toledoblade.com --

WASHINGTON - A national conference of computer security specialists concluded yesterday with almost universal agreement that touch-screen voting technology the federal government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on since the 2000 Florida election debacle may be vulnerable to errors and tampering.

"I believe democracy is actually at risk because of ... electronic voting,'' said David Dill of Stanford University. He told the audience: "Democracy rests on your shoulders. I mean ... it rests on the shoulders of the computer security community."

Ohio is slated for $159 million in federal money through the Help America Vote Act for new voting technology and training of election officials. The state has already received $32 million for equipment and is about to get $19 million more for training. But Ohio is in the midst of a major controversy and study on whether the system can be operational soon enough and whether the system will be open to fraud.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D, Toledo) said yesterday in recent weeks she has become extremely worried about the potential perils of electronic voting - especially whether enough money will be forthcoming in time from Washington to train election officials.

"Nothing is more important than our right to vote," she said. "We have to take the time to ask the extra questions."

Because of concerns being raised about Ohio's purchase of new technology, the safety of software for it, and the difficulties of training thousands of local election officials, a demonstration of new technology is taking place in Columbus today. Miss Kaptur helped to organize a contingent of academic leaders from Toledo to attend.

The research of Aviel Rubin of Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University's Information Security Institute has been widely cited as proof there are major problems with electronic voting. Mr. Rubin said yesterday his research found serious problems with software for such machines and that the code for one popular machine was even widely available on the Internet.

He said at least one vendor of the machines and one high-ranking state elections official, who has bought the equipment, tried in vain to get him fired after his research findings became public, even writing to the president of Johns Hopkins.

"They [vendors] have a lot is at stake," he said.

The machines of Diebold Elections Systems, a prominent maker in North Canton, Ohio, were the target of Mr. Rubin's research and were in use around the country. Lucas County has ordered its machines. The firm declined an invitation to appear at yesterday's symposium.

Diebold, however, has counter-charged that Mr. Rubin used the wrong software, hardware, and environment to conduct his test and failed to take into account the use of poll watchers who could prevent so-called smart cards from being used by more than one voter. Mr. Rubin said Diebold's charges about his research were not true.

Douglas Jones of the University of Iowa said he also found flaws in Diebold's machines years before Mr. Rubin published his results, and they still have not been corrected.

The security symposium, sponsored by the Advanced Computing Systems Association, featured a panel of academics.

One basic problem widely discussed at the symposium was the difficulty of voter verification and how to secure an audit trail. There are many concerns that local officials could skew the machines to record votes falsely.

Sanford Morganstein, a vendor who showed up and was widely cheered for his "courage," represented Populex. "We welcome criticism. If we've got a thin skin, we shouldn't be in this business," he said.

He said his company was asked to get into the business by the state of Illinois because of the history of voting fraud in Chicago.

He said that his company's system uses touch-screen technology that prints out the voter's selection on a card with a bar code that the voter must drop into a ballot box to have counted. "Can it be fooled? Yes. Can it be better? Yes," he said.

Jim Adler, of VoteHere, a developer of technology for voting machines, said the major problem was that the voter had to be able to know his vote was cast. Another problem is that insiders are not trusted.

"The nightmare scenario," he said, "is the election that goes against the polls, and there is no proof of the outcome." There has to be a system developed so that election observers audit the machines on Election Day, he insisted.

Most of the computer specialists who spoke at the symposium yesterday said that while there has been 15 years of solid research, the last mile is proving difficult because the technology is not advanced enough yet.

Miss Kaptur said yesterday she was delighted there was new national interest in the problems that were not well known when Congress voted to pass the Help America Vote Act after the 2000 elections. There was such a clamor to prevent future dramas over hanging chads that the new voting machines seemed ideal.

Miss Kaptur said she was concerned that voting technology would not be ready in time. She also said voters, especially seniors citizens, might not be used to using computers.

"We don't want confused voters,'' she said.

The Ohio secretary of state's office has appointed a security team to look into the issue of whether tampering could be widespread and whether there are ways to yield quick fixes.

At yesterday's conference, there were no computer specialists who were willing to say that solutions would be available soon. The specialists said no completely electronic system was error-proof and that a paper trail was still the most reliable tool against fraud. But most agreed that paper receipts taken from the polling place could be used for vote buying or, said one specialist, "an Uncle Al who wants to force you to vote his way."

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