A group of voting rights activists is asking Allegheny County to verify that the software in its touch-screen voting machines is indeed what the state certified when it authorized the paperless voting system.

The group, VoteAllegheny, wants the county board of elections to authorize a random-sample audit of about 40 of the 4,700 iVotronic touch-screen machines, which the county started using in 2006.

But no such audit has been done since the group started asking for one in June, despite three "sense of council" motions unanimously approved by Allegheny County Council asking the county elections division to audit the machines.

VoteAllegheny members contend that the machines, which were approved by the county elections board and purchased through a federal grant at a cost of $12 million, are especially vulnerable to computer break-ins.

"The security of our election is a computer security problem," said David Eckhardt, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the group, which is asking the county to "open up the machines, take out their memory cards, and devise a code which can be compared to the software that the state certified."

So far, the board of elections, which is scheduled to hold its next public meeting on Oct. 21, has taken no action with regard to VoteAllegheny's request. Mark Wolosik, head of the county elections division, has consistently said that he has never been asked to conduct a software verification audit besides the parallel tests, which are carried out during each election to verify the accuracy of the vote tallies.

But Dr. Eckhardt, who cited problems with similar touch-screen voting machines in Florida, Ohio, California, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho and Iowa, among other states, said the county is dragging its feet in auditing a system "that study after study shows is relatively easy to manipulate."

County Chief Executive Dan Onorato's spokesman Kevin Evanto said Mr. Onorato, who approved the county's adoption of the ES&S iVotronic machines, "is open to the idea of a software audit. He just needs more information."

By the same token, however, Mr. Evanto said the machines, which are used in more than 20 counties -- including Beaver, Butler, Cambria, Greene, Mercer and Westmoreland -- have successfully been used in three elections "without major problems that were recorded."