http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/230176 By Andrea Kelly Arizona Daily Star 03.18.2008 The Arizona secretary of state says Pima County has been allowing a "fundamental security breach" by letting party officials take home ballots during required testing before elections. Recent testimony at the Legislature from Libertarian and Democratic party representatives indicated ballots were taken "off-site" by the parties during "logic and accuracy" testing of vote-counting machines, Secretary of State Jan Brewer, told Pima County Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard Elas in a letter Monday. "That Pima County would allow such a massive election security breach is itself a shocking development, especially given the recent high-profile efforts by your county to increase voting security," she said in the letter. The person who testified as a representative of the Democratic Party was not there on behalf of the Pima County Democratic Party, said Vince Rabago, county Democratic Party chairman. The problem stems from ballots distributed to the parties, which fill them out and return them to be run through the machines tabulating votes as a test to ensure the machine counted the right number of votes, and recorded them correctly. Numerous local officials said the test ballots are stamped in a way that prevents them from being counted later as a regular vote. "They are ballots that are printed and look very much the same except for bright red letters no less than inch and perhaps two inches high that say 'test,'" said Brad Nelson, director of the Pima County Division of Elections. Republican and Democratic party officials confirmed the ballots are clearly marked as "test" ballots, and even in the unlikely event one made it into the ballot box on Election Day, it would stand out. "I guess it would be like cashing a check with VOID written on it," said Judi White, chairwoman of the Pima County Republican Party. But it comes down to a security breach no other Arizona county shares, said Kevin Tyne, deputy secretary of state. "The process of actually allowing partisan party representatives to leave the premises with ballots is a concern," Tyne said. The main issue is if a precinct recorded more votes than it had voters, it would be very difficult to tell which ones were false, Tyne said. But even making it into the ballot box would be tough, others say. The county provides the parties with a specific number of test ballots, for a specific number of voting precincts, Nelson said. They take the test ballots and fill in votes. The test ballots are counted when they're retuned to ensure the same number are received. Then the test ballots, along with test ballots the county has prepared, are run through the voting machines to make sure the machines are accurate. After the testing is complete, the test ballots are sealed and securely stored, Nelson said. This is done according to Pima County election procedure, Elas said. This has been the way the county has conducted the logic and accuracy tests for as many as 25 years, through changing technologies, Nelson said. It's a way for the parties to independently assure the machines are counting correctly, not just taking the election officials' words for it, he said. Officials with local political parties say election security is very important to them but didn't think this particular issue is worth such a fuss. "That was the process," White said of the testing. "I think everything worked fine in that process, but we're all for making the process better." Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll said he is in favor of additional scrutiny of the county elections division. "I would welcome hearings, investigations, probes to discuss all of the (election security) issues that have been so well publicized and documented here in Pima County," he said. ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org/mailman/listinfo/isn
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