State Officials To Test Voting Machines For Security

Sacramento, CA — State authorities are calling in a computer hacking expert from Finland to try to break into one of the state´s electronic voting machines.

Harri Hursti, a computer security expert, has been hired by the secretary of state to see if the voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems are vulnerable to attacks by computer hackers.

The tests tentatively planned for Wednesday will use a randomly selected voting machine from one of the 17 counties that use the system.

Diebold, one of the nation´s largest manufacturers of electronic voting systems, is trying to get its new voting system approved for use in California.

After a test in July in San Joaquin County, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson refused to certify the machines after 20% of the new voting machines malfunctioned.