Dear @HouseDemocrats:

HR 1 requires that the voter “have the option to mark his or her ballot by hand.”

Pls add the following for clarity: “For jurisdictions w/ in person voting, this option shall be provided to the voter at the polling place.” @RepTedLieu @katieporteroc 1/
Without this clarifying language, jurisdictions cld still force all in person voters to use risky touchscreen voting machines called ballot marking devices (BMDs), as long as vote by mail is also an option. That won’t suffice to protect election integrity & faith in elections. 2/
Unlike #HandMarkedPaperBallots (pen and paper), BMDs are vulnerable to electronic failure, screen freezes, miscalibration, disproportionate distribution (causing bottlenecks & long lines in suppressed areas), and hacking. 3/
4/ I also suggest that you supplement HR 1 to specify that BMDs “must not put votes into barcodes or QR codes.” This language is important because barcodes & QR codes are not transparent, further endangering integrity and confidence in elections.
5/ We are only beginning now to understand how these barcodes and QR code’s unnecessarily increase the attack surface for bad actors seeking to interfere in our elections. This is unacceptable & unnecessary.
6/ Sourced thread about concerns involving the zebra technologies integrated barcode reader in ES&S ExpressVote barcode BMDs. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1349796…
7/ Even without the barcodes & QR code’s, using BMDs as a primary voting systems is unacceptable. A recent study shows that 93% of inaccuracies in the text portion of machine-marked paper records from BMDs go unnoticed by voters. news.engin.umich.edu/2020/01/new-st…
8/ This is an invitation for fraud especially for down ballot races (eg, for state legislature).
9/ Per the author of the study in post 7, @jhalderm, merely instructing voters to review the printouts didn’t help much. The only thing that did was giving them a pre-filled slate (such as a sample ballot) to compare to the printout. Many/most voters don’t know to do this.
10/ Another suggestion for HR1: supplementing it to require updated paper pollbooks as a backup for electronic pollboooks on Election Day , as recommended by @BrennanCenter.
11/ To the extent HR1 does not already ban remote access and internet connectivity to voting systems, it should be amended to include such a ban. (Good luck to any politicians who oppose this proposed ban.)
12/ To the extent HR1 does not already require robust manual audits for all federal races, it should be supplemented to add that too.
13/ I discuss these recommendations and more (eg, preservation of ballot images and disclosure of vendor ownership) here. There is a synopsis at the end. Thank you for your consideration. #ProtectOurVotes link.medium.com/nIgym33Vcdb
14/ Synopsis:
15/ PS. We must also require reasonably prompt public disclosure of election-system breaches and details thereof unless the government persuades a court that such disclosure would impede an ongoing investigation. #Transparency
16/ PPS. The requisite robust manual election audits must be conducted in public and before certification. See @philipbstark, inventor of Risk Limiting Audits, for further guidance.
17/ September 2020 letter from experts advising that jurisdictions remove wireless modems from voting systems because they connect the ballot scanners and receiving end systems to the internet. documentcloud.org/documents/7225…
18/ Note: the GOP blocked the #SAFEAct last year which would have banned this internet connectivity & required robust manual audits for all federal races. I doubt their constituents would let them get away with this again. We have an opportunity here. axios.com/gop-senator-el…
.@threadreaderapp Plz unroll or compile . TY
20/ Please note that I advocate #HandMarkedPaperBallots (pen and paper) for all voters, with an exception for voters with disabilities. If HR1's intent is to instead give voters a choice, then the additional language I set forth in post 1 is the minimum needed to do that.
21/ Graphic in post 1 by @_Jo_di

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More from @jennycohn1

20 Jan
Internet connectivity is a real election-system vulnerability. It’s not my fault that bad actors falsely claimed that this vulnerability—which Rs refused to ban—proved fraud. It was a dumb argument accepted by low information voters. We shld still ban internet connectivity. FFS.
The #SAFEAct, which Rs blocked, would have banned internet connectivity to voting systems. The bill passed the Democratic-led House but was blocked by the GOP in the senate. 1/ axios.com/gop-senator-el…
Read 5 tweets
19 Jan
Rs wrote the rules: electronic results would be presumed correct absent reliable evidence to the contrary, & we would NOT require manual audits to confirm them. They wanted to change the rules only after Trump lost. They also wanted to cherry pick where to audit. #NotOK 1/
In February 2020, Rs blocked the #SAFEAct which would have required robust manual audits for all federal races—not just for the presidency and not just for Dominion and not just for the cherry picked places selected by Trump. 2/ axios.com/gop-senator-el…
3/ Rs never cared about election integrity. If they had, they would not have blocked the #SAFEAct. congress.gov/bill/116th-con…
Read 4 tweets
19 Jan
“The primary vendor for the events of Jan. 6 was Event Strategies, a company co-owned by Manafort, Tim Unes, & Bobby Peede. The company also worked on Trump’s campaign events & Inauguration ceremony, which is under investigation 4 $ laundering & fraud.” 1/ trumpfile.org/alexandra-chal…
Read 5 tweets
18 Jan
Demand evidence-based elections. We did not have them in most of America this year because, among other reasons, the GOP killed the #SAFEAct which wld have banned most current touchscreen voting machines & required robust manual audits for all federal elections. 1/
Read 7 tweets
16 Jan
My father died in his sleep a few hours ago. He was 90. The past few years, his health had declined, but he kept his grace & humor. He was lucky bc he truly enjoyed many of the little things. He was a retired doctor who was beloved by his patients. He always made time for me. 💔
He wasn’t suffering. He was lucky. Many people loved him. He had a gift for making people feel special.
The knowledge that there’s nothing more I can do to make him smile or spark his intellect and interest is hitting me hard today.
Read 5 tweets
15 Jan
Like a Russian troll farm, “a group of young conservatives,” some of them minors, was “paid to post misinformation” before the 2020 election. Their support came from Turning Point USA, @charliekirk11’s non-profit political organization. - 9/25/20 wbur.org/hereandnow/202…
“A troll farm indicates ‘a degree of coordination’ in order to intentionally spread false information...For example, these posters would troll people on social media such as journalists, all posting the same message in order to drive up engagement....1/
.... and thus using the social media platform’s algorithm to make their misinformation seem more popular than it likely was, he says.” 2/
Read 4 tweets

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