Dear Legislators,
Thank you for your investigation of the recent primary and the serious effort you are making to restore a functioning democracy to Westchester. The most alarming aspect of the Commissioners’ conduct has been their insistence that their infrastructure and voting machines are impervious to cyberattack. This cavalier attitude towards cybersecurity is disturbing. There are many vulnerabilities in Westchester. The voter database and electronic pollbooks are known to be vulnerable to hacking from enemies foreign and domestic. The commissioners insistence on buying and using the infamous Dominion ICE machines threatens the integrity of the vote count, as it can mark on and invalidate votes without the voter’s knowledge. Were the procedures recommended by the NYS Board of Elections to ensure secure operation of the Dominion ICE followed everywhere it was used? Mail in ballots are very vulnerable to fraud and loss, especially so when implemented in a rushed manner. Every effort must be made to ensure that we have an election we can believe in this November. That requires transparency and responsiveness that the current BOE commissioners seem unwilling or unable to provide. If the BOE won’t do it, you as the Board of Legislators can provide some transparency through a voter assistance website that would provide correct information and ballot tracking for voters, including updates on the length of lines.Would it be possible for you to utilize a county cybersecurity expert to oversee the BOE security? “It’s time America’s leaders got serious about voting security."
NEW YORK TIMES VIDEO: I Hacked an Election. So Can the Russians. By MATTEEN MOKALLA, TAIGE JENSEN and J. ALEX HALDERMAN | Apr. 5, 2018
“It’s time America’s leaders got serious about voting security.” https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000005790489/i-hacked-an-election-so-can-the-russians.html
My personal experience:
I voted absentee. I applied online and got the ballot on time. I encountered the following problems:
Confusing language on the ballot envelope that asked for a witness signature
Confusing website, in particular polling location. On June 11, two days before early voting started the website showed my regular poll site, which was not used for early voting.
I mailed in my ballot from out of town and have no confidence that it arrived and was counted.
Thanks for the seriousness with which you are putting into addressing the transparency and security flaws revealed in the disastrous primary. November promises to be much more contentious. Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the presidential election as rigged and refused to commit to conceding if he loses the race. Congressional races are also at risk. Westchester must be prepared.
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Dear Legislators
Attached is a report we filed with with the Westchester Board of Legislators four years ago. At that time, Westchester did not investigate problems with the 2016 primary since NY AG Schneiderman stepped in to investigate Westchester and NYC. The AG eventually issued a report that resulted in the firing of 2 lower level BOE staffers in NYC. But there was no attention in the report addressing Westchester’s problems.
The problems at SUNY Purchase led supporters of a losing candidate to question the election results. The 2016 problems at the SUNY Purchase pollsite were felt by the Sanders campaign to be a deliberate attempt to suppress the vote at a location known to be a strong Sanders electorate. It appeared to them to be a corrupt effort by the County BOE to prevent a strong Sanders vote so as to not embarrass Clinton in her own home county. Of the students who succeeded in voting at that location, 272 voted for Sanders and 4 for Clinton.
Reggie Lafayette was on the ballot as a delegate for Clinton, while administering the election and counting his own votes. This year he was on the ballot to be a Biden delegate. Shades of Brian Kemp!
This November, all voters and candidates must have full confidence that the vote count reflects the will of the voters, and that no voters are denied the right to vote by lines, confusion, intimidation, post office problems, inadequately trained or hostile pollworkers, machine breakdown, corrupted pollbooks or misinformation.
Thanks for all you are doing in this difficult time.
Allegra Dengler