What's Wrong with hybrid voting?

• “Hybrid” or “all-in-one” voting machines combine a printer and a scanner in one voting system. Most hybrid voting machines have what's called a shared paper path, meaning that the ballot travels along the same path for both printing and scanning. This opens up opportunities for a ballot to be changed after it is cast. Security experts call this design "A disaster." 

• If hacked, these voting machines "can add, delete, or change votes on individual ballots. "

• "No voting machine is immune from hacking." - Andrew Appel, Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University

• The ballots are what we rely on to check that the machine has counted the votes correctly. If the paper ballot itself has been corrupted, a trustworthy hand-count of the paper ballots is not possible, and there is no way to know the true outcome of the election. 

• According to cybersecurity and voting system expert Kevin Skoglund, “It’s like giving a cast ballot to a person holding a pen.” (Listen to his public comments against the ExpressVote XL at 1:26:29)

• Yes. Legislation has been proposed to ban "hybrid" voting machines with a shared paper path at the state and federal level. 

• In New York the legislation is A1115 / S309. SMART Elections supports this legislation and our Executive Director helped author it. 

• At the federal level there are multiple proposed bills that wold ban most hybrids, including the SAFE Act which passed the House of Representatives. 

We are working to ban hybrid voting machines in New York and Nationally. 

You can:

• Attend weekly Fri 12pm meetups. The NY SMART Elections Working Group focuses on protecting NY voters.
• Call your NY Assembly Member & Senator. Ask them to co-sponsor the bills.
• Send a letter to New York Legislators. It takes about 3 minutes. We've sent over 800 letters. Anyone can send one. You don't have to be a NY resident. 

There are currently four "hybrid" voting systems on the market that have this security design flaw.

• The ExpressVote XL
• The Dominion Ice (ImageCast Evolution)
• The ExpressVote
• Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) - In use in Los Angeles

• Voters with disabilities have a right to vote privately, independently and securely. Security Experts say that "hybrid" voting machines do not provide that.

• 7 NY Disability rights groups oppose the ExpressVote XL, a hybrid voting machine.

• 4 Disabiliy Rights groups wrote to the NY State Board of Elections opposing another hybrid voting machine, the Dominion ICE.

• The Pennsylvania Department of State documented 27 pages of complaints from voters with disabilities trying to use the ExpressVote XL. "None of the participants were able to verify their paper ballot and every participant had at least one problem. "

• Common Cause says the ExpressVote XL will “undermine the security of our elections.”

• Over 50 good government groups and experts signed a letter against the ExpressVote XL.

• Professor Rich DeMillo, Chair of the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at Georgia Tech, calls the ExpressVoteXL, "an all-in-one ballot marking device that poses extraordinary risks for the voters.”  

• Security expert Andrew Appel has asked the League of Women Voters to take a position against "hybrid" voting machines.

• The NY State security lab NYSTEC said that if a "hybrid" machine was hacked,, “a forensic analysis would be needed on all ballots in question to determine if a human or machine made the mark. Such a process is unlikely to be trusted by the public.” 

• The lab said, "If the attack were to occur the impact would be very high." 

• Yes.  Many of them are also touchscreen voting machines. When touch screens go out of calibration, they switch votes.

• The ExpressVote XL counts votes with barcodes. Security experts warn that the system “could change a vote for one candidate to be a vote for another candidate,” if it were hacked. Colorado, a leader in election security, has banned barcodes in voting, due to the high risk.

• The ExpressVote XL is applying for certification in New York with end of life software: Windows 7. Old software is dangerous because after a certain point it is not supported by the software company. Then it is impossible or very expensive to get security updates and the system is at higher risk of being successfully hacked. 

• The main "hybrid" voting system with a shared paper path in use n New York is the Dominion ICE. It could be used as a scanner, or ballot-marking-device. But not both. 
• Some counties using these systems are leasing, and they can end their lease.
• Port Chester Village is using the ExpressVote XL, by court order. It is not clear what would happen there.