SAN FRANCISCO -- Kevin Shelley has turned his semi-obscure job as California's secretary of state into a high-profile position by taking the arcane matter of voting machines and turning it into his own bully pulpit, according to a story in the New York Times.

Shelley, a Democrat, has gained national attention for his ban on touchscreen voting and his insistence that voters be able to look at a paper record inside the voting booth to verify their ballots.

"Someone said to me, 'The problem with Kevin Shelley is, he's an activist,' " Shelley said.  "I plead guilty. But, oh my God, never has it been more important to be an activist."

According to the article, 40 percent of all touchscreen voting machines in use are in California and nearly one third of voters nationwide this November will vote on touchscreens.

The article points out that Shelley has many critics including Conny B. McCormack, the respected registrar of Los Angeles County, the biggest voting jurisdiction in the country.

McCormack said that Shelley had confounded local officials by handing down directives that require a technology that does not yet exist. Rather than inspire voter confidence, she said, Shelley has undermined it.

"He put out a report on April 20 saying that touch screens were 100 percent accurate," McCormack said. "And then two days later he decertified them."

She said such actions had "destabilized the entire election process in California and potentially nationwide."

According to the article, in random testing during the March 2 California primary, Shelley's office found that the machines "recorded the votes as cast with 100 percent accuracy."

A joint report issued yesterday by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the National Science Foundation endorsed touchscreens with paper trails as the most effective voting system.

The article claims that Shelley laughs at those who suggest he is only fanning fears.

"If a machine breaks down in San Diego, and it breaks down in Georgia, and they break down in Maryland, and they break down in Alameda and we have high schools where they can hack into the systems, the deficiencies are in the machines," he said.

"Look," he added, "I believe these machines have a very, very firm place in our future, but I also believe that in responding to the chaos in Florida in 2000 these machines were rushed out before all the kinks were worked out."