Election Assistance Commission Exposes Severe Flaws in Voting System Testing

[Bill Bored]

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For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Greenhalgh

votetrustusa.org

January 29, 2007


Election Assistance Commission Report Exposes Severe Flaws in Testing of
Electronic Voting Systems


Last Friday the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) released a
highly critical assessment of CIBER Inc., an Independent Testing Authority
(ITA) responsible for testing voting system software. The report was
received and reviewed by the EAC in July 2006 and was used as the basis to
deny CIBER interim accreditation as a testing lab under the EAC last summer.
“CIBER has not shown the resources to provide a reliable product,” the
report concludes.

Because CIBER Inc. and Wyle Laboratories work together - CIBER testing the
election management software and Wyle testing the individual voting units -
the report assessed the two labs together but found “they have distinctly
different quality management programs and different levels of proficiency
about following those programs.” The report was considerably less critical
of Wyle, which received interim accreditation by the EAC, however it noted
that “Cross checking between CIBER and Wyle reports has revealed at times
that neither ITA has performed certain tests expecting that the test was
done by the other.”

The report faulted CIBER claiming “critical processes were not implemented
nor procedures followed.” It also found that CIBER’s “testing for a product
tends to either use vendor developed tests or new tests developed
specifically for the product - they have no standard test methods defined.
This makes their testing dependent on the vendor input and vulnerable to
unique vendor interpretations”.

“This report exposes the testing and certification of voting system software
to date as little more than a charade,” said Joan Krawitz, executive
director of VoteTrustUSA.org, a watchdog group that advocates for increased
security and safeguards for electronic voting systems. “We have repeatedly
raised concerns about the relationship of the vendors and the testing labs
and this report confirms the grim reality that the voting machine vendors
were often in control of the testing process.” Under current EAC
guidelines, the testing labs are hired and paid directly by the voting
system vendors to assess compliance with federal standards in order to
receive federal certification.

CIBER’s failure to receive interim accreditation first came to the public’s
attention January 4, 2007 when it was reported in The New York Times. The
New York State Board of Elections requested CIBER’s assessment report
several weeks ago and has criticized the EAC for not publishing it last
summer. New York State currently has a $3 million contract with CIBER to
conduct state certification testing on voting equipment.

“Before the EAC denied their accreditation, CIBER tested the software that
tabulated at least 70% of votes cast in the November mid-term elections,”
said Warren Stewart, policy director for VoteTrustUSA.org. “It is extremely
troubling that the EAC chose not to inform election officials and the public
of their concerns with CIBER’s testing process last summer.”

The report was prepared by Steven V. Freeman for the EAC and is available
here

###

Editor’s Note: VoteTrustUSA is a non-partisan, not-for-profit network
organization, serving more than 50 state and county-based election integrity
groups in 33 states.

[IndyOp]

1. Want to see if you can get even more hair on the back of your neck to rise?

Read John Washburn's article at VoteTrust -

Assessment of Labs Reveals Flawed Voting System Testing
By John Washburn, VoteTrustUSA Voting Technology Task Force
January 29, 2007

On Friday, January 26, 2007 the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) released the Interim Accreditation Assessment report submitted to the EAC back in July of 2006. The report “Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Interim Accreditation Independent Test Authorities (ITA) Assessment Report CIBER & Wyle” is an assessment of an on-site review conducted July 17 to July 22, 2006. It is a damning indictment of the ITA team of the CIBER lab and the Wyle lab, which tested the voting equipment used by at least 70% of the voters in the November 7, 2006 election.

The failures documented in the report exceed the direst fears of those who had come to question the independence, authority and testing competence of the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) ITA labs. The cadre of doubters came to include many computer security experts, election integrity activists, several state examiners and eventually candidates themselves. Doubt grew with each NASED qualified system which later proved to have significant defects. Doubts grew with revelations of significant defects in systems qualified through NASED ITA program. The defects and illegal system configurations had gone undiscovered by these labs through many rounds of “testing” and remained undiscovered the two labs over the course of years.

The recurring question of the doubters has always been: “How could such a system pass the qualification testing?”

Much more here...