NEDC Report: 2019
Throughout 2019 NEDC maintained a strong presence in the election security space, both in the MSM and in various roles as facilitators of bipartisan coalitions and participants in various on line platforms, conferences, list serves etc. This enables us to remain highly informed and identify areas of possible action.
We also organized the Creative Arts Council, together with Alyssa Milano and our partner Free Speech For People. See this article in Variety Magazine. The Council was organized to sound the alarm about the vulnerabilities of the 2020 elections amplify the voices of NEDC’s and FSFP’s election security advocates.
As a smaller, more flexible organization, we are able to operate as the public’s watchdog, exposing critical gaps and failures of the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, informing and shaping oversight by the congressional committees of jurisdiction.
NEDC is also active in several critical states to promote adoption of paper ballots and risk-limiting audits. We are the only national organization that has taken an aggressive position to promote hand marked paper ballots and oppose unsafe ballot marking devices. We do not support the promotion of ballot marking devices for all, but do support one or two BMDs for the disabled in every precinct.
In 2019 NEDC’s conservative partners helped get $600 million allocated by the House for election security. In September, NEDC’s work was instrumental in securing federal funds for election security in the 2020 budget. After the Republican controlled Senate FSGG Subcommittee appropriated zero dollars for election security, NEDC organized a press conference on the Hill with our top conservative allies to urge Senate Republicans to take up election security legislation. The press conference generated dozens of cable and newspaper articles about conservative support for election security, and the next day Mitch McConnell reversed his opposition to funding and personally cosponsored an amendment to the 2020 federal budget allocating $425 million dollars for election security.
NEDC ACTION HIGHLIGHTS IN 2019:
· Filed suit against the Indiana Secretary of State for failing to comply with a public records request suspected of concealing communication between the Secretary and the voting machine vendors.
· Fought the New York City Board of Elections’ Executive Directors’ push to buy expensive, insecure touchscreen voting machines. We obtained the non-public letter which sought to circumvent the testing process and publicized it, prompting the chair of the New York City Council Oversight Committee to call for an investigation.
· Filed petition for the re-examination of the unverifiable, inaccessible and insecure ExpressVoteXL Ballot Marking Devices in Pennsylvania. Read: Citing election security, advocates seek to force PA to re-examine voting machines.
· NEDC initiated a campaign to generate public comments calling for a ban on wireless modems and internet connectivity in federally certified voting systems, flooding the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) with over 50,000 comments. - The committee finally voted to do what we asked in February, 2020.
· Challenged the faulty oversight of the Elections Assistance Committee (EAC) by working with staff of the Committees of jurisdiction with EAC oversight, prepping them for hearings, drafting questions for the record and generating press coverage, II. We also sent a letter to the EAC outlining our concerns with the agency’s public statements.
· Sent letters to leadership in SC, VA and MD exposing election officials’ cozy relationship with vendors. The letter is believed to have contributed to one official resigning.
· Uncovered and exposed - in AP exclusive reporting - the use of outdated software in “new” voting machines by major voting system vendor which prompted:
o A meeting at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to specifically address this issue
o Letters from House Administration Committee Chair Zoe Lofgren to the voting system vendors holding them accountable for this issue.
· Co-petitioned for a re-examination of ballot marking devices in Georgia.
· Prompted multiple news stories which resulted in North Carolina seeking an investigation by Department of Homeland Security into epollbook failures.
· Drafted and organized a letter of over a dozen Right-Left organizations urging the House Administration and Senate Rules Committees to hold hearings on the voting system vendors.
· Contributed to drafting this bill for greater cyber security expert oversight of voting systems certification.
· Proposed to Senate staff that the voting systems should be subject to testing by national laboratories which propelled the creation of a highly praised program to increase voting system scrutiny. .
· Presented our paper “Email and Internet voting: The Overlooked Threat to Election Security” at the invitation only National Voting System Testing and Certification Conference.
· Represented by Covington and Burling and Free Speech for People, we submitted an amicus brief in support of the case Heindel v. Andino in South Carolina signed by eight computer security experts including international recognized experts Dr. Peter Neumann and Bruce Schneier.
Held a press conference in September with Adam Brandon (FW), Grover Norquist (ATR) and Tony Shaffer (London Center) to push Senator McConnell to fund state election security, and succeeded in getting $425 million allocated by Congress to states for 2020 .
Our conservative partners have also been busy in the states:
· In Pennsylvania, Lt. Col Tony Shaffer testified and met with leadership in both the House and Senate to broker a deal for $90 million in elections systems funding. Unfortunately, the Senate poisoned the deal but the Governor ultimately attained the funding through a bond issue.
· In Georgia, NEDC and Freedomworks issued a statement and letter opposing HB316 and insecure, expensive ballot marking devices, garnering multiple press hits. Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer sent a letter to the GA majority Republican Legislature emphasizing that President Trump himself endorsed paper ballots. Freedomworks Vice-President Jason Pye personally reached out legislators, and Freedomworks used email alerts, facebook and twitter to drive opposition to the bill.