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Sarasota's Voting Systems
Are Definitely Safe

The Sarasota-Herald Tribune editorial on voting system security in Saturday’s paper has done a disservice to the voters of Sarasota County by attempting to cast doubt and dispersion on our new voting system. First of all, the system discussed (Diebold) is not the one used in Sarasota County.

The editorial proposes that all voting systems should be open to rigorous inspection and testing. The ES&S iVotronic touch screen system that we use is open. First, it underwent testing by national certified independent testing laboratories. Then, it was certified by the Division of Elections of the State of Florida, who has one of the most rigorous certification processes in the U.S. for voting systems. Finally, it was reviewed by technical staff here in Sarasota County along with other veteran elections technicians throughout the state. (A copy of the source code is on file in Tallahassee).

All of the programming of our system is done here in Sarasota County under tri-control. We create our own election qualification code at the local level and those codes, for each election, are filed in Tallahassee. Staff also programs the PEB’s, the tabulation software, the reporting software, and installs firmware on each iVotronic.

There are safeguards and security procedures for every phase of the election process. (These procedures are not dissimilar to ones we used for the punch card system. The punch card system used software and computers to tabulate results.) Since we are not on-line, no one has the ability to hack into the programming. We do not use “smart” cards which an individual voter uses to activate the ballot, but a PEB, which remains in control of the election officials. We do public logic and accuracy testing on our equipment and PEB’s prior to each election and then secure the equipment in alarm controlled rooms until election day. The PEB’s, which are programmed to bring up the ballot in the polling place, are sealed in transfer cases until election morning. That seal is broken just prior to the opening of the polls. At the close of day, there is a totals tape printed out for each precinct before sending the information to election central for final tabulation. These numbers are compared to the number of voters actually voting in the precinct from the precinct registers. There are many checks and balances in place.

All election results are archived and stored for 22 months following an election. If necessary, the ballot images that were voted on election day can be printed. These images are scrambled so no one can tie a particular voter to a particular ballot. We do not print them out routinely because the storage of all of those sheets of paper would be astronomical, and we would, by statute, need to store them for 22 months.

The John Hopkins study referred to in the editorial appears to only evaluate the Diebold DRE software itself without reference to the compensating controls in the election management system, the physical security design of the system or the security procedures surrounding its use. Such a limited view of a single component of any system would never allow one to understand the nature and scope of the security of a system. Investigative journalists and computer scientists alike have never conducted elections. Nor do they spend the time in the industry asking questions and exploring the process.

The entire process in Sarasota County is open to the public. I am issuing an invitation to anyone to view any of the procedures utilized in conducting our elections at any level at any time. Our system is secure and I want the voting public to have the same comfort level with the iVotronic as my staff and I do.

Kathy Dent
Supervisor of Elections