VOTING SYSTEM A LOST CAUSE? DECERTIFICATION BY STATE POSSIBLE.

Byline: HARRISON SHEPPARD

Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO -- California's secretary of state was poised to potentially decertify Los Angeles County's voting system late Friday night in a move that could leave the state's largest county struggling to conduct a legal presidential primary in February.

With just hours to go before a deadline, Secretary of State Debra Bowen had not issued her final decision late Friday, leaving elections officials throughout the state anxiously awaiting her decisions.

But Bowen had previously said that decertifying the Los Angeles system was a possibility because a private vendor failed to provide information in time.

The move would come even as California seeks to hold its first February presidential primary, which has garnered high-profile attention across the country.

Bowen recently concluded a "top-to-bottom" review of voting systems in the state and registrars across the state were anxiously awaiting news of the results.

But the Los Angeles County system was not included because, she said, a private vendor failed to provide information in time.

Los Angeles County recently spent $25 million on the InkaVote Plus system by Omaha-based Election Systems & Software Inc., and first used it in November 2006.

The system is used to help the blind and disabled vote, as well as catch mistakes made by other voters in filling out ballots too faintly or marking too many candidates.

But ES&S did not provide all of the system's source code to Bowen's office, after repeated requests. ES&S officials earlier said they had concerns and questions about the review, and were surprised to hear their system was not included.

A decertification order, if issued, would not take effect for six months -- just in time for the February presidential primary -- but the county is scheduled to conduct three elections in the meantime.

Bowen's much-anticipated decision, which faced a midnight deadline under California election law, was expected to happen early Friday morning.

But it was delayed for hours, leaving many county elections officials on pins and needles into the night.

"It has been frustrating," said Warren Slocum, San Mateo County's chief elections officer, by telephone. "Not so much frustrating from the point of view of the possible decisions she might make, but frustrating that no information is coming from Sacramento."

But the founder of a national group concerned about ballot tampering praised Bowen and said she hoped the decision would help voters within her organization regain their trust in government.

"We've got a presidential primary in six months, and so she's faced with a choice of using equipment that's defective, frankly, or putting new equipment in and creating a tremendous challenge for the operation of the system," said Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, a watchdog group.

"And either one of those, she's going to have people yelling and screaming at her."

The Los Angeles County voting system was purchased for $25 million and installed last year, when it underwent a certification review by then- Secretary of State Bruce McPherson.

InkaVote Plus is needed to satisfy new federal requirements to reduce overvotes and undervotes, and to assist the disabled.

An overvote is when a voter mistakenly casts a vote for too many candidates in a race. An undervote is when the ballot is not marked at all, or at least in a way the machine can read.

The system will notify the voter if an undervote or overvote has been cast, allowing the person to redo the ballot.

The new requirements were written to avoid problems experienced by Florida voters in the 2000 presidential campaign.

Officials for Election Systems & Software said the company was surprised to hear that the InkaVote Plus system would not be included in Bowen's review.

Company officials had said ES&S did not provide the information requested immediately because the company had questions and concerns it wanted to discuss with Bowen's office.

According to Bowen's office, vendors throughout the state were informed March 26 about the pending review and told they had 30 days to provide the necessary software and equipment.

The review involves hiring a team of computer experts to try to hack into the systems, exploit vulnerabilities and find any potential flaws or errors.

Some vendors were given additional time, but it was not until June 26 -- after repeated requests and an unusual effort to circumvent the company by obtaining the source code from a third-party escrow company -- that ES&S complied, Bowen's office said.

By then, it was too late for the review, which concluded Friday.

Staff Writer Edwin Garcia contributed to this report.

harrison.sheppard(at)dailynews.com

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