October 12th, 2006
Another voting official 'satisfied' with e-voting
Despite criticism that they didn't look hard enough, supervisors in a California county approved an outside report saying the county's electronic voting systems are secure, reports The Oakland Tribune.
Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland made a deal with Alameda County that the voting system must get a green light before they would get paid $13.3 million for e-voting machines.
Voting rights advocates say that Sequoia didn't complete a "hack test" and fear the equipment is still open to an attack. They are suing the county over concerns about the security and accuracy of the machines.
Acting Registrar of Voters Dave Macdonald and county supervisors said Alameda has gone beyond other counties' security measures. Federal and state officials need to take it from here.
"I'm sure it's true more testing could be done," Macdonald said. "I'm not sure where it ends."
The firm did find a number of problem such as computer user names and passwords beng sent unencrypted to the county's vote tally server. The voting software system security was not up-to-date. The firm made suggestion to rectify these problems.
Macdonald said he will address network security issues, saying that the voting system is not connected to any other county system or the Internet.
"I think this is an extraordinary system. I look forward to a successful election," he said.
