Voting machine security questioned

Cal State Hayward professor starts Web site devoted to problem

By Michelle Meyers, STAFF WRITER

HAYWARD Buy a book on Amazon.com, and you get an e-mailed receipt confirming your order.

But vote electronically on one of Alameda County's voting machines and you get nothing except an "I voted" sticker.

It is that distinction and what Cal State Hayward statistics professor Mike Orkin considers a compromise to voting integrity that led him to create Votesecurity.com. The Web site demonstrates some of the security dangers inherent in current electronic voting systems, he said.

"In all computer-driven transactions you get a receipt, except voting, which is perhaps the most important thing," said the California State University, Hayward, professor.

Votesecurity.com has been up for only a couple of months, but it recently was referred to by an expert in the field during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"The next day, the Web site got 40,000 hits," Orkin said. "I wish I had something to sell."

 While relatively new to voting machines, Orkin is a nationally known authority on gambling games and has appeared as a guest on dozens of radio and televison shows, including CNN programs, NBC's "Dateline" and ABC's "World News Tonight." He has written several books, including "What Are the Odds? Chance in Everyday Life," and has developed data-mining software that finds patterns in sports data.

Orkin, who directs the university's CNTV, also has been a consultant for law enforcement agencies such as the FBI on is-

sues relating to the legality and security of computerized slot machines.

The evolution of slot machines is actually parallel to that of voting machines, he said. Both have gone from purely mechanical to computerized.

A self-proclaimed "technology person," Orkin emphasizes that he supports computer advances and is no "conspiracy theorist."

"I'm not opposed to electronic voting," he said. "I just think there need to be some security safeguards put in place."

Especially given the history associated with election rigging, his concern is that without some sort of paper documentation of a vote, the machines could malfunction. Or an unscrupulous politician or someone working for one could write malicious code to corrupt an election, "and there's no way to do a recount," he said.

"It's physically impossible," he said. "If an election gets screwed up, everybody is out, and there's nothing you can do. The verifiable paper backup is absolutely necessary. That's the main purpose of my research."

Those interested in learning more should click on the demonstration part of his Web site, which illustrates, in relatively simple terms, how someone could find a "back-door entrance" to the voting system software and change the results of an election.

Alameda County Registrar of Voters Brad Clark does not challenge Orkin's notion that there are security problems with electronic voting. But there are security problems with any voting system, Clark said.

"None is 100 percent perfect. I don't think such a type exists," he said.

What Clark does believe is that, given the demand in Alameda County for ballots in three languages and for voters with disabilities, the electronic system is a necessity.

"The electronic system is more accurate if it's working properly," he said, adding that it was far better than sorting through the many mismarked absentee ballots some voters filled out in lieu of using the machines in the March 2 election.

"The most dangerous thing you can do is give a pen or pencil to a voter," he said.

Clark added that Alameda County's electronic systems have an internal audit function and store electronic images of filled-out ballots. Election officials Monday were in the process of printing out those ballots for one precinct. Those will be hand-counted, for security reasons, and compared with the electronic results.