In California, officials and activists agree that the state’s Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail law, which requires every electronic ballot to have a paper counterpart, should protect us from any possible election fraud involving touch-screen voting machines.
In March 2006, computer-security expert Harri Hursti tested Diebold Election Systems’ TSx touch-screen voting machines in Emery County, Utah. His report for the independent watchdog group Black Box Voting exposed a major security hole in the popular system. These vulnerabilities have been verified by researchers at Princeton University.
Diebold denies some of the claims made by these scientists and has argued that physical security measures implemented by election workers are enough to prevent a computer attack. Election officials familiar with electronic voting systems also say these machines are reliable and highly accurate.
But many questions remain:
How might this security hole be exploited? Is it as serious as some computer scientists fear? Was it a simple oversight or deliberate design feature? What can our government do to better help election reform?
View our Web interactive above to catch up and then check the resource links below and our Newsroom blog for an investigative series and updates.
- Harri Hursti’s redacted report for Black Box Voting
- Black Box Voting, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, election watchdog organization
- Diebold Election Systems
- California Secretary of State’s Voting Systems
- California Secretary of State’s independent study of previous Diebold security concerns by its Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board (pdf)
- Help America Vote Act of 2002
- United States Election Assistance Commission. By the end of 2006, EAC will oversee all federal testing and certifications for electronic voting machines, as well as the development of election management, training and transparency guidelines.
- National Association of State Election Directors. NASED voluntarily oversees federal testing and certification for electronic voting machines. It will be handing over its duties to the EAC by the end of 2006.
- California Online Voter Guide, The California Voter Foundation
- Verified Voting Foundation
- ACCURATE, A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections, supported by the National Science Foundation
- Voter Action, a voter rights group that has brought important lawsuits against several states and counties concerning electronic voting systems
- UC Berkeley’s Election Administration Research Center, with links to contact information for California’s county election officials.
- Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
- “Not Quite a Blog”, Web log by Joseph Lorenzo Hall, U.C. Berkeley Ph.D student working under the auspices of ACCURATE.
- Voting and Elections by Douglas W. Jones, computer science professor from the University of Iowa; recognized expert on electronic voting systems.
- An illustrated history of voting by Douglas Jones
- RABA Technology’s 2004 report on Diebold’s electronic voting machines (pdf)
- Election Updates, a blog covering new research, analysis and commentary on election reform, voting technology, and election administration.
- Sequoia Voting Systems, Electronic Voting Vendor
- Election Systems & Software, Electronic Voting Vendor
- Hart Intercivic Election Solutions, Electronic Voting Vendor
- Security Risk Seen in Electronic Voting Machines, Story by Linda Wertheimer for National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, May 20, 2006
- “Will Your Vote Count in 2006?”, article by Steven Levy for Newsweek, May 29, 2006
- “New security glitch found in Diebold system”, article by Ian Hoffman for the Oakland Tribune, May 10, 2006