“...inherent security flaws in Georgia's touchscreen voting system.....That matter ..now..infamous through Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' racketeering indictment against Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants, four of whom she charged for their involvement in the unprecedented copying and distribution of the state's voting system software after breaching the machines at the elections office.. Two of the alleged co-conspirators specifically involved in the Coffee County plot, Trump attorney Sidney Powell and Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall, have pleaded guilty in the matter.

.…The gravely serious issues are being exacerbated with the continuing spread of the stolen software from Coffee County to unauthorized actors with unknown intent. No amount of software patches or “audits" can mitigate the dangers of the flawed touchscreen system design. Only hand-marked paper ballots counted by scanners with post-election audits can ensure verifiable election outcomes...This past week's BMD touchscreen voting mess in Northampton, PA is a sobering real world example of why such BMDs are unsafe by design, and unfit for elections."

Comment: The Northampton County PA voting system that failed is the ES&S Expressvote XL.  “It appears that when a voter selects a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ for one of the candidates for retention to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, the selection is recorded on the paper ballot and on the machine for the other candidate”. The New York State Board of Elections recently certified this voting machine and County Boards of Elections are now considering purchasing it.  Let them know you want to keep our current system of hand marked paper ballots.  ALLEGRA DENGLER

ES&S “The ExpressVotes are working as designed. Voters needed to touch the party’s name or candidate’s name in the center of the selection area in order to make their choices on the machine... Madison County Clerk Kenny Barger. “It’s voting, it has to work well for the voter.”.” 

Comment:  Why would any county in New York want to buy an expensive voting machine like this when we can just keep marking our own ballots by hand like we have been doing?  Allegra Dengler

ES&S Expressvote XL problems:  "“As I stepped up to vote I heard another poll worker say to watch the ticket, because if you vote straight democratic, it was automatically going over to a republican ballot,” said voter Sherri Short. “So after hearing this, I did vote accordingly. And then I after I spoke with my husband I did find out that it did happened to him.””

Comment: the ES&S Expressvote XL  has been recently certified for use in New York.  Allegra Dengler

"The threat to voting systems across the nation is ongoing, though, because the operatives, allegedly hired and funded by Trump campaign–related attorneys, made copies of the software that runs the state’s voting machines. They then, it is alleged, covertly shared that data with a wide network of MAGA allies and election deniers. And because Georgia uses one statewide voting system, the same software taken from Coffee is used in Fulton, DeKalb, and every other county in the state. Furthermore, very similar software versions are used in other states….Simply put: Possessing copies of voting system software enables hackers, thieves, and even foreign governments to install it on their own computers, create replicas of the voting systems, probe them for weaknesses, and develop ways to exploit vulnerabilities.  ...An attacker could use it to fabricate evidence of stolen votes to advance disinformation or support election deniers who baselessly challenge election results. Even modestly trained high school students can decompile the software to get the source code, and use it to develop malware designed to be installed with minimal physical access to the voting equipment that could alter votes in future elections.”

"Powell was also involved in the Coffee county conspiracy, which involved Trump allies hiring a team of forensics experts gaining access to voting machines and copying virtually every part of the election systems, before uploading it all online….records show the SullivanStrickler team imaged almost every component of the election systems, including ballot scanners, the server used to count votes, thumb drives and flash memory cards.”

NYTimes.   "Democrats and voting rights groups say these moves could have significant consequences — that seemingly small changes and pressures on the system could add up and potentially affect the outcome of an election. They worry that overly aggressive poll watchers could intimidate voters, or that conspiracy-minded Trump supporters who insert themselves in the election process could interfere with the results.”...Aaron Mukerjee, the voter protection director for the Virginia Democratic Party said “Taken together, the goal is to disenfranchise enough voters that they can win the election.”

We hope you had a restful holiday weekend! With the end of Summer quickly approaching, we’re back in the swing of things and gearing up to take on the ExpressVote XL – the concerning new voting machines under consideration in five New York counties.

Let’s be clear – these new machines pose serious threats to New York elections. Luckily, we can stop them with your advocacy at the county level. We’re kicking off our campaign to stop the ExpressVote XL and we hope you’ll join us for an ExpressVote XL Town Hall next Tuesday September 12th at 6:30pm on Zoom.

Comment: Counties are now free to purchase the Express Vote XL. So the battle to keep it out of the state now switches to the counties.  Onondaga County at least has decided against it, choosing Clear Ballot which prints a ballot we mark ourselves like we have been doing for years.  The counties most  at risk of buying the XL already have ES&S voting systems, like  New York City and Nassau County.  ALLEGRA DENGLER

 "The county considered new voting systems from four different companies that won certification from New York state election officials – Clear Vote, Dominion, Hart InterCivic and Express Vote XL….One of the systems, Express Vote XL, became the source of controversy last week after New York election officials certified it for use in the state….Government watchdog groups criticized the move because the touch screen machines would replace the traditional paper ballot voting system."

Last week, the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBOE) voted to certify the ExpressVote XL, a touch screen voting machine that would allow voters to mark their ballot electronically on a touch screen instead of on traditional paper ballots. So far, Boards of Election Commissioners in New York City, Ulster, Onondaga and Chautauqua counties have said they have no plans to buy the machines.

Editorial: No vote of confidence on touchpad voting system
In a split decision, the state Board of Elections approves controversial voting machines. The last thing we need right now is more doubt over election processes.
Times Union Editorial Board

Last week, the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBOE) voted to certify the ExpressVote XL, a touch screen voting machine that would allow voters to mark their ballot electronically on a touch screen instead of on traditional paper ballots. So far, Boards of Election Commissioners in New York City, Ulster, Onondaga and Chautauqua counties have said they have no plans to buy the machines.

CNN: "Last year, a former Trump official testified ... that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during an Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020,  that included Trump. ...Six days before pro-Trump operatives gained unauthorized access to voting systems, the local elections official who allegedly helped facilitate the breach sent a “written invitation” to attorneys working for Trump, according to text messages obtained by CNN…"

The American Bar Association has formed a new task force which aims to ensure that election administration remains nonpartisan and educate Americans on “on the importance of an inclusive, strong, and enduring democracy.”

At noon today, the two Democrats and two Republicans on the state Board of Elections will consider whether to approve the use of a new voting machine that harms the security and surety of elections. The board must say no to the ExpressVote XL, heavily pushed by its manufacturer, Election Systems & Software, looking to reap millions in peddling this contraption.

Sorry, our democracy is not for sale, despite all the New York lobbyists and lawyers and schmoozers that ES&S has hired.

The New York State Board of Elections on Wednesday approved the use of a controversial touchscreen election voting system, allowing municipalities the option to use the ExpressVote XL machine.

The certification vote, at the end of several hours of dialogue between the Board of Elections’ bipartisan panel of commissioners, was 3 to 1.

Five years ago I described a serious security flaw in the design of all-in-one voting machines made by two competing manufacturers, ES&S and Dominion. These all-in-one machines work like this: the voter indicates choices on a touchscreen; then a printer prints the votes onto a paper ballot; the voter has a chance to review the ballot to make sure the right choices are printed; then the machine sends the ballot past an optical scanner to record and tabulate the votes. Then the mechanism drops the paper into a ballot box where it is saved for recounts or audits.

The New York State Board of Elections may certify the ES&S Expressvote XL as early as this Thursday July 27. Let them know you oppose the ExpressVote XL and want to keep our current system of marking our paper ballots ourselves. Email your comments to 

• Email: INFO@elections.ny.gov

Sample comment:

“Raffensperger’s decision not to fix these systems represents “the height of irresponsibility,” Halderman said in an interview. “Even if there’s no actual attack, you better believe that there are people who are going to use the existence of these problems to call into question the results of elections.”...Any part of any voting system that’s ever been subjected to truly independent review has been found to have significant security issues,” said John Sebes, chief technology officer of the TrustTheVote Project and a co-director of the OSET Institute….“We’ve got to be able to have a conversation about that without being wrapped up around the flag of MAGA conspiracy theorists,” he added.”

“.. our findings suggest a systemic failure in voting system design and regulation. ... the result is a brittle system, which we fully expect has additional, similarly serious problems left to be found. We also expect that there are similar problems in voting equipment and software from other manufacturers, who operate under the same regulations and incentives as Dominion, but whose equipment has yet to receive the same intense public scrutiny.

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