Re: VICTORY: We stopped funding for dangerous online voting

[oli6...@aol.com]

Dear Susan

What you perceive as a victory is nothing of the kind.

Of course funding "dangerous" on-line voting would be foolish but this is a perjorative judgement about a solution which is yet to be propsed and may be far safer than any voting system currently in use throughout the USA.

Removing funding for reseach and development of on-line voting systems sets back the time when end to end verification will become how most people vote in the future.

Quoting all the authorities you do demonstrates the wholly unscientific basis of their belief.  Of course they are correct to question any voting proposal but to declare that secure on-line voting is impossible is an assertion far beyond anyone's expertise. It is a statement of their prejudice because they lack the creativity to imagine a solution.  It is not the way discoveries and progress is made.

The way forward is to invite anybody to submit proposals for a solution.   Simply removing funding ensures no solution will be found.

The UOCAVA voters are a special case.  They are an ideal set as serving their needs is more challenging than those of domestic voters.  They are unlikely to swing the result of an elections while at the same time offering the opportunity to solve the problem in principle,because they are spread so thinly over multiple jurisdictions.

A more enlightened approach is to fund promising solutions against a set of rigourous criteria, one of which being that the voters own their vote and are able to verify that their vote is counted as cast with private end to end proof that guarantees the privacy and integrity of their vote.

Significantly this requirement exceeds the standard applied to any currently used voting system in the USA.  What could possibly wrong with funding such a development for testing against a set of acceptance criteria which includes the one above?

Advancing the cause of confidence in the US voting system would be valuable especially in these times where scepticism is at an alltime high for those whose candidate is deemed to have lost.  That the Senate voted down efforts to enhance belief in the system is a sign of their lack of interest in finding the solution.  

Are you Susan Suniat I met some years ago in Washington?  Merry Christmas and a successful New Year .  

Kind regards

Peter Oliver

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-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Greenhalgh <con...@freespeechforpeople.org>
To: peter oliver <oli6...@aol.com>
Sent: Wed, 22 Dec 2021 14:32
Subject: VICTORY: We stopped funding for dangerous online voting

Our service members deserve the highest standard of safe and verifiable voting. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

peter, BREAKING: The Senate Committee on Armed Services has scrapped the portion of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have promoted and funded dangerously insecure online voting for military and overseas voters. The House of Representatives’ version of the NDAA included two well-intentioned, but extremely ill-considered funding streams that would have promoted and funded online voting for military and overseas voters. According to research from numerous federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland security, computer scientists, and national security experts, online voting remains unacceptably insecure and leaves voters’ personal data and vote preferences vulnerable to hacking. FSFP worked with our contacts in Congress and our allies at Protect Democracy, Common Cause, U.S Vote Foundation, and Verified Voting to send a coalition letter to the Senate Committee on Armed Services in October. We urged the Senate to omit sections of the NDAA, as passed in the House of Representatives, that would fund online voting for absent uniformed service and overseas voters.  We offered lawmakers other policy options to improve the voting process for service members overseas that don’t require us to resort to online voting. These include automatic voter registration for eligible members of the military, automatic mailing of ballots to registered military, expedited ballot return, enhanced ballot tracking, and extended deadlines for the return of military ballots. The Senate Committee on Armed Services has acted in the best interest of our voters in the military and the integrity of our electoral system. Our service members deserve the highest standard of safe and verifiable voting. For the foreseeable future, internet voting cannot meet that standard and places military voters' votes — and the trustworthiness of elections themselves — at risk. In solidarity, Susan Greenhalgh Senior Advisor on Election Security, Free Speech For People DONATE Paid for by Free Speech For People con...@freespeechforpeople.org Having trouble viewing this email? View it in your web browser Unsubscribe or Manage Your Preferences