So far, most of the coverage of BMDs (voting machines in which voters cast their votes on a touchscreen, the machine spits out a ballot listing the voter’s choices and produces a bar code/QR code for a ballot reading machine … Continue reading
Category Archives: voting technology
Andy Kroll for Mother Jones: Are we prepared going into the 2020 election? After seven months of reporting, interviewing more than 40 experts as well as current and former government officials and reviewing thousands of pages of records, the reality … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
NPR: Iowa’s Democratic Party plans to use a new Internet-connected smartphone app to help calculate and transmit results during the state’s caucuses next month, Iowa Public Radio and NPR have confirmed.Party leaders say they decided to opt for that strategy … Continue reading
NBC: [A] team of election security experts say that last summer, they discovered some systems are, in fact, online.“We found over 35 [voting systems] had been left online and we’re still continuing to find more,” Kevin Skoglund, a senior technical … Continue reading
Bloomberg Law: The infiltration by foreign countries like China into election voting equipment is emerging as a growing concern among vendors, who are actually asking for more federal regulation as they grapple with a lack of domestic suppliers producing critical … Continue reading
Going on now before the House Administration Committee, with testimony from the CEOs of the three largest voting equipment vendors. Expect a grilling. … Continue reading
WaPo on a study by Alex Halderman and other researchers at the University of Michigan. Here’s the abstract of the paper: Ballot marking devices (BMDs) allow voters to select candidates on a computer kiosk, which prints a paper ballot that … Continue reading
Election issues lead the WaPo’s “Cybersecurity 202” daily roundup today. … Continue reading
This Thursday, Congress will hear from three top experts, and three of the primary manufacturers (ES&S, Hart InterCivic, and Dominion Voting Systems), of voting systems. This is apparently the first time the top executives of all three companies have testified … Continue reading
The Savannah Morning News previews what it calls the “largest purchase of new machines in history.” … Continue reading
This Bloomberg piece on Web-connected election machines scapegoats the public craving for instant results. “The pressure to promptly transmit results to news organizations –- and ultimately voters — is so great that election officials have no choice but to briefly … Continue reading
The Guardian reports. Cybersecurity is exceedingly important. And now your reminder that at least in the past, we have been more prone to hacking than the voting systems. … Continue reading
Semiconductor Engineering reports on some of the challenges confronting manufacturers of secure accessible voting systems, and some of the industry efforts to meet those challenges. That’s right, Semiconductor Engineering. You’re welcome. … Continue reading
With lots of election security concerns in the air, a problem in 2016 with electronic pollbooks in Durham County generated a fair amount of attention. At the time, it didn’t look like a malicious incursion, but that didn’t stop speculation, … Continue reading
Dauphin County is the last over the line to purchase a new voting system with a paper trail, right at the deadline. … Continue reading
WaPo: Last month, voters in six Georgia counties cast ballots for local elections using new touch-screen voting machines that officials have said will resolve long-standing questions about the security of the state’s election system.Richard DeMillo, a professor of computing at the … Continue reading
Carolina Public Press reports. … Continue reading
Press release. … Continue reading
The Hill: The spending deal agreed upon by House and Senate negotiators includes $425 million for states to improve their election security, two congressional source confirmed to The Hill on Monday.According to the sources, the appropriations deal, set to be … Continue reading
Free Speech for People: Free Speech For People has filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania state court challenging the use of the insecure, unreliable ExpressVote XL voting machines. The lawsuit, filed against Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar with the pro … Continue reading
Fast Company: Amid heightened concerns about the integrity of the voting process in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, two election security experts recently quit Verified Voting, a respected election accountability group, in protest. They claim that it has been … Continue reading
Carolina Public Press: A voting system certified and tested earlier this year for use in North Carolina’s March 2020 primaries won’t be available, according to manufacturer Elections Systems and Software, so the company’s lobbyists have suggested the state quickly approve … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
NYT: 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 … Continue reading
WaPo: The federal government should start vetting companies that sell election systems as seriously as it does defense contractors and energy firms, a top election security group argues in a proposal out this morning.Under the proposal from New York University’s Brennan Center … Continue reading
Bloomberg: Digital voting machines were promoted in the wake of a similarly chaotic scene 19 years ago: the infamous punch-card ballots and hanging chads of south Florida that tossed the presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore into … Continue reading
WaPo: County election websites in two battleground states are highly vulnerable to hacking by Russia or another adversary that might seek to disrupt the 2020 vote by misleading voters about polling locations or spreading other false information. About 55 percent of county … Continue reading
Miles Parks for NPR. … Continue reading
Indy Star: An Indiana nonprofit has filed a federal complaint against the Indiana Election Commission and Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson over the state’s lack of voting machines that produce a paper trail.On Thursday, Indiana Vote by Mail and five Indiana … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
This is a good introduction to the issue, which has divided some voting rights and voting integrity folks. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
CNN reports. … Continue reading
Carolina Public Press: North Carolina’s recent decision to certify new voting systems for use next year did not follow state law, according to a letter that a group of experts on election security and administration sent to the N.C. Board of Elections … Continue reading
WaPo: It’s not just a question of paper ballots. The offices charged with administering elections across the country are falling short on a slew of basic cybersecurity measures that could make the 2020 contest far more vulnerable to hacking, according to … Continue reading
Pam Fessler reports for NPR. … Continue reading
Not ready for prime time. … Continue reading
AJC: To find a clue about what might have gone wrong with Georgia’s election last fall, look no further than voting machine No. 3 at the Winterville Train Depot outside Athens.On machine No. 3, Republicans won every race. On each … Continue reading
Clarion Ledger: Voters who cast ballots for one party in the Aug. 6 primary may have improperly voted for a different party in Tuesday’s runoff due to machine malfunctions, according to the Hinds County GOP. Pete Perry, Hinds County Republican Party chairman, … Continue reading
Reuters: T he U.S. government plans to launch a program in roughly one month that narrowly focuses on protecting voter registration databases and systems ahead of the 2020 presidential election.These systems, which are widely used to validate the eligibility of … Continue reading
News and Observer: North Carolina elections officials upset a packed room of advocates for election security Friday, voting down a proposal to require stricter anti-hacking provisions in the 2020 elections and beyond.The State Board of Elections approved three new types … Continue reading
WaPo: A new voting system in Los Angeles County is about to super-charge a debate about the balance between the cybersecurity of election systems and accessibility for people with disabilities.The L.A. system, which was custom-built over roughly a decade for … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy blogs. … Continue reading
LA Times deep dive on Dean Logan. … Continue reading
You can find Judge Totenberg’s extensive and thoughtful opinion at this link. The court issued a preliminary injunction and the state could appeal to the Eleventh Circuit. But this opinion marshals a great deal of evidence as to the problems … Continue reading
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. … Continue reading
Brennan Center: In late July, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its report on the Russian government’s attacks on America’s election infrastructure.[1] While the report offered dozens of recommendations related to vast and varied election systems in the United States … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
CNN: The top cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security said Friday that backup paper ballots would be a necessary part of 2020 election security.“Ultimately when I look at 2020, the top priority for me is engaging as far and wide as … Continue reading