© AP/Rich Pedroncelli
Sacramento County Registrar of Voters office sorting machine • August 30, 2021
A group of election security experts on Thursday called for a rigorous audit of the upcoming recall election for California's governor after copies of systems used to run elections across the country were released publicly.
Their letter sent to the secretary of state's office
urges the state to conduct a type of post-election audit that can help detect malicious attempts to interfere.
The statewide recall targeting Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, set for Sept. 14, is the first election since copies of Dominion Voting Systems' election management system were distributed last month at an event organized by
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ally of former President Donald Trump who has made unsubstantiated claims about last year's election.
Election offices across 30 states use the Dominion system, including 40 counties in California.
Election security experts have said the breaches, from a county in Colorado and another in Michigan,
pose a heightened risk to elections because the system is used for a number of administrative functions — from designing ballots and configuring voting machines to tallying results.
Comment: The right to vote, and what it stands for, is now in tatters, serving to widen the divide amongst both leadership and constituency.
© AP/Rich Pedroncelli
CA Sec. of State Shirley Webber on election security at the Capitol in Sacramento, CA.
Eight computer security experts wrote to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, urging her to order a post-vote audit to protect the outcome from possible manipulation and litigation. Their letter was first reported on Friday by the Associated Press (AP).
"If an actual cyberattack silently changes the outcome of the election, or any other procedural or software error does, a properly conducted RLA based on trustworthy paper ballots will detect it and correct it (with high probability). If the election outcome is correct in the first place the RLA will provide strong public evidence that it is, creating a 'firewall' against litigation and disinformation seeking to discredit the outcome."
RLA stands for risk-limiting audit, a type of check that focuses on the correct count of votes by a computer system. It involves securing a sample of paper ballots, counting them manually and comparing the result to how the machines tallied the same ballots.
Conducting one after the September 14 vote is necessary due to last month's leak of proprietary software used by Dominion Voting Systems, the experts said. The copies were reportedly distributed during an event in South Dakota organized by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
University of Michigan professor J. Alex Halderman's 25,000-word report detailing how the machines can be tampered with to change votes was sealed by a federal judge.
Some rightwing pundits sounded the alarm after hearing the news, apparently taking it as an indication of a brewing plot to alter the outcome of the recall vote, should it not favor Governor Newsom. There was recently a shift in opinion polls pointing to him likely staying in office.
Commentator Mike Cernovich, whom critics call a conspiracy theorist, said:
"They are already telling us what they are going to do! Remember when audits were treason and an attack on democracy? Now it's time to change positions because of the California recall."
A representative of Dominion downplayed the concerns, saying federal officials didn't see the leaks of its software as significantly increasing the risk to elections.
Meanwhile, the PTB have rallied around Newsom, providing the 'Hail Mary' funding to blitz the state with endorsements.
See also:
Soros dumps $1M into pro-Newsom PAC to fight recall effort
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