Counting on Diebold
The provider of Utah?s new voting machines faces allegations of bad security.
by Ted McDonough     Salt Lake Weekly    28 December 2005 

December was a tough month for Diebold Election Systems, the company chosen as the exclusive vendor of voting machines for next year?s Utah elections.

Diebold CEO Walden W. O?Dell resigned without explanation two weeks ago. Days later, three law firms filed class-action lawsuits on behalf of company shareholders, alleging, in part, that Diebold knew its electronic voting machines weren?t up to snuff but lied about problems to boost the stock price. Diebold has denied the claims.

Then, the day O?Dell resigned, Diebold was hammered in Florida where two counties voted to Diebold after testing allegedly showed its voting machines could be hacked to change votes without leaving a trace. The allegedly hacked machines were optical scan devices, a different technology than the touch-screen voting machines Gary Herbert, Utah?s lieutenant governor, chose for the state. Diebold said the circumstances of the hacking tests were not realistic.

Also this month, California?s elections chief refused to certify Diebold?s machines for that state?s 2006 elections, citing ?significant unresolved security concerns? with the machine?s vote-counting memory cards.

None of the foregoing bothers Utah election officials. Polling-place security will keep hackers at bay, they say, and if Diebold machines turn out to be duds, the state has a 10-year guarantee for replacement.

Some county commissioners who voted to accept the voting machines are less sanguine.

?It scares me to death,? said Summit County Commissioner Sally Elliott. ?The recount machines aren?t even invented yet and an election is coming upon us. ? The state is buying those machines, but they?re not finished yet, not tested.?

Elliott said Summit officials dragged their feet as long as they could to investigate Diebold but in the end determined the county couldn?t turn down the state?s offer to purchase the machines. Utah counties were given a September deadline to sign up with Diebold, at state expense, or go off on their own. States, in turn, face a Jan. 1 deadline to tell the feds their voting machines are reliable.

Salt Lake County Councilman Joe Hatch said he voted for Diebold despite unresolved concerns because Herbert?s office ?put a gun to our head and said, ?Take it.??

He is optimistic any glitches will be resolved with time. ?I?m not one of those conspiratorial individuals who believe Diebold is out there as part of some big Republican plot to steal elections,? he said. ?Having said that, though, the onus is on our Republican lieutenant governor, who put all his faith in this system, to make sure it works.?

Joseph Demma, chief of staff to Herbert, dismisses reports of successful hacking tests in Florida. ?The whole security part of hosting an election doesn?t allow for a ?computer scientist? with a drill and computer chips to get into this thing,? he said.

Demma said Utah is the only state in the country that bought voting machines for counties entirely at state expense. Utah is likely to outgrow the current allotment, but the lieutenant governor?s office hopes to stretch available machines with bills it will sponsor in January?s legislative session to allow counties to schedule early voting and increase the number of voters served per polling place to double the current 3,000-person limit.

Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen is comfortable the Diebold machines will be secure. Each machine?s vote-recording memory card is retrievable only with a key that will be attached to a poll-worker?s wrist. At the end of a day?s voting, the memory cards will be collected just as ballots are and transported by sheriff?s deputies. She noted county-election officials will assign candidates positions on the ballot in a way no pre-election hacker could predict.

That doesn?t mean Swensen doesn?t have serious worries. Before any vote, Swensen?s office will test each machine to ensure they count correctly, a process she expects to take more than 100 hours, compared to the one hour needed to test punch-card readers. And Utah is buying Salt Lake County 2,844 voting machines, compared to the 5,000 punch cards stations currently in use. Unless the Legislature allows early voting, Swensen said she won?t have enough machines for the next presidential election.