Realistic poll machine test looks likelier Thomas D. Elias
The Valley Chronicle, Hemet CA
April 8, 2007
http://www.thevalleychronicle.com/articles/2007/04/06/opinion/06elias.txt Just in case there was some confusion, California's new Democratic secretary of state, Debra Bowen, has now made it crystal clear she doesn't trust many of the electronic voting machines commonly used in the last few California elections.
Nor does she appear impressed with safeguards that satisfied her appointed Republican predecessor Bruce McPherson. McPherson believed the presence of voter-verified paper trails from touch-screen and other new voting machines would guarantee accurate recounts wherever needed.
...
Bowen, meanwhile, wants voting machines to be sufficiently trustworthy that paper trail recounts will rarely be requested, but also would like recounts in ultra-close elections such as Orange County's to be publicly subsidized so that candidates without much money can also seek a fair outcome by counting the paper trails.
County paper trials could occasionally be important, Bowen knows, because there are many open questions about the hackability of the machines in wide use today.
In several small tests, both independent and university-connected computer experts have shown votes tallied on electronic machines can be manipulated and falsified. No one has yet proven this actually happened in any election, but charges flew after every major vote since 2000.
That's why national attention was drawn to Riverside County late last year when Supervisor Jeff Stone issued this challenge to activists questioning the accuracy of the Sequoia Voting Systems machines used in his county:
“Maybe we should bring the media in and let's see if your programmer can manipulate that machine. My guess is that it is not gonna happen, but I'm willing to take a chance on that. I'm gonna bet 1,000 to one that they cannot do it.”
Later, it turned out Stone's version of a challenge was to have a programmer enter a voting booth just like a regular voter and see if he or she could manipulate the machine in the space of 10 to 15 minutes.
That's not a realistic test, snorted the activists, who noted that switches on the backs of some machines make them vulnerable to hacking by persons setting them up. They also pointed out that in some counties, voting machines are taken home weeks before elections by poll workers and often kept in closets and garages until Election Day. It is during those “sleepovers” that many skeptics feel hacking can occur.
Bowen checks in on the side of the skeptics. In a letter to Stone, she noted that “I am not aware of any state law that would prohibit the kind of security test you described.” But she added that Stone's proposed ground rules are “too narrow” and risk giving voters “a false sense of security” because they “wouldn't address the larger issue of whether someone who has access to the voting equipment before the polls open or after they close could interfere with the proper use of the equipment.”
She added that, “As you know, voting equipment is subject to tampering in a wide range of settings. This test you have proposed wouldn't address the issue of whether someone who can reach around to the back of the machine undetected or can bring a tool into the voting booth without being noticed by a poll worker will be able to gain access to the machine.”Bowen stressed that the greatest threat to election integrity comes from “insiders” allowed to take machines home prior to elections. Any test that doesn't factor in voting machine “sleepovers,” then, would be inadequate, she contended.
The logical next step is for Bowen to have her own office conduct a closely supervised test of what can feasibly be done to voting machines before, during and after elections.
...
http://www.thevalleychronicle.com/articles/2007/04/06/opinion/06elias.txt