In the news
SMART Elections Featured in Washington Post
Voting machines didn’t steal the election. But most are still terrible technology.
by Cory Doctorow
Feb. 3, 2021
... the industry-leading, private-equity-owned ES&S, has seized on the moment to threaten members of SMART Elections, a journalism and advocacy group, with a lawsuit for spreading “false, defamatory and disparaging” information about one of its machines, the ExpressVote XL. These claims — factual observations, really — include that the machine “can add, delete, or change the votes on individual ballots” and that it is a “bad voting machine.”
Because SMART Elections is a collective of committed, individual activists — who translate academic research and relay it to state regulators — ES&S threatened to hold the members of the group “personally and individually liable”: ominous threats coming from any large company, but one that might especially worry activists, given ES&S’s history of litigiousness. (ES&S, a company that makes billions by charging the public millions to count its votes, is such a habitual litigant that sometimes it seems like the voting machines are a sideline for the lawsuits.)
But nothing SMART Elections is saying is controversial, let alone libelous. The definitive research on electronic voting system incompetence is the annual report from the “Voting Village” at DefCon, the gigantic Las Vegas hackers’ convention ... The hackers have been pointing out many of these problems for years.
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.
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.
The vendor ES&S will likely attempt to remedy the issues that were raised during the certification process and try to have the system certified again. Additionally there are other voting systems being marketed, and even in use here in New York that have the same security issues. So the next step in protecting New York voters is to pass legislation to permanently ban hybrid voting machines from being used in the state.
That legislation has been introduced in both the Assembly and the Senate:
A1115 (Paulin) / S309 (Myrie)
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
- Sending a letter to New York legislators
- Supporting the passage of A1115 / S309
- Calling Governor Cuomo
Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkd-mqrDwqEtRAy0Vvl5tHTqU0cyRCOeMp
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email and the zoom link.
Sign Up To Attend the Next Forum
What have we learned from the 2020 Election? We know that we have work to do if we are going to have elections that everyone can have confidence in.
NOW is the time to reform our electoral process. NOT right before a major election when it is too late to make changes. Make this issue one of your top priorities and spend some time with us every other week.
Join our next #ElectionProtection forum on 3/9th at 7pm EST
U.S. Elections have never provided equal opportunities for people of color. What will the "For the People Act" HR1 / S1 do to provide racial equity in our elections? How will it even the playing field across communities? Our guest is Shruti Banerjee from Demos.
Plus
What does HR1 / S1 do to improve election security?
Does it need to be improved?
Can it be changed and how?
Can it pass - and how?
- SMART Elections is actively working with election protection communities to protect and improve our democracy.
- Our ongoing #ElectionProtection Series is part of that effort.
- The forums are every other Tuesday at 7pm EST.
- Our upcoming forum is on Tuesday 3/9/21 at 7PM EST
- The next forum after that is on Tuesday 3/23/21 at 7pm EST
The event will be broadcast live
& Facebook.
(Link to come).
Register to receive more information.
This event is part of a non-partisan coalition-building series to inform, empower, and connect advocates on #ElectionProtection.
This is What Democracy Looks Like!
Join the thousands of people who are participating in this project, because they believe that our democracy has a long way to go to live up to its promise.
After you register, a reminder with the link & more info will be sent to you.
Videos of earlier forums in the series are on a playlist on our YouTube channel.
Be sure to subscribe while you're there.
Series sponsored by
Co-sponsors:
