DuPage election machines pass 'key' test

The DuPage County Election Commission's voting machine security protocols passed an unexpected impromptu test.

A key, purchased on eBay for $6 by a group critical the election commission, was given to a Daily Herald reporter in advance of a demonstration Wednesday by the county on ballot security measures. The group said the key was advertised as being able to open locks and cabinets storing voting equipment.

Election Commission Executive Director Robert Saar stepped aside for the reporter to try the key on a storage locker, noting that even if it worked, other measures are employed to ensure the security of what's contained inside.

The key didn't open the locker.

Even if it had, Saar said, "we'd still have a uniquely numbered seal over the door that would indicate tampering."

That's in addition to a bolted plank of wood that covers door's access panel when it is loaded and ready to be taken to its polling place. Saar said the locks on the cabinets had not been changed since they were purchased more than two years ago.

Melisa Urda, co-chairman of the DuPage chapter of the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project, gave the Daily Herald the key. The group has long been critical of the election commission and the electronic voting machines. She said the key's failure to unlock the cabinet did not relieve any fear she has about vote tampering.

"It's the security of the software that is so vulnerable, according to so many reports by leading computer scientists and those working with election machines for decades," Urda said. "Reports stated that many of those lockers were susceptible, so we had to get our own key and if the opportunity arose that we would try it."

Saar said the county's voting equipment is secured through a series of safety protocols that includes several seals over sensitive electronic components and keeping tabulating machinery off computer networks to prevent hacking. Saar's office went so far as to install windows that allow poll watchers to monitor the tabulating room.

But most importantly, Saar said, is the chain of custody of the voting machines and the ballots. He said ballots are always under the watch of a bipartisan contingent of election judges or sheriff's deputies.

"No one has unilateral access, including me," Saar said. "I'm not asking anyone to trust me, I'm asking them to trust the chain of custody."

Saar said he understands that he's never going to satisfy everyone's concerns, but he contends that most are unfounded.

"Most of the concerns are chain of custody, and I believe we've addressed most of those," he said.

Urda said the electronic equipment will always pose problems.

"We cannot be inside that machine when it is counting so we don't know if it's being done correctly," she said. "All these things they've done is like building a fortress around a castle but with an open gate still allowing people in."