NEXT FORUM
Is Illegal Lobbing Killing a Voting Bill?
Tues, May 24 • 4pm PT | 7pm ET
Broadcast on YouTube and Facebook
A groundbreaking voting bill with national implications seems to be stalled in New York due to heavy and misleading lobbying. Is that legal? Can lobbying firms lie with no consequences?
Join us as we explore the complicated landscape that is deeply affecting our elections in state after state.
Our guest is Lynn Bernstein, of Transparent Elections NC, who will describe how similar events played out in her state and the heavy price voters are now paying.
Lynn has a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and has experience integrating and testing complex systems on numerous satellites. She founded Transparent Elections NC, a volunteer group devoted to ensuring that NC elections are worthy of the public’s trust. She believes that a successful election is one where the electorate has confidence in the results — this means elections that are secure, transparent, robustly audited, and publicly verified.
POSTPONED until Tuesday, July 12 • 4pm PT | 7pm ET
Fact vs. Fiction in Elections
Join us for a conversation about surviving and thriving in our complicated media landscape.
- How do we learn to vet our information?
- What sources are reliable?
ASL interpreters courtesy of Sign Language Connection (SLC) at the Center for Disability Rights. Closed captions available live on Facebook, and on the YouTube replay.
Play Our Latest Forum
Voting Machines of Tomorrow, Part 2
In the past few elections, many states have purchased new voting machines, and new vendors are competing for their business.
- Are these new voting machines secure & accessible?
- What companies dominate the voting machine market?
- What do smaller vendors have to offer?
We'll examine voting machines from these three vendors.
- Clear Ballot
- Democracy Live
- Hart Intercivic
As well as the machine that has caused so much controversy in Georgia: The Dominion ICX. That machine is the subject of litigation. The security issues exposed by the litigation are under examination by CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The details are under court seal.
ALSO IN THIS EPISODE AN EMAIL BALLOT HACK!
Many states either already allow ballots to be returned via email for certain voters, such as military voters, or are experimenting with email voting pilots. We'll play a clip of a hacker changing the vote on a ballot sent via email. If you've been excited about voting via email - this may change your mind.
What Did People Say About Our Last Forum?
"Awesome work"
"WOW"
"excellent, as usual"
JOIN US!
#ElectionProtection Forum: Fact vs. Fiction in Elections
POSTPONED until Tuesday, July 12 • 4pm PT | 7pm ET
Join us for a conversation about surviving and thriving in our complicated media landscape.
- How do we learn to vet our information?
- What sources are reliable?
ASL interpreters courtesy of Sign Language Connection (SLC) at the Center for Disability Rights. Closed captions available live on Facebook, and on the YouTube replay.
#ElectionProtection Forum: TBA
Tuesday, July 26 • 4pm PT | 7pm ET
Forum details to come!
ASL interpreters courtesy of Sign Language Connection (SLC) at the Center for Disability Rights. Closed captions available live on Facebook, and on the YouTube replay.
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Our Election Protection Forums
Balanced information that you won't get anywhere else!
The #ElectionProtection forums are a vibrant, revealing dialogue about the problems with our elections & what's needed to improve them. We discuss election security, disability issues, voting rights, and election reform, from perspectives across the political spectrum.
New forums every 4th Tuesday of the month, 4pm PT | 7pm ET. See upcoming forums.
Moderator: Lulu Friesdat, Election Security Journalist, Co-Founder & Executive Director of SMART Elections. Co-Host: Bennie Smith, Shelby County TN Election Commissioner & Software Developer.
Series sponsored by SMART Elections. Thank you to Fractured Atlas, our fiscal sponsor.
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ASL interpreters and close captioning
ASL interpreters courtesy of Sign Language Connection (SLC) at the Center for Disability Rights. Closed captions available live on Facebook, and on the YouTube replay.
Stay Informed
Protecting elections is critical now.
Information you won't get anywhere else.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
"Let me say again how WONDERFUL all your seminars have been --just unbelievably outstanding!!" - Dr. Ruth H. Strauss MD
"That was great tonight! .... Overall just a great program..." - Matthew Kohn, Filmmaker
"Information on election security that you will probably not find anywhere else. Definitely mind blowing..." - Jennifer Tanner, LA County Voters Action Coalition
"The SMART Elections forums bring together national experts to explain how elections work from the inside." - Catherine Ray, advocate
'SMART Elections' Election Protection Series offers a Master Class in Election Security. Lulu Friesdat, her guest speakers and informative visuals not only illustrate the pitfalls of bad voting machine technology but also offer examples of safe alternatives.” - Sara Campbell, advocate
SMART Elections in the New York Times
NYC Elections Fiasco - 130,000 Test Ballots Mixed with Real Ones
Brian M. Rosenthal, Dana Rubinstein, Andy Newman, Anne Barnard and Ed Shanahan | June 30, 2021
This week the New York Times quoted our Executive Director about the latest blunder of the New York City Board of Elections.
"It's just one fiasco after another, year after year," said Lulu Friesdat, executive director of Smart Elections, an elections reform group. "The fact that we haven't made the effort to change that is shocking. It's appalling."
brooklyn transparency project
698 More Ballots Than Voters
Uncooperative Board of Elections
698 More Ballots Than Voters
Uncooperative Board of Elections
Uncooperative Board of Elections
Uncooperative Board of Elections
YOUR VOTE IS UNDER ATTACK
The New York State Board of Elections rejected certification of the ExpressVote XL at their meeting on 1/28/21. The ExpressVote XL is a "hybrid" voting machine that has a design flaw called a "shared paper path." It is considered very risky by security experts.
Learn more about hybrid voting machines with a shared paper path.
Professor Rich DeMillo, Chair of the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at Georgia Tech, said, “It is encouraging that the commissioners refused to certify the ExpressVoteXL, an all-in-one ballot marking device that poses extraordinary risks for the voters of New York.” DeMillo is one of a group of over 50 experts, good government and disability rights groups who signed a letter opposing certification of the voting machine.
However, the vendor ES&S is actively working to overcome the issues that were raised during the certification process and is already in conversation again with the NY State Board of Elections to have the system certified. Additionally there are other voting systems being marketed, and even in use here in New York that have the same security issues.
Legislation was proposed to permanently ban hybrid voting machines with a shared paper path from being used in the state. It passed the NY Senate, but it did not pass the NY Assembly.
Security experts have said that the ExpressVote XL is not secure, and that, "Elections conducted on current BMDs [ballot-marking devices] cannot be confirmed by audits." They do not recommend this type of voting machine. They recommend hand-marked paper ballots, for all voters who are able to mark their ballot by hand, and ballot-marking devices that follow security best-practices for voters with disabilities.
Here are few reasons why so many groups, experts and advocates are against the use of the ExpressVote XL.
- It is a touch screen voting machine. Touch screen machines can go out of calibration and change votes.
- New York has never approved voting on touch screen machines as a primary method of voting and now is not the time to deteriorate our security and our ability to have confidence in our elections.
- The ExpressVote XL miscounted tens of thousand votes in a 2019 Pennsylvania election.
Join us every Friday at 12pm EST to discuss what can be done. We are
- exploring legislation
- connecting with the NY State Board of Elections & County Commissioners
- researching better voting machines for New York
Register in advance for this meeting:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email and the zoom link.
SMART is an acronym
