Activists Criticize E-Voting Settlement

A leading electronic elections systems maker reached a settlement agreement with California this week, but that has not settled the critics of e-voting.

Under terms of the settlement in California's civil action against Diebold Election Systems, the company agreed pay the state $2.6 million. Of that, $500,000 slated for training poll workers in the use of the devices. The settlement must be approved by a California state court.

"While we believe Diebold has strong responses to the claims raised in the suit, we are primarily interested in building an effective and trusting relationship with California," Thomas Swidarski, Diebold senior vice president, said in a press release. "The excellent performance of our solutions on Election Day is a great example of our ability to provide safe, accurate and reliable voting technology to the residents of California."

Meanwhile, not so eager to move on are activists who filed the original litigation against Diebold on behalf of California taxpayers. They complain that the litigation was settled too soon. "This settlement will shut down a major avenue of investigation before evidence starts trickling in," Jim March of Sacramento told the Associated Press. "It's very premature."

Widespread election irregularities have been generally discounted. However, numerous glitches have been reported. For example, some 6,000 voters in California's Alameda County had to use backup paper ballots, and many San Diego County voters were turned away due to a power surge.

In a related development this week, Independent candidate Ralph Nader charged that electronic devices may have malfunctioned in New Hampshire. Nader asked for and will receive a recount in 11 counties.

"There were glitches in the election voting, but nothing massive," said David Mertz, an EVM software specialist with the Open Voting Consortium, which advocates making public the source code of voting devices.

Even after the election, the OVC, a volunteer association of engineers, programmers and academics, remains concerned that automated voting machines often don't provide a paper trail, nor do they provide a public disclosure of source code software, Mertz said. It will continue its lobbying activities, he said.