Diebold Equipment Vulnerabilities Affect 27 States
Verified Voting's Preliminary Summary Shows Diebold Equipment Vulnerabilities Affect 27 States
Verified Voting
Foundation
June 8th, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Thursday, June 8,
2006
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6362
SAN FRANCISCO – Verified Voting today released a preliminary* summary of states whose elections are at risk due to newly-revealed security vulnerabilities in Diebold voting systems, including the Diebold TSx, TS, and optical scan machines, as uncovered by computer expert Harri Hursti of Black Box Voting.
The summary, which is the first
part of an ongoing Verified Voting effort to track voting
equipment in use throughout the country from all vendors,
was presented yesterday at a Capitol Hill briefing held by
Verified Voting and the National Committee for Voting
Integrity. The briefing provided technical information on
the recently revealed Diebold vulnerabilities. The
vulnerabilities would allow substitution of false vote
totals without any trace or the insertion of malicious
software, using the smart card technology and design
features integral to the machines.
“These security
vulnerabilities are classic examples of why we worry about
electronic voting,” said Verified Voting Founder David L.
Dill, who is a Computer Science Professor at Stanford
University. “There will be an endless series of security
holes, and not just with Diebold equipment. Instead of
trying to make perfectly secure systems, we need to plan for
security problems, by ensuring that we can independently
check the results of the machines. That's what
voter-verified paper records are all about.”
According to the Verified Voting’s preliminary information on the Diebold systems, 27 states are at risk with varying degrees of vulnerability, depending in part on whether the jurisdiction has a voter-verified paper record. Diebold TSx touch screen machines can be equipped to produce such a record, although not all jurisdictions with the TSx chose that option. Diebold TS systems do not offer a voter-verified paper record. Optical scan voting systems use a paper ballot (inherently voter-verified), but they too must be audited to check for accuracy. The three largest states in the country – California, Texas, and Florida – all fall into the at-risk group.
“It’s important for policymakers, local
election officials, and voters to know whether their state
or local jurisdiction is at risk so that appropriate action
can be taken immediately for upcoming elections,” said
Courtenay Strickland Bhatia, President & CEO of Verified
Voting. “But states and jurisdictions without Diebold
equipment should not rest easy,” Bhatia added. “Because
these vulnerabilities are emblematic of the problem overall,
every jurisdiction should require voter-verified paper
records and routine, random, manual audits to provide for
election integrity.”
Eight states had primaries this
past Tuesday, and four more hold their primaries next week.
Twenty-six more states throughout the country have primary
elections from late June through September.
Of the 27 states listed in the report, nine are at high risk, using paperless Diebold TSx and TS machines without any means to recover from exploitation of this vulnerability. Hundreds of counties are at medium risk, having a blended system of Diebold TSx, TS, and optical scan systems, with some votes in some jurisdictions capable of being recovered through paper records. Eighteen states are at lower risk, but only if meaningful audits are carried out using manual counts of the paper record to check the machine vote totals. Most states do not have audit requirements at this time.
For very close races, votes in just a few
jurisdictions can determine statewide results. In such cases
having just one unverifiable jurisdiction throws the entire
election into doubt.
In order to provide a way to
verify accuracy of election results and allow for recovery
in the event of voting system problems, Verified Voting
urges all states that have not yet passed legislation
mandating a voter-verified paper record and routine, random
audits to pass such laws this year. In states that already
have a voter-verified paper record, random audits should be
conducted prior to certification of election results.
“Such audits can and should be voluntarily undertaken
by election officials whether or not a law requiring them
has been passed,” Bhatia stated.
For jurisdictions
where there is no voter-verified paper record, Verified
Voting urges voters to insist that local officials provide
paper ballots as an alternative way to vote at the polling
place.
Pennsylvania provided an example of the
critical importance of providing paper ballots as an
alternative in the polling place two weeks ago, when
hundreds of voting machines failed to start on time or
malfunctioned during the day, and thousands of voters used
paper ballots successfully. Recent experiences in California
and Georgia, where thousands of voters were disenfranchised
by machine malfunctions, have shown that no electronic
voting jurisdiction can afford to go without paper ballots.
Voter-verified paper records provide the necessary
tool to conduct routine, random audits: manual counts of a
significant portion of the paper records, compared to the
machine totals. Such auditing facilitates detection of
problems before election results are certified, and makes
recovery possible when machine counts are in error, whether
due to fraud or machine malfunction. These diagnostic and
recovery systems are all the more important because voting
system software is proprietary and, for the most part, not
available for inspection.
At present, Verified Voting
encourages the use of precinct-count optical scan voting
systems and accessible ballot-marking devices, combined with
audits, as a practical, cost-effective and accessible means
of providing verifiability and recovery capabilities.
The Verified Voting preliminary summary of Diebold
equipment vulnerability by state and county is [linked
below]. Updates to the Verified Voting database of voting
equipment in use throughout the country will be posted to
our web site as they become available.
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* This preliminary report does not claim to be complete; information subject to change, addition or correction.
Diebold Equipment Vulnerability, by state Note:
Information may not be complete. Subject to
change/addition/correction.
http://verifiedvotingfoundation.org/downloads/Diebold%20States%20Summary.pdf