California panel urges e-voting overhaul

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 22:16:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: sob () harvard edu (Scott Bradner)
Subject: California panel urges e-voting overhaul
To: dave () farber net


http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5201845.html?tag=nefd.top


California panel urges e-voting overhaul

Last modified: April 28, 2004, 6:55 PM PDT
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SACRAMENTO, Calif.--Electronic voting systems should not be used in 
November's presidential election unless they produce a paper trail as a 
safeguard against vote tampering, a California panel said Wednesday.

The advisory panel also urged California officials to require manufacturers 
of the systems to upgrade security measures to prevent hackers from 
tampering with votes. The motion specifically recommends new electronic 
voting machines be required to print paper-based vote records that voters 
could use to verify that their ballots had been cast as intended.

The motion comes amid a national debate about the use of electronic voting 
machines, which had been put forward as a way to avoid the kinds of 
punch-card irregularities that dogged the last presidential vote in Florida.

"Paper is coming to California," said John Mott-Smith, a member of the 
California Voting Systems and Procedures Panel. "It's not a question of if, 
but a question of when."

Seven members of the eight-member advisory panel backed the motion and one 
abstained. The vote followed hearings over the past two weeks in which 
activists, including president of the California Voter Foundation, demanded 
paper-based proof of votes.

By contrast, elections officials from a number of California counties 
warned they would have to scramble to prepare for the November election if 
electronic voting were scrapped altogether, as some had urged.

The California panel has been closely watched because many of the high-tech 
state's counties have scrapped punch-cards in favor of electronic voting, 
which holds the promise of more efficient elections.

Voting on the systems in March in some California counties, however, was 
marred by a number of glitches.

A report by the secretary of state found that 55 percent of polling places 
in San Diego County were unable to open on time because a component on a 
system did not function properly. Some polling places in Alameda County 
experienced the same problem but had paper ballots on hand for voters.

For the March election, California counties fielded 42,720 electronic 
voting machines, in theory allowing 42 percent of the state's voters to 
vote on touch screens or on paper ballots scanned into computers.

In addition to its recommendation for new electronic voting machines, the 
panel said existing machines other than those supplied by a subsidiary of 
Diebold also should be required to print a paper trail of votes, or 
counties with the machines must offer voters paper ballots.

The panel voted last week to recommend that California counties 
<http://news.com.com//2100-1028-5197870.html?tag=nl>not use Diebold 
Election Systems machines after finding they failed to work as expected in 
the March election.

The panel recommended that California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley 
decertify the subsidiary's AcuVote-TSx Voting System for use in California 
and recommended its findings should be referred to the state's attorney 
general for possible civil and criminal charges.

An aide to Shelley, who since last year has urged that touchscreen machines 
produce paper records of votes, said the secretary of state could act on 
the panel's recommendations by the end of the week.

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