Secure? Vote is no

State elections officials may have gotten more than they bargained for on some of their electronic voting machines.

Diebold Elections System, which built and programmed the ATM-style machines that will be used statewide in this year's elections, is looking at the font files on some of the machines sent to the state last year, primarily to address concerns about insufficient memory caused at least in part by excess font files.

Spokesman David Bear said that some of the machines were programmed with more font options than other machines, which is accounting for most of the discrepancy in available memory, although the types of tests run on the machines before shipping could also take up memory.

What is happening is that the machines are hosting illicit programs that could affect the performance or, in the worst case, actually change election results. They are not used machines.

"These systems have been used in small elections in Utah and received rave reviews from voters and elections officials," Bear said. "This technology has also been used by millions of voters nationwide and has had very few problems."

The memory differences were first brought to the attention of state elections officials by Emery County Clerk-Auditor Bruce Funk, who said he noticed as much as 15 megabyte range of available memory on the 25 megabyte machines.

The machines use flash memory technology.

To help him figure out what was wrong, he called in experts from Black Box Voting, a nonpartisan voting organization that focuses on election accuracy and security. Funk said that they found a number of potential security concerns and even raised the possibility that they were not the new machines Diebold was supposed to deliver.

Now, he said he will refuse to certify the machines and, ideally, postpone their use until the 2007 or 2008 elections. County commissioners are not supporting his request, however, and he plans to ask the Utah Attorney General's Office for clarification of who makes the final decision about use of the machines.

"I want to keep the Diebolds locked up and let them go through an election" in the rest of the state, Funk said.

In a news release, Black Box Voting said it is sending a "road map of the most dangerous security findings" to the proper authorities. They also plan to release a formal report in the next few weeks.

Michael Cragun, director of the State Elections Office, said they are aware of the problems, but Diebold is addressing it. Regardless, he said, he fully expects Emery County to use the machines.

"All 29 counties have signed a contract saying they would use the Diebold machines," he said.

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com