ATLANTA -- As a few Georgia politicians begin advocating that Georgia's Dominion voting system be patched to address massive security and inaccuracy concerns, VoterGA expounded today upon its position that a patch from version 5.5 to 5.17 will not secure Georgia's 2024 elections nor ensure the accuracy of 2024 results because:
- The Halderman Security Analysis concluded: "it would be extremely difficult to retrofit security into a system that was not initially produced with such a process.";
- There is no evidence a vendor patch would mitigate most of the system security flaws identified by the Halderman Security Analysis;
- There is no evidence a vendor patch would rectify other Dominion counting problems detected in Georgia and Tennessee during the 2020 and 2022 elections;
- A patch would destroy forensic evidence needed for court cases attempting to force the Secretary of State to determine whether or not our voting systems were secured;
- Ballots would continue being counted secretly by tabulators and then sealed after certification so voters would never be able to determine accuracy of any election;
- Estimates show that an upgrade would unnecessarily cost Georgia taxpayers well over $37 million for new poll books, new printers, supplies and procedural changes.
Professor Halderman explained that the Dominion ICX touchscreen system "was developed without sufficient attention to security during design, software engineering, and testing." which is why it cannot be retrofitted for security with software updates known as "patches."
A simple solution is to hand count ballots in public at polls and processing centers to ensure election results for each race are correct and to detect any counterfeits. Two counties have already decided to perform a 100% audit of all races by hand counting their ballots to ensure accuracy of their 2024 results. More counties will likely follow. Why shouldn't the state at least do this much to improve the security of Georgia's 2024 election?
Co-founder Garland Favorito added: "And yet, the absolute best solution is to replace the system that a U.S. District Court has already found in violation of two Georgia statutes with hand marked, publicly hand counted, ballots. Recent studies show the time it takes to hand count all hand marked ballots is only slightly more than the time it takes to pack up and return all the expensive, unnecessary equipment used at the polls. Most Georgians want to protect their votes with full hand counts because it provides a secure, verifiable, accurate, legal and cost-effective election process. Anything less is an insult to Georgia voters."
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VoterGA is a non-partisan, 501(c)3 registered non-profit organization created by a coalition of citizens working to restore election integrity in Georgia. We advocate for independently verifiable, auditable, recount capable, transparent and tamper proof elections.
