Latest news with #votingmachines
Associated Press
3 days ago
- General
- Associated Press
Wisconsin Elections Commission votes to let small communities hand count ballots
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin communities with fewer than 7,500 people can hand count ballots under a decision by the state elections commission this week. However, under the Wisconsin Elections Commission decision, those communities and all other Wisconsin towns, villages and cities must still comply with federal law and provide at least one electronic voting machine at a polling location to accommodate voters with disabilities. The commission's decision Tuesday came in reaction to a complaint against the northwestern Wisconsin town of Thornapple, population about 700, over its decision to hand count ballots in the April 2024 presidential primary or the August state primary. The decision also comes as a federal lawsuit over Thornapple's decision not to have an accessible voting machine continues. A federal judge in October sided with the U.S. Department of Justice and ruled Thornapple was violating 2002's Help America Vote Act, or HAVA. The judge ordered the town to offer disabled people accessible voting machines. An appeal by the town is pending. Under the commission's decision this week, communities with fewer than 7,500 people can choose to have no other electronic vote-casting or tabulating machines other than one for disabled voters. Elections commission staff determined state law makes it optional for communities with fewer than 7,500 people to provide voting machines in every ward in every election. The law says those communities may 'adopt and purchase voting machines or electronic voting systems for use in any ward … at any election.' Republican commissioner Bob Spindell said the decision will give smaller communities more flexibility, especially in low-turnout local elections. But But Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs, who cast the lone no vote, said she worried small communities could game the system by selling voting machines purchased with funding from a state grant and then keep the money. The complaint against Thornapple was filed by the liberal law firm Law Forward on behalf of two Thornapple residents. A spokesperson for the law firm did not immediately return an email seeking comment Friday. The commission's decision could be appealed to circuit court.
Associated Press
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Trump order targets barcodes on ballots. They've long been a source of misinformation
ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to overhaul how U.S. elections are run includes a somewhat obscure reference to the way votes are counted. Voting equipment, it says, should not use ballots that include 'a barcode or quick-response code.' Those few technical words could have a big impact. Voting machines that give all voters a ballot with one of those codes are used in hundreds of counties across 19 states. Three of them -- Georgia, South Carolina and Delaware -- use the machines statewide. Some computer scientists, Democrats and left-leaning election activists have raised concerns about their use, but those pushing conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election have been the loudest, claiming without evidence that manipulation has already occurred. Trump, in justifying the move, said in the order that his intention was 'to protect election integrity.' Even some election officials who have vouched for the accuracy of systems that use coded ballots have said it's time to move on because too many voters don't trust them. Colorado's secretary of state, Democrat Jena Griswold, decided in 2019 to stop using ballots with QR codes, saying at the time that voters 'should have the utmost confidence that their vote will count.' Amanda Gonzalez, the elections clerk in Colorado's Jefferson County, doesn't support Trump's order but believes Colorado's decision was a worthwhile step. 'We can just eliminate confusion,' Gonzalez said. 'At the end of the day, that's what I want -- elections that are free, fair, transparent.' Target for misinformation Whether voting by mail or in person, millions of voters across the country mark their selections by using a pen to fill in ovals on paper ballots. Those ballots are then fed through a tabulating machine to tally the votes and can be retrieved later if a recount is needed. In other places, people voting in person use a touch-screen machine to mark their choices and then get a paper record of their votes that includes a barcode or QR code. A tabulator scans the code to tally the vote. Election officials who use that equipment say it's secure and that they routinely perform tests to ensure the results match the votes on the paper records, which they retain. The coded ballots have nevertheless become a target of election conspiracy theories. 'I think the problem is super exaggerated,' said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice. 'I understand why it can appeal to certain parts of the public who don't understand the way this works, but I think it's being used to try to question certain election results in the past.' Those pushing conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election have latched onto a long-running legal battle over Georgia's voting system. In that case, a University of Michigan computer scientist testified that an attacker could tamper with the QR codes to change voter selections and install malware on the machines. The testimony from J. Alex Halderman has been used to amplify Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, even though there is no evidence that any of the weaknesses he found were exploited. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has defended the state's voting system as secure. In March, the judge who presided over Halderman's testimony declined to block the use of Georgia's voting equipment but said the case had 'identified substantial concerns about the administration, maintenance and security of Georgia's electronic in-person voting system.' Can the executive order ban coded ballots? Trump's election executive order is being challenged in multiple lawsuits. One has resulted in a preliminary injunction against a provision that sought to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote. The section banning ballots that use QR or barcodes relies on a Trump directive to a federal agency, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which sets voluntary guidelines for voting systems. Not all states follow them. Some of the lawsuits say Trump doesn't have the authority to direct the commission because it was established by Congress as an independent agency. While the courts sort that out, the commission's guidelines say ballots using barcodes or QR codes should include a printed list of the voters' selections so they can be checked. Trump's order exempts voting equipment used by voters with disabilities, but it promises no federal money to help states and counties shift away from systems using QR or barcodes. 'In the long run, it would be nice if vendors moved away from encoding, but there's already evidence of them doing that,' said Pamela Smith, president of the group Verified Voting. Counties in limbo Kim Dennison, election coordinator of Benton County, Arkansas, estimated that updating the county's voting system would cost around $400,000 and take up to a year. Dennison said she has used equipment that relies on coded ballots since she started her job 15 years ago and has never found an inaccurate result during postelection testing. 'I fully and completely trust the equipment is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing and not falsifying reports,' she said. 'You cannot change a vote once it's been cast.' In Pennsylvania's Luzerne County, voting machines that produce a QR code will be used in this year's primary. But officials expect a manufacturer's update later this year to remove the code before the November elections. County Manager Romilda Crocamo said officials had not received any complaints from voters about QR codes but decided to make the change when Dominion Voting Systems offered the update. The nation's most populous county, Los Angeles, uses a system with a QR code that it developed over a decade and deployed in 2020 after passing a state testing and certification program. The county's chief election official, Dean Logan, said the system exceeded federal guidelines at the time and meets many of the standards outlined in the most recent ones approved in 2021. He said postelection audits have consistently confirmed its accuracy. Modifying or replacing it would be costly and take years, he said. The county's current voting equipment is valued at $140 million. 'Train Wreck' in Georgia? Perhaps nowhere has the issue been more contentious than Georgia, a presidential battleground. It uses the same QR code voting system across the state. Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, a lead plaintiff in the litigation over the system, said her group has not taken a position on Trump's executive order but said the federal Election Assistance Commission should stop certifying machines that use barcodes. The secretary of state said the voting system follows Georgia law, which requires federal certification at the time the system is bought. Nevertheless, the Republican-controlled legislature has voted to ban the use of QR codes but did not allocate any money to make the change — a cost estimated at $66 million. Republicans said they want to replace the system when the current contract expires in 2028, but their law is still scheduled to take effect next year. GOP state Rep. Victor Anderson said there is no realistic way to 'prevent the train wreck that's coming.' ___ Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy contributed to this report. ___ Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon.
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
How a Florida-based election skeptic came to run elections in California
Clint Curtis is a familiar face among election skeptics in the United States. The Florida-based lawyer and former computer programmer has said he once developed a software that could change votes. He opposes the use of voting machines and highlights his connection to proponents of election conspiracy theories, including Mike Lindell and Steve Bannon. Soon he is slated to start overseeing elections in Shasta county, California, a conservative region of 180,000 people in the state's far north where Republicans vastly outnumber Democrats. After holding public interviews, the governing body in Shasta voted late last month to appoint the out-of-state candidate – who has never before overseen an elections office – to serve as the county clerk and registrar of voters. 'I think now is the time to do things differently and lead in a different way,' said Kevin Crye, the chair of Shasta's board of supervisors, and one of three supervisors who supported Curtis for the role. He said that Curtis could 'right' what he believes is wrong with elections. The move was not unexpected in a county that has emerged as a center of the US election denialism movement, which maintains that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. But the decision to appoint Curtis over more experienced candidates, such as Joanna Francescut, the assistant elections clerk and registrar of voters who has worked in the office for more than 16 years, shows the deep foothold election fears and conspiracy theories have in the county. Shasta county has faced years of political turmoil with the rise of a far-right faction in county government, and decisions around elections and voting have been particularly contentious. The region's elections office reported increased harassment and aggressive behavior toward workers in past years. Cathy Darling Allen, the longtime elections clerk who retired last year, reported being frequently maligned by ultra-conservative elected officials and residents convinced of widespread voter fraud. In 2023, the county's board of supervisors cut ties with Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machine company at the center of baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud, and ordered the creation of a system using a hand-count in an effort to 'restore trust'. Patrick Jones, a far-right supervisor who promoted the plan, argued that year that 'Elections have been manipulated at the county level for decades' and that Shasta's efforts could put a stop to the supposed interference. Amid national outcry, state lawmakers intervened, passing a bill preventing counties from using costly and error-prone manual tallies in most elections. But the residents who believe conspiracy theories about voter fraud and stolen elections and the supervisors who have expressed skepticism in the process, have not given up on their efforts to transform voting in the region. While Shasta is a small county with political aims at odds with those of the Democratic state, what happens here has provided a framework for election deniers on how to advance their agenda across the US and reverberated nationally. When the county was considering ousting Crye, one of its most conservative officials, national figures including Rand Paul and Trump ally Kari Lake urged residents to vote no on the recall. Last year when Allen announced her retirement after 20 years due to medical issues, the Shasta county board of supervisors held public interviews to replace her. Curtis and Francescut both applied then. Francescut, who oversaw the office of the county clerk and registrar of voters for months after Allen went on leave, had the endorsement of elections officials and prominent area Republicans. The board opted then to appoint Tom Toller, a former prosecutor who had never worked in elections. He vowed to change the office culture, improve public confidence, and suggested he would be willing to pushback against the California secretary of state's office. In the end Toller was a vocal supporter of the office, and said he never saw evidence of fraud. He rejected suggestions from a local voting commission to take action that he said wouldn't comply with state law. Toller announced plans to resign in March due to medical reasons and endorsed Francescut for the job. When the board of supervisors again held public interviews in April, both Francescut and Curtis applied for the job. Residents who have frequently spoken publicly about their concerns about vote tampering and stolen elections, expressed support for Curtis. But others urged the board to hire Francescut. 'Appointing her would not only be the logical choice but also a step toward ending the chaos and division that has plagued our elections for the past three years,' one speaker said. 'Without a doubt appointing a self-proclaimed election expert with no ties to our community, no elections experience and a history of promoting unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud would be a grave disservice to the voters of our county.' Francescut highlighted her 16 years of experience in elections and history of working with the board of supervisors. 'I have a great technical knowledge,' she told the board. 'The work of election administration requires a diverse skill set, including the ability to tabulate ballots as well as marketing and educating voters.' Curtis has been known in election integrity circles since claiming that he developed a software to hack voting machines in 2000 at the request of the Florida state lawmaker Tom Feeney. He was reportedly interviewed by the FBI and spoke to Congress about his claims. Feeney, who Curtis ran against for a congressional seat, as well as his employer, denied those allegations. Curtis, who previously ran for Congress as a Democrat, told the board of supervisors he felt compelled to 'fix' elections because of the software he claimed to develop. 'I broke it so I better fix it,' he said. He said had a plan to secure elections in Shasta county by installing cameras and filming every step of the process so its integrity can be verified. He also mentioned his appearances on the shows of Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn and Mike Lindell and said he had worked in elections law for years, citing consulting work with governments in Germany and the Netherlands about hand-counting (although he declined to provide contact information for people who could verify such work or other clients to the local outlet A News Cafe.) That same outlet reported that he appeared to have lied on his application for the role. Curtis also said he had worked on the Kamala Harris ballot audit when she ran for attorney general in California. Curtis told the board he preferred hand-counting but would follow state law, and that running elections was a 'pretty straightforward process'. 'We can secure our elections without having to have that hand count so everyone can still see everything,' he said. Supervisor Matt Plummer opposed Curtis's appointment, arguing his ideas had a 'track record' of failure and pointing to widespread community support for Francescut. 'The voters of Shasta county want Joanna in this role,' he said. Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, however, said his appointment could 'change voting not only in Shasta county but possibly the whole state and possibly the whole nation'. The board voted 3-2 in favor of hiring Curtis to serve out the remainder of the term. The appointment will be finalized after the completion of a background check. In response to a query from the Guardian, Curtis emphasized that he had worked with people of different political beliefs. 'I do not judge people by their political beliefs and feel that we must be willing to treat everyone with respect. Failing to do so just keeps us at each other throats and we accomplish nothing,' he said in an email. The news of his appointment was met with dismay by Francescut's supporters, including Morgan Akin, who has volunteered as a poll worker in the county alongside his wife for several years. He said he wasn't sure if he would continue to volunteer. 'She has 16 years of service there and they hired a guy who has no experience in elections.' Soon after the decision, Francescut announced her intention to run for the office in 2026.
