The Electronic Frontier Foundation issued this news release today about important developments in North Carolina, where Diebold has been awarded certification despite failing to comply with the state's election law requiring the company to provide source code and the names of all its programmers.
EFF was an intervenor in a court case that was decided earlier this week, in which Diebold lost a lawsuit against North Carolina's disclosure laws. Excerpts from the EFF news release are featured below.
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The North Carolina Board of Elections certified Diebold Election Systems to sell electronic voting equipment in the state yesterday, despite Diebold's repeated admission that it could not comply with North Carolina's tough election law.
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"The Board of Elections has simply flouted the law," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "In August, the state passed tough new rules designed to ensure transparency in the election process, and the Board simply decided to take it upon itself to overrule the legislature. The Board's job is to protect voters, not corporations who want to obtain multi-million dollar contracts with the state."
Last month, Diebold obtained a broad temporary restraining order that allowed it to evade key transparency requirements without criminal or civil liability. The law requires escrow of the source code for all voting systems to be certified in the state and identification of programmers. Diebold claimed that it could not comply because of its reliance on third-party software.
Monday, responding to EFF's arguments, a judge dismissed Diebold's request for broad exemptions to the law and told Diebold that if it wanted to continue in its certification bid, it must follow the law or face liability. Diebold had told the court that it would likely withdraw from the bidding process if it was not granted liability protection. But instead, Diebold went forward with the certification bid.
Diebold's certification now means it is permitted to sell e-voting equipment in North Carolina. But Zimmerman says that any county that buys from Diebold is taking a risk.
"If Diebold's certification is revoked, counties using their equipment could be left holding a very expensive bag," Zimmerman said.
Friday, December 2, 2005
Thursday, December 1, 2005
More coverage of the Secretary of State's Voting Systems Summit
Today's Oakland Tribune features an article by Ian Hoffman on this week's voting system summit in Sacramento hosted by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. Excerpts are below.
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Uncertainty clouds future of e-vote tests
Despite movement toward new standards for machines,
change may be years away
For 11 years, most states have relied on voting systems tested to minimal federal standards, the results withheld from public scrutiny and given the green light by a nongovernmental agency working on a shoestring budget.
The era of approving tools of democracy on the cheap is coming to an end, and judging by talk at a national gathering of voting experts here this week, few will be sorry to see it go.
Carnegie Mellon University computer expert Michael Shamos, a state voting-systems certification official for Pennsylvania, is one of the staunchest advocates for new, fully computerized electronic voting systems.
But judging by what he has seen emerge from secretive, private labs known as "independent testing authorities" and approved by the National Association of State Elections Directors, Shamos said, "There's stuff in there that's so horrible, I can't understand it."
He found a quarter of the voting systems presented to Pennsylvania unsuitable for elections, with such "glaring failures" as an inability to tally votes correctly. A recent study led by the University of Maryland showed all of six voting systems tested did not record 3 to 4 percent of the votes. What does pass state muster often can break down.
"I have good reason to believe that 10 percent of systems are failing on Election Day. That's an unbelievable number," Shamos told an assemblage of voting-system makers, elections officials and scientists. "Why are we not in an uproar about the failure of (touch-screen voting) systems?"
----
Vendors can spend several hundred thousand dollars getting a state's OK. Many states rely on the national testing alone and start buying approved voting systems almost immediately. Florida and Georgia rely almost exclusively on their own testing.
California uses both the national testing and its own, which under McPherson has grown in rigor.
His office now requires every voting-system maker to supply dozens of machines for a massive, mock election to ferret out manufacturing or reliability problems. McPherson also has agreed to let a computer expert try hacking into a Diebold system, and state officials are weighing whether to require the same kind of security testing for all voting systems.
Diebold and some local elections officials are frustrated that it has taken more than two years to get the firm's latest touch-screen approved for sale and use in California.
Partly because of the testing and Diebold's own delays, a quarter of California's counties, including Alameda, Marin and San Joaquin, probably will miss Jan. 1 federal and state deadlines for offering new, handicapped-accessible voting machines with a paper record. Local elections officials want several months of lead time getting used to the new machines before the June primary.
"He's risking another huge meltdown for counties," said Los Angeles County Registrar Conny McCormack, head of the state association of local elections officials. "It's a setup for failure."
But the testing has disclosed security holes, as well as a bug that caused one in five Diebold touch screens to crash if a voter slid a finger on the screen, and forced Diebold to fix frequent paper jams in a printer for ballot records. Fixing the "sliding finger" bug alone cost the firm at least $250,000.
McPherson said this week that deadlines will have to take a back seat to making sure voting systems are secure, accurate and reliable.
"There is no compromise where election integrity is concerned," he said. "I cannot in good conscience certify systems that are not fully tested. This is a one-time show, and we're going to do it carefully."
---------
Uncertainty clouds future of e-vote tests
Despite movement toward new standards for machines,
change may be years away
For 11 years, most states have relied on voting systems tested to minimal federal standards, the results withheld from public scrutiny and given the green light by a nongovernmental agency working on a shoestring budget.
The era of approving tools of democracy on the cheap is coming to an end, and judging by talk at a national gathering of voting experts here this week, few will be sorry to see it go.
Carnegie Mellon University computer expert Michael Shamos, a state voting-systems certification official for Pennsylvania, is one of the staunchest advocates for new, fully computerized electronic voting systems.
But judging by what he has seen emerge from secretive, private labs known as "independent testing authorities" and approved by the National Association of State Elections Directors, Shamos said, "There's stuff in there that's so horrible, I can't understand it."
He found a quarter of the voting systems presented to Pennsylvania unsuitable for elections, with such "glaring failures" as an inability to tally votes correctly. A recent study led by the University of Maryland showed all of six voting systems tested did not record 3 to 4 percent of the votes. What does pass state muster often can break down.
"I have good reason to believe that 10 percent of systems are failing on Election Day. That's an unbelievable number," Shamos told an assemblage of voting-system makers, elections officials and scientists. "Why are we not in an uproar about the failure of (touch-screen voting) systems?"
----
Vendors can spend several hundred thousand dollars getting a state's OK. Many states rely on the national testing alone and start buying approved voting systems almost immediately. Florida and Georgia rely almost exclusively on their own testing.
California uses both the national testing and its own, which under McPherson has grown in rigor.
His office now requires every voting-system maker to supply dozens of machines for a massive, mock election to ferret out manufacturing or reliability problems. McPherson also has agreed to let a computer expert try hacking into a Diebold system, and state officials are weighing whether to require the same kind of security testing for all voting systems.
Diebold and some local elections officials are frustrated that it has taken more than two years to get the firm's latest touch-screen approved for sale and use in California.
Partly because of the testing and Diebold's own delays, a quarter of California's counties, including Alameda, Marin and San Joaquin, probably will miss Jan. 1 federal and state deadlines for offering new, handicapped-accessible voting machines with a paper record. Local elections officials want several months of lead time getting used to the new machines before the June primary.
"He's risking another huge meltdown for counties," said Los Angeles County Registrar Conny McCormack, head of the state association of local elections officials. "It's a setup for failure."
But the testing has disclosed security holes, as well as a bug that caused one in five Diebold touch screens to crash if a voter slid a finger on the screen, and forced Diebold to fix frequent paper jams in a printer for ballot records. Fixing the "sliding finger" bug alone cost the firm at least $250,000.
McPherson said this week that deadlines will have to take a back seat to making sure voting systems are secure, accurate and reliable.
"There is no compromise where election integrity is concerned," he said. "I cannot in good conscience certify systems that are not fully tested. This is a one-time show, and we're going to do it carefully."
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
My presentation at the Secretary of State's Voting Systems Testing Summit
This past Monday and Tuesday I participated in the California Secretary of State's Voting Systems Testing Summit, along with about 125 other people. Other participants included many California local election officials, election officials from other states, representatives of the EAC and NASED, voting equipment vendors, computer scientists, academics, and a few activists. Though the event was not open to the public, the Secretary of State's staff did invite a fairly diverse group of people to attend, and permitted reporters to sit in on the sessions.
My presentation focused on the purpose for which voter verified paper audit trails should be used. While there were many people in the audience who have been longtime opponents of a voter verified paper audit trail requirement, I felt my remarks were well-received. All in all, I found the summit to be a good opportunity to talk with people from a variety of perspectives.
Based on the presentations made, I get the feeling that many folks involved in elections are slowly beginning to acknowledge the weaknesses of the federal government's current oversight of voting systems. For example, two representatives from Independent Testing Authorities (ITAs) were scheduled to speak, but only one showed up. Several summit participants expressed disappointment that the representative from Wyle Labs did not show up, since Wyle has been one of the most prominent ITAs involved in the federal voting system qualification process.
It's clear that many states are in the same situation -- facing looming voting equipment deadlines to comply with the Help America Vote Act's accessibility requirements, but not feeling confident about the voting equipment choices before them. Tuesday's Sacramento Bee featured an article by Kevin Yamamura which discusses California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's comments at the summit and reports that he may not certify any more voting systems before the end of the year, which will make it difficult for current Diebold customers to comply with the HAVA mandate.
My presentation focused on the purpose for which voter verified paper audit trails should be used. While there were many people in the audience who have been longtime opponents of a voter verified paper audit trail requirement, I felt my remarks were well-received. All in all, I found the summit to be a good opportunity to talk with people from a variety of perspectives.
Based on the presentations made, I get the feeling that many folks involved in elections are slowly beginning to acknowledge the weaknesses of the federal government's current oversight of voting systems. For example, two representatives from Independent Testing Authorities (ITAs) were scheduled to speak, but only one showed up. Several summit participants expressed disappointment that the representative from Wyle Labs did not show up, since Wyle has been one of the most prominent ITAs involved in the federal voting system qualification process.
It's clear that many states are in the same situation -- facing looming voting equipment deadlines to comply with the Help America Vote Act's accessibility requirements, but not feeling confident about the voting equipment choices before them. Tuesday's Sacramento Bee featured an article by Kevin Yamamura which discusses California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's comments at the summit and reports that he may not certify any more voting systems before the end of the year, which will make it difficult for current Diebold customers to comply with the HAVA mandate.
Update on Secretary of State's security test plans
The attempted hack of a Diebold voting system will not take place today, as previously reported. The terms of the test are still being negotiated. It's my understanding that the Secretary of State's office has been in touch with Finnish programmer Harri Hursti to make the arrangements. More details are featured in Monday's Alameda Newspaper Group story by Ian Hoffman. Excerpts are below.
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Back in May, voting activists went on the Internet and for $300 apiece purchased two devices used to record moisture levels in corn.
Certain corn scanners use the same memory cards as Diebold Election Systems' optical scanning machines for ballots and can easily modify them. That makes corn scanners a tool for vote hacking.
Sitting by a hotel pool last spring in Florida, Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti wrote his own program on a memory card so it could alter poll results on a Diebold machine in Leon County and flash a screen message -- "Are we having fun yet?" -- that shocked the local elections supervisor.
Prodded by activists with nonprofit Black Box Voting, California elections officials have agreed to a test hack of the Diebold voting machines running in 17 of its counties, from San Diego to Los Angeles and Alameda to Humboldt.
The test, first reported by The Daily Review last week, originally was scheduled for Wednesday but will likely be delayed until mid-December.
---
If Hursti or another computer expert succeeds in hacking Diebold's voting machinery, the McKinney, Texas, firm could be forced to redesign software fundamental to each major component of its voting system. Securing new state and federal approvals would bring delay and loss of sales that the company is counting on before next June's primary.
Counties face Jan. 1 state and federal deadlines for acquiring new, handicapped-accessible voting systems that also offer some form of paper record. Those counties relying on Diebold might turn to other voting-system makers.
As a result, there have been extensive, ongoing negotiations between Black Box Voting and the California secretary of state's office, which also is talking to Diebold, about conditions of the test, confidentiality of the results and measures of success. The talks continued over the weekend, but state officials said they remain committed to performing the test.
"Secretary (Bruce) McPherson takes testing these systems very seriously," said his spokeswoman Nghia Nguyen Demovic. "He wants safeguards in place so that every vote cast is secured. He's doing his due diligence to assure voter confidence."
Last week state officials said they will select the voting equipment at random from a California county using Diebold.
Hacking strategies can be caught by recounting the ballots. California law requires a recount in 1 percent of precincts after every election. But in Los Angeles County and other jurisdictions, elections officials do not recount absentee ballots, which are mailed in and scanned at election offices. Absentee ballots are more than a third of the vote in California and in several counties more than half of the vote.
"You just tamper with the GEMS database for the absentee vote, and then if you exclude the absentees from the one percent recount then you completely own the process," said Jim March, a board member of Black Box Voting. The hacks -- there are two -- are almost elegantly simple.
---------
Back in May, voting activists went on the Internet and for $300 apiece purchased two devices used to record moisture levels in corn.
Certain corn scanners use the same memory cards as Diebold Election Systems' optical scanning machines for ballots and can easily modify them. That makes corn scanners a tool for vote hacking.
Sitting by a hotel pool last spring in Florida, Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti wrote his own program on a memory card so it could alter poll results on a Diebold machine in Leon County and flash a screen message -- "Are we having fun yet?" -- that shocked the local elections supervisor.
Prodded by activists with nonprofit Black Box Voting, California elections officials have agreed to a test hack of the Diebold voting machines running in 17 of its counties, from San Diego to Los Angeles and Alameda to Humboldt.
The test, first reported by The Daily Review last week, originally was scheduled for Wednesday but will likely be delayed until mid-December.
---
If Hursti or another computer expert succeeds in hacking Diebold's voting machinery, the McKinney, Texas, firm could be forced to redesign software fundamental to each major component of its voting system. Securing new state and federal approvals would bring delay and loss of sales that the company is counting on before next June's primary.
Counties face Jan. 1 state and federal deadlines for acquiring new, handicapped-accessible voting systems that also offer some form of paper record. Those counties relying on Diebold might turn to other voting-system makers.
As a result, there have been extensive, ongoing negotiations between Black Box Voting and the California secretary of state's office, which also is talking to Diebold, about conditions of the test, confidentiality of the results and measures of success. The talks continued over the weekend, but state officials said they remain committed to performing the test.
"Secretary (Bruce) McPherson takes testing these systems very seriously," said his spokeswoman Nghia Nguyen Demovic. "He wants safeguards in place so that every vote cast is secured. He's doing his due diligence to assure voter confidence."
Last week state officials said they will select the voting equipment at random from a California county using Diebold.
Hacking strategies can be caught by recounting the ballots. California law requires a recount in 1 percent of precincts after every election. But in Los Angeles County and other jurisdictions, elections officials do not recount absentee ballots, which are mailed in and scanned at election offices. Absentee ballots are more than a third of the vote in California and in several counties more than half of the vote.
"You just tamper with the GEMS database for the absentee vote, and then if you exclude the absentees from the one percent recount then you completely own the process," said Jim March, a board member of Black Box Voting. The hacks -- there are two -- are almost elegantly simple.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Hacker to try to attack state voting machines
In today's San Francisco Chronicle, John Wildermuth reports on the California Secretary of State's plan to allow a computer security expert sponsored by Black Box Voting to attempt to hack into Diebold's voting system. The security test will be held Wednesday, Nov. 30. Excerpts from the Chronicle article are featured below.
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A computer hacker will be trying to break into one of California's electronic voting machines next week, with the full cooperation of the secretary of state.
Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, will be trying to demonstrate that voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems are vulnerable to attacks by computer hackers seeking to manipulate the results of an election.
"This is part of our security mission,'' said Nghia Nguyen Demovic, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office. "We want to make sure that every vote is counted and registered correctly.''
The stakes are high for Diebold, one of the nation's largest manufacturers of electronic voting systems. The company is trying to get its new voting system approved for use in California, the nation's biggest market, but Secretary of State Bruce McPherson refused certification after 20 percent of the new, printer-equipped voting machines malfunctioned during a July test in San Joaquin County.
"The secretary said that performance wasn't good enough,'' Demovic said.
The new security test, tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, will play a role in Diebold's future certification efforts.
Last May, Hursti and another computer security expert tested a Diebold system for the elections supervisor in Leon County, Fla. They quickly broke into the system, changed the voting results and inserted a new program that flashed the message "Are we having fun yet?" on the computer screens.
"Granted the same access as an employee of our office, it was possible to enter the computer, alter election results and exit the system without any physical record of this action,'' said Ion Sancho, the election supervisor, in a report on the county's Web site.
The California test will use a randomly selected voting machine from one of the 17 counties that use a Diebold system -- either touch screen or optical scan machines. The original plan for the test would have used a machine provided by Diebold, something opposed by the state and the critics of the company.
"We want to test a machine that's already been used in a California election,'' said Jim March, an investigator for Black Box Voting, the consumer group bringing in Hursti for the test. "We want to avoid a so-called 'lab queen,' a voting machine specially rigged for the test.''
Black Box Voting and other groups have complained that the programs loaded into the Diebold machines can be undetectably changed to provide a specific election result. Officials of the company argue their machines provide secure, accurate results.
Officials of the company did not return telephone calls Wednesday.
Diebold has been a popular target, for those worried about the security of electronic voting and for Democrats complaining about the company's links to the Republican Party.
---
The company also has a checkered record in California. Problems with the company's electronic voting system caused disruptions at 180 Alameda County precincts during the March 2004 primary election. During the October 2003 recall election, several thousand votes for Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in Alameda County were somehow electronically transferred to Southern California Socialist John Burton.
In May 2004, then-Secretary of State Kevin Shelley yanked certification of the Diebold machines in four counties and restricted their use in 10 other counties until their security and reliability could be improved.
The state has mandated that all electronic voting machines have a paper-ballot backup to record votes by the June 2006 primary.
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A computer hacker will be trying to break into one of California's electronic voting machines next week, with the full cooperation of the secretary of state.
Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, will be trying to demonstrate that voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems are vulnerable to attacks by computer hackers seeking to manipulate the results of an election.
"This is part of our security mission,'' said Nghia Nguyen Demovic, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office. "We want to make sure that every vote is counted and registered correctly.''
The stakes are high for Diebold, one of the nation's largest manufacturers of electronic voting systems. The company is trying to get its new voting system approved for use in California, the nation's biggest market, but Secretary of State Bruce McPherson refused certification after 20 percent of the new, printer-equipped voting machines malfunctioned during a July test in San Joaquin County.
"The secretary said that performance wasn't good enough,'' Demovic said.
The new security test, tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, will play a role in Diebold's future certification efforts.
Last May, Hursti and another computer security expert tested a Diebold system for the elections supervisor in Leon County, Fla. They quickly broke into the system, changed the voting results and inserted a new program that flashed the message "Are we having fun yet?" on the computer screens.
"Granted the same access as an employee of our office, it was possible to enter the computer, alter election results and exit the system without any physical record of this action,'' said Ion Sancho, the election supervisor, in a report on the county's Web site.
The California test will use a randomly selected voting machine from one of the 17 counties that use a Diebold system -- either touch screen or optical scan machines. The original plan for the test would have used a machine provided by Diebold, something opposed by the state and the critics of the company.
"We want to test a machine that's already been used in a California election,'' said Jim March, an investigator for Black Box Voting, the consumer group bringing in Hursti for the test. "We want to avoid a so-called 'lab queen,' a voting machine specially rigged for the test.''
Black Box Voting and other groups have complained that the programs loaded into the Diebold machines can be undetectably changed to provide a specific election result. Officials of the company argue their machines provide secure, accurate results.
Officials of the company did not return telephone calls Wednesday.
Diebold has been a popular target, for those worried about the security of electronic voting and for Democrats complaining about the company's links to the Republican Party.
---
The company also has a checkered record in California. Problems with the company's electronic voting system caused disruptions at 180 Alameda County precincts during the March 2004 primary election. During the October 2003 recall election, several thousand votes for Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in Alameda County were somehow electronically transferred to Southern California Socialist John Burton.
In May 2004, then-Secretary of State Kevin Shelley yanked certification of the Diebold machines in four counties and restricted their use in 10 other counties until their security and reliability could be improved.
The state has mandated that all electronic voting machines have a paper-ballot backup to record votes by the June 2006 primary.
More coverage of the Diebold hearing
Ian Hoffman of the Alameda Newspaper Group wrote this article about Monday's hearing at the Secretary of State's office regarding certification of the Diebold TSx voting system. It is featured below.
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With a quarter of California counties poised to buy Diebold's latest touch-screen voting system, Diebold critics urged its rejection Monday, calling it open to fraud and inaccessible to disabled voters.
If the touch screen isn't approved, most California counties will miss the Jan. 1 deadline to begin offering handicapped-accessible voting machines that also provide a backup paper record.
Fifteen county officials, including elections chiefs in Alameda, Marin, San Joaquin and Los Angeles, wrote Secretary of State Bruce McPherson last week to "urge that you act as quickly as possible ... to ensure our ability to comply with the looming federal and state deadline."
Yet Diebold employees and local elections officials were dismayed to hear the company portrayed as an "ethically challenged" and "corrupt" maker of voting machinery designed to fix elections.
The McKinney, Texas-based firm has spent more than two years trying to win permanent California approval for its AccuVote TSx and undergone the most rigorous state testing of a voting system.
"People have made this a personal issue with Diebold, and they don't see a company that has made improvements," said San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Debbie Hench, who wants to use more than 1,600 of the Diebold touch screens in the June primary. "I don't think there's a vendor around that could satisfy these people."
Diebold has added stronger passwords and encryption, but opponents say the voting system remains vulnerable to a simple hack. With unobserved access to voting computers and insertion of as little as 60 lines of code, a computer expert for Black Box Voting Inc. says he has been able to change vote tallies for an entire jurisdiction.
Jim March, a board member of the group, called the vulnerabilities "a whole set of aces up the sleeve for an election official who wants to cheat."
Before considering approval of the system, officials at the California secretary of state's office have agreed to test those claims by letting Black Box Voting try to hack into the Diebold system on Nov. 30.
"The places where there are known vulnerabilities in this system should raise a yellow flag before we certify this system," said state Sen. Debra Bowen, a Marina del Rey Democrat expected to challenge Secretary of State Bruce McPherson as the state's chief elections officer.
State law says a voting system cannot be approved for use in California unless it is secure. So far, state voting-system technicians have concluded the system is secure enough. What could matter more in McPherson's decision on the Diebold system is opposition from advocates for visually impaired and physically disabled voters, for whom most counties say they are buying the Diebold system to serve.
Dan Kysor, director of governmental affairs for the California Council for the Blind, and Teresa Favuzzi, executive director of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, said the Diebold system is not accessible enough.
Electronic touch screens have brought disabled voters to the brink of casting their ballots privately, without assistance, by offering an audio version of the electronic ballot and various means of marking their choices. But Diebold's latest touch screen lacks a key tool, a sip-and-puff device for physically disabled voters, and it is designed in a way that makes it hard for visually impaired voters to initiate the voting machine, Favuzzi said.
The machine has a printer and rolls of cash register-style thermal paper for producing paper trails, or printed records of ballots that voters can double-check for accuracy and elections officials can use for recounts. But visually impaired voters can't read the printouts, and they are not given such independent verification.
"We actually expect to have access to the verification process," Favuzzi told state elections officials Monday. "We are interested in having accessible voting machines, and this one does not really seem to fit."
Rejection or delay of approval for the Diebold system would put California counties in league with counties throughout the nation that are likely to miss deadlines for handicapped-accessible voting under the 2002 Help America Vote Act. The National Association of Counties recently pressed Congress to roll back those deadlines by two years, citing the lack of available systems.
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With a quarter of California counties poised to buy Diebold's latest touch-screen voting system, Diebold critics urged its rejection Monday, calling it open to fraud and inaccessible to disabled voters.
If the touch screen isn't approved, most California counties will miss the Jan. 1 deadline to begin offering handicapped-accessible voting machines that also provide a backup paper record.
Fifteen county officials, including elections chiefs in Alameda, Marin, San Joaquin and Los Angeles, wrote Secretary of State Bruce McPherson last week to "urge that you act as quickly as possible ... to ensure our ability to comply with the looming federal and state deadline."
Yet Diebold employees and local elections officials were dismayed to hear the company portrayed as an "ethically challenged" and "corrupt" maker of voting machinery designed to fix elections.
The McKinney, Texas-based firm has spent more than two years trying to win permanent California approval for its AccuVote TSx and undergone the most rigorous state testing of a voting system.
"People have made this a personal issue with Diebold, and they don't see a company that has made improvements," said San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Debbie Hench, who wants to use more than 1,600 of the Diebold touch screens in the June primary. "I don't think there's a vendor around that could satisfy these people."
Diebold has added stronger passwords and encryption, but opponents say the voting system remains vulnerable to a simple hack. With unobserved access to voting computers and insertion of as little as 60 lines of code, a computer expert for Black Box Voting Inc. says he has been able to change vote tallies for an entire jurisdiction.
Jim March, a board member of the group, called the vulnerabilities "a whole set of aces up the sleeve for an election official who wants to cheat."
Before considering approval of the system, officials at the California secretary of state's office have agreed to test those claims by letting Black Box Voting try to hack into the Diebold system on Nov. 30.
"The places where there are known vulnerabilities in this system should raise a yellow flag before we certify this system," said state Sen. Debra Bowen, a Marina del Rey Democrat expected to challenge Secretary of State Bruce McPherson as the state's chief elections officer.
State law says a voting system cannot be approved for use in California unless it is secure. So far, state voting-system technicians have concluded the system is secure enough. What could matter more in McPherson's decision on the Diebold system is opposition from advocates for visually impaired and physically disabled voters, for whom most counties say they are buying the Diebold system to serve.
Dan Kysor, director of governmental affairs for the California Council for the Blind, and Teresa Favuzzi, executive director of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, said the Diebold system is not accessible enough.
Electronic touch screens have brought disabled voters to the brink of casting their ballots privately, without assistance, by offering an audio version of the electronic ballot and various means of marking their choices. But Diebold's latest touch screen lacks a key tool, a sip-and-puff device for physically disabled voters, and it is designed in a way that makes it hard for visually impaired voters to initiate the voting machine, Favuzzi said.
The machine has a printer and rolls of cash register-style thermal paper for producing paper trails, or printed records of ballots that voters can double-check for accuracy and elections officials can use for recounts. But visually impaired voters can't read the printouts, and they are not given such independent verification.
"We actually expect to have access to the verification process," Favuzzi told state elections officials Monday. "We are interested in having accessible voting machines, and this one does not really seem to fit."
Rejection or delay of approval for the Diebold system would put California counties in league with counties throughout the nation that are likely to miss deadlines for handicapped-accessible voting under the 2002 Help America Vote Act. The National Association of Counties recently pressed Congress to roll back those deadlines by two years, citing the lack of available systems.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Report on SoS Hearing on Certification of Diebold's TSx voting system
Today the California Secretary of State's office held a public hearing as part of Diebold's application for certification of its TSx electronic voting system. About 150 people attended the hearing, mostly voting rights activists who traveled from all over the state to participate.
The Secretary of State has disbanded the Voting Systems and Procedures Panel, which caused much confusion in the days and weeks leading up to today's hearing. Many people wondered who from the Secretary of State's office would attend the hearing if not members of the Voting Systems and Procedures Panel? It turned out that today's hearing was chaired by Bruce McDannold, acting chief of the secretary of state's new Office of Voting System Technology Assessment, as well as senior staff from the legal, executive and legislative divisions. Also on today's hearing panel was Steve Freeman, the state's voting systems consultant.
The hearing began at 10 a.m. Prior to its start, activists held a news conference and rally in front of the Secretary of State’s office. Then everyone filed in to the auditorium and Bruce McDannold began the hearing.
Many of the people who spoke at the hearing were there to oppose the certification for one of two reasons: either they opposed Diebold because of its poor track record in California elections as well in other states; or they opposed certification of electronic voting systems generally.
There were also several representatives of disability rights groups who spoke, including two who spoke against certification of the TSx because they believe it is not accessible enough. This may pose a serious barrier to the TSx’s certification, because one of the main reasons counties want to purchase this machine is so they can be in compliance with the Help America Vote Act’s accessibility requirements.
Much of today’s testimony also focused on the procedures the Secretary of State is following for convening public hearings and certifying voting equipment. Many activists were frustrated that they were not aware the VSPP had been disbanded, or that this public hearing had been called. To alleviate these problems in the future, the Secretary of State’s office is now allowing people to sign up on their web site to automatically receive notices of future hearings via email.
Activists were also frustrated that there was no give-and-take between the panel and those providing testimony. Many people who spoke had questions and wanted answers that were not provided by the panel. Hopefully in the future the Secretary of State will establish a way to answer public questions in a public forum. I did ask one person on the panel after the hearing what people should do if they have questions about voting systems, and the response was that they should contact Bruce McDannold, whose email address is bmcdanno@ss.ca.gov.
The Secretary of State has disbanded the Voting Systems and Procedures Panel, which caused much confusion in the days and weeks leading up to today's hearing. Many people wondered who from the Secretary of State's office would attend the hearing if not members of the Voting Systems and Procedures Panel? It turned out that today's hearing was chaired by Bruce McDannold, acting chief of the secretary of state's new Office of Voting System Technology Assessment, as well as senior staff from the legal, executive and legislative divisions. Also on today's hearing panel was Steve Freeman, the state's voting systems consultant.
The hearing began at 10 a.m. Prior to its start, activists held a news conference and rally in front of the Secretary of State’s office. Then everyone filed in to the auditorium and Bruce McDannold began the hearing.
Many of the people who spoke at the hearing were there to oppose the certification for one of two reasons: either they opposed Diebold because of its poor track record in California elections as well in other states; or they opposed certification of electronic voting systems generally.
There were also several representatives of disability rights groups who spoke, including two who spoke against certification of the TSx because they believe it is not accessible enough. This may pose a serious barrier to the TSx’s certification, because one of the main reasons counties want to purchase this machine is so they can be in compliance with the Help America Vote Act’s accessibility requirements.
Much of today’s testimony also focused on the procedures the Secretary of State is following for convening public hearings and certifying voting equipment. Many activists were frustrated that they were not aware the VSPP had been disbanded, or that this public hearing had been called. To alleviate these problems in the future, the Secretary of State’s office is now allowing people to sign up on their web site to automatically receive notices of future hearings via email.
Activists were also frustrated that there was no give-and-take between the panel and those providing testimony. Many people who spoke had questions and wanted answers that were not provided by the panel. Hopefully in the future the Secretary of State will establish a way to answer public questions in a public forum. I did ask one person on the panel after the hearing what people should do if they have questions about voting systems, and the response was that they should contact Bruce McDannold, whose email address is bmcdanno@ss.ca.gov.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Diebold TSx Certification Hearing Monday, Nov. 21
On Monday, November 21 the Secretary of State will hold a public hearing on certification of Diebold's TSx electronic voting machine with a voter-verified paper audit trail printer attachment. The hearing begins at 10 a.m. at the Secretary of State's office in downtown Sacramento. The hearing agenda, staff and consultant reports, and California testing reports are available on the Secretary of State's Voting Systems homepage.
Many California counties are Diebold customers and are eagerly awaiting certification of the TSx so they can use these machines in the June 2006 primary election. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson rejected Diebold's initial application for certification back in July due to problems in state testing. See my July 2005 blog entries for details on the initial application and rejection.
Many California counties are Diebold customers and are eagerly awaiting certification of the TSx so they can use these machines in the June 2006 primary election. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson rejected Diebold's initial application for certification back in July due to problems in state testing. See my July 2005 blog entries for details on the initial application and rejection.
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