Tamper Proof
States United Democracy Center
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This Week In Democracy
Tamper Proof
The conviction of Tina Peters proves two things: State and local officials take the security of election equipment extremely seriously. And anyone who tries to compromise that security will face the consequences.?
Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, was?found guilty ?of tampering with voting equipment after the 2020 election in a vain effort to prove that the election was rigged against former President Trump. She’ll be sentenced in October.?
Instead of protecting her county’s election equipment, Peters turned on it, prosecutors said. They said she allowed a man, introduced to her by Election Deniers and impersonating a county staff member, to plug an external device into the most sensitive election equipment in May 2021 so he could make copies to pass to a network of conspiracy theorists.?
Key passwords from that county election equipment later turned up online, leading to investigations by Secretary of State Jena Griswold and the FBI. (The breached equipment was quickly?taken out of service , and no election was compromised.)?
Peters was?stripped of her election responsibilities ?and?indicted in 2022 . She was convicted this week, by a jury of her peers, of four felonies and three misdemeanors.??
“Today’s verdict is a warning to others that they will face serious consequences if they attempt to illegally tamper with our voting processes or election systems,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser?said after the conviction . “And make no mistake: My office will continue to protect it.”?
Peters was after fame,?according to prosecutors . They said she wanted to become a “hero” to fellow Election Deniers like?pillow mogul Mike Lindell . Instead, she’ll go down as a cautionary tale—and she may go to prison.?
In the News
...Gillian Feiner,?senior counsel at the?States United Democracy Center,?said in a statement to Law360 Pulse on Tuesday that the “trial court got it right when it found D.A. Willis had no conflict of interest, and more than a dozen bipartisan legal experts agree.” “Georgia law sets a high bar for disqualifying prosecutors and the defendants didn't meet it. The Court of Appeals should reject the defendants' attempt to relitigate facts that have already been thoroughly examined and resolved by the trial court,” Feiner said. ?
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson spoke about the crucial role of state government in safeguarding democracy through election integrity, protecting election officials, and modeling productive dialogue. In a conversation with?Joanna Lydgate?of?States United Democracy Center?on the first full day of the institute, Benson stressed the importance of state leaders setting norms that strengthen democracy and embolden citizens’ voices. ?
Recommended Reading
In?a new column , former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov.?Ed Rendell,?former Republican U.S. Reps.?Melissa Hart?and?Jim Gerlach, and former Democratic Pennsylvania House Speaker?Keith McCall,?bipartisan board members of the Democracy Defense Project, praise Secretary?Al Schmidt?for the work he’s doing to make sure Pennsylvania’s elections are smooth, secure, and fair.
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Fractional CTO. Collaborate ? Deliver ? Iterate. ??
2 个月And this document is the recipe which any web administrator can follow, to correctly configure their website and protect against cross-site scripting and other attacks. #SecureTheVote https://securethevote.substack.com/p/http-security-response-headers-recipe
Fractional CTO. Collaborate ? Deliver ? Iterate. ??
2 个月I've noticed that the election-related web servers of America (county and state government, candidates, and political parties) are almost all open to cross-site scripting attacks because they don't correctly configure their HTTP Security Response Headers. I'm trying to raise awareness and get this fixed ASAP. This document describes the problem. https://securethevote.substack.com/p/secure-the-vote
Embarking on a new journey as a company owner
3 个月Then non biased cyber professionals watching the network and using such programs as virus total.com where it pinpoints the viruses in the network of the machine and what country flags attached to the system that could use botnets etc to sway votes. Constant network traces on an ongoing bases would help a lot. A Perfect time to use AI to find anomaly's
Embarking on a new journey as a company owner
3 个月I thinking voting should be done like Australia were everyone has to vote or there is a penalty on your taxes. That would stop the fraud cause each voter votes by his or her ss# no social security number no vote. This stops the illegal voting cause you get ballot in the mail. If we truly going to call our country a democracy lets start acting like one.
Passionate about 'good' governance, energy and the environment, and systems thinking.
3 个月Now we just need to make our elections, more broadly, tamper proof. All jokes aside, it is heartening to see the complimentarity of democracy and the rule of law in action. The importance of election law and its active, but fair, enforcement to the success of democracy cannot be overstated.