Thread by @jennycohn1

“The voting machines are made by well-connected private companies that wield immense control over their proprietary software, often fighting vigorously in court to prevent anyone from examining it when things go awry.” By @KimZetter for NYT nyti.ms/2N3hoAh?smid=n… 1/

“In Ohio in 2004, for example, where John Kerry lost the presidential race following numerous election irregularities, Kerry’s team was denied access to the voting-machine software.” 2/

“‘We were told by the court that you were not able to get that algorithm to check it, bc it was proprietary information,’ Kerry recalled in a recent interview on WNYC’s ‘Brian Lehrer Show.’” 3/

“The ballot box is the foundation of any democracy.... [I]f there’s a failure in the ballot box, then democracy fails.*** And in the US, it’s safe to say, tho few may utter it publicly, that the ballot box has failed many times & is poised to fail again.” 4/

“The voting-machine industry — an estimated $300-million-a-year business — has long been as troubling as the machines it makes, known for its secrecy, close political ties (overwhelmingly to the Republican Party) and a revolving door between vendors and election offices.” 5/

“Hackers can access voting machines via the cellular modems used 2 transmit unofficial results at the end of an election, or subvert back-end election-management systems — used 2 program the voting machines and tally votes —& spread malicious code 2 voting machines thru them.” 6/

“Attackers could design their code to bypass pre-election testing and kick in only at the end of an election or under specific conditions — say, when a certain candidate appears to be losing — and erase itself afterward to avoid detection.” 7/

And attackers “could make it produce election results with wide margins to avoid triggering automatic manual recounts in states that require them when results are close.” 8/

Voting machine vendor ES&S “creates ballot-definition files b4 each election for some customers—the critical programming files that tell machines how to apportion votes based on a voter’s screen touch or marks on a paper ballot, “ so that a corrupt insider or outside... 9/

... actor able to get into ES&S’s network could conceivably corrupt these files so machines misinterpret a vote for Donald Trump, say, as one for his opponent, or vice versa.” 10/

“Did anything like that happen in 2016? The Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence community and election officials have all insisted that there is no evidence that Russian hackers altered votes in 2016. But the truth is that no one has really looked for evidence.” 11/

“Intelligence assessments are based on signals intelligence—spying on Russian communications & computers for chatter or activity indicating that they altered votes—not on a forensic examination of voting machines & election networks.” (Domestic actors can rig elections too.) 12/

And even if experts were to forensically analyze the election equipment, cyber expert Matt Blaze notes it’s “not clear what they would find... [I]t’s possible to do a pretty good job of erasing all the forensic evidence.” 13/

“The mad history of election security in the United States is a history of how misguided politicians and naïve election officials allowed an unregulated industry to seize control of America’s democratic infrastructure.” 14/

“The ballot box is in the distressed state it is in today because of an overreaction — or rather a wrong reaction — to a previous systemic electoral breakdown: the presidential-election [hanging chad/butterfly ballot] fiasco in Florida in 2000.” 15/

Lost in all the hoopla over the hanging chads is the fact that a voting machine in Volusia County, Florida subtracted 16,000 Gore votes in the same 2000 election, an “error” discovered only bc an alert poll worker noticed Gore’s total going down. (I’ve posted about this too.) 16/

17/ Election officials blamed the so-called “Volusia error,” which involved a Global/Diebold machine, on a faulty memory card, but the explanation makes no sense, & logs showed there was a “phantom” 2d card for that precinct, a situation that was never explained or resolved.

Moreover, ”a faulty memory card should produce an onscreen error message or cause a computer to lock up, not alter votes in one race while leaving others untouched. And what kind of faulty card deleted votes only for Gore, while adding votes to other candidates?” 18/

“Gore’s team requested manual recounts in 4 counties, including Volusia, but Bush (represented by Kavanaugh -JSC note) objected and a SCOTUS ruling “halted them, tho not b4 Volusia completed its recount. 19/

“The memory card in Volusia” showed “the kind of problems that cld occur if states expanded ...use of electronic voting machines w/o proper safeguards. But even as security experts showed how malicious insiders & outsiders cld subvert the machines, the warnings went ignored.” 20/

In 02, Reps Hoyer (D) & Ney (R Ohio) drafted HAVA, which allocated $3.9 billion 4 voting machines, forbade punch card & lever machines, & consolidated “county voter-registration files into a single statewide database 2 prevent voters from registering in multiple counties.” 21/

22/ “Altho lawmakers did include a provision in HAVA mandating the creation of new standards-w/ the aim that machines bought w/ HAVA funds would meet them-the purchasing deadlines ... in the bill forced states to buy their machines b4 the new standards could be completed...”

“In Nov 2002, just days after Bush signed HAVA into law, Georgia underwent the nation’s 1st major test of D.R.E.s. [touchscreen voting machines].The state had signed a $54 million contract with Diebold to use its paperless D.R.E.s exclusively statewide.” - @kimzetter for NYT 23/

Diebold “scrambled to get the machines in place 4 one of the closest races 4 governor that GA had seen”—btwn Gov. Barnes (D) & Perdue (R). “Perdue won w/ just 51 % of votes in a major upset. It was the 1st time in more than 130 years that a Republican became governor of GA.” 24/

“This wasn’t the only [Georgia 2002] upset. Senator Max Cleland, a popular Democrat, went into Election Day leading his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss, by three points; he lost by seven.” 25/

It was later revealed that Diebold had installed uncertified software patches on the voting machines before the 2002 election—patches that were never analyzed by election officials or the independent lab responsible for testing election equipment in the state. 26/

The uncertified Georgia voting machine patches in 2002 “underscored a disturbing reality — no one really knew what companies were programming into their black boxes [voting machines], in part because the lab testing reports were confidential.” 27/

Oh there is lots more in this new goldmine election integrity piece by @kimzetter for NYT, including the shenanigans in Ohio 2004 & beyond. But u will have to read it yourself cuz I gotta run some errands. I strongly suggest u do that. 28/#ProtectOurVotes nyti.ms/2N3hoAh?smid=n…

29/ Some things we can do to protect our votes in the midterms:

https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1042961096385032192?s=21

30/ About those new cellular modems...

https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1040998151849558016?s=21