Posted by Dave Schwab 2297pc on May 02, 2020
Statement from Stein Recount Campaign
May 1, 2020
Contact: press@jill2016.com
Former Green Party Presidential nominee Jill Stein announced another victory this week for election integrity in litigation arising from the Stein 2016 presidential recount. She celebrated an appeals court decision in Wisconsin, allowing her experts to inspect the software code that runs many voting machines used in Wisconsin and across the country. The decision affirms her right to disclose to the public the experts’ conclusions about the software reliability and accuracy.
“This is another win for voters everywhere,” Stein noted. “This decision prevents the largest US manufacturer of voting machines, Election Systems & Software, from suppressing the findings of an upcoming inspection of key election software. That inspection will bring much needed transparency and accountability to the technology that counts our votes. The decision affirms that corporations cannot shield the voting software we rely on from public scrutiny.”
“This comes as our elections are under threat from not only the pandemic, but also from responses to the pandemic that may endanger the integrity of our elections. As we strive for elections that protect voters and poll workers from Coronavirus transmission, we must continue to fight for elections we can trust.”
One day before the Wisconsin decision, a Pennsylvania judge issued a decision denying an attempt by Stein and several Pennsylvania voters to decertify the controversial ES&S ExpressVote XL. Diamond ridiculed the expert testimony of Dr. Alex Halderman, one of the nation’s foremost computer security experts and dismissed well-established concerns that election systems may be vulnerable to hacking. Diamond’s denunciation of Stein’s fight for election integrity came less than 24 hours before the Wisconsin Court of Appeals advanced the cause Judge Diamond derided.
Stein observed “Judge Diamond’s ruling is a disservice to the people of Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, we are pleased that the case exposed the truth about the ExpressVote XL. These machines are unreliable, overpriced and make it virtually impossible to verify the vote. Bringing to light previously unexamined facts about the ExpressVote XL contributed to decisions by several counties to reject these flawed machines in favor of more reliable and less expensive voting systems.”
“Over the past year, the ExpressVote XL has come to exemplify the worst aspects of the voting equipment industry and the officials who fall under its influence. The disastrous failure of the ExpressVote XL in Northampton County in the November 2019 election made these concerns painfully clear.”
“Our legal efforts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are part of the national movement for election integrity. As the electoral landscape shifts in response to the Coronavirus, the movement is fighting to strengthen principles that are critical for accurate, secure elections – including voter verifiability, chain of custody, accountability, transparency, accessibility, and public scrutiny of any software used in the election system. The fight for election integrity is going strong across the nation. The decision in Wisconsin advances this movement. The Pennsylvania decision will not stop it.”
The Stein team is weighing possible next steps in the Wisconsin and Pennsylvania cases.