Probe: March 18, 2004

Thursday, March 18, 2004 2:32 PM PST

QUESTION: I read in your newspaper that Imperial County is looking at electronic voting equipment. Aren't these machines hooked up by phone lines?

A couple of months ago, on a news network, several young men who were interviewed said these machines can be hacked. Is this true?

I would hate to see the county spend so much money on systems that aren't that secure. — Proud Voter, Westmorland

That concern is shared by many and is more serious than people think.

The electronic voting systems provider the county is looking to enter into a contract with is Sequoia Voting Systems.

Sequoia is providing voting systems to more than 32 states.

Before we get into this, let us give you a little background information.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002, stemming from the troubled 2000 presidential election, states all states and local jurisdictions must do away with punch-ballot systems by Jan. 1, 2006.

One of the popular replacements is the electronic voting system, but like any other regular computer hooked up to the Internet, it has problems. Two of the most important concerns are hackers and recounts. And San Diego County had trouble simply booting up voting computers in many precincts during the recent elections.

We could easily tell you about the information Sequoia has on its Web site but that just wouldn't be fun.

So we talked to David L. Dill, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University. That's right, we're talking to the bigwigs now.

Anyway, Dill and other academics are fighting the electronic voting system for several reasons.

"Basically, there's no way to do a meaningful recount," said Dill. "You just have to have blind faith."

Now, a little background information on what Dill does at Stanford just so you know he knows what he's talking about.

"Dill's primary research interests relate to the theory and application of formal verification techniques to system designs, including hardware, protocols and software. He has also done research in asynchronous circuit verification and synthesis, and in verification methods for hard real-time systems," states Stanford's Web site.

Wow.

Back to Dill.

"I know enough about computers to know they cannot function perfectly, especially if people might want to hack them," said Dill.

One of the problems Dill has with the electronic voting systems is it doesn't supply a voter-verified paper trail, a sort of receipt that tells you for whom you voted. A federal law requiring all new systems be equipped with voter verified paper audits by July 1, 2005 is working its way through Congress."If it's done correctly, then the problems can be corrected," said Dill but that doesn't eliminate all the problems.

It doesn't solve the problem of voters with disabilities, mainly blind people.

One option Dill recommended is the optical scan machines that claim accessibility features. The ballot is kind of like the Scantron test sheets high schools use to this day.

Voters would fill out the ballot and the ballot would be scanned in at that moment. If the ballot is marked incorrectly, voters would get a second chance to fill it out correctly.

"Studies have shown this to be consistently superior for voter accuracy and they can be made accessible to people with disabilities," said Dill of the optical option.

Dill has heard about Sequoia and thinks the same way about its systems as he does others.

"They've had some problems like everybody else, mainly, they don't have the voter verifiable paper trail. It's just a black box," said Dill. "I have the same comments about them as about everybody else ... people shouldn't buy those machines.

"They can start planning for it but should wait until the paper trail is available so they can compare them, see if they're are any good ... otherwise, they're just buying a pig to poke," said Dill.

What a great quote to end today's column ... but not yet.

Talk to your county supervisor and tell him about your concerns and to seek other options.

Dill and other activists, have a Web site that has much information about this. The site is www.verifiedvoting.org

You can read more information about other voting methods.

>> PROBE can be reached at 337-3439 or by e-mail at probe@ivpressonline.com