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Stay up to date with the latest on Verified Voting’s news and work.

Why Voting Systems Must be as Secure as the U.S. Power Grid

Authors: Karen Hobert Glynn and Pamela Smith This oped was posted by Reuters on August 17, 2016. Every American has the right to have their vote counted. The Department of Homeland Security is weighing steps to help safeguard that right. The agency is considering actions to secure the voting process against cyber-threats by designating voting…

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All Election Integrity is Local: Remembering John Washburn (1962-2016)

Author: Warren Stewart We were saddened to learn of the untimely passing of election integrity activist John Washburn at the age of 53. John was a fiercely independent thinker – disarmingly honest and contagiously cheerful – and a passionate advocate for transparent election administration. Verified Voting President Pamela Smith noted that John “was actively engaged…

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How Not to Measure Security

Author: Jeremy Epstein This article was originally posted at Freedom to Tinker on August 10, 2015. It is reposted here with permission of the author. A recent paper published by Smartmatic, a vendor of voting systems, caught my attention. The first thing is that it’s published by Springer, which typically publishes peer-reviewed articles – which…

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Hack the Vote: The Perils of the Online Ballot Box

Authors: Pamela Smith and Bruce McConnell While most voters will cast their ballots at polling stations in November, online voting has been quietly and rapidly expanding in the United States over the last decade. Over 30 states and territories allow some form of Internet voting (such as by email or through a direct portal) for…

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A Valuable Resource for Election Recounts

Last week Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota released Recount Principles and Best Practices, a document providing recommendations on key recount matters such as counting methods, transparency, voter intent and challengers. The document is especially welcome as it was produced through the cooperation of election officials and citizen activists and it is the first comprehensive set…

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Post Election Audits for New Hampshire

The following testimony was presented by Verified Voting President Pamela Smith to the New Hampshire House Election Law Committee on January 21, 2014. No voting system is perfect. Nearly all elections in New Hampshire, as in most of the nation, are counted using electronic vote counting systems. Such systems have produced result-changing errors through problems…

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Verified Voting Applauds Findings in Presidential Commission Report on Elections

Today’s landmark report by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA), The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, recognizes many of the obstacles and opportunities in today’s election administration universe, and proposes several excellent approaches to solving some of those challenges. “We applaud the bi-partisan Commission’s substantial work,…

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Recommendations to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration

Author: Pamela Smith The Presidential Commission on Election Administration will meet again today in Denver, Colorado. The Webcast can be linked to via the Commission website. Verified Voting has submitted the following recommendations to the Commission. I. Contingency Planning and Eliminating Long Lines On Election Day, long lines were produced in many cases due to voting…

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Internet Voting for Overseas Military Puts Election Security at Risk

Author: Pamela Smith Connecticut lawmakers are considering legislation to allow military voters to cast ballots over the Internet. The intention of this legislation is well-meaning — Connecticut does need to improve the voting process for military voters — but Internet voting is not the answer. Every day, headlines reveal just how vulnerable and insecure any…

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Voting in Colorado

Author: Barbara Simons Arapahoe County Colorado was in the news the week with the Denver Post reporting that envelopes containing absentee ballots mailed to over 230,000 voters included “I Voted” stickers, which rubbed up against the ballot and in some cases left a faint, near-linear mark that appeared exactly where voters draw a line to select their…

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