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    • Home
    • ABOUT
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
      • Advisory Team Letters
    • Donate
      • Donate
      • Dedications
    • Hybrid Voting Problems
    • IN THE NEWS
      • Featured in the News
      • Press Releases
    • VOTING EQUIPMENT
      • Voting Technology
      • Events
      • ESS Problems
      • Dominion ICE
      • VSAP LA
    • NYC PRIMARY
      • Transparency Report 1
    • TAKE ACTION
      • CountTheVote
    • BLOG
    • LEARN MORE
      • Read More
    • PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS
      • ExpressVoteXL Letter
      • Handcount Audits
      • Iowa Caucus
      • NY Primary Keep It Fair
      • Write NY - Schoharie Co.
      • Write the EAC
SMART Elections
  • Home
  • ABOUT
  • Donate
  • Hybrid Voting Problems
  • IN THE NEWS
  • VOTING EQUIPMENT
  • NYC PRIMARY
  • TAKE ACTION
  • BLOG
  • LEARN MORE
  • PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS

#ElectionProtection

#ElectionProtection#ElectionProtection#ElectionProtection

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.

Sign Up to Attend

 

Play Our Latest Forum

Image of open suitcase with an electronic device that says, "what machine will count your vote"?

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.

Play Now

What Did People Say About Our Last Forum?

"Awesome work"  


"WOW"  


"excellent, as usual"  

JOIN US!

 

Image of a smiling Lulu Friesdat and Bennie Smith as they host a SMART Elections forum.

#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.

Sign Up to Attend
Image of a microphone with a crowd in the background.

#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.

Sign Up to Attend

 

We're transforming U.S. elections.

We're grateful to heroes who help - like you!

Please consider giving a donation of $5 - $500 today!


Please accept our immense gratitude for your partnership, and for including SMART Elections in your charitable giving.

Tax-Deductible Donation

Imagine a world with fair, accurate elections. We do.

We're educating, organizing & training non-partisan advocates how to protect elections.

Our work is raising public confidence.

We want elections to be secure, fair, accessible, well-administered & publicly verifiable.

Events Calendar

Spend #TuesdaysTogether!

We've got tons of fun, informative events.

We meet on Tuesdays at 7pm ET 

Join Us

Our Election Protection Forums

Image of open suitcase with an electronic device that says, "what machine will count your vote"?

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. 


Learn what SMART stands for! 

Join the community that cares!

Thousands of viewers are watching our forums every 4th Tuesday at 7pm ET. Join our active, smart, fun community by attending regularly!


Join our mailing list! Get reminders & updates for our forums. 


Play past SMART Elections forums on YouTube or Facebook. Be sure to like, follow, and subscribe!  

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.

Join Our Mailing List

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Photos of Ken Bennet, Lulu, and Bennie and forum details.

"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 

Sign Up to Attend

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."


Read the full article


More press coverage

brooklyn transparency project

Picture of a spreadsheet that shows discrepancy in ballot counts.

698 More Ballots Than Voters

Uncooperative Board of Elections

698 More Ballots Than Voters

Picture a spreadsheet that shows where the ballot scanner  counts were short.

Scanner Count Off

Uncooperative Board of Elections

698 More Ballots Than Voters

Learn more
Picture of a quote with the words highlighted: bars poll watchers

Uncooperative Board of Elections

Uncooperative Board of Elections

Uncooperative Board of Elections

Picture of ExpressVote XL machine alongside text that it can add, change, delete votes on ballot.

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.

Join the Fri Meetup

Elevating Election Reform, Disability Rights & Election Security to Urgent National Priorities

Voters with disabilities deserve to vote independently, privately and comfortably and ballot marking devices have been developed to help them in that process. 


But voters with disabilities also deserve to have their votes counted securely as intended; and many of the ballot marking devices being currently sold have serious security vulnerabilities. 

Learn More

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