Coastal
Post Online
December,
2003
Diebold Gets Slightly Nailed
By Kim Zetter
Wired News
SACRAMENTO -- Citing concerns that Diebold
Election Systems installed uncertified software on some electronic voting
systems in a California county without the state's knowledge, officials are
forcing the company to pay for an audit of all the company's voting machines
used in the state in order to win certification for a new model.
An investigation of how and when the
software was installed in Alameda County is still underway. But Tony Miller,
special projects coordinator for Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, said Monday
that the state would certify Diebold's AccuVote-TSx touch-screen voting machine
for the time being under several conditions.
The certification is contingent on Diebold paying for an
independent audit of all its hardware and software used in 13 other California
counties to determine if uncertified components have been installed
elsewhere.
Diebold must also
cooperate fully with the independent auditors and with the secretary of state's
office during its investigation of the certification violation, and attend a
voting system panel meeting in mid-December, when the state will review the
results of the audit and determine what, if any, sanctions may be
appropriate.
Mark Kyle, the
panel's chairman and California's undersecretary of state, said the audit
"will help identify any potential problems, clear up any
misunderstandings, and help bring certainty to something that is a little murky
right now."
The conditional
certification puts at least four California counties in a bind. Three have already signed contracts with Diebold
for TSx machines and have the machines sitting in their warehouses. San Joaquin
County, for instance, received 1,600 TSx machines at a cost of $5.7 million.
The county is not required to pay Diebold, however, until the machines receive
state certification. A fourth county, San Diego, is negotiating with Diebold to
purchase over 10,000 TSx units.
The counties say the provisional certification makes it difficult for
them to plan for the March election. They say they won't be able to launch
voter outreach and worker training if they don't know whether the machines will
pass certification in December.
Last week, the voting systems panel surprised Diebold executives and
county officials when it halted certification of the TSx system, saying it had
received "disconcerting information" about the company violating
state election law by installing uncertified software on Alameda County voting
systems.
The software, known as
GEMS, for General Election Management System, runs on the server which sits in
county election centers. GEMS is responsible for tabulating votes sent in from
precincts and producing reports from the results.
GEMS is used with Diebold's optical scan
system as well as its touch-screen units. And since 12 California counties use
the optical scan machines and a thirteenth
uses the TS machines also used in Alameda, the state is concerned the
problem may exist elsewhere. Los Angeles County also uses a few touch-screen
machines for early voting.
Secretary of state spokesman Doug Stone said the state was not worried
about the integrity of the October recall election, since the GEMS software had
at least undergone testing and been qualified by a federal independent testing
authority. He said the software did what it was supposed to do.
Federal election law requires that a vendor
submit hardware and software for testing and auditing by an independent testing
authority before states do their own certification of a system. According to
Penelope Bonsall of the Federal Elections Commission, the software, GEMS
version 1.18.18, was federally certified by an independent testing authority in
July. But the state had not completed its own testing and certification of the
software before Diebold installed it in Alameda.
It's unclear why Diebold installed version
1.18.18 in Alameda, since the county used a different GEMS version in its 2002
election, apparently without glitches.
Diebold spokesman Rob Norcross said, "Vendors don't just decide to
install new software onto systems." He said it usually happens as a result
of discussing with county officials what kinds of features they want.
"There seems to be a certain amount of
confusion regarding the certification and modification process," Norcross
said, "and about what kinds of modifications require notification to the
state." He said he hoped the investigation would clarify those
procedures.
California election
law, however, makes it clear that vendors must notify the state before making
changes to a system, particularly changes that involve upgrading to a new
version of software. Release notes for the 1.18.17 version that were posted on
the Web recently with other internal Diebold correspondence, indicate that
several critical fixes were made to the software in addition to installing
several new features.
Representatives from three counties who attended the panel meeting
expressed displeasure at the conditional certification for the new system.
Deborah Hench, registrar of voters for San
Joaquin County, told the panel, "If we make a decision and you ...
postpone again for whatever reason, we're gong to have to choose another system
for our March primary. It's critical for us to have a system that we know we're
going to use, instead of having to wait."
Hench and other county reps asked the state to separate the
investigation and audit of Diebold from certification of its new
machines.
Kyle and Miller said
the panel considered the problems facing counties, who are required by law to
replace outdated voting equipment.
But Miller said, "I'd rather err on the side of inconvenience and
delay. It's imperative that we ensure that the process is followed," he
said.
Voting companies and
election officials who have purchased e-voting machines insist that rigid
certification procedures ensure the security of the machines. But critics say
the incident in Alameda indicates that the integrity of elections is at
risk.
Kim Alexander, founder and
president of California Voter Foundation said, "It's so fundamental that
the certification process is followed to a T. Not occasionally, not once in a
while, but always."
She
added that if the margin of results for the recall election had been close,
Diebold's actions in Alameda would have called the whole election into
question.
"We're all
breathing a deep sigh of relief that this wasn't the case," she
said.
Frank Kaplan, Diebold's
western regional manager, told the panel that Diebold would cooperate with the
audit and investigation.
"We have absolutely no problem with those three conditions. ... If
we're talking about reviewing everything that's being run -- reviewing all of
the hardware, firmware -- we're in favor of all of that," he said.
But he added that he hoped other vendors
"would step to the plate and have that done with their systems as
well."
Kyle said the state
would inventory the systems of other vendors and other counties once the
Diebold investigation was complete. The state will also begin requiring all
counties to maintain and submit logs of the hardware, firmware and software
versions they use.
Starting in
2004, the state will also conduct random audits of voting systems to ensure
that all software and hardware is certified. And in the future, the state will
require CEOs of vendors to affirm under penalty of perjury that the company
will not change systems without obtaining written approval from the secretary
of state. Failure to do so may result in de-certification and possible criminal
charges, Kyle said.
A company
found violating election laws or regulations, he said, could be disbarred from
certifying new equipment with the state for one year.
Kyle said the secretary of state would be
announcing further proposals regarding e-voting in the near future.
It's widely believed by voting machine
makers that Secretary of State Shelley, who has previously stated his
preference for electronic voting machines to offer a voter-verifiable receipt
with their machines, may announce plans within a week or so to require this on
voting machines used in the state.
A voter receipt would allow voters to verify that their ballot has been
cast correctly before depositing the receipt into a secure ballot box to be
used in case of a recount.