State likely to overlook Diebold flaws

Officials expected to OK voting system despite problems on tests

June 10, 2005

In less than a week, state officials are poised to approve a new Diebold electronic-voting system that several large counties, including Alameda, want to use.

But the system showed problems in security, protection of voter privacy and printing of a paper trail during testing this spring.

State elections authorities have obscured the full nature of those problems by blacking out parts of test reports that have been released under the state Public Records Act and declaring other documents too full of Diebold "trade secrets" for public release.

During tests in late April and early May, a chief feature of Diebold's new computerized voting machine — the ability to print out voters' electronic choices so they could be verified and, if needed, recounted — performed so poorly that the state's testing consultant concluded "this version is not ready for use in an election."

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