Security an issue in ballot machine

AARON CORVIN; The News Tribune

By 2006 in Pierce County, you'll be able to vote for a candidate or ballot measure the way you get cash from an ATM: Read a computer screen, press some buttons and, voilá, you've exercised your constitutional right.

But will you trust a computer to record your vote correctly and securely?

That question looms in Pierce County and around the state as officials grapple with the requirements of a federal law aimed at avoiding a repeat of Florida's fiasco - pregnant chads and all - in the 2000 presidential election.

Passed by Congress in 2002, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) spurred election officials to work on plans to eliminate punch-card voting, improve management of voter registration lists and bolster access to ballots for visually impaired and disabled voters, among other reform measures.

Perhaps the most controversial of those measures is a requirement to install touchscreen voting systems at polling places to enable disabled voters to cast ballots privately and independently. For example, the computer-driven systems allow voters with impaired vision to listen to audio ballots using headphones instead of relying on family members or poll workers to record their votes.

Though chiefly for disabled voters, the touchscreen systems will be available to all voters. Yet, recent reports of the systems' susceptibility to tampering raise concerns they will do more harm than good.

At a news conference in Seattle today, Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed and several county auditors will discuss proposals his office will make in light of the controversy over electronic voting.

Meanwhile, critics of high-tech voting will offer their own news conference hours after Reed's.

Bev Harris, a Renton businesswoman and author of the book "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century," and Andy Stephenson, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state, said they will reveal security breaches in high-tech touchscreen systems as well as the optical scan systems in use now around the country.

The pair said they will disclose breaches that "may have compromised the integrity of at least two dozen elections." They declined to elaborate.

In Pierce County, the Citizens' Election Oversight Advisory Commission has been meeting monthly to review the new federal requirements.

"We want to make sure there is no way that somebody can rig the computers to count the way they want them counted," said Sumner Mayor Barbara Skinner, a commission member. "Our elections can become a very controversial thing, and we don't want that."

Facing a deadline

In August, the advisory commission received demonstrations of touchscreen equipment by four companies certified by the state, including one that has drawn scrutiny for security flaws. The commission is expected to issue a report early next year recommending how the county should meet the federal requirements.

Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy, who oversees elections, said she's focused on preparing the county to meet the federal requirements and approaching new technology cautiously. "I want to take baby steps," she said.

Those steps lead to Jan. 1, 2006 - the deadline for carrying out the federal requirements.

Meeting the deadline depends on federal funding trickling down to Washington state and its counties. The state is eligible for up to $62.8 million through 2005. Pierce County would receive about $600,000 to place a touchscreen system at each of its 96 poll sites.

Congress has yet to release any money, frustrating David Elliott, elections director for the state.

He said the new technology is complex. Election officials will have to know how to program the machines, and citizens will have to know how to use them.

"We're going to need good training for counties and good training for voters," he said. "If the federal government delivers the funds promised under HAVA, then we'll have the funds to do what we're required to do."

In the meantime, Elliott praised the early efforts of Pierce and other counties.

"They're doing what they need to do to be fully educated," he said. "That's the important thing."

Critics caution against haste

Critics are worried about the potential for fraud.

Harris, the "Black Box Voting" author, said election officials seem in a rush to plan for the new technology "because they're afraid they'll lose the funding."

She said studies have revealed the machines can be easily manipulated to influence elections.

"There are a lot of good reasons to just say, 'Let's be prudent,'" she said.

Ohio, for example, recently issued a report that revealed an easily hacked code for taking charge of machines manufactured by Diebold Elections Systems of North Canton, Ohio.

In July, a study released by a team from Johns Hopkins and Rice universities showed how a person could trick the Diebold system into allowing someone to vote more than once. The study prompted Maryland's governor to delay buying $55.6 million worth of Diebold machines and order an independent security analysis of its software.

The analysis attached a "high risk of compromise" to the system but also stressed that most of the flaws had been corrected.

And this month, Diebold agreed in federal court not to sue voting rights advocates who published company e-mails that highlighted flaws in its systems.

Diebold controls more than 50,000 touchscreen voting machines nationwide. In August, it was among four vendors that showed touchscreen equipment to Pierce County's election advisory commission.

Diebold spokesman David Bear said the company corrected the problems reported in Ohio and Maryland by "enhancing existing security features."

He said touchscreen voting eliminates overvoting and undervoting. The computer erases human error, allowing a person to vote for only one candidate, he said, and, "if you miss a vote, then it will remind you."

Bear said it's a matter of people becoming comfortable with high-tech voting. "When voters vote on the machines, they enjoy the experience, because it's so user-friendly," he said.

County considers options

Most counties in Washington, including Pierce, use optical scanners to record votes.

Like a fax machine, an optical scanner sucks in paper ballots, reads the arrows that voters fill in next to their chosen candidates, and tabulates the results.

Touchscreen voting machines function like ATMs, with no paper ballots. In some cases, voters use cards to run the machines.

The lack of paper ballots concerns critics: With no paper trail, how can you be sure the computer recorded votes accurately and securely?

It's also an issue for lawmakers. Next year, the Legislature is expected to review a bill to require the secretary of state to publicly test, demonstrate and certify touchscreen systems, among other quality control measures.

Earlier this month, state Sen. Jim Kastama (D-Puyallup), ranking member of the Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee, predicted lawmakers will require touchscreen systems to produce a paper trail.

Mayor Skinner, a member of Pierce County's election oversight commission, said she strongly favors a touchscreen system that produces paper ballots.

"If you have any reason to wonder whether the computer is counting them right, you can sit down and human beings can actually count them," she said.

McCarthy, the Pierce County auditor, said a vendor will visit the county today to demonstrate a machine that produces only a paper ballot that is then tabulated by an optical scanner.

Aaron Corvin: 253-552-7058
aaron.corvin@mail.tribnet.com

What's next

Today: Secretary of State Sam Reed and county auditors will discuss electronic voting in Seattle.

Also today: Critics of the system will speak in Seattle hours after Reed.

(Published 12:01AM, December 16th, 2003)