http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/31/AR2007073101027.html
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 31, 2007; 10:47 PM
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida's optical scan voting machines
are still flawed, despite efforts to fix them, and they could allow poll
workers to tamper with the election results, according to a government-ordered
study obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
At the request of Secretary of State Kurt Browning, a
Florida State University information technology laboratory went over a list of
previously discovered flaws to see whether the machines were still vulnerable
to attack.
"While the vendor has fixed many of these flaws, many
important vulnerabilities remain unaddressed," the report said.
The lab found, for example, that someone with only brief
access to a machine could replace a memory card with one preprogramed to read
one candidate's votes as counting for another, essentially switching the
candidates and showing the loser winning in that precinct.
"The attack can be carried out with a reasonably low
probability of detection assuming that audits with paper ballots are
infrequent," the report said.
Browning asked Diebold Elections Systems to address the
problems by Aug. 17, and expressed confidence that the company will do so
before next year's primary election.
"To Diebold's credit, they have come to the table and
been willing to get these changes made and get them made timely," Browning
said.
A company spokesman said the deadline would be met.
"These are not major changes, and we are confident we
can meet the deadline," said Mark Radke, who also said the company has
worked well with the state. "We look forward to continuing this
relationship and to continuing to improve the security of our elections
systems."
Browning said that the memory cards are locked in machines
and that only a few people have access to them in a setting where others
wouldn't see them unscrewing machines, breaking seals and switching cards.
"It is not where you just walk up to a machine and pop
out a card," he said.
Tampering with the software is much easier in a laboratory
than trying to carry out the same actions during an election, Browning said.
Still, he said, his office will advise county elections supervisors on steps
that should be taken to ensure machines won't be tampered with.
Florida's voting system drew national attention in 2000,
when dimpled, pregnant and hanging chads on punch card ballots held up a final
count in the presidential election. Florida was eventually decided by 537 votes
after the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in, handing the election to George W.
Bush. The state has since banned the punch cards.
Currently, 15 of Florida's 67 counties use paperless
touch-screen voting machines, while the rest use optical scan machines where a
voter marks a paper ballot with a pencil and it is electronically scanned.
Touch-screen machines are being scrapped because of a newly signed state law
that requires a verifiable paper trail for all voting machines.
___
On the Net:
Florida Department of State: http://www.dos.state.fl.us/
© 2007 The Associated Press