A group of California voters is challenging Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's approval of a controversial touch-screen voting system the group claims is vulnerable to hackers looking to change election results.

The suit, put together by the voting rights group Voter Action, asks a San Francisco Superior Court to nullify February's conditional certification of Diebold Election System's AccuVote-TSx electronic voting system and ban the purchase or use of the system for the November statewide election.

"We can't have trustworthy elections with Diebold's voting machines,'' said Lowell Finley, co-director of Voter Action who is an attorney in the case. "They are insecure and easily hacked."

The suit also names the 18 California counties, including Alameda and Marin, that used any Diebold system in the last election.

A spokeswoman for the secretary of state said the Diebold machines pose no risk. "The Diebold system has passed the most stringent requirements in the nation,'' Jennifer Kerns said. "We're confident that it can ensure the integrity of the vote on election day.''

A study earlier this year by computer experts hired by the state found a number of security problems in the Diebold software. They saw the same problems that Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti demonstrated in Florida last year when he showed it was possible to use the computer memory cards to undetectably change the result of an election, even without passwords or special access to the system.

"Clearly there are serious security flaws,'' the report said. "However, despite these serious vulnerabilities, we believe that the security issues are manageable.''

McPherson's certification sets tough computer security requirements for counties using the Diebold machines, but the suit argues that the standards aren't enough to guarantee the machines are safe from tampering.

"The system has been shown to have serious fundamental vulnerabilities to fraud and vote manipulation,'' said John Eichhorst, another attorney in the case.

A spokesman for Diebold said the complaints are unfounded. "The system has been used over hundreds of elections and performed extremely well,'' said David Bear, a spokesman for the company, of Allen, Texas. "It's been consistently found to not only be safe and secure, but also accurate.''

Many of California's 52 counties are in the market for new voting machines, due largely to the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the wake of the controversy over the hanging chads in the Florida vote recount during the 2000 presidential election. Even counties using paper ballots are looking at electronic touch-screen models to meet the requirement that every polling place have at least one machine that is accessible to people with disabilities.

Although the suit would have no direct effect on the June 6 primary election, it casts an enormous shadow over preparations for that vote. Counties buying the Diebold system for June would face the possibility of having to purchase completely new voting machines for November.

"This is putting (the counties) in a difficult situation,'' Finley admitted, "but the blame should go to the secretary of state, not the plaintiffs.''

That's not much help for counties struggling over a decision that could cost them millions of dollars.

Marin County, for example, has used Diebold's optical scan system for a number of years with no problems, but has not decided whether to buy the company's touch-screen machines to accommodate disabled voters.

"I don't see us being compliant (with the disabled access rules) by June 6,'' said Michael Smith, the county registrar. "We still have to come up with a solution by November.''

©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

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