Buried in a controversial bill that many feel will disenfranchise voters, there’s one bright note.  Georgia will no longer allow the kind of voting machine which is now legal in New York.  To keep those voting machines out of New York and protect our right to make sure the ballot is counted the way we intended, let your legislators know you support keeping our current system of hand marked paper ballots. 

"After nearly 14 years, New York's voting machines need an update — and it's raising questions about how a possible switch to all touch-screen voting in New York elections will impact election security after news reports both Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island will spend millions of dollars to purchase the touch-screen ballot devices next year..."They will radically change the way that we vote and they have some very serious negative repercussions," said Lulu Friesdat.. Before session ends June 6, organizations focused on election law and good-government groups are pushing for a bill to clear the Legislature to prevent the machines like the XL from replacing hand-marked paper ballots. The bill, named the Voting Integrity and Verification Act, would ensure voters can always vote using pen and paper if their polling place offers touch-screen devices. It would also prevent votes from being encoded with a bar code on the ballot."

Many of us were involved and distressed by what happened to the vote count in Florida in 2000.  Today’s On the Media retells the story of the Brooks Brothers riot. This may seem like the distant past but it set the stage for Jan 6.  Of interest is that a study of the race a few months later found that  hand counting undervotes and overvotes would have narrowly given the election to Gore. 

Four members of the current US Supreme Court were involved in the effort to stop the recount in Florida. Justice Clarence Thomas voted to suspend the vote count in Florida. Three other justices worked on the Bush team including John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Comey Barrett. All three were later appointed to the Supreme Court. 

“Since 2020, improvements have been made,” the release said….Among those improvements is a decision by the office to post all ballot scanner tapes, the primary document used to count votes, on its website, which it has done since last year. “You can take that and compare it to the data on the state website, if you want, to make sure that we’re tabulating stuff correctly,” Olsen said.

COMMENT: A bill introduced in Albany would require similar public posting in New York.  Unfortunately, the Ballot Image Transparency Bill S2333 (MYRIE), A7147 (Levenberg) is stuck in committee, leaving New Yorkers vulnerable to distrust in election results. Such distrust has resulted in death threats to election officials in other states.

New York State Board of Elections has certified a new voting machine that has the “bad" kind of barcode, the kind that is printed on the ballot after you cast it.  Common Cause has a lawsuit against the Expressvote XL to ban it  for this reason.  The outcome is pending.  The NYS Senate has  passed laws three times to prevent this type of voting machine, but the Assembly Election Law Committee has not acted.  Let your legislators and the governor know that you support  the  Voting Integrity and Verification Act of NY (VIVA NY) S6169 and A5934.  Preserve our current system of voter marked paper ballots.

Sharon Herald, PA: " system’s vulnerabilities to a malicious cyber attack ...When Republicans and Democrats agree on an election threat in 2024, everyone needs to take notice.”

Comment:  Last summer, New York certified the ES&S  ExpressVote XL voting machine that concerns Pennsylvania officials of both parties.  Common Cause has sued to keep it out of New York and save our hand marked paper ballot system which has worked for us since retiring the lever machines.  We have also been working to get it banned in the budget because of the huge potential cost of  $250 million just to purchase.  (That’s a quarter of a billion dollars!). 

Bills have  been introduced in Albany to ban this type of voting machine.  Let your New York state representatives and the Governor know that you want to keep our “gold standard” of voting on hand marked paper ballots.   Ask them to support the  Voting Integrity and Verification Act of NY (VIVA NY) S6169 and A5934.  VIVA NY S6169 passed in the Senate last year but so far the Assembly has not put VIVA NY A5934 out for a vote.

Slate: "What we know for sure is that allies of Donald Trump who sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election gained copies of the voting software used in Georgia and in other states. These events present serious threats to the 2024 election and future elections. Yet, as the Curling trial has established, they’ve been plainly ignored by the Georgia secretary of state and attorney general….It’s well past time for the Department of Justice to step in and investigate. This matter is too serious for the federal government to continue to stand by and rely on local officials, who clearly couldn’t be bothered to act on their own.”

Voters need to tell the Albany County Board of Elections that paper ballots work. This machine is expensive and unnecessary and will literally take our ballots out of our hands.

As scary as this book is, there’s always more to the story.  The “Brooks Brothers riot”  stopped the count in Florida in 2000 and sent that election to the Supreme Court, which froze the counting and then decided the election.   Clarence Thomas who was on the Court stopped the count. Three of the people involved in that disruption of the vote count are now on the Supreme Court:  Kavanaugh,  Barrett, Roberts.  

KEY POINTS: “…they could use their knowledge of the software to fabricate evidence of stolen votes, either for disinformation or to challenge election results,...Election technology expert Kevin Skoglund... said a federal probe was necessary because many of those involved have not been investigated or been asked to give up their copies of the election software...“Every software copy that is reclaimed reduces the risks of further distribution, disinformation and harm to the security of future elections,””

ANOTHER MOVE AT THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS: There was a shake-up in the state Board of Elections in December when Democrats in the state Legislature replaced long-time co-chair Doug Kellner with attorney Henry Berger.

There’s now been changeover in the other Democratic spot on the board. Andy Spano, Westchester County’s former executive, recently stepped down from his role as a commissioner after a decade.

He was replaced at a Tuesday meeting of the board by Essma Bagnuola, a former clerk for the Nassau County Board of Elections. That spot is filled by state party chair Jay Jacobs.

"Eric Olsen, director of elections for Prince William county, said: … ‘The reporting errors were presumably a consequence of the results tapes not being programmed to a format that was compatible with state reporting requirements. Attempts to correct this issue appear to have created errors. The reporting errors did not consistently favor one party or candidate but were likely due to a lack of proper planning, a difficult election environment, and human error.’”

“... the plaintiffs argue that the secret copying of voting software in rural Coffee County in 2021 by Trump allies — an episode that the plaintiffs unearthed and that has since become part of the criminal indictment against Trump and others in Fulton County — exacerbated the risk to future elections by giving unauthorized individuals a virtual road map to hack into machines and manipulate results

….Halderman has repeatedly said he found no evidence of wrongdoing in the election. But he did outline how people with only brief access to a machine could install malware, and how sophisticated attackers could spread malware to multiple machines over a wide area. Such attacks could change votes and even election outcomes, he wrote.

A group of election watchdogs filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to block the use of a controversial voting machine in New York.

Led by Common Cause New York, the group contends the state Board of Elections erred in August when it certified for use the ExpressVote XL, a touch screen machine.

The machine allows voters to mark a ballot electronically instead of on paper and displays selections on a summary card. Advocates said that’s not enough to verify ballots independently, as required by state law.

“...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.”