Walworth County considers flawed voting machines
Gazette Xtra
By Mike Heine/Gazette Staff
June 3, 2006

With limited options available, Walworth County municipalities are considering using handicapped-accessible voting equipment that at least one independent tester says poses security risks.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires all polling locations to have handicapped-accessible voting booths. To meet that requirement, the State Elections Board has certified five companies to supply voting equipment.

Walworth County is considering equipment from Diebold Election Systems because Diebold makes the vote-counting machines currently used by cities towns and villages, Walworth County Clerk Kim Bushey said. The touch-screen equipment and software already in place are the most compatible, Bushey said. Buying equipment from another vendor might complicate the election process.

"I can't just go out and pick something up," Bushey said. "The state has a list of approved voting equipment."

But Diebold's handicapped voting equipment has been scrutinized by Black Box Voting, a non-profit, non-partisan, consumer-protection group for elections, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

A Black Box report says the security risks it discovered could "potentially, seriously compromise election security."

The main concern among local election officials is possible unauthorized access to a memory card that stores vote counts, Bushey said. Black Box says the card can be reprogrammed or hacked with different software and change the outcome of an election.

That card is locked in the machine and only clerks and election officials have access to it. A paper tally of all votes cast on the machine acts as a backup, Bushey said.

"If we want to verify the machine is properly programmed, we can look at all the ballots touched by the voters," Bushey said.

The State Elections Board and independent testing labs have certified the machines as safe, Bushey said.

Representatives from Diebold told the Journal Sentinel that the chance of unauthorized access to the system is low. However, the company is working on a fix to reduce chances of a hack.

"I'm confident the State Elections Board and the labs have reviewed the equipment, and we depend on them to provide us with equipment that works," Bushey said.

The county will need 29 of the handicapped-accessible voting machines, one at each polling location. They will cost about $5,500 to $6,000 each, which will be repaid by federal money, Bushey said.

The equipment has not yet been purchased, but will likely come in July or August. The county will use them for the Sept. 12 elections, Bushey said.

County clerks will follow security procedures developed by the State Elections Board.

"Once those procedures are provided for Walworth County, be assured that if we need to make changes in the current procedures, we will do so," Bushey said.

A list of five security precautions is available on the State Elections Board Web site.

It states that each card will have a permanent serial number. Once a card is programmed for the election, it will be placed in the machine and sealed with a tamper-evident seal.

Clerks and election officials will verify and record the seal before each election and log the chain of custody of each memory card-from programming through the official election count.