Maryland Approves Electronic Voting Machines Despite Security Flaws

By Nia Davis

Staff Writer

New electronic voting machines that will be used in the upcoming March 2nd election have minor security problems, according to a state report released last September. The report, issued to Maryland legislators in the fall, stated that there were security weaknesses present in the new voting machines and cited statements from an original study conducted in July by Aviel D. Rubin, associate professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University.

Among some of the findings in the original Johns Hopkins' study were vulnerabilities to network threats and poor software development processes. Another discovery in the report was the ability of one single voter to cast an unlimited amount of votes without being detected.

The electronic machines, more accurately referred to as the Diebold AccuVote-TS voting system created by Diebold, Inc., were implemented by the Maryland State Board of Elections (SBE) and used in the 2002 state elections. The company has recently come under public scrutiny because of an apparent lax in security that may have lead to inaccurate voting results in other states also using the voting system. Because of these possible security issues, the state of Maryland ordered the Department of Legislative Services (DLS) to begin an independent review of the system in August 2003. The Department enlisted the help of RABA Technologies, a Maryland technology company. Another company, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) conducted an independent study as well.

Although SAIC found security flaws, the Department of Legislative Services concluded that the machines would be safe to use in the upcoming primary.

"Based on the analysis by RABA Technologies and our own observation...DSL believes that the March primary election can be held successfully without any changes to the Diebold software."

Maryland legislators have been assessing the risk factors of the machines. They had hoped that these new machines would help to eliminate or at least minimize the inaccuracies in voting ballots that have taken place in other states.

The increased interest in election reform was the result of the 2000 Presidential Election between Vice President Al Gore and then Texas Governor George Bush, in which the state of Florida was unable to accurately count votes, and according to some sources, lost more than 16,000 on election night. The Florida voting fiasco encouraged the Maryland State Board of Elections to consider ways to improve on election technology.

Although security flaws were found in both the Hopkins and the SAIC reports, Diebold Inc. insisted that their voting machines are secure and capable of handling the March primary.

"The findings in the SAIC and RABA reports both confirm the accuracy and security of Maryland's voting procedures and our voting systems as they exist today," Bob Urosevich said, president of Diebold Election Systems, Inc. He also insisted that the real issue up for discussion is the "untold number of voters" who he said have "been disenfranchised from election process by factors unrelated to security issues."

Despite approval by the state of Maryland to use the new voting system for future elections, professor Rubin, author of the original report, remains adamant against the use of the machines.

"I still think that the Diebold machines are not secure enough to use in real public elections," said Rubin. "Four studies have now found serious problems with these machines. I don't see how we can continue to use them."

The Maryland State Board of Elections will be using the Diebold technology in the state primary on March 2nd, Super Tuesday, as well as the general election in November, despite documented security flaws and objection from Rubin.