According to a story in the Miami Herald by Marc Caputo;

The study by the Florida State University Security and Assurance In Information Technology Laboratory (SAIT) has found that the issues discovered by Harri Hursti in the now famous Hursti I hack have not been addressed by Diebold. The SAIT Team also inspected the state's Diebold DREs and DRE Bootloader.

In a letter to David Byrd of Diebold, Secretary of State Kurt Browning gave Diebold until August 17 to correct the identified problems. Failure to do that will result in the system not being certified for use in the next election in the state.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

To date the "Red Team" reports have been released; a preliminary report on audits has been released; and the accessibility report has been released. Our cup nearly runneth over.

But wait, there's more?

Yes, there are still 6 more reports that have not been released. There are three reports, one for each vendor, on the source code review. There are also three reports, one for each vendor, on the document review. All six of these reports are important to the total picture and all of them will be used in the final decision making process.

We encourage the Secretary of State to let the voters see those remaining reports. If the reports are 100 pages each, that's 600 pages of information that we need time to read and study.

Secretary Bowen, release the reports, please.

UPDATE 01 August: Today Princeton Prof. Ed Felten of Diebold Accuvote TS hack fame, asked on his blog, FreedomToTinker, "Where are the California E-Voting Reports". In his blog Prof. Felten says:

We ask again; Secretary Bowen, release the reports, please.

UPDATE 02 AugustAnother set of reports, source code review, has been released today. Thank you Secretary Bowen.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org with input from Ellen Theisen, also of VotersUnite.Org

Now that the California Secretary of State's "Top-To-Bottom Review" testing is complete and the reports have been submitted, nearly everyone is falling over themselves to read and talk about the many startling vulnerabilities easily found by the "Red Teams" who performed hack testing on the systems.

However, there is another report that has been overlooked, for the most part, by the media and the public. That is the "Accessibility Review" which examined whether the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems meet federal requirements to allow voters with disabilities to cast their votes privately and independently as required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Maybe it's because, as some have pointed out, accessibility issues are not as "sexy" as hacking into voting machines. Or maybe it's because this report is 155 pages long as compared to less than 20 pages for the "Red Team" reports. Either way, the failures found in the accessibility report may pack more dynamite and leave more questions unanswered than the security reports.

The "Executive Summary" of that report says it all:

Notice that the researchers say, "none met the accessibility requirements of current law." That's federal and state law. The machines have been sold for years --- and, in fact, the use of DRE machines as a whole has been jammed down America's polling places --- on the basis that they meet federal HAVA mandates for an accessible means of voting in every polling place. And yet, the California analysts found, they are not accessible at all...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

As expected today’s news is mostly from California in response to the “Top-To-Bottom” Review. In their response to the California “Top-To-Bottom Review” Sequoia had this to say about accessibility:

The fact that they can say their machines comply with all requirements is amazing. The Sequoia Edge I and II tested in California has a toe-to-knee distance of 26.5 inches. The 2002 VVSG require 30 inches minimum. We can’t expect either of the other two vendors to be any more factual in their defense of their systems.

Links to Sequoia's excuses, and a great deal of coverage of California's landmark reports and other voting news from around the country, is all below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Naturally nearly all of the news is from California in regards to their “Top-To-Bottom” review. However for those of you who are concerned about election audits there is also a great report from a group who have been working with VerifiedVoting.

Also reported is that scientists, under the GAO, may get a chance to look at the source code from the machines used in Sarasota Co last Nov.

Back to the “Top-To-Bottom” review; only one of the articles listed, the SF Chronicle article, mentions anything about the accessibility report that was also done by the California researchers, and they gave that report one sentence. The accessibility report says, “Although each of the tested voting systems included some accessibility accommodations, none met the accessibility requirements of current law and none performed satisfactorily in test voting by persons with a range of disabilities and alternate language needs.” In other words if a jurisdiction uses any of the three machines tested for accessibility they are violating federal law (HAVA).

All of those stories, and more, linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today I had to write two ledes for DVN. The California “Top-To-Bottom” Review reports were supposed to be released at Noon Pac. It got to be 3PM Pac. and everyone was still waiting for the reports to be released. Note: The California reports came out too late for any comments here.

So without those reports to discuss let me talk about four reports from New York that have national implications. There are presently two reports hosted at VotersUnite that discuss how the voting machine vendors who are trying to do business in New York state are not fit to do business according to state law. The other two reports discuss the cost of actually holding elections on optical-scan machines and with paper ballots. It does not have to be expensive and is certainly cheaper in the long-run when compared to using Direct Recording Electronic voting machines. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Tomorrow is a big day for the state of California and the rest of the nation. The Secretary of State will be releasing the reports from their “Top-To-Bottom Review” of voting systems used in the state. These reports will give the results of the code review, “red team” hack test, document review, and accessibility review. On Monday morning the Secretary of State will give the “Teams” an opportunity to officially present their reports and the vendors a chance to comment. The public will then be given an opportunity to speak their piece. One week later the Secretary will announce her decisions with respect to any actions to be taken. Her options appear to be to decertify the systems, decertify the systems and recertify them with new requirements for use, or do nothing....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It appears that the Senate will go the way of the House and move any requirement for a voter verified paper audit trail to at least 2010. Reports on testimony given to the Senate Rules Committee today are that there was a lot of “kissing a**” and hand wringing.

Election officials in Montgomery Co., Ohio, had a grand idea. They decided to solve their problem recruiting poll workers by allowing companies and groups to wear their logos on shirts while they work the polls. For example, “Mom and Pop’s” burgers could man a poll site and the poll workers could all wear their uniforms while they helped voters. This was a bad idea made worse when people began to complain that one of the groups who would be manning the polls would be wearing their “Dayton Right To Life” T-shirts and, according to the head of the group, “We will be there to answer life questions.” This came up originally in a story from Utah. This is a bad idea that needs to stop. We can do something about it by getting involved and volunteering to work on elections on election day.

Links to those stories, and the other notable voting news items today, all below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Last year Luzerne County, PA, spent $2.4M on 750 ES&S iVotronic DREs and a one-year warranty. Now that the first warranty is to expire ES&S wants $300,000 for a three-year warranty. The county Director of Elections has written the state and told them, in part, “In addition to not being able to meet the financial burden that ES&S is asking us to meet, we cannot individually deal with such a large, multi-national corporation and the mix of deception this company promulgates.” And he asked the state to ensure “that voting-system vendors doing business here do not have the opportunity to threaten the democratic process with such unsavory business practices that vendors, such as ES&S, seemingly have a deep commitment to employing.”...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The New Jersey Voting Machine Examination Committee has scheduled public hearings beginning tomorrow and lasting until Friday to discuss the three voting systems that have been proposed to be used in the state. Proposed for state elections are the Sequoia Advantage, Sequoia Edge, and Avante Vote-Trakker. Voter verified paper audit trail printers for all three were recently tested by New Jersey Institute of Technology and failed that testing. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The New Jersey Institute of Technology has just released the results of testing done by their Center for Information Age Technology on voter verified paper audit trail printers provided by Sequoia and Avante International. The printers from Sequoia were for their Advantage and Edge voting systems.

According to the results, the printers accounted for 33 flaws. All three printers ran out of paper too fast, lacked concealed printer cables, and had problems alerting poll workers to malfunctions. It is important to state again that these printers were provided by the vendors so there is no reason to expect that these were not the best of the printers the vendors could find.

Anecdotal reports from users of the vvpat ["voter-verified paper audit trail"] printers of the other vendors show that there is no difference between the failures of the Sequoia or Avante as compared to Diebold or ES&S. These printers are the same printers that will be required by federal law with the passage of any legislation that allows the continued use of Direct Recording Electronic voting machines.

Links to the many other notable voting news stories this weekend, all follow below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The New York Times reports today that state and local government organizations and the disabilities groups have had their say and Congressman Rush Holt’s HR-811 is being withdrawn so it can go back and be rewritten to appease the special interest groups. Special interests have spoken and are heard; the voters speak and are ignored. Meanwhile Senator Feinstein’s S-1487 is scheduled for a Rules committee hearing next Wed. Have any of our Senator’s read this legislation? One has to wonder because Senators like Bernie Sanders, Clinton, Kennedy, Obama, and Boxer have all co-sponsored a bill that takes any control of our elections that the voters have left and gives it all to corporations and a federal agency that has been a miserable failure, the Election Assistance Commission. If this bill had been the law in 2003 Bev Harris would never have been able to give the Diebold code she found on an ftp site to Avi Rubin and the infamous Diebold emails would never have come to light. Next Wed. Senator Clinton is scheduled to testify in support of this dangerous bill. It’s “Alice in Wonderland” all over again....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

In early editions of Friday's New York Times, Christopher Drew is reporting that Rep Rush Holt (D-NJ)'s controversial election reform bill, HR 811, has been sent back for a re-write. Pressure from state and local groups and disability advocates has caused House leadership to reconsider making sweeping changes before 2012, accordin to Drew.

Drew goes on to report:

We will continue to watch this story.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Yesterday the key word was “decision.” Today I will continue with that word. Has a "decision" been made with respect to HR-811? Only time will tell. Information is the grist that is fed into the mill to become a "decision." New York now has more information on the vendors so they can make a "decision" on their voting system selection. Another Pennsylvania county has to decide how they are going to pay for a maintenance contract for the ES&S voting machines. Maybe it’s time the counties decide it’s time to kick ES&S out of the state. Oklahoma did it years ago and, you know, there is very little news about voting machine failures in Oklahoma reported in DVN....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

A lot of important decisions are nearing completion. Members of Congress are deciding whether they are happy with HR-811 as it came out of committee. Many members have said they are no longer in support of the bill. Riverside Co. California supervisors have a decision whether to follow the recommendation of their study group to rid the county of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines. San Francisco California election officials have to decide whether they will have to count ballots by hand in November. And Pennsylvania counties that use ES&S DREs have to decide whether they want to continue paying the exorbitant fees for machine warranties. And, by the way, speaking about decisions; many groups decided to support, and pleaded with their members to support, HR-811 two-weeks before the bill was even filed. Yet, those same groups are totally mum on S-1487 even though it is due to go to committee hearing in a week. Why the silence? Why are they not standing up and being vocal about their support for democracy and opposition to the bill?...