Dr. Rebecca Mercuri offers her suggestions for improvements in the way AccuVote OS voting machines are used in terms of security protocols, automatic hand recounts, and vendors.
Rebecca Mercuri, one of the world's leading computer security and voting specialists, joins us to discuss voting machine security for the State of Connecticut. Rebecca Mercuri's articles appear in Security Watch, a publication of the association for computing machinery where she is also a contributing editor.
Dr. Rebecca Mercuri has provided formal testimony and comment to the House Science Committee, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the Election Assistance Commission, the National Institute of Standards and Technologies, the U.K. Cabinet, and numerous U.S. state legislatures. Her advocacy work has directly influenced the wording of state, federal, and international election legislation as well as standards and best practices guidelines. Her articles and reports are available on the web site http://www.notablessoftware.com
As expected there were serious problems with Connecticut's electronic voting machines during the Super Tuesday primary. Back up machines were brought in to replace failing ones in West Hartford, Stamford, Windsor Locks, Manchester, Goshen and East Haven. And Memory card failures cropped up again as registrars set up their machines. In Glastonbury five blank cards were issued by LHS Associates, the vendor for the Diebold AccuVote Optical Scan machines.
After a recall of memory cards for Florida's AccuVote optical scanners in 2007 and widespread other serious problems with the machines found in states like California, Diebold has seen its' stock collapse and was unable to sell the voting division, which is now operating under the name Premier Election Solutions.
In our next program we will be featuring interviews with the registrars and clerks who have been dealing with voting machine failures during the presidential primary, and we will discuss the need for more specific technical training. Something they have asked for, and clarity in the rules provided by Secretaries of the State in Connecticut and New Hampshire.
It is clear that problems we identified in 2006 and 2007 cropped up again during the primary and will certainly be an issue again in November unless action is taken to plug security leaks in Connecticut's voting system. The big question for state voters is how can the election be verified and what measures will be taken to hold all those who handle this technology accountable for using it in a way that provides for a safe and secure election.
Public hearings will be held in Connecticut to discuss these and other questions, the hearings were called for by state legislators concerned about electronic voting. Meanwhile, the Connecticut Post-Election Audit Coalition is calling for volunteers to observe the February post-election audits. The Coalition is pointing out that there were over counts during the 2007 state and municipal election in the amounts of 54, 28, 26, 26, 22, 16, 14, and 14. One over count of 72 seems like an obvious counting error to the coalition. You can learn more at http://www.ctvoterscount.org
Where a paper ballot is counted on a memory card inserted into an optical scan machine there is an opportunity for fraud, and Dr. Rebecca Mercuri is arguing for an automatic full recount in order to make certain every vote counted. She testified to the need for a federal mandate through HAVA or other legislation that would provide stricter voting system standards and procedural and audit controls. And that is where Connecticut officials have lost their way despite having at least selected a machine that relies on a verifiable paper ballot.
We will hear more from Dr. Rebecca Mercuri next time as we look at Connecticut voting machine failures in the vulnerabilities that exist due to the state's unclear voting machine security protocols.
And if y ou go to notablessoftware.com you will learn that in 2002 Rebecca Mercury was contacted by former Attorney General Janet Reno for her help in solving the mystery of the thousands of votes that vanished from the new touch-screen machines being used in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. Some of those machines were AccuVote machines manufactured by Diebold. After the infamous 2000 election Dr. Rebecca Mercuri's testimony and opinions were sought in Bush v. Gore and referenced in briefs presented to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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