CONSERVATIVE AND PROGRESSIVE GROUPS UNITE TO urge GOVERNOR HOGAN AND MARYLAND ELECTIONS OFFICIALS TO ENSURE SAFE, SECURE ELECTIONS IN NOVEMBER
Letter sent to Governor Larry Hogan and Secretary of State John C. Wobensmith highlights problems of upcoming Maryland elections
Washington, D.C. —August 12, 2020– Americans for Tax Reform, Public Citizen, Business for America, the National Election Defense Coalition and others call for immediate investment in cyber security, voter-verified paper ballots and COVID-19 safety and security measures.
As COVID-19 continues, the problems that manifested in many of the nation’s primaries offer a warning of what November’s election could look like. It also reveals what immediate low-cost steps the state of Maryland should take to secure the voting process, says a group of conservative and progressive NGOs in a letter to the Governor and Secretary of State.
The letter calls on Maryland leaders to protect voters and the state from foreign interference by ensuring that the state’s voting and tabulation systems are disconnected from the Internet, a vulnerability to foreign interference. An NEDC-NBC investigation reported that nationwide there were 14,000 modems installed in voting tabulation systems in a large number of counties across the nation, and that some of this technology was manufactured in China.
“Maryland should immediately investigate and disconnect any voting or tabulation technology from the Internet, to ensure elections are conducted securely,” said cyber security expert Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer (ret), president of the Conservative London Center for Policy Research and a consultant to the Pentagon. “We already know that the threat to our elections is real and foreign actors are trying to cast doubt on the integrity of November’s election. There are concrete steps states like Maryland can take now to ensure voters stay safe and elections are not manipulated.”
The letter also called for measures to fund safe in-person voting options to prevent both infection and chaos on Election Day and calls on the state to print a sufficient amount of emergency backup paper ballots, in case Maryland’s voting machines break down or are hacked.
“American businesses strive to give our customers a positive experience and confidence in our products,” stated Sarah Bond, founder and CEO of Business for America, which represents corporations that collectively gross over $80 billion dollars. “We believe the same principle should apply to how our election systems are run. We must do everything we can to ensure our elections proceed smoothly and every voter can cast their ballot without risking their health. Anything less will undermine the election’s legitimacy, which would be highly disruptive to our economic well-being.”
Presidential primaries this spring at the onset of the pandemic forced some early-voting and Election Day polling sites to close, and saw poll workers cancelling at the last minute. The surging COVID-19 pandemic means that election officials still need to prepare for in-person voting options this November, by hiring younger poll workers, preparing for drop off curbside voting, and mailing absentee voters ballots as early as possible to their homes.
“Our elections should be ironclad, and we benefit from being able to double-check the results,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “The steps outlined in this letter will help Maryland shore up elections in 2020 and beyond.”
“Both Republican and Democrats want to vote safely, and they want to know that their votes are counted as cast,” said Ben Ptashnik, a former Vermont state senator and president of the National Election Defense Coalition (NEDC). “Lack of preparedness only serves to disenfranchise voters of both parties. They should not have to worry about infection from the corona virus, or from a hacker spreading a malicious computer virus that steals their votes.”
The letter, organized by NEDC and signed by a bipartisan group of organizations including Americans for Tax Reform, Business for America, Public Citizen, and the London Center for Policy Research, addresses a number of security issues while encouraging the state to spend federal election security funding allocated for 2020 in cost-effective ways that secure this November’s election. These include:
Ban all voting technologies that are connected to the Internet or disconnect their modems immediately, and scan systems for viruses.
Place sufficient emergency back-up ballots for all voters in case electronic voting. machines break down, or for those who don’t wish to vote on touchscreen machines.
Print hard copy back-up of electronic pollbooks in all precincts.
Disinfect or limit the use of touchscreen machines to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Ensure that voting machines produce human-readable, voter-verified paper ballots, not ballots which are not publicly auditable because they carry information on QR or bar codes.
Conduct post-election, risk-limiting audits of paper ballots.
Implement 24/7 video monitoring of all ballot tabulation processing areas.
About the National Election Defense Coalition:
Founded in 2013, NEDC’s mission is to build a bipartisan movement to secure the nation’s vulnerable voting systems from manipulation and fraud, and to protect every American’s right to have their vote counted. The organization brings together national NGOs, experts in cybersecurity, policymakers, intelligence community advisors, and concerned citizens, to build consensus on a comprehensive, cost-effective plan to protect the vote in the coming 2020 elections and beyond. NEDC allies include civil rights advocates, libertarians and liberals, national security conservatives and many members of the tech and elections community. For more information, please visit www.electiondefense.org.
Read the full letter below, or through this link: https://www.electiondefense.org/81220-bipartisan-election-security-letter-maryland
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Contact: Media@ElectionDefense.org
At Americans for Tax Reform: Tom Hebert <thebert@atr.org>
At Public Citizen Aquene Freechild <afreechild@citizen.org>
BIPARTISAN LETTER FOR ELECTION SECURITY
August 11, 2020
To: Governor Larry Hogan and Secretary of State John C. Wobensmith
In December, Congress appropriated $425 million in grants for states to upgrade the security of election infrastructure ahead of the 2020 November election.
Your state has been allocated considerable funds to improve election security. We urge you to use these funds to take appropriate, low-cost security steps to ensure that your state does not suffer from Election Day chaos.
Americans in both parties support action to defend election security. Voters deserve to know that their elections are conducted fairly and honestly, with each vote counted as cast, and free from malicious actors seeking to cast doubt on our democracy.
The threat is real – a recent Senate Intelligence Committee report has shown that our voting infrastructure is at risk from malicious hackers seeking to cast doubt on the integrity of our elections. Attention has focused on Russia, but threats could come from Iran, China, and North Korea or other foreign and domestic hackers.
To mitigate this threat, we believe voter-verified paper ballots are the gold standard for safe and secure elections. Paper ballots, processed and retained in a secure chain of custody, provide reliable hard-copy evidence that officials can use for cost-effective audits and recounts.
As you work to improve your state’s election infrastructure, we urge you to be good stewards of taxpayer resources by spending federal money as efficiently as possible.
We believe the following cost-effective steps will help you secure upcoming elections while making certain that taxpayer resources are wisely spent:
1. Ensure that voting machines produce human-readable, voter-verified paper ballots. This allows state residents to know that their votes were counted as cast and provides officials with multiple sources of secure data to compare during audits.
2. Conduct post-election, risk-limiting audits as a quick, cost-effective check on the validity of electronic results. Whenever close or contested elections are subject to review, inspectors should rely on human-readable vote selections or voter-verified paper ballots instead of bar codes or QR codes.
3. Ban all technologies that allow Internet connectivity for election tabulation management systems and devices that Americans use to vote. This will eliminate an avenue that hackers can use to exploit or compromise voting systems, install malicious software, and tamper with election data in current or future elections.
4. Place emergency back-up ballots in all precincts, sufficient for 6-12 hours of emergency peak voting. This will allow your citizens to cast a ballot if voting systems are hacked or malfunctioning.
5. To mitigate the spread of Coronavirus, limit the use of touchscreen machines to a smaller number of voters including those with disabilities and language access needs, and allow all voters the option to cast a hand marked paper ballot instead of using touchscreen voting machines.
6. Implement 24/7 video monitoring of all ballot processing areas to ensure that all votes are counted as cast.
Taken together, these cost-effective approaches will help uphold the safety and integrity of your elections in 2020 and beyond.
We appreciate your attention to these urgent matters and welcome the opportunity for further discussion and collaboration.
Signed:
Ben Ptashnik
President, National Election Defense Coalition
Grover Norquist
President, Americans for Tax Reform
Tom DeWeese
President, American Policy Center
Robert Weissman
President Public Citizen
Bob Carlstrom
President, AMAC Action
Sarah Bonk
Founder and President, Business For America
Col Anthony Shaffer (ret)
President, The London Center for Policy Research
Katie McAuliffe
Executive Director, Digital Liberty
Ethan Rome
President, Issue One
Adam Brandon
President, FreedomWorks
Seton Motley
President, LessGovernment.org
James Plummer
Policy Director, Liberty Coalition
Kevin Waterman
Co-Chair, Maryland Center-Right Coalition Meeting
Diana Waterman
Co-Chair, Maryland Federation of Republican Women
Dee Hodges
President, Maryland Taxpayers Association
Derrick Hollie
President, Reaching America for Maryland
Co-Chair, Maryland Center-Right Coalition Meeting
David Williams
President, Taxpayers Protection Alliance