By Dan Murphy
Ever since Westchester County and several other counties in New York State changed their election machines from the traditional lever machines to what we now use to cast our ballots, the optical scanning voting machine, our newspapers have complained about the technology being used, which appears to be something out of the 1980s Vic Commodore computer era, and the way in which the contract was awarded. Now a new plan to purchase ImageCast Evolution machines has drawn opposition from several Westchester groups and voters.
Indivisible Westchester issued the following statement on the new, proposed machines:
“Westchester County Legislators could soon vote to issue a $6 million bond to buy new voting machines. According to security experts, the Dominion ImageCast Evolution machine model under consideration is not secure/hackable, has no reliable paper trail for audits or recounts and costs roughly three times more than more secure models. Because of these concerns, the machines are currently under review by the state Board of Elections.
“Every voting machine needs to be able to record accurately the vote, provide a reliable paper trail, and protect the election results from hacking. Unfortunately, serious concerns have been raised by nationally recognized computer security expert and Princeton professor Andrew Appel and others about the ability of the Dominion ICE machines to fulfill these requirements, despite their certification by the state Board of Elections. The New York Democratic Lawyers Council’s Election Integrity and Technology Committee believes there are serious issues as to whether the ICE machine violates NY Election Law because it could undermine a voter’s ability to verify that the ballot he/she scans into the machine is cast as ‘marked.’
“Initially meant to aid disabled voters, the ICE machine is a ballot marking device that allows disabled voters to insert blank ballots and let the machine mark their votes. However, due to a design flaw, the blank ballots for the disabled go through the same paper path as all other scanned/filled-out ballots. Combine that flaw with an unsecure USB drive and you have a machine that can be used by hackers to change the votes of disabled voters or add unnecessary marks on all the other ballots, rendering them useless as a paper trail in a recount or an audit.
“Georgia Tech professor and computer security specialist Richard DeMillo concurs with Professor Appel. Stating the Dominion ICE has ‘design flaws that would be apparent to anyone with cybersecurity training’ and ‘if scanning and printing functions can communicate with each other, the system is vulnerable.’
“The integrity and safety of our elections is paramount to our democracy, so we ask that the Board of Legislators delay the purchase of these machines until the state investigation is complete and there are better, more secure options available to voters.” (End of Indivisible Westchester statement.)
County Executive George Latimer commented: “On the controversy over voting machines in Westchester, there’s no rush to buy machines if they are fl awed. Activists have raised legitimate questions, state Board of Elections offi cials are now concerned about the machines, and nothing will be approved until the matter is fully vetted.”
