Fed Court Asked to Scrap Georgia 27000 Elec Voting Machines

[seemslikeadream]

Federal Court Asked To Scrap Georgia's 27,000 Electronic Voting Machines


September 12, 20185:00 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
JOHNNY KAUFFMAN

An election official holds an electronic voting machine memory card following the Georgia primary runoff elections at a polling location in Atlanta on July 24, 2018. A group of Georgia voters is suing the state, saying that the electronic machines are not secure.
Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The security of Georgia's touchscreen electronic voting machines will be under scrutiny in a federal courtroom Wednesday.

A group of voters and election security advocates want a federal district court judge to order the state to not use the machines in this November's election and replace them with paper ballots.

"I will not cast my vote on those machines, as I have no confidence that those machines will accurately record, transmit, and county my vote," said one of the plaintiffs, Donna Curling, in a court filing.


Early voting in the state begins on Oct. 15 and election officials say a switch at this point would mean chaos, and potentially suppress turnout.

Georgia is one of 14 states that use electronic voting machines that do not leave a paper trail that can be audited after an election and is one of five states that exclusively use the machines. Cybersecurity experts along with the Senate Intelligence Committee say the machines can leave elections vulnerable to hacking. In a worst case scenario, hackers could manipulate vote totals without detection.

Voters "should not be forced to accept the electronic equivalent of a broken lockbox to exercise their right to vote," lawyers for the plaintiffs said in written arguments.


An overhaul of Georgia's voting system so close to Election Day would be unprecedented. Maryland and Virginia recently made quick switches away from voting machines without a paper trail, but a switch in Georgia would take place on a much larger scale.

Ahead of statewide elections in 2017, the Virginia State Board of Elections decided to replace touchscreen machines in 140 precincts affecting 190,000 active voters.

Georgia has 27,000 voting machines spread around 159 counties. At the time of the 2016 election, 5.4 million people were registered to vote in the state.

The lawsuit names Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a candidate for governor, along with the state board of elections, and Fulton County in metro Atlanta.

"There is no 'Paper-Ballot Fairy' who, with magic wand at ready, can save Plaintiffs' half-baked plans' from devolving into fiasco," wrote lawyers for Kemp and the board of elections.

Scrutiny On Election Security In Georgia

Kemp, who is Georgia's top elections official, faces questions about his handling of cybersecurity, especially now that he's running for governor.

Georgia was not not one of the 21 states whose election systems were targeted by Russian hackers in 2016. But ahead of the 2016 election, passwords for poll workers and voter registration records were left exposed on an unsecured website at the Kennesaw State University Center for Election Systems, a state contractor.

Once the vulnerability at the center was revealed, and just days after voters and advocates filed their lawsuit over the voting machines, a key server related to the incident was erased. The university said it was following normal procedures in erasing the server.

Kemp insists Georgia's current election system is secure.

Earlier this year he formed a commission to examine moving the state to new machines with a paper trail. But he says making the switch ahead of the November midterms "would be an absolute disaster."

"A Big Distraction"

Georgians can already vote on paper by requesting an absentee ballot in the mail, completing it, and returning it to county officials. The voters and advocates behind the lawsuit propose expanding this system as an alternative to the electronic machines.

The plaintiffs propose that ballots would be mailed to all registered voters or they could go to their polling place and fill out a paper ballot. To handle the massive increase in paper ballots cast, the plaintiffs says Georgia could use surplus optical scanners from vendors and other states.

But election officials warn it's not that easy and a switch to paper ballots so close to Election Day would lead to long lines, confusion, lower turnout, and burdensome costs.

"We are in the throes of full steam ahead with this election. It would be a big distraction to make such a change this close in," said Lynn Bailey, executive director of the board of elections in Richmond County, Ga., where there are about 120,000 registered voters.

Without counting additional staff hours, Bailey estimates printing costs, extra equipment would mean an additional $65,000 to $75,000 in costs for the county.

The vast majority of Georgia's 159 counties are smaller than Richmond, with less cash to spare. Bailey says a switch to paper ballots would be especially difficult to handle for those counties.
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/12/64680830 ... t=20180912

[Elvis]

Yes!! Great news, as Georgia has had one of the worst histories with those machines.

[MacCruiskeen]

"I will not cast my vote on those machines, as I have no confidence that those machines will accurately record, transmit, and county my vote," said one of the plaintiffs, Donna Curling, in a court filing.

At last! It's long past time that someone stood up and stated the obvious like this. Good on her and the other plaintiffs for taking this to court.

Can they possibly win, though? There are huge vested interests stacked against them. A victory in Georgia would set a fantastic precedent, and not just in the US.

[Elvis]

As I recall, Caifornia banned similar machines, without much fuss. Not up on the current details, but I don't think that was the result of a lawsuit. I'll be following this encouraging news.

[seemslikeadream]

SEPTEMBER 18, 2018 | TIMOTHY PRATT
BREAKING NEWS: FEDERAL JUDGE RULES ‘NO’ ON PAPER BALLOTS IN GEORGIA
Decision Keeps Vulnerable Electronic Voting Machines in Place for Midterms

paper ballots, US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

District Court Judge Amy Totenberg ruled late Monday night that the midterm elections in Georgia will proceed as planned — denying a proposal by plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state that would have required the election to be carried out with paper ballots instead of touchscreen voting machines. Although sympathetic to concerns about systemic vulnerability, she concluded that remedial measures would constitute an unreasonable burden on the government.

The decision comes after nine hours of testimony and cross-examination last week in Atlanta’s federal court. Several computer experts with decades of experience between them testified that Georgia’s current voting system is susceptible to outside hackers serving foreign interests.

Related: Crucial Georgia Paper Ballot Decision Imminent

Witnesses and attorneys for the state responded to such claims by expressing confidence in security measures such as physically tying up the voting machines, and digital security added since researchers, several times in the last two years, exposed the system’s flaws. They also said it would be costly and difficult to change plans in time for early voting, which begins October 15, and for Election Day, November 6.

Obstacles, according to state officials, include a lack of enough digital scanners required to count the ballots, no plans for storing the ballots, as well as the possibility that the switch would force voters to wait longer in line to vote.

The decision perpetuated a pattern that has persisted throughout most of Georgia’s 16-year history with touchscreen machines that lack a paper ballot trail: voters’ rights groups and other organizations sue the state over the lack of security and reliability in a dispute involving such systems, citing a growing number of experts on the matter — and yet the state’s defense prevails.

Georgia is one of only five states where all voting takes place using such machines.

Plaintiffs were outspoken in their disappointment over seeing this pattern continue and charged officials with ignoring credible warnings.

“Secretary of State Kemp, the State Election Board, and the bipartisan Fulton County Election Board refused to act in response to serious and repeated warnings from Congress, federal agencies, National Academy of Science and scores of expert voting system computer scientists that the paperless system is unfit for conducting public elections,” said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, a North Carolina–based nonprofit organization — and one of the plaintiffs — in a written statement.

Despite her refusal to compel the authorities to go with paper, Judge Totenberg, in her conclusion to the decision — literally released at the 11th hour Monday night — sternly chastised the state, and generally admonished it to do better to remedy systemic problems with voting.

“The Court advises the Defendants that further delay is not tolerable in their confronting and tackling the challenges before the State’s election balloting system,” she wrote. “The 2020 elections are around the corner. If a new balloting system is to be launched in Georgia in an effective manner, it should address democracy’s critical need for transparent, fair, accurate, and verifiable election processes that guarantee each citizen’s fundamental right to cast an accountable vote.”

The plaintiffs said they will continue pressing their case for a verifiable paper trail in Georgia’s elections, and announced plans to pursue a similar proposal if no candidate for governor receives more than 50 percent of the vote, and runoff elections are scheduled for December, as would be required by Georgia law. They also sought to portray the jurist’s remarks as generally supportive of their concerns.

“Judge Totenberg’s decision is broadly consistent with the positions that the Coalition is taking in the case — particularly the urgent need for Georgia, as soon as feasible, to switch to paper ballots,” said Bruce P. Brown, Atlanta attorney for the Coalition.

The case, and this decision, will likely be frequently cited in the coming months and years, as more jurisdictions confront a lack of confidence in unverifiable and vulnerable voting systems.
https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/09/18/break ... n-georgia/

[Elvis]

Details of interest:

Totenberg's sister is Nina Totenberg, the American legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio. In 2008, Totenberg contributed $1750 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Totenberg