Expert warns of balloting devices

BY JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU

COLUMBUS - A former National Security Agency analyst hired by Maryland to test the security of electronic voting machines yesterday suggested Ohio shouldn't rush to deploy devices across the state by the November presidential election.

"It would not be prudent today to implement a solution for November, if you haven't already gone down that path," Dr. Michael A. Wertheimer of Raba Technologies in Columbia, Md., told the Joint Committee on Ballot Security.ww

Many of the concerns he raised with Maryland about potential hacking and computer viruses seem to have been avoided by the policy decision of Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell not to connect the computerized touch-screen machines to the Internet or to each other.

"They are capable of modem communication. We're simply not allowing it," said David Kennedy, Mr. Blackwell's director of legislative affairs.

But Dr. Wertheimer cautioned that the presence of a communication port on the machine could serve as an avenue of attack by anyone who can get unsupervised time with a machine. He said machines could be vulnerable to corrupt insiders - election officials, equipment manufacturers, and testing firms - with passwords and encryption codes.

The committee's chairman, Sen. Randy Gardner (R., Bowling Green), said he's considering setting up a public demonstration of the machines to test their vulnerability. The committee was created after Mr. Blackwell asked the Ohio Controlling Board to release $128 million in federal funds appropriated under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 for the purchase and deployment of voting machines.

Most counties ed touch-screen machines manufactured by North Canton-based Diebold, Inc., and similar to those used by Maryland in its recent primary. Some Lucas County polling places experimented with touch-screen voting systems last year.

"Maryland deployed the systems as is, even after the Raba report was delivered," said Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo. "However, Secretary of State Blackwell has prohibited any device from being deployed [in Ohio] until all identified security fixes are in place as demanded."

Mr. Blackwell hopes to convert 14 counties using punch-card ballots to electronic voting by August special elections and 13 more for the Nov. 2 election. Devices in the rest of the state would be deployed in 2005.

Dr. Wertheimer suggested the best protection against tampering may be a paper audit trail asking voters to confirm their ballots were properly recorded, something not included in current contract specifications.

"Largely, the [voting equipment] industry is unregulated," said Sen. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo), a committee member. "They truly are driving the bus."

Contact Jim Provance at:
jprovance@theblade.com
or 614-221-0496