[LINK] Diebold e-voting software includes delete audit logs button

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
One of our favourite subjects - e-voting

I wonder if Diebold's system developers are typical of USA developers in 
general.

</brd>

Diebold e-voting software includes delete audit logs button
No confirmation necessary
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
5th March 2009 00:09 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/05/diebold_delete_button/

Vote tabulation software currently in use throughout the United States 
contains a button to permanently delete audit logs that are required 
under federal voting-system guidelines, according to a report submitted 
to California's top elections official.

The button is included in version 1.18.19 of the GEMS, or Global 
Election Management System, manufactured by Premier Election Solutions, 
formerly known as Diebold Election Systems. That was the piece of 
software that silently dropped 197 votes from November's final vote 
count in Northern California's Humboldt county. The report warns that 
the feature could be used to intentionally or unintentionally delete 
logs needed to conduct audits into the accuracy of an election.

"GEMS 1.18.19 not only includes 'Clear' buttons that permit deletion of 
these records, it provides no warning to the operator that exercising 
the 'Clear' command will result in permanent deletion of the records in 
the log, nor does it require the operator to confirm the command before 
GEMS executes it," the report states.

"Deletion of the records in either log would make it impossible to 
monitor operator access to GEMS or to reconstruct the sequence of 
operator access, defeating the purpose of [federal guidelines] that GEMS 
version 1.18.19 was required to adhere to."

Under guidelines established by the Federal Election Commission in 1990, 
tabulation software used in all US elections must automatically create 
and permanently retain electronic audit logs of important system events 
while tallying votes. The guidelines state they are intended to provide 
a "concrete, indestructible archival record of all system activity" and 
are "essential for public confidence in the accuracy of the tally."

Premier removed the delete button in later versions of GEMS but three 
counties in California and several jurisdictions in Texas and Florida 
continue to use the older program, the report says.

Word of the delete button, which was reported earlier by Wired.com, came 
as California Secretary of State Debra Bowen was investigating the 
dropped votes in Humboldt County. The glitch came to light only after a 
volunteer outfit known as the Humboldt County Election Transparency 
Project passed every ballot cast through an optical scanner after it was 
officially counted.

The dropped votes were the result of another deficiency in Central Count 
Server of GEMS 1.18.19 that in some cases silently drops all tallied 
votes from the first batch of optical ballots, the report (PDF) concludes.

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Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au