Voting must be secure by primary time

Six months before California's presidential primary, the secretaryof state has decertified the electronic voting system used in SanBernardino County as potentially vulnerable to hacking and vote-rigging.

The same is true for 38 other counties.

But rather than shoot the messenger, county officials - and voters- should thank Debra Bowen for looking out for voters' interests.

Although Bowen decertified multimillion-dollar election systems inthe blink of an eye, and then turned around and recertified them, sheset sensible security conditions that must be met first to ensure theintegrity of electronic voting in time for California's firstpresidential primary.

Companies have 45 days to meet the new requirements to ensure theyare secure, accurate and reliable.

Electronic voting machines that were decertified included thosemade by Sequoia Voting Systems, Diebold Election Systems and HartInterCivic. Sequoia is used in San Bernardino County.

Los Angeles County's InkaVote system was decertified because itwas not submitted in time for testing. Once it is reviewed by Bowen'soffice, it could be recertified as is or with additional securityconditions.

Bowen has been criticized for putting a scare into voters andchallenging the reliability of electronic systems that were touted asthe fail-safe alternative to paper ballots. But they have beenfraught with their own set of problems. Now, it turns out, having a"paper trail" to authenticate the vote wasn't the only securitymeasure needed.

After conducting an audit by a team of computer experts who foundthe machines could be easily tampered with, Bowen has demanded newprecautions. And they all make good sense. Moreover, they shouldn'tbe that hard to muster.

Among them, Sequoia, and the other systems recertified, must nowuse only a single electronic polling machine per location, conductmanual recounts of all electronic votes, reinstall software, secureopen data ports and eliminate Internet connections.

These changes are important safeguards that will protect your votecome Election Day.

And we would expect them to be made in plenty of time for the Feb.5 primary.