Check out SMART Elections & SMART Legislation.

We have two nonpartisan orgs working to make U.S. elections secure, fair, accessible, well-administered & publicly verifiable.

SMART Elections is focusing on nonpartisan election observation to monitor, protect & verify the vote. Join our vibrant and fascinating monthly forums!

At SMART Legislation we author & advocate for legislation to protect elections.

We are building bridges and lasting partnerships that can produce significant improvements in U.S, elections. Our elections must be both inclusive and transparent to be meaningful and trustworthy.

We focus especially on election security because that is our area of expertise, and we know that if security is not addressed - and votes are not counted accurately - then all other reforms are at risk.

SMART stands for:

• Secure

• Marked* & Audited by Hand

• Accessible & Accurate

• Registration for all eligible voters

• Transparent

*(for those who are able) 

Please make a donation today to so we can continue this critically important work.

2 Tier Approach to Election Audits

Robust audits are the single most useful tool we can use to ensure the accuracy and security of our elections. I have written a proposal for a realistic approach to implement audits in as many counties as quickly as possible. The basic concept is to do 100% hand-count audits in places where it will not be burdensome, such as smaller jurisdictions, and those with simpler ballots. In larger jurisdictions, and those with more complex ballot content, risk limiting audits can be implemented; but it would be advisable to additionally audit one randomly drawn race on every ballot, and all races closer than 1 % with 100% hand-count audits.

I have presented this paper at 3 conferences now. The Electoral Integrity Project Workshop in San Francisco in August, The People's Convergence Conference in September, and the Take Back the Vote Conference this past weekend in Berkeley. The response has been very positive.

Below is a link to the complete paper. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

If you support the work that I'm doing, please show that support by making a donation to my GoFundMe today. I very much need your help right now in order to continue.  Thank you to everyone who has donated so far, and thank you for the work that you are doing to move this issue forward! 

Click on the photo to read or download the complete paper.

Hackers crack Voting Machines at DEFCON

This is my first report from the #DEFCON #VotingVillage in Las Vegas. In some cases within minutes—and in other cases within a few hours—of the village doors' opening, hackers in attendance said they had successfully penetrated some systems. The security investigators claimed to have breached or found major vulnerabilities in every voting system present.

Vegas is expensive. I also have other trips coming up and needed new camera equipment. Anything you can give to my GoFundMe account is greatly appreciated. I’m at over 25% of my goal, and the fund is trending! Very encouraging.

I’ll be doing a Facebook live hit at 6 pm PST today to take questions about what hackers were or were not able to at the #VotingVillage.

I believe we are at the tipping point. If we keep focused and work together we can make our elections significantly more secure and more transparent by 2018, and 2020.

Thank you so much for everything you’re doing.

Georgia Lawsuit Tries to Stop Use of Touchscreen Machines in Special Election

Yesterday two Georgia voters who are in leadership positions with Georgians for Verified Voting and an election reform non-profit filed a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and election directors of the three counties making up Georgia's 6th Congressional District. They are seeking a preliminary injunction against the use of touchscreen voting machines in the upcoming special election on June 20th. Early voting is scheduled to begin in 4 days on May 30th. They will be filing a motion for a temporary restraining order this morning. Marilyn Marks, Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Foundation, the organization spearheading the lawsuit, said in a late-night phone interview that they were anticipating a hearing this afternoon.

Documents filed in the lawsuit claim that the machines have numerous safety and accuracy concerns including:

- A breach in the security of the Center for Election Systems that was investigated by the FBI

- An encryption key that was released onto the internet

- The Possibility of a corrupt database

- A demonstration model of the voting machine in use was hacked and infected with vote stealing software by a security team, and no evidence has been provided that the known security flaw was repaired.

- The inability of the system to identify the introduction of improper data

- Inadequate physical security for the machines

- The system not appearing to meet fundamental standards for federal certification

- The system being 15 years old and relying on a non-industrial strength database

- Two letters from sixteen prominent computer scientists expressing that they were, "profoundly concerned about the security of Georgia’s votes."

According to the suit, Georgia law requires that officials be able to demonstrate that voting machines can be safely and accurately used, and that if reexamination shows that not to be the case - then the approval of the system "shall immediately be revoked by the Secretary of State; and no such system shall thereafter ... be used in this state."

The suit further states that the remedy under Georgia law if the machines cannot be used is to use hand-counted paper ballots. Virginia Martin, an election official in Columbia County, New York, where paper ballots and hand counting are used, said, "I believe that Georgia could run its special election on paper ballots ... Despite the length of time involved, the benefit of having auditable paper records, given the election problems the state has recently experienced, should be very appealing ... For election boards that don’t currently conduct hand counts, this is an easy election to begin on. Counters could be recruited over the next weeks and trained. Unforeseen wrinkles in the process could be discovered during a mock count, which would show both recruits and staff what to expect. The ballot’s simplicity makes it perfect for a hand count, just like in recent European elections." 

All Eyes on Georgia Special Election Today

Will Jon Ossoff turn a Republican district blue by winning 50% or more of the votes in this Congressional race? Or will he have to face a run-off that consolidates the Republican vote against him? Will the race be an indicator that Democrats can flip the House in 2018? Or another nail in their coffin showing how out of touch with electoral politics they have really become - and that they can no longer motivate Black voters, even with Robocalls from Samuel Jackson.

Do not be bothered by the fact that some voting machines were stolen. The Election Director assures us that the data "is hard to access."

"Cobb County Elections Director Janine Eveler said information on the machines is “hard to access,” adding that they cannot be used to fraudulently vote in Tuesday’s election."

I personally feel so much better knowing that - because data being hard to access always deters hackers. 

Meanwhile the NY Times lays out what to watch for, without ever bothering to mention that Georgia votes on completely electronic voting machines with no paper trail - so there is literally no way to check if the votes are accurate.

This Letter to the Editor by Richard DeMillo, Charlotte B. and Roger C. Warren Professor of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, also points out that the organization responsible for Georgia's elections is under investigation by the FBI after a security breach last week.

"A special department at Kennesaw State University, under contract to the Secretary of State’s office, maintains and programs the machines, along with the electronic poll books, for the entire state for each election. While details are still unclear, the FBI launched a criminal investigation last week after the KSU department was breached. Even if the voting systems were not harmed by the breach, the technology of the machines is insecure, making them susceptible to malfunction and error. With no paper trail, there is no way to validate the outcome of an election independently."

As Mr. DeMillo points out,

"Georgia should conduct all future elections using voter-marked paper ballots. These can be counted by ballot scanners and, most importantly, audited by hand. To ensure confidence, Georgia voters deserve a secure auditable system, such as is used by most of the rest of the country, and a strong manual post-election ballot audit law."

Hack of Voter Databases Central to Russian Interference Claim

Paul Wood at the BBC has made the connection between the probing and successful hack of voter registration databases and interference with the 2016 presidential election. He ties it all together via the "micro-targeting" of voters. He doesn't name the firm, but is most likely referring to a data analytics company that was working for Trump called Cambridge Analytica. Robert Mercer, a major Trump donor was a significant investor in Cambridge Analytica.

Here is a little background on Mercer from a Guardian article by Carole Cadwalladr.

"I recognised Robert Mercer’s name: because of his connection to Cambridge Analytica, a small data analytics company. He is reported to have a $10m stake in the company, which was spun out of a bigger British company called SCL Group. It specialises in “election management strategies” and “messaging and information operations”, refined over 25 years in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. In military circles this is known as “psyops” – psychological operations. (Mass propaganda that works by acting on people’s emotions.)"

If your interested in micro-targeting - here is more information than you ever dreamed possible about it. It uses "psychometrics" and is part of the "Big Data" narrative.

Back to the Wood article: 

"This is a three-headed operation, said one former official, setting out the case, based on the intelligence: Firstly, hackers steal damaging emails from senior Democrats. Secondly, the stories based on this hacked information appear on Twitter and Facebook, posted by thousands of automated "bots", then on Russia's English-language outlets, RT and Sputnik, then right-wing US "news" sites such as Infowars and Breitbart, then Fox and the mainstream media. Thirdly, Russia downloads the online voter rolls.The voter rolls are said to fit into this because of "microtargeting". Using email, Facebook and Twitter, political advertising can be tailored very precisely: individual messaging for individual voters.

"You are stealing the stuff and pushing it back into the US body politic," said the former official, "you know where to target that stuff when you're pushing it back."

This would take co-operation with the Trump campaign, it is claimed.

"If you need to ensure that white women in Pennsylvania don't vote or independents get pissed in Michigan so they stay home: that's voter suppression. You can figure what your target demographics and locations are from the voter rolls. Then you can use that to target your bot."