[wordup] California Bans E-Vote Machines

[Adam Shand]

Via: Brett Shand
From: http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html

California Bans E-Vote Machines 
By Kim Zetter

03:53 PM Apr. 30, 2004 PT

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ended five months of 
speculation and announced Friday that he was decertifying all 
electronic touch-screen voting machines in the state due to security 
concerns and lack of voter confidence.

  He also said that he was passing along evidence to the state's 
attorney general to bring criminal and civil charges against 
voting-machine-maker Diebold Election Systems for fraud.


  "We will not tolerate deceitful tactics as engaged in by Diebold and 
we must send a clear and compelling message to the rest of the 
industry: Don't try to pull a fast one on the voters of California 
because there will be consequences if you do," he said.

  Shelley said the ban on touch-screen machines would stay in effect 
unless and until specific security measures could be put in place to 
safeguard the November vote.

  "Revelations regarding touch-screen machines have shaken public 
confidence in this voting technology," Shelley said, referring to four 
computer-science reports released in the last year that showed the 
machines to be badly designed and vulnerable to hacking. "It is my 
foremost responsibility to take all steps necessary to make sure every 
vote cast in California will be accurately counted."

  At least four counties will not be able to use touch-screen machines 
at all in November because they purchased a type of Diebold machine 
that was never federally certified.

  But Shelley held out hope for 10 counties that currently own other 
types of touch-screen machines by saying the state would consider 
recertifying the machines on a county-by-county basis for November if 
the counties could meet a long list of stringent security requirements. 
County officials also must adhere to a number of directives for 
Election Day. If they don't meet the requirements, then they will have 
to use a paper-based voting method, such as optical-scan machines, 
which use a paper ballot that officials then scan into an electronic 
reader.

  Additionally, Shelley declared that no county or vendor would be able 
to make last-minute changes to voting systems. Such changes caused 
problems in at least two counties in the March primary where a 
malfunctioning Diebold device prevented hundreds of polling places from 
opening on time.

  "That horrific process stops now. We saw what it resulted in on March 
2nd," Shelley said.

  Finally, all counties will have to provide voters with the option of 
voting on a provisional paper ballot if they feel uncomfortable casting 
votes on the paperless e-voting machines. Shelley said that voting 
companies would bear the brunt of the estimated $1 million cost for 
providing extra provisional ballots to every county, indicating that 
the vendors caused the erosion in voter confidence, so they would have 
to pay for the solution.

  "I don't want a voter to not vote on Election Day because the only 
option before them is a touch-screen voting machine. I want that voter 
to have the confidence that he or she can vote on paper and have the 
confidence that their vote was cast as marked," Shelley said.

  The state would bear the cost of some of the other changes, such as 
helping to replace touch-screen machines with optical-scan machines in 
counties that can't meet the stringent security requirements before 
November.

  Counties will not be able to purchase any new e-voting machines unless 
the machines can produce a voter-verified paper trail that voters can 
use to authenticate that their vote was recorded accurately. This 
pushes up a previous deadline Shelley put forth in December when he 
mandated that all new voting machines purchased after June 2005 would 
have to produce a paper trail.

  "There will be a paper trail for every single vote cast in the state 
of California and it will happen on my watch as secretary of state," he 
said.

  To that end, Shelley announced that the state would have in place by 
May 30 a standard for a voter-verified paper trail on voting systems. 
He said the Federal Election Commission assured him that it would move 
immediately to create its own standards and testing procedures for such 
a function so that new voting systems that offer an audit trail could 
be put in place.

  There is currently only one vendor that manufactures such a machine 
that is fully certified. The Vote-Trakker by Avante International 
Technology is certified by federal and state authorities. A second 
company, AccuPoll, just received federal certification for its system 
and is working on state certification. But federal certification 
authorities have never stipulated what standard such a function should 
follow.

  Speaking assuredly and forcefully, Shelley said that in taking these 
actions he was accepting and expanding upon recommendations made by his 
Voting Systems and Procedures Panel earlier this week and last week.

  The panel recommended that only one type of Diebold machine be 
decertified and that counties be required to take steps to secure 
remaining machines. In decertifying all of the machines and making 
counties prove that they can secure them before recertifying them, 
Shelley hoped to avoid conditions like those that arose in the March 
primary when several counties simply ignored directives that came from 
his office.

  The decision means that Kern, San Joaquin, San Diego and Solano 
counties will not be able to use the 15,000 or so AccuVote-TSx voting 
machines they purchased from Diebold. They will likely use optical-scan 
machines made by Diebold.

  In addressing the issue of Diebold's activity, Shelley described how 
the state had given the TSx system conditional certification in 
December only because Diebold had assured the state repeatedly that 
federal certification was imminent. But Shelley said the company lied 
and switched systems on the state. While counties had in their 
possession one version of the TSx that the company said was getting 
federally certified, the company had actually submitted a different, 
newer version of the TSx to federal authorities to certify. The system 
the four counties possess still is not federally certified.

  "That was despicable and that was misleading," Shelley said.

  Furthermore, the company had installed uncertified software on other 
Diebold machines in the state, violating California election law.

  "Their conduct was absolutely reprehensible. Their conduct should 
never be tolerated ever again by anyone in California," Shelley said.