Volusia (County, FL) to decide future of its (voting) system

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Politics/Headlines/03PoliticsHEAD04LOPOL121605.htm

Volusia to decide future of its system

By JAMES MILLER
Staff Writer

December 16, 2005

DELAND -- Volusia County Council members are almost sure to get an earful today about the reported hack into the Leon County voting system. For years, Leon and Volusia counties have used the same Diebold Election Systems equipment. And company representatives are scheduled to be in DeLand today when the County Council considers whether to ditch their system and go with another.

"We've talked to Diebold about it," Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall said Thursday. "If it comes up, they're ready for it."

And it will come up, said local paper-ballot activist Susan Pynchon, who attended the test in Tallahassee on Tuesday.

"My recurring, recurring message is that we have to have paper ballots to have a verifiable election," she said, "and this test in Leon County proves that."

...

:kick:

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=6504

...

The files provided Black Box Voting with an intimate window into the structure of the company’s internal voting system, Black Box Voting investigator Jim March said. “In a lot of rural counties, we’ve seen Diebold essentially run the entire elections themselves as consultant staff because the systems are too complex for the counties’ technical staff,” March said.

In March’s interpretation of the findings, the primary individuals who could hack the system are not likely to be outside hackers, but crooked election officials or staff, a computer contractor or possibly Diebold’s own on-site support staff.

Dave Berman, a member of the local electoral reform watchdog group the Voter Confidence Committee and author of guvwurld.blogspot.com, has recently called for McWilliams’ resignation due to his failure to properly safeguard Humboldt County’s elections.

“The conditions for our elections right now guarantee that we are going to have an inconclusive outcome because we’ve got paperless electronic voting machines across the country,” Berman said. “If we can’t verify the vote with a recount, how can we know what the true outcome is? Therefore there is no reason for confidence in the results that are given, just blind trust.”

http://www.hendersondispatch.com/articles/2005/12/16/news/news02.txt

That was partly because North Carolina elections officials eventually narrowed down the possible choices to four systems from two companies: ES&S and Diebold Election Systems of North Canton, Ohio. Each company offers an optical-scan and a direct-recording-electronic system that is certified by the state Board of Elections. (A third potential vendor, Sequoia, was denied permission this week to sell equipment in North Carolina, The News & Observer reported Thursday.)

But Kearney raised some questions about the viability of Diebold when the Vance board began discussing the purchase Thursday. He was concerned about a class-action lawsuit that New York law firm Stull, Stull & Brody announced this week against Diebold on behalf of the stockholders. The company is accused of violating securities law and artificially inflating its stock price. The lawsuit also alleges that Diebold is “unable to assure the quality and working order of its voting machine products.”

Kearney did not mention that a separate but similar class-action lawsuit was filed by Dallas law firm Scott & Scott on Wednesday, one day after Diebold's chairman and chief executive officer resigned. Legal action is also being pursued against the North Carolina Board of Elections to protest its certification of Diebold equipment.

...

However, the chairman felt that it would be simpler for voters to make a transition to optical-scan balloting, that optical scan is the easiest to train voting officials on and that optical scan is the easiest system to audit because there are paper ballots. DRE voting systems have been criticized by some as being more vulnerable to fraud or malfunction because of their lack of a paper trail. An error with a DRE system in 2004 caused significant problems in resolving one of North Carolina's statewide elections. “I would recommend that we go with (the) optical scan system - well, for all of those reasons, not the smallest of which is cost,” Kearney said.

http://www.securitypronews.com/news/securitynews/spn-45-20051215EVotingSecurityPlaguesDiebold.html

Electronic voting machine maker Diebold continues to have a number of problems. Most recently, the CEO of Diebold resigned the top position the company. This resignation happened on Monday, just before a shareholder lawsuit was filed by a Connecticut law firm charging the company execs tried to downplay voting system issues in the last election.

With voting issues plaguing the last two presidential elections, some felt the electronic voting systems offered by companies like Diebold would be an answer. The suit by Scott & Scott suggests Diebold couldn't control quality on the machines, needed oversight on business practices and misled their shareholders about the whole thing.

Diebold is already having problems with their machines. North Carolina booted them from the state after Diebold wouldn't allow North Carolina election officials to examine the code used in the Diebold computers. Lest we forget, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit against those same voting officials, charging they certified the elections without being able to see all the code. Seeing the code is require by North Carolina state law. Also consider that researchers examining machines in Florida were able to use a modified memory card to alter the outcomes of a vote tally. This was done in conjunction with the Black Box Voting project. This shows just how susceptible the electronic voting machines can be.

There are all kinds of cyber security issues in today's world. Most of the security issues discussed deals specifically in Internet-based cyber crime. As far as electronic security though, perhaps nothing is more important than maintaining the integrity of the voting booth. If a simple memory card change is all it takes, perhaps closer scrutiny is required for these machines in the future.

http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2005/12/15/news/8_voting_051215.txt

Watchdog group sinks teeth into e-voting proponents

San Joaquin County's top election official stands by electronic voting, citing level of expertise needed to hack into system

By Bob Brownne
San Joaquin News Service
Last updated: Thursday, Dec 15, 2005 - 07:00:22 am PST

San Joaquin County's top elections official expressed confidence in the county's voting equipment even after a national watchdog group showed that the machines' electronic tallies can be altered by computer hackers.

"The level of expertise needed is about the level of an advanced television repairman," said Bev Harris, executive director of Black Box Voting out of Seattle, Wash. Harris described a recent test in Florida where a computer security expert reversed the result of a test election in a way that left no evidence that the vote count, done on a Diebold Inc. optical scan device, had been changed.

Deborah Hench, San Joaquin County's Registrar of Voters, said Black Box Voting is well-known among elections officials as a group determined to discredit electronic voting. Hench said that the results of the Florida test don't take into account other security protocols and backup counts that assure the final results are accurate.

"We have our own security system in place and we'll tell election officials that if they see anybody doing anything besides voting to call the police," she said.

Choice ignores officials' recommendations

By Jim Sparks
JOURNAL REPORTER

The Forsyth County Board of Elections decided yesterday to recommend that county commissioners buy voting machines that scan paper ballots instead of buying touch-screen machines that record votes electronically. The board did recommend buying some electronic touch-screen machines but only for use at handicapped-accessible voting stations.

The new system will replace the punch-card method of voting that will be abandoned by next year, by order of state election officials.

The move went against the advice of the county's top elections officials. They favored the electronic touch-screen machines, which are easier to work with than paper ballots.

Concerns over voter confidence drove the board's decision despite recent state laws requiring all electronic machines to keep a paper trail of each vote tallied.

Florida was sooo stolen but then Jeb will be gone soon...