Gaffe casts doubts on electronic voting

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 20:34:24 -0400
> From: "ajs6f () virginia edu" <ajs6f () unix mail virginia edu>
>
> I believe that there was a mention today on the IP-list of optical scan 
> tallying systems. Here's a rather interesting new item concerning a 
> different kind of reason to shun electronic systems, where the example 
> happens to use an optical scan:
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/09/15/electronic.voting.ap/index.html
>
> ---
> A. Soroka; ajs6f () virginia edu
> Robertson Media Center / Clemons Library / the University of Virginia
> "Eisenhower! Your mimeograph machine upsets my stomach!" -Zippy the Pinhead



Gaffe casts doubts on electronic voting

SAN JOSE, California (AP) --The strange case of an election tally that 
appears to have popped up on the Internet hours before polls closed is 
casting new doubts about the trustworthiness of electronic voting machines.

During San Luis Obispo County's March 2002 primary, absentee vote tallies 
were apparently sent to an Internet site operated by Diebold Election 
Systems Inc., the maker of the voting machines used in the election.

At least that's what timestamps on digital records showed.

County election officials say the unexplained gaffe probably didn't 
influence the vote, and Diebold executives -- who only recently 
acknowledged the lapse -- say voters should have confidence in the election 
process.


Further evidence of problems

But computer programmers say the incident is further evidence that 
electronic voting technology could allow a politically connected computer 
hacker to monitor balloting and, if the vote was going the wrong way, 
mobilize voters to swing the election.

"If you're at the state party headquarters and you know how the vote is 
going in a county, you can allocate scarce resources to the county where 
you're losing by a close margin," said Jim March, a computer system 
administrator from Milpitas who examined ballot results that ended up on a 
Diebold site without password protection. "This data is incredibly valuable 
to a campaign manager."

Silicon Valley computer experts have long criticized touch-screen voting 
machines, which do not normally provide a paper receipt and which send 
digital votes directly to a computer server. Programmers say software bugs, 
power outages or clever hackers could easily delete or alter data -- and 
recounts would prove impossible without paper backups.


Problems with optical scan

San Luis Obispo County relies on the more popular "optical scan" system 
used in 34 of California's 58 counties.

Programmers say the March 2002 incident casts suspicion on any election 
system that depends on computers -- even the relatively low-tech optical 
scan, which relies on paper ballots and uses computers only to store and 
send data.

Voters who cast optical scan ballots typically use a pencil to fill in a 
bubble near their candidate's name on a sheet of paper, similar to 
standardized tests. Poll workers feed the ballots into a scanner, which 
records results on a precinct computer.

After polls close, results are sent to a central server via modem. Anytime 
modems are involved, hackers get an opportunity to intercept data, computer 
security experts say.

March said he found absentee ballot totals from 57 of 164 San Luis Obispo 
County precincts in an easily accessible File Transfer Protocol site 
operated by North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold. The votes were time-stamped 
at 3:31 p.m. on March 5, 2002 -- more than four hours before polls closed.

By law, election officials cannot release tallies until voting is finished 
-- typically 8 p.m. on election day. Activists discovered the data in January.


Investigation continues

Diebold, which won't say when the data showed up on the site, acknowledged 
the incident and says it is investigating how the data ended up on a public 
Internet site.

Deborah Seiler, Diebold's West Coast sales representative, said Diebold 
engineers may have published the results as part of a test -- possibly 
days, weeks or months after the county primary, regardless of the time 
stamp. She said a system of checks and balances safeguards Diebold's 33,000 
voting machines nationwide from fraud.

"These activists don't understand what they're looking at," Seiler said.

County election officials insist the primary was fair. No one has called 
for a criminal investigation or recount. Most local supervisors were 
running unopposed, and the winning candidates and proposals enjoyed large 
margins.

County clerk-recorder Julie L. Rodewald said she was "concerned" about the 
results winding up online, but she has no plans to get rid of Diebold 
equipment.


Complicating poll jobs

March questioned why San Luis Obispo County's server connected to a Diebold 
server at all -- particularly if it dialed out while polls were open. He 
said the "phone home" incident could have been the work of an incompetent 
or malicious Diebold insider, or an outside hacker. Any astute campaign 
manager could have profited, he said.

Kim Alexander, president of the Davis, California-based nonprofit 
California Voter Foundation, said computers have benefited the election 
process by speeding vote counts. But technology has complicated poll 
workers' jobs, and the San Luis Obispo County incident and other mysterious 
errors have raised alarming security concerns.

"In our quest to deliver faster, more accurate election results, we've left 
the voting process wide open to new forms of attack and mismanagement," 
Alexander said.


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