March 30, 2007

"Election officials object to audit"

"A proposed audit of statewide voting systems is poorly timed and unfairly focuses on electronic machines, such as the ones used by voters in San Joaquin County, election officials across the state have complained.

San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Deborah Hench has joined others who run local elections in California to criticize Secretary of State Debra Bowen's proposed "top-to-bottom review" of state voting equipment. Bowen promised the audit during her campaign for the office last year and recently published a draft plan of how she plans to judge the systems.

Hench said the state's new draft criteria rewrites the rules under which the Diebold TSx and other electronic voting equipment were approved last year. San Joaquin County voters cast ballots on the ATM-like Diebold machines in both of last year's elections, as well as the March 2004 primary.

The equipment could be decertified by summer if it doesn't pass the new requirements, which include more advanced technology for disabled voters and a battery of testing from computer experts for security flaws. And, because state legislators recently moved the upcoming presidential primary to February, there won't be enough time to make adjustments before the next election.

"The way I read it," Hench said of the review's criteria, "it's meant to decertify all e-voting."

If the TSx machines were to be decertified, county voters would vote on paper ballots in February, Hench said. The cost of going to paper is not clear, although Hench believes the presidential primary alone would require a half-million ballots to be printed to ensure each precinct doesn't run low.

The state Association of Clerks and Election Officials criticized the draft criteria in a letter sent to Bowen's office earlier this week. The group asked for more time to review the audit's proposed standards, arguing that the six-day public comment window that ends today is too short for proper study.

Nicole Winger, a spokeswoman for Bowen's office, said the state opened the testing criteria for public review only in the interest of open government, saying the last such review, conducted by former Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, wasn't open to scrutiny. Winger also questioned the sense of postponing the audit because of an upcoming election when security concerns surrounding e-voting are what prompted the review."

The story is here.

The SF Chronicle offers this related story.

Posted by Randy Riddle at March 30, 2007 08:47 AM