Despite the marred credibility of a nationally known electronic voting equipment company, Story County residents do not need to worry about computer hackers altering their vote.

In a report released last Wednesday, Diebold Elections Systems, the company used by Story County for election equipment, said their touch-screen voting machines could be manipulated by computer hackers because of software flaws.

Deputy Auditor for Real Estate David Harvey said while Story County uses products from Diebold Elections Systems, their machines should not be affected because they use an optical scan system, not a touch screen system.

The optical system, which was introduced in Story County in 1996 through general county funds, is similar to a Scantron form or bubble sheet. Voters mark in their choice and the results are scanned and recorded by a tabulator. The data is then sent through a modem to the county’s computers.

Harvey said the only way for someone to manipulate data in Story County is if they obtain the memory card, which is sealed and stamped with an identification number and kept in the tabulator until an election is over.

Harvey said with the $3.8 billion in funding available to states to update voting equipment, Story County may be applying for grants to upgrade, even if it is to touch-screen voting.

“We will want to get our share of those [funds] so the taxpayers don’t bear the brunt [of the cost],” Harvey said.

He said Story County is waiting to see what systems the state will approve before upgrading. Currently, 77 counties in Iowa use an optical scanning system, while 15 counties use a touch-screen system.

“It gets worrisome with an electronically produced ballot that the voter may not see,” Harvey said.

Cliff Bergman, professor of mathematics and expert on electronic voting, said there is no reason a touch-screen system cannot be secure. He said the system can only be broken into by a poll worker.

Touch-screen voting isn’t necessarily unreliable, Bergman said. Diebold just did a bad job programming.

“They surely could have done a better job than they did,” Bergman said.

He said it is easy to miss a mistake while programming software because it is such a complicated process. Bergman said the bigger mistake made by Diebold was not allowing people to inspect the software because of company secrets.

“The secrecy of the software can’t be what makes it secure,” Bergman said.

He said if the government can’t inspect it they have no way of knowing it is accurate.

“It has to be an absolute requirement,” Bergman said.

Bergman said using touch-screen voting is much more secure than using an Internet system of voting.

Locally, the Government of the Student Body is the only entity who uses an Internet system.

Jeff Sorensen, systems analyst for Academic Information Technologies, said the voting system for GSB, which is based on the WebCT and WebMail programs, is secure against computer hackers, although he said no one has ever attempted to hack into the system.

“There’s more security to our computer system than any ballot box,” Sorensen said.

He said every vote put in the system is recorded and backed up, so in the event of a power outage or computer crash it would be highly unlikely data would be lost.

Sorensen said the system used by GSB is the voting technology of the future. “You are definitely going to see more electronic voting,” he said.