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 Thurs- day, 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.

The Brennan Center: “...major cuts to the federal support and partnership that local election offices have long depended on to fund and protect elections have raised alarms….Local election officials are working to protect elections, the cornerstone of a healthy democracy, in an increasingly politicized and turbulent environment. The loss of federal support for elections further strains these local offices that are often understaffed. States and civil society need to act to fill the gaps left by the federal government. With the midterm elections coming up in 2026, this work must begin now."

The United States remains one of the few major democracies in the world that continue to allow computerized vote counting—not observable by the public—to determine the results of its elections [1]. Countries such as Germany [2] Norway [3], Netherlands [4], France [5, 6],  Canada [7] , Denmark [8, 9], Italy [10], United Kingdom [11], Ireland [11], Spain [11], Portugal [11], Sweden [11], Finland [11], and most other countries [11], protect the integrity and trust of their elections with publicly observable hand-counting of paper ballots.

This analysis  lays out why the three counts in Georgia  did not confirm the vote count. The entire report is posted here.

The BMDs used there have similar security flaws to the ESS Expressvote XL that we are trying (so far unsuccessfully) to keep out of New York.  Stark reports “Moreover, most voters used demonstrably untrustworthy ballot-marking devices; as a result, even a perfect hand count or audit would not necessarily reveal who really won.”

Last week we submitted our initial request for documents, and our interrogatories (questions) to the Rockland County Board of Elections, as part of the lawsuit challenging the 2024 Presidential and U.S. Senate election. We put out a press release which was carried on the AP wires and picked up by local affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox and published in an exclusive on Newsweek.

The missing votes uncovered in Smart Elections’ legal case in Rockland County, New York, are just the tip of the iceberg—an iceberg that extends across the swing states and into Texas.

On Monday, an investigator’s story finally hit the news cycle: Pro V&V, one of only two federally accredited testing labs, approved sweeping last-minute updates to ES&S voting machines in the months leading up to the 2024 election—without independent testing, public disclosure, or full certification review.

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.”

Please call Latrice Walker's office today. 
The number is (518) 455-4466

Say, "Please put A5287 on the agenda and pass it out of committee. Thank you."

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.

Project 2025 Executive Action Tracker

The Center for Progressive Reform and Governing for Impact are monitoring the Trump administration’s implementation of Project 2025, tracking the authoritarian blueprint’s executive action proposals across 20 federal agencies.

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.  

Memorial Day  is for honoring and mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.  It's a reminder that freedom is not a gift, but a responsibility earned through sacrifice.

To fight for freedom today requires a different kind of service.

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.