Critics: Convicted felons worked for electronic voting companies

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031217/APN/312170634

By RACHEL KONRAD
Associated Press Writer
December 18, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO -- A manufacturer of electronic voting machines has
employed at least five convicted felons as managers, according to
critics demanding more stringent background checks for people
responsible for voting machine software.

Voter advocate Bev Harris alleged Tuesday that managers of a
subsidiary of Diebold Inc., one of the country's largest voting
equipment vendors, included a cocaine trafficker, a man who conducted
fraudulent stock transactions, and a programmer jailed for falsifying
computer records.

The programmer, Jeffrey Dean, wrote and maintained proprietary code
used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president
of Global Election Systems Inc. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002.

According to a public court document released before GES hired him,
Dean served time in a Washington correctional facility for stealing
money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a
high degree of sophistication and planning."

"You can't tell me these people passed background tests," Harris,
author of "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century,"  
said in a phone interview.

Michael Jacobsen, a spokesman for North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold,
emphasized that the company performs background checks on all managers
and programmers. He said many GES managers - including Dean - left at
the time of the acquisition.

"We can't speak for the hiring process of a company before we acquired
it," Jacobsen said. He would not provide further details, saying
company policy bars discussion of current or past employees.

The former GES is Diebold's wholly owned subsidiary, Global Election
Management Systems, which produces the operating system that
touch-screen voting terminals use.

Dean could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., announced a bill last week that would
require stringent background checks on all electronic voting company
employees who work with voting software. The bill, which the
California Democrat plans to introduce in January, would toughen
security standards for voting software and hardware, and require
touch-screen terminals to include printers and produce paper backups
of vote counts by the 2004 presidential election in November.

Harris and Andy Stephenson, a Democratic candidate for secretary of
state in Washington, conducted a 10-day investigation in Seattle and
Vancouver, where the men were convicted. Harris and Stephenson
released the findings in a 17-page document online and at a news
conference in Seattle.

Also Tuesday, Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed announced
legislation that would require electronic voting machines in
Washington to produce a paper trail. If the legislature approves it,
touch-screen machines in the state would be required to produce paper
receipts by 2006. Voters would get to see but not touch or remove the
receipts, which would be kept in a county lock box.

Computer programmers say software bugs, hackers or electrical outages
could cause more than 50,000 touch-screen machines used in precincts
nationwide to delete or alter votes. California Secretary of State
Kevin Shelley announced Nov. 21 that touch-screens in the nation's
most populous state must provide paper receipts by 2006.



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