Last week we highlighted how the U.S. intelligence community public relations firm, The Washington Post, was getting out ahead of an election security report. {GO DEEP} There was a blitz of media reporting with transparent timing in advance of the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), releasing their findings of Dominion voting systems.
Late Friday the DHS report and advisory was released [SEE HERE]. Within the advisory CISA admitted there are major vulnerabilities within the Dominion electronic voting system. However, they also claim there is “no evidence that these vulnerabilities have been exploited in any elections,” and they base that on a very thin defense.
The DHS-CISA claim toward the security of the Dominion system is predicated on the assertion that in order to modify the voting results, the local election officials would have to be participating in the election manipulation, therefore the systems are safe. Seriously, that’s the statement.
Think about what is already known about local election officials in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin. All of the voting manipulation was done on a county and local level. Maricopa County Arizona was a key focus point for these exact voting issues during their audit. Now consider when DHS-CISA says:
Exploitation of these [Dominion Voting System] vulnerabilities would require:
• physical access to individual ImageCast X devices,
• access to the Election Management System (EMS), or
• the ability to modify files before they are uploaded to ImageCast X devices.
We can check each of these three points affirmatively against what is known about the voting manipulation. Yes, local election officials had “physical access” to the devices. Yes, local election officials had “access to the EMS,” and yes, local election officials have “the ability to modify files.”
When you recognize the already alarming efforts of local election officials to manipulate the outcome, what the DHS-CISA advisory is factually stating is that the system has built in vulnerabilities that permit local election officials to modify the voting outcome on electronic machines. This is exactly the claim that has been made by all of the election integrity groups who have been raising alarms.
The DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is not refuting the likelihood of Dominion voting systems being manipulated by local officials, the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency notification is affirming the local election officials can indeed manipulate the electronic voting machine outcomes. This is the exact opposite of the claim under their “Rumor Control” section {SEE HERE}.
The bottom line is this…. If local election officials want to manipulate the election outcome, they can.
The Dominion electronic voting system gives local officials the ability to manipulate the voting outcome.
DHS-CISA saying the Dominion vulnerability is not a problem because the local officials would have to be participating in the electronic manipulation is not anywhere close to claiming there has been no voting manipulation. Exactly the opposite is true.
Consider this truthful statement:
‘If local election officials wanted to manipulate the outcome of electronic voting, the Dominion voting system is the specific system that gives them the ability to do so.’
Read the CISA advisory carefully and you will see exactly what I mean [SOURCE]
SUMMARY – This advisory identifies vulnerabilities affecting versions of the Dominion Voting Systems Democracy Suite ImageCast X, which is an in-person voting system used to allow voters to mark their ballot. The ImageCast X can be configured to allow a voter to produce a paper record or to record votes electronically. While these vulnerabilities present risks that should be mitigated as soon as possible, CISA has no evidence that these vulnerabilities have been exploited in any elections.
Exploitation of these vulnerabilities would require physical access to individual ImageCast X devices [√], access to the Election Management System (EMS) [√], or the ability to modify files before they are uploaded to ImageCast X devices [√].
Jurisdictions can prevent and/or detect the exploitation of these vulnerabilities by diligently applying the mitigations recommended in this advisory, including technical, physical, and operational controls that limit unauthorized access or manipulation of voting systems. Many of these mitigations are already typically standard practice in jurisdictions where these devices are in use and can be enhanced to further guard against exploitation of these vulnerabilities. {LINK}
It’s almost comical that national media cannot see what is clearly evident in this CISA bulletin, is exactly what election integrity groups have been shouting for years. CISA simply says ‘yes, it can be done’, but ‘we have no evidence it was done.’ Well, DUH… CISA has never looked to see if it was done – that’s a state and local level audit.
