EXCLUSIVE: CA SoS Responds to Riverside County Hack Challenge Letter!

[BradBlog]

EXCLUSIVE: California SoS Finds No State Law to Prohibit Proposed Riverside County 'Hack Test' of Sequoia Touch-Screen Machines!
Debra Bowen Says Board of Supes Proposed 'Ground Rules' for Test 'Overly Narrow', 'Would Prove Little and Give Voters False Sense of Security'
Supervisor Stone's Hope for SoS Participation in '1000 to 1' Bet with Election Integrity Advocates under Unilateral, Unrealistic Restrictions Flatly Rejected by State's New Election Chief...

California's new Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, has flatly rejected a request from Riverside County, CA County Supervisor Jeff Stone to participate in a "hack test" challenge originally proposed to Election Integrity Advocates in response to their concerns about security and accuracy for the county's electronic touch-screen voting machines, The BRAD BLOG has learned.

In a letter sent to Stone last week, obtained by The BRAD BLOG (posted in full at the end of this article), Secretary Bowen found that though there was no state law to prohibit such a test, her office wnot participate, in part, due to the narrow restrictions initially insisted upon by Supervisor Stone.

In her reply to a letter sent in early January to the outgoing Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson, just days before he would leave office, Bowen wrote, "I am not aware of any state law that would prohibit the type of security test that you described in your letter." Unlike Bowen, the former SoS had been seen as far more favorable towards relaxed security issues for electronic voting.

As The BRAD BLOG originally reported last December, Stone had initially challenged local Election Integrity advocates "a thousand to one," during a public hearing, that a programmer would be unable to "manipulate" the county's voting system.

In her letter, Bowen joined other computer security professionals who had previously rejected Stone's unilateral suggestions for ground rules, in the letter to McPherson, calling them "overly narrow" and potentially giving voters a "false sense of security." Stone had written to the former SoS that just "15 minutes would be allotted" for the test and the programmer who accepted the challenge --- noted computer security expert Harri Hursti --- would be prohibited from using any tools or reaching around the back of the machine. "In every sense," Stone wrote, "he would be like any voter on Election Day approaching a voting unit at the polls."

Bowen, however, balked at Stone's unilateral ground rules, in her no-uncertain-terms response...

FULL DETAILS, COMPLETE BOWEN RESPONSE LETTER:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4196



---
Brad Friedman
THE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...
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[Maat]

1. Tragically, I live in Riverside County, Ca.

The Save-Our-Vote organization that caused Stone to react this way contains a bunch of my buddies. They are working hard for election integrity!

Stone is notorious; we were very glad when Bowen was elected!