And yet once again, @VerifiedVoting’s President says nada about the dangers of touchscreen barcode ballot marking devices (BMDs). On the contrary, she advocates “voter marked paper ballots,” which she defines as either HAND marked or marked by a MACHINE. Not good enough. 1/
Behold the new “permission to cheat” feature in touchscreen ballot markers, which @VerifiedVoting has enabled by giving BMDs a pass. We will be stuck w/ these things for the next 10 years & the manual audits promoted by VV won’t help w/ this new feature
And this is what I mean when I say that our entire democracy should not have to collapse because of who @VerifiedVoting—the largest election integrity organization in the country—chose as its president. And if we don’t speak up, this may be exactly what happens. 5/
I don’t mean to downplay the importance of @VerifiedVoting’s work promoting Risk Limiting Audits. But if RLA’s are to mean anything, there must be a reliable record of voter intent to audit in the first place. Computer marked “paper ballots” don’t qualify. 7/
BTW, altho election integrity can be and often is non-partisan, those whose party is in power may have a tendency to feel less urgency on the issue. As far as I know, Ds did nothing re: election integrity when they were in power. FWIW, I’m told VV’s President is a Republican. 8/
I don’t know if this is shading her views on BMDs, but I’m concerned. I know she has been made aware of the concerns and yet she continues to ignore them. I’m out of explanations. There certainly are other R’s I know who “get it.” 10/
But VVs relatively new President is not one of them. This is dangerous bc @VerifiedVoting is the largest and most respected election integrity organization in the country, and most cyber experts and others in the EI community defer to them. 11/
@VerifiedVoting also works directly with lawmakers on Election integrity legislation, where it again ignores the dangers of BMDs (example the Secure Elections Act). 12/
Whereas other organizations like @CommonCause and @defendourvotes have endorsed @RonWyden’s #PAVEAct—which (unlike the Secure Elections Act) requires that states give voters the option to mark their ballots by hand—@VerifiedVoting has not. 13/
If @marianschneider would explain why she remains unconcerned about the dangers of BMDs, everyone could make up their own mind on the issue. Instead, she remains silent. Which means those dangers—expressed by IT experts and shown “in the field”—are undisputed. 14/
Alarmingly, it also means that almost nobody knows about them. Largely because of who @VerifiedVoting chose as its new president. Again, those dangers are discussed here. medium.com/@jennycohn1/st… 15/
And I discovered (with the help of @philipbstark) a new feature in ES&S’s latest BMDs that makes them even worse. How many of these will be purchased around the country before @VerifiedVoting itself starts talking about them?!
It is apparent that IF @marianschneider ever gets around to discussing the dangers of BMDs, it will be too late. You can’t un-buy millions of dollars of new RLA-immune touchscreen ballot markers. Then what are we going to do? 15/
We need #handmarked#paperballots. Touchscreen ballot markers should be used only by those who are unable to mark their ballots by hand. Given that @marianschneider appears to disagree, I really wish she would explain her thought process so that it can be publicly vetted. 16/
Computer science professor Rich DeMillo (@rad_atl) also seems to agree that the unnecessary step of inserting a computer between the voter & the paper record of voter intent can muck up Risk Limiting Audits.
Study shows that people of all political persuasions are willing to modify their beliefs based on corrective info from reliable sources, but “subjects ‘re-believed’ the false info when retested a week later.” 1/ news.northeastern.edu/2018/06/18/tir…
2/ The author of the article says It may help to warn people in advance that they are likely to forget the correction bc “this helps them mentally tag the bogus information as false.”
3/ It’s also “important that the corrective information be repeated as frequently, and with even greater clarity, than the myth.”
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but elections have been electronically suspect starting long before the Trump/Russia scandal. This article is lulling folks into a false sense of security, which is dangerous. Domestic hackers & insiders were always an equal threat. 1/
I agree, tho not enuf time (and 0 political will) to do this in Nov. Wish it were different. For now I hope to stop states from doubling up on electronics w/ touchscreen ballot markers. Using electronics to count votes is bad enuf. Having them mark our ballots too is nuts. 1/
Nuts except for those who are unable to hand mark their ballots. Once you have hand marked paper ballots they can be either scanned or hand counted (my preference) or both. 2/
Any time u put a machine between the voter and the paper record of voter intent there is an opportunity for programming mischief. Here is just the latest example.: 3/
I’m hoping some of the cyber experts who signed the letter about the risks of using cellular modems to transfer election results can answer this question. Thx! @philipbstark@SEGreenhalgh@rad_atl@jhalderm
Seeing as no one has answered yet, I will say that even if the cellular modems CAN be configured to bypass the internet, we should not have to blindly trust that vendors or whoever else is hired to set them up will do that.
Kathy Rogers, the face & voice of @ESSVote, which has installed CELLULAR MODEMS in tabulators in WI & FL, is cozying up to @DHSgov which refuses to advise states to remove the modems despite a letter from 30 cyber experts & EI groups stating it should do so. #CorruptElections 1/
The notion that cellular modems affect only “unofficial” results is bogus bc, among other reasons, in certain jurisdictions, unofficial results become the official results once added to absentees & provisionals—sometimes w/o ever comparing them to the precinct results tapes! 1/
And Wisconsin doesn’t even require that counties publicly post the results tapes so that the public itself can make this comparison! (I don’t know about Florida, Michigan, & Illinois.) 2/
Thus, we must simply trust that someone trustworthy is conducting this due diligence. In Johnson County, Kansas, the County acknowledged that it does NOT conduct this basic due diligence. 3/