Rep. Devin Nunes suggests banning electronic voting systems to protect election integrity

The Washington Times ^ | Thursday, July 26, 2018 | Andrew Blake

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Rep. Devin Nunes, the head of the House Intelligence Committee, has endorsed banning the use of electronic voting systems to reduce the risk of further election meddling.

“The one thing we’ve been warning about for many, many years on the intelligence committee is about the electronic voting systems. Those are really dangerous in my opinion, and should not be used,” Mr. Nunes, California Republican, said in an interview aired Thursday on Hill.TV’s “Rising.”

“I think anybody that does that, and that’s communicating over the web, it’s going to be a challenge. So you have to make sure that you limit that as much as possible, and we need a paper trail so that you can go back in case you have to do a manual recount,” Mr. Nunes added.

The congressman suggested banning electronic voting systems in response to a question raised concerning the state of election security, and particularly whether the November 2018 midterms will be able to withstand any potential interference on par with efforts waged during the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

Russian hackers set their sights on American computer systems during the 2016 race while conducting state-sponsored operations targeting the election itself and particularly the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, according to U.S. officials.

[Lee25]

My understanding and experience from living and voting in Chicago is that it is paper voting where fraud is committed, such as dead voter, criminal voter, non citizen voter, multiple voting, no photo ID, decoy voting, ghost voter are all because of no check and verification of any kind whereas electronic voting can be implemented with all check and verification

[Reno89519]

LONG OVERDUE!!!

[raiderboy]

He is absolutely right. These things are already rigged as we have seen in Montgomery county Alabama to steal an election and Philadelphia and New York city. You vote MUST BE AUDITABLE with paper. We are in grave danger.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Photo ID could resolve those paper ballot issues.

Good luck with that.

[Reno89519]

You don’t know what is happening in an electronic voting machine and you cannot recount votes. The latter means no integrity, especially if someone hacks or intentionally changes the program—or if it was programmed to not count honestly or if it fails.

[butlerweave]

How about Electoral ink, indelible ink, electoral stain ,LOL

[odawg]

Common sense. Texas, a few years ago when I lived there, had a good system. Bubbled your choices on a ballot card and turned it in. Counting for the whole state took about two hours.

[Bernard Marx]

Of course changing back to paper voting will be screamingly opposed by the very loudmouths who are so concerned about Russian interference in the 2016 election. Integrity in voting would eliminate all their phony votes from illegals, dead people and would put their electronic cheating in danger.

[editor-surveyor]

.
Nunes is right on the money, as usual.
.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I think what they were getting at, and maybe I missed something, is that with paper ballots, you will have reliable source documents to do a recount if needed.

Another issue, and Chicago has been rumored to do this, is to withhold reporting returns until other places in a state have reported, so that those who would tamper with the vote count, know how many votes are needed to tip the balance in an election.

If I had any say, I would require that all results be held up, and all reported at the same time, so nobody can see vote count results in another area before they report their results.

[DannyTN]

Yeah voting over the web should be banned.

Electronic systems do need a paper trail.

And they need some checks and balances.

[wastedyears]

Expects democrats to not support it.

[editor-surveyor]

.
Your “understanding” is a total misunderstanding across the board!

Paper is the friction that fraud is trying to overcome with paperless electronic voting.
.

[Dacula]

STOP EARLY AND MAIL IN VOTING!

[MAGAthon]

perfect timing to get this done, given all the “hysteria” over Russia trying to hack the elections! lol.

plus electoral ink...and photo ID.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

Watch how the Democrats react.

If they oppose electronic then it’s a harder system to cheat with.

If they endorse it they’ve already figured out how to game it.

[bboop]

Thanks Good to know. I’m wary of voting machines, kind of prefer purple fingers, but glad to hear your feedback re Chicago.

[AustinBill]

Paper ballots don't eliminate voter fraud by themselves, but they make it more difficult. If you want to stuff a paper ballot box you need to do it one precinct at a time, which is a labor intensive and cumbersome process requiring a higher level of collusion than subtle hacks on electronic systems that can be done both remotely and well ahead of the actual vote. Paper also provides a built-in audit trail based on the original source vote for recounts or other disputes.

The key test for any voting system is how well does it protect the integrity of the vote against determined efforts to defraud by insiders, since that's the systemic danger. Electronic systems simply make it far to easy for insiders to commit fraud on a widescale basis. Like it or not, paper ballots are the still the best technology available to serve this need.

[BraveMan]

I loved my 1940 DeSoto Sportmaster. I shudder to think what it would be like voting with Machinery like that.