May 09, 2008

Providing legal resources and election news to California election officials and the attorneys who represent them.

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August 21, 2007

Did ES&S Sell Uncertified Voting Equipment in California?

From Secretary of State Bowen's press release:

"Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced she has set a public hearing for September 20, 2007, to examine whether Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) sold uncertified voting machines to as many as five California counties.

“ES&S sold nearly 1,000 voting machines in California without telling the counties that bought them that they had never been certified for use in this state,” said Secretary Bowen, the state’s chief elections officer. “Given that each machine costs about $5,000, it appears ES&S has taken $5 million out of the pockets of several California counties that were simply trying to follow the law and equip their polling places with certified voting machines.”

The ES&S AutoMARK Version 1.0, also known as Phase One or Model A100, is an electronic ballot-marking device that the Secretary of State certified for use in California in August 2005. According to information provided by the counties to the Secretary of State, 14 counties (Amador, Calaveras, Colusa, Contra Costa, Marin, Merced, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Siskiyou, Solano, Stanislaus and Tuolumne) use the AutoMARK to comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requirement to provide at least one machine in each polling place so voters with disabilities can cast ballots independently.

However, according to information obtained by Secretary Bowen, ES&S sold AutoMARK Version 1.1, also known as Phase Two or Model A200, to five of those counties (San Francisco, Colusa, Marin, Merced and Solano) in 2006. ES&S had never submitted Phase Two, a version that is substantially different from the state-certified AutoMARK Phase One, to the California Secretary of State for certification. Furthermore, ES&S delivered hundreds of AutoMARK Phase Two machines to California counties months before the model’s August 2006 federal certification."

Posted by Randy Riddle at 01:50 PM | Permalink. . .

San Bernardino Returns to Paper Ballots

"San Bernardino County will use paper ballots in elections starting in November.

The Board of Supervisors approved spending $1.5 million to make the switch and come into compliance with a state order.

San Bernardino and other counties across the state are scrambling to replace electronic touch-screen voting machines after Secretary of State Debra Bowen decided Aug. 3 to disallow their use because of security concerns.

Her decision requires a switch to another voting system in time for the February presidential primary.

"I have no choice but to recommend that we go back to paper ballots at the polls," Registrar of Voters Kari Verjil told the supervisors."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 01:48 PM | Permalink. . .

August 19, 2007

"Touch-screen voting faces fuzzy future"

From the Sacramento Bee:

"Eve Roberson was South Lake Tahoe's city clerk from 1971 to 1982, when voters cast ballots by filling in circles on paper.

"If you can believe this, we hand-counted them," said Roberson, a Santa Rosa election activist who also once served as El Dorado County deputy registrar of voters. "We did not have a computer back then."

Computers are everywhere now, yet most California voters will return to filling in circles on paper just like three decades ago. That's because Secretary of State Debra Bowen enacted a sweeping order this month to restrict touch-screen voting machines throughout most of California.

Bowen's decision could have a chilling effect on the technology's use in California for years, according to electronic voting activists and some election officials. In the wake of Bowen's order, registrars in counties that purchased thousands of touch-screen machines are planning to retrofit polling places with paper-based "optical-scan" voting systems similar to one used in Sacramento County.

Counties will spend millions of dollars this year on paper-based systems and ultimately may have to give up on touch screens because their future remains uncertain, some registrars said.

Bowen, an electronic voting skeptic, could remain in office through January 2015. She suggested last week that governments might be better off avoiding the latest technology as a matter of practice.

"I was having an interesting discussion recently with a venture capitalist who pointed out that for government applications, you don't want to be on the cutting edge," Bowen said. "You want to go with the most tried-and-true system available. And certainly optical scan has a long history of use in a lot of contexts, which means it has fewer risks."

Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:28 AM | Permalink. . .

August 16, 2007

Challenge to candidate's statement

"City Attorney James F. Penman says election law is being violated.

By whom? His opponent, for starters, and also by an anti-illegal immigration firebrand, he said.

Penman cited what he said appear to be state Election Code violations in the candidate statements from Marianne Milligan, his opponent for his office, and Joseph Turner, who is running against City Clerk Rachel Clark. With that, Penman recommended on Tuesday the county registrar of voters and county attorneys step in and take legal action.

Penman said Milligan and Turner's candidate statements violate the Election Code because they include disparaging remarks about their opponents, in this case Penman and Clark.

Penman is outraged.

"This is the first time we've seen attacks on opponents in candidates statements in our city," said Penman, who has held office since 1987.

The registrar declined to act, saying the issue was a city and not a county matter.

Therefore, a candidate or registered voter would have to lodge a complaint for the issue to be pursued, said Sandra Medina, an assistant to City Clerk Rachel Clark. Medina handled the memo because the race for Clark's seat is involved.

The fact that Penman is locked in a race with Milligan and has publicly denounced Turner are circumstances not lost on either.

Milligan, an attorney since the mid-1990s, said she believes her statement complies with the law. Penman's memo singled out a sentence which stated that "City Hall is being pulled apart by my opponent's personal agendas," as a possible Election Code violation."

The article is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 04:27 PM | Permalink. . .

August 07, 2007

More on county reaction to Bowen e-voting decision

"Santa Clara County's registrar of voters says the last-minute decision by the state secretary of state to curtail electronic voting next year could cost the county as much as $500,000, create lines up to three hours long on Election Day and slow voting results by as much as three days after the polls close.

The decision "put us into a delayed mode for informing the public," said Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Jesse Durazo.

Durazo's frustration was echoed by registrars around the state, in the wake of Secretary of State Debra Bowen's decree late Friday that - because of security concerns - most voting machines would be "decertified" for use starting with the Feb. 5 presidential primary.

That primary, of course, is shaping up to be part of the most closely contested presidential election in decades. With California's first February primary, the state's voters could have extra sway in the national race. But elections clerks around the state are warning of impending chaos.

About 5 million California voters who previously used electronic voting machines will have to cast their votes on paper ballots. The 21 counties using touch-screen machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems or Diebold Election Systems, including Santa Clara County, will be permitted to have only one such machine per polling place, to accommodate disabled voters.

Durazo said he already has told County Executive Pete Kutras he'll need two extra "optical scanning" machines, at $100,000 apiece, to process the extra 150,000 or so paper ballots he estimates will be necessary for the February primary.

But even with those machines, the county expects to be able to process no more than 8,000 ballots an hour on the Feb. 5 election night. That means it probably will take an extra 18 hours or so longer than normal to get an initial tally of all votes, Durazo said."

The article is here.

You can find additional stories here and here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 01:37 PM | Permalink. . .

August 05, 2007

County Election Officials: DRE Restrictions Will Be Hard to Meet

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

"A state directive requiring increased security on voting systems could cost counties millions of dollars, lead to long lines at the polls and delay California's results in next year's presidential primary, local election officials warned Saturday.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen informed counties late Friday night that they no longer would be allowed to use some voting systems made by companies that supply all but a handful of California's 58 counties. Bowen decertified the machines for use but said they could regain certification if the companies could prove they had improved security features.

In many counties, that means voters may have to be given paper ballots for the Feb. 5 presidential primary, like those absentee voters already use.

"I'm still a little shell-shocked," Butte County Registrar Candace Grubbs said. "Election officials in the state of California have worked long and hard to ensure elections come off well, and this is how we are treated?"

The rural, north Central Valley county uses touchscreen machines at all its precincts, so Grubbs said her office would have to buy ballot boxes and voting booths, rewrite ballots and retrain election officials.

"I think it's going to be a tumultuous process at the polls," said Riverside County Clerk Barbara Dunmore.

In Riverside and at least 19 other counties, election officials will have six months to replace electronic voting machines if they cannot meet the new standards set out by the secretary of state.

The decision followed an eight-week security review of California's voting systems that revealed flaws in some electronic machines.

University of California computer experts found that voting machines sold by three companies — Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems — were vulnerable to hackers and that voting results could be altered.

Bowen decertified machines made by Diebold and Sequoia but said they could regain certification if they meet several new conditions. She also added security restrictions on machines made by Hart InterCivic.

The companies make a variety of machines, each of which will be subject to a different recertification process under the complex set of rules Bowen issued Friday.

Machines made by a fourth company, Elections Systems & Software, also were decertified because the company was late in providing information the secretary of state needed for its so-called top-to-bottom review.

Bowen said she is examining that company separately, a process that could have wide-ranging implications on Election Day. Elections Systems & Software supplies the voting equipment for Los Angeles County, the state's most populous.

Bowen withdrew certification for the county's InkaVote system while she does her own review. Elections Systems & Software defended its machines Saturday.

"The equipment that we provide to jurisdictions is secure, it's accurate, and it allows voters to have a very positive voting experience," company spokesman Ken Fields said.

Bowen, a Democratic former state senator, won election last year with the support of electronic-voting skeptics and pledged during her campaign to make sure the state's voting systems were reliable.

In her announcement late Friday, she said voting machines that failed security checks had not been properly reviewed or tested by the federal government.

"I think voters and counties are the victims of a federal certification process that hasn't done an adequate job of ensuring that the systems made available to them are secure, accurate, reliable and accessible," Bowen told reporters during a news conference that started shortly before midnight Friday.

Yolo County Registrar of Voters Freddie Oakley was among the few county elections officials who praised Bowen's review on Saturday. She said it provided much-needed scrutiny for a system susceptible to manipulation.

"We are talking about this fundamental factor in Democracy, and we need to be very serious about it," Oakley said. "Voters are increasingly worried about the quality of the systems that are being used."

Posted by Randy Riddle at 07:35 AM | Permalink. . .

August 04, 2007

California Strictly Limits Use of Electronic Voting Systems, Withdraws Certification for LA System

From the Sacramento Bee:

"California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, bowing to fears of computer fraud, Friday decertified Los Angeles County's electronic voting system and sharply curtailed the use of two other machines that California counties had hoped to use to conduct the February 2008 presidential primary.

She said she would allow unlimited use of one system, Hart InterCivic, as long as security and auditing safeguards are implemented.

But in the case of two major companies -- Diebold Election Systems and Sequoia Voting Systems -- Bowen said she would allow just one machine per polling place, apparently to provide an accessible option for disabled voters.

Electronic voting critics had unsuccessfully lobbied Bowen's predecessor to stop the machines' use in California. More than three dozen California counties have invested millions of dollars in the technology and some will be forced to replace many machines by February under Bowen's order.

"I reject the notion that I should not require changes in security simply because counties already own (the machines)," Bowen said.

The tested systems are used by 43 of California's 58 counties and by 9 million out of 15.7 million registered voters, according to UC Berkeley.

Bowen, a Democrat who was skeptical of electronic voting during her tenure in the state Senate, commissioned $1.8 million in tests this spring by the University of California to explore the security faults of three electronic voting systems.

She had said she would issue a decision by Friday to comply with a requirement to give counties six months' lead time to make changes.

But she delayed acting for hours, finally holding a press conference at her downtown office as midnight approached.

Stephen Weir, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, questioned her decision-making process, saying Bowen could and should have waited until Monday to act.

Weir said Bowen is moving the ball "in the wrong direction" because she used an improper system to test the machines. He said her decision essentially tells "the voting community out there 'your voting system is damaged, but we're going to fix it.' That doesn't feel good to me."

Bowen's decision could have a ripple effect on dozens of other states that use the same voting systems if officials there follow her lead and rely on the UC research."

As the Los Angeles Times notes, Secretary Bowen has, for now, withdrawn certification for the InkaVote Plus system used in Los Angeles County.

You can find Secretary Bowen's decertification/recertification orders here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 07:08 AM | Permalink. . .

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