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California Secretary of State Holds Firm on Voting Machine Integrity
By Hannah Beth Jackson
When Debra Bowen ran for Secretary of State, she ran on a platform of restoring integrity and confidence in the voting process. Although this may sound like an easy task, supported by one and all, it has been anything but. The county clerks and registrars of voters in many of the state’s 58 counties don’t want her treading on their sacred ground.
Historically, the voting process has been under the singular domain of each county registrar. As an example of their commitment to maintaining their autonomy, they went after Kevin Shelley on 2005, after he made it clear he wanted to assure credibility and accuracy of these alleged (and now proven) unreliable vote counting machines. Of course, Shelley had other significant issues, but his insistence that the county folks play ball with him didn’t help him, either.
Secretary Bowen, on the other hand, has no such baggage. She does have, however, a strong independent streak of her own which, when coupled with her strong commitment to this issue and protecting against the hacking of voting equipment that many of us believe influenced the Presidential race in 2004 (think Ohio, in particular), makes her pretty formidable.
After commissioning a study to see whether the voting machine makers could provide a secure and accurate system, she is following the findings of University of California computer experts hired to see if they could hack into these systems. They could, and did, quite easily. They were able to change vote totals and manipulate the “security” in these machines. After a day of hearings this past week, where all this came out, she announced that she has decertified both the Diebold and Sequoia systems. Lots of fallout yet to come on this one, but for a preview check out the article.
With national implications as well, the story is just unfolding. Check out this NY Times article.
Hannah-Beth Jackson is a former Assemblymember who served in the California Assembly from 1998-2004. She Chaired the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety, the Committee on Natural Resources as well as the Legislative Women's Caucus.
After term limits and redistricting forced her out of office, she helped start Speak Out California and serves as its President. Speak Out California is a progressive internet site envisioned by California's progressive leaders to effectively craft the issues and messages that will encourage public participation in bringing new ideas and vision to California's political landscape.
Comments
Along with restoring integrity to Our Voting System, We the People are the Power in Our Nation. Integrity must be demanded from those We Elect. It is time to take back Our Country from Corporate minded Politician's. We can take care of Our Energy Challenges, Our School's, Our Medical System and those Who need assistance in Our Nation by channeling Money away from National Offense.
Posted by: Kory McFarland at August 7, 2007 07:58 PM
The article should note that the SoS after de- certifying the voting machines, she re-certified them immediately to meet the deadline for the use of the machines in the State's February election.
The report on the Top-to-bottom-Review was actually an executive summary of a more technical and longer report. The technical version, for security reasons, may never be available to the public.
The Registrars strongly objected to way the report was conducted arguing that the "Red Team" approach was not done under election day conditions. Actually the investigative team itself in their report stated bluntly that they were making no comment as to whether their attack on the voting machines was feasable.
One of the Vendors, Sequoia, has published a strong rebuttal under "Sequoiavote.com."
This seems to me to be an odd excercise for a Secretary of State whose mission is to assure the public of the integrity of the State's voting procedures.
Robert
Posted by: Robert Warwick at August 7, 2007 08:57 PM
Mr. Warwick has apparently found a bug in your comments section, as his comments have been repeated 5x. As to the content of his remarks, he is well known to us here in Alameda County as being a mouthpiece for the registrar of voters and the voting machine companies. He actually likes Diebold, and defended them last year before the Board of Supervisors. Go figure. It's like he can't read technical reports from the GAO, Princeton university, the Brennan Center report, and I guess he likes the undervote that occurred in Sarasota County in last November's election.
Posted by: policy maven at August 7, 2007 09:33 PM
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