A legal case questioning the accuracy of the 2024 election is moving forward.
The lawsuit, brought by SMART Legislation, the action arm of SMART Elections, a nonpartisan watchdog group, filed the lawsuit over voting discrepancies in Rockland County, New York.
Judge Rachel Tanguay of the New York Supreme Court ruled in open court in May that the allegations were serious enough for discovery to proceed.
In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, a private lab quietly performed sweeping changes to voting machines used in more than 40% of U.S. counties. No one told the public. No one reviewed the updates. No one verified the results. But the machines were altered —and now, serious questions are being raised about whether those changes may have affected the outcome of the election. Some are even asking whether Kamala Harris was the one who actually won.
In the words of watchdog group SMART Elections: “This wasn’t just a glitch in some sleepy county. It was a stress test of our entire system.”
A seminal case questioning the accuracy of the 2024 Presidential and Senate election results in Rockland County, New York, is moving forward. In open court last Thursday, Judge Rachel Tanguay of the New York Supreme Court, ruled that discovery must proceed, pushing the lawsuit brought by SMART Legislation into the evidence-gathering stage. The lawsuit seeks a full hand recount of the Presidential and U.S. Senate races in Rockland County.
Times Union: "With all this uncertainty, we’re left with the question: What in the current system is so broken that it urgently needs to be replaced with a new technology whose security, accuracy and legality are still being argued?”
Why has the New York state Board of Elections allowed the use of voting machines that some watchdog groups and people on both sides of the political aisle don’t trust?
It’s both puzzling and troubling. So, too, is the decision by various counties around the state to buy them even with legislation and litigation over them still pending.
This afternoon a state appellate panel in Albany is hearing a case to reinstate a good government group lawsuit against the state Board of Elections for wrongly allowing new voting machines that dispense with the indispensable needed for a secure franchise: paper ballots.
Yes, good old paper is the best and only way to have foolproof elections. It is something that Donald Trump has long insisted on and he is entirely correct. Unlike computers, paper can’t be hacked.
Times Union "The strife boils down to whether a touch-screen machine with a barcode system can be trusted to document votes as accurately as a person with a paper ballot and pen in their hand. If something went wrong, would voters know? Would votes be lost? “
Comment: Trump directed the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to decertify voting systems that record a vote within a barcode in the counting process. But like so many of Trump’s “executive orders”, it is more of a distraction that will never come to pass while obscuring what he is really doing to undermine the vote count.
Mark Elias "We will not win the battle for democracy if those in the pro-democracy movement prize caution over taking risks. We cannot permit ourselves to be deterred by the inevitable defeats and public criticism that are inevitable along the long path of restoring democracy. Now is the time for fearless leadership and bold action.
"The fight for democracy is the fight of our generation. It may not be the battle we wanted, but it is the one we face. The state of our democracy and the future of our country depends on our willingness to take risks, ignore the naysayers, weather setbacks and fight fiercely for democracy and free and fair elections."
COMMENT : It’s no secret that Trump is shutting down avenues to fair and secure elections going forward. Today in his disdain of law and fair elections, he is moving to get Tina Peters out of jail. She is " a key supporter who was behind one of the most significant election security breaches in years.” The Trump administration has swept away nearly all of the government’s election-related cyber defenses so further reports such as 2024 US Federal Elections: The Insider Threat (download available) are not to be expected.
Just 100 days into his second term, President Donald Trump has launched near-daily efforts to expand his power and has threatened fundamental principles like due process and the separation of powers. One political scientist Democracy Docket spoke with called it “an all-out assault on democracy.”
Now is the time to stand up and safeguard New York State elections against the security breaches that have occurred at ES&S and Dominion and the vulnerability of computerized vote counts. Insist that your New York State assembly members and senators support and pass legislation to protect our right to vote on paper ballots, with audits adequate to detect machine breakdown or fraud. Here’s what you can do.
It is essential that New York defend our current system of hand marked paper ballots counted on scanners.
Trump and Musk are dismantling major climate research and moving ahead aggressively with more oil and gas drilling - and even coal. With thousands of EPA scientists laid off, Trump and Musk seek to cripple climate action at a particularly critical moment to avoid catastrophic climate change. At the same time, they are advancing a relentless attack on democracy, including our election infrastructure.
Brennan Center. "What can states do to protect elections amid reduced federal support?...Regardless of what happens next, states — which actually run our elections — and civil society will need to step up to fill the gaps the federal government has left. “
Comment: In the current environment of security threats without the protections that the federal government previously provided, it is even more urgent that New York legislators pass the Voting Integrity and Verification Act of NY (VIVANY A6287/S7116) to protect our existing system of hand marked paper ballots and scanners. With hand marked paper ballots we have something to audit and verify the vote count if the voting computers break down or are hacked. ALLEGRA DENGLER
Zetter: "The security of the nation's election systems has long been in question – a number of security investigations and reports going back two decades have found significant and numerous security flaws with voting machines used by jurisdictions around the country. But many of the claims made during the 2020 presidential campaign went beyond facts about security risks to state categorically without evidence that the systems had been subverted to give Biden the election. Trump and his followers had also asserted that massive voter fraud had helped Biden win the election, but the claims were not supported by evidence."
New York Times: "Federal programs that monitored foreign influence and disinformation have been eliminated. Key elements of the warning systems intended to flag possible intrusions into voting software have also been degraded... And contractors who worked with local election officials to perform cybersecurity testing, usually with federal funding, have found the deals canceled....“It’s like somebody lowered the drawbridge, and there’s no guards,” said Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state in Arizona.... “This is incredibly bad.”
“This decision effectively treats the right to vote as merely the right to cast a ballot, not the right to know what vote is being cast and counted,” said Marks. “That cannot be the law. A system where a voter has no way to know whether their ballot reflects their true selections is fundamentally incompatible with the constitutional right to vote… Despite the dismissal, the Court credited Plaintiffs’ advocacy with prompting recent legislative reforms, including Georgia’s enactment of a new law to eliminate QR code-based vote tabulation by 2026.”
While you are writing your lawmakers, add that you support the Voting Integrity and Verification Act of NY (VIVANY) A6287 / S7116 and the Count Every Vote Act of NY (CEVA) S471)/A4307.
The Voting Integrity and Verification Act of NY (VIVANY) A6287 / S7116 protects our right to vote on hand marked paper ballots which is under threat
The Count Every Vote Act of NY (CEVA): S471)/A4307 precisely defines the margin of victory for the purpose of triggering a hand recount of ballots.