[Voterescue] Ohio GOP blocks testing of voting machines

[Vickie Karp]

  http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2800



Why doesn't the GOP want Ohio's voting machines tested?
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
September 11, 2007

Ohio Republicans have blocked a proposal to test electronic voting
machines prior to the 2008 presidential primary.

By a 4-3 vote, Republicans on Ohio's State Controlling Board blocked
Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's proposed $1.8 million
unbid contract for voting machine testing.  Brunner had already set aside
the $1.8 million for the test. Her specific request to the Controlling
Board was a waiver for competitive bidding. Her office had hoped to
complete all testing by November 30, 2007.

A former judge, Brunner is successor to the infamous J. Kenneth
Blackwell, who helped engineer the theft of Ohio's electoral votes for
George W. Bush in 2004.  Brunner won election as a reform candidate,
vowing to guarantee the public access to the polls---and an accurate vote
count---in 2008.

In California, Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen recently
completed an extensive testing of that state's electronic voting
machines.  She decertified many of them and is on course to rework how
America's biggest state casts and counts its ballots.

Brunner has not been quite so aggressive.  When it was recently revealed
that 56 of 88 Ohio counties illegally destroyed protected materials from
the 2004 election, she showed little reaction.  She has also stated
publicly doubts that the irregularities that defined the Ohio vote that
year could have affected the outcome or that the illegal destruction of
more than 2000 ballots could have been intentional. 

But in attempting to carry out her promise to test Ohio's electronic
voting machines, Brunner has followed through on public demands that the
ability of Ohio's electronic machines to deliver a fair and reliable vote
count be proven.  Tests and studies conducted by the federal Government
Accountability Office, Princeton University, Johns Hopkins, the Brennan
Center, the Carter-Baker Election Commission, John Conyer's House
Judiciary Committee and others have all shown clearly that electronic
voting machines are unreliable and easily rigged. 

The New York Times has now joined that consensus, calling for an outright
federal ban.   "Electronic voting has been an abysmal failure," the Times
said .  "Computer experts have done study after study showing that
electronic voting machines, which are often shoddily made, can easily be
hacked. With little effort, vote totals can be changed and elections
stolen."

Apparently, the Ohio GOP is not anxious to have a state study add to such
conclusions.  At a Monday hearing, State Senator Steve Stivers
(R-Columbus) attempted to table Brunner's request before she was allowed
to speak. Only the procedural intervention of Controlling Board President
Joe Secrest afforded Brunner the courtesy of presenting her controversial
proposal.

Brunner's plan calls for contracts with testing companies that are
preferred by the voting machine vendors like SysTest Labs and computer
security experts from various universities to inspect the machines under
the management of the Battelle Memorial Institute.

But Senator John Carey (R-Wellston) angrily reacted to Brunner's mention
of the tests conducted in California, saying they were the work
of "leftists and extremists." Both Stivers and Carey questioned the
independence and objectiveness of the academics from Cleveland State,
Penn State, and the University of Pennsylvania listed in Brunner's plan.

Cleveland State University Law Professor Candace Hoke, who witnessed the
California tests of e-voting machines for hackability, told the
Controlling Board that "Within ten seconds to two minutes . . . they
found many different ways" to hack the machines.

Both Brunner and Hoke stressed the lack of security measures now used at
Ohio's polling places. The issues of so-called "sleepovers" used in some
Ohio counties, like Hocking, were cited. This practice involves often
untrained poll workers to take hackable voting machines home with them
the weekend before an Election Day.

Brunner repeatedly emphasized the need to establish a "chain of custody"
concerning both the access and memory cards used in voting machines, the
latter serving as an electronic ballot box. In recent elections, memory
cards have gone missing for hours on election nights in both Toledo and
Dayton.

State Senator Ray Miller (D-Columbus) declared that election security is
"the most important issue that's come before the Controlling Board." He
said, "It's way beyond the building of buildings. It goes to the core of
our democracy."

But the attack on Brunner's testing contract was initiated by Ohio
Speaker of the House Republican John Husted in the morning prior to the
September 10 Controlling Board meeting. He sent a letter to Brunner
demanding she remove the requested contract proposal from the Controlling
Board agenda. "At the present time, too many outstanding questions remain
regarding the scope of this request and the intent of the study," he
wrote.

Brunner responded by saying "our testing process allows for parallel
independent testing of Ohio's voting systems by both corporate testing
entities and some of the nation's best computer security research
scientists, allowing them to collaborate as needed.

"I regret I cannot accede to your request to delay," she added, "as I
need information to prepare for the early March 4 primary election so
that Ohio's voters can trust that we have done all possible to ensure the
safety, reliability and trustworthiness of our voting systems in Ohio."

Early voting will begin here in late January.  But the GOP clearly
intends to delay the testing in Ohio and conduct yet another election on
eminently hackable electronic voting machines.

--
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE
AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, which is available via
www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared. Editor's note:
Correction of sentence in paragraph 11 quote from - "they found many
different ways" changed from "thirty different ways." 
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