Tag: machines

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DHS Inspector General Sat On Missing Secret Service Texts Info For A Year

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CNN’s Whitney Wild appeared on Outfront w/Erin Burnett show(07/29/22), where she dropped a bombshell, telling host Jim Sciutto(subbing for Erin), that embattled DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari did not find out about the missing Secret Service text messages in December 2021 as has been previously reported, but rather, in May 2021–seven months earlier. This means Inspector General Cuffari took a whole year before informing the January 6th Committee about the missing texts, a totally unacceptable position, which only heightens concerns about a possible cover up by DHS.

As host Sciutto correctly pointed out in his intro, it’s not only the missing Secret Service texts that are at issue here, but also, those from former Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, and his top Deputy Ken Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli’s texts are crucial to the January 6th Committee’s investigation because former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue testified before the Committee, under oath, that Trump had tasked Cuccinelli with seizing all voting machines for the purposes of investigating his bogus election fraud claims. Cuccinelli’s communications with Trump’s White House officials, or Trump himself, would therefore be very valuable to the January 6th Committee, and the fact that they cannot be retrieved, should be cause for serious concern, even a possible criminal investigation.

CNN’s Whitney Wild(video at 1:50):“What they had said prior is that the [DHS] Inspector General was aware of the missing text messages as of December 2021, that was the information we had learned some days ago, when two key Democrats were calling for the Inspector General’s recusal. Now, sources tell CNN, that the Secret Service notified the office of the Inspector General that text messages were erased in May of 2021, seven months earlier than previously known. The Secret Service has explained that these text messages were lost in a previously scheduled data migration of agents cell phones. The Committee [January6th] and Cuffari [DHS-IG] are interested in these text messages because, as you point out, these are people who were right at the center of what was going on on January 6th, and depending on what the content is, could shed light on the Secret Service’s response that day, and further, what they witnessed, among others…The other big thing that we’re learning here about the timeline[is]…in July, a representative for the Inspector General’s office told the Department of Homeland Security, they were no longer seeking these text messages. That was in July of 2021, about a year before the Inspector General brought these hurdles to congressional oversight committees.”

There’s no other way to interpret Whitney Wild’s remarks other than(I’d be happy to stand  corrected of course), DHS Inspector General Cuffari is not being forthright about his investigation into the missing Secret Service texts. The shifting narratives as to when his office found out about the missing texts only raises suspicions from the general public, of a possible DHS cover up. Also, why did his office stop looking for the texts in July 2021? Wasn’t that the proper time for him, or the DHS Secretary for that matter, to notify the January 6th Committee of the problems they were having retrieving the texts? Very suspicious indeed.

Bottom line folks, the missing Secret Service texts scandal is just the latest in a long line of very troubling stories emanating from DHS, which all center around the same original sin–lack of proper congressional oversight, an issue Yours Truly has repeatedly screamed about, to your rolling eyes of course. Simply put, DHS has devolved into the corrupt federal behemoth we are witnessing today because at every turn since it’s inception, Congress and the corporate mainstream media, have looked the other way, when the public has raised credible concerns about abuses at/by the agency.

One only hopes that some of the outrage over the missing/deleted Secret Service texts will be aimed at complicit Congress and the corporate mainstream media. Simply put, DHS and other agencies tasked with our national security, will never change without proper/effective oversight. Plain and simple.

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Russia Was In A Position To Delete Or Change Voter Data

CBS Face The Nation‘s host Margaret Brennan made a bombshell revelation today when reading from a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report she said, “Russia likely targeted election infrastructure in all 50 states. The first known breach was in July 2016 in Illinois where Russian cyber actors scanned state election systems. They were in a position to delete or change voter data. The report does say some progress has been made but the threat is imperfectly understood…”

This mirrors the recent troubling revelation made by Rep Jackie Speier (D-CA) who said Russia likely tampered with our voting machines in 2016 in ways we may never know.

The idea that Russia tampered with our voting machines in 2016 is still largely treated by the mainstream media as some wild conspiracy theory yet time and again we get evidence showing that it is anything but a conspiracy–the latest being this bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report. The question as to what exactly Russia did in 2016 is one House Democrats and the mainstream media should still be digging into even though the Mueller investigation is now over

Bottom line, if we are going to successfully defend ourselves against another foreign attack on our voting infrastructure in 2020, we need to fully understand what Russia did in 2016 so that we know where our vulnerabilities lie. As it currently stands, the stance taken by House Democrats and the mainstream media is that we need to move on now that Mueller probe is over. Yours Truly strongly disagrees and believes that instead of “moving on”, now is the time we need hunker down and dig deeper into the Mueller findings for clues at to what exactly Russia did in 2016 and ways to stop them in 2020. This issue has to be front and center of mainstream media coverage as we head into 2020.

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Beware Of Hackable Paper Ballot Machines

Election security advocate Jennifer Cohn has issued a serious warning regarding the upcoming 2020 elections saying jurisdictions across the country are increasingly installing paper ballot machines that are still prone to hacking. In other words election officials are deceiving the public whether knowingly or not, when they claim that the paper ballot machines they are installing are hack-proof.

As Jennifer Cohn clearly points out, all these so called hack-proof machines do is generate paper summary cards with a barcode. Cohn argues that these barcodes can be manipulated as opposed to the traditional paper ballot where the voter actually uses hand and pen to make a candidate selection. Simply put, Jennifer Cohn wants the public to know that the paper summary cards are not “paper ballots” in the traditional sense because they are machine generated not hand marked. Voters need to be extra vigilant with their state election officials and insist on hand marked paper ballots because that is the only hack-proof way of voting.

Cohn specifically warns; “I am posting this video to warn the public about a dangerous new type of electronic voting system called a universally used ballot marking system that jurisdictions across the United States are recklessly buying in anticipation of the 2020 election. Although many experts are gravely concerned about these new universally used ballot marking devices, their concerns have flown largely under the media’s radar because the ballot marking devices generate paper summary cards that election officials and vendors have misleadingly decided to call paper ballots. But unlike traditional hand marked paper ballots which voters literally mark with their hand and pen, machine marked paper ballots can be hacked.”

According to Jennifer Cohn, the following states have already purchased these “dangerous” new barcode universally used ballot marking devices for 2020; Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Kentucky, California, Colorado, Delaware, New Jersey, Kansas, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Indiana. These devices are also apparently in the pipeline in Georgia, New York and North Carolina.

Importantly Jennifer Cohn urges the public to call their elected representatives asking them to support Ron Wyden’s PAVE Act, which apparently addresses this problem by requiring all jurisdictions to provide voters with a hand marked paper ballot option.

Bottom line, Democrats have to be especially careful in 2020. Republicans know there is a lot of attention being placed on foreign hacking of voting machines. Naturally Republican election officials nationwide will take actions meant to assure voters that they are serious about countering the threat of foreign hacking. It appears they have settled on these dangerous universally used ballot marking systems that are still very hackable but create the false impression among gullible voters that they are hack-proof paper ballot systems. Democrats and indeed the mainstream media must expose the truth behind these deceptive machines. As Yours Truly has repeatedly stated before, it’s about time the mainstream media started inviting the venerable Jennifer Cohn as a pundit on election security matters. This is way long overdue and quite frankly journalistic malpractice at this juncture.

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How Many Beto Votes Switched To Ted Cruz?

The November elections have come and gone and as expected, they have left in their wake enough political punditry themes to go around. One theme that seems to tower above the rest however, is this quiet acknowledgement by both Democrats and Republicans that there are serious problems with our electronic voting infrastructure that need immediate attention.


This bipartisan reckoning is largely attributed to the bombshell news out of Texas that the eSlate voting machines used in Harris County and many other Texas metroplexes were somehow switching votes meant for Democrat Beto O’Rourke to GOP’s Ted Cruz on straight Democratic party votes.

As is if this was not enough, a stunning video later surfaced on Twitter showing an electronic voting machine in Indiana doing exactly what had been reported in Texas—switching Democratic party votes to GOP.

Needless to say this bombshell video about Indiana vote-switching coupled with the previous news from Texas led to serious concerns from the voting public that electronic machines may have been rigged. This is especially due to the fact that both in Texas and Indiana, it was the Dem votes that were switching to GOP and not the other way around

Somehow in spite of all these concerns from voters regarding the vote-switching issue, the Texas media appears to have shockingly accepted without any reservations this narrative contained in a Texas Secretary of State’s Advisory that said because there were “fewer than 20 reported cases” of vote-switching, this was a non-issue and that anybody questioning the magnitude and scope of the vote-switching was spreading “misinformation”. The Director of Communications for the Texas Secretary of State, Sam Taylor has repeated this narrative in interviews with various sections of the Texas Media essentially arguing that if vote-switching was a big problem, there would be much more reported cases.

This narrative by the Texas Secretary of State that vote-switching is not an issue because there were “fewer than 20 reported cases” is by all objective standards, a highly unsatisfactory answer because it does not address the elephant in the room question as to how many people using eSlate machines voted straight Democratic Party, but for whatever reason did not catch/overlooked the switch and ended up voting for Ted Cruz by mistake?

In Harris County for example where eSlates were used, Beto O’Rourke beat Ted Cruz 58 to 41.3% securing 698,580 votes to Cruz’s 498,175. This represents a total of 1,196,755 votes cast in the U.S. Senate race in Harris County. The question the media should be asking the Texas Secretary of State is how many of these 1,196,755 voters voted straight Democratic party but somehow are reflected as having voted for Ted Cruz? In other words is there a way to go back and verify that people who voted straight Democratic party did not vote for Cruz by mistake? If the answer to that is yes, then the process should be repeated in all counties that used eSlates. Then and only then can the Secretary of State say definitively that vote-switching was not an issue.

If on the other hand there is no way to go back and verify that straight Democratic party voters did not mistakenly vote for Cruz, which is the most likely scenario, then with all due respect to the Texas Secretary of State, there is simply no way he can credibly conclude that vote-switching was not an issue in the U.S. Senate race and Texans have every right to suspect otherwise without being accused of spreading “misinformation”.

Bottom line, the Texas media needs to confront the Texas Secretary of State with the million dollar question; “How many people using eSlate machines voted straight Democratic party but somehow are reflected as having voted for Ted Cruz?” Our good friend Ariella Baker-Archer perfectly summed it, saying two years from now we don’t want to look back and say “we should have checked.”

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Same Mainstrean Media That Gave Us Trump Is About To Give GOP A Midterms 2018 Win

After the 2016 elections exposed how vulnerable our election systems were to cyberattacks, New Jersey, like many other U.S. states began mulling ways to improve the security of its election infrastructure. While still mulling what changes to make to their election systems, the Center for American Progress dropped a bombshell on the Garden state, giving it a lowly D-grade for its voting machine security.



Stung by the embarrassing D-grade evaluation, NJ state lawmakers felt compelled to do something, and they have. A new NJ bill A3991, the "New Jersey Secure Elections Act" seeks to do just that, replace the state's paperless voting system with one that leaves an auditable paper trail

As shocking as it sounds, even after Russian meddling in 2016, many states especially where the GOP controls the legislature still use electronic voting machines that cannot be credibly audited in case of disputed results. Texas is one such example.

While NJ should be commended for taking a concrete step forward in securing the vote, it is the shocking testimony of one of the state's leading Computer Scientists, Professor Andrew Appel that has caught Yours Truly's attention and should catch yours too.

In his testimony about voting machine security, Princeton University Computer Science Professor said paperless electronic voting machines are "fatally flawed technology." Turns out Professor Appel is so sure about his assertion he has even demonstrated how to hack a New Jersey voting machine.

Now if these were conclusory allegations by some random loud mouth in #TheResistance the lack of coverage by the Mainstream Media would be understandable. However given that this bombshell assertion is being made by a highly respected Ivy League scholar(Princeton is Super Ivy League) the lack of coverage by the Mainstream Media has to be called into question.

How can the world's leading democracy be conducting elections using "fatally flawed" voting machines and the Media remain relatively silent about it? To its credit Fox News did do a segment on Professor Appel. That however is not nearly enough Media coverage for such a consequential story--especially in an election year.

A charge has been levelled, and Yours Truly concurs, that it is the Mainstream Media that gave us Trump. If the same Mainstream Media cannot find a way to have this Ivy League professor explain his bombshell assertion to the public, a second charge could be levelled that the Mainstream Media is helping Trump's GOP steal Midterms 2018

There's absolutely no excuse as to why CNN or MSNBC cannot interview this esteemed Computer Scientist--none!!

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Dems Must Sue Texas Election Officials Over Voting Machines

Election security especially as it relates to electronic voting machines is a big topic of debate in 2018 not just because this is a midterm election year but because of the events that happened in the 2016 general election where Russia is believed to have either intefered or attempted to interfere with U.S. election machines.

Well it turns out concerns about electronic voting machines have existed in Texas since 2007. The Democratic Party actually filed a lawsuit in 2007 against Texas election officials arguing that the eSlate voting machines were recording votes incorrectly. Dems demanded that Texas state officials either rectify the flaws with electronic voting machines or ban them from any future election use.

Notably, then Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams, through his Spokespeople defended the voting machines saying they complied with all state and federal laws and had been certified, adding that eSlate machines "securely, accurately and privately recorded votes"--a provably false defense.

Fast forward to 2018 and the problem with electronic voting machines is even worse. Now we have unverifiable(no paper trail) electronic voting machines which computer scientists warn can easily be manipulated to produce false election results. In addition to that, unlike in 2007 where the Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams was at least responsive to citizens concerns, now we have a Secretary of State Rolando Pablos who totally ignores the issue.

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