Maryland election officials released a highly anticipated report Wednesday that examines the security of Diebold Election Systems' touch-screen voting machines

Despite a summary in the report that states the Diebold system used in several state elections is "at high risk of compromise," the election officials and representatives of the company that wrote the report said they now have confidence in the Diebold system, and the state will proceed with its $55.6 million contract to purchase the machines. The report (PDF), prepared by Science Applications International (SAIC), offered an "action list" of 23 items for securing the machines. Six of those items have already been implemented, according to David Heller, project manager for Maryland's board of elections. These include applying encryption to the process of transferring votes from voting machines to state servers via modem and altering Diebold's software so that votes in the system could not be matched to the names of voters. The remaining items on the list include policies and procedures that the state must implement, such as training for election workers. Assuming those changes are made, officials said the Diebold systems will be ready to use in next year's primary in March.