Here are a couple of vids to make you rest easy (not) about the “November” election and the integrity of the vote nationwide. Comments relevent to state and local practices follow. The first video up is two years old and we posted it before. The second has only been up on YouTube a month or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvOKWeW_Fog
While Scott County uses optical scan machines of a paper ballot, security could certainly be stepped up to the extent all components do not meet chain of custody standards. Of course the potential vulnerabilities in Iowa due to online voter registration championed by Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate, to phantom registration, the lack of a photo-voter ID requirement in Iowa exacerbated by the vote-by-mail push, are unfixed and worrisome. The system in Iowa and the nation is subject to the organized mendacity of Democrats, the political cowardliness of Republicans, loophole ridden or inadequate legislation that combine to provide a virtual path for fraud and make it undetectable, prosecutoral inhibitions, and judicial roadblocks imposed by biased judges. Add to that the intent of the usual suspects to game the system wholesale including purposefully registering non-citizens en mass, all of which combine to make Iowa and the nation’s integrity of the vote questionable. (see related links below).
Pure electronic voting of any sort ought not to be used anywhere. The OCR type machines as shown in the first video, that read the pencil dots made on a paper ballot, need additional security as suggested in the video. Some of the implications of the vulnerabilities seem not limited to Diebold machines.
Voting machines do not require sophisticated software, they run a spread sheet. Perhaps software fixes are possible for the processor vulnerabilities raised in the video and protocols can be established as part of the set-up process. Well run jurisdictions will pay attention to every security vulnerability raised.
Chain of custody
Some of the following procedures are part of Scott County, Iowa protocols.
Minimum standard chain of custody protocols of the machines while in storage and being prepared, and after voting, are crucial. Nothing should be lackadaisical about preserving the integrity of the vote.
In the case of OCR type systems, at the close of voting on election day procedures might involve sheriff deputies or police picking up thumb-drives or data packs from the machines and taking them to the county auditor for results tabulation and initial announcement under bipartisan observation on election night. No reporting from precincts should be over the Internet or by cell phone transmission, coded and encrypted or not.
Machines with their internal memory retained and the paper ballots locked in their bins should be picked up separately under the watch of different police or sheriff deputies election evening and should remain under observation by bi-partisan election judges until that happens. Upon completion of pick-up and delivery of voting machines and ballot bins, all should be set in a sealed high security area and kept under electronic and human guard until canvassing begins.
A minimum of two different canvases should be automatic, all memory modules (thumb drives) and their “parent” machine’s internal memory should be compared in short order although initial count from data packs can be announced. A random selection of precincts (bi-partisan observed lottery) should have paper ballots physically counted and compared to electronic totals promptly on election night if at all practicable. Close elections will require more extensive sample canvassing. That gives an initial picture of the integrity of the counting. Full canvassing should be done on an expeditious basis according to law. More could be added to this basic protocol outline.
Voter ID and vote by mail vulnerabilities
Fraud also occurs in both onesy-twosy fashion for lack of photo ID requirements. While boldness is required, even those frauds can be decisive, given the number and variety of individual precincts and the data available, it is easy to determine the likelihood of someone voting, show up and say you are that someone, vote and get away with it.
The increasing reliance on vote by mail, now approaching one half of the vote, is riddled with vulnerabilities. Besides the inadequacy of checks in the request system, there is the vulnerability to intimidation or “substituted judgement” by others. Nursing home bi-partisan “disabled voter” programs were only adequate during the days of limited absentee voting. Furthermore, encouragement of people to vote who have no capacity for informed decision making or serious volition is not a virtue.
Processing of vote by mail ballots we think needs more scrutiny as well, not only as regards custody prior to counting, but in the counting itself.
With the exception of the military and very limited other exceptions, more than a window of a few days for early voting is intrinsically a fraud on good citizenship and allows for much mischief.
With certain campaigns trolling for the otherwise disinterested, nickle dime bribery, while providing rides to the polls, is rampant in inner cities, either early, according to the logistics, or on election day.
Articles with more information about the vulnerabilities in the integrity of the vote nationally, are set forth below. All are recent and sourced to The Daily Signal, a newsletter of The Heritage Foundation.
Voter Fraud Far From ‘Myth,’ Panel Asserts
Hundreds of Noncitizens on Voting Rolls in Swing State of Virginia
Votes of Thousands Who Haven’t Proven Citizenship Could ‘Swing’ Kansas Elections
Hacking of Election Data Raises Concerns for States Without Voter ID
Addenda: I am wondering what would stop a team of 10 to 20 from producing a couple thousand fraudulent votes (combined) in Iowa’s ten largest counties in the last few days of the election period and remain likely free from detection? Out of staters might be more cavalier about detection and produce more yet. This “vision” does not require them to recruit others to the task. However an organized effort at getting ineligibles to register and vote would produce many more, focused on the streets, in high density immigrant areas, at colleges.
Keeping lax laws as we have now continues to beckon onesey and twosey fraud, particularly as uninhibited absentee vote by mail is so susceptible to it. We believe it likely produces many many thousands across the country. Many of these frauds are actually organized to the extent that a class of legislators protects them by preventing common sense preventions. Photo voter ID and other regulations to protect the integrity and punish law breakers would make the frauds more detectable and therefore reduce fraud while not inhibiting rightful voters. Polls show voters support photo voter ID.
R Mall
