Diebold electronic voting machine passes federal tests
By Thomas Peele
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

A controversial touchscreen voting machine scheduled for use in Solano and three other counties for the March 2 election passed a series of federal tests, a spokesman for the California Secretary of State said Tuesday, but it has yet to win final state approval.

"This is an important hurdle. However, we still reserve (approval) until we receive a state testing report," said Doug Stone, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.

The Diebold TSX machine is at the center of a growing controversy in the state over electronic voting. Solano, San Joaquin, Kern and San Diego counties contracted for the machine before it passed federal testing or won final approval from the state.

California also gave the machine conditional approval in November while the federal tests were pending. A conditional certification letter to the counties did not note that the machine had not cleared federal tests.

Stone said last week that the machine couldn't be used on March 2 without the approvals. On Tuesday, he released a letter from testing laboratory officials in Alabama to Diebold saying the machine meets federal standards.

Although the state report could be issued this week, Stone said he could not say it would clear the TSX for use on March 2.

Shelley's staff is investigating Diebold after finding uncertified software on the company's earlier model machines in each of the 17 counties, including Alameda, that used them in the October recall election.

It is unclear when that investigation will conclude. Shelley's Voting Systems Panel could recommend he decertify Diebold from doing business in California based on the investigation's outcome. Decertification, if it occurs, could take six months as counties scramble to buy other voting systems.

A Diebold spokesman has said the company did nothing intentionally wrong, but may have failed to notify the state of some software installations.

Election activists are urging residents in any county with electronic machines to vote by absentee ballot next month.

Electronic voting is coming under increasing national scrutiny over security of the machines. A test in Maryland released last month showed that Diebold machines were vulnerable to computer hacking.

Activists say they fear that the machines could be rigged to sway an election's outcome or that the machines could simply malfunction and lose votes with no way to retrieve them.