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The 2020 election season is finally upon us, and Verified Voting is hitting the ground running to reach every jurisdiction on our Validating 2020 list with the tools and guidance election officials need to help voters trust that their votes are safe and secure. Our plan for Validating 2020 is to expand risk-limiting audits along with other best practices across the country to confirm reported election outcomes -- or correct discrepancies -- before the vote counts are final. Hindsight is 2020 -- learn more about our plan by watching our video and visiting our campaign website.
The following report reflects Verified Voting’s work in the previous fiscal quarter. As always, the activities described in this update would not be possible without supporters like you, who share our dedication to strengthening democracy for all voters, and ensuring that every vote can be counted as cast.
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We are making key staff hires in the program, audit, and data analyst fields, so be on the lookout for new faces and names at #TeamVerifiedVoting in the coming weeks. Also, please welcome Saskia Pilorge, our new Administrative Assistant. Saskia comes to us from New York, where she served as the Campaigns and Development fellow for Pencils of Promise doing grassroots fundraising and strategic planning. A graduate of SUNY Albany, Saskia is excited to join the team in our mission to promote the responsible use of technology in our elections.
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We are also pleased to report that the Verifier - the most comprehensive publicly-accessible database of voting systems used in the country - has been updated to show the country’s voting equipment by county on the Verifier’s map. It also now distinguishes between jurisdictions that primarily use hand-marked paper ballot voting systems and those that primarily use ballot marking devices to produce a paper ballot. Please email verifier@verifiedvoting.org if you have any questions about the data.
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In December, Congress passed a budget package that includes $425 million for election security funding, which is a necessary investment in the security of America's election infrastructure. An analysis from Verified Voting and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law breaks down the estimated allocation by state and can be viewed here.
In mid-December, we joined forces with the Brennan Center, Common Cause, Freedom House, Issue One, National Election Defense Coalition, Protect Democracy, and R Street Institute to drop a message in the Washington Post urging Congress to support election security funding. The message hit Congress’s doorstep before the bill passed, helping to push members over the finish line to vote for the spending bill.
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We have long advocated for Congress to pass comprehensive election security legislation and allocate adequate funding for state and local officials to make critical improvements to our country’s election infrastructure. We’ll continue to push for sustained investment in our elections' infrastructure, along with strong oversight authority to ensure that the funding is spent wisely.
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We are continuing to advise the state on proposed risk-limiting audit regulations and Director of Science and Technology Policy Mark Lindeman and Senior Advisor Pamela Smith collaborated with the California Voter Foundation and other partners in submitting a public comment letter responding to the regulations. Read the letter here. Pam Smith also provided a comment on the certification process for Los Angeles County’s VSAP 2.0 system, available here.
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Florida Director Dan McCrea and Mark Lindeman joined our lobbying team on January 21 and 22 for an intense two-day schedule of stops at the Tallahassee Capitol. While there, we met with numerous Senators, Representatives, key staff, and the Secretary of State on HB 1005/SB 1312, which proposes to expand the use of their insecure image audit system from post-certification audits to conducting recounts. We oppose the bill as written, and are working to pave a path forward. We also met with Representatives to advise them on the risks of opening the door to internet voting.
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Verified Voting sent a letter to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger addressing Verified Voting’s concerns following the November 2019 election in Georgia and providing clarity on Verified Voting’s position and involvement with risk-limiting audit pilots in the state. Read the letter here.
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President Marian K. Schneider wrote a letter to the North Carolina State Board of Elections urging them to decline to waive certification requirements for voting systems with known security flaws. Read the letter here. We oppose voting systems in which all voters in a polling place are forced to vote on ballot marking devices, and will continue to advocate for jurisdictions to choose hand-marked paper ballots supplemented with BMDs for those who need to use them.
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Verified Voting is building relationships in the battleground state and we are happy to report that Mark Lindeman participated in risk-limiting audit pilots along with other groups in Defiance and Clark Counties, with the possibility of more work to come.
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After vetoing earlier measures, Governor Tom Wolf signed an election reform bill in October that includes $90 million for counties to upgrade their voting systems. We are proud of the work we did over the past 18 months to obtain this important funding. Many counties in the state are following our recommendations and have chosen hand-marked paper ballots (supplemented with ballot marking devices for those who need them) and we continue to advocate against less secure voting systems that some counties have purchased.
We also participated in RLA pilots in Mercer and Philadelphia counties as part of the Department of State’s audit work group. While we oppose voting systems in which all voters in a polling place are forced to vote on ballot marking devices like in Philadelphia County, RLA pilots can provide value for election officials to learn about the RLA process and other security best practices around paper ballots such as chain of custody, proper ballot accounting, secure storage and retrieval methods for randomly sampling ballots to check that the computers counted the ballots correctly. Read more about our role in conducting RLAs here.
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After spending the past legislative session outlining security concerns with internet voting proposals targeted at active duty military overseas, Verified Voting is focused on outreach to military advocacy organizations to propose secure methods. We are also engaging with jurisdictions across the state as they move toward RLA implementation, building off our successful 2018 pilot with the City of Fairfax.
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In October, Marian Schneider gave the keynote address at the Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology’s symposium on “Elections Technology and the Law: Securing Our Democracy in the Digital Age."
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Marian Schneider spoke on a panel at the National Association of Secretaries of State conference in Washington, DC in January. The panel addressed “Perspectives on Voting Systems: Accessibility, Security, and the Voter Experience.”
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Verified Voting sponsored a well-attended election security panel at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in January 2020. Over 100 people attended. The panel was organized by Mathematical Advisor Audrey Malagon, and speakers included Verified Voting Data Scientist Stephanie Singer and Board Member Ron Rivest.
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Mark Lindeman and Communications Officer Corrie Emerson attended the US Election Assistance Commission’s 2020 Elections Summit and heard from members of the EAC, the Department of Homeland Security, and several local jurisdictions about their plans to help #protect2020.
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Verified Voting’s President, Board of Directors, and Staff published a statement intended to clarify Verified Voting’s position regarding the use of ballot-marking devices (BMDs) in elections, and the use of risk-limiting audits (RLAs).
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We released a handout describing RLAs and how they differ from other types of post-elections audits, which can be downloaded here. We also released a chart comparing three RLA methods: Ballot-Level Comparison, Batch Comparison and Ballot Polling. Check out the chart here.
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We support and encourage the respectful public observation of the election process. Read more about election observation guidelines and recommendations in our blog post.
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HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver produced a segment on voting machines and Verified Voting consulted with the Emmy award-winning show on the content and provided our data from The Verifier.
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Thanks to your generosity, Verified Voting ended the previous fiscal quarter two-thirds of the way to meeting our baseline budget for 2019-2020, including over $245,000 raised in response to our end of year outreach. Special thanks again to Guy and Jeanine Saperstein and an anonymous supporter for their matching pledges of $40,000.
But there is still much we need to accomplish to be everywhere we need to be by November. In our next update, we look forward to introducing you to new program and data analysis team members, sharing highlights from additional audit pilots and major election conferences, and providing a first glance at our revamped website.
This report is your guide to Verified Voting’s current activities, none of which would be possible without your support and involvement. Please contact Communications Officer Corrie Emerson at corrie@verifiedvoting.org if you have feedback or questions on this newsletter. If you would like more information on the resources needed to carry out this vital work, please contact Development and Outreach Officer Rachel Dellon at rachel@verifiedvoting.org or 760-804-8683.
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