Washblog

Keith Erwin (Seattle Times) reported on the meeting in County election officials prefer Diebold.

Seattle resident Richard Borkowski, who opposes all-mail voting, said it doesn't much matter which vendor is chosen, because neither has opened its computer source code to inspection by computer professionals outside the certification laboratory.

"As long as you have secret software," he said, "it's irrelevant who sells the secret software. Our vote count is supposed to be transparent and public."

Plan Highlights

For context, here's a quick summary of the plan's major points.

 - Mail ballot tracking, which eliminates the secret ballot by putting a unique barcode on each ballot which is linked to the voter's id. This is unconstitutional and illegal.

 - Counting of mail ballots before election day. This is illegal.

 - Automatic signature verification using Diebold's VoteRemote product. This is ridiculous.

 - Electronic modification of ballots to correct for "voter intent".

 - Eliminating paper poll ballots at the regional voting centers and only using Diebold's AccuVote TSx computerized voting machines. This is extremely bad judgement. Not providing provisionals is probably illegal per HAVA.

Meeting Notes  

Notes from 4/22/07 King County Council Meeting of the Whole

1. Council plans to vote on a motion next Monday, not sure which motion -thought it was the Motion to approve ballot tabulation equipment/software, which should not be since public comment will not be given on said motion until May 14th.

2. Council will act on business plan for ballot tracking software in July.

3. Ferguson expressed concern about security of drop off locations.

4. Lambert wanted to know how many ballots arrive at KCE shredded or mutilated - no one could give her a figure

5. Phillips- suggest KCE does not reduce the # of precincts - says it is already difficult for PCOs - fears reducing # of precincts to accommodate technology and not democracy

6. Nick Wagner referred to a voluminous document that most people have not read regarding "specific guideline" for security

7. Ferguson asked how the Voter Registration Data Base would be updated when voters vote at the voting centers.  He wanted to know if a poll worker would have to make the update. He was told that the "smart card" used by the voter would automatically update the VRDB, i.e. that voter has voted.

8. Lambert wants criteria added for the VC's such as, "no VC shall be more than "X" # of miles from __"

9. Anyone can vote at regional voting center - referred to page 21 of Transition Report

10. Casting provisional ballot on touch screen voting machine has been certified at Fed. Level, but not yet at state level?   (I think this is what was said)

11. If above mentioned cert. does not occur, will need to fall back on contingency plan which is still being worked out.

12. Patterson asked why existing equipment can't be used; is so much absolutely necessary?  She was told by Sherrill Huff (new election supervisor) that yes it is necessary, that the equipment is getting near end of life cycle, it is slow, requires a lot of attention, only tabulates 100,000/day.   Showed slide presentation.

13. Huff states current database is limited.  New equipment is more effective, accountable and transparent.  One objective is to limit ballot movement & human contact which enhances security.  Will be able to report a significantly higher % of results on election day.

14. Phillips questioned security of software/tabulation -  Laird, the KC IT person relies heavily on the federal certification process. Says it has improved.  The EAC `s certification process is more robust then the former process. Testing labs are qualified by NIST, vendors have quality assurance procedures for version control. Diebold system not yet certified.  Council questions, "you want us to approve the purchase of a system that has not yet been certified?"  Laird also notes that the software has not been used before, by anyone --- brand new

15. Laird states at federal level the source code is reviewed line for line Laird said KCE checks digital signature to verify the software is the same as that certified.

16. New scanners better because one does not have to stop every time the scanner can't read the ballot - instead the problem ballots are flagged and one can go back through the problem ballots after the scanning has been completed.  

17. "Duplication" does not change the image, only the record in the database. Some sort of audit procedure that keeps track of the changes.

18. New database will use a two factor authentication for users -  i.e. smart card, password, finger print, etc.  Said something to the effect that this will prevent any tabulation occurring prior to 8:00 pm on Election night.

19. During preprocessing, there is some kind of  (first he said report and then changed it to "process") process with a digital signature that will be conducted each night/morning to make sure nothing changed overnight.

20. States pre-processing does not tabulate votes.  12-15 days before election can pre-process ballots; pre-processing is done in at least 20 counties in WA, does not compromise result.

21. Also states that the L & A test uses a variety of ballot patterns, some with undervotes/overvotes, stray marks, etc. that tests the software to make sure counting is accurate.

22. Diebold has beefed up its security.  It has an encrypted solution to prevent tampering in the data base.

23. Phillips asked question about the ability to look at the software after the election in the event of obvious vote total anomalies -  Huennekins (sp?) indicated that he thinks that is possible.

24. KCE says only two vendors qualify, Diebold & Hart because  ES&S does not have a state certified touch screen. Don't recall what they said about Sequoia.

25. When citizen expressed concern that there will be a large # of provisional ballot voters (because they did not receive a ballot) who will then be forced to vote on a touch screen, KCE employee stated there will not be as large a problem with provisional ballots, like that in 2004, because in 2004 the main reason for provisional ballots was because voters were told they could vote at any precinct so when they were not in the books, they had to receive a provisional ballot.