This weekly feature surveys top government IT-related news -- involving all levels of government, from the federal to state and local, and international news. It is designed to give readers a primer on current trends and developments affecting the industry's major and interesting players, surveying news headlines from around the world. Washingtonpost.com's Cynthia L. Webb pens the feature. • Last Week's Gov't IT Review • E-mail Cindy Webb
MSNBC noted that VoteHere is hardly a big player in the voting technology sector: "In sharp contrast to Diebold, the e-voting industry's leader, VoteHere has not yet put its technology into existing election systems. VoteHere has made a deal with Sequoia Voting Systems for incorporating VHTi software in future machines." CNET offered more details on what VoteHere's software aims to do: "The company's software is designed to let voters verify that their ballots were properly handled. It assigns random identification numbers to ballots and candidates. After people vote, they get a receipt that shows which candidates they chose--listed as numbers, not names. Voters can then use the Internet and their ballot identification number to check that their votes were correctly counted."
Wired reported that "[s]ome critics pointed out that the VoteHere procedure might be too complicated for some voters. But Adler said not all voters would have to check their votes at the end of the election to ensure the vote count was correct. It would take only a small percentage to verify the election. In December, a hacker broke into VoteHere's internal computer network and copied its source code. Adler said his company's decision to release the source code didn't have anything to do with the hack. VoteHere had been planning to release the code before the break-in, but was waiting to obtain sufficient feedback."
Log Rolling?
VoteHere's move got a big thumbs up from one of the leading critics of e-voting -- John Hopkins University's Aviel D. Rubin.
"VoteHere is showing that they are serious about the importance of public scrutiny of voting systems," Rubin said, according to Government Computer News. "Hopefully this release will put pressure on the direct-recording electronic-voting manufacturers to do the same."
But there's a bit more to the story. Rubin not only helped played a leading role in criticizing the Pentagon's plans for an online vote this fall for overseas personnel, he also "was an unpaid member of VoteHere's technical advisory board for about two years." To be fair, as GCN noted, Rubin "severed connections with the company following the publication last July of a report critical of an e-voting platform."
A San Jose Mercury News editorial today lauds the efforts of the Open Voting Consortium and suggests voting officials should embrace the group's work. Excerpt: "An electronic voting system that's cheap, secure, accurate and easy to use. One that uses off-the-shelf hardware and publicly examinable software. One that voters can trust. A prototype of such a system -- the holy grail of election officials -- was on display last week in San Jose. It looked like the real deal. Had the federal government underwritten the research behind it years ago, such a system might now be making its debut in voting booths. Instead, the demonstration took place in a conference room at the county government building with its creators in search of financial backers and government grants. ... Open Voting Consortium's system has appeared too late for Santa Clara and other counties that have been plunking down tens of millions of dollars for touch-screens that lack some of the new system's virtues. But many counties that weren't under pressure to replace equipment have put off the decision, for good reason. For them, this next generation of voting systems may be worth the wait -- if not too long. Open Voting Consortium appears to have what it takes to inspire faith in electronic voting. Its system can't come to market soon enough."
So why are many computer security experts so passionate about e-voting? Barbara Simons, one of the experts who helped talk the Pentagon out of running an online voting operation for overseas personnel this November, put it bluntly to eWeek: "Software can contain bugs, and it can be tampered with, introducing the possibility that a printout of votes following an election does not represent actual votes in a touch-screen system, Simons said. That problem does not necessarily increase the likelihood of fraud, but it increases the appearance of the potential for fraud, she said. 'You're basically handing over your rights in a democracy to a handful of companies with secret code,' Simons said. 'Why is it that a bunch of geeks who are not known for being political activists have suddenly had their lives taken over by this issue? We're doing this because we care about democracy. I believe our democracy is at stake.'"
Other noteworthy government IT news:
* Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, would cut 100,000 federal contractor jobs as part of his plan to rein in the government's budget deficit. Kerry outlined his ideas in a speech at Georgetown University yesterday. Of course, there was immediate criticism from the federal contracting community. "I don't think the point ought to be to cut any number of contractors or federal employees. Staffing levels are determined by the size of the government's mission," Stan Soloway, president of contractor association Professional Services Council, told GovExec.com.
* A legal war over the Linux open-source operating system could spell trouble for government contractors in Australia. "Federal Government departments are expected to be exempt from exposure to the SCO Group's claims over Linux. The Copyright Act allows the Commonwealth to assume intellectual property rights and negotiate payment later. But no such preferential treatment exists for government contractors and suppliers, which must carry the legal burden under present federal contracts if they supply software found to infringe a third party's intellectual property. It is not clear how the Commonwealth's special treatment under the Copyright Act will be applied should SCO's claims on Linux be upheld in US courts," the Australian IT reported. Stay tuned, in other words. And if you're not familiar with the whole SCO-Linux flap, here's some background.
* Electronic Data Systems's troubles with the mammoth Navy-Marine Corps. Intranet project was the focus of a front-page Wall Street Journal article on Tuesday. "The giant project to set up a computer network connecting 4,000 Navy locations has turned into a quagmire for EDS, which already has lost $1.6 billion on the assignment. The troubled project also presents a daunting challenge to Mr. [Michael H. Jordan], a veteran CEO, who was lured out of retirement by EDS directors a year ago to turn around the pioneering computer-services company. So far, Mr. Jordan has discovered that EDS executives vastly underestimated the scope of the project, relied on incorrect information from the military and failed to coordinate their efforts. That resulted in lots of unfinished and unbilled work." The Journal noted the project is key to EDS's balance sheet since it "is valued at as much as $8.8 billion in total revenue."
* Do we have lift off? The Wall Street Journal also reported on Monday that Boeing Co. is about to get reinstated by the U.S. Air Force to compete for lucrative rocket contracts. "More than eight months after punishing Boeing" for the illegally obtaining internal documents from rival Lockheed Martin, the Journal said "senior Boeing and Air Force officials are putting the final touches on an agreement that clears the way for the company's rocket units to resume government bidding, according to industry and government officials. Slated to be announced as early as the next few weeks, the agreement would put Boeing back in the good graces of the military by officially designating it again as a 'presently responsible' contractor."
* Speaking of Lockheed Martin, the company said Wednesday it was lowering its offer for San Diego-based Titan Corp., citing an ethics probe of some Titan officials. "Lockheed and Titan have been conducting reviews of whether payments were made, or items of value were provided, by Titan consultants to foreign officials. These internal reviews are substantially complete, the companies said in a news release Wednesday," Dow Jones Newswires reported. The Washington Post covered the news in today's edition.
* You don't have to be inside the Beltway to be knocking on Uncle Sam's door for federal contracting dollars. But it sure helps to at least have a foot in the door. "Viisage, a Billerica [Mass.] provider of facial-recognition hardware and software, tripled its presence in the nation's capital last month when it acquired Trans Digital Technologies Corp., an Arlington, Va., company that supplies passport technology to the State Department. And the timing of the deal could not have been better for Viisage," The Boston Globe reported Monday. "The acquisition 'gives us more visibility,' Viisage chief executive Bernard Bailey told the paper. "It puts us right in the middle of border management." The Globe noted that the federal government plans next month "to award a border control contract that could be worth up to $10 billion over the coming decade, [and] biometrics companies nationwide -- including a New England cluster working on face recognition, fingerprinting, and other identification technologies -- are vying for a slice of the pie."
* Follow the money: Want a hint of where to look for homeland security funding? A state's administrative agency is one of the first places to consider, said Mark Dozier, an official with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Domestic Preparedness, according to Washington Technology. "Each state or territory has appointed a contact to manage preparedness grants. These offices, in turn, award subgrants to local governments. They also designate a representative to administer local programs inside the state. To receive federal funds each year, states must submit a homeland security strategy to DHS. A handful of states are ineligible to receive federal funds because their strategies have not yet been approved, Dozier said."
E-mail government IT tips, comments and links to cindyDOTwebbATwashingtonpost.com
