Thanks to several Westchester County legislators (Borgia, Shimsky, Parker, Maher, others) and NYS Board of Elections Commissioner Doug Kellner, and thanks to the efforts by many getting this email, New York has not yet certified the ESS ExpressVote XL, despite the strong desire of the NYC Board of Elections to buy it. Wise decision!
The next battle is to decertify the Dominion ICE, a similar machine, which has been purchased by many counties in New York, including 30 in Westchester.
“THEY’RE DOING IT AS WE SIT HERE.” That was Robert Mueller’s one forceful statement to Congress about election interference. Our voting infrastructure – touchscreen voting machines, ballot-marking devices, scanners, e-pollbooks - ALL computerized voting systems - can be been hacked.* Our efforts toward fair elections will be undermined if we have no way to catch and reverse the hacking that election-security experts are warning is already under way for the 2020 elections.
Cybersecurity and Democracy Collide: Locking Down Elections Governing
"When asked at a congressional hearing if Russia would attack U.S. election systems again in 2020, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was unequivocal: “It wasn’t a single attempt,” he said. “They’re doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign.” “
Foreign interference is coming in the 2020 election whether Trump asks for it or not MinnPost
"Here’s one possibility: Several countries, each with a lot at stake and all using Russia’s 2016 hacking and disinformation playbook, line up on opposite sides of the election. North Korea and Saudi Arabia, for instance, might trying to help Trump get re-elected while Iran tries to help his opponent.”
Iranian Hackers Target Trump Campaign as Threats to 2020 Mount New York Times
"In addition to Iran, hackers from Russia and North Korea have started targeting organizations that work closely with presidential candidates, according to security researchers and intelligence officials. “We’ve already seen attacks on several campaigns and believe the volume and intensity of these attacks will only increase as the election cycle advances toward Election Day,”
Iranian attacks expose vulnerability of campaign email accounts The Hill
"“It’s a significant threat, and it’s a threat from lots of different groups, foreign and domestic, it’s relatively unsophisticated, so it doesn’t take a lot to be successful,” Orlando told The Hill on Monday."
Why over 130,000 new voting machines could lead to more distrust in U.S. elections Salon
“...BMDs have serious critics at the starting and finish lines of voting. Some counter that this system replaces indisputable human acts (hand-marking ballots) and judgments (post-voting reviews) that build public trust, but contend that BMD counting software cannot be shielded from manipulation by bad actors. The newest auditing tools won’t catch such hacking if it occurs, they say."
“DefCon 26 “Young DEFCON attendees were given the opportunity to hack mockups of secretary of state election results websites for the thirteen Presidential Battleground States. In less than 10 minutes, an 11-year old in the competition hacked into a mockup of Florida’s election results website, changing its reported vote totals. The attack the children were trained to use on the sites (SQL injection) is the same attack the Senate Intelligence Committee warned was used in a majority of Russian cyber attacks on election websites in 2016."
Washington Post: "“Election officials across the country as we speak are buying election systems that will be out of date the moment they open the box,” Wyden said in the Voting Village’s keynote speech. “It’s the election security equivalent of putting our military out there to go up against superpowers with a peashooter.”
“...The first primary votes of the 2020 election will be cast in the Iowa caucuses in just a few months, but it’s impossible to patch the gaping security holes in U.S. election security by then, or even by Election Day, Hursti said.”…
"Hours after the Voting Village opened, it was packed with hackers sporting T-shirts with slogans such as, “If I’m not on the government watchlist, someone isn’t doing their job” and “Come to the Dork side" — all eager to test their skills as an act of civic service. By the end of the weekend, they would uncover a litany of new vulnerabilities in the voting equipment, ranging from gallingly obvious passwords to hardware issues and exposure to remote attacks."
Protect Our Vote Phllly is fighting the same voting machine certified by the New York State Board of Elections, which is now in use in some counties in New York. NYS Board of Elections also admitted to security problems and gave unworkable “corrective actions” to protect the vote, such as to place a foam block inside the machine after every use of the printer.
“The Department of State admitted it would violate PA election law if used as designed.”
New York City Board of Elections wants to buy these machines. There’s a long history of close relationships between the NYC BOE and ESS. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1134186930042621953.html
Jennie Cohn writes about @PreetBahara's criminal probe of ES&S's contract with New York City in 2010, and the indictment of ES&S's New York lobbyist. https://nypost.com/2010/02/11/machine-politics/
More articles on the situation in PA can be found here: https://thevotingnews.com/tag/expressvote-xl/
Renaldo Pearson: " I have a simple message: Our political system is in a state of emergency, and the American people demand action from our nation's leaders.”
Take 11 minutes-go to this page https://www.democracy911.us and watch the video about why Renaldo is marching 600 miles for Democracy. The inspiring video is at the bottom of the page. “1. Protect Our Right to Vote”
He ends with a quote from Maimonides “the world is equally balanced: half good and half evil..... a single good deed will tip the scales for the entire world, to the side of good. We’re calling 911 on our democracy. Will you join the call?”
The House just passed the huge election reform “For the People Act", HR 1, with all Dems voting for, all Reps voting against. It is unlikely to get anyplace in its current form in the Republican-controlled Senate, but in light of the threat of foreign interference the Senate must enact the election security provisions.
Rep Thompson: "With passage of H.R. 1, we will be able to provide the support states need to protect the integrity of our elections against foreign interference, ensure confidence in election results by implementing risk-limiting audits, and trust that election infrastructure vendors are meeting appropriate security requirements.”
