Iowa's
discussion of purchasing new election equipment is likely to be
affected by a landmark review of voting systems in Ohio. A report
ordered by the Ohio Secretary of State and released December 14 found
severe flaws in all of the voting systems Iowa uses.

“The Ohio
review looked at every system Iowa uses, and found real risks to the
integrity of elections,” said Iowans for Voting Integrity co-chair Sean
Flaherty.  Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said that the
security problems discovered were “worse than she anticipated.” [1]

Computer
scientists who analyzed the software wrote that within a few weeks,
they were able to subvert “every voting system they were provided in
ways that would often lead to undetectable manipulation of election
results.”  Computer scientists have previously found that
malicious code can be written to escape pre-election and post-election
testing, running only under desired conditions.[2] The Ohio reviewers
warned that it is “safe to assume that motivated attackers will quickly
identify – or already have – these and many other issues in the
systems.”[3]

Equally troubling was a threat to voter privacy in
the design of the TSx touch screen voting machine, made by
Diebold/Premier and used in 71 Iowa counties.  Ohio reviewers
confirmed reports that the TSx records votes in its computer memory
with a time stamp, allowing anyone with access to the system and
knowledge of the time of day that a vote was cast to violate voter
privacy.[4] Iowa Code 52.7 requires that all voting systems used in the
state permit voting “in absolute secrecy.”

 Ohio Secretary
Brunner has recommended scrapping all touch screens and using only
optically scanned paper ballots. Flaherty said, “Hopefully, these
findings will seal the fate of touch screen systems in Iowa”.
Legislation signed by Governor Culver in May requires counties
eventually to scrap touch screens and adopt a system of optically
scanned paper ballots, which are marked by the voter and later
tabulated by a machine.  Funding is needed for counties to make
switch as quickly as possible. Iowa's legislators,  Governor
Culver, and Secretary of State Michael Mauro are discussing funding for
new equipment this month.

Paper ballots are the beginning of the
solution. Ballot  scanners also use software, so hand-count audits
of a sample of ballots to check the electronic tally are
necessary.  Audits are championed by many computer scientists who
study voting systems, including a task force that included the former
chief security officer of Microsoft and University of Iowa voting
system expert Douglas Jones.[5] 16 states have laws requiring hand
audits of election results.[6]

“The combination of optically
scanned paper ballots and hand audits provides checks and balances that
build confidence in the system,'' Flaherty said.

[1]   
“Ohio Elections Official Calls Machines Flawed.” By Bob Driehaus. New
York Times, December 15, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/
2007/12/15/us/15ohio.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

[2]   
“The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic
World.”  Report of the Brennan Center for Justice Task Force on
Voting System Security, pages 43-45.  http://brennancenter.org/
dynamic/subpages/download_file_39288.pdf

[3]   
EVEREST Academic Review Team Findings, page 4 (page 22 of pdf),
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/info/EVEREST/
14-AcademicFinalEVERESTReport.pdf

[4]    IBID, page 154 (page 172 of pdf)

[5]    “The Machinery of Democracy,” page 3. http://brennancenter.org/dynamic/subpages/
download_file_39288.pdf

[6]   
“Manual Audit Requirements.” The Verified Voting Foundation. March
2007, http://www.verifiedvoting.org/downloads/
stateaudits1007.pdf

For More Information Contact Sean Flaherty, Co-Chair
Iowans for Voting Integrity
319-621-8651
sean@iowansforvotingintegrity.org
http://www.IowansForVotingIntegrity.org