Features

Touchscreen Voting Allowed by Shelley

Friday August 27, 2004

Most California counties that use touchscreen voting will be able to use the electronic voting machines in the November elections, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley announced Tuesday. 

In April, Shelley had banned use of the Diebold TSx system in the four counties which used them—Solano, San Joaquin, San Diego and Kern—and decertified touchscreen voting systems in eleven other counties, including Alameda, Napa, and Santa Clara. He said that security measures were insufficient to allow the machines in the election.  

Shelly announced this week that safeguards have now been put in place for the 11 counties to allow the touchscreen voting. The counties and vendors were required to install a voter-verified paper trail or implement other security measures, such as giving voters the option of a paper ballot, have the computer source code available for independent analysis, prohibit any wireless, Internet or phone connections on the machines, and run a poll worker-training program.  

The four counties that purchased the Diebold machines are still prohibited from using them.