SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 25 (Reuters) - California election officials said on Friday they invited a Finnish computer security expert to break into an electronic voting machine built by Diebold Inc. (DBD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to test its safeguards and reliability, both having been questioned by activists.
Security expert Harri Hursti will try to break into a voting machine made by Diebold Election Systems to see if election results can be manipulated as activists who oppose the increasing use of the machines claim, according to California's secretary of state office.
Diebold came under fire in California after the state's March 2004 primary election for glitches at polling places attributed to its voting machines.
In May 2004, California's former secretary of state decertified the machines from use in four counties and limited their deployment in 10 other counties.
Diebold is trying to recertify its machines. The company was unavailable for comment on the planned test of its voting machine.
The machine Hursti will test will be randomly selected from a California county and a date for the effort has not yet been determined, according Nghia Nguyen Demovic, a spokeswoman for California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson.
"It's another layer of testing," she said, referring to the planned test. "Hursti's job is to help us test the system to make sure every vote is secured and counted."
Security expert Harri Hursti will try to break into a voting machine made by Diebold Election Systems to see if election results can be manipulated as activists who oppose the increasing use of the machines claim, according to California's secretary of state office.
Diebold came under fire in California after the state's March 2004 primary election for glitches at polling places attributed to its voting machines.
In May 2004, California's former secretary of state decertified the machines from use in four counties and limited their deployment in 10 other counties.
Diebold is trying to recertify its machines. The company was unavailable for comment on the planned test of its voting machine.
The machine Hursti will test will be randomly selected from a California county and a date for the effort has not yet been determined, according Nghia Nguyen Demovic, a spokeswoman for California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson.
"It's another layer of testing," she said, referring to the planned test. "Hursti's job is to help us test the system to make sure every vote is secured and counted."
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