A “secret report” on alleged vulnerabilities in Georgia’s voting equipment is sowing distrust ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, a top state official warned Thursday.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican official who has vehemently defended the integrity of the 2020 election in the face of fraud claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies, noted a connection between a high-profile Democrat and fresh doubts being cast on the security of Dominion Voting Systems machines by Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan.
“The ‘secret report’ referenced by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today is not an objective, academic study by a non-biased actor. It is assertions by an individual who is paid to espouse opinions supporting the elimination of electronic voting systems to help a lawsuit brought by liberal activists, including one funded by Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight Action,” Raffensperger’s office said in a statement.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Fair Fight Action, a group that says it is focused on fighting voter suppression, for comment. Abrams, a Democrat who is waging another campaign for governor of Georgia in 2022, is well known for her refusal to concede the 2018 Georgia governor’s election.
The media report in question talks about Halderman, who is described as an expert for plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit seeking to get Georgia to ditch electronic voting machines in favor of hand-marked paper ballots, being granted access to Dominion voting equipment in Fulton County for 12 weeks and producing a 25,000-word “secret report” that has been filed under seal. Halderman found that malicious software could be installed in voting touchscreens to alter QR codes printed on ballots that are then scanned to record votes, or a hacker could wreak havoc by gaining access to election management system computers, according to court records.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the Georgia secretary of state’s office, a defendant in the court case, had not asked to see Halderman’s findings, which U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg so far had only allowed attorneys and expert witnesses to access, and security experts raised concerns about the risk for the elections this year.
Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican who is poised to face off against Abrams in a gubernatorial rematch this year, put pressure on Raffensperger to act. “He should immediately gather all relevant information regarding this report, thoroughly vet its findings, and assure Georgians he is doing everything possible to ensure the system, procedures and equipment are completely secure,” Katie Byrd, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Wednesday.
On Thursday, the secretary of state said he is calling on Halderman to ask the judge to publicly release his findings on Georgia’s election system and his pre-2020 election testimony.
“Halderman was given full access to Georgia’s election system by the judge, the equivalent of having the keys and alarm codes to a home then claiming he found a way to break in,” Raffensperger said. “The public deserves to know the context of J. Alex Halderman’s claims and his testimony regarding the 2020 election. We are taking on these claims in court, and we will win. Sensationalized media articles and misleading reports from paid activists notwithstanding, Georgia’s election system is safe and secure.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to Halderman for comment on the statement.
Halderman also wrote a report released by the Michigan Department of State that argued human error led to early tabulation errors in Antrim County, Michigan, in the 2020 election cycle. He acknowledged vulnerabilities in the election technology, but similar to what he said about the 2020 election in Georgia, he stressed that “there is no evidence that any of these problems was ever exploited in Antrim County.”
Dominion, which has filed a wave of high-dollar defamation lawsuits over claims of alleged fraud in the 2020 election, also cut at the credibility of Halderman’s review in Georgia and voiced support for releasing his findings. This comes as the federal government, election officials in other states, and even Fox News, which is facing a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion, have expressed interest in Halderman’s report.
“Security assessments of any system, including voting systems, should always include a holistic approach of all safeguards in place, including procedural and technical safeguards. There is a reason why US voting systems rely on bipartisan election officials, poll-watchers, distributed passwords, access controls, and audit processes. The review conducted in the Curling case did not take this approach,” John Poulus, president and CEO of Dominion, said in a statement released by Raffensperger’s team.
“Dominion supports all efforts to bring real facts and evidence forward to defend the integrity of our machines and the credibility of Georgia’s elections,” Poulus added.
Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin asked to see the report last month, as Louisiana also uses Dominion touchscreen technology for elections, but was denied by Totenberg, who said she “remains concerned about the risks associated with further dissemination of the report.”
The judge further said granting access to Louisiana could “open the floodgates” to similar requests from others, “which would also increase the potential for hacking and misuse of sensitive, confidential election system information,” according to the Associated Press.