(SoS of CA )Bowen wants hack-free voting systems

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/173508.html

Secretary of State Debra Bowen is asking computer scientists from UC Davis and UC Berkeley to try to hack into election systems across California to ensure that voting equipment is safe from fraud or abuse.

The effort is part of an $1.8 million program Bowen announced Wednesday to test the performance and investigate the security of different voting machines and technologies in use in California.

"California has spent about $450 million on new voting systems over the past few years and yet the result is that people have more questions about whether votes are being counted as they are cast," Bowen said in a telephone conference with reporters.

The program is intended to secure voting systems before the state's Feb 5 presidential primary, one of three statewide elections to be held in 2008.

Under a "top to bottom review" Bowen announced three University of California investigative teams will test voting system computer technology, paper record-keeping and also attempt to hack into voter systems.

The tests of voting systems in counties across the state will be paid for by $750,000 federal Help America Vote Act grant and funding from voting machine vendors providing equipment in California, Bowen said.

The project will be led by Matthew Bishop, director of the computer security laboratory at UC Davis, and David Wagner, a computer science professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in electronic voting and computer security.

:D

nothing to hack.