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By Associated PressTesting of the Diebold optical-scan machines, used in Hernando County, showed them not to be hacker-proof.
TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush said the state should review the way it tests electronic voting machines after a Leon County elections official said the devices could be hacked to change race outcomes.
Bush's remarks Friday come after the acting secretary of state, David Mann, said he was confident in the process of certifying voting machines. Mann said he was concerned only that Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho might have given an outsider access to computer codes for a test of the Diebold optical-scan machines.
Sancho sent state elections officials a letter Friday requesting they do "further investigation" of Diebold Election Systems Accuvote 2000. Sancho said his internal tests showed the optical-scan machine's memory card produces false results when hacked by elections office insiders.
Diebold supplies optical-scan voting systems to 29 Florida counties, including Hernando County.
Sancho persuaded Leon County commissioners Tuesday to scrap the Diebold system in favor of one manufactured by Election Systems & Software, which also makes the ATM-style touch-screen voting machines used in Miami-Dade and Broward.
Bush said the issue is "too important" to ignore.
"If there needs to be any changes in policy as it relates to certification of machines, then we should do so," Bush said.
Bush said Sancho should meet with incoming Secretary of State Sue Cobb, when she takes office in January, to discuss ways to improve voting security and accuracy.
"I welcome the remarks," Sancho said. "It's the responsible public-policy position to examine the information, rather than attack the messenger."
A Diebold spokesman questioned Sancho's tests, saying they didn't replicate real-world conditions. The tests involved optical-scan machines that use paper ballots voters mark with pencils. The ballots are fed into scanners that record the results onto the memory cards, which are tabulated by a central computer. Some critics prefer the machines because any discrepancies can be resolved by recounting the paper ballots.
Annie D. Williams, Hernando County's supervisor of elections, said the county has no plans to replace its Diebold machines.
"The system has worked very well for us," she said.
Hernando bought the machines in 2000 and has had only minor glitches, she said.
Hernando was among a handful of counties in Florida that reported voting problems during the November 2004 elections.
The county's main computer server couldn't read four computer memory cards containing at least 5,000 ballots cast by absentee and early voters, as well as those who voted in Precinct 45, Spring Hill United Church of Christ. Each card contained totals tallied from one of the 75 optical-scan machines the county was using in November 2004.
Those glitches forced county canvassing board members to spend several hours poring over tapes and using an adding machine to calculate by hand all the precinct totals.
Voters like the machines, Williams said, because they leave a paper trail.
The county has recently spent $200,000 to buy Diebold touch-screen machines, Williams added, one of which will be put in each precinct to help people with disabilities vote.
Information from staff writer Abhi Raghunathan and from Associated Press was used in this report.