The NEDC is a national network of recognized experts in cybersecurity and elections administration, bipartisan policymakers, and concerned citizens and movement-builders.
We are working to build a bipartisan consensus on the need for reform, while building a comprehensive, cost-effective plan to secure the vote in coming elections.
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ACTION ALERTS:
GEORGIA Secretary of state issues wildly misleading cost analysis on hand marked paper ballots
February 27, 2019 - Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger is circulating a cost analysis of hand-marked paper ballots that is profoundly misleading and wildly inflates the costs of conducting elections with hand-marked paper ballots as compared with the cost of electronic ballot marking devices to mark all ballots. The analysis the Secretary provided is deeply flawed on many levels, but in the interest of brevity we will focus on the two most egregiously misleading and disingenuous aspects of this estimate.
NEDC and FreedomWorks Oppose Georgia HB 316
Letter to the Government Affairs and Elections Subcommittee on Voting Technology:
Georgia is rightly moving to replace its notoriously insecure paperless voting machines to provide a voter-verified paper ballot. However, the electronic Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) that vendors have been aggressively promoting to provide a paper ballot are completely unnecessary and amount to nothing more than a boondoggle for the vendors and an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars.
RELATED NEWS:
Cost estimates on voting machines are misleading, conservative groups charge
Atlantic Journal Constitution
February 28, 2019
A pair of conservative groups has accused Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of purposely misleading members of the Legislature about the costs of implementing a system of touch-screen voting machines that would be authorized by a measure passed by the House on Tuesday.
The joint letter from the National Election Defense Coalition and FreedomWorks, dated Wednesday, was addressed to members of the Senate Ethics Committee, chaired by Kay Kirkpatrick, R-Marietta.
FEATURED NEWS:
Super Bowl 2019 Runs BiPartisan Ad for Hand Marked Paper Ballots
2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community
The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) issued its 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community on January 29. The assessment finds that U.S. “adversaries and strategic competitors probably already are looking to the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests” and “almost certainly will use online influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions” and “shape policy outcomes in the U.S.”
Secretary of State & Elections Security Advocates Square off
Politico Pro (Subcribers only)
January 25, 2019
ACCESS DENIED — Indiana’s top election official is refusing to release her communications with the National Association of Secretaries of State, limiting the public’s understanding of both her role and the role of NASS in squashing federal legislation to upgrade voting systems, Eric reports. Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson is fighting a public records request that could shed light on both the NASS stance in election security debates and the influence that the small community of voting technology vendors has over the organization.
“Secretary Lawson and other NASS leaders have made public statements at times that misrepresent the security threats to voting machines,” National Election Defense Coalition policy director Susan Greenhalgh, who submitted the records request, told POLITICO. “Congress and the public have a right to understand why.” In letters to Greenhalgh and a statement to POLITICO, Lawson’s office said that the records are exempt from disclosure because NASS is a private organization and some of the material is either copyrighted or classified.
The dispute over the records is ongoing, but Greenhalgh said the NEDC would sue if Lawson’s office improperly withheld documents. Other election security advocates said it was vital that Greenhalgh succeed. “Voters deserve to know what the the top advocacy organization around election legislation, NASS, is being told to do by its members,” said Jake Braun, who co-organized the DEF CON Voting Village. “We will only engender trust in elections with transparency, not a shroud of secrecy.” Pros can read Eric’s story here.
The Crisis of Election Security
New York Times Magazine Cover Feature
September 26, 2018
As the midterms approach, America’s electronic voting systems are more vulnerable than ever. Why isn’t anyone trying to fix them?
“How did our election system get so vulnerable, and why haven’t officials tried harder to fix it? The answer, ultimately, comes down to politics and money: The voting machines are made by well-connected private companies that wield immense control over their proprietary software, often fighting vigorously in court to prevent anyone from examining it when things go awry.”
Why federal courts may become the next front in the battle to secure our elections
11-Year-Old Changes Election Results On Florida’s Website: DefCon 2018
Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States
We need to hack-proof our elections. An old technology can help.
By Michael Chertoff and Grover Norquist, Washington Post
Michael Chertoff was secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009. Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform.
NEDC ADVOCACY
CONGRESS APPROPRIATES $380 MILLION FOR ELECTION TECHNOLOGY UPGRADES
States MUST FUND PAPER BALLOTS AND ROBUST POST-ELECTION AUDITS
On March 23, 2018, thanks to the work of election security advocates, Congress approved $380 million to improve election defense.
While states will have flexibility in how they use this money, Congress has emphasized the importance of having a voter-verified paper record of every vote. In a memo, Congress also recommended those paper records be used to conduct post-election audits, ensuring voting machines have produced an accurate result.
Securing the Nation’s Voting Machines: A Toolkit for Advocates and Election Officials
This toolkit, created jointly by the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, the National Election Defense Coalition, and Verified Voting, is meant as a roadmap for advocates and election officials nationwide as local jurisdictions consider purchasing new voting machines. It also suggests best practices for conducting post-election audits.
REPORT BY NEDC AND ALLIES URGES NATIONWIDE E-BALLOT QUARANTINE
The Election Assistance Commission Responds to Expert warning against Wireless Modems in voting systems: Read EAC Response
BIPARTISAN Legislation to protect elections
FreedomWorks supports the SEA. For over a quarter century, FreedomWorks has identified, educated, and actuated citizens who are enthused about showing up to support free enterprise and constitutionally limited government.
SENATE BILL 2593 - The Secure Elections Act
In 2016-2017, the National Election Defense Coalition (NEDC), with our partners and allies, orchestrated a bipartisan campaign to educate policy makers and urge them to implement federal and state security reforms.
This effort galvanized the Secure Elections Act (S.2593), introduced in December of 2017 by a bipartisan group of six Senators; James Lankford (R-OK), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).
HOUSE BILL 3751 - THE PAPER ACT
There is a measure similar to Senate Bill 2593 in the US House, the PAPER Act (H.R. 3751), with strong bipartisan support, including Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform. The immediate aim of both bills is to secure federal support for states and counties to replace antiquated paperless voting machines before the 2018 and 2020 federal elections and to press for policy changes to ensure election administrators have the auditing tools and training to detect and thwart a cyber-attack.
100 COMPUTER SCIENTISTS AND CYBER EXPERTS call on CONGRESS: SECURE AMERICAN ELECTIONS
Dear Member of Congress:
Faith in American democracy rests on the integrity of our elections. So it stands to reason that lawmakers and administrators from both political parties should prioritize efforts to minimize election security risks. While there has been encouraging progress to improve election security in recent years, too many polling stations across the nation are still equipped with electronic machines that do not produce voter-verified paper ballots. Many jurisdictions are also inadequately prepared to deal with rising cybersecurity risks.
We are writing to you as members of the computer science and cybersecurity communities, together with statisticians and election auditing experts, to convey our concern about these and other vulnerabilities in our voting system and to urge you to take the following simple, straightforward, and cost-effective actions to set meaningful standards to protect American elections. We represent both major political parties, independents, and a range of academic institutions and private sector organizations, but we are united in our belief that the United States, the world’s oldest representative democracy, needs prompt action to ensure prudent elections security standards.
NEDC EVENTS
Professor Alex Halderman, NEDC advisor, testifies before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Hearing.
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Related Articles
Lawmakers told of growing cyber threat to election systems - The Hill
Computer expert: Some voting machines can be directly hacked - The Washington Examiner
If Voting Machines Were Hacked, Would Anyone Know? - NPR
NEDC and allies present the case for election security to over 100 Congressional staff members.
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