BBV: Lax controls over e-voting testing labs (Must Read Outrage Du Jour)

[stickdog]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/8797832.htm?1c

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley had a simple question: Had a new electronic voting machine been approved by an independent testing lab?

State law requires such approval before the device could be used by California voters. It guaranteed the machines counted votes accurately and would work reliably during an election. As the state's top election official, Shelley figured he could get a quick answer.

He figured wrong.

Wyle Laboratories of El Segundo refused to discuss the status of its testing of the AccuVote-TSx machine made by its client, Diebold Election Systems. The information was proprietary, Wyle said, and could be revealed only to Diebold.

And so the secretary of state was introduced to the looking-glass world of voting-machine regulation. Over the years, repeated references to ``federal testing'' by election officials have given the impression that the government oversees the certification of touch-screen voting systems. While there are guidelines for the machines, no federal agency has legal authority to enforce them.[/i\