BC POLITICS
Saved by @SteveeRogerr

😳ES&S’s ExpressVote voting system reportedly has an integrated zebra technologies barcode reader whose “operation can be modified by scanning configuration barcodes,” which can “reconfigure which types of barcodes the scanner reads,” & “how it reads...&..processes them.” 1/

 2/ “They could cause the barcode scanner to stop tabulating ExpressVote barcodes or to tabulate them incorrectly. They can even be used to allow sending unintended data & keyboard commands to the voting system.”
3/ “A set of carefully constructed keyboard commands could be used to manipulate the voting system software.”
4/ This is a serious problem because, with the ExpressVote, the only part of the paper record counted as your vote is the barcode....
5/ Although there is human readable text beneath the barcode, a recent study showed that voters miss 93% of inaccuracies in that text. This is an invitation to fraud, especially for down ballot races, such as for state legislature.
6/ Discussion of the study referenced in post 5. @jhalderm led the study. https://t.co/R3aVXpCOGZ
7/ As I explain here, the US rarely conducts robust manual audits anyway. This must change. https://t.co/mbxFpCpFoQ
8/ “America’s preeminent election-auditing expert, Philip Stark...told me...that ‘only a few jurisdictions currently audit elections in a way that has a good chance of catching & correcting wrong reported outcomes...[E]ven those states only audit a few contests in each election.”
9/ Link to screenshot in post 1. It was election security expert @kskoglund who identified the concern about the zebra barcode reader. The ExpressVote XL apparently doesn’t have it, but ESS acknowledged that the ExpressVote does. https://t.co/p0fozWDzww
10/ I wrote about ES&S as a company here. https://t.co/JnJ8bwF3vH
11/ Verified Voting’s verifier tool shows which jurisdictions used ES&S ExpressVote voting systems in 2020. The ones in yellow used it for all or most in person voting. The ones in green used it primarily for ADA use. https://t.co/CxiHJD5hew
12/ I don’t know if all versions of the ExpressVote use the Zebra barcode reader.
13/ It appears that much of Texas and all of Arkansas and SC used the ExpressVote as a primary voting system. The largest county in Kansas, Johnson County, did too.
14/ Much of West Virginia and Ohio too.
15/ More from post 1 report: “These configuration barcode are not secret...They cld cause the barcode scanner to stop tabulating ExpressVote barcodes or to tabulate them incorrectly. They can even be used to allow sending unintended data & keyboard commands to the voting system.”
16/ “A set of carefully constructed keyboard commands could be used to manipulate the voting system software.”
The kicker: “A ballot card pre-printed with configuration barcodes could be submitted by any voter while inside the privacy of the voting booth.” 😳

We really just need #HandMarkedPaperBallots (exception for voters w/ disabilities). #BanTheExpressVote #BanBarcodeVoting 17/
PS. This does NOT prove fraud. It does indicate a potentially serious vulnerability. 18/
19/ #BanBarcodeVoting
20/ #HandMarkedPaperBallots #PenAndPaper #ProtectOurVotes

More from Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢

Jennifer Cohn \u270d\U0001f3fb \U0001f4e2
Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢...
@jennycohn1
Dear @HouseDemocrats:

HR 1 requires that the voter “have the option to mark his or her ballot by hand.”

Pls add the following for clarity: “For jurisdictions w/ in person voting, this option shall be provided to the voter at the polling place.” @RepTedLieu @katieporteroc 1/


Without this clarifying language, jurisdictions cld still force all in person voters to use risky touchscreen voting machines called ballot marking devices (BMDs), as long as vote by mail is also an option. That won’t suffice to protect election integrity & faith in elections. 2/

Unlike #HandMarkedPaperBallots (pen and paper), BMDs are vulnerable to electronic failure, screen freezes, miscalibration, disproportionate distribution (causing bottlenecks & long lines in suppressed areas), and hacking. 3/

4/ I also suggest that you supplement HR 1 to specify that BMDs “must not put votes into barcodes or QR codes.” This language is important because barcodes & QR codes are not transparent, further endangering integrity and confidence in elections.


5/ We are only beginning now to understand how these barcodes and QR code’s unnecessarily increase the attack surface for bad actors seeking to interfere in our elections. This is unacceptable & unnecessary.
POLITICS
Jennifer Cohn \u270d\U0001f3fb \U0001f4e2
Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢...
@jennycohn1
Rs made gains in state legislatures in 2020. Even where manual audits are conducted, they rarely include state races. 😢

“Ds spent big to take control of state legislatures but lost their key targets. Now they’ll be on the sidelines as new maps are drawn”

I reported on the sorry state of election auditing laws in the US in this pre-election piece for @NYRDaily. This must change. #RobustManualAuditsNOW
1/

2/ “Earlier this year, ... Republicans blocked federal legislation, the SAFE Act, which would have required such [manual] audits for most federal races.”

3/ “America’s preeminent election-auditing expert, Philip Stark, a professor of statistics at...UCB, 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.” @philipbstark

4/ “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.” #HandMarkedPaperBallots
POLITICS
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Jennifer Cohn \u270d\U0001f3fb \U0001f4e2
Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢...
@jennycohn1
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/

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.”
POLITICS
Jennifer Cohn \u270d\U0001f3fb \U0001f4e2
Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢...
@jennycohn1
IMO, the #SAFEAct is better on election security than HR1 bc it wld ban most touchscreen voting machines currently available. HR1 wld allow them as a primary in person system bc vendors call the paper they spit out a “paper ballot.” Pen & paper is safer #HandMarkedPaperBallots 1/


I have not looked at other aspects of HR1. It addresses more than election security. The #SAFEAct shld be the starting point for election security reform in my opinion. 2/

HR1 requires that all voters have the option to mark their ballots by hand. But it does not specify that, for jurisdictions with in person voting, the hand marked (pen & paper) option must be available for in person voting (vs it only being an option w/ vote by mail). 3/

HR1 may still be a good start. But it does not go nearly far enough on election security. Here are my suggestions for election security. Maybe these could be addressed in a later bill, but we shld keep them on our radar. 4/ https://t.co/mNdHrvwHcN


The key section is 1502. IMO, it shld add the following. “For jurisdictions that offer in person voting, the option to mark a paper ballot by hand must be offered at the in-person polling location; giving this option only for vote by mail won’t suffice for such jurisdictions.” 5/
POLITICS
Jennifer Cohn \u270d\U0001f3fb \U0001f4e2
Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢...
@jennycohn1
I lost faith in the US govt to tell me the truth re: election security when Comey & @EACgov testified that it wld be really hard to hack an election bc voting machines supposedly don't connect to the internet, & an expert explained on C-Span this was BS.1/

2/ Here is one of Halderman's C-span videos.

3/ It was like a death. Never in my life would I have thought my government would lie about something like this. Or, alternatively, be this incompetent. I spent the next three years feeling like I need to try to micromanage the situation bc I didn't trust them anymore.

4/ I know some people think it's bad for me to say this because it undermines voter confidence in elections. But guess what? I started out as an ordinary voter. This is what I found out. And I was horrified. There has been no reckoning for the lies.

5/ Reality Winner, who tried to bring a dose of reality to the situation, remains in prison. I do not trust our government re: election security. I just don't. They have never told us the full truth about 2016. They don't even try to be transparent.
ALL , ELECTIONINTEGRITY , ELECTIONS

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Joel Kotarski
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Let's track some of Donald Trump's solutions to problems: Give Hurricane victims paper towels (to sop it up), rakes to wildfire fighters (make America rake again), teaching kids to look at solar eclipses (they're too smart for that), and asking for global warming in cold winters.

This is the perfect asymptotic approach to the extremes of both Republican and Democratic rhetoric (which are both inevitably devoid of any sound logic) - you eventually get presidents like this. This is a warning call to dissolve the Republican and Democratic parties.

It seems to me our nation is now tossed between two insane extremes, bickering and arguing with each other, embodied in the Republican and Democratic parties. When you get extremist politicians who adhere fully to broken logic and rhetoric, our future is laid waste.

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Dear Media, here is the clear truth:

Donald Trump is explicitly seeking to turn America into a white Ethnostate.

He is following an openly racist plan, crafted by open racists.

If you report this story any other way you are not reporting the facts or being objective.

1/

If you think this is an extreme position or an opinion, you haven't read enough about the white nationalist movement, Stephen Miller, Bannon, Sessions, etc.

Eliminating birthright citizenship is a central plank in a well-articulated, coherent movement to make America whiter.
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Blaming Soros is a central tool. It is part of a (crazy, wrong, but internally coherent) theory of the case:
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3/

(continuing the white power explanation)

- All whites, by nature, would know they only want a white society.

- An outside group--hint, it's the Jews!--is tricking them into going against their nature (white nationalists think they know a lot about core human nature).

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(continuing views I hate to explain them)

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(MAJOR NOTE) The reason Manafort took over Trump's campaign in just 3 weeks despite being hired as a mere delegate counter is that ROGER STONE initiated a whisper campaign against Corey Lewandowski. That campaign started...days after Manafort returned from meeting with WikiLeaks.

2/ Stone and Manafort are longtime business partners; we'd expect Manafort to tell Stone what Assange told him, and for him to expect Stone to then pressure the campaign not only to hire him but quickly elevate him.

And who was Stone in touch with at the campaign? Trump himself.

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Paul Manafort's business associate, Kremlin agent Konstantin Kilimnick.

5/ Why did Donald Trump suddenly convene a NatSec meeting 3 days after he finally hired Manafort? Why did he issue a pro-Kremlin directive at that meeting that Manafort's camp would later take credit for? What did Manafort tell Trump in the days leading up to that NatSec meeting?
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Tim - Efficacious vs the Mutants\U0001f489 NO trampVE\U0001f3db\U0001f985
Tim - Efficacious vs t...
@tmstrickl_tim
"these people are not going to take it any longer..
do not want to see our election victory stolen by a bold and radical left Democrats.
We will never concede.. when there's theft involved...had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about."
1/

"We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen.

Not going to let it happen.

CROWD: Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump.
TRUMP: Thank you."
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"those tens of thousands of people ..
..the military, the Secret Service and we want to thank you and law enforcement ..you're doing a great job..
..but I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them, please?"
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"if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.
..he has the absolute right to do it..States want to revote, the states got defrauded..they want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president"
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Annika Brockschmidt
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@ardenthistorian
Here we go. Tag 4 des Impeachments. Trumps Verteidigung.


Es wird argumentiert, dass Trump nur habe sicherstellen wollen, dass die Wahl fair abgelaufen sei. Die Verteidigung zeigt Clips einzelner Demokraten, die der Zertifizierung von Trumps Stimmen 2016 widersprechen. (Dass es 2016 keinen von Obama gesandten Mob aufs Kapitol gab?Egal!)

Die intellektuelle Unehrlichkeit ist so unfassbar, ich weiß kaum, wo ich hier überhaupt anfangen soll; so viele fucking Strohmänner auf einmal.

Die Verteidigung spielt random Clips, in denen Demokraten “fight” sagen, fast zehn Minuten lang. Weil Trump 20mal am 6. Januar “fight” gesagt hat. Dies ist kein Witz. Komisch, dass sonst die Folge nie war, dass ein Mob das Kapitol gestürmt hat und Pence hängen wollte


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So close.
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