Voting Machine Doubts Linger

Concerns Over Vulnerability Of Electronic Machines Sending Many States Back To Paper Ballots

(CBS)  (The following story was written by CBS Evening News producer Phil Hirschkorn.)

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Four of of ten American voters will be casting ballots this November on equipment that's different from what they used in 2004.

One reason is the doubts raised about ATM-syle electronic touch-screen machines, which have prompted half a dozen states to turn them off and turn back to paper ballots.

In fact, at least 55 percent of Americans voting this November will vote on paper ballots that will be counted by optical scanners, according to Virginia-based Election Data Services, Inc.

"That's an all-time high for optical scan usage in this nation," says EDS President Kimball Brace.

Only one-third of voters will be using touch-screen systems, according to EDS.

"Electronic system usage will go down in 2008 for the first time since we started collecting data in 1980," Brace says.

In the key presidential battleground of Ohio, the switch away from touch-screens came after Secretary of State Jennifer Bruner took office last year and commissioned a top-to-bottom review of the Diebold machines used in 53 of Ohio's 88 counties.

"We studied these systems and all the systems in use in Ohio and the most vulnerable to risk are the touch-screen voting machines," Brunner says. "The software is antiquated, and it's unstable."

Last week Brunner sued the manufacturer, now known as Premier Election Systems, for breach of contract, citing recent elections where votes were dropped when memory cards were uploaded.

"There have been no votes lost, just votes that are missed and hours later or days later recovered," Brunner says. "We have a system that is performing inadequately."

"We are in fact in compliance with the terms of the contracts," says Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier, which has voting equipment in 34 states.

"We have provided a high-quality system," Riggall says.

Still, Brunner forced the state's most populous county, Cuyahoga, which includes Cleveland and has suffered computer crashes in recent elections, to abandon its touch-screens for optical scanners. Three other Ohio counties followed suit.

Bolstered by $4.5 million in federal funds, Brunner has also ordered every county in the state to print enough paper ballots to supply a quarter of the electorate expected to show up at the polls.

"If there's a machine failure or a power outage, or some kind of misprogramming with the machines, it will enable people to keep voting," Brunner says.

The national rush toward touch-screens began after Florida's too-close-to-call presidential race between Al Gore and George Bush in 2000 led to the spectacle of election officials trying to discern voter intent by studying hanging chads on punch card ballots.

Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002 with funds for states to upgrade their equipment. States spent at least $2 billion by the end of 2007, according to the Election Assistance Commission.

Florida led the way to touch-screens, but in 2006, experienced another meltdown in Sarasota, where about 18,000 ballots cast on machines made by ES&S registered no vote in a hard-fought congressional race decided by fewer than 400 votes.

The Sarasota machines contained no paper trial - a scroll, stored inside a machine, that displays a person's ballot choices before the "vote" button is hit - so the recount could not recover any lost votes.

When Charlie Crist became governor last year, he deep-sixed Florida's touch-screens. A Tampa electronics recycler was tapped to pick up nearly 30,000 of them.

The two closest swing states in the last election have made a change too.

Iowa became the latest state to disconnect touch-screens, when Governor Chet Culver signed a bill in April to replace the machines in 19 counties that used them with optical scanners.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson moved his state from a hogdepodge of voting methods onto a single paper-based system in 2006.

Most California voters now use optical scanners, with only three of the state's 58 counties using touch-screens.

In Maryland, which has experienced glitches with its paperless touch-screens, Governor Martin O'Malley pushed through a plan to abandon them in 2010.

"What has happened since Florida 2000 is we've taken a problem that was a disaster for that election and made it exponentially worse," says John Bonifaz, legal director of the watchdog Voter Action.

"These machines cannot be trusted for the counting and recording of our votes," Bonifaz says. "Computer scientists around the country have demonstrated that in less than 60 seconds one of these machines can be broken into and can infect the entire system on which people are voting."

However, machine makers are quick to retort, there's been no documented case of hacking during an actual election, despite what professors have been able to do to a single machine in a lab setting.

"Touch-screen voting machines have proven to be accurate, reliable, and secure time and time again," says Ken Fields, a spokesman for ES&S.

Fields says the ES&S equipment deployed in 43 states complies "with rigorous standards for quality, accuracy, security, and reliability."

Sequoia, which supplies 17 states with voting equipment, points to poll worker training as a cause of recent election ills. The Election Assistance Commission estimates that two million poll workers, mostly citizen volunteers, will be needed nationwide November 4.

During the last presidential election, six percent of polling places and four percent of precincts reported having too few poll workers, according to the EAC.

"It is important to note that successful elections necessitate people, processes, and the technology all working together," says Sequoia VP Michelle Shafer.

"Anytime there has been a change in voting equipment, there have been some some doubts and concerns which lessen over time due to familiarity with the new equipment," Shafer says.

Maybe so, but doubts about touch-screens have reached the point that ES&S, Premier, and Sequoia tell CBS News they're no longer getting any new orders for counties switching their systems to touch-screens.

New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt, himself first elected after a recount, particulary worries about voters in 14 states, including his own, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Georgia, and Virginia, that use touch-screen machines that have no voter-verifiable paper trail.

"If all you have is the electronic memory, you can reprint that electronic memory as many times as you want, it's going to say exactly the same thing. And you won't know whether it's right," Holt says. "More than a third of the voters in this country will be voting in an unverifiable way."

Holt's legislation, currently gridlocked on capitol Hill, would allocate millions of dollars to states to offset the cost of printing backup paper ballots and randomly auditing the machines.

"Without an audit, without the ability to audit, it will be unreliable, and without paper record, you can't really audit," Holt says. "This is the central act of democracy. It is the basis for the all the legitimacy of our government and its actions. We believe or at least want to believe that people are put in office by the will of the voters. That's what you need to be able to verify."

[jjrglobal]

Is there a reason why we cannot vote online using our SS# and have a site where every American could look up his/her SS# and make sure the candidate they voted for is next to their SS#? I''m pretty sure we have the technology to do so and it sure would save a lot of headaches for Florida.

[thepitbull13]

There is more corrupt things than this, how about recruiting formerly convicted felons. Dems new tactic. With all the paranoia why do some so opposed a picture voter ID. It protects your vote, and if someone else is using your identity your voice no longer counts. I''ve heard all the lefts arguments against this and none are valid. You need to show ID to cash a check even a gov check, so poverty is not an excuse. And then we have, it''s the republican''s machines nonsense. If the Dems loose this election, and I predict they won''t, you will hear conspiracy theories abound about how Nancy Pelosi''s God''s chosen gift to the US lost even with the MSM''s blessing.

[harp1963]

The Greedapublicans would never cheat in Florida.

[jmurrieta1]

There''s no doubt on the part of the U.S. Fascist Party, aka the Republican Party--the only way they can win after 8 failed years is to have their pet programmers in Diebold program another "win" for the Repugs.

It worked so well in 2000!

[stn_sage]

stn_sage-still whimpering over the Florida issue in 2000??
Posted by Xlib at 03:44 PM : Aug 17, 2008
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No, @sshole! I''m NOT! I leave all the whimpering over the elections to all you lying, idiot neocon fools---like you! I''m concerned about the FUTURE, I don''t care if Bush goes running off to the Supreme Court suing to get his way! That''s a GOPer for ya!

NO, I''m concerned about all the offices you''re party is going to try to steal THIS year through ''Premier''!
Let''s hope they mess up or get caught this time!

[idnnsg]

john97068, calling Obama a "racist" is just about the stu.pidist thing you repug scu.m have ever done! Obama is part white, part black. He has lived in both worlds. He is NOT a racist. You sc.umw@ds just made that up! The ONLY people who believe Obama is a racist are inbred re.tards like yourself!

The GOP has NOTHING positive to run on because their "fearless leader" has scr.ewed up EVERYTHING! So, the ONLY thing they can do is to make up LIES about Obama. They hope that if they throw enough s.h/!t, some of it will stick. In the end, all they are doing is just covering themselves in s.h/!t.

I hope you enjoy it.

[dnsallday]

I hope the GOP then sues also.

I have many rallies and marches planned should the US be stupid enough to put a racist in as President. I take that back..

Inexperienced & Racist.

Posted by john97068 at 04:01 PM : Aug 17, 2008
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Have no fear, the Party of Greed Over People does sue any and everytime they lose an election. I''m surprised they haven''t sued the Republican partisan makers of voting machines for not always coming through they way they have promised .

Please look up the word racist in the dictionary before using it again and exposing your ignorance to everybody.

[dnsallday]

Geez! I wonder which side the professors are on?

Posted by gunfighter51 at 03:43 PM : Aug 17, 2008
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Well clearly if the educators in this country don''t see things the same way as Rush Limpaugh and sean (high school drop out) Hannity and Karl (College flunker) Rove than they must be biased!

[dnsallday]

Dems love to whine, cheat and try anything possible. The facts are simple though

You lose, you lose...period. !

Dems wont win, its too much trouble to put down the back of cheese puffs, get of the couch & vote. Happens every election, the uneducated are too lazy to make a difference.

Sorry Dems, just pointing out the truth !

Posted by john97068 at 04:16 PM : Aug 17, 2008
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hahaha, john97068 claims the uneducated are to lazy to make a difference and I have to wonder if she is refering to herself.........Rather than any creative thought here, she regurgitates what she has heard Rugh Limpaugh spew. I''m impressed, arent'' you?

[mtracy9]

We can''t give America''s right-wing covert operatives any more chances to steal presidential elections as they did by manipulating the process in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.

[downtowner97]

The Florida election was decided in court, not in polling places.

[xlib]

inventagod2-cite your source.

[xlib]

stn_sage-still whimpering over the Florida issue in 2000?? Then I guess you would say it would have been a good idea to count the military absentee votes then, right???
Just keep registering those dead folks and illegals and you''ll win.
I do believe there is a voter fraud case going on right now in Alabama over some dem wrongdoing. Look it up, why don''t you cause you won''t see it covered here.

[abbe91]

"Fogleman''''s law: An election is fair only if a democrat wins.

Posted by downsteamjim at 08:10 AM : Aug 17, 2008"

In the recent history of this country : yes !

[abbe91]

"However, machine makers are quick to retort, there''s been no documented case of hacking during an actual election, despite what professors have been able to do to a single machine in a lab setting. "

What about the documented glitches ?

[downtowner97]

If there''s one electronic voting machine in one precinct in one state, someone can swing the election. 55% paper isn''t going to do it.

Any you 25 percenters who are so thrilled Bush was made president by the Supreme Court would be outraged if a Democrat narrowly won after news of vote tampering.

[downtowner97]

If voting were real, they wouldn''t let us do it.

[teresablakely]

Field''s comments are disingenuous vendor double speak. There is a low probability of fraud detection in actual elections when there are no audit procedures in place to detect fraud. These extremely insecure and unreliable machines were hastily sold into a market where election officials, much to my amazement, do not mandate an audit of the machine totals against the paper ballots. Stephen Spoonamore a renowned cyber security expert and life long Republican states unambiguously that electronic voting machines cannot be made secure. He provides a stunning indictment of the electronic voting machine industry in a video interview on velvetrevolution.us.

[teresablakely]

Field''s comments are disingenuous vendor double speak. There is a low probability of fraud detection in actual elections when there are no audit procedures in place to detect fraud. These extremely insecure and unreliable machines were hastily sold into a market where election officials, much to my amazement, do not mandate an audit of the machine totals against the paper ballots. Stephen Spoonamore a renowned cyber security expert and life long Republican states unambiguously that electronic voting machines cannot be made secure. He provides a stunning indictment of the electronic voting machine industry in a video interview on velvetrevolution.us.

[tawpdawg111]

This is the very FIRST thing President Obama must CHANGE!

Back to the paper ballot of old with LOTS of random oversight.