Voting machine maker dinged

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Mercury News
Voting machine maker dinged
AUDITOR SAYS SOFTWARE WASN'T APPROVED
By Elise Ackerman
Posted on Wed, Dec. 17, 2003

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said Tuesday that Diebold 
Elections Systems could lose the right to sell electronic voting machines 
in California after state auditors found the company distributed software 
that had not been approved by election officials.

The auditors reported that voters in 17 California counties cast ballots in 
recent elections using software that had not been certified by the state. 
And voters in Los Angeles County and two smaller counties voted on machines 
installed with software that was not approved by the Federal Election 
Commission.

In an appearance before a state voting panel, Shelley said the report 
represented a ``deeply troubling'' violation of state election law.

The audit is likely to feed growing concerns about the security of 
electronic voting as states rush to update voting equipment before the 2004 
presidential election. Besides California, 36 other states use Diebold 
voting machines.

Shelley had ordered an audit of all Diebold voting machines used in 
California after he received a report that uncertified software was used in 
the November election in Alameda County. Audits of the 41 counties that use 
non-Diebold election machines, including Santa Clara County, will be 
conducted next year.

California law requires that software and hardware included in electronic 
voting machines be approved by both federal and state authorities and meet 
certain technical standards.

Diebold President Bob Urosevich told the six members of the Voting Systems 
Panel, which advises Shelley, that his company had been negligent in 
notifying the state about changes in its software. He explained the lapse 
as a result of conflicting state and federal certification processes.

Karl Dolk, of the auditor R&G, said he and two other independent 
consultants spent two weeks examining the hardware and software used by the 
17 California counties who are Diebold customers. None of the counties was 
using state-certified versions of the election management software to tally 
votes. In addition, software used in Los Angeles, Trinity and Lassen 
counties had not been federally certified.

In an interview, Urosevich said changes in the software had been 
``cosmetic.'' He said Diebold began to make changes to its software in the 
fall of 2001 to conform to a new California requirement.

He said the independent testing authority that checks the code for the FEC 
certified a basic version of the software, as well as an updated version of 
the code. But he said several versions were released -- and installed by 
California counties -- that had not been approved.

Shelley said the auditors' report made clear that the state and counties 
also were to blame for not tracking voting software more closely.

The panel put off taking any action against Diebold until a consultant 
hired by the state evaluates the extent to which the uncertified software 
differed from the certified software.
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