Are current South Carolina Election security procedures and processes adequate to ensure that the citizens have confidence in their vote? Is our election system transparent and secure?
The attached whitepaper was prepared in response to the various concerns about the certification and vulnerabilities of the ES&S election management system that South Carolina used for the 2020 election and will use for the upcoming 2022 midterms and general elections.
This paper is meant to raise the awareness of the ongoing issues with electronic voting systems. ES&S, Dominion and Hart Intercivic which are the main voting system manufacturers all have similar architecture and thus similar potential vulnerabilities.
This paper focuses on ES&S which is used in approximately 20 other states so the inherent problems discussed in the paper could be pertinent to these other systems around the nation.
As the paper states no electronic voting system is impenetrable. That is why IT experts recommend a paper ballot system with strong protocols to protect against fraud.
The citizens of South Carolina have seen too many examples of fraud –whether it be ballot stuffing through the movie 2000 mules, votes flipped in front of our eyes on election night, boxes of ballots being brought out from tables in GA, election data being erased in Mesa and Maricopa County or ballot marking devices switching our vote as we vote in real time, our trust in the process has been diminished. Our vote is our voice and if there are ineligible votes like what we found in our canvassing efforts that cancel out our individual and collective vote, we start believing that our officials are “selected” not elected. Our overall mission is ultimately to enhance trust in the system so that everyone believes it transparent, honest, fair and safe. Every legitimate vote should count.
Until we are confident that our election management systems are secure, we should not be utilizing the machines for any election. Our system has not been properly certified up to the current standards which is required by law. This leads to credibility issues with the results of the elections.
It is our hope that the appropriate measures such as penetration testing and other security provisions can be made to reduce the probability of intrusion. We provide several recommendations to do so. Until then we should vote using paper ballots or delay the primary until we can ensure our vote is safe and accurate.
Another way to evade any potential issues with the election management system is for the citizens to vote “en masse.” This is especially critical in primaries which have particularly low turnouts. If we overwhelm the system with the passion of our voices we can prevail.