The top recommendation of experts & election-protection gro…

2/ “America’s preeminent election-auditing expert, @philipbstark, ...told me a few weeks ago that “only a few jurisdictions currently audit elections in a way that has a good chance of catching and correcting wrong reported outcomes.“

3/ “‘That requires a trustworthy paper trail—primarily hand-marked paper ballots kept demonstrably secure throughout the election and the audit—and [what is known as] a risk-limiting audit using that paper trail,’” Stark said.

4/ Stark added, “‘to the best of my knowledge, even those states only audit a few contests in each election.’” 😳

5/ “A report by the National Conference of State Legislators confirms that just three states (Colorado, Rhode Island, and Virginia) require risk-limiting audits for one or more races.”

6/ And Virginia’s election audit will be conducted after election results are certified when it may be too late to correct an incorrect official outcome.

Despite an 11th hour “software update” to Georgia’s already troubled new voting system, @GASecofState “claims that voters can have confidence bc it will conduct election audits starting in November. But..the state plans to audit just one race, chosen by [him], not at random.” 7/

“Meanwhile, public officials and voting-machine vendors historically have not always been forthcoming with the public about the extent of security weaknesses and breaches.” 8/

“In August 2016, according to David Shimer’s book Rigged, ‘the U.S. Intelligence community had reported that Russian hackers could edit actual vote tallies, according to four of Obama’s senior advisors.’” 9/

“But the only government official who publicly alluded to this possibility was then Senate minority leader Harry Reid.“ 10/

“On August 29, 2016, Reid published a letter he’d sent to then FBI director James Comey in which he said the threat of Russian interference ‘is more extensive than is widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results.’” 11/

“Reid has said that he believes vote tallies were changed in 2016. According to Rigged, ‘Obama’s leading advisors dismissed Reid’s theory, with a catch: they could not rule it out.’” 12/

“James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, told Shimer: ‘We saw no evidence of interference in voter tallying, not to say that there wasn’t, we just didn’t see any evidence.’” 13/

“According to Rigged, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not have independent surveillance abilities and just thirty-six local election offices had let them assess the security of their voting systems before the 2016 election.“ 14/

“In January 2017, the DHS confirmed that it had conducted no forensic analysis to verify that vote tallies weren’t altered.” 15/

“In June 2017, it again confirmed that it had conducted no such forensic analysis and did not intend to do so.” 16/

In 2018, @RonWyden said that “‘As far as I can tell, no systematic post-election forensic examination of these voting machines took place. Whatever the reason for this failure to act, this administration cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of 2016.’” 17/

“In January this year, the FBI announced a ‘change of policy,’ whereby it will alert state election officials of local election system breaches. It has not explained why it lacked such a policy previously.“ 18/

“Nor has it committed to informing the public of breaches even after investigations have concluded.” 19/

“Heading into this election, election security activists are seeking to counteract this lack of transparency regarding the electronic aspects of our election system.” 20/

“https://t.co/PlIMRL05B0 (a group I cofounded), https://t.co/jEQafnOcGs, & Transparent Elections NC are all organizing volunteers to photograph precinct totals—as shown on precinct poll tapes—after polls close, & then compare them w/ the official...totals 4 those precincts.” 21/

“Although these comparisons cannot detect hacking of precinct tallies, a discrepancy between precinct totals and reported totals could indicate hacking or other problems involving the county central tabulators.” 22/

“In late 2015, a poll tape analysis conducted by @BenniejSmith, an election commissioner in Shelby County, TN, revealed that votes had disappeared from voting machines serviced and maintained by ES&S in predominantly African-American precincts...” 23/

“The Republican county election administrator, Richard Holden, who had previously been investigated by the FBI, abruptly retired after Bloomberg reported the incident. A wave of electoral victories by African-American Democratic candidates for county office soon followed.” 24/

“This was a striking change from Holden’s six-year tenure, during which Republicans had twice swept nearly all countywide races.” 25/ 😳

“Another organization to which I belong, https://t.co/fJXqJsFFZe, will document live reported vote totals at crucial states’ county websites to capture evidence of any anomalies, such as vanishing votes.” 26/

“NVRTF’s software program will automatically capture screenshots of the reported [election] results every 15 minutes. (The citizen task force is STILL SEEKING VOLUNTEERS to assist w/ this aptly named “Watch the Counties” [election security] project.)” https://t.co/OiIz5dg8gZ 27/

28/ “Elsewhere... @ScrutineersUS does voter education work that includes various election transparency projects.” https://t.co/qLabTTeeW3

“One such project, called Ask the Voters, aims to conduct postelection affidavit audits of precincts or small counties with anomalous results.” https://t.co/jWGNcg8EtG 29/

“The Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism has sent requests to every county in seven states (FL, MI, Ohio, PA, WI, AZ, and NC) to obtain detailed information about the election equipment they are using and who specifically is programming it.” 30/ https://t.co/2FbGU7TlqD

“In addition, most digital scanners in use today automatically create images of the paper ballots, which can be used by the public to compare against electronic totals.“ 31/

“Unfortunately, many election officials erase them, but at this election, Audit USA and Citizens Oversight are leading an effort to obtain these [ballot] images and compare them with official election results.” 32/ https://t.co/hLMx1NLqiG

The top recommendation of experts & election-protection groups to protect the 2020 election had been to conduct robust manual election audits using a reliable paper trail. But Rs blocked the SAFE Act which wld have required them. -@jennycohn1 4 @nybooks 1/

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