Group Sues to Block Electronic Voting Machine
    By Alison Hawkes
    The Times Online

    Wednesday 18 Janaury 2006

    Harrisburg - Critics of electronic voting machines have sued Secretary of State Pedro Cortes seeking to block county purchase of the new machines by the May primary and a redo of machine certification.

    The Coalition for Voting Integrity, a statewide group with origins in Bucks County, says Cortes, as head of the Pennsylvania Department of State, has not applied uniform standards in certifying nearly two dozen new electronic machines.

    If approved, the machines will replace Eisenhower-era lever machines as part of new federal law that was an outgrowth of the 2000 election debacle in Florida.

    The group argues its constitutional voting rights are being violated because the department has not adequately checked the new machines for their reliability and security.

    The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Commonwealth Court, points to the department's denial in certification of one of Diebold's AccuVote optical-scan machines, in part, because it didn't pass a hacking test done by a Finnish security expert in June 2005.

    The department did not consider or perform hacking tests on other voting machines before certifying them, the lawsuit contends.

    "I don't need a (party) committeeman anymore," said the coalition's attorney, Lawrence Otter. "I'll just have a high school computer geek hanging outside the polling place and fixing votes as I see fit."

    Department of State spokeswoman Allison Hrestak said she could not comment on the lawsuit. But she did say state election law has 17 requirements that must be met to approve new electronic voting machines.

    Among them are requirements that the machines: preserve voter secrecy; allow only one vote per office; are "safely and efficiently usable"; correctly record and tabulate every valid vote; and provide "acceptable ballot security procedures ... to prevent tampering with or substitution of any ballots."

    "If you look at the part about absolute secrecy, that in a nutshell, even though it is very vague, is of utmost importance" to the hearing examiners, Hrestak said.

    Hrestak added that state examiners are not themselves undertaking hacking tests on the machines, but "if another report like (the one on Diebold) came out, we would take it into consideration."

    Otter said the law's requirements are based on broad principles, and what his clients want is evidence that specific procedures are being applied uniformly to the testing of each machine. That's needed, he said, to guarantee that all machines certified for use operate properly and are secure.

    Last year, the state decertified UniLect voting machines used in Beaver County after the machines undercounted the 2004 presidential vote.