Stella Anderson's Plan To Harden NC's Elections Against Cyber Attacks Still Hangs in the Balance

Stella Anderson
Photo Brendan Hoekstra,
The Appalachian

Jordan Wilkie, writing in The Indy, understands the importance of this past week for the future of democracy in North Carolina. The resignation of state Board of Elections (SBOE) Chair Bob Cordle preserved Stella Anderson's initiative to make electronic voting equipment much less susceptible to foreign and domestic mischief. August 23rd will be D-Day for that proposal when the SBOE will vote on final approval.

Had Cordle remained chair through Thursday's special called meeting, Republican member David Black would have changed his earlier aye vote, and with the other Republican member, Ken Raymond, the three-man majority would have overruled Anderson and pushed through certification of machinery that produces only barcode paper receipts of how a voter voted.

Anderson saw that as unacceptable, and so do we.

Specifically, a rescind vote would have saved the bacon of one "controversial vendor" of touch-screen technology, Elections Systems and Software, or ESandS, the company that promises that their barcodes are accurate reflections of voter intent.

"Controversial vendor"? Jordan Wilkie is also a reporter for The Guardian, and his reporting on a federal lawsuit in Georgia challenging the constitutionality of that state's election process tracked the role of ESandS, which was supplying voting equipment for the 2018 close and contested election of Republican Brian Kemp in Georgia. Testimony in that case revealed that ESandS staffers built the 2018 Georgia ballot at their homes, without verifiable security. “You’re taking what the state has said is the roadmap to hack an election and they’re just letting it sit on people’s home computers with no evidence of any kind of security,” one of the plaintiffs said. “I mean, it’s truly insane. I cannot overstate how crazy that is.”

(You could spend all day following Google links about ESandS, "the largest voting machine company in the US," headquartered in Omaha.)

Wilkie gives Stella Anderson a laurel wreath for protecting our very democracy: "If Anderson’s motion passes [on August 23], it would be the first of its kind in the nation and would follow best-practice guidelines from election security experts. Not only would ESandS’s voting machines be removed from consideration, but it would make North Carolina an entirely hand-marked paper ballot state...."

Josh Lawson, who was the SBOE’s general counsel until June, has been speaking out on the issue too and totally agrees with Anderson: “My immediate and short-term concern is voter confidence,” Lawson says. “I think that the barcode ballot process does not support or instill voter confidence to the same degree as hand-marked paper ballots...."

Our "democracy watch" on this whole issue now turns to Governor Roy Cooper and his choice to replace Bob Cordle at the SBOE. Will that person be in place by August 23rd? And will that person vote affirmatively for Anderson's proposal to change certification requirements in North Carolina to ensure paper-ballot proof from electronic equipment?

Cordle Gone ... What's Next?

NC State Board of Elections Chair Bob Cordle resigned about sundown yesterday, a few hours after he had called a special meeting of the board for tomorrow for the purposes of rescinding its 3-2 vote on Monday to require greater accountability and cyber security from voting machine manufacturers. Republican David Black wanted to change his vote from Monday, when he had voted with the two Democrats to delay certification. He's now champing at the bit, evidently, to push through certification of three voting machine vendors, one of whom could not promise to produce a voter-readable paper ballot as proof of how the voter voted.

The meeting on Thursday is apparently going forward even without Cordle, and with a 2-2 stalemate likely between the remaining Democrats and Republicans, the vote on Monday can't be rescinded, and that's a good thing. Stalemate will leave in place a new criteria going forward for all voting machinery, proposed by board member Stella Anderson:

"An electronically assisted ballot marking device or other ballot marking equipment shall produce human-readable marks on a paper ballot. The voter must be able to verify his or her intent as evidenced by the mark on the ballot. The mark shall be tabulated as the voter's selection."

Beyond that, who will Roy Cooper appoint as the new chair of the state Board of Elections?

How Did Bob Cordle Get To Be Chair of the NC State Board of Elections?

At the opening of the State Board of Elections Training Conference yesterday morning in a cavernous meeting room at the Embassy Suites in Cary, and in front of some 700 boards of election officials from all 100 counties, Chairman of the State Board Bob Cordle reportedly told a version of the wholly misogynistic "The Welsh Cow" joke, in which he compared women to cows unwilling to be mounted from behind, in front, or from the side. Hundreds of people heard it.

The classic goes like this (and we don't know exactly how Mr. Cordle may have shortened or changed it, but the punchline certainly survived):

THE WELSH COW

The only cow in a small town in Ireland stopped giving milk. Then the town folk found they could buy a cow in Wales quite cheaply. So, they brought the cow over from Wales. It was absolutely wonderful. It produced lots of milk every day and everyone was happy.

They bought a bull to mate with the cow to get more cows, so they'd never have to worry about their milk supply again. They put the bull in the pasture with the cow but whenever the bull tried to mount the cow, the cow would move away. No matter what approach the bull tried, the cow would move away from the bull, and he was never able to do the deed.

The people were very upset and decided to go to the Vet, who was very wise, tell him what was happening and ask his advice. "Whenever the bull tries to mount our cow, she moves away. If he approaches from the back, she moves forward. When he approaches her from the front, she backs off. If he attempts it from the one side, she walks away to the other side."

The Vet rubbed his chin thoughtfully and pondered this before asking, "Did you by chance buy this cow in Wales?" The people were dumbfounded, since no one had ever mentioned that they had brought the cow over from Wales. "You are truly a wise Vet," they said. "How did you know we got the cow from Wales?"

The Vet replied with a distant look in his eye: "My wife's from Wales."

What exactly was the point of telling this joke at a conference on election training, with a preponderance of women in that room? What possible relevance does this demonstration of male prerogative have at a training seminar for voting administrators?

Bob Cordle was an appointee of Governor Roy Cooper. Maybe only Roy Cooper could discipline him or, better, ask for his resignation.

Watauga's Stella Anderson To the Rescue for Ballot Security

SBOE members Stella Anderson, far left,
and Jeff Carmon listen to presentation
by an officer of Election Systems & Software.
Photo Dan Kane, News and Observer

The State Board of Elections met last night for the purpose of certifying new voting equipment for all North Carolina polling places in 2020 and beyond. Instead, on a motion by Watauga County board member Stella Anderson, the decision was put off another 15 days until the SBOE can change its requirements to insist that vendors will guarantee that any touch-screen type machine also produces a paper ballot that a voter can read. (One of the big dogs in the election machine business, Election Systems and Software, offered a machine that produces a barcode. "I don't read barcode!" said Chris Telesca at a public hearing on Sunday night.)

Anderson's exact language in the motion that passed 3-2 (hattip Travis Fain):

"An electronically assisted ballot marking device or other ballot marking equipment shall produce human-readable marks on a paper ballot. The voter must be able to verify his or her intent as evidenced by the mark on the ballot. The mark shall be tabulated as the voter's selection."

In the speech Anderson made prior to her motion, she said, "I think I speak for all board members in saying voter trust and confidence in the security and integrity of any voting system we put in use in North Carolina is vital. Part of promoting that confidence requires that voters are able to verify their choices and know those choices are what will be tabulated."

Amen, Sister.

But here's where the wicket got sticky last night. Delaying the certification, the board automatically triggers a 15-day public comment period before any final vote can be taken. The board had already been through one delay while foreign ownership of any potentially certifiable voting machine was probed for unwanted influence. The Department of Homeland Security cleared the vendors of any foreign ownership. So Bob Cordle, the Democratic chair of the State Board of Elections, was antsy, and he didn't want to wait any more, cyber-security be damned. Neither did Republican member Ken Raymond of Winston-Salem.

Let's get it done, argued Cordle and Raymond.

Let's get it right, replied Anderson, joined by Jeff Carmon, the other Democrat. “This vote wasn’t taken lightly,” Carmon said. “Our state’s been in the news enough.”

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article233278201.html#storylink=cpy

In the end and coming as a surprise, Republican David Black voted with Anderson and Carmon.

BURNING QUESTION AND A SIDE-NOTE

Why is Bob Cordle so all-fired determined to certify equipment that nobody trusts? Nobody? Well, in truth, Cordle trusts it, and so does Raymond, and the companies wanting to make big bucks on the State Board's certification trust their own product (you bet!), but on what actual grounds (let alone reality) anyone is supposed to trust cyber equipment that can't be verified...  no thanks.

Every reporter is crediting Cary veteran poll worker Lynn Bernstein for arguing persuasively at Sunday's public hearing against machinery that produces barcodes. But the opposition to the barcode equipment on the board was already building before Sunday night. Because the actual final vote was supposed to have happened at the end of that public hearing on Sunday night, not last night. The delay came because on Sunday night, Republican Ken Raymond was missing. Cordle apparently knew that fellow Democrats Anderson and Carmon would vote no on rushing certification, leaving him with a probable tie if Republican David Black voted with him. So he delayed the final vote to last night when Raymond could be there. In the meantime, Republican David Black upended that applecart by voting with Anderson and Carmon. Whaddya know! A Republican that takes cyber threats seriously!

Meanwhile, one Democrat on the SBOE doesn't appear to care so much.

ADDENDUM
Bob Cordle's curious defense of electronic voting machines, particularly those made by Electronic Systems and Software (ESandS), goes back at least to the SBOE meeting on July 11th when Lynn Bernstein first raised issues with those machines. From reporting by Aditi Kharod:

“Remote-access software and modems on election equipment is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner,” said Bernstein, quoting a statement Sen. Wyden made to Motherboard. Bernstein argued that a company that had repeatedly lied about the nature of its machines and had only revealed the truth after being caught in its lies could not be trusted to help keep North Carolina’s elections safe.

“This begs the question: why is this board trusting ES&S’ word that these machines are secure and accurate?” asked Bernstein.

Bob Cordle, the chair of the SBE, pushed back against Bernstein’s arguments.

“In my experience… we had more problems with hand ballots than we did with any other ballots,” said Cordle. “There was more lying, cheating, and stealing going on… and also questions about… there were lots of questions about whether the oval was filled in, whether both ovals were filled in, so there are problems with hand ballots, too.”

“The research showed that 0.007% of ballots have stray marks,” said Bernstein. “That’s very, very few.”

“All I know is we saw a number of them,” said Cordle. “But I don’t wanna’ argue with you."

Stella Anderson Appointed to SBOE, But Not Four Eggers

Just saw news tweeted by Emily Featherstone of WECT:

The following Democrats and Republicans have been appointed to the State BOE by Governor Roy Cooper:

Democrat Stella Anderson of Boone
Republican David C. Black of Concord
Democrat Jeff Carmon III of Durham
Democrat Bob Cordle of Charlotte
Republican Ken Raymond of Winston-Salem

This panel will make news presently.