Easily Hacked Voting Systems Do Not Belong In Any Democracy
Statement of Aquene Freechild, Co-Director, Public Citizen’s Democracy Is For People Campaign
Note: On Thursday, the U.S. House Administration Committee will hear testimony from executives from the three largest U.S. election system vendors, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic. Some voting technology has been under scrutiny lately. For example, ES&S is marketing less secure and more expensive ballot marking devices, and vote counting machines with wireless modems.
Our elections and democracy continue to be attacked, and these three major voting system vendors are knowingly selling out-of-date and/or unsecure election technology. The continued sale of unsecure voting systems is about making profits at the expense of our democracy and our taxpayers.
Allowing our states and localities to use hackable internet-connected machines and paperless ballots is a risk we cannot take, especially as foreign interference efforts from the Kremlin, China and other adversaries are already underway. These technologies are vulnerable to internal and nonstate actors as well. Have we learned nothing from 2016 about the lengths our enemies will go to undermine our democracy?
Public Citizen is thankful to the Committee Chair Rep. Zoe Lofren (D-Calif.) and Ranking Member Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) for calling this hearing. Election security reform has made strides in recent months, but more must be done. More stringent oversight and stronger regulation of voting system technology and corporations are needed now through comprehensive election security reform.