electionline Weekly

In Focus This Week

Questions persist about California vote system review
Missed deadlines, miscommunication mar evaluation

By Kat Zambon
electionline.org

In a 2006 election debate between incumbent California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson (R), and state Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Ray, the challenger said if elected she would “revisit systems that have been approved by the state and create stricter monitoring requirements.”

Now, six months into her term as secretary of state, Bowen is following through on her campaign promise with a top-to-bottom review of the state’s voting systems.

“The stakes are too high,” Bowen said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “The voters need to feel confident that their votes are being counted.”

However, questions remain about the implications of the results of those tests, which started in late May and are scheduled to end in late July. And since a recent move pushed the California state primary to the beginning of February, there is little time for error.

Bowen’s office is contracting for the testing with the University of California, led by Matthew Bishop, a computer science professor at UC Davis, and David Wagner, an associate professor of computer science at UC Berkeley. The review is expected to cost $1.8 million, most of it coming from the voting system vendors and $760,000 of which will come from the Help America Vote Act.

“This top-to-bottom review is designed with one goal in mind: to ensure that California’s voters cast their ballots on voting systems that are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible,” Bowen said in a May press release.

One vendor’s noncompliance with system review deadlines has led to controversy. Bowen’s office is considering decertification for ES&S InkaVote, which has been used in Los Angeles County elections, because ES&S failed to submit the software’s source code by the deadline.

Vendors were told about the review on March 26 and given 30 days to submit the necessary materials, according to the Daily Bulletin. While some vendors took extra time to fulfill the request, ES&S did not comply until June 26, a few days after Bowen started seeking access to the code through the vendor’s escrow facility.

 The three vendors with systems in the top-to-bottom review are Sequoia, Diebold and Hart InterCivic and they were cooperative and provided everything requested and they are being reviewed as we speak. It was only ES&S” that didn’t comply with deadlines, Nicole Winger, Bowen’s spokeswoman said.

However, according to Conny McCormack, Los Angeles County clerk, two voting system vendors – Diebold and Hart Intercivic – did not send their source code or money for the review until after the deadline. Hart Intercivic sent their source code June 15 and Diebold sent it June 8. “They were passed the deadline that was established and nothing happened to them,” she said.

Lowell Finley, deputy secretary of state, said that there are differences between the InkaVote source code that was placed in escrow and the code certified by McPherson last year, which may be a violation of state election law. McCormack said that Finley never asked for an explanation of the discrepancy, which ES&S attributed to typographical error in a July letter to Finley. “One would have thought to immediately call and ask instead of going to the media about it,” McCormack said.

McCormack said that she learned from a reporter that InkaVote would not be included in the top-to-bottom review. Finley wrote to ES&S on July 5 to say that the system would not be part of the review but Bowen still intends to evaluate the system, though it will likely be more challenging and expensive since it will involve bringing the current review team together again.

“We are at the moment looking at trying a phased review. They cannot escape the same comprehensive review because of their attempt to run out the clock,” Winger said. “We are talking with leaders of the top-to-bottom review teams to find out if we can reconfigure a team, how much more that would cost in people and time and money because of ES&S’s tardiness and noncompliance.”

When asked what will happen in Los Angeles County if the InkaVote system is decertified, Winger said, “The top to bottom review will be completed by the end of this month. We will have an answer to that question by August 3 once we know the results.”

“Why would we have a contingency plan? We have a federally certified system,” McCormack said. “Our contingency plan is to keep using the equipment we’ve purchased.”

“I do think they’re being singled out, there’s no question, purportedly because they missed a deadline” that the other vendors also missed, McCormack added about ES&S. “It sounds like a double standard to me.”

If the Hart InterCivic eSlate machines used by San Mateo County are decertified, the county will hand count paper ballots for the next election. David Tom, San Mateo County election manager, said that there isn’t any way they can complete a hand ballot count by 28 days after the election, the deadline to certify an election.

“We haven’t really been involved with the testing,” Tom said. Though he was invited to tour the testing facilities, “we’re really somewhat in the dark about this … The bottom line is we don’t know, we simply don’t know enough about it.”

Tom said that he supports Bowen’s review though he is confident in San Mateo County’s existing voting system.

“I think we’re all for that but as far as our own view of our system, we’ve tested it, we’ve used it,” he said, adding that the system has been successfully audited and proven to be accurate. “We also understand that any system in any given environment can continue to be improved,” he said.

California will hold three statewide elections in 2008 – scheduled for February, June and November – and Bowen is required to give at least six months of notice when a voting system cannot be used for an election, requiring her to rule on the systems by the first week of August according to the San Mateo Daily Journal. 

In a June 14 letter to Bowen, the California State Association of Counties said that they are deeply concerned that the top-to-bottom review “will create significant uncertainty in the ability of counties to conduct upcoming elections.” The letter made four main complaints: the lack of final standards and procedures for the review; Bowen’s failure to take county officials’ input into consideration; the inclusion of consultants on the review panel who have previously expressed strong opinions on voting technology; and the lack of published regulations related to the review.

“Our member counties concur with the need to ensure that voting systems are secure, accurate and reliable … However, the timing and the unclear standards and procedures of this review will make it very difficult to conduct upcoming elections,” the letter stated.

Winger explained that a lot of the criticism of the review is related to the review’s independence. “The review by its very nature is independent. Neither Secretary Bowen and her staff nor county officials and their staff have a part in the review,” she said. “Secretary Bowen has been as inclusive as possible in this process and has had regular conference calls with all of the counties on the line.”

Regarding concerns about the absence of review standards, Bowen said during a May conference call, “We have asked the experts to create measuring sticks. They need to tell us where the greatest threats are, and what conditions pose the greatest real world risk.”

One unique facet of this review is the incorporation of red team attackers, the first such test of voting equipment in the country, Bowen said. According to Red Team Test Protocol on the Secretary of State’s web site, “The goal of red team testing is to determine whether there are conditions under which the systems can be compromised.” The red team testing will assume threats from both insiders, such as those who have access to all parts of the election management system, and outsiders who have access to limited access to the systems, such as voters and poll workers.

All equipment being reviewed by members of the red team are kept in a locked cage when the reviewers aren’t working and documents are kept in a special safe. Bowen herself is not allowed entry into the red team’s work space without an escort. According to Capitol Notes, red team testing began June 26 and is focused on insider attacks.

The review seeks to balance Bowen’s desire to keep it as open and transparent as possible while protecting the vendors’ proprietary information. Bowen has taken reporters on a tour of the building where the review is being conducted. While the public isn’t allowed in the room where the testing occurs, there is an observation room where up to 40 visitors may watch the proceedings while the red team members work. Four cameras project different angles of the room to observers. However, the reviewers’ voices are muted, allowing them to work while protecting proprietary information.

While the review is physically transparent, the composition of the review team has been criticized for including electronic voting opponents. “They have a background that should be disclosed because every single person is a product of their background,” McCormack said. A spokeswoman for Sequoia said that they hoped the team would include an even distribution of e-voting critics and industry experts, according to The Californian. The reviewers’ biographies are posted on the vote review’s web site.

“We have been surprised that a few counties have complained about our attempt to be open and transparent. Most counties will tell us that they support the goal of this review,” Winger said. “That is and should be the goal of every elections official.”

Winger said that Bowen intends to hold a public hearing about the review on July 30 in Sacramento.