States rush to overhaul voting
Critics distrust security of electronic machines
Saturday, July 24, 2004
By Jan Moller
Capital bureau

BATON ROUGE With $3.9 billion in federal financing available for upgrading voting machinery, states from Florida to Alaska are scrambling to buy new computerized systems.

Voting-machine companies say the new systems will make voting easier and more accurate, but computer-security experts and activists are questioning whether states are upgrading too quickly to safeguard against fraud and mechanical glitches that could undermine the nation's democratic process.

It's a debate that has profound implications for Louisiana, which is getting more than $50 million of the federal money. The state is preparing to pick a single company to supply electronic voting machines to its 64 parishes in time for the 2006 elections.

Residents in 14 parishes now vote on two different brands of touch-screen machines, while residents of the other 50 parishes use mechanical lever models.

Voting-machine companies have taken notice. "Trust me, we've been real popular," said First Assistant Secretary of State Al Ater, who is heading a selection process that will get under way next month. "We get lots of phone calls and lots of visitors."

'Huge opportunity'

More than a dozen companies, from upstarts to long-established players, had their voting equipment on display last week in New Orleans, as election officials from around the country convened for three days of seminars, dinners and evening entertainment organized by the National Association of Secretaries of States.

Voting-machine company officials said the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which Congress approved in response to the Florida election debacle of 2000, has been both a potential bonanza and a public relations headache for those seeking to cash in.

The new federal law "has provided a huge opportunity for election system suppliers because of the influx of federal dollars into the marketplace," said Mark Radke, marketing director for Diebold Election Systems, one of four companies that dominate the electronic voting-machine market.

But a series of well-publicized glitches with the new machines has caused some state election officials to proceed cautiously.

"It has slowed the marketplace considerably," Radke said.

Although the law is nearly 2 years old, the money to implement it didn't start flowing until recently. Louisiana has received $47 million, and expects to get as much as $10 million more in the next few months.

Security concerns

Diebold's computer systems are far more reliable than the mechanical systems they replace, Radke said. But the company has been a leading focus for critics who say there is no way to tell if the machines have been programmed correctly or to conduct a meaningful recount if needed.

In a July 2003 report, a team led by computer security expert Aviel Rubin of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore examined a Diebold voting machine and determined that "it is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts." It was the only voting machine the team evaluated.

Since then, three more independent reports have come out identifying security risks in the software, which could let company insiders or local election officials manipulate voting results without detection.

One solution advocated by critics is to require electronic machines to have paper audit trails, so voters could verify the machine records the ions they make on a touch screen. Paper trails also would make it easier to conduct reliable recounts, proponents say.

But Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, said paper trails can be an unnecessary expense for cash-strapped local governments.

"The people actually on the firing line . . . every one of them hates the idea," Miller said. "They just see their lives becoming miserable."

Voting-machine companies say their equipment already is required to be certified at the federal level and also by most states, and that there's never been any proof that hackers or malicious programmers have tampered with an election conducted on computers.

"There has never been a case of ballot tampering on DREs," direct-record electronic machines, said Miller, whose trade group recently formed a coalition of six voting-machine companies that is seeking to counter the claims made by security experts and activists. "We're finding a lot of the criticism coming from people who may be very well-intentioned but are ill-informed."

Reliability factor

Skeptics say that just because there's no proof of tampering doesn't mean it hasn't occurred. "That's like saying there's no evidence there's ever been a perfect murder," said David Allen, a North Carolina publisher and systems engineer who has written extensively about voting-machine problems for the Web site www.blackboxvoting.com.

Although Allen joins the security experts in saying there's a potential for mischief, he says there is an even more fundamental problem with electronic machines.

"The major concern for me . . . is the reliability factor," Allen said. "We have tons of evidence where these machines have failed to perform."

Problems have cropped up, for example, in California and Florida, as well as Louisiana.

In California, more than half of the polling places in San Diego County failed to open on time during a March primary because of problems with the voting machines. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley recently "decertified" Diebold machines in four counties amid questions about the machines' reliability and the software's integrity. The machines can't be used in the November election.

Florida's problems with touch-screen voting goes back to a 2002 election, in which machines jammed or were slow to start. More recently, a March primary election that was decided by 12 votes had 134 ballots come in without a recorded vote, even though there was only one race on the ballot.

In Louisiana, touch-screen machines purchased from Election Systems and Software malfunctioned during fall 2002 elections, prompting complaints from clerks of court in Tangipahoa and Ascension parishes, where the machines were concentrated.

Ater said the company responded by replacing those machines, and said he's confident that Louisiana can escape the problems that have dogged other states.

Louisiana's process

Most of the complaints he's heard about electronic voting have come from out of state, Ater said.

"There are very few people here that feel their vote's not been accurately counted, and that's a credit to the state of Louisiana and the secretary's office," Ater said.

Louisiana could keep the lever machines if each polling place had at least one voting machine accessible to people who are blind or have a physical disability. But Ater said he would prefer a uniform system because it would make it easier for the state to train local election officials and move poll workers between parishes if needed.

"It is hard to be in the chicken business and the hamburger business, so let's be in the chicken business and do it right," Ater said.

Perhaps just as important as ensuring the actual security of electronic machines is convincing the public that the votes they cast will be counted accurately.

In a state where former Election Commissioner Jerry Fowler is serving jail time for accepting kickbacks from a voting-machine manufacturer, Ater said he wants to make sure the ion process is aboveboard.

Secretary of State Fox McKeithen already refuses to accept campaign contributions from such companies, and Ater recently issued a memo to all employees in the elections division forbidding them from accepting anything of value, including meals or a cup of coffee, from machine manufacturers.

Ater has recommended to McKeithen that the state hold a series of public meetings in various cities, starting in late August, where local officials, the public and the media can examine the equipment, hear presentations from voting-machine companies and provide input.

While several states have passed laws requiring paper trails, Louisiana is one of 17 states that use computerized voting but have no such laws, according to www.electionline.org, a nonpartisan group that studies elections.

Ater said he wants more information before deciding whether Louisiana should require a paper trail.

"I think the jury's still out," Ater said. "At this point, it's a brand-new discussion. That's something we'll learn a lot more about."