Court hears challenge to new voting machines

Plaintiffs say devices subject to tampering, should be decertified

Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 21, 2006 at midnight

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The Colorado Secretary of State's Office was in chaos when it certified four types of computerized voting machines, according to testimony Wednesday in a lawsuit seeking to ban the machines from being used in the November election.

A bipartisan group of voters is suing the office, saying the certification procedure was shoddy and the machines are vulnerable to tampering. Voters across Colorado used the equipment in the August primary, marking their choices on a computer screen.

The state responded that most of the machines show each voter a printout of the ballot, and that the printouts can be used to spot-check the electronic totals after the polls close.

Should Denver District Judge Lawrence Manzanares agree with the plaintiffs and pull the widely used machines just seven weeks before the general election, counties statewide would have to scramble to find alternatives for a legal election to proceed.

According to Wednesday's testimony, the Secretary of State's Office was in chaos in late 2005 and early 2006. Former state Sen. Gigi Dennis, who became secretary of state in September 2005, brought little experience to the office.

Patti Frederick, a former employee in the office, testified that Dennis found delays in certification of voting equipment, required by Jan. 1 under a new federal voting law.

Frederick and Len Vest, another key official involved in certifying the machines, resigned under pressure in October and February, respectively, she said.

John Gardner, who took charge of the testing after Vest quit, testified that he considered two of his assistants incompetent. Gardner himself acknowledged he had no education in computer science, but said he made up for that with his experience.

Diebold, one of the four manufacturers of the machines, was found to be misrepresenting its equipment, plaintiffs' attorneys said. As a result, Diebold machines were decertified after the 2005 election - in which they had just been used.

Another company, ES&S, was so short-staffed it didn't even apply for certification, even though Mesa County was desperate to use its products, the attorneys said, and Dennis had to send staff to ES&S headquarters in Omaha to certify the equipment there.

But Deputy Attorney General Maurice Knaizer said all the machines certified by Dennis had previously passed federal testing and that was enough to meet Colorado's legal requirements.

"It's clear in the legislative history," Knaizer said.

At the same time, Dennis' office was struggling to meet a second part of the new federal elections law, which demanded a statewide computer system for tracking registered voters. Dennis fired the contractor, Accenture, hired to create that system because it missed deadlines and produced a system that didn't perform up to standards.

Amid all this, the plaintiffs said, Dennis' office rammed through certification of machines made by Hart, Sequoia, Diebold and ES&S without adequate testing.

The plaintiffs say independent experts have found some machines can be easily reprogrammed to distort the vote.

Gardner was the center of much of the day's questioning. Gardner said he overruled the two assistants he considered incompetent, reversing failing grades on several of the machines.

Plaintiffs' attorney Paul Hultin asked Gardner about the discovery that Diebold had changed the software on its machine, which he said made it more vulnerable to hacking, without telling federal testers.

It also resulted in decertification of that machine last winter, plaintiff's attorney Andy Efaw said.

Hultin tried to get Gardner to admit that it was a conflict of interest for him to rely on the manufacturers' promises that their machines were secure, given the Diebold history. Gardner frowned and didn't answer.

Manzanares, who frequently offered humorous summations of the lawyers' questions, said, "You don't let the batter call the strikes, right?"

Gardner agreed with the judge.

imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438

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