March 28, 2007

"Tougher standards could end e-voting"

"California's elections chief is proposing the toughest standards for voting systems in the country, so tough that they could banish ATM-like touch-screen voting machines from the state.

For the first time, California is demanding the right to try hacking every voting machine with "red teams" of computer experts and to study the software inside the machines, line-by-line, for security holes.

The proposals are the first step toward fulfilling a promise that Secretary of State Debra Bowen made during her 2006 election campaign to perform a "top-to-bottom" review of all voting machinery used in California.

County elections officials balked at the proposed standards in a letter Monday to Bowen and hinted broadly at the same conclusion reached by several computer scientists: If enforced rigidly, the standards could send many voting machines, especially touch-screens, back for major upgrades. Local elections officials argued that there isn't enough time to fix any deficiencies before the February presidential primary.

"When they moved that election up 119 days, I think the door closed on any significant changes to election systems for the presidential cycle in 2008," said Steve Weir, president of the California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials, and chief elections officer in Contra Costa County.

Advocates for stronger security in voting machinery applauded Bowen's standards and said it marked a refreshing change from regulating voting
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systems based heavily on what manufacturers were willing to sell.

"Debra Bowen is holding up voting machines to the standards they deserve," said Avi Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University who published one of the first technical critiques of e-voting software. "I don't know of any other state in the country that requires red team testing of voting machines, and I've long maintained that this is the only reasonable way to test security."

You can find additional articles about this issue here and here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at March 28, 2007 09:06 AM