E-voting may see an early demise. Debra's promise on the way!

[Stevepol]

THIS COULD BE THE START OF SOMETHING BIG!!

Democracy on the way back

From the article:

California's elections chief is proposing the toughest standards for voting systems in the country — so tough that they could banish ATM-like touch-screen voting machines from the state.
For the first time, California is demanding the right to try hacking every voting machine with "red teams" of computer experts and to study the software inside the machines, line-by-line, for security holes.

The proposals are the first step toward fulfilling a promise that Secretary of State Debra Bowen made during her 2006 election campaign to perform a "top-to-bottom" review of all voting machinery used in California.

County elections officials balked at the proposed standards in a letter Monday to Bowen and hinted broadly at the same conclusion reached by several computer scientists: If enforced rigidly, the standards couldsend many voting machines, especially touch-screens, back for major upgrades. Local elections officials argued that there isn't enough time to fix any deficiencies before the February 2008 presidential primary.

HCPB? You think?

Here's some more:

Advocates for stronger security in voting machinery applauded Bowen's standards and said it marked a refreshing change from regulating voting systems based heavily on what manufacturers were willing to sell.

"Debra Bowen is holding up voting machines to the standards they deserve," said Avi Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University who published one of the first technical critiques of e-voting software. "I don't know of any other state in the country that requires red team testing of voting machines, and I've long maintained that this is the only reasonable way to test security."

Stanford computer science professor David Dill, the founder of VerifiedVoting.org, endorsed Bowen's standards as "quite good."

"I think it's much to be preferred over our current see-no-evil approach," Dill said. In every other case of "red team" attacks on voting machines and examination of their software code, experts have found major security problems, he noted.

"It will be interesting to see what happens once the problems are found out," Dill said. "That could be tricky, depending on what disruptions there might be."

One of Bowen's proposed standards for California voting machines echoes a state law that has been in place three years, but never enforced. It requires every electronic voting machine to offer a paper record that blind voters can verify through an audio playback. Many computer scientists say most ATM-like touch-screen voting machines sold today and used in almost three-fourths of California counties cannot meet that standard.

Link: http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/ci_5537683

Here are a couple more links on the same subject.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_5537748

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/regstate/articles/6741902.html

And here's Brad on Hackin' Hari:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4332

[Webster Green]

1. California ahead of the curve once again..

Secretary of State Debra Bowen Rocks!

[aquart]

2. Toss the junk.

[DCKit]

3. Headline: Al Gore Wins in 2008

[juno jones]

4. I lived in CA

during the notorious recall election. I have always questioned the victory of Herr Gropinator over the pro-labor, pro-union hispanic Bustamente. I know there are a lot of dumb people there, but I think the numbers would have been a bit different had we had transparent voting. In fact, I remember a rush to get the touchscreens up before the election (which was all started up by Darryl Issa, who THOUGHT he was a contender and has ties to the CURRENT scandal)...anyways have no proof, but it always smelled bad to me, and recent experience has made me even more leery...I'm glad they're investigating them

[truedelphi]

10. I have friends who thought the machines got the Gropinater the victory

But I don't know

I voted for Bustamante but held my nose the whole time I did it.

He was just so strange as a candidate - and with his statement that he would never take campaign funding from anyone with a special interest and then turning around and grabbing 200K from Indian tribes - I don't know

The problem is that in California - the state is so big - that you need a huge power base to runfrom. We never seem to get good candidates for Governor.

[msongs]

5. county election people hate to give up the freebies and junkets nt

[Ellipsis]

6. #5

[dooner]

7. It's a big reason Bruce McPherson lost the last election

He clearly didn't get the serious nature of the voting machine problem... Debra Bowen said she would make it a priority.
I'm really happy to hear she isn't wasting any time making good on her promise!

[kster]

8. Once a Politician always a Politician ,Al Gore says

1) Machine count with a careful hand count is accepted far and wide as the best way to know the true intentions of the voters.

2) Settle this matter with finality and justice in a period of days, not weeks.

3) We need to move expeditiously to the most complete and accurate count that is possible.

4) We believe the count can be completed with seven days of the time it starts


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/july-dec00/gore_11-15.html

Why keep doing all this bullshit, get rid of the machines, and if you are afraid to get rid of the machine's and you are in a position to do this, ORDER a Hand Count of the Paper Ballots immediately following the machine count,.

I mean what is so hard about that, If YOU ARE going to do a machine count, there is going to be a AUTOMATIC Hand Count IMMEDIATELY following the election.,

I like Debra, but this is a NO BRAINIER, COME ON !! K&R

[EFerrari]

9. K&R