Doubts Plague E-voting Systems

Coalition of Opponents Says Computers Are Not Secure; Backers Contend the Threat Is Low.
By DAVE HELLING / The Kansas City Star / June 15, 2006

In just eight weeks, most Kansas City voters will cast their first ballots on electronic machines, assuming they are accurate, convenient and safe. But a loose coalition of computer scientists, political activists, and election experts says electronic voting is none of those things. In the media and the courts, the opponents insist electronic ballots are “inherently untrustworthy” and should be scrapped.

“It’s faith-based voting,” said Christi Clemons Hoffman, who has fought electronic voting here for at least a year. “You just have to trust that everybody’s doing their job.” State and local election officials — Democrats and Republicans — have heard those criticisms for months, but say they’re misguided. “It’s fear of the unknown,” said Kansas City’s Democratic election director, Sharon Turner Buie.

This month technicians began training Kansas City workers to use the electronic booths that voters will use in August. More than 400 machines already have been delivered to the election board, and election programming is under way. As that work continues, opponents of electronic balloting are turning up the pressure.

Two weeks ago voters in Colorado sued to stop touch-screen electronic balloting. Lawsuits have been filed this spring in Arizona, California and Pennsylvania, seeking to either ban or restrict the machines. In March, after activists’ pressure, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed a law banning touch-screen voting there.

Holly Jacobson is co-director of Voter Action, a national organization providing legal advice to voters who oppose electronic balloting. She said her group is “studying” Missouri to see if a lawsuit is possible.

The argument? “The likely result (of touch-screen voting) is electoral chaos,” the Colorado lawsuit claims. “Votes are likely to be lost or miscounted (or both), no audit or re-count would be possible, and many disabled voters would be denied their statutory rights.”

Kansas City will use a blended system of touch screens, which work like ATMs, and optical-scan machines, which electronically record ballots after a voter fills in ovals on a paper ballot. Although some activists think optical-scan ballots face corruption threats, most of their efforts have been aimed at the touch-screen voting.

Several firms manufacture them, and all face criticism, but the favorite target is Diebold Election Systems, the maker of Kansas City’s machines.

“Diebold has a history of very severe security holes which have never been fixed.” Jacobson said. “We’re very concerned.”

Worries about Diebold machines grew in May, when a group called Black Box Voting outlined a security flaw in Diebold machines. The report claimed a hacker with access to a machine could change the computer’s software, “leaving the voting terminal incurably compromised.”

Days after the report, Diebold admitted a “theoretical security vulnerability” in letters to election authorities. But the company insists the actual threat is low.

Diebold spokesman David Bear did not return several calls seeking comment. In May, he told The New York Times the report assumes “evil and nefarious election officials” could change the machines’ software.

“I don’t believe these evil elections people exist,” he said.

Some computer scientists see reasons to be worried.

“If history tells us anything, it’s that no software is perfect,” said Prem Uppuluri, a professor of computer science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “There are very legitimate concerns.”

Uppuluri agrees it would take access and a relatively sophisticated software designer to corrupt a voting machine without being detected. He said the likelihood of a successful attack would diminish if the machines are used as “stand-alone” voting booths, not linked in a network.

Ray James, Republican director of the Kansas City Election Board, says Kansas City’s machines will not be linked, and that safeguards are in place to prevent electoral fraud.

“You have to have corruption to do it,” James said, noting the machines are kept behind locked, keypad-coded doors.

Buie: “I would say it’s impossible to gain access.”

Diebold’s machines were among several certified by Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan in 2005. The Black Box Voting report has spurred no plan to revisit that decision, a spokeswoman said.

“It’s not an endorsement,” said Stacie Temple, but simply a confirmation that the Diebold meets Missouri law.

One of the requirements includes something called a voter-verified paper audit trail. Each time an electronic vote is cast in Missouri, a paper record must be generated for a possible re-count.

“The key with Diebold, or any touch-screen system, is the paper audit trail,” Temple said.

Kansas City’s touch-screen voters will receive a paper receipt that can be checked before the vote is recorded.

Opponents say that paper trail is, in the words of the Colorado lawsuit, “fragile.”

“Touch-screen machines have no meaningful way to verify the voters’ intent,” Jacobson said.

Not everyone objects to touch screens or optical scanning.

Election officials in Johnson County installed Diebold touch screens since 2004. Voters in Clay, Cass, Platte, and Wyandotte counties have used various optical-scan machines for years without a major complaint about inaccuracy.

Clemons Hoffman and other election activists admit they have yet to find what they call a “smoking gun,” or direct evidence of election fraud committed by someone altering results in an electronic machine.

“There’s never going to be any evidence, is there?” Hoffman said. “Where are you going to find this evidence?”

James and Buie said they understand some people are upset about the voting choice.

But no one takes voting more seriously than they do, James said. “The integrity of elections is critical to the public trust.”

To reach Dave Helling, call (816) 234-4656 or send e-mail to dhelling@kcstar.com