Makers deny machines open to tampering

By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU

COLUMBUS - Three manufacturers of computerized touch-screen voting machines ed for use in Ohio defended themselves yesterday against allegations their systems are vulnerable to tampering.

At the same time, their competitors attempted to demonstrate outside the hearing room that technology has arrived to allow voters to use old-fashioned paper to verify that their votes were accurately recorded within the memory of electronic machines.

"The numbers from the March Super Tuesday election tell a compelling story - zero security-related problems at the more than 55,600 Diebold touch-screen voting stations deployed across the country by election officials," Mark Radke of North Canton-based Diebold Election Systems told the legislative Joint Committee on Ballot Security.

The bipartisan House-Senate committee is second-guessing decisions already made by Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell while the legislatively dominated Ohio Controlling Board blocks release of $128 million in federal funds he has sought to purchase machines on behalf of counties.

If counties want to take advantage of funds supplied under the federal Help America Vote Act post-Florida, 2000, they were told they had to from a menu of touch-screen and optical-scan systems manufactured by four vendors, one of which later ped out.

Optical-scan systems employ paper ballots that are subsequently read electronically.

Mr. Blackwell's goal of converting some counties now using punch-card ballots and lever machines to electronic voting by the August special election and more by the Nov. 2 presidential election has prompted some lawmakers to complain the Cincinnati Republican is moving too quickly.

The state faces a deadline of the end of 2005 to comply with HAVA.

"When we find [potential security problems], they're flaws," state Sen. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo) told the approved vendors. "When you correct them, they're enhancements. ... What's wrong with trust but verify?"

None of the ed touch-screen machines manufactured by Diebold, Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software, and Texas-based Hart InterCivic includes a "voter-verified paper audit trail."

That is designed to allow voters to verify on the spot that the machine accurately recorded his vote while providing a paper trail for recount purposes later.