Emery County: Ex-clerk at center of machine politics - Salt Lake Tribune

Emery County: Ex-clerk at center of machine politics
By Glen Warchol
The Salt Lake Tribune

Salt Lake Tribune
Emery County's former and would-be future county clerk, Bruce Funk, is many things to many people.
To electronic elections giant Diebold Election Systems, Funk is a nuisance in an obscure rural Utah county who asks embarrassing questions.
To the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office, he is a renegade election official who put a pothole in the $27 million transition to electronic voting.
To anti-electronic voting activists, the 23-year veteran clerk, forced out of office in March after he allowed independent computer experts to examine an Emery County voting machine, is nothing less than a martyr to democracy.
To shocked computer experts and electronic voting certification officials from California to Pennsylvania, Funk is a whistle-blower who uncovered a severe security problem in Diebold's machines.
One thing appears certain: Funk is the only election official in the country skeptical - Diebold would say, credulous - enough to invite computer scientists from Black Box Voting, a Washington state-based nonprofit group critical of electronic voting, to examine one of his units. Data gathered during that examination in tiny Emery County has generated concern by some computer experts, whose findings have been reported in The New York Times and Washington Post. Election officials in California and Pennsylvania have called for an immediate security fix.
That's not the case in Utah, where voters in the June 27 primary will be using the new Diebold machines. State election officials say there is no reason to suspect the integrity of the balloting and they are not demanding any corrective action by the company.
Michael Shamos, a Carnegie-Mellon computer science professor who certifies voting machines for the state of Pennsylvania, says the security gap Funk uncovered is the most serious ever discovered in an electronic voting system.

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further in and is a HUGE article.

During a turbulent meeting that followed his unilateral decision to allow Black Box Voting to inspect a machine, Funk told state, Diebold and Emery County commissioners he would resign.
But Funk retracted his words within hours, and instead put in writing that he intended to finish his term to ensure the integrity of local elections.
County officials countered that they had accepted the oral resignation and changed locks on Funk's office.
"I was elected by the people of Emery County and only they can tell me to go," Funk says.
The commissioners have appointed a replacement for Funk, while lawyers wrangle over the dispute.
"The way I see it is, the citizens' vote is their most prized possession and I've got to watch over it," Funk says. "It's time for the state and Diebold to admit something is wrong and fix it." If state officials have their way, Funk will not even rate a footnote in Utah elections law. County clerks such as Funk who let unauthorized people tamper with their machines, they maintain, are a much bigger threat to voting security than any electronic vulnerability.