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A 'No' Vote on Machines: STATE SEEKS SECURITY TESTS ON TOUCH-SCREENS, SCANNERS

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By Edwin Garcia, San Jose Mercury News, Calif., San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Dec. 21--SACRAMENTO -- Suggesting the "security and integrity" of electronic voting could be at risk, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson on Tuesday refused to approve the use of thousands of electronic voting machines pending a federal evaluation.

The touch-screen and optical-scan machines, made by Diebold Election Systems, are used in 17 counties, including Alameda. They were found to have "unresolved significant security concerns" with a memory card that stores votes in each machine, McPherson's elections chief, Caren Daniels-Meade, said in a letter to the company's vice president, David Byrd.

At issue is whether the removable cards, which are used to program and configure the machines and count their votes, will keep data secure.

The Secretary of State's office is asking Diebold to submit the machine's source code for review by the federal Independent Testing Authorities before resubmitting the company's application for certification in California.

Ready to comply

Byrd, Diebold's vice president of business operations, is eager to comply.

"Diebold Election Systems is always willing to participate in responsible testing to show that our voting systems are up to the task of giving more Californians an accessible and reliable way to vote," Byrd said in a statement. "This has always been our goal: to provide a more accurate, secure and accessible voting process for all Californians."

McPherson's decision surprised Elaine Ginnold, the acting registrar of voters in Alameda County, which uses 4,000 Diebold machines.

Ginnold, who had been planning to use some of the machines for a March election in Piedmont, said she had "a lot of concerns because it's very late in the game."

Some experts who closely follow developments in the field of e-voting questioned whether McPherson's denial to certify the AccuVote-OS optical-scan and AccuVote-TSX touch-screen machines had more to do with trying to appease voters who may have doubts with Diebold's shaky reputation in California.

In 2003, state auditors determined Diebold distributed software that had not been approved by the state; the company paid a $2.6 million fine. Then, last summer, McPherson disallowed the TSX machine after testing revealed screen freezes and paper jams.

Used in Alameda

Voters last month used Diebold machines to cast ballots in Alameda, San Diego, San Luis Obispo and 13 other counties under the company's conditional certification from the secretary of state.

"I think there's been a lot of concerns with some of the problems that have been demonstrated with Diebold Systems," said Avi Rubin, a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University, "and he's trying to make sure if there's a problem, it's discovered before those machines are certified and used."

Yet, examining the source code, Rubin said, will not necessarily pinpoint potential problems, such as if a computer expert tried to introduce malicious code through one of the memory cards.

Source code review also is not something required of the federal testing authorities, yet it has become part of the state's review process endorsed by McPherson.

The state senator who chairs the Senate Elections, Reapportionment, & Constitutional Amendments Committee criticized McPherson's decision.

"The secretary of state shouldn't punt the decision about whether Diebold machines should be used to count ballots in California to the federal government and an 'independent' testing authority that's financed by the voting machine vendors," Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, said in a statement. "That decision needs to be made in the open, right here in California."

Despite past problems, Diebold touts itself as the only vendor of electronic voting machines to have participated in and successfully passed volume testing in California.

Voters across the state will head to the polls June 6 for a primary election.

Jennifer Kerns, a spokeswoman for McPherson, said his staff is well aware of the deadlines counties face in preparing for the upcoming elections -- and the uncertainty of whether Diebold machines will be allowed.

The federal testing is expected to take about two weeks.

Contact Edwin Garcia at egarcia@mercurynews.com or (916) 441-4651.

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Copyright (c) 2005, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

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Australia:MCP,

Source: San Jose Mercury News

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