Bowen Rejects 'Hack Test,' Wants Deeper Look at E-Voting

When Riverside County activists questioned the results from last fall's election, supervisor Jeff Stone issued a challenge to skeptics of electronic voting machines. He would allow them to hack into a Sequoia Voting System machine used by the county.

"I'd like to set up an appointment with one of our machines and I'd like him or her to verify that they can manipulate that machine," said Stone (pictured below). "And I'm gonna bet a thousand to one that they cannot do it. ... I'll make that challenge."

But California's elections chief isn't buying it. Secretary of State Debra Bowen has rejected Stone's request to participate in a "hack test" on the machines in Riverside County, one of the first places the nation to introduce touch-screen voting. And it's not because Bowen knows the Sequoia machines are safe and can't be compromised. She writes in a letter reprinted by Bradblog:

"As you know, voting equipment is subject to tampering in a wide range of settings. This test you have proposed wouldn’t address the issue of whether someone who can reach around the back of the machine undetected or can bring a tool into the voting booth without being noticed by a poll worker will be able to gain access to the machine."

With another presidential race nearing, Bowen is under pressure from critics of electronic voting machines. Those same people helped with a grassroots effort to unseat incumbent Republican Bruce McPherson, and Bowen herself ran a campaign built on fears about the manipulation of public elections through e-voting. Bowen now has begun a "thorough review" of California's electronic voting systems, part of which will be conducted in secret because the voting software is considered proprietary.

(Photo: Steve Yeater / AP)

Political Reform In Sacramento?

Secretary of State Debra Bowen needs a new chief of the Political Reform Division. Being Sacramento, this is a hardship position. Apparently, nobody immediately springs to mind for the job. Applicants wanted. But you must take a test.

New Bowen Deputy Forced Schwarzenegger to Pay Millions

Brad Blog, the state's most persistent blogger-watchdog on the dangers of voting technology, reports that Secretary of State Debra Bowen has hired a fierce critic of "unverified" voting machines as her chief deputy in charge of ... voting technology. Lowell Finley, the lead attorney for VoterAction.org, will become her new deputy secretary of state.

"Finley and VoterAction (his group) have filed a number of landmark lawsuits in several states, including in California, over the past year or so, demanding an immediate halt to the use and purchase of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE/touch-screen) voting systems and decertification of many of those systems, as well as improved processes for certification of such systems.

"The Berkeley-based attorney Finley -- also one of the attorneys representing voter plaintiffs in the contested election in Florida's 13th congressional district in Sarasota --- had one of his most recent and notable successes last September, when a Colorado judge ordered a complete review of certification procedures for voting machines in the state. The court found the official placed in charge of testing and certification didn't have the qualifications necessary, and performed little or no testing."

The Oakland Tribune reported that Finley "has pulled out of lawsuits against elections officials in California, Florida, Ohio and other states in order to accept" the post.

Almost exactly three years ago, Finley represented Bill Camp of the Sacramento Labor Council. They successfully convinced a Superior Court judge that Schwarzenegger had illegally "loaned" his campaign $4.5 million. The ruling forced Schwarzenegger to pay the money back from his own pocket rather than through campaign contributions. The absurdly optimist governor called the ruling "fantastic," but Finley told the S.F. Chronicle (me, working there) at the time: "He is on some kind of medication that I would like to have a prescription for."

In photo, Bowen is sworn in Monday by Justice George Nicholson of the 3rd District Court, standing with her stepdaughter, Nora Miller Nechedom, left, and husband Mark Nechodom, right.

(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

Reagan Bumps Off Anti-Slavery Leader

From the religion and politics file: California's lone Unitarian lawmaker - Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey), newly elected as secretary of state - has lost her battle to retain a statue of Thomas Starr King in the U.S. Capitol. (Who is that, you say?) The fight over King is a delicious behind-the-scenes battle over who best symbolizes California.

Every state gets to erect two statues of prominent civic, historical or religious leaders who best represent the spirit of the state. California is represented by a religious duo in Statuary Hall in Washington D.C.: King, the Unitarian minister and anti-slavery leader, and Father Junipero Serra.

King is being replaced by former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, thanks to a joint resolution approved last year by the California Legislature. (In 2000, Congress allowed each state to replace the statues in the hall, with veto power given to governors.) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger embraced the change, writing the Architect of the Capitol that Reagan "embodied and captured our nation's unmatched optimism and love of liberty."

Bowen says the whole thing was rushed through the Legislature and wrote Schwarzenegger urging him to block the statue change: "As you know, Rev. Thomas Starr King was an influential Unitarian minister, orator and advocate for preserving the Union and ending slavery during the Civil War. ... Later, President Abraham Lincoln credited Reverend Starr King with keeping California in the Union in the early days of the Civil War."

For my money, I'd replace the Serra statue. The diminutive Franciscan priest - who practiced mortification by whipping and burning his body - established nine California missions that shackled, whipped and essentially treated Indians as slaves after "converting" them at gunpoint.

(Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP)

Diebold 'Break-In' Video, Aliens and Election Fraud

Democratic state Sen. Debra Bowen, who's running to replace Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, has released a shadowy, guerrilla video of two men breaking into a poll worker's garage and hacking into a voting machine.

The campaign video, which takes place at night, shows two men driving up to a house, cutting the lock on a garage and tampering with a Diebold machine using a mini-bar key and a computer disk.

It's clearly a fake break-in, done to create worries about voting machines and a buzz for Bowen among people who are fearful of massive fraud at polling places.

"See, they drop these election machines off at the pollster's houses before elections," one of the men says in the video. After finishing the job, one "burglar" says to the other: "Are you going to vote for McPherson?"

"Felons can't vote," his friend replies, "but maybe I will — now that we're done with this machine."

The video builds on a belief that California's elections systems are vulnerable to attack and manipulation. Recently, a Princeton University computer science professor and two students obtained a Diebold AccuVote-TS, created a virus and downloaded it into the machine using a memory card inserted into a locked hatch on the side. That particular machine is not used in California, but another Diebold product used in the state has been shown to have vulnerabilities.

And this week, the Oakland Tribune reports, "state officials have learned that California's most widely used electronic voting machines feature a button in back that can allow someone to vote multiple times." Elections officials "issued a caution to the more than one-third of California counties that use Sequoia equipment...to keep a close eye on the machines and post warnings that tampering with election equipment is a crime."

Meanwhile, reporters in the Capitol today received a packet from someone with a new website called TheAliensAreComing.com, which appears to take the break-in video seriously and questions whether Bowen is condoning a crime. The anonymous packet, which came with a green plastic alien head, read in part:

"The fact is, Debra Bowen has been associating herself for the past year with this wacky crowd called Black Box Voting, the very people behind this burglary video. And for a year, they've publicly announced their intention to break into property and destroy a voting system. Yet Bowen has continued to associate herself with them. This begs the question: did Debra Bowen have any knowledge of the burglary?"

It's hard to believe anyone would think the video is actually real. It just seems so obviously a setup. The AliensAreComing website looks like it's produced by a voting machine company. I e-mailed the site, and we'll see what they say.

Bowen's office defended the video. "The fact is, Secretary McPherson continues to deny there are any problems with these machines, despite the fact that very reputable studies have been done showing there are vulnerabilities," said Sandra Lloyd-Jones, spokeswoman for Bowen. "He asking for blind faith in the security and accuracy of these machines with no proof."

But Beth Miller Malek, a spokeswoman for McPherson, said the video Bowen promotes lies about electronic voting systems and attempts to scare voters. "It's pretty outrageous to be a candidate for secretary of state and feature a video where you are hoping to show vulnerabilities in the system. I think it's shameful."

(Photos: AP)