Pennsylvania: Voting-Machine Upgrade Stirs a Partisan Clash in Pennsylvania | Alexa Corse/Wall Street Journal

A partisan clash is unfolding over an effort to upgrade voting systems in Pennsylvania, after Republicans accused the Democratic governor of rushing the deployment of new voting machines, some of which malfunctioned in November. The rift in Pennsylvania—a key battleground state for the 2020 elections—is an example of how election security is becoming a political flashpoint across the country. A spokesman for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said this week that the state has made significant security improvements and is continuing such efforts. “These inaccurate, political claims only serve to undermine confidence in our election,” said spokesman J.J. Abbott. Election-security efforts elsewhere have attracted controversy as well. On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans and Democrats have clashed on election-security bills and on whether to give more funding to the states to improve their systems. Complaints at the state level are significant because of Pennsylvania’s potential importance as a battleground state in the 2020 election, and because state and local governments have the primary responsibility for administering elections. At issue in Pennsylvania are reports that some voting machines malfunctioned during a statewide election on Nov. 5. In Northampton County, election workers counted paper records all night. Another glitch was blamed for causing long lines in York County.

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia’s voting machines challenged in federal court | The Philadelphia Sunday Sun

A federal court was asked last Tuesday to force Pennsylvania to rescind its certification of a voting machine newly purchased by Philadelphia and at least two other counties in the state ahead of 2020’s presidential election. The filing casts doubt on how 17% of Pennsylvania’s registered voters will cast ballots in the April 28 primary election, as well as next November, when the state is expected to be one of the nation’s premier presidential battlegrounds. Court papers filed by former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and several supporters accuse Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration of violating their year-old agreement in Philadelphia’s federal court by certifying the ExpressVote XL touchscreen system made by Omaha, Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software. The plaintiffs say certifying the system violates their agreement, in part because the machine does not meet the agreement’s requirements “that every Pennsylvania voter in 2020 uses a voter-verifiable paper ballot.” For one, the ExpressVote XL counts votes by counting machine-printed barcodes on paper, a format that is neither readable nor verifiable by an individual voter, they wrote in court papers. Second, the ExpressVote XL does not use a “paper ballot” and relies on software to record the voter’s choice, they wrote. Third, it is not capable of supporting strong pre-certification auditing of election results because its paper records may not accurately reflect voters’ intent, they wrote.

Pennsylvania: ES&S to report on Northampton County voting machine problems | Jeff Ward/WFMZ

Northampton County’s voting-machine vendor will report next week on what went wrong during the November election and how it can be fixed. The ExpressVote XL machines used Nov. 5 led to long lines and frustration at the polls because the touchscreens were too sensitive and the backup paper ballots were hard to read. Election Systems & Software (ES&S), maker of the machines, will be at Northampton County Council’s next meeting. “ES&S was in Northampton County today reviewing our voting systems,” County Executive Lamont McClure told the council at its Thursday meeting. “They will come next Thursday and tell you what they found and the fixes.” The next council meeting will be Dec. 12 at 4:30 p.m. at the government center. McClure and Council President Ronald Heckman have insisted that ES&S identify and fix what went wrong before the next election. The county paid $2.88 million for the machines after Gov. Tom Wolf required systems across Pennsylvania that would thwart hacking and provide a backup paper trail. Despite the problems, McClure has said the election was fair and accurate because the backup worked.

Pennsylvania: Misplaced votes mean new rules for Erie County poll workers, officials | Matthew Rink/GoErie

After the polls closed on Nov. 5, poll workers at Kury Hall in Millcreek Township suspected that something was amiss. Like all poll workers at the county’s 149 precincts, they were responsible for inserting a device called a PEB that records the votes from a flash drive on each machine and “closes out” the machine so that no additional votes can be recorded. When the PEB generated the results at Millcreek’s 4th Precinct, though, poll workers suspected that it had shown too few votes. “They had some sense that their number of total votes wasn’t correct,” Erie County Clerk Doug Smith said. “But they thought it would all come out in the wash. They didn’t think it was a serious thing and that we would catch it when we did the audit.” What followed was a perfect storm, Smith said, of poor communication between poll workers themselves and between poll workers and elections officials stationed at the Erie County Courthouse. It would result in roughly 400 votes not being tabulated on either Election Night or during the final audit, or count, conducted by elections officials days later. In fact, were it not for the razor-thin margin between Erie County Controller Mary Schaaf and her challenger, Erie County Councilman Kyle Foust, the controller-elect, the missing votes might never have been counted.

Pennsylvania: A Pennsylvania County’s Election Day Nightmare Underscores Voting Machine Concerns | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

It was a few minutes after the polls closed here on Election Day when panic began to spread through the county election offices. Vote totals in a Northampton County judge’s race showed one candidate, Abe Kassis, a Democrat, had just 164 votes out of 55,000 ballots across more than 100 precincts. Some machines reported zero votes for him. In a county with the ability to vote for a straight-party ticket, one candidate’s zero votes was a near statistical impossibility. Something had gone quite wrong. Lee Snover, the chairwoman of the county Republicans, said her anxiety began to pick up at 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 5. She had trouble getting someone from the election office on the phone. When she eventually got through, she said: “I’m coming down there and you better let me in.” With clearly faulty results in at least the judge’s election, officials began counting the paper backup ballots generated by the same machines. The paper ballots showed Mr. Kassis winning narrowly, 26,142 to 25,137, over his opponent, the Republican Victor Scomillio. “People were questioning, and even I questioned, that if some of the numbers are wrong, how do we know that there aren’t mistakes with anything else?” said Matthew Munsey, the chairman of the Northampton County Democrats, who, along with Ms. Snover, was among the observers as county officials worked through the night to count the paper ballots by hand. The snafu in Northampton County did not just expose flaws in both the election machine testing and procurement process. It also highlighted the fears, frustrations and mistrust over election security that many voters are feeling ahead of the 2020 presidential contest, given how faith in American elections has never been more fragile. The problematic machines were also used in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs — areas of Pennsylvania that could prove decisive next year in one of the most critical presidential swing states in the country.

Pennsylvania: How Pennsylvania could improve voting and elections, according to advocates and experts | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania is implementing the biggest changes to its electoral system in decades, including an expansion of absentee ballot access, easier voter registration, the elimination of straight-party voting, and tens of millions of dollars for new voting machines. But when it comes to ballot access, those changes, part of a bipartisan deal enacted in October, will only move the state from the back of the U.S. pack to the middle. “It’s clear improvement on the whole to the process — sort of maybe revolutionary only by Pennsylvania standards,” said David Thornburgh, head of the Philadelphia-based good-government group Committee of Seventy. “On the Richter scale of change, it’s not a nine.” So, voting rights advocates and experts, while applauding the changes, want lawmakers and Gov. Tom Wolf to go further. The Inquirer asked for their wish lists. They offered dozens of ideas about voting rights, election security and integrity, and political representation. Some would likely garner support only on partisan lines; others could have bipartisan backing. Some are bolstered by research and proven track records elsewhere, while others are newer ideas. All came from a sense that Pennsylvania can do better, and that election modernization and voting reform should not end with this year’s law.

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia’s Voting Machines Challenged In Federal Court Ahead Of 2020 Presidential Election | Associated Press

A federal court was asked Tuesday to force Pennsylvania to rescind its certification of a voting machine newly purchased by Philadelphia and at least two other counties in the state ahead of 2020’s presidential election. The filing casts doubt onto how 17% of Pennsylvania’s registered voters will cast ballots in the April 28 primary election, as well as next November, when the state is expected to be one of the nation’s premier presidential battlegrounds. Court papers filed by former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and several supporters accuse Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration of violating their year-old agreement in Philadelphia’s federal court by certifying the ExpressVote XL touchscreen system made by Omaha, Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software. The plaintiffs say certifying the system violates their agreement, in part because the machine does not meet the agreement’s requirements “that every Pennsylvania voter in 2020 uses a voter-verifiable paper ballot.” For one, the ExpressVote XL counts votes by counting machine-printed bar codes on paper, a format that is neither readable nor verifiable by an individual voter, they wrote in court papers.

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia tests way to ensure no one hacks 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania | Jonathan Lai/The Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia voters can rest assured Jim Kenney really was reelected mayor this month, according to a squad of data and voting experts from around the country who ran a rigorous statistical test of the results Thursday. But while it’s no surprise that a Democrat won by 80 percentage points in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, it’s notable that the scientists were able to conduct such an audit in the first place. That’s because on Nov. 5, for the first time, Philadelphia used voting machines that leave a paper record of voters’ choices. As Pennsylvania’s counties roll out similar new machines required to create paper trails in time for the 2020 presidential election, the reported electronic returns can now be checked for accuracy. That’s an important change in a state that Donald Trump carried in 2016 by slightly more than 44,000 votes, or less than 1%. Pennsylvania is expected to be critical again next year. “We know we saw in 2016, everybody wondering, was this real, was this not real?” said Kathy Boockvar, secretary of the commonwealth, whose department oversees Pennsylvania elections. In 2020 and beyond, with what are known as risk-limiting audits, election officials will be able to confirm that the text of paper ballots lines up with what ballot-reading machines say. “The stakes are high, people are very passionate, and we have the paper that will be able to show the actual evidence,” Boockvar said. Officials hope the audits will make it harder for bad actors to tamper with the results. They also hope to increase public confidence in elections generally, following what U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was a systematic campaign by Russia to interfere in the 2016 election to boost Trump. (That campaign involved the dissemination of news and information Americans consumed, not the manipulation of actual votes or voting machines.)

Pennsylvania: Last-minute bill amendment addresses scanner, privacy issues at the polls | Emily Previti/PA Post

A bill headed to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk is expected to address some of the problems experienced by counties that rolled out new voting systems during the general election earlier this month. All counties are required to have election systems in place for the presidential primary next spring. The systems must use paper ballots or generate paper copies of electronically cast votes, under the terms of a lawsuit settlement. More than half of them debuted voting machines during the general election earlier this month – and some experienced problems. The new rules would require counties to give voters more privacy while casting their ballots. The changes respond to voter complaints that their votes could be read by poll workers and other voters when they went to scan their ballot, despite counties providing folders for shield ballots from view. The legislation would also do away with ballot stubs. Voters using a hand or machine-marked ballot tear off the stubs before putting their ballot in a vote scanner.  In York County, the perforations left behind contributed to scanner jams and voting delays.

Pennsylvania: State starts testing new election auditing procedures | Emily Previti/PA Post

Pennsylvania’s elections overhaul isn’t limited to deploying new voting machines and making sweeping changes to absentee voting and registration deadlines. Officials also are working on new post-election auditing procedures that employ statistical modeling. Test runs occurred earlier this week in Mercer County and are scheduled for Thursday in Philadelphia. Post-election audits already happen in Pennsylvania. State law requires counties to audit 2 percent of ballots cast – or 2,000, whichever is less – in each race. Other auditing criteria – such as sample ballot selection – are largely left up to county election officials. That’s expected to change in 2022. The state agreed to implement a more robust post-election audit system — called risk-limiting audits — as part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. “The process that’s in place now is practically meaningless,” Stein’s spokesman Dave Schwab wrote in an email Tuesday. “In contrast, risk-limiting audits are designed to use the paper records to ensure that the machine count didn’t produce the wrong winner.”

Pennsylvania: Northampton County voters want refund for ExpressVote XL voting machines | Jeff Ward/WFMZ

Northampton County should get back the $2.88 million it spent on voting machines, residents told County Council on Thursday night. The ExpressVote XL machines used for the Nov. 5 election had touch screens that were too sensitive, did not record all votes electronically, and the backup paper ballots that were displayed to voters to confirm their choices were hard to read. The county bought machines from Election Systems & Software after Pennsylvania required voting machines that would thwart hacking and provide a paper backup to electronic tallies. “We really need to get our money back,” Gail Preuninger of Bethlehem Township said. Deborah Hunter, who served on the county’s election commission and opposed selection of Election Systems & Software’s machines, said the vendor broke its contract. “I will not use this machine,” said Roger Dreisbach-Williams of Williams Township. He said he will vote via a paper ballot next time, perhaps as an absentee voter.

Pennsylvania: Mercer County conducts first risk limiting election audit | Glenn Stevens/WFMJ

Mercer County is conducting a risk-limiting post-election audit for the first time in Pennsylvania. A working group assembled at the Mercer county courthouse on Monday to perform the post-election audit.   It’s described as a scientifically designed procedure that utilizes math and statistical data to confirm election outcomes. “They’ve found out a way to use the math to provide a statistical certainty that the results that we are reporting accurately reflect that’s what the voters did,” said Mercer County Elections Director Jeff Greenburg. “The math is maybe a little complicated for the average person until you get kind of hands-on experience, and that’s really what we’re doing here today,” according to Jonathan Marks, Deputy Secretary of Elections for Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania has returned to a paper ballot, and the risk-limiting audit is viewed as another step forward for voter confidence and election integrity.

Pennsylvania: 2020 election votes are at stake as a Pennsylvania county plays a game of chicken with Gov. Tom Wolf | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Dauphin County, home of the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg, is starting a high-stakes game of chicken with the state. Republican county commissioners decided Wednesday not to buy new voting machines, defying an order from Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, and all but daring him to take action against the county ahead of the 2020 election. Dauphin has been one of several counties that have resisted buying new voting machines, with its elections director saying the electronic machines used for more than three decades remain secure and usable. The two Republican county commissioners agreed Wednesday not to buy machines. (A third commissionerm a Democrat, did not attend the meeting.) Wolf said he ordered the statewide upgrade to make the voting machines more secure and tabulations verifiable.

Pennsylvania: Dauphin County resists Pennsylvania’s push for new voting machines | Marc Levy/Associated Press

A Pennsylvania county is signaling that it won’t go along with Gov. Tom Wolf’s insistence that counties buy new voting systems as a security measure in 2020’s election, when the state is expected to be a premier presidential battleground. Dauphin County Commissioner Mike Pries, a Republican, said Wednesday that he’s comfortable with the county’s old machines, particularly after hearing about paper jams, long lines and other problems in other counties that debuted new machines in last week’s election. Some of those new machines were under consideration by Dauphin County. “There’s an old saying: ‘If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,’” Pries said in an interview. “Our machines work, they’re fundamentally sound, we trust our machines, you cannot hack our machines.” Thus far, no other county in Pennsylvania has taken such a hard line against getting new voting machines, now seven weeks before the Dec. 31 deadline that Wolf gave counties to select new machines that have an auditable paper backup. Pennsylvania’s presidential primary election is April 28, and Wolf’s administration has warned lawmakers and county officials that it will decertify the counties’ old voting systems Dec. 31. His administration reiterated Wednesday it has not reconsidered that decision, although it is making exceptions for special elections to fill legislative vacancies before April.

Pennsylvania: ‘You should be pretty worried’: Fixing York County’s election system before 2020 votes | Logan Hullinger/York Dispatch

The maker of York County’s new voting machines pledged to have support on hand for all of next year’s elections after a tumultuous rollout of the system earlier this month that delayed election results for days. A representative for Dominion Voting Systems made the announcement Thursday, Nov. 14, during a debriefing that included the county commissioners, nearly all of the county’s state lawmakers, poll workers and election officials. Kay Stimson, the company’s vice president of government affairs, said Dominion also would work with county officials to reevaluate the number of machines needed in each of the 159 precincts. Based of the problems during the Nov. 5 municipal election, Lawmakers were particularly concerned about the 2020 voting — which includes a special election in January, the primary in April and the presidential contest in November. “If you voted in York, you should be pretty worried,” state Rep. Seth Grove, R-Dover Township, said after the meeting.

Pennsylvania: Monroe County Voters Voice Concern Over Elections Tech | Brian Myszkowski/Pocono Record

The ballots are in, the votes are counted, and the consensus is…there are still a few kinks to iron out before the next election. Last week’s municipal election saw the premier of the new ClearCast scanners, paper ballots and other changes in voting technology in Monroe County, Pa., and other areas across the state and nation. Gone are the electronic screens of the past, replaced with paper ballots and scanning devices meant to ensure the safety and security of citizens’ votes. Voters could simply fill in bubble next to the name of the candidate they wished to vote for, and once they completed the ballot, they fed it into the scanners, which checked for errors, asked for final approval and deposited the slip into a secure box. At least that was the idea. According to a Pocono Record poll, about 70% of voters were able to vote on Election Day without any issues. But when it came to the rest, several concerns tended to pop up rather frequently.

Pennsylvania: Northampton County voting machines record questionable results | Emily Opilo & Tom Shortell/The Morning Call

Northampton County officials are rescanning ballots cast countywide after questionable results were reported by newly implemented voting machines Tuesday, prompting the head of the county Republican party to demand a recount. Calling the situation “unfortunate,” Northampton County officials issued a statement shortly before midnight acknowledging a problem with counting votes in some county precincts. Voters reported irregularities throughout the day while voting on the machines, and state officials were contacted, the county officials said. The state instructed the county to use paper ballots, not the machine counts, to tabulate its votes. “ES&S has assured the county and the Pennsylvania Department of State that it is assessing and diagnosing what caused the issues with the machines,” the news release stated. Red flags with the results were apparent as even the earliest returns rolled in. Democrat Abe Kassis initially had zero recorded votes with multiple precincts reporting. Lee Snover, head of the Northampton County Republican Party, quickly called for a recount of the paper ballots in at least the judicial contest, saying “I need to win this race.” “We have a hanging chad moment here in Northampton County,” she said, referring to voting machine issues that caused the infamous recount of contested ballots in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.

Pennsylvania: Key to uncovering Northampton County’s voting machine failure could be weeks away | Tom Shortell/The Morning Call

Northampton County officials still could not explain Thursday what went wrong with their new voting machines in Tuesday’s election, and an answer may be out of reach for weeks. Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure said officials with Election Systems & Software, the company that sold the county the voting machines this year, have not determined why votes could not be digitally counted after polls closed. Votes appeared to be severely undercounted in races where candidates were cross-filed, he said. Until the election results are certified by the state in about 20 days, the machines will be impounded and inaccessible to anyone, McClure said. That means technicians will not be able to dive into the machines’ guts to find what caused thousands of votes for specific candidates to disappear from the digital count. “That is something that is unacceptable and ES&S needs to fix that, and they need to fix that before the next election,” McClure said. Despite the issues, he said he believes the county can rely on the machines’ paper ballots. Those paper ballots allowed the county to count votes by Wednesday morning, including those that disappeared in the digital count.

Pennsylvania: Problems with York County’s new paper ballots | Shelly Stallsmith/York Daily Record

Jerry Brenchley has lived in West Manheim Township, York County, since 1984. Before that, he lived in Los Angeles. The 72-year-old voted in every election in both areas because his grandparents told him that’s the only way to make sure his voice is heard. Brenchley’s voice isn’t going to be heard in this election because, for the first time, he didn’t vote. He and his wife tried, he said. They stood in line at St. David’s Evangelical Lutheran Church for nearly an hour and still hadn’t reached the registration table to get a ballot. “There were five or six ladies handing out ballots,” Brenchley said. “And one came out and said, ‘I’m sorry, they just sent us one machine.’ People were walking out. “This stinks, I mean it really stinks.” Brenchley isn’t alone in his complaints. Voters around York County were voicing concerns about the new paper ballot system. They are worried about this year’s election, but Tuesday’s long lines and voting difficulties have them more concerned about next year’s presidential election. “We waited 2½ hours to vote in 2016,” Valerie Herman said Tuesday. “If things don’t change for next year, we’ll have to camp out.”

Pennsylvania: $90M for Voting Machines, Mail-In Ballots Signed Into Law | Associated Press

Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation Thursday that advocates say makes the most significant changes to modernize Pennsylvania election laws in 80 years and authorizes the state to borrow of up to $90 million to help counties buy new voting machines ahead of next year’s presidential election. Wolf, a Democrat, said the legislation takes the nation’s least voter-friendly election laws and puts them in line with states that have the highest voter turnout. The bill was negotiated privately by Wolf and leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature. A draft first appeared last week . It passed the House and Senate on Tuesday and had the support of good-government groups.

Pennsylvania: Cost, Security Questions Arise After Westmoreland County Voting Machine Approval | Deb Erdley/Tribune-Review

Chuck Anderson, the outgoing Westmoreland County commissioner, said he wanted to ensure county residents had the best voting system available before he leaves office in December. The $7.1 million touch screen/scanner system he and fellow Commissioners Ted Kopas and Gina Cerilli approved this month will cost $30 per voter — or nearly triple the $11 per voter Allegheny County paid for a new paper ballot/scanner voting system. Total cost for that system was $10.5 million. The price per voter is based on the number of registered voters. In Allegheny County, there are 952,685 registered voters. In Westmoreland, there are 235,970 voters. “The people from Westmore­land County expect to have the very best, and this is the best solution to the problem,” Anderson said. Experts who follow elections and cybersecurity say that’s not true. They maintain touch screen/scanner systems, such as the ES&S product Westmoreland County officials bought, are both more costly and less secure than systems that rely on paper ballots and scanners. Christopher Deluzio, policy director for the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law and Security, has studied the issue for the past two years. An ongoing study that looked at what counties paid for voting systems found the average cost in places that bought touch screen/scanner systems was just more than $24 per voter, compared to about $12 per voter for those who bought paper ballot/scanner systems.

Pennsylvania: Rage Against the (Voting) Machines: Pennsylvania’s Ongoing Battle for Secure Ballots | Kira Simon/State of Elections

“Green Party’s Jill Stein threatens legal challenge to Philly’s new, $29M voting machines.” At first glance, this may sound like a headline from the 2016 election. In fact, it’s a headline from October 2, 2019. Readers of this blog likely remember that Stein settled a lawsuit with Pennsylvania stemming from a state recount of the 2016 election. Why this is still in the news? Let’s run through Pennsylvania’s recent history of voting machine troubles. In 2016, Pennsylvania was one of fourteen states to use paperless voting machines as the primary polling place equipment in some counties and towns. During the Democratic primary, some counties encountered unusual voting procedures with their electronic voting machines. Three counties did not include a U.S. Senate candidate because the counties did not have enough time to add his name to the ballot after the state supreme court reversed a lower court decision to keep the candidate off the ballot after his petitions were challenged. The counties were unable to add his name because three weeks before the election it was “impossible” to update the information on the machines. To remedy this, voters in one county completed all primary votes except their U.S. Senate vote on an electronic machine – and submitted their Senate vote by a paper ballot; in another county voters had to separately write in the candidate’s name. While this was an unusual instance involving an essentially unknown candidate, you can imagine a scenario where a voting machine may need to be updated close to an election due to an emergency or court order – and the fact that there is no good way to address that issue is disconcerting.

Pennsylvania: Fight over Philadelphia’s voting machines may head to court | Marc Levy/Associated Press

Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein wants Pennsylvania to block Philadelphia from using new touchscreen machines the state is buying ahead of the 2020 election and threatened court action Wednesday if it doesn’t do so promptly. Stein’s demand means that she and a group of plaintiffs could take the state back to Philadelphia’s federal court, where they filed an agreement last year to settle their lawsuit over vote-counting in 2016’s election. Stein and the other plaintiffs made the request in writing to Pennsylvania’s Department of State, which oversees elections. “We must protect our vote and we must protect the authenticity of our vote,” Stein told supporters during her announcement in front of Philadelphia’s federal courthouse Wednesday. The department has 30 days under the agreement to respond. On Wednesday, it did not say whether it would decertify the machines or consider decertifying them, although a spokeswoman pointed out that it recertified the system last month after originally certifying it last year.

Pennsylvania: Green Party’s Jill Stein threatens legal challenge to Philadelphia’s new, $29M voting machines | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Jill Stein, the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate, threatened Wednesday to take legal action to block Philadelphia from using its new voting machines if the Pennsylvania Department of State continues to allow their use. The machines, which cost the city $29 million, are slated to be used in next month’s election. But Stein said they violate the terms of a settlement she reached with the state late last year stemming from her 2016 recount battle. “We will seek relief in the court if this unverified, unauditable, hackable, expensive machine is not promptly decertified,” Stein, flanked by about two dozen supporters, said outside the federal courthouse in Center City. That agreement settled Stein’s effort in 2016 to seek a recount and forensic audit of voting machines in Pennsylvania and elsewhere after Donald Trump’s victory that year. (Stein, an activist and physician from Massachusetts, received 0.82% of the vote in Pennsylvania.) Under the settlement, the plaintiffs must first notify the Pennsylvania Department of State in writing of potential violations of the agreement; the department then has 30 days to respond before Stein and other plaintiffs can take the matter to court.

Pennsylvania: Allegheny County Elections board approves vendor for new voting machines | Paula Reed Ward/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Allegheny County Board of Elections voted Wednesday to approve Election Systems and Security as the vendor to provide a hand-marked paper balloting system to be used beginning next year. The vote means the county will enter negotiations with ES&S to fulfill a contract to provide enough scanners to count the ballots. The bid proposed by ES&S was $10.5 million. The 3-0 decision came after additional public comment in which advocates expressed concerns about how the ES&S system handles ballots for people with disabilities, including the use of bar codes. The concern is that ballots completed on the Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant ballot-marking device cannot be reviewed for accuracy. “There’s not a perfect decision to be made,” said Tom Baker, a county councilman and chair of the elections board. Elections board member Kathryn Hens-Greco, a Common Pleas Court judge, agreed that the decision to choose ES&S was not optimal, but it is necessary. “Right now, we’re at a point where a decision needs to be made, and it needs to be a confident decision.”

Pennsylvania: Elections officials touted new electronic poll books. Now the city says they don’t work right. | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia was supposed to use new, electronic poll books in its election this November, allowing poll workers to search for voters on an iPad and sign them in electronically, rather than use thick paper books. The change was supposed to reduce human error, and to make checking in voters faster and easier. City officials promised it would to help troubleshoot problems, such as providing correct information to voters who show up in the wrong polling place. It was supposed to, eventually, provide real-time turnout numbers from every polling site across the city. Turns out the system was not ready for prime time. Instead, “the city observed several problems with KNOWiNK’s pollbook system” during a test election conducted last month, the city’s Acting Chief Administrative Officer, Stephanie Tipton, said in a letter Tuesday to the acting board of elections.

Pennsylvania: Election security advocates criticize Pennsylvania Department of State over re-examination of voting machines | Ed Mahon and Emily Previti/PA Post

Election security advocates are criticizing the Pennsylvania Department of State over the way it re-examined an electronic voting machine from a leading election technology company. “We are profoundly disappointed that the Secretary’s office has conducted this re-examination in secret, without transparency or public engagement, which we believe to be in contravention of the requirements of the Commonwealth and the provisions of the Stein settlement,” Susan Greenhalgh, vice-president of programs for the National Election Defense Coalition, said in a news release. “We are examining our options for further action.” Several other groups, including Protect Our Vote Philly and the Pennsylvania-based Citizens for Better Elections, joined in criticizing the state department. In July, Greenhalgh and other election security advocates submitted a petition to the Department of State, requesting a re-examination of the ES&S ExpressVote XL electronic voting machine. The petition included 200 signatures from voters across the state. “They’ve never refused to let the public come in and observe these systems,” said petitioner and VotePA founder Mary Beth Kuznik. “It’s distressing.”

Pennsylvania: Guard’s Cyber Defense Team meets with Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth | DVIDS

Members of Pennsylvania National Guard’s Cyber Defense Team met with Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar to discuss current mutual projects, including election security, in early August during a Pennsylvania State Department orientation of the Pennsylvania National Guard’s capabilities and assets which included a tour of Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. “This visit covered a variety of topics,” explained Maj. Christine Pierce, defensive cyber operations team chief. “We have been working with multiple Pennsylvania state agencies to provide a variety of services and we were excited to assist the Pennsylvania Department of State with the 2018 midterms as well as other cyber requirements.” Pennsylvania National Guard’s Cyber Defense Team provides comprehensive cyber defense services such as: vulnerability assessments, critical infrastructure assessment, penetration testing, and network monitoring. Network monitoring assistance was provided to the Pennsylvania State Department during the 2018 midterm elections. The team is preparing to assist the Pennsylvania Department of State during the 2020 elections.

Pennsylvania: Allegheny County to ‘stress test’ prospective voting systems | Jamie Martines /Tribune-Review

The Allegheny County Board of Elections committee in charge of searching for a new voting system decided Friday to spend the next month working with vendors to test prospective systems, seeking confirmation that they can handle the high volume of complex contests in the county. A report submitted Aug. 19 by the Voting System Search Committee and discussed Friday indicates that only one of four vendors under consideration has the state and federal certification guaranteeing it can meet the county’s needs. The committee is comprised of officials from the county elections, law, purchasing, computer services, budget and finance, human resources, county manager and administrative services departments. “I was surprised too,” said board chair and Allegheny County Councilman Thomas Baker, R-Ross. “I thought we would have a couple options that were viable that we would be able to pick from. I’m learning at the same pace that you’re all learning. I had no sense, as chairman, what would be in the report.” The voting system’s software must be robust enough to handle up to 4,000 separate ballot styles during a municipal primary election, according to the report. That means a system must be able to support an election involving as many as 10,000 candidate positions and 7,000 contests across the county’s 130 municipalities and 43 school districts.

Pennsylvania: Elections board appears likely to pick ES&S voting machines for use beginning in 2020 | Christopher Huffaker/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Allegheny County Board of Elections at a meeting Friday appeared to be on the verge of selecting a hand-marked paper ballot-based system from Election Systems and Security for use beginning next year. The board, composed of Common Pleas Judge Kathryn Hens-Greco, county Councilman Tom Baker and County Council President John DeFazio, had some clear reservations about ES&S regarding both the specific system they are leaning toward and the company on the whole. However, only ES&S is certified by the federal Election Assistance Commission to handle elections with as many different ballots and candidates as an Allegheny County municipal election may have. The board unanimously passed a motion by Judge Hens-Greco asking the voting machine search committee to go back to the four vendors under consideration and ask them to stress-test real past Allegheny County elections, to help evaluate their ability to handle the complexity. After the meeting, however, Judge Hens-Greco said that, even if one of the other vendors passed the test, “I think [I’d] probably not” be able to select them in good conscience.  “I don’t understand why they applied if they couldn’t meet our requirements,” she added.