By Michael Bielawski
Brian Christie of Essex City, an engineer, former math teacher, and certified fraud examiner, is not satisfied with the current explanation from the Secretary of State’s office regarding a one-day delay in the Statewide Primary Election Canvass.
The Canvass Committee meeting was originally scheduled for Aug. 20, it occurred on Aug. 21. Canvassing in elections means according to State GOP Chair Paul Dame, “We mostly pool together the [primary] results from the individual polling places in order to determine the winner of races that span multiple districts, for example statewide offices like Lt. Governor.”
The office of Secretary Sarah Copeland-Hanzas issued an explanation in a press release earlier this week.
“The reason for the postponement was an issue with the election management system’s report-generation function,” the statement said. “This issue was caught as staff performed checks while printing the official reports. To ensure that all reports precisely match the official return of votes submitted by clerks, the agency will delay the canvass committee and continue to work with its technology vendor and clerks to resolve the issue.”
Copeland-Hanzas’s office said the process is “separate and distinct from the official counting of ballots and the local certification of results by town and city clerks.”
Her office insists that Vermonters should remain confident in their election processes. “I want [to] assure the public that this delay does not impact the 100% confidence we have in the accuracy of the vote totals submitted by Vermont’s town and city clerks,” Hanzas is quoted.
Fraud examiner not impressed
In a message to VDC on Tuesday which was a response to the Secretary’s explanation, Christie said that vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems have been highlighted in multiple reports.
“There is absolutely no confidence in ‘the accuracy of the vote totals submitted by Vermont’s town and city clerks.’” he wrote. “The current reporting ‘issue’ is a mere symptom of a major problem with electronic voting systems, including but not limited to ERIC, Dominion Tabulators, DMV voter registrations, and universal mail-in ballots.”
He points to the 2020 HBO Documentary “Kill Chain: the Cyber War on America’s Elections” which focuses on concerns regarding electronic voting. The trailer can be seen here.
He continues, “As you can see in ‘Kill Chain’, election integrity and concerns about the vulnerability of voting machines is not a partisan issue; contributors to ‘Kill Chain’ included Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat, Senator James Lankford, Republican, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat and Senator Mark Warner, Democrat.”
He points to a recent convention of some of the world’s best hackers in Las Vegas. The hackers put electronic voting machines to the test and the hackers had their way.
He wrote, “Also, at the recent DEF CON Conference, hackers again exposed the vulnerabilities with voting machines that will be used in the upcoming November election. Transparency and accountability are lacking.”
The national news outlet Politico also covered the DEF CON conference. The headline states, “The nation’s best hackers found vulnerabilities in voting machines — but no time to fix them.”
Christie’s letter continues with some proposals that would be needed for electronic voting to work.
“At the least, Forensic Digital Images of each tabulator would be required before and after the election, to prove that no tampering or otherwise unseen intrusions took place. The current system is expensive, vulnerable, impractical, and time-consuming,” he wrote.
Other solutions he proposes largely resemble the policies in France. He notes that in France, mail-in ballots are banned, voters are required to vote in person with a photo ID, and paper ballots must be hand-counted.
“The only way to have 100% confidence in our election systems is to have local control at the Town Clerk, use paper ballots, same-day voting, hand-counting, no same-day registrations, and voter ID,” he wrote. “The burden of proof is on the Secretary of State and it will require more than just words and a press conference to assure the public.”
In January of this year, electronic voting machines were in the headlines after a hacker hacked a Dominion voting machine in front of a federal judge using nothing but a Bic pen. These machines are also used in Vermont and have been in Vermont headlines for ongoing concerns.
A Rasmussen poll from November 2023 revealed that 56% of all Americans suspect there will be cheating in the 2024 presidential election.
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle