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
ES&S downplays problems w/ its voting machines. To know what occurred, we need public records requests. @RGarella did one in 2019 & found that, “‘poll workers & technicians reported issues with the new machines at more than 40 % of polling locations,’...1/

...[in Philadelphia], yet the voting machine vendor ES&S said that ‘it was ‘simply inaccurate’ for anyone to imply there were widespread issues.’” 2/

Although the GOP wants everyone focused on Dominion, it is ES&S that for years has arguably caused the most concern among election-integrity advocates and experts. I wrote about these concerns in detail here. 3/

Stacey Abrams’s group, Fair Fight Action, created this document detailing concerns with voting machine vendor ES&S, which had the Georgia contract before Georgia switched to Dominion. 4/

Look what happened on ES&S’s watch in Georgia in 2018. The situation w/ ES&S & these vanishing black votes was under congressional investigation when a court ordered Georgia to replace its old touchscreens in time for the 2020 election. 5/
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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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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
“A recorded audio conversation appears to show Colorado District 4 Congressman Ken Buck pressuring an El Paso County GOP official to falsify election results in the State Senate District 10 race.”
— 5/18/20 #GOPElectionFraud 1/

h/t @GOPisComplicit 2/

More coverage. Wow. 3/

This. Read the Denver Post piece. It is brazen. 4/
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Jennifer Cohn \u270d\U0001f3fb \U0001f4e2
Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢...
@jennycohn1
.@CharlieKirk11’s “Turning Point Action was listed as a participant in [the] ... rally, which preceded the attack on Capitol Hill. Prior to the rally, in a tweet he later deleted, Kirk said the group wld be involved w/ sending over 80 buses...” 1/

2/ “CNBC captured a screenshot of tweet before it was deleted.
Kirk recently said on his podcast that those from Turning Point got back on their buses & left following the conclusion of the rally.”

3/ Thread


4/ 😳


5/
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Today in #GRAHAMNC I went to a permitted March to the Polls lead by Rev Drumwright and others. Starting at a Black AME church, Rev Drumwright started the march by asking folks what our intentions were. TO VOTE the crowd chanted. Its the last day of Early Voting in #NC.


We then marched, escorted by police, about half a mile towards the center of Graham, chanting and singing. We moved slowly, because of the many elderly folks and families with small children. Graham is a small town in #AlamanceCounty.


Alamance County is known as "No Chance Alamance" because of rampant inequality and a judicial system generally known to be hostile to Black and Brown folks, and poor white folks. We believe that we can change that at the polls this year.

As the march approached the center of Graham where a large Confederate statue is, we kneeled in rememberance of George Floyd. His neice and nephew were in the crowd.


Moments after we were done kneeling a police officer started to yell that we had to be off the street. Folks were confused because we had been escorted there and had a permit. I moved my child up onto the sidewalk. They started pepper spraying us. My child couldn't run because
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They’re shooting into the chamber.
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A brief thread on Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, the crazy con man who is now claiming to have hacked into the Georgia voting machines in Fulton County. 90s kids and tech aficionados might remember Jovan as the inventor of the CueCat, the dumbest gadget of all time.

Also, for anyone who wants to claim that Jovan Hutton Pulitzer (not his given name, but one he changed legally after the CueCat debacle) invented QR Codes: he did not. Like that other right-wing crazy man who claimed to have invented email, Jovan didn’t invent QR Codes.

He did invent the CueCat, a product that somehow raised $185 million dollars for a tethered barcode scanner for magazines and newspapers, so you could get ads from your ads. As I said, the dumbest product of all time. Good backup barcode scanners after they were hacked, however

Oh, that’s another thing. When CueCat was a thing, its systems were hacked. I guess that’s what makes Jovan a security expert. His bankrupt company from 20 years ago was hacked and widely mocked. He’s a genius.

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The initiatives of Congress are to come in two areas. One within the party and the other with other parties.
First Congress has to Improve its communication with people, cadres, leaders and supporters.
Rahul is mainly shouldering this responsibility. But why not other leaders.
/1

It may be argued that some leaders are doing it within their areas. What about other areas, other leaders?
There will be many contenders for posts, maybe even for President’s if given a chance.
Why not leaders volunteer to propagate views, counter the Modi regime on the field?
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Some leaders give out statements in media, write their views on social media. Are they enough? Are they doing justice to their potential?
Even during elections, they limit themselves to their constituencies/ state.
Why should they not extend it beyond & even between elections?
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The statements of Congress leaders with few exceptions are bland, insipid, prosaic, not interesting and attracting enough to percolate to the people.
How many of their messages reached the people?
Can they not make it more attractive or find other ways to reach the masses?
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Some may say there are limitations of age, barriers of territory, egos, invitations, interference.
Most of them are artificial, self-imposed and can be sorted out.
These leaders do not devote themselves to the masses.
If Rahul does it, expected to do it why not others?
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So I've been reporting a story about how you'd fix the impeachment process. It doesn't work for removal, as currently designed. Impeachment was built for a political system without parties. It fails in a system with polarized parties.

The one time it functioned as intended, confusingly, was the time it didn't happen: Richard Nixon wasn't impeached! But the impeachment process, which came at the low ebb of party polarization in American history, convinced his party to force him to resign.

Would Republicans force Nixon to resign today?

Oh, you're cute. Thank you. I needed that.

The problem of impeachment is pretty simple: Presidents are leaders of parties. Parties are tied to the political fortunes of presidents. You're asking a party to basically wreck its immediate political future for the good of the system.

This doesn't just have the effect of making impeachment ineffective as a remedy. It's worse than that. It makes impeachment dangerous to the president's party, and gives them a reason to defend him and either normalize or minimize his crimes. As we are seeing right now.
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2/It's true that in some circles - the media, universities, many big corporations - liberal norms *are* enforced to some degree, and the enforcement has probably gotten stronger in recent years.

But I don't think this explains all of the Right's obsession.

3/The stereotype is that people on the Right tend to be more threat-sensitive. That would help explain the perception that liberal norm-enforcers are lurking everywhere, ready to pounce and anathematize anyone who makes a misstep.

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