CA State Sen. Bowen's Thurs. (2/16) Hearing re: e-Voting Certification

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CA's rethug SoS, the voting machine vendors and the ITAs have all refused to attend

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: EVAN GOLDBERG
February 14, 2006
[phone]/[phone]

VOTING MACHINE VENDORS CONTINUE BOYCOTT OF STATE SENATE

VENDORS, TESTING LABS, AND SECRETARY OF STATE REFUSE TO APPEAR AT
HEARING SCHEDULED TO EXAMINE VOTING MACHINE CERTIFICATION PROCESS

WHO: Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), Chairwoman of the
Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee

WHAT: The Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional
Amendments Committee will examine how voting equipment is tested and
certified for use in California.

WHEN: Thursday, February 16, 2006, at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE: Menlo Park City Council Chambers, 801 Laurel Street, Menlo Park.
The hearing won't be televised and at this moment we're still working on
a way for people to be able to listen to it over the Internet.

WHY: The voting machines that Californians rely on to accurately
record their votes are certified at the federal level by the one of the
private Independent Testing Authorities (ITAs) and by the Secretary of
State. However, that process has been criticized by some as being both
incomplete and biased in favor of the voting machine vendors. The
hearing is designed to look at those criticisms and, until the voting
machine vendors, the ITAs, and the Secretary of State refused to appear,
hear from those who think the current process is appropriate.

"There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of problems with electronic
voting machines that have failed to record people's votes accurately,
which begs the question of how these machines are certified for use in
the first place," said Bowen. "The refusal of the ITAs and the voting
machine vendors to show up at a Senate hearing to talk about the
certification issues is unacceptable and it should be unacceptable to
anyone who wants to ensure California has voting systems that are
secure, reliable, and accurately tally people's votes. I'm not sure
what steps I'll need to take to get the vendors, the ITAs, and the
Secretary to appear before the committee, but I'm certainly looking at
my options."

The refusal by the voting machine vendors to show up marks the second
straight week they have rebuffed the committee's request to appear
before it. Last week, they rejected a request from the committee to
appear to discuss the concept of using open-source software in
California's voting machines.

Witnesses scheduled to testify before the committee include:

o Aviel Rubin, Professor of <http://www.cs.jhu.edu/> Computer
Science and Technical Director, <http://www.jhuisi.jhu.edu/>
Information Security Institute, <http://www.jhu.edu/> Johns Hopkins
University

o Dan Wallach, Professor of Computer Science, Rice University

o David Dill, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University
Founder of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org

o Peter Neumann, Principal Scientist Computer Science Lab, SRI
International

o Sonia Arrison, Director, Technology Studies, Pacific Research
Institute

o Freddie Oakley, Yolo County Clerk-Recorder

o Warren Slocum, San Mateo County Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder

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