VOTING WARS — Elon Musk set the Xverse ablaze this weekend with a viral post calling to “eliminate electronic voting machines” due to hacking risks, racking up over 75,000 reposts. It came after independent presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seized on voting irregularities in Puerto Rico’s recent primary to demand a return to hand-marked paper ballots nationwide. The pro-hand count movement has been gaining steam, with at least eight states introducing legislation in 2023 to ditch voting machines altogether. But election security experts are pushing back hard. “Flip the claim that there’s ‘no evidence of widespread fraud.’ We have evidence of sound elections,” said Pamela Smith, president of the nonpartisan Verified Voting, which promotes the responsible use of technology in elections. — Understand the problem: Smith argues that while tiny jurisdictions can feasibly hand count ballots, moving to full manual counts in larger locales would be a logistical nightmare — delaying results for weeks or months and costing counties millions to hire enough workers. Not to mention studies showing machines tend to tally votes more accurately than humans do. “There is no evidence whatsoever that ‘irregularities’ have ever been significant enough to change the results of an election,” Seattle’s former CISO Mike Hamilton tells Morning Cyber. — All hands on deck: Yet the hand count crowd clearly remains vocally skeptical of voting tech, however small the hacking risk. So what’s an election official to do? The answer: Robust audits. Verified Voting and other election watchdogs recommend pairing machine counts with rigorous post-election audits that hand tally a portion of ballots to verify results, correct any errors and assure the public of the system’s integrity. "Banks audit themselves regularly, and with elections you should audit every one," Smith said. "That's a best practice for ensuring there were no unnoticed errors or tampering." — On the island: In Puerto Rico's case, it’s too soon to tell what exactly happened. But officials caught the glitches that threw initial results out of whack, thanks to a "paper trail" that allowed double-checking, Smith noted. While isolated errors and snafus are inevitable, she insists that "jurisdictions have been improving all their practices" to ensure the overall system is "resilient" enough to "still find the correct outcome." — Touch some grass: As for Elon's rant going viral? "The big problem is most of the public doesn't know how elections really work," Smith said. It's a messaging challenge election experts hope to tackle by spelling out the security protocols baked into the process. Surveys from Verified Voting found people felt more confident after learning about audits and safeguards, Smith added. "All the elements are in place for 2024 to be the most secure election yet," she said. — Parting shot: Of course, it remains to be seen if such reassurances can counter the visceral Machine vs. Hand Count debate raging online and in legislatures nationwide. RFK Jr.’s press team did not respond to a request to comment on whether they’d consider endorsing Musk’s all-out ban. Hamilton, on the other hand, suggests dismissing Musk’s concerns altogether. “Elon Musk knows identically zero about the operation of the machines, the fact they’re not connected to county networks, what kind of checks and balances are in place, the voting auditing process, nada,” Hamilton said. “These comments are akin to ‘don’t drive because a meteorite might hit your car.’” Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
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