Government Technology - August 2008 - (Page 34)

GT: How did you arrive at your e-voting decision? Bowen: When I took office, I commissioned a top-to-bottom review of all our voting systems: paper-based optical scan systems, as well as the e-voting or touchscreen systems. The University of California took the lead, and it involved universities and private-sector people from around the country. I have about 700 pages of documentation that are publicly available on my Web site, and I had another private security report that was released only to me and the people involved because it has secrecy issues. It was really clear that there was no way we could guarantee existing equipment in the field had not already been compromised, and that we could not prevent compromises from affecting future elections. It was also clear that there was no [method] people felt was trustworthy to audit something where the vote was stored electronically. So we simply went to an older, tested technology that we’ve had billions of pages of experience with: the optical scan system. Every county in California has optical scan capability because 41 percent of our voters in the last election voted by mail. The only way you can handle a vote-by-mail election of that size is with high-speed optical scanners. It was critical to make these decisions before the February primary because we didn’t want county elections officials or voters having to change voting equipment between the February primary, the June primary and the November general election. GT: As a California state lawmaker, you had a reputation for understanding and using technology. How did that experience color your approach to the e-voting issue? Bowen: I found that the more time someone has spent on the inside of the software and computer industry, the more likely they are to express to me their concerns about relying on computers for tallying and recording the vote. People who have been inside know all the things that can go wrong. GT: Without that experience, you may not have spotted deﬁciencies in e-voting? Bowen: There’s no question. When I first read the initial reports on security and electronic voting, I was very disturbed. This was before I ever even thought about running [for secretary of state]. I read them, and I Debra Bowen: CHANGE AGENT Elected to the California Assembly in 1992, Debra Bowen wasted little time establishing herself as one of the state Legislature’s most tech-savvy members. In 1993, she authored a bill that put California legislative information online — a first in the nation. The measure allowed citizens to access bill text, committee analyses and lawmakers’ voting records. It also set off alarms among veteran lawmakers. “The concept was fairly new. It was very scary,” Bowen said. “I had other legislators tell me that no one would use it and that my voting record would be hacked to make it look like I voted for all the tax increases.” That same year, Bowen ran into another fight when she sought to become the first California lawmaker with an official e-mail address. She was successful, but only after winning special permission from the Assembly Rules Committee. “It’s inconceivable now that you would have an elected official who doesn’t have an e-mail address, but that was the norm,” she said. “Our expectations about how people are going to do things have changed dramatically, and I think government has gone along with that.” Bowen chalked up other IT-related breakthroughs over her 14-year legislative career. She was the first California lawmaker to have a Web site and post her campaign finance reports online. In 1995, she authored the California Digital Signature Act, pioneering legislation that allowed state agencies to accept digitally signed documents. As secretary of state, Bowen has tried to use technology to engage young voters. Working with California’s superintendent of public instruction, Bowen launched MyVote California, a Web site that let students cast votes in a mock presidential primary one week before California voters went the polls in February. (Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama cruised to victory with 56 percent of the vote.) Students will get another chance to cast presidential ballots during an Oct. 30 mock general election. “WHEN I FIRST READ THE INITIAL REPORTS ON SECURITY AND ELECTRONIC VOTING, I WAS VERY DISTURBED.” GT: What’s the status of e-voting for the November general election? Bowen: The touchscreen machines, which I think are what people think of as e-voting machines, were recertified, but only to allow one per precinct in counties where that was the means of providing access to disabled voters, and for early voting with a 100 percent count against the paper trail. Counties that were using exclusively electronic voting machines have switched back to optical scan. AUG_08 knew that technologically what I was reading was real and that you could hide your tracks pretty readily if you had the ability to tamper with systems. People have focused on voters tampering. The bigger concern is insiders, either in the company that makes the systems or in an election. We don’t background test. We don’t have any independent means of verifying the software, and that’s the reason I have chosen to beef up California’s postelection auditing standards. We now have the original record that the voter created, but 34 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - August 2008

Government Technology - August 2008 Contents Point of View The Last Mile Big Picture On the Scene Four Questions for... Net Gains A Government Technology® Industry Profile: CA CA Contents IT Network Management: State and Local Governments Face New Challenges MyFloridaNet Arkansas Department of Information Systems Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Government Tightens Its Belt Rocking the Vote High-Speed Portal Project On Track Wi-Fi on a Shoestring From Paintball to Video Virtually Vulnerable How It Works Products signal:noise

Government Technology - August 2008

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