To:       Honorable Pedro A. Cortés

            Secretary of State

            Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

            Bureau of Commissions, Elections, and Legislation

            210 North Office Building

            Harrisburg PA 17120

 

Re:       Examination/Reexamination of Electronic Voting System in

[Name of County] County Pennsylvania pursuant to

25 P.S. Sec. 3031.5 (a) and (b)

 

Dear Sir:

 

1.         We, the undersigned, are qualified registered electors

            of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

2.         We, the undersigned, are qualified, registered electors

            who exceed ten (10) in number.

3.         We respectfully request that the Secretary of State for the

            Commonwealth of Pennsylvania examine/reexamine

            the electronic voting system used in Bucks County

            Pennsylvania pursuant to 25 P.S. Sec 3031 (a) of the

            Pennsylvania Election Code. 

 

3a.       In denying certification to the Diebold AV-OS voting system, the Pennsylvania Secretary of State relied upon investigator Harri Hursti's successful demonstration in Florida of a results-altering, undetectable "hack" via a security vulnerability in the memory cards used in Diebold voting systems. At the end of his report on the Florida investigation, Harri Hursti stated:

"The architecture of other manufacturers should be examined for similar vulnerabilities."  

The full report on Hursti's study is available at http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf.

The only reasonable reading of Mr. Hursti's recommendation is as a call for a broad examination of the overall hardware, firmware and software architecture of each voting system for vulnerabilities to tampering, rather than as a narrow recommendation for examination of memory cards.  Another voting system may not place as many major functions in the memory card or employ interpreted code there, but may nonetheless have major vulnerabilities in other parts of its architecture.  Anything less than a full review of the overall architecture by an independent expert assigned the task of trying to falsify results by exploiting any vulnerable points discovered could very well fail to identify such vulnerabilities.  The model for such a thorough examination is the 2004 RABA Technologies, LLC "red team attack" on the Diebold AV-TS touchscreen voting system that was commissioned by the Maryland Department of Legislative Services.  The report on that examination is available at www.raba.com/press/TA_Report_AccuVote.pdf. 

We hereby request that the re-examination of the Danaher model voting machine include examination by qualified independent computer security experts of, and attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in, the entire system's architecture.  The re-examination should be modeled upon, and be at least as comprehensive and rigorous as, the Harri Hursti and RABA Technologies examination. 

4.         We have enclosed a check payable to the Treasurer

            of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the amount

            of four hundred and fifty dollars ($450.00).

5.         We respectfully request that pursuant to 25 P.S. Sec.

            3031.5 (b) the Secretary of State examine the electronic

            voting system and issue a report relating to the functionality

            of the system.

6.         We respectfully request that the Secretary follow all the

            applicable requirements of the Pennsylvania election

            Code and common law.

 

            VERIFICATION

 

            We, the undersigned, state that the facts set forth in this

            document are true and correct to the best of our knowledge,

            information, and belief.  We acknowledge that this verification

            is made subject to the penalties of 18 Pa. C.S. Sec. 4909,

            relating to unsworn falsification to authorities.

 

 

Dated: March 24, 2006

 

 

Re:       Examination/Reexamination of Electronic Voting System (Page 1 of 2)