Appeal expected in voting machines suit

by Steven T. Dennis
Gazette (MD) 
Sep. 1, 2004

 
ANNAPOLIS An Anne Arundel County judge is expected to decide this week whether Maryland voters will have the option of voting on paper ballots in November, with an immediate appeal expected regardless of the decision.

Circuit Court Judge Joseph P. Manck heard three days of testimony last week in a suit brought by voters who contend that the state's $74 million Diebold computer voting system remains insecure and want the option of paper ballots as well as security upgrades installed on the computers.

State Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone rebuffed testimony by computer experts who said the system remains highly vulnerable to hackers.

Michael A. Wertheimer, former chief technical officer for the National Security Agency and security expert for RABA Technologies of Columbia, testified that the state elections board had failed to implement a number of critical repairs to the voting system that his team had recommended in a January report.

"I feel we're still at great risk," he said, giving the system a failing grade.

In particular, Wertheimer said, a hacker could access the servers that tabulate the votes if they knew which phone numbers to call because the board had failed to install numerous security patches to the Windows 2000 operating system. Wertheimer said his team was able to exploit known holes in the operating system to gain access and change votes in minutes.

"It is a critical flaw," he said, adding insiders with physical access to the machines could also alter votes without detection.

Wertheimer said the state had chosen not to implement the security patches out of fear that the Diebold software would fail to work.

"It is a tacit admission that Diebold's software needs an insecure machine to run on," he said. "It's like saying, 'I'm afraid to put a lock on the door because I'm afraid the door will break.'"

But Lamone dismissed Wertheimer's concerns.

"I didn't agree with the characterizations," she testified. "I didn't feel that what he found could be replicated in a real-world situation."

A tri-partisan group of plaintiffs, including Democrats, Republicans and Green Party members, still hope to add a voter-verifiable paper audit trail to the machines, but concede that is no longer possible before November.

Lamone said she gave no credibility to a report last year by Johns Hopkins University professor Aviel D. Rubin, which described the machines' source code as riddled with security flaws and sloppy programming. Lamone also said she never considered decertifying the machines, despite subsequent reports by SAIC Corp. and RABA Technologies that found the system to be highly vulnerable.

Rubin told the court that a voter-verified paper trail should be added to the machines because there is no other way to independently audit the machines and have a meaningful recount.

Lamone criticized Rubin's "so-called research," saying that it annoyed her in part because it interrupted an expensive pre-paid vacation she had planned and was submitted to The New York Times before it was published in an academic journal.

She said adding an optional paper voting system by November would be very difficult and require additional security measures, expense and training for judges. Catherine Davis, elections administrator for Allegany County, testified that she feared adding a paper option could let some voters vote twice.

Lamone also testified that the machines worked wonderfully, despite what she described as a "nightmare" in dealing with Diebold officials during the 2002 election. And she said she was not familiar with problems with electronic voting machines in other states, although she is the president-elect of the National Association of State Election Directors.

Two Montgomery County residents also testified about problems in the March primary, with a Chevy Chase lawyer saying that his Diebold machine failed to display the U.S. Senate race and an election judge saying one voter tried to vote for Cheryl Kagan as a presidential delegate only to have another name highlighted.

Linda Schade, lead plaintiff and a founder of TrueVoteMD.org, lambasted Lamone's testimony: "Linda Lamone seems to have an early case of Alzheimer's and she doesn't seem to take the oath seriously."