Making good on a pledge from her campaign last fall, Secretary of State Debra Bowen has taken the first step toward a new review of all electronic voting machines. And the criteria for the new testing makes it clear: she may ban machines that fail the tests.

Bowen was a pretty frequent critic of electronic machines (especially touch-screen devices) both in her position as a state senator and in her statewide campaign that unseated incumbent Bruce McPherson.

Today, she released a draft document of how the new investigation will proceed. And the document raises real questions about whether some machines, as they are currently used, might fail. For example, Bowen says that all touch screen machines must have some way of blocking hackers as part of its “design, hardware, firmware and/or software.”

While that doesn’t necessarily mean touch screen machines will fail, Bowen’s fall 2006 campaign sharply criticized the security of machines made by Diebold Elections Systems. In fact, her campaign website even included video of someone allegedly opening up the back of a Diebold machine with a hotel mini-bar key. That would certainly not seem to meet the strict anti-hacking standard outlined above.

Bowen also proposes that testers conduct a mock ‘attack’ on every kind of electronic machine currently in circulation, as well as a new review of all the internal computer source code of those machines.

Today’s action by the secretary leads to two big questions: will she actually ban machines that fail (versus, say, easier-to-do modifications)? And can public hearings, testing, and decisions all be completed by August 3? That’s the date Bowen says elections officials need to know what devices they can use for the February 2008 presidential primary.

Expect a lot of local elections officials, and voting machine makers, to weigh in on those questions in the next few days and weeks.

The full document from the secretary of state is here.