Terror fears to slow vote results

Ballot machines will be driven to Fresno for tabulating.

By Kerri Ginis
The Fresno Bee 23 August 2004

Fresno County voters will have to wait at least two hours longer for election results in November because officials are concerned that terrorists could tamper with returns transmitted over phone lines.

Poll workers no longer will send the results electronically after the polls close at 8 p.m. Instead, drivers will transport the voting machines from as far away as Coalinga and Shaver Lake to a warehouse in downtown Fresno guarded by sheriff's deputies. Officials will take out the memory cards and download the results directly onto the county's election server.

Said Fresno County Clerk Victor Salazar: "Yes, it's going to take longer, but there are those who will attempt to hack into our computer system, so we're going to close down our points of access."

Concerns have been growing throughout the United States about the possibility of terrorists disrupting November's general election. Authorities arrested a Pakistani man earlier this month who they said was communicating with al-Qaida operatives about a plot to carry out an attack to disrupt the U.S. election.

 "Our environment has changed," Salazar said. "So we're taking precautions at all levels." But election officials in other central San Joaquin Valley counties are not planning to change the way they process results.

Tulare County uses the same system as Fresno County's, but officials there said they still plan to transmit over phone lines.

"I think we have procedures in place to verify that the results are correct," Elections Division Manager Hiley Wallis said.

Kings County election officials have not decided whether they will stop transmitting results.

Said Elections Manager Ed Rose: "We're always concerned, but whether or not we're going to take that kind of a drastic measure, I don't know."

The new procedure on election night in Fresno County will force officials to find drivers who can transport the machines, which weigh roughly 10 pounds, to downtown Fresno. Salazar said the county already recruits about 3,000 people to work on Election Day. The majority are poll workers. Some will be assigned to driving duty.

The plan is for the drivers to leave with the machines, which are similar in size to a computer printer, shortly after the polls close. Once they get to the warehouse, the machines will be logged in and their memory cards extracted.

Officials estimate it will take less than 10 seconds to download the information from the memory cards to the county server.

"If we have open phone lines, someone can get into it without us knowing," said Marc Gonzalez, an analyst in the County Clerk's Office. "This way, the results will go onto our own local network that's not connected to the Internet and not connected to the county's Web site."

It could take some drivers more than an hour to get from a polling site to the downtown Fresno warehouse. The additional travel time will mean that most election results won't appear on the county's Web site until after 10 p.m. In past elections, residents could access some results as early as 8:30 p.m.

Salazar believes most people will understand the reason for the delay: "When we tell them there are no points of entry into the system, I think that will reassure them."

And he points out that with every election, there are unforeseen delays in getting results. About 10% of the voting machines typically have problems during transmission, forcing poll workers to bring the machines to election headquarters.

Election officials are still finalizing their plan for dealing with the flow of traffic at the warehouse. They also need to determine if a driver can transport more than one machine.

Salazar said he knows some people will say he's overreacting, but he believes the change is necessary.

"I think we are just reacting to the environment we find ourselves in," he said. "I truly believe we are bolstering the confidence of the electorate."