VOTE SYSTEM'S FOREIGN LINKS RAISE CONCERN.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer

As Los Angeles County officials roll out a new $25 million voting system today, an election watchdog group and others are raising concerns about its software and its maker's ties to an international gambling firm.

Under a deal the county signed earlier this summer, the InkaVote Plus system by Election Systems & Software includes ballot counters and software at 4,900 precincts throughout the region.

The system uses technology developed by Unisyn Voting Solutions, a subsidiary of Carlsbad-based International Lottery & Totalizator Systems Inc.

Berjaya Lottery Management, a Hong Kong-based firm that operates gambling establishments and casinos, owns 71 percent of the outstanding voting stock of International Lottery, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents.

Concerns voiced

But Bev Harris, director of Black Box Voting, a nonpartisan, nonprofit election watchdog group, said she is concerned that the new system will only be used in Los Angeles County and the public cannot assess the reliability of its proprietary software.

``That makes it very difficult for anyone to know anything about it,'' Harris said. ``The bottom line is citizens have to be able to know about their voting systems.''

State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who is running for secretary of state, said she is concerned about foreign ownership of voting systems used in the U.S.

``Ownership is obviously an issue, particularly when we have secret software that nobody can see or evaluate,'' Bowen said. ``The disclosure of the software, which some of these vendors claim is a trade secret, would go a long ways to assuring people that the software isn't doing something it's not supposed to be doing.''

International Lottery officials did not return calls for comment Wednesday.

System tested

But county election officials defended the system and Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said she is confident the equipment will work accurately Nov. 7.

``These companies and this equipment has been through federal and state rigorous testing and is certified for use,'' McCormack said. ``And it's a paper ballot voting system so recounting is pretty easy.

``The software developed for InkaVote is proprietary software. All the software developed by vendors is proprietary. I think it's odd that some people don't want it to be proprietary. If you give people the open source code, they would have the directions on how to hack into it. We think the proprietary nature of the software is good for security.''

Secretary of State Bruce McPherson certified the new InkaVote Plus system in April.

Secretary of State's Office spokeswoman Nghia Nguyen Demovic said her office was aware of International Lottery's ties to the Hong Kong firm but has tested the system and is confident it will be an accurate and secure system.

The new equipment is an enhancement to the InkaVote optical scan paper-based voting system used to count 7 million ballots since November 2003.

McCormack said county officials decided to spend $25 million to buy the new equipment -- versus $100 million for a countywide electronic touch-screen voting system -- because the Help America Vote Act requires election officials to use systems this year that check for overvotes and undervotes and provide audio assistance for visually impaired voters.

The new system also allows voters who speak Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog/Filipino and Vietnamese to vote using an audio headset.

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

[phone]