Author Archives: Warren Stewart

Do Ballot Barcodes Threaten Election Security? | William T. Adler/Center for Democracy and Technology

Bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have been repeatedly debunked. But that hasn’t stopped election conspiracy theorists from attempting to gain influence in election administration, either as low level poll workers or as top state election officials. The infiltration of election deniers into positions of power in administering elections poses a grave danger to American democracy: the possibility that an insider will manipulate election systems in order to bring about a desired election outcome. This elevated insider threat makes it more important than ever that our voting systems are resilient to attack and manipulation. Many 2020 conspiracy theories concerned the voting systems in Georgia, where President Trump focused intensely on discrediting the results. That year, Georgia used ballot marking devices (BMDs) for the first time, for all in-person voters. BMDs are touch screen computers that print out a paper ballot—a major improvement over the paperless machines Georgia had previously been using. Now, voters could physically inspect the record of their vote, rather than be forced to trust the machines to record the votes accurately. BMDs are widely used in U.S. elections and offer several benefits over hand-marked paper ballots (HMPBs). For instance, because they have a variety of user interface options, BMDs enable voters with visual or motor disabilities to vote independently and privately when they might otherwise be unable to do so with a HMPB. But all computerized systems are susceptible to attack. Therefore, the use of BMDs—particularly by large numbers of voters who do not require them for accessibility reasons—has been criticized as posing a serious security threat to elections. The balance between these benefits and risks should be carefully considered.

Full Article: Do Ballot Barcodes Threaten Election Security? – Center for Democracy and Technology

Activists say cyber agency weakens voting tech advisory | Kate Brumback/Associated Press

The nation’s leading cybersecurity agency released a final version Friday of an advisory it previously sent state officials on voting machine vulnerabilities in Georgia and other states that voting integrity activists say weakens a security recommendation on using barcodes to tally votes. The advisory put out by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, has to do with vulnerabilities identified in Dominion Voting Systems’ ImageCast X touchscreen voting machines, which produce a paper ballot or record votes electronically. The agency said that although the vulnerabilities should be quickly mitigated, the agency “has no evidence that these vulnerabilities have been exploited in any elections.” Dominion’s systems have been unjustifiably attacked since the 2020 election by people who embraced the false belief that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. The company has filed defamation lawsuits in response to incorrect and outrageous claims made by high-profile Trump allies. The advisory CISA released Friday is based on a report generated by University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, an expert witness in a long-running lawsuit that is unrelated to false allegations stemming from the 2020 election. The machines are used by at least some voters in 16 states, according to a voting equipment tracker maintained by watchdog Verified Voting. In most of those places, they are used only for people who can’t physically fill out a paper ballot by hand. But in some places, including Georgia, almost all in-person voting is done on the affected machines.

Source: Activists say cyber agency weakens voting tech advisory | AP News

National: The GOP drive to install thousands of poll workers sets off alarms | Fredreka Schouten and Kelly Mena/CNN

Full Article: The GOP drive to install thousands of poll workers sets off alarms – CNNPolitics

National: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections | Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

Key figures in the effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election have thrown their weight behind a slate of Republican candidates for secretary of state across the country, injecting specious theories about voting machines, foreign hacking and voter fraud into campaigns that will determine who controls elections in several battleground states. The America First slate comprises more than a dozen candidates who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. It grew out of meetings held by a conspiracy-mongering QAnon leader and a Nevada politician, and has quietly gained support from influential people in the election denier movement — including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, and Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com executive who has financed public forums that promote the candidates and theories about election vulnerabilities. Members of the slate have won party endorsements or are competitive candidates for the Republican nomination in several states, including three — Michigan, Arizona and Nevada — where a relatively small number of ballots have decided presidential victories. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the secretary of state, State Senator Doug Mastriano, who is aligned with the group, easily won his primary for governor last month. The candidates cast their races as a fight for the future of democracy, the best chance to reform a broken voting system — and to win elections.

Full Article: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections – The New York Times

National: Trump allies explored using armed workers to seize vote data | Sarah D. Wire/Los Angeles Times

Supporters on the fringes of former President Trump’s circle explored seeking sweeping authority after the 2020 election to enlist armed private contractors to seize and inspect voting machines and election data with the assistance of U.S. marshals, according to a draft letter asking the president to grant them permission. The previously undisclosed “authorizing letter” and accompanying emails were sent on Nov. 21, 2020, from a person involved in efforts to find evidence of fraud in the election that year. The documents, which were reviewed by The Times, are believed to be among those in the possession of the House Jan. 6 committee, which is scheduled to begin public hearings Thursday. The letter appears to be one of the earliest iterations of a draft executive order presented to the then-president in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, by then- Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, former national security advisor Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com Chief Executive Patrick Byrne in an effort to take control of voting machines. The email and attached draft letter were sent to Cyber Ninjas Chief Executive Doug Logan and cybersecurity expert Jim Penrose by Andrew Whitney, a British technology entrepreneur who made his way inside Trump’s circle in 2020 after he sought the president’s support for Oleandrin, a toxic botanical extract Whitney claimed was a miracle cure for COVID-19. Logan, who went on to conduct a partisan “audit” of election results in Maricopa County, Ariz., and Penrose worked for weeks after the 2020 election with a group including Powell, Flynn and Byrne that sought access to voting machines in an attempt to find proof of election fraud.

Full Article: Trump allies explored using armed workers to seize vote data – Los Angeles Times

National: The Supreme Court may take territories off the map of the US | Stephen Kinzer/The Boston Globe

May the United States rule foreign territories without granting their inhabitants constitutional rights? Yes, according to landmark Supreme Court decisions in the “Insular Cases” more than a century ago. Without those decisions, our overseas territorial empire could not have existed. Suddenly that decision is under fierce attack from within the Court itself. The fate of America’s five populated colonies — Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands — may hang in the balance. In April the Supreme Court decided what seemed to be an abstruse case about federal benefits owed to Puerto Ricans. But Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion began with a startling passage. He asserted that the United States has no business deciding anything for Puerto Rico because our ownership of that island — and by extension other US colonies — is unconstitutional. “A century ago in the Insular Cases, this Court held that the federal government could rule Puerto Rico and other territories largely without regard to the Constitution,” Gorsuch wrote. “It is past time to acknowledge the gravity of this error and admit what we know to be true: the Insular Cases have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes. They deserve no place in our law. . . . And I hope the day comes soon when the Court squarely overrules them.”

Full Article: The Supreme Court may take territories off the map of the US – The Boston Globe