Concerns about potential tampering with electronic machines have come back to those making the accusations: the Emery County clerk and an independent election security firm.

Now, the county will have to pay to bring in technicians to reinstall the software on approximately 40 electronic voting machines after the clerk let security experts from Black Box Voting, a national elections security watchdog group, test the machines. The cost to the county could be upward of $40,000, according to Joe Demma, the chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert.

The primary problem is that by allowing the machines to be tested by somebody unaffiliated with the state elections office or Diebold Elections Systems, which built the machines, the county voided the warranty on the machines.

Additionally, because the independent testing was not authorized by the state and there are reports that the independent experts were not directly supervised the entire time, the state is requiring that the machines be recertified.

"We don't know what they did to the machines," Demma said. "For all we know, they could have these set up so that they fail on Election Day, so he could then point the finger at us for the problems."

The irony of the state's fear of possible errors being programmed into the machines is that Emery County Clerk-Auditor Bruce Funk had them tested because he had the same fears after he discovered discrepancies in available memory. For help, he called in Black Box Voting, which informed him that there were significant problems with the machines, ranging from lack of ballot security to unsafe plugs.

Diebold has since claimed that the differences of memory are attributable to varying sizes of the font files installed on each computer, and that they are working to address the concern. They have said that no illicit programs are present on the machines and that the machines received by Utah are all new.

County commissioners never agreed to the independent testing, and they have since changed the locks on the storage areas holding the machines and have not given Funk a key. Last week, he voluntarily handed over his keys to the previous locks and told commissioners he did not want responsibility for them because he felt they were unsafe.

Monday, Funk said that he did not regret his actions. Since he is not running for re-election, he said that the testing was not politically motivated but done because he is seriously concerned about the security of the new machines.

"I think I have a duty and responsibility to the public to make sure these machines will work," Funk said. "I have deep concerns, and I didn't want the stewardship of these machines. They (the commission) need to have that control."

---

E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com