by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff
Wyoming citizens deserve the fairest, most ethical and verifiable voting process available, one that protects the right to vote without giving sway to corrupt politicians, out-of-state-based special interests, garden variety computer glitches, or even rogue state actors such as North Korea, Iran and Russia. There are a few steps in the voting process, and the means for maintaining the election's true and accurate outcome election are universally understood and simple to grasp.
The basic steps of a fair and honest voting process are accurate and well-maintained voter rolls, with photo ID required at registration and when voting; paper ballots; no mail-in ballots, except in very limited circumstances such as absentee or military service votes; and a verifiable auditing process. These well-known antidotes to every sort of voter fraud are simple to execute and create the utmost certainty that an election is fair.
Voting machines in particular have created many problems with this process. Once citizens cast their votes, they must know that the way they voted was honored and is accounted for. These results also must be delivered in a timely fashion. For an example of the latest problems with these systems, look no further than the Iowa Caucus results this last voting cycle. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/upshot/iowa-caucuses-errors-results.html
All voting machines, so far, are subject to fraudulent and/or erroneous results from a number of sources- incorrect programming, hacking from inside corruption or outside rogue state actors, lack of audit trail, outright failure of ballot preparation, inaccurate registration of selection, outdated equipment, equipment failure and improper operation. Wyoming uses ES&S machines, about which the Wyoming State Department has said:
"…Voting systems are air-gapped and will never connect to the Internet," said State Election Director Kai Schon. "ES&S has implemented the best security measures and their systems have been tried and tested over years of successful elections in Wyoming."
https://buckrail.com/wyoming-makes-statewide-switch-to-new-election-equipment-vendor/
Unfortunately for Wyoming voters, "It has been proven in a number of scenarios that air-gapped networks can be infiltrated. The most famous example is Stuxnet, the worm that disrupted the process of enriching uranium in Iran's Natanz nuclear facility – which was reportedly delivered via a thumb drive."
https://www.belden.com/blog/industrial-security/network-air-gapping
"There is a misperception that a hacker needs to have live access to a machine to hack it. They just need to be able to inject malware from a data source." Jake Braun, CEO Cambridge Global. (interview, 5/18/20)
Paper ballots have the virtue of providing a secure and verifiable audit trail in the case that results ever need to be checked, for any reason. They are generally clear and easy to mark, and they keep the Wyoming voting process under the control of Wyoming officials, rather than surrendering the integrity of each person's vote to the mercies of computer systems, software crashes and outright hacking.
For all that the ES&S machines are tabulating paper ballots in Wyoming, the gold standard in fair and honest elections is to hand count paper ballots, collected from registered voters who present ID at the polling location, twice. This ensures that no hacking or manipulation of the vote is possible. Why use these expensive and vulnerable machines to count, tabulate and report the results of the voting? Why export jobs that could be paid for in Wyoming to ES&S or similar companies when the results are questionable and open to manipulation?
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Wyoming citizens deserve to have their vote matter- and voting machines cannot guarantee that. The County Clerks and their staff, as well as the Wyoming Secretary of State, are working hard to find the best solution, one that serves the interests of Wyoming voters for fair and honest elections, and to comply with all applicable statutes, State and Federal. Voting Machines, Vote By Mail, non-verified voter registration and other similar schemes that stray from the known, fair, honest and verifiable voting process compromise voter integrity, and deprive Wyoming citizens and their government of fair representation.