OPINION — Your vote: Secure or corrupted? — Part 1

OPINION — Do you feel reasonably assured that the voting process is not corrupted?

Savvy political operatives have learned that if you cannot win the voters based on political philosophy, you can tilt the voting process to alter the election outcomes. Let’s start with some history.

National hysteria and state hanky panky

The 2000 election debacle of Bush vs. Gore led to changes in our voting systems that eroded the integrity of the process. The 2020 man-made Covid disaster made it much worse.

In the November 2000 Georgia election, approximately 82% of Georgians cast ballots on verifiable optical scan or punch card systems, while roughly 17% cast their ballots on unverifiable lever machines.

The Bush vs. Gore presidential vote in Florida appeared to be a virtual tie, and a recount was necessary. Unfortunately, Florida became a political battleground, with both parties taking every action possible to swing the outcome in their favor.

After all the chads hanging in Florida were debated in 2000, the nation was embarrassed that the U.S. Supreme Court had to sort out the election process and the results. Congress foolishly decided to throw billions of dollars at the problem without attaching any system standards or requirements for selecting a new voting system.

The move from paper to machines

The 50 states were eligible to receive large sums of federal cash and could select what was thought to be a more secure form of voting. In Georgia, then-Secretary of State Cathy Cox led the way in purchasing voting machines (computers) to move away from paper ballots.

The Georgia General Assembly passed Act 166, creating a “Twenty-First Century Voting Commission” to evaluate vendors of digital voting systems, mandating that “Such voting systems shall be required to have an independent audit trail for each vote cast.”

Later, in 2001, the voting commission produced a report on the evaluation process and made recommendations, including that the voting machines “have an independent paper ballot audit trail for each vote cast.”

Secretary Cox’s request for proposal did not contain the voting commission’s recommendation or the state legal requirement for an independent audit trail of each vote cast.

Legislature makes some changes

In February 2002, powerful senator Jack Hill introduced Senate Bill 414 and mysteriously removed the requirement for an independent audit trail of each vote cast when selecting a new voting system.

Three months later, Secretary of State Cox entered into a $54 million contract with Diebold to purchase electronic voting equipment that did not meet the requirement of Act 166, which states, “Such voting systems shall be required to have an independent audit trail for each vote cast.”

A cloud of corruption began to form when it was found that lobbyist Lewis Massey represented Diebold, who later joined with Bruce Bowers to form a lobbying partnership entitled Massey and Bowers LLC. Massey served as Secretary of State before Kathy Cox, and she served as his assistant during his tenure. Bowers was the son of powerful former attorney general Michael Bowers.

By 2004, it had become apparent that the Diebold system of no audit trial was a significant problem. A Senate committee brought Senate Bill 500 forward that required all electronic recording voting systems to produce a permanent paper record of the votes recorded on such systems for each voter, providing voters with an opportunity to verify such records after voting and ensuring that such paper records be retained for use in recounts and election challenge proceedings.

Senate Bill 500 was never approved. The state was in a quandary after purchasing machines that were obviously deficient in accountability.

Georgia elections consisted of pushing a button on the voting computer to render a vote count. If a recount was required, elections officials would merely push the same button for the same results, as there was no individual audit trail for each vote.

Choice between secure and not-so-secure

In 2006, Rep. Harry Geisinger introduced House Bill 790, one of the most comprehensive verifiable voting bills ever introduced nationwide. It was a significant step toward ensuring integrity in the voting process. However, the bill was never allowed to make it out of committee because the state’s Elections Director, Kathy Rogers, adamantly opposed it.

Elections Director Rogers, who insisted on using the faulty Diebold technology and hampered any legislative efforts to promote integrity within the system, later left her government position to work for Diebold.

Garland Favorito and his organization, VoterGA.org, became the core of the resistance to the insecure voting system.

Lawsuits filed against the state began the process of forcing the state into a more reliable and verifiable voting system. Author Bev Harris, who wrote the book Black Box Voting and starred in HBO’s Hacking Democracy documentary, said the lawsuits against the state were some of the most important in America and demanded that the plaintiffs have their day in court.

Abandoned promises and campaign contributions

Newly elected 2007 Secretary of State Karen Handel won office with the promise to rectify the voting issues cited in the lawsuit against the state (see: https://voterga.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/karen-handel-basics.pdf).

Handel suddenly abandoned those promises and killed a pilot test of verifiable voting machines.

Ethics Commission records showed that Handel had accumulated about $25,000 in campaign contributions from employees and family members connected with the voting machine vendor lobbyist for Diebold, Massey and Bowers LLC.

On September 8, 2008, Fulton Superior Court judge Michael Johnson held a hearing on summary judgment motions and dismissed the plaintiff’s case, stating he would provide a written ruling within five days. Judge Johnson went months without producing his written ruling, and it took legislative pressure to have one submitted for public review.

Once the frustrated plaintiffs reviewed Judge Johnson’s ruling, they found what they believed to be 17 conclusions that had no basis in facts or evidence of the case.

The elections reformer Handel, who had completely reversed her campaign pledges, praised a Georgia Supreme Court ruling denying a trial for the plaintiffs and claimed that Georgia had the most secure elections in the nation.

From Handel to Kemp

Handel resigned from her office to run for governor. Former State Senator Brian Kemp was appointed Secretary of State. In January 2010, Kemp told an audience that if the legislature introduced a bill to resolve the voting machine problem, he “would lead the charge.” Three weeks later, Rep. Tim Bearden introduced House Bill 1215, a nearly identical version of the 2006 House Bill 790 on election accountability. Kemp refused to support the bill, citing the cost of creating a verifiable voting system.

Following Kemp’s denial, voting problems began surfacing around the state, including Fulton County tabulating votes from one district to another district without detection. The main elections server at the Center for Election System (CES) had security flaws that exposed critical data used by counties for conducting elections to anyone on the internet, and there were no backup copies of election data.

Kemp was later elected governor, and the state switched to Dominion Voting Systems with ballot marking devices. However, there is a concern that the QR code on the paper ballot is unverifiable to the voter at the time of voting.

Rolling out the Dominion machines

In October 2019, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg denied an injunction to stop the state’s rollout of Dominion machines, citing the short turnaround with November elections looming. Totenberg did say that electronic voting systems pose security risks and that Dominion’s reliance on the QR code might not align with Georgia law.

Covid-19 had a powerful impact on voting regulations, procedures, and transparency. Drop boxes, ballot insecurity, no signature matching, and unreliable ballot tracking caused much suspicion.

As always, Fulton County was the center of election fraud complaints. Favorito’s Voter GA engaged in thoughtful litigation over Fulton’s 2020 ballots and process.

A lot of side shows were distracting, like Donald Trump’s feud with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Rudy Giuliani’s wild press conferences, but Favorito’s lawsuit has stood the test of time and is moving forward.

The Georgia Supreme Court confirmed plaintiff Favorito’s standing claim on December 12, 2022. Raffensperger appears to be shielding Fulton County as county officials attempt to persuade the court to allow them to destroy the 2020 ballots without providing the public inspection that Favorito demands.

In response to Fulton County’s attempt to destroy the evidence, Favorito said, “Watching the attorneys make such ludicrous, dishonest arguments with a straight face while seeking to destroy the ballots and charge us fees for winning arguments in court against them only serves to remind me of the massive Fulton County corruption that threatens the voting rights of every Georgian,” (“Fulton County Moves To Destroy 2020 Election Ballots,” The Georgia Record, June 26, 2024).

Honestly, there is only one reason Secretary Raffensperger and Fulton County resist opening the ballots to inspection as allowed by law.

They are all corruptible

Cybersecurity expert Harri Hursti, known for exposing vulnerabilities in voting machines, claims, “Every single independent study where we have had access to voting machines, 100 percent of the voting machines have been hacked.” Hursti continues, “Instead of saying trust but verify, you should have a zero-trust approach: never trust and always verify.”

Hursti is famous for demonstrating how Diebold voting machines could be manipulated to produce any outcome he desired, which led to a national scandal and Diebold’s exit from the voting machine industry.

Hursti notes that anything can be changed to manipulate the voting results once a hacker enters the system. He also acknowledges that there are plenty of channels to hack the system, such as a USB port, WiFi, and internet on a hard-line modem.

According to Hursti, most of the voting computers use foreign-made hardware, and Dominion’s software is written in Serbia. Is that safe and secure?

An article in Politico from August 12, “The nation’s best hackers found vulnerabilities in voting machines — but no time to fix them,” explains that vulnerabilities could lead to a disputed election for the party that loses.

While DEFCON hackers highlight these issues annually, the slow response from manufacturers and election officials raises fears that unpatched vulnerabilities could fuel future allegations of election fraud. State and local elections are the most vulnerable to hacking the voting outcomes.

Computers are the most accurate way to tabulate votes but can be easily hacked. Hursti contends that hand-marked paper ballots, optically scanned, are the most secure form of voting. The state of Maryland, an early adopter of statewide computer voting, reverted back to the hand-marked paper ballots.

Intentionally destroying voting security

Even more alarming than the voting computers’ vulnerability to hacking is the local and state governments’ intentional reduction of ballot security and accountability.

“I have to say that I’m very worried for initiatives now when jurisdiction in the US are actually disabling and dismantling their own security for the reason that, whatever is their reason, so there are these small rogue places where people are actually destroying their own security on purpose,” said Hursti on the PBD podcast. Hursti continued, “There are counties where that’s actually happening right now.”

Hursti notes that voter apathy follows when there is distrust in the system.

Pennsylvania has been embroiled in one voting controversy after another as state officials attempt to subvert the state’s statutory voting regulations.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson exceeded her authority by imposing new restrictions on poll challengers. She had been overturned in the courts three times for creating rules without following the proper process.

Many states have had to be forced in the courts to delete names of deceased persons and people no longer living in the state from their voter rolls.

Stacy Abrams and the vote

In Georgia, Stacey Abrams and her Fair Fight Action organization filed multiple lawsuits to derail the state’s voting regulations. She lost each time.

The Democratic National Committee and Democratic Party of Georgia, backed by Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, are suing the state over the Georgia State Election Board’s efforts to ensure election accountability.

The Democrats and Harris claim the verification rules could create Election Day chaos by delaying results and jeopardizing the security of ballots. They never seem to mind when Fulton County delays results and refuses to turn over ballots as ordered.

Secretary Raffensperger has known about software vulnerabilities in the state’s voting machines since at least 2023. However, he has refused to initiate the software fixes before the 2024 election (“From election hero to zero: Georgia official’s dismissal of security audit could mean trouble in 2024,” Politico, June 23, 2023).

Can we have confidence in our voting system? I will discuss issues with local elections next week.

Credit: Voter GA and Garland Favorito for the history of Georgia’s voting process history.

[Brown is a former mayor of Peachtree City and served two terms on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners. You can read all his columns by clicking on his photo below.]