United States Naval Institute: Letter to the Board of Directors by Raymond Pritchett

Russians don't take a dump without a plan. And senior captains don't start something this dangerous without having thought the matter through.

- Admiral Josh Painter, The Hunt for Red October

The following letter was sent today to the United States Naval Institute Board of Directors.

To the Board of Directors of the United States Naval Institute.

As members of the United States Naval Institute, we feel obligated to highlight that Article VIII, Section 4 of the US Naval Institute Constitution that governs Nominations and Elections; Annual and Special Meetings has been violated by this most recent election.

Article VIII, Section 4 reads:

Section 4. Elections shall be held annually. A ballot shall be sent to each member entitled to vote at least sixty days before the date set for the Annual Meeting. The ballot may include any question that requires approval of the membership or with respect to which the Board of Directors considers it advisable to have the views of the members. To be valid, the ballot shall be signed by the member. The nine candidates for Director and the nine candidates for the Editorial Board receiving the highest number of votes shall be declared elected at the Annual Meeting, assume the duties of their respective offices from that date, and hold office until their successors are elected and qualify.

The official physical ballots were not sent to each member entitled to vote at least sixty days before the day of the Annual Meeting. While it is possible to argue that the online ballot system which became available on February 25 was available 60 days prior, the first announcement by the United States Naval Institute of the election to members came in an email dated March 2, 2011. The only ballots mailed prior to 60 days of the annual members meeting were the ballots mailed out with Naval History magazine, all of which were judged invalid for lacking the mission statement issue within.

We also believe the online ballot vote is invalid because...

The online ballot used does not contain a signature as required by the Constitution of the United States Naval Institute. Voting using the online ballot never required any piece of data unique to a member to represent as a signature. The online ballot used requested only a member’s ID number beginning with a C. The fatal flaw in this approach is that this system of verification was unsecured and subject to tampering and forgery. Indeed, the online ballot as delivered to members was demonstrated unprotected and subject to forgery early in the online voting process to USNI, proven to be unprotected to and by USNI employees, and never addressed. This acknowledgment of the problem with the online ballot by USNI employees has been documented and those documents can be made available at the members meeting if required.

Basic electronic security requires two-factor identification, something you have (member ID) and something else that only the user and the institution readily knows, such as a name, email address, or telephone number, for example. Absent that second authenticator, spoofing was indeed possible by simply guessing an ID number, and in fact guessing member accounts was proven by officers of the United States Navy and USNI staff, and the United States Naval Institute CEO was alerted to this ballot problem.

The United States Naval Institute and the Board of Directors never took action to secure the online ballot nor to deal with the absence of a signature as required, thus the requirement for a signature that is clearly stated in Article VIII, Section 4 of the US Naval Institute Constitution has been ignored.

It is our belief that all of the online ballots are invalid due to lack of proper procedure to secure the mechanism in some way as to carry the authority of authenticity a signature would normally represent. It is further our belief that because the legitimate ballots used to tally all votes were mailed late, indeed mailed too late to be 60 days from the annual meeting, the entire vote including the election of all officers is invalid.

We formally request that at the US Naval Institute annual members meeting, legal counsel weigh in on these ballot issues prior to allowing anyone elected by these ballots - all of which appear to be invalid based on Article VIII, Section 4 of the US Naval Institute Constitution - to assume the duties of their respective offices.

Finally, while we believe all of the ballots for the recent election are invalid, we would like to add that we strongly protest the actions by Board of Directors to remove an initiative from a "legitimate" ballot during any election of the US Naval Institute. We strongly urge legal counsel to address at the annual members meeting the issue related to the Board of Directors authority to recall any measure that is already being voted upon by members.

Very Respectfully,

Raymond A. Pritchett III
Proud Member of the United States Naval Institute