June 09, 2006

"State wants limited voting machine checks"

"Months after a maverick elections supervisor irritated a leading voting-machine company and state officials by conducting unorthodox tests on voting equipment -- and finding security problems -- the state wants to make it harder for counties to check voting machines.

The state is proposing rules that require all 67 election supervisors in Florida to get approval from the state Division of Elections before testing their voting equipment for any problems, including whether or not it has security flaws or if the vote-counting software is working correctly.

The new rule would require county supervisors to submit a ''testing plan'' to the division, as well as to notify the maker of the machine before the test can take place. Any results of the test would have to be sent to state officials.

''The purpose is to make the process more transparent,'' said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for the Department of State. ``Certainly any supervisor can test any machine. It's just so the department and vendor will be included. In essence, it's so all parties have the same information.''

But Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho says the state proposal is an effort to curtail any future tests of voting equipment. Last year, Sancho allowed computer experts to hack into his county's optical-scan voting machine system, which is manufactured by Diebold, the same company that makes the ATM-styled touch-screen machines used in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

The flaws exposed by the effort eventually led California, and then Florida, to devise new security procedures that prohibit one person from ever being alone with voting equipment."

You can read the article here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at June 9, 2006 10:13 AM