In September 2020, a Texas examiner’s report said there was a “ bug” in ES&S’s hash verification script. What happened after is unknown.

By Jennifer Cohn
12/21/20

First, a cautionary note. Close partisan associations and corruption involving voting machine vendors are inappropriate, and significant discrepancies between polling and official outcomes are unnerving and fair game for reporting, as are voting-system vulnerabilities and the many electronic “glitches” that occur in elections. But they do not prove fraud. Moreover, we cannot typically prove that election outcomes are wrong without conducting robust manual audits using hand marked paper ballots (with an exception for voters with disabilities). This is why the Democrats proposed the SAFE Act, which would have required robust manual audits for all federal races this year and banned most of the touchscreen voting machines currently in use. It also would have banned internet connectivity to voting systems. …

By Jonathan Simon

As Donald Trump — facing a defeat he signaled in advance he would not (and could not, given the stakes and his nature) accept — files lawsuit after lawsuit in a kind of virtuoso false-note cadenza improvised on a lifelong theme of litigiousness, some of my election integrity colleagues (and good friends) have declared support for Trump’s attempted putsch, “open-mindedly” asserting it is our vehicle to a new election-integrity dawn. The ironies could not be much richer.

We do face what one of my colleagues, appalled by Trump, described as a “horrible dilemma:” to seize the rarest of opportunities to secure bipartisan support and press for serious election reform or essentially keep silent vigil and pray Trump’s con doesn’t work. The answer, to me, becomes clearer with every CAPS LOCK TWEET, frivolous lawsuit, and breathless Trump/GOP fundraising appeal. This crisis is being played for money (lots of it) and short- and long-term political advantage. It has literally nothing to do with democracy or election integrity. And it is being played by the same cynics who doubled down on every thumb on the electoral scales, including voter-suppression and disinformation schemes galore. …

By Jennifer Cohn, @JennyCohn1 8/3/2020

1. If you decide to vote by mail, apply ASAP and, if allowed in your county (check), return your ballot in person at a drop box or office, not via the Post Office, which is suffering delays due to the pandemic and Trump’s effort to destroy it. Sign the envelope & follow the instructions exactly.

July 16, 2020

Dear Mr. James:

We are advocates for the protection of U.S. elections from all forms of anti-democratic interference and fraud, whether by the suppression of voters or by the manipulation of votes that have been cast.

We are excited to hear about your new organization, More Than A Vote. We welcome you to this fight and applaud your new initiative to protect the voting rights of voters of color from attacks born of institutional racism and a fierce, cynical, win-by-any-means electoral politics. We have developed a plan and a strategy that will exactly complement what you are doing. It’s the second half of the election-security equation that too often is overlooked. …

PUBLISHED ARTICLES:

Hacking Our Democracy, written interview with Jennifer Cohn https://thedailyedge.substack.com/p/hacking-our-democracy, 7/12/20

TOUCHSCREEN VOTING MACHINES AND THE VANISHING BLACK VOTES (Shelby County, TN, Is New Hotspot in Battle Over Touchscreen Voting), 5/27/20

How New Voting Machines Could Hack Our Democracy, 12/17/19

New ‘Hybrid’ Voting System Can Change Paper Ballot After It’s Been Cast; Paper Ballots Are Safe Only if Marked by Hand, Not by Machine, 3/19/19

Philly Ignores Cybersecurity and Disability Access in Voting System Selection, 2/12/19

Georgia Poised to Pick Vulnerable Barcode Voting Technology, 1/11/19

Will Georgia Double Down on Non-Transparent, Vulnerable Election Machines? 1/2/19

Voting Machines: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, 11/5/18

Democrats Must Be Prepared to Contest Poll-Defying Election Results, 11/4/18

https://demwritepress.com/2018/11/04/democrats-must-be-prepared-to-contest-poll-defying-election-results/

Elections Scholar: Kansas Voting System Would Allow Undetectable Tampering, 9/6/18

Kobach’s Kansas Victory Tainted by…Kobach’s Election System, 8/17/18

Latest Threat to Democracy: Barcodes, Ballot Marking Devices (a.k.a. ‘Electronic Pencils’), 3/12/18

SELF-PUBLISHED (MEDIUM) ARTICLES:

America’s Electronic Voting System is Corrupted to the Core, 9/7/19

Election security goals (synopsis at the end), 5/24/19

Despite apparent conflict of interest, Georgia’s SAFE Commission is poised to recommend a new touchscreen barcode balloting system that will cost taxpayers more than three times as much as hand marked paper ballots & scanners, while providing less security, 12/11/18

Claire McCaskill (Missouri), Beto O’Rourke (Texas), and other candidates who conceded owe it to their supporters and to themselves to conduct election integrity due diligence before results are certified, 11/10/18

Tips to protect your vote and voter registration against glitches and hacking. (originally published before the 2018 midterms), 10/9/18

The midterms are three months away. Here’s what we still can and must do to protect our votes!, 7/19/18

Senator Ron Johnson (Wisconsin), who went to Russia this past July 4 and says we should overlook Russia’s election meddling, enjoyed one of the most surprising election wins of 2016 after Russia compromised his state’s election system. 7/11/18

Dear Media, It is irresponsible to continue pretending we have a system that allows us to know whether or not our “official” election results are legitimate, 7/10/18

By Jennifer Cohn
@jennycohn1 #ProtectOurVotes
Updated October 9, 2018

Note: I originally published this piece before the 2018 midterm elections. I decided to re-publish it because I can’t get the title to show on the original and the tips are applicable to future elections as well.

Protect your Voter Registration — applicable to all voters

• Expect these types of problems with your voter registration: (a) long lines due to voter registration issues, (b) widespread failure of electronic poll books, © being told at the polls that you aren’t registered at all, (d) being given a paper or electronic (touchscreen) ballot putting you into the wrong political Party or listing House races for the wrong voting District. …

Several people have asked me for something relatively short that they can cut and paste into an email or letter to send to election-security decision-makers. This is my first attempt. Feel free to cut and paste it into an email if you like it. If it’s still too long, feel free to cut it down as you see fit. Thanks.

______________________________________________________

Dear ______:

The election-security situation in the U.S. is much worse than most people realize, calling for much greater scrutiny of the vendors themselves and of proposed “fixes” to the system.

Control over America’s electronic voting system is dangerously centralized in the hands of just two voting machine vendors that account for more than 80 % of US election equipment: ES&S (44%) and Dominion Voting (37%). Both vendors are owned by private (undisclosed) equity. …

By Jennifer Cohn @jennycohn1
September 7, 2019
Updated June 24, 2020

Introduction

We can’t fix that which we don’t understand. The dark underbelly of America’s staggeringly insecure voting system is no exception. Without knowledge of the following facts, the American public is at grave risk of being scammed by pretend fixes to a system that is corrupted to the core.

The centralization of America’s election system.

Just two vendors — Election Systems & Software, LLC (ES&S) and Dominion Voting — account for eighty percent of US election equipment. …