Thread by @jennycohn1

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/

https://twitter.com/VerifiedVoting/status/1044612810808991744

My heavily sourced article on the many dangers of touchscreen barcode ballot markers (“BMDs”). 2/ medium.com/@jennycohn1/st…

Yes, I had @VerifiedVoting in mind when I wrote the following:

https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1042818695263735808?s=21

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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

https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1042497862095953921?s=21

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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/

And now you know the context for this statement.

https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1043171583185973248?s=21

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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?!

https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1042478606662815744?s=21

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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.

https://twitter.com/rad_atl/status/1044525078552154112?s=21

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