Thread by @jennycohn1

Actually, Democrats wanted hand marked paper ballots (pen & paper), but Rs refused and went with the machine marked kind. Rs chose Dominion, which was a relief, bc Georgia previously had Diebold/ES&S, which had issues with vote flipping & losing votes from black neighborhoods. 1/

https://twitter.com/bpivr/status/1485754801258381313

I discussed problems & concerns with Georgia’s old Diebold/ES&S voting system & w/ its voter registration system here. 2/ jennycohn1.medium.com/neither-trump-…

The thing is, any touchscreen system, whether its ES&S or Dominion, is asking for trouble imo. They must receive programming from centralized systems that are themselves vulnerable. 3/

They are then activated for each voter w/ activation cards that are encoded on vulnerable e-poll books, which break down all the time. 4/

Touchscreen systems are more prone to bottlenecks & thus longer lines than pen and paper. Just no - except for voters w/ disabilities if they want to use them. Pen & paper isn’t perfect either. But it’s much safer imo. 5/

Despite GA’s new touchscreens, many voters voted by mail in 2020, so the touchscreens did not receive a full stress test. With Rs dramatically scaling back vote by mail, we will have a better idea in 2022 whether the touchscreens cause significant observable issues. 6/

But we did see some bad signs re: e-poll books, especially w/ connectivity problems. Given that they are used to activate the new touchscreens, I remain very concerned. 7/

It’s a risk that I wish GA would not take. 8/

Oh. And it is scandalous that @GASecofState has appealed a court ruling that requires backup paper poll books in case e-poll books fail. @CoalitionGoodGv got the ruling. 9/

One more thing. Georgia’s touchscreen system apparently has a huge glaring vulnerability. The vulnerability was discovered by @jhalderm, who is very respected. 10/

The court has kept the report of the vulnerability under seal. Note that vulnerabilities, even glaring ones, are not proof that vulnerabilities have been exploited. (Trumpers, I’m looking at u.) But nor are they proof that they won’t be in the future. (Ds, I’m looking at u.) 11/

Sigh. 12/

Oh. And GA plans to audit only one race chosen NOT at random every two years. 13/

An audit wouldn’t address some types of touchscreen problems anyway. Pen and paper are safer. 14/

PS. I’m told that Trump won the in person (touchscreen/e-pollbook) voting in Georgia. He lost the vote by mail, which was to be expected bc Ds heavily promoted vote by mail due to Covid, whereas MAGAs did the opposite. 15/

Again, Rs in GA currently plan to scale back vote by mail significantly. So GA voters may have a very different voting experience in 2022. Most voters may be forced to vote in person. 16/

Georgia does not give in person voters the option to mark their ballots by hand with a pen. Watch out for long lines. 17/

Oh eff it. Here I go. Georgia’s touchscreens also put your votes into a QR code that u can’t read & thus can’t verify. The QR code is the only part counted as ur vote - not the text under it. GA will audit only one race chosen not at random every 2 years. This is reckless. 18/

No matter who the vendor is, this is reckless. Vendors are not the only people with access. There are clerks too. Read about the MAGA clerk Tina Peters. These touchscreens are bad systems. Regardless of the good intent or otherwise of a vendor. 19/

And it is mostly impossible now to hold election officials to account for making bad decisions about equipment & audits bc MAGAs are constantly looking for excuses for violence. 20/

.@threadreaderapp Plz unroll.