuring their voting system software. This makes them ideal partnership candidates, as they face the same set of challenges under the same regulatory authority. Disagree partially. Ranked Choice Voting is a relatively small portion of the system, but not insignificant, and so should not be the sole determining factor in deciding partners. There are other factors to consider.

Too many variables remain unresolved to draw confident analysis about completion cost or timeline of the OSV project. Agree.

The security of an Open Source Voting System would reflect the ratio of the number of good actors to bad actors that are looking at it to find vulnerabilities, which makes getting the attention of external security experts a top level priority for the OSV project. Disagree partially. The Commission believes that the security of the system is a function primarily of the quality of the system and the processes around its use rather than the number of people "looking at it." The number of people looking at it is secondary. For example, if the system is designed well, has San Francisco Elections Commission Response 2017-2018 Civil Grand Jury report, "Open Source Voting in San Francisco" high quality, and has good processes around it, the number of people looking at the code will have little or no bearing. Also, looking only at the number of actors is an oversimplification. For example, if the "good actors" are small in number and highly skilled, it wouldn't necessarily help to throw dozens or hundreds of unskilled "bad actors" at it. Having said that, the Commission does believe that involving skilled security experts should be a priority of the project. Also. getting the attention of volunteers is only one way of involving experts. Experts can also be hired or procured. A proper development plan would include security as part of the project plan, and security would be included as part of the certification process.

If an Open Source Voting system is going to be used only by San Francisco, it is unlikely to attract the requisite attention of security experts and white-hat engineers necessary to be confident in its security. Disagree wholly. Given that the project is the only open source voting project in the United States and can be designed with potential future use by other jurisdictions in mind, the Commission believes that it would attract significant attention. Moreover, even if it doesn't attract attention, this shouldn't matter. The City should draw its confidence from the experts that it involves in the project directly and not rely on volunteers that may or may not materialize.

The ability to efficiently patch vulnerabilities in open source software is a foundational property of successful and secure open source projects, and certification by the Secretary of State poses an unscoped period of delay to any patch to an OSVS system. Disagree partially. For starters, this finding is true for proprietary software (including proprietary voting systems) just as much as it is true for open source software. For voting systems, the physical processes around their use is just as, if not more important than, the security of the software itself, and can be used to address both hardware and software issues. Physical processes include but are not limited to things like - securing the machines, securing ballots, doing adequate audits by hand- checking the paper ballots against the computer-generated results, having trained poll workers, etc.

Although patches to open source systems are common, any patch of an election system will necessitate recertification by the California Secretary of State. The timeline and cost of this recertification can vary wildly depending on the size of the fix, and its urgency. There is some evidence that modular certification can be supported by the Secretary of State. Disagree partially. Small changes can be added through an administrative approval without full recertification.

There are a large number of non-profit organizations that are willing and eager to help develop an OSV system, as both developers and advisors. Disagree partially. San Francisco Elections Commission Response 2017-2018 Civil Grand Jury report, "Open Source Voting in San Francisco" While it seems like there should be a large number of such organizations, we haven't yet seen them come forward with concrete help. Also, the Civil Grand Jury Report only mentions three organizations - none of which has volunteered and one of which (18F) is not even a non-profit.

Federal agencies specializing in developing reusable Open Source Technologies, such as the USDS and 18F, are ideal partnership candidates for an OSV project, but their involvement would require that some federal funds be used for the project. Disagree partially. The Commission agrees that federal agencies are a potential source of partners, but not necessarily ideal.

No organization within San Francisco government has formed formal partnerships with non-profit organizations to develop, test, or to advise on OSVS best practices. Agree.

No organization within San Francisco government has begun formal discussions with the Secretary of State about the potential for partnership. Agree.

Developing Election Systems is currently outside of the mandate for San Francisco's Department of Elections. Disagree partially. While section 13.104 of the San Francisco Charter does not enumerate "developing an election system" as a specific requirement of the Department of Elections, it is certainly within the scope of the Department's authority. For example, San Francisco's Charter says in Section 13.104 ("Department of Elections") that, "The department shall be administered by the Director of Elections, who shall be vested with the day-to-day conduct and management of the Department and of voter registration and matters pertaining to elections in the City and County."

San Francisco's Department of Elections has no experience developing critical software. Agree. San Francisco Elections Commission Response 2017-2018 Civil Grand Jury report, "Open Source Voting in San Francisco"