November 18, 2005

Diebold TSx Certification Hearing on November 21

The Secretary of State has scheduled a hearing on certification of the Diebold TSx electronic voting system for November 21 at 10:00 a.m. Last July, Secretary McPherson rejected the system for certification based on problems that arose during testing. The TSx had previously been decertified.

The hearing will be conducted under new procedures. In the past, the Voting Systems and Procedures Panel conducted the hearings and made recommendations to the Secretary. Here is a summary of the new procedures contained on the Secretary of State's website:

"All voting systems seeking approval will be required to meet current standards and procedures and the new more rigorous standards announced in August 2005. These standards will be put into regulation in 2006, which includes public comment.

All voting systems seeking approval will do so through a public hearing conducted by staff from the Secretary of State's Office. The public hearing will be like all other public hearings required for voting system approval and will, additionally, permit one week of public comment following the hearing. The purpose of the public hearing is to present staff reports regarding the voting system application and to take comments from the public that will be reviewed before preparing the final recommendations about approval or denial of the applications that are submitted to the Secretary of State.

The public hearings will be chaired by Bruce McDannold, Acting Director of the new Office of Voting System Technology Assessment. A member of the legal staff of the Secretary of State's Elections Division will be present along with the consultant on voting systems employed by the Secretary of State."

This fact contained in the Staff Report for the TSx system is significant:

"The system has successfully completed federal qualification testing to the 2002 Federal Voting System Standards. While an initial qualification number has been by NASED on the original system, a revised qualification number is expected to be issued shortly by NASED to cover the modified system that includes Ballot Station firmware version 4.6.4. That issuance is required before this system can be certified."

This is reminiscent of past attempts by Diebold to obtain certification prior to final federal approval.

Posted by Randy Riddle at November 18, 2005 08:46 AM