State elections administrator Linda Lamone wrote a letter to Diebold's top executive last month after California's secretary of state declared that some of that state's voting machines were susceptible to errors and would not be certified.

     Lamone tells The (Baltimore) Sun that she sent the letter so that Maryland stays updated on tests being done on the California machines. But she says the similar Diebold touch-screen machines used in Maryland are secure and that she expects this year's elections to go smoothly.

     Critics of the machines pounced on the letter as evidence that there are doubts about the security of the machines in Maryland.

     Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.
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