Thread by @jennycohn1

Yes. I still strongly advise hand marked paper ballots (pen and paper), rather than either: (a) machine marked “paper ballots” (marked by a touchscreen), or (b) paperless. I took a break from election security as my main focus for several reasons. First…. 1/

https://twitter.com/gillinghamdonn2/status/1485714597676195841

… it became a very negative space for me. This is the last published (outside of Medium) article that I wrote. It deserved a lot more attention than it got. The Big Lie effectively ruined advocacy in this area. It was already very uphill. 2/ whowhatwhy.org/politics/elect…

I spent months researching and writing it, which overlapped with my father dying and the book draft I needed to be writing to make a deadline. The book deal on election security then fell through, another crushing blow. 3/

Some people in the election security are great, but there are far too many assh#les. In my experience, there is much back stabbing and snobbishness. This exists in other areas too, but it is worse re: election security. I couldn’t take it anymore. 4/

Even high profile politicians who reached out to me for advice & told me (through staff) that they read s writhing I wrote never bothered to amplify me publicly. Screw that. 5/

For 4 years, I couldn’t NOT write about election security. I was absolutely compelled to do it all day every day. I feel I raised a lot of awareness in the public. But the Big Lie, loss of book deal, & lack of support from those in power changed this. It’s now a chore 4 me. 6/

I still feel it’s urgent to not let the far right write the narrative of the past few decades. I love to write. So for now, I’m focused on correcting the narrative & writing about that, mostly on Medium. 7/

My election security advocacy was almost 100% volunteer. It put a strain on my marriage & took me away from my kids w/ nothing much to show for it. 8/

Plus, sadly, with gerrymandering & the far right overtaking the info space, I no longer think the GOP would need to literally cheat (eg by hacking machines) in the next election. 9/

I plan to still write a few election security pieces still bc I know a few things that others don’t & someone has to. But the jerks who were jerks seem to feel they are fine without my contribution, so I’ll let them have the space to themselves for a while. 10/

It literally put tears in my eyes right now to think about the whole experience with that article and the book deal and everything around it. 11/

Unless something happens to change my subjective feelings about my experience with election security advocacy, I cannot be the advocate I was on this issue. I was driven. Now I feel driven out. 12/

As for the book deal, I wrote a draft, but it’s not close to ready for prime time. After losing the deal, I couldn’t bring myself to work on it or send it to anyone but those 3-4 people who asked. 13/

I may well try again some day but wld likely expand it beyond its original premise. We’ll see. I’m not working on it right now. 14/

At the moment, I am enjoying & feeling useful writing about & exposing some of the political operatives (as opposed to actual politicians) who promoted the Big Lie & who have created the nightmare in which we find ourselves. 15/

The narrative matters bc the far right is engaged in widespread, organized narrative warfare. 16/

I should have one or two new pieces out soon. 17/

The other thing re: election security advocacy: there are many with blue checks, including journalists (even on the left), who believe it is irresponsible to tell the public the truth. I used to spend a lot of time taking these people on, which is in itself very adversarial. 18/

I am not in the right mental space to do that. It is exhausting and negative by necessity. 19/

As an example, this article of mine includes a section on why the “most secure election ever” narrative (promoted by Chris Krebs & Democrats) misled. Krebs blocked me long ago 4 highlighting how he misled. But I’m right. 20/ jennycohn1.medium.com/why-have-so-ma…

But being at constant odds with celebrated people takes a toll. 21/

It’s a long piece. Here are screenshots of the section I’m referring to. 22/

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28/ The rest of this thread is here. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1485743…