A look behind the curtain at the great and powerful Electronic Voting System
In this video, the gold standard elections team laments that nothing has been fixed since 2020 and, in fact, the situation may be worse. Voter rolls are not up to date. Machines aren’t certified or updated nor are they robustly and thoroughly tested for accuracy. Too many ballots are sent via USPS creating the potential for fraud. Signature verification is non existent or inadequate, voter IDs are not always provided and many of the components in the process are not secure nor followed with proper chain of custody. Laws are often unheeded and there is a rush to certify the results regardless. Listen in for more detail. Just as in the Wizard of OZ, when we cannot see behind the curtain we believe all is well. This is by design. There is a reason election officials and machine manufacturers don’t want us to have access to key audit data and reports. But when we take time to peek behind the curtain we can see that this “safe and secure” system, is a ruse–the whole process is complicated, complex and in need of an entire redesign.
This is not just a Dominion problem and this is not just a few states. These issues are systemic and must be addressed.
We discuss some issues that are troubling, but here is a more comprehensive list.
Step 1 Registration-Voter rolls
Voter rolls not cleaned up in timely fashion
Non-citizens on rolls
Expensive to purchase in order for citizens’ or others to audit
Third parties and partisan groups/orgs responsible rather than employees of the state
Step 2 Validation
No photo ID required
No citizen verification required; non-citizens allowed to vote and/or do vote
Poll workers allow inactive/ineligible voters despite rolls being “frozen”
Same day registration
Partisan poll workers or “adopt a poll” groups
Photo voter registration cards created at polls in real time
Electronic Poll books connected to internet
Electronic Poll books don’t require certification
Electronic Poll books don’t reconcile with tabulators
Electronic Poll books could experience outages
Step 3 Marking and counting
Drop boxes, ballot harvesting
Mail-in balloting
Machine glitches that flip votes
QR codes or bar codes don’t reflect voter intent and there is no way to verify
Programming errors- candidates missing from ballot
Logic and accuracy testing not done in accordance with the law and not robust enough—often not conducted on each machine, each ballot style, or each candidate/question; if no unique number of ballots used can’t confirm vote flipping
Extra “folder/file” on machines that collected “blank ballots”
Lack of/loose security- machines left unattended, security seals missing or voided; access by multiple people, easily accessed with flash drive, passwords unencrypted or non-unique and left in plain text in the system providing easy access to hacker.
First net/Albert sensors potential access-CIS CISA EI-ISAC
Poor chain of custody
Machine malfunction
Poor records/chain of custody on flash drives
Evidence of potential algorithmic presence
More votes than voters in certain areas
Poll tapes don’t match final numbers from the polling location
Too many provisional ballots- high adjudication rates
Early voting risks
Vote centers mix multiple precincts making audits more complicated
Count is not transparent
No audit reports provided for detailed count
Cannot verify vote count
Observers not allowed to view process or count
Ballots coming in late and not supervised; no chain of custody
Double scanned ballots; unsupervised central count areas- fraudulent ballots
Ineligible voters injected into system
UOCAVA not secure or verified
No signature verification
Step 4 Reporting
Reporting –counts changed
Third parties involved- foreign
Late ballots allowed
Mailed ballots taking too long to count—overall risk of absentee ballots
ENR (Election Night Reporting) computer is connected to the internet