[I just put the tea ball into the tea, and its steeping and cooling…]
The Daily News is reporting [it’s not in the LA Times yet] that Los Angeles County is rolling out a new $25 million voting system, and this system has election watchdogs concerned. Why, you might be asking yourself, would people be fearful of electronic voting. We all know how safe and reliable the systems (cough) are (cough). Could it be all the problems that Diebold Election Systems has been facing, from viruses that could change votes to unsecure physical access.
No. Here the concern is different. We’re not talking touch screen voting here: we’re talking the Inkavote voting system, which is an optical-scan, paper based voting system. The new system is the the InkaVote Plus system by Election Systems & Software; the system includes ballot counters and software at 4,900 precincts throughout the region, using technology developed by Unisyn Voting Solutions, a subsidiary of Carlsbad-based International Lottery & Totalizator Systems Inc.. Why is this a concern? Obstensibly, it is because Berjaya Lottery Management, a Hong Kong-based firm that operates gambling establishments and casinos, owns 71% of the outstanding voting stock of International Lottery, and there are fears of foreign involvement.
Black Box Voting, a nonpartisan, nonprofit election watchdog group, has different concerns: specifically, that the new system will only be used in Los Angeles County and the public cannot assess the reliability of its proprietary software.
For politicians, such as State Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach, candidate for Secretary of State), both are an issue. Bowen noted that, “Ownership is obviously an issue, particularly when we have secret software that nobody can see or evaluate. The disclosure of the software, which some of these vendors claim is a trade secret, would go a long ways to assuring people that the software isn’t doing something it’s not supposed to be doing.”
The county is confident in the system. LA County Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack noted that these companies and the equipment has been through federal and state rigorous testing and is certified for use. I’ll note the same is true of Diebold. More important, however, is McCormack’s point that it is a paper ballot voting system so recounting is pretty easy. Having paper records, in my opinion, is key.
The following statement by McCormack, however, should raise the hackles of the open source folks out there. It even bothers me, and I see value in proprietary software… that has been appropriate peer reviewed and subjected to objective external evaluation. McCormack said, regarding the software, that “The software developed for InkaVote is proprietary software. All the software developed by vendors is proprietary. I think it’s odd that some people don’t want it to be proprietary. If you give people the open source code, they would have the directions on how to hack into it. We think the proprietary nature of the software is good for security.”
Just keep this in mind when you vote in November. By the way, I just received my two-pound (or at least it seems that way) Voter Information Guide. Whew. I’ve looked over the propositions. On first glance, I’m inclined to be against all bonds and against all things that raise the cost of doing business in California: we just don’t need that right now, with a looming recession. I might be for 1A and 90, and I’m unsure about 83 (good idea, but too expensive). More analysis and opinion about that as the election draws closer.
[Well, the tea’s a nice golden colour, so it is off to productive endeavours for me.]
