Colorado Lawsuit Filed to Bar E-Voting in November Election

An expert would need just 2 minutes to reprogram and distort votes
on a Diebold, one of four brands of computerized voting systems
attacked in the suit, says attorney Paul Hultin. His firm, Wheeler
Trigg Kennedy, has taken on the case pro bono for a group of 13
citizens of various political stripes.

And he's not the only one alarmed as details of the case spread this week.

The Colorado Democratic Party on Thursday urged all voters to
cast absentee ballots for the November election to avoid potential
fraud, after a key state official said in a deposition that he
certified the computer voting equipment even though he has no college
education in computer science and did little security testing.

But deputy attorney general Maurice Knaizer says Colorado is
protected against tampering because state law now requires a printout
of each computer ballot. The printout can be reviewed by the voter and
is kept at the machine for post-election audits and recounts.

If the electronic and paper tallies don't match, the paper
ballot is used, said Knaizer, who is representing Secretary of State
Gigi Dennis.

Concerns about the machines raised in the lawsuit prompted calls for reviews from both candidates for secretary of state.

State Sen. Ken Gordon, the Democratic candidate who currently is
Democratic majority leader in the state Senate, called on Dennis to
"immediately hire competent staff and perform an adequate and thorough
testing, as the law requires."

Mike Coffman, currently Republican state treasurer, said his
first act if elected would be a full review of all voting systems in
Colorado.

The case goes to trial Wednesday in Denver District Court in front of Judge Lawrence Manzanares.

The four types of computer systems in question are manufactured
by Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart, and are used in some fashion by
every county in the state, affecting hundreds of thousands of voters.

If they are barred just two months before the election, "it
would be impossible, frankly, for a number of these counties to conduct
an election in a reasonable and fair manner," Knaizer said.

Large counties could not print ballots by the Oct. 6 deadline
and could not efficiently hand-count hundreds of thousands of paper
ballots, he said.

But Manzanares could simply choose to order Dennis to come up
with additional security to prevent tampering, said Andy Efaw, one of
the plaintiffs' attorneys.

Threat from hackers, viruses

National computing experts have advised against using computers for voting because they cannot ever be secure, Efaw said.

Just this week, Princeton University researchers experimenting
with a Diebold model said that malicious software can modify all
records. They said the software can be stored on a memory card and
installed by someone in a clerk's office or at the manufacturer's in as
little as one minute. They also found that viruses could spread the
software to all the machines in a system.

Hultin said instructions for tampering with the Diebold machine have been posted on the Internet.

In June, the secretary of state's office warned counties with
certain Diebold machines that an earlier experiment installed
distorting code in just two minutes. In a letter, the office advised
election officials to add three seals to the equipment so any tampering
could be detected.

With this in addition to security procedures and post-election
audits, "we have minimized this threat," wrote Holly Z. Lowder,
director of the elections division.

Gordon and the Democratic Party were alarmed by a deposition in
the case released this week, in which the secretary of state's staffer
in charge of testing the machines says he did only 15 minutes of
security checks.The staffer, John Gardner Jr., also said he had no
college training in computer science, causing Gordon and others to
question whether he was qualified for the job. Gardner also had been
information technology chief for the El Paso County clerk, which runs
elections there.

The plaintiff's attorneys say Gardner's security checks on the
four systems did not include attempts at hacking. Instead, Gardner
merely checked whether the manufacturers included security
documentation.

"Of course" Gardner should have tried hacking, Hultin said. "Isn't that the idea of a test?"

Two elections reversed

Meanwhile, there are concerns about another form of voting
machine that would be an alternative to the machines under attack in
the lawsuit.

Last year, two Colorado elections were reversed when recounts
in tight races found that an Optech III-P optical scanner misread paper
ballots:

• In Salida, Hugh Young initially lost a city council
election to Ron Stowell by three votes. After the recount, he won by
three votes.

• In Clear Creek County, a school issue passed by six
votes, according to the electronic count, and failed by 18 when the
paper ballots were counted. The machines had failed to count more than
100 votes.

The secretary of state's office ordered 10 races audited last
year where the Optech III-P Eagle was used. It was found to have
miscounted ballots where voters skipped some races.

The Optech was decertified and is no longer used in Colorado, said County Clerk Pam Phipps.

Voting machine lawsuit

• What could happen? Computerized voting equipment
in the November elections statewide could be barred from use, forcing
election officials to scramble to come up with alternatives.

• Equipment affected: Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart where voters mark their ballots on a computer screen.

• What happens next: Trial set for Wednesday and Thursday, just six weeks before the election.

• Plaintiffs' claim: Tampering with software can cause votes to be miscounted or undercounted.

• Secretary of state's response: Equipment prints paper record so voters can check their ballots before leaving.

• Other responses: State Democratic Party called
for voters to cast absentee ballots this fall; Democratic candidate for
secretary of state Ken Gordon called for stringent recertification of
equipment; Republican candidate for secretary of state Mike Coffman
promised to review the equipment if elected.

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