Calif. orders security for vote machines

SACRAMENTO, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- New security protections have been ordered for California's electronic voting machines following reports hackers were able to easily break into the system.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen's order late Friday was quickly denounced by the state's voter registrars who said it would undermine confidence in the Inkavote Plus voting machines and cause them to have to print up millions of new paper ballots.

Contra Costa County Registrar Stephen Weir told the Los Angeles Times: "Tens of millions of additional ballots, you don't just go to Kinkos. The timing is way too tight."

Bowen countered that the machines' makers had failed to provide equipment to her office for testing in a timely manner and likened her order to the halting of a rocket countdown. "When NASA discovers a flow or a potential safety concern in the space shuttle, it doesn't continue launching the missions... It scrubs the missions until the problem is fixed," she said.