Diebold TSx banned in CA, other DREs decertified until conditions met...
The Secretary of State's press release is here. Here is the official decertification of the Diebold TSx, and here is the same for other machines.
A Choice quote:
�I want to state clearly and unequivocally: there will be a paper trail for every single vote cast in the state of California, and it will happen on my watch,� Shelley said. �By May 30, the state of California will have standards in place for Accessible, Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (AVVPAT). I call on the federal government to move immediately on this issue as well, and just this week I have received positive indications from the chairman of the newly formed Federal Elections Assistance Commission that it will do so. These actions will clear the path for every county in the state using touchscreen systems to put a paper trail in place.�
This is a very interesting order by Shelley. It basically says Diebold screwed up bigtime (and the CA Attorney General will be investigating criminal and civil action). It goes further to say that all DRE-based systems (read: official vote lies on some sort of re-writeable electronic media and not on an official paper ballot) are decertified until they either:
- Install the ability to produce a paper-based voter-verifiable ballot; or
- Meet and additional 23 security measures before they will be re-certified.
I'm sorry I don't have time to transcribe the list of things that DRE-systems have to abide by in order to get re-certified... check out pages 5-9 of the decertification document. It's a pretty extensive list of requirements from guaranteeing physical security of the machines, to making sure no software modifications are done past 45 days from an election to prohibiting phone, wireless or Internet connections of any kind. Wow.
Here's the NYT's take (print to PDF if you ever want to read this story again!):
High-Tech Voting System Is Banned in California
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
California has banned the use of more than 14,000 electronic voting machines made by Diebold Inc. in the November election because of security and reliability concerns, Kevin Shelley, the California secretary of state, announced yesterday. He also declared 28,000 other touch-screen voting machines in the state conditionally "decertified" until steps are taken to upgrade their security.
Mr. Shelley said that he was recommending that the state's attorney general look into possible civil and criminal charges against Diebold because of what he called "fraudulent actions by Diebold."
Posted by joebeone at Mayo 1, 2004 09:12 AM | TrackBack