[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Secretary of State Deborah Bowen is sticking to her guns about the failure of electronic voting. The San Francisco Chronicle reported this weekend that touch-screen voting and other electronic systems still aren't up to snuff.

"When the government finds a car is unsafe, it orders a recall," she told the Chronicle. "Here we're talking about systems used to cast and tally votes, the most basic tool of democracy."

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Julie Millican
Media Matters for America

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Michelle Gabriel

Good people, many of them county elections officials, ask why election integrity advocates don't trust vendors and elections officials. There are many reasons and examples.

The statement by the Sequoia Voting Systems official after California Secretary of State Bowen’s hearing on Monday on the reports by computer experts on the vulnerability of electronic voting machines is just one example. In Alameda County we tried for months to get a real attack test on the Sequoia equipment prior to it being purchased. Sequoia and the county elections officials blocked it. There was even law suit to get some real testing done!!! But the Board of Supervisors backed down and listened to the Registrar of Voters. Instead, we once again had people sitting in a room examining documents and thinking about possibilities. Even this study came up with a number of serious security issues.

Yet here is what the Sequoia representative said:

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

In recent “tests” established by the Secretary of State, all of California’s electronic voting machines “failed” security tests designed to see if computer hackers could break into the various systems.

The Secretary of State has a short time to decide whether or not to decertify the machines for use in next years (early) Presidential primary.

There is a cadre of activists joined together through internet blogs and labeled (by elections officials), the “black bag” people. Outraged by Republican tactics in Florida where George W. stole the election (with a little help from a Republican Supreme Court), these activists are now paranoid about what the GOP might do to stay in power.

One of the electronic voting systems used in California – Diebold – had a CEO who contributed to George W. Sufficient evidence to some that Diebold was putting in the fix in the factory to stack the cards against the Democratic nominee.

When no evidence for that scenario was uncovered, the next logical step was to assume that the systems were made “insecure” to allow hackers to alter the results from the outside.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Debra Bowen: Doing the Job She Said She Would When Elected California Secretary of State

By Frank D. Russo

Debra Bowen made headlines across the nation, including the New York Times, in the past few days, just doing what she said she would do when elected Secretary of State: Make sure that every vote is counted accurately and that every voter who wants to vote is able to do so and knows that his or her vote matters.

On Friday she announced that she had just hours before received reports from computer experts on electronic voting systems and would hold hearings today, even though she was not required to do so by law. She candidly told reporters that she had not read these reports, but that the documents would soon be posted on the Secretary of State's website (It was, and it's all there if you want to read it.) If she is to decertify any of these machines, she must act by Friday, which is six months before the next state election, The February 5, 2008 Presidential Primary Election.