GA voters file lawsuit against SOS; contend state's voting machines unfit for 6-20 special election

[Amaryllis]

Note GA early voting starts May 30.

Thanks to DUer dmac for these links:

BREAKING: New Lawsuit Filed Over Georgia E-Voting

(APN) ATLANTA — Two Georgia voters and a national advocacy organization filed a new lawsuit challenging Georgia’s electronic voting regime on Friday, May 26, 2017.

The Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief and Writ of Mandamus was filed in Fulton County Superior Court.

The plaintiffs have also filed for an emergency injunction, for which an emergency hearing has been scheduled for 3:30 p.m. today, May 26, 2017.

The injunction seeks to prevent Georgia and three Metro Atlanta counties from using E-voting machines in the U.S. Congressional race in Georgia’s Sixth District, where candidate Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, has attracted national attention and support.

Atlanta Progressive News has been reporting on the fundamental unreliability of Georgia’s E-voting machines from many years – at one point referring to Georgia’s elections as “so-called elections” until it became confusing for readers unfamiliar with our E-voting coverage.

In reality, Georgia has been operating for some sixteen years with unreliable machines – a period that remarkably coincides with the Republican Party’s period of winning most or all statewide offices in Georgia.

Various groups of citizens, advocates, and computer scientists have sent a series of at least three letters to Secretary Kemp challenging Georgia’s E-voting regime, including a March 2017 letter sent by computer experts and two letters in May 2017.

Lots of snip

Scroll down at the link to get to the article, which has a lot more info:

http://atlantaprogressivenews.com/2017/05/26/breaking-new-lawsuit-filed-over-georgia-e-voting/


Press release :
https://www.scribd.com/document/349663976/Rocky-Mountain-Foundation-Complaint-against-SOS-Kemp-re-GA-voting-equipment

GEORGIA VOTERS SUE SECRETARY OF STATE KEMP,CONTEND STATE’S VOTING MACHINES ARE UNFIT FOR USE IN JUNE 20 SPECIAL ELECTION
Lawsuit Calls for Paper Ballots to Be Used Instead

Also see this:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016185690
Voting Tech Experts to GA SOS Kemp RE FBI criminal probe into cyber attack of GA election systems

[Wounded Bear]

1. I hope it works...

At least this gets the concept out there in public. But it will be hard to get the "winners" to give up their advantage.

[LenaBaby61]

2. THIS ...

Is the kind of things Democrats better start doing in head of 2018's elections, because our electronic voting machine apparatus is extremely hackable and vulnerable.

[Amaryllis]

3. Couldn't agree more.

[L. Coyote]

4. This could eliminate black box American politics, make elections more honest again.

Link to tweet

[TheFrenchRazor]

23. curious indeed; there is more than enough evidence to toss computer voting for something more

reliable and verifiable, like paper ballots, hand-counted.

[crazycatlady]

31. I don't trust hand-counting

Hand counting is subject to human error. I know when I'm counting things, I will lose focus and mess up.

As for paper ballots-- I live in a state with no reason absentee voting (you have an option). If you can vote absentee, do so and you have a paper ballot.

[LaydeeBug]

5. ***SO*** Important! Stay woke! nt

[Baitball Blogger]

6. Good move!

That's being proactive.

[Snotcicles]

7. There is nothing more fundamental to an election than accessibility and accuracy. nt

[TheFrenchRazor]

22. yep, but this seems to be a total non-issue for dem leadership. it's insane. nt

[Mr. Ected]

8. Here's the template for all states with suspect voting machines

Let's put this issue front and center. No matter how effective we are in spreading our message, if the apparati through which we vote are compromised, we will continue to lose.

[Amaryllis]

9. Hear, hear! No more analysing what was wrong with the message or the candidate until we

fix the election systems!! I don't know why it has been so difficult to get Dem leadership on board with this when it is so blatantly obvious to so many of us.

[diva77]

26. THIS +1000 !!! Unbelievable how this is swept under the carpet time & time again!!

The machines have NEVER met the burden of proof that they were recording & tabulating votes as cast; the process is completely nontransparent and impossible to observe -- makes me think of how VW embedded malicious code in car computers so their cars would "pass" smog tests even though the cars were actually exceeding allowable pollution levels

[Hoyt]

10. I get why, but ballot boxes did disappear and counting errors occurred before. n/t

[sarah FAILIN]

11. Then you know it

With these machines, there is no record at all and they look like nothing is wrong.

[Amaryllis]

12. There are always ways to cheat if the election officials don't have integrity, but paperless

voting machines running on Windows operating systems are an open invitation.

[Hoyt]

13. So are paper ballots. I think we are down to purple dye on our thumb.

[TheFrenchRazor]

21. yes, but the scale and ease of hacking paper is less than hacking computers. the purple finger plus

plus paper ballots/hand-counted is probably the way to go.

[Hoyt]

25. Depends on who is running the election, and GOpers control most

states. Plenty of safeguards can be built int computers, and we need to quit looking for easy excuses for losing elections and get the vote out.

[Amaryllis]

27. These are not easy excuses!! And we need to GOTV and secure our elections. All the GOTV in the

world doesn't work if they are stealing elections.

[Hoyt]

28. I don't think they are stealing computer votes. Now gmandering, voter IDs, etc., yeah they do that.

[Amaryllis]

29. Do some research if you really want to know.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-voting-technology/

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37486-the-shocking-truth-about-election-rigging-in-america

[Hoyt]

30. Well let's see, the problems in the first article were caught, so no harm.

The article, also says the following with respect to Trump vs. Clinton, and future national elections --

"The real threat isn’t a thrown election. Nationwide electoral fraud would be extremely difficult to pull off, mostly because votes in the U.S. are tallied by more than 7,000 counties and townships. Hacking enough of them to tip the balance would be a monumental undertaking—and one certain to be detected. (Tabulators are designed not to be connected to the internet at all.) Rather, the risk is a violation of trust: that Election Day mishaps borne of outdated, poorly engineered technology will confirm and amplify the fear pervading this campaign. In Shelby County, multiple lawsuits over the past 10 years have alleged that voting machines and computerized tabulators have been used to steal or suppress votes—deepening the distrust of a system some locals see as stacked against them.


The second article, a conspiracy piece, offers no evidence of a stolen election.

I definitely think the voter tabulation needs to be monitored closely. I believe there is a lot of crud that goes on before the election like gerrymandering, stupid voter ID laws, etc.

But, you have shown no evidence of computers being used to steal an election, just conjecture. And, it's a convenient excuse when our side loses. Quite frankly, I'm betting the whining about the voting machines in the 6th District will hurt us June 20th. Once again, to the white wingers who have elected Tommie Price and Newt Gingrich handily in that district will just look at this as more liberal whining. That doesn't help us.

[TheFrenchRazor]

35. you have it entirely backwards, and if you don't see that, we will have to agree to disagree. you sa

you say there is no evidence that machine hacking has taken place, but you don't seem to care that there is equally no evidence that it HASN'T taken place; in other words, we are just supposed to take it on faith that the votes are counted accurately, unless someone can "prove" they weren't. am i allowed to hang out a shingle and start practicing medicine, until someone can prove that i am NOT a licensed medical doctor? no, i have to prove i AM one, then i am allowed to practice medicine; and in the same way election equipment and procedures must prove they ARE legitimate before they can be accepted. and i completely disagree that election hacking would be an impossible and easily detectable task; on the contrary; i think it would very doable, and also very hard to detect and prove, at least in time to stop the votes from being certified, that's for sure.

[TheFrenchRazor]

34. i'm not a faith-based voter; i don't like invisible votes and secret counting software;

when it comes to something as important as our democracy itself, we need 100% verifiable and VERIFIED elections. that is not possible with computer voting.

[diva77]

14. GA SOS Kemp protested Obama's exec order for elections to be 'Critical Infrastructure'

Politicians seem to always avoid discussions of election integrity -- probably because they could be pointing a finger at their own election or party and that would be self defeating. It was miraculous that Obama wrote this executive order to try to start addressing election integrity --and telling that he was only able to introduce this executive order at the end of his second term. Unfortunately, the order doesn't address our domestic election integrity problems and the fact that one private corporation, ES&S, provides most of the "voting" machines, optical scanners, central tabulators which all contain proprietary software, to the majority of states in the US.

Why Elections Are Now Classified as 'Critical Infrastructure'

President Obama’s homeland-security adviser hinted that it might help deter foreign cyberattacks.
President Obama and Lisa Monaco, his top homeland security adviser, attend a briefing at the Federal Emergency Management Agency
Chris Kleponis / MediaPunch / AP

Kaveh Waddell Jan 13, 2017

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/why-the-government-classified-elections-as-critical-infrastructure/513122/

snip...Last Friday, the same day three of the top spy agencies in the U.S. released a summary of an investigation into Russia’s role in cyberattacks before the election, the Department of Homeland Security made a move that attracted less attention: It classified the elections process as “critical infrastructure,” putting it in a highly protected category alongside other vital elements of the country’s basic operations, like dams and the electrical grid.

The classification will institutionalize the federal government’s role in helping state and local organizations secure the country’s elections, and makes it easier for DHS to offer them resources and intelligence information to that end. But tucked a few paragraphs into the official announcement was another key reason for the change: “The designation makes clear both domestically and internationally that election infrastructure enjoys all the benefits and protections of critical infrastructure that the U.S. government has to offer.”

Those “benefits and protections” might have something to do with keeping elections off-limits for foreign tampering. “One of the critical norms that we have garnered international support for is that no nation-state will attack another country’s critical infrastructure in peacetime,” said Lisa Monaco, President Obama’s homeland-security adviser, at an event at the Aspen Institute on Friday. “Particularly with what we’ve seen over the last several months, we want to be clear that our electoral process is part of that infrastructure that we condemn—hopefully on a bipartisan basis—any foreign intervention into.”...snip...

[TheFrenchRazor]

20. seems like that in the wrong hands, this reg could allow the ruling party to prevent any changes in

in the voting machines/procedures, or even give them some oversight that would allow them to hack them or pass information to hackers. we need all paper ballots, all hand-counted, all the time.

[diva77]

24. Agreed. The voting machines/procedures are already in the wrong hands with corporate ownership!

I'm definitely in favor of voting being done on election day with paper ballots, hand counted at precinct level immediately after the polls close. Any early voting should be for special circumstances only.

[TheFrenchRazor]

36. agreed; it's been done for centuries; it can be done again. nt

[judesedit]

15. Yay! If no luck, can they order absentee paper ballots?

[judesedit]

16. Yay! If no luck, can they order absentee paper ballots?

[ProudLib72]

17. Do we trust them to do the right thing? nt

[Duppers]

18. BRAVO!

Finally, some action.

[ATL Ebony]

38. +1000. Curious as to the status of the Obama law firm.

I thought they were set up to deal with voting issues but haven't heard about anything they've done or working on. Maybe they're just focusing on 2018.

[Duppers]

39. Good question.

I'd like to also know.

[TheFrenchRazor]

19. somebody's gotta do it, and clearly it's not going to be the dem "leadership." nt

[trueblue2007]

32. recommended and kicked to the top.

I think ALL states should vote by mail. We do so in Oregon and it's awesome.

[brooklynite]

33. "TWO" Democrats is not a statistically significant sample.

[ecstatic]

37. On the news the other night, they casually mentioned that several polling locations had closed

and that affected voters would receive their new precinct cards in the mail. Sounds shady as fuck!