Is California Decision Death Knell For Voting Machines?

Saying California's touch-screen electronic voting machines can not prevent hackers or partisans who want to alter vote counts, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced late Friday that she will remove thousands of the machines from use in California's new early 2008 presidential primary next Feb. 5. Southern California - from San Diego to Orange County to Los Angeles - will most seriously affected.

Bowen issued a series of directives that will allow individual California precincts to use only one touch-screen machine manufactured by Diebold Election Systems and Sequoia Voting Systems, if those manufacturers make security improvements well before next year's presidential primary. Even with those improvements, Bowen said those brands were not secure enough to be fully outfit a precinct, which typically use a half-dozen or more of the same voting machines. Instead the lone machine will primarily be used by disabled voters, who in surveys, say they prefer the touch-screen machines.

In contrast, counties using touch-screen voting machines made by Hart InterCivic could continue to use several of those machines in precincts, Bowen said, because those systems were more secure - provided that company also adopted new security measures. However, voting systems made by a fourth firm, Election Systems and Software, or ES&S, could not be used until the company completed a comprehensive security review. That decision affects Los Angeles County, the nation's largest voting jurisdiction with more than 4 million registered voters.

Bowen also ordered election directors in California's 56 counties to prepare security plans for electronic voting machines in 45 days, and said she would soon issue rules on handling security issues posed by the machines. She also will soon issue new rules for expanded vote count audits and recounts in close elections.

"When you look at how people actually vote in the state, more than two-thirds and probably three-quarters will not be affected by the decisions that I am announcing today," Bowen said, emphasizing she had a duty to investigate and address concerns about the integrity of California elections. "The systems that we use to cast and tally votes in this state are the most fundamental tools of democracy. If our citizens don't have faith in the tools, then election officials have to investigate their citizen's concerns."

Bowen's decision came after a University of California study on election security issues that she commissioned reported the state's touch-screen machines had extensive security flaws that could be breached by people who want to alter election results. The results of that study were released in late July. This past Monday, a public hearing on the findings was held in Sacramento. Bowen had to make a decision by Friday night under a state law requiring any change in election machinery be issued 180 days before the election.

The new touch-screen voting machine voting policy was quickly criticized by the voting machine manufacturers and county election administrators' trade association.

"California-based Sequoia Voting Systems is disappointed," Michelle Shafer, Vice President of Communications and External Affairs for Sequoia Voting Systems, said in an e-mail. "Today's voting systems used in California and throughout the United States are the most tested, secure, accurate, auditable and accessible voting systems in our nation's history."

"Thank you. Now can you please tell us what voting systems we can use," said Stephen Weir, California Association of Clerks and Election Officials president and Contra Costa County election director, who was present for Bowen's announcement. "I think the registrars are stunned by this. I don't think we are in a position to react."