Election Systems & Software (ES&S or ESS) is an

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

-based company that manufactures and sells

voting machine A voting machine is a machine used to record votes in an election without paper. The first voting machines were mechanical but it is increasingly more common to use ''electronic voting machines''. Traditionally, a voting machine has been defi ...

equipment and services. The company's offerings include vote tabulators,

DRE voting machine A DRE voting machine, or direct-recording electronic voting machine, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter. These are typically buttons or a touchsc ...

s, voter registration and election management systems, ballot-marking devices, electronic poll books, ballot on demand printing services, and absentee voting-by-mail services. In 2014, ES&S was the largest manufacturer of voting machines in the United States, claiming customers in 4,500 localities in 42 states and two U.S. territories. As of 2014, the company had more than 450 employees, over 200 of whom are located in its Omaha headquarters. ES&S is a subsidiary of the McCarthy Group. In 2014, ES&S claimed that "in the past decade alone," it had installed more than 260,000 voting systems, more than 15,000 electronic poll books, and provided services to more than 75,000 elections. The company has installed statewide voting systems in

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

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Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

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Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, and

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

. As of 2019 ES&S claimed a U.S. market share of more than 60 percent in customer voting system installations. The company maintains ten facilities in the United States, two field offices in Canada located in

Pickering, Ontario Pickering (2021 Canadian census, 2021 population 99,186) is a city located in Southern Ontario, Canada, immediately east of Toronto in Durham Region, Ontario, Durham Region. Beginning in the 1770s, the area was settled by primarily British colon ...

and

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, British Columbia, and a warehouse in

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city of the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city sits on the Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana), Pearl River and is locate ...

History

American Information Systems

In October 1974, Robert J. Urosevich of Klopp Printing Company in

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

approached Westinghouse Learning Corporation, a subsidiary of

Westinghouse Corporation The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was ...

, asking whether the

scanners ''Scanners'' is a 1981 Canadian science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan. In the film, "scanners" are psychics with unusual telep ...

Westinghouse was building for educational tests could be used to scan voting ballots. This led Westinghouse to briefly enter the ballot scanning business, and Urosevich and his brother Tod, a former

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

salesman, formed Data Mark Systems to sell and service Westinghouse voter tabulation equipment. Data Mark and Westinghouse ballot tabulation equipment had limited success through the late 1970s. As Westinghouse withdrew from the voting business, the Urosevich brothers and several former Westinghouse employees founded a new company in August 1979, American Information Systems. AIS came out with a line of central-count ballot scanners that entered the marketplace in 1982.

Business Records Corporation

The first precinct-count ballot scanner was the Gyrex MTB-1, which came to market around 1974. The MTB-1 evolved into the MTB-2, and corporate ownership shifted from Gyrex Corporation to Valtec, in 1977, and then to Major Data Concepts, in 1979. Computer Election Systems Incorporated (CESI), the manufacturer of Votomatic punched-card voting equipment, marketed the MTB-2 as the Tally-II scanner in the early 1980s, pairing it with its own Precinct-Ballot-Conut punched-card ballot reader, the PBC. CESI developed its own family of precinct-count and later central-count scanners, under the Optech brand name. The Optech I precinct-count scanner came to market in 1983, and saw successful use in several states. Cronus Industries, Inc., a

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

-based company, purchased CESI in 1985 and merged it with their ballot printing subsidiary, Business Records Corporation (BRC).Douglas W. Jones and Barbara Simons, Broken Ballots, CSLI Publications, 2012; see Section 4.2 on, page 66.

Election Products Inc.

Election Products Inc. was a small

-based election service company. In the early 1990s, the company contracted with ILJ Corporation based in

Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...

, to develop a

that would be marketed as the Votronic, unrelated to an earlier ballot scanner that was marketed under the same name in 1960. This voting machine had a flat panel liquid crystal display and a

touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...

, and was no larger than a laptop computer at the time. Votronic was first used in the 1996 primary elections; one commentator said the machine resembled a large

Magna Doodle Magna Doodle is a Magnetism, magnetic drawing toy, consisting of a drawing board, a magnetic stylus, and a few magnet shapes. Invented in 1974 by Pilot Corporation, over forty million units have been sold to date worldwide, under several brands, pr ...

.Douglas W. Jones and Barbara Simons, Broken Ballots, CSLI Publications, 2012; see Section 5.3.1 on, page 102.

Automark Technical Systems LLC

In 2003, Eugene Cummings filed a patent for a ballot marking device designed to provide an accessible voting interface for optical-scan voting systems. Cummings, along with Joseph Vaneck founded Automark Technical Systems LLC to develop and manufacture the machine. Prior to this machine, the

Help America Vote Act The Help America Vote Act of 2002 ( Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States)107–252 (text) (PDF)), or HAVA, is a United States federal law, which was authored by Christopher Dodd, and passed in the House 357-48 and 92–2 in the Senate and was ...

, passed in 2002, required jurisdictions in the United States that used optical scan systems install at least one

in each polling place.

Mergers and antitrust actions

American Information Systems acquired the Election Services Division of Business Records Corporation and was reincorporated as Election Systems & Software, Inc. in December 1997. At the time, AIS had about 750 customers and BRC had around 1200; customers were typically county election offices. With the merger, ES&S became the largest voting system vendor in the United States. The merger was delayed by the

U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...

antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

grounds until ES&S agreed to transfer the Optech product line to

Sequoia Voting Systems Sequoia Voting Systems was a California-based company that was one of the largest providers of electronic voting systems in the U.S., having offices in Oakland, Denver and New York City. Some of its major competitors were Premier Election Solution ...

, while retaining the right to sell and service Optech products to its existing customers. Shortly after the BRC-AIS merger, ES&S acquired the rights to Votronic, which they renamed iVotronic, and made major cosmetic changes to it. In their sales presentations, ES&S emphasized that the iVotronic was essentially the same machine as the Votronic except for features added to bring it into compliance with the

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ...

. ES&S was one of the top four providers of voting equipment used in the November 2004 election. The other three were Diebold Election Systems,

, and Hart InterCivic. In January 2008, ES&S acquired AutoMARK Technical Systems. Under ES&S's ownership, AutoMARK's use expanded considerably. Eight years after its acquisition by ES&S, in the 2016 elections, it was used statewide in ten states, and widely used in 19 additional states. In September 2009, ES&S acquired Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold Election Systems. Following the acquisition, the Department of Justice and 14 individual states launched investigations into the transaction on

grounds. In March 2010, the Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against ES&S, seeking it to divest voting equipment systems assets it purchased in September 2009 from Premier Election Solutions in order to restore sufficient competition. The company later sold the assets to

Dominion Voting Systems Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a North American company that produces and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in Canada and the United States. The company's headquarters are in Toro ...

Ownership and management

As of June 2019, ES&S was wholly owned by Government Systems, Software & Services, Inc. McCarthy Group held a controlling ownership. Those with over 5% share investments in the company, as of June 2019, included Tom Burt and Tom O'Brien. Those with over 5% ownership stakes in McCarthy Group were Nancy McCarthy and Kenneth Stinson, both passive investors. As of 2020, Burt is president and chief executive officers ES&S, and O'Brien is vice president/CFO.

Controversies

Voting system certifications

In May 2013, the

Election Assistance Commission The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is an independent agency of the United States government created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). The Commission serves as a national clearinghouse and resource of information regarding elec ...

certified ES&S' EVS 5.0 election management system as meeting the commission's 2005 Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG). Products included in EVS 5.0 are ES&S' DS200 and DS850 vote tabulators. EVS 5.0 also saw enhancements to the company's AutoMARK software, which is designed to be compliant with the federal

for allowing voters with disabilities to cast ballots. In October 2012, the EAC certified ES&S' Unity 3.4.0.0 election management software. In June 2014, the Virginia Board of Elections certified EVS 5201, the first state to certify an election management system that features th
ExpressVote Universal Voting System
This election system combines paper-based voting with touch screen technology that's designed to serve every eligible voter, including those with disabilities. The same month, following the certification of EVS 5201 was certified,

Fairfax County, Virginia Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. With a population of 1,150,309 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most p ...

, purchased ExpressVote Universal Voting System. which it used for the first time in its November 2014 general election.

Electronic poll books

In January 2014, the

City of Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

reached an agreement with ES&S to provide more than 2,100 ExpressPoll voter check-in and verification devices to support Chicago's 1.6 million registered voters. The electronic poll books were first used in Chicago's 2014 primary elections.

Withdrawal and Reinstatement of InkaVote

On August 3, 2007, California Secretary of state

Debra Bowen Debra Lynn Bowen (born October 27, 1955) is an American attorney and politician who served as the Secretary of State of California from 2007 to 2015. Previously, she was a member of the California State Legislature from 1992 to 2006. In March 20 ...

withdrew approval of the ES&S InkaVote Plus after announcing a "top-to-bottom review" of the voting machines certified for use in California in March 2007. However, the InkaVote Plus was never included in the review process conducted by Bowen's office. Bowen then approved InkaVote Plus for use by

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

and the city of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

on January 2, 2008.

Oakland County, Michigan

Early voters in the

2008 U.S. presidential election Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John Mc ...

Oakland County, Michigan Oakland County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a principal county of the Detroit metropolitan area, containing the bulk of Detroit's northern suburbs. Its county seat, seat of government is Pontiac, Mic ...

reported instances of malfunctioning machines, complaining that they voted for one candidate and their vote was switched to another candidate. The Oakland County county clerk reported inconsistent results with some machines during testing in October. Four years later, during the 2012 elections, ES&S added wireless modem technology so officials could make secure reports via cell phones. This upgrade was designed to improve the transparency and accuracy of Oakland County's election night reporting. The wireless technology used by Oakland County was tested by a federally accredited voting system test laboratory and subsequently tested and approved by the

State of Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

for pilot usage in the

2012 presidential election This national electoral calendar for 2012 lists the national/ federal elections held in 2012 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *3–4 January: ...

2010 election problems

On April 14, 2010, the ''

Cleveland Plain Dealer ''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio; it is a major national newspaper. In the fall of 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily an ...

'' reported that, "about 10 percent of

Cuyahoga County Cuyahoga County ( or , see ) is a large urban county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. The county seat and most populous city is Cleveland. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,264,817, making it the second ...

’s voting machines... adfailed a pre-election test." After 20 months of investigation, the

recommended decertification of the ES&S voting machines if they could not be fixed. The investigation found: *"The DS200 accepts a voted ballot but does not record the ballot on its internal counter. In addition the marks of the second ballot are not recorded." *"When a 17” ballot was inserted at an angle, the DS200 did not consistently count the mark properly. The mark registered either as a different selection than intended or did not register at all." *The system randomly freezes and does not record the freeze in its log files. There are other events not logged, such as touch screen calibration. In May 2013, however, the Election Assistance Commission certified the DS200 as part of ES&S' EVS 5.0 election management system as meeting its 2005 Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG)
Image of EAC certificate

Remote access controversy

In February 2018 article, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'',Zetter, Kim,
The Myth of the Hacker-Proof Voting Machine"
''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazi ...

,'' Feb. 21, 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2018. reported that remote-access software had been found on an election management computer system used in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, and quoted unnamed sources, who said "ES&S has in the past sometimes sold its election-management system with remote-access software preinstalled." This was used by ES&S technicians to remotely access the systems via modem to troubleshoot and provide maintenance to systems they sold. The company denied this, saying "none of the employees...including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software." In an April 2018 letter sent to

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

Ron Wyden Ronald Lee Wyden ( ; born May 3, 1949) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from Oregon, a seat he has held since 1996 United States Senate special el ...

, Election Systems & Software acknowledged that some of the election management systems the company sold for voting actually did have remote access software installed.Zetter, Kim,
"Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States"
''Motherboard'', Jul 17 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2018.Kalmbacher, C.,
Voting Machine Vendor Changes Story, Admits They Put Remote-Access Software on Machines for Years"
''Law and Crime,'' July 17, 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2018.Chalfant, M.,
Voting equipment maker sold systems with remote-access software"
''The Hill,'' July 17, 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2018. The letter to Wyden had been in response to a question from the senator requesting clarification of the information on remote-access software in the ''New York Times'' article. While election management systems are not the voting machines voters use to cast their ballots, they are used to program the voting machines used in a county and to count and tabulate the results from the voting machines. By installing remote access software allowing the machines to be accessed via the internet, the machines are vulnerable to being " hacked" remotely, allowing the counting to be altered surreptitiously, or

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

to be installed to affect an election result. ''Motherboard'', the site that originally published the story, reported that the remote access software installation was "the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner." According to its April 2018 letter, ES&S claims to have stopped installing remote access software as of December 2007, which is required under the standards of the U.S.

Johnson County, Indiana

During the general election in November 2018, thousands of voters in

Johnson County, Indiana Johnson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of 2020, the population was 161,765. The county seat is Franklin. Johnson County is included in the Indianapolis- Carmel- Anderson, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area. Trans ...

were required to wait in line for hours as technical glitches and computer crashes caused issues throughout the county. A preliminary repor] prepared for the Secretary of State of Indiana, Indiana Secretary of State by

Ball State University Ball State University (Ball State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The university has three off-campus centers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Fishers, Indiana. The university is composed of seven aca ...

's Voting System Technical Oversight Program examined the reporting errors, and a preliminary report concluded that ES&S failed to report several anomalies that occurred prior to election day in violation of

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

's state election law.

Operating software vulnerabilities

In July 2019, the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

reported that, "the vast majority of 10,000 election jurisdictions nationwide use

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

or an older operating system to create ballots, program voting machines, tally votes and report counts." Windows 7 reaches its "end of life" on January 14, 2020, meaning that

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

will cease providing technical support for the system, including patches to fix software vulnerabilities. For jurisdictions that already purchased systems running on Windows 7, ES&S said it would work with Microsoft to provide support until jurisdictions can update them.

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...

was released in 2015, and it was not immediately clear how long it would take to updates and associated federal and possible state certifications and to roll out updates. The company was not at the time sure that it could be done prior to the state's primaries, which began in February 2020. Kevin Skoglund, chief technologist at Citizens for Better Elections, said county election officials point to Election Assistance Commission and state certifications as "rock-solid proof" that their systems are secure, but do not realize that vendors are certifying systems under dated 2005 standards.

Modems and certification claims

In 2020, an independent cybersecurity investigation by the National Election Defense Coalition found voting systems still online, contrary to claims by election officials. ES&S was one of three companies, including Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic, that still put modems in their machines, many of which are protected by firewalls. Security officials maintain that such firewalls can still be breached. The

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into Outline of p ...

advises that all voting systems should be prevented from connecting to wireless networks. National Election Defense Coalition identified ES&S as having sold machines with wireless modems to at least 11 states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. In 2020, ES&S informed NBC News that 14,000 DS200 tabulators with online modems were in use, a statement that contradicts their own website. NBC News also found thousands more online made by other companies. Groups like Free Speech for People and the National Election Defense Coalition maintain that ES&S falsely claims their online machines are certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The Commission does not certify voting machines with modems.Monahan, Kevin; McFadden, Cynthia; Martinez, Didi (January 10, 2020)
"'Online and vulnerable': Experts find nearly three dozen U.S. voting systems connected to internet"
NBC News. Retrieved November 10, 2024.

References

External links

Official websiteMcCarthy Capital website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Election Systems and Software Companies based in Omaha, Nebraska Election technology companies Electronic voting companies