Panel recommends ban on computer voting system in four counties

DECISION THAT WOULD AFFECT NOVEMBER ELECTION RESTS WITH SECRETARY OF STATE SHELLEY

By Elise Ackerman
Knight Ridder Sacramento Bureau
Apr. 22, 2004

SACRAMENTO - An advisory panel unanimously recommended this morning that Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ban use of a computerized voting system in four California counties.

The panel also called on state Attorney General Bill Lockyer to open a criminal investigation into the conduct of Diebold Election Systems, the Ohio-based firm that manufactured the touch-screen system.

The advisory panel had convened a two-day hearing in Sacramento on Wednesday to review a report that Diebold had jeopardized the March primary by selling an untested and poorly functioning election system in California.

The recommendation to decertify Diebold's TSx balloting system, if adopted, would force officials in San Joaquin, Solano, San Diego and Kern counties to find alternative ways to count votes for the November presidential election.

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