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LA: Two campigns debate absentee ballot fraud. Meanwhile in Hartford and New Haven plans to prove early voting works.

In La, apparently there is evidence and no disagreement that fraud occurred. The issue is which campaign did it. Maybe it is both? Absentee voting is a convenience, not just for voters, it really helps fraudsters as well.

Cash strapped New Haven would be a bad place to test early voting in 2013. It is the first competitive election in New Haven in 20 years. Turnout is all but guaranteed to increase – early voting or not – we can predict that early voting would get the credit.

Apparently there is evidence and no disagreement that fraud occurred. The issue is which campaign did it. Maybe it is both? Absentee voting is a convenience, not just for voters, it really helps fraudsters as well.

Brad Friedman reviews the story and reflects the same concerns with mail voting that we have: Absentee Ballot Fraud Allegations in L.A. Underscore (Again) Dangers of Vote-By-Mail <read>

The BRAD BLOG has long detailed the dangers of Vote-by-Mail and absentee balloting, describing the practice as “terrible for democracy,” for a number of reasons. Among those reasons are the ease by which absentee ballots can be undetectably gamed, bought or sold, used for intimidation (“Show me that you voted this particular way or you will be fired/beaten, etc.”) or otherwise lost in the mail, never added to the optically-scanned computer tally, etc., just to name a few.

Usually when we point these matters out, we’ll get some amount of push back, most notably from someone from Oregon, where many voters love their all Vote-by-Mail elections (despite all the dangers, as demonstrated once again by the recent stories out of the state where, in one, a man was convicted of fraud after offering $20 for blank, unvoted ballots prior to the 2012 election, and another where an election official was charged with fraud after it was discovered she was filling in unvoted races in favor of Republicans while processing incoming mailed ballots.)

Those allegations in Oregon are new to us. It just confirms that claims that everything is fine with their all mail-in system are not justified.

Meanwhile in LA, from the LA Times as quoted by Brad:

Prosecutors are investigating allegations of voter fraud in Little Armenia, part of a Los Angeles City Council district where two candidates are waging a bitter battle for an open seat.

According to a spokeswoman for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, prosecutors are trying to determine whether backers of one candidate illegally filled out mail-in ballots for dozens of voters in the Armenian enclave in East Hollywood. The May 21 election will decide who succeeds Eric Garcetti, who is running for mayor…

The complaint alleges that O’Farrell campaign workers filled out voters’ ballots for their candidate while telling them they were voting for Sam Kbushyan, a candidate of Armenian descent who ran and lost during the primary election.

Kbushyan and many of his former campaign volunteers are now working on behalf of O’Farrell.

The O’Farrell campaign rebuts the allegations, saying it was [opposition candidate John] Choi workers who filled out and took ballots from voters. “These are Choi people who are doing this,” O’Farrell spokeswoman Renee Nahum said.

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, for Hartford Courant Editorial Board, anything goes, it supports the safer option in-person early voting and unlimited absentee voting : Early Voting Options May Be Premature <read>

Changes that might be in the offing could include early voting in all its manifestations: no-excuse absentee voting, voting before Election Day at the precinct or a voting center, voting by mail and so forth.

As it stands now, the Connecticut Constitution forbids early voting in statewide elections except for voters casting absentee ballots under very strict circumstances such as illness, infirmity, religious proscriptions or being absent from the state on Election Day. This narrow early-voting rule could be scrapped by the legislature if the constitutional amendment is approved by voters.

As for the early-voting pilot program in this year’s municipal elections being pushed by three New Haven representatives: Lawmakers need to ask state Attorney General George Jepsen for an opinion on its legality.

As for the early-voting pilot program in this year’s municipal elections being pushed by three New Haven representatives: Lawmakers need to ask state Attorney General George Jepsen for an opinion on its legality…

The state constitution doesn’t speak specifically to the question of voting early in municipal elections. Neither did then-Attorney General Richard Blumenthal specifically address local elections in a 2009 informal opinion to lawmakers saying a constitutional amendment would be required to permit no-excuse absentee voting in Connecticut.

The pilot might pass constitutional muster — or it might not.

Early voting will spur turnout in elections for local office. Far too few voters go to the polls to choose mayors, selectmen and members of boards of education and finance. Low turnout drains the life from municipal government, the level of government closest to the people.

We agree that the Constitutionality should be evaluated. Where we also disagree is the claim that forms of early voting increases turnout. They increase convenience, yet are proven by the best science available to actually decrease turnout.

Online voting system names winners in Canada

As the Connecticut General Assembly contemplates online voting, we should contemplate r the implications of the recent Liberal Party online vote. In this case it was a landslide. What if it was very very close? Or there were polls saying the other candidate should have won by a comfortable or small margin?

Bonus: 2,904 reasons in New York City alone, that Internet banking and Internet voting can be costly.

As the Connecticut General Assembly contemplates online voting, we should contemplate the implications of the recent Liberal Party online vote. In this case it was a landslide. What if it was very very close? Or there were polls saying the other candidate should have won by a comfortable or even a small margin? Would we trust the result? Should we?

Canada’s Liberal Party Holds Online Primaries While Security Experts Scowl <read>

Canada’s Liberal party elected a new leader last week. And for the first time in the party’s history, the voting took place online. Justin Trudeau, the telegenic son of the late Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s most famous prime minister, won in a landslide with over 80 per cent of the vote. But online voting critics say that despite the decisive results, the Internet remains an unsafe place to cast your vote.

Impossible to ensure security and anonymity

“If the Conservative party want to select the next Liberal party leader, this provides them with the perfect opportunity,” says Dr. Barbara Simons, an online voting expert, and co-author (with Douglas Jones) of Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count? “I am not saying the Conservatives would do this — I’m just saying this is a very foolish and irresponsible thing for Liberals to be doing, because they open themselves up to vote-rigging that would be almost untraceable, and impossible to prove.”

Simons draws parallels between the risks involved in voting and banking online. She points to viruses like ZeuS (“It’s my favorite virus, because it is incredibly smart,”) which has been used by criminals to steal millions of dollars from online bank accounts, leaving its victims none the wiser.

“I think many people feel that what they see on their screen is what goes out on the Internet,” says Simons. “They don’t appreciate the fact that these are different components, and there is software in between that can change the results – they can vote for candidate A, and a virus can change their vote to candidate B, and they wouldn’t know.”

Actually online voting is more risky that online banking because there is no receipt or audit available to determine if votes were counted for the correct candidate. But as Dr. Simons says, banking is risky even with bank owned ATM’s.

For those doubters here are 2,904 reasons in New York City alone, that Internet banking and Internet voting can be costly:

In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme <read>

It was a brazen bank heist, but a 21st-century version in which the criminals never wore ski masks, threatened a teller or set foot in a vault.

In two precision operations that involved people in more than two dozen countries acting in close coordination and with surgical precision, thieves stole $45 million from thousands of A.T.M.’s in a matter of hours.

In New York City alone, the thieves responsible for A.T.M. withdrawals struck 2,904 machines over 10 hours starting on Feb. 19, withdrawing $2.4 million.

The operation included sophisticated computer experts operating in the shadowy world of Internet hacking, manipulating financial information with the stroke of a few keys, as well as common street criminals, who used that information to loot the automated teller machines.

Editor’s Note: We seem to repeatedly harp on some subjects over and over, like the risks of mail-in voting and all forms of Internet voting. Yet, it also seems that the message never quite makes it that both are very vulnerable in theory and in practice. We will keep at it, working for rational discussion and evaluation.

Absentee/Mail-In voting in the news again

Today we have two reports highlighting the worst of the risks. i.e. mass mail voting, sending ballots unsolicited to voters and tracking ballots to voters, completely eliminating the secret vote. One good thing about tracking, apparently it shows dramatically the problems with error and fraud, as well as the lack of official concern with integrity.

We have long warned readers of the election integrity risks of absentee and mail-in voting, including stories of actual cases of mail voting fraud and error, as close as Bridgeport, Hartford, and East Long Meadow. Risks include vote selling, coercion, stealing ballots from mail boxes, false requests, loss in the mail, insider abuse in town hall, and ballots rejected by innocent mistakes. We believe that absentee and mail-in voting should be limited to cases where voters are overseas, out of town, or unable to go to the polling place.

The most amazing, instructive, and sad story from Washington State: <read>

San Juan County Superior Court Judge Donald E. Eaton ruled that a controversial voting system using voter-identifying barcodes on ballots is illegal. The system has been used for years in several Washington counties. Similar lawsuits are underway in Colorado.

Local voters and the San Juan County Green Party prevailed over former Secretary of State Sam Reed and San Juan County Auditor Milene Henley in a citizen suit originally brought by Orcas Island residents Tim White and Allan Rosato in 2006. The two seek to remove the unique ballot bar codes.

The system, dubbed VoteHere Mail-in Ballot Tracker (MiBT), is a paperless election tracking, processing and auditing software package. A series of processing station time stamps purports to track each ballot from the time it was sent to the voter to the time it was counted. On March 27 Judge Eaton ruled that MiBT is an integral part of the voting system, and required to undergo rigorous certification. State law prohibits voting systems not certified under the legislature’s program of public examination and expert testing.

White and Rosato decided to pursue the suit after intensive sampling of MiBT tracking data posted online by San Juan County in 2005. They documented anomalies suggesting inconsistent, impossible and changed ballot tracks for some ten percent of voters: ballots counted before they were received, two ballots accepted from the same voter, ballots received and counted though never sent out, and dozens received and signature-accepted but not counted. The two became even more concerned when, after they presented their findings and the election was certified, much of the inconsistent tracks were suddenly “fixed” with new entries-and then returned to its original confused state two months later.

Meanwhile the Colorado Legislature is close to passing a bill including several large changes in election laws. Some may be good ideas well legislated, others good ideas poorly legislated, and still others seem to be bad ideas destined to increase election integrity risks and leave more activities to election officials behind closed doors. ‘Fraud’ Controversy Over Sweeping CO Election Reform Bill Misses Mark by a Vote-by-Mail Mile <read>

An ambitious election reform bill supported by state Democrats and the Colorado County Clerks Association, which is largely made up of Republicans, will soon land on the desk of Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, despite the objections of Republican lawmakers and the state’s extraordinarily partisan Republican Sec. of State.

The bill has now been approved by both chambers of the Colorado legislature — along party lines in each — but must be approved again in the House due to “technical” amendments from the Senate. But while it may be too late, partisans and lawmakers would have been wise to look carefully before leaping in support of this bill which offers both excellent reforms and reasons to be very concerned about one of its central provisions…

House Bill 1303 seeks to expand voter participation mainly by establishing a system that includes same-day registration up to Election Day and that mails ballots to all eligible voters in the state. Under the proposed law, voters would choose whether to mail their ballots back to the clerks, drop them off at early voting centers or fill them out at the polls on Election Day.

Tomasic goes on to explain that the bill, dubbed “The Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act”, is sponsored by Democrats in both the CO House and Senate, but it’s “based on a plan approved by a large bipartisan majority of clerks who run the state’s elections county to county. The Colorado County Clerks Association reports that 75 percent of the 64 clerks in the state support the bill. The Association is anything but a left-wing cabal: At least 44 of the clerks, some 70 percent, are Republican officeholders.”

Misgivings about a decision, or the result in retrospect?

at the end of their careers or in retirement, justices tend to figure out where they screwed up. … Now we see that in retirement, O’Connor is still pining about Bush v. Gore.

Talking Points Memo has one of several articles on Sandra Day O’Connor and Gore v. Bush How Sandra Day O’Connor’s Vote In Bush v. Gore Helped Unravel Her Own Legacy <read>

Thirteen years after her pivotal swing vote in Bush v. Gore, retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is suggesting it was a mistake for the Supreme Court to take up the case, lamenting as many scholars have that it tarnished the Court’s reputation. But there’s another, indirect casualty of the fallout from the hyper-controversial 2000 case that effectively settled the presidential election for George W. Bush: O’Connor’s own legacy.

In a bit of historical irony, when O’Connor retired in 2006, the man she helped make president replaced her with Samuel Alito, a staunch conservative who proceeded to unravel several major rulings where O’Connor had held the swing vote and had shaped the law — most notably on abortion, campaign finance and racial diversity in education…

Speaking to the Chicago Tribune editorial board last Friday, O’Connor said the Supreme Court “took the case [Bush v. Gore] and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue. Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’” She lamented that “probably the Supreme Court added to the problem” when all was said and done.

Sadly, the issue is not if George Bush did a good, poor, or disastrous job and how the decision worked out. The issue is trust in our election system; did we have a legitimate government? What the Court did was conform and harden the 1876 decision that the 12th Amendment and Electoral Count Act are more about formality that about choosing the President as the voters intended. They also followed a long tradition of courts and bodies justifying decisions that somehow usually accord with the p0litical preferences of those bodies and ‘deciders’.

Ironic: U.S. calls for increased election integrity … in Venezuela

This is about as ironic as it gets. First the United States has no mechanism for a full recount or audit of its national elections. Second, the call officially comes from John Kerry who overruled his friends, advisers, and supporters to throw in the towel early on the day after the Nov 2004 election, in spite of massive charges of fraud in Ohio – allegations, since largely justified.

The U.S. called for a recount of the Venezuelan election: <read>

The United States is hesitating to recognise Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela and has called for a recount of the vote from Sunday’s closely fought election. The procrastination is likely to embolden Venezuela’s opposition and enrage many on the left in Latin America, who have long accused the US of interfering in the region’s politics. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said he had yet to evaluate whether the disputed result was legitimate when asked about the matter by members of the House of Representatives. “We think there ought to be a recount,”

This is about as ironic as it gets. First the United States has no mechanism for a full recount or audit of its national elections. Only about half the states have recount laws for close votes Even those are in question since the Supreme Court ruling in Gore v. Bush that just in the one state of Florida recounts could not be completed because of time and inadequate consistency. Second, the call officially comes from John Kerry who overruled his friends, advisers, and supporters to throw in the towel early on the day after the Nov 2004 election, in spite of massive charges of fraud in Ohio – allegations, since largely justified.

We remember not so long ago another President saying “We need to fix” our election system. We recall letters from scientists, officials, and advocates calling for better audit and recounts, along with paper ballots for the country. We note the President ignored those calls from his own country for such reforms. Instead that President called only for needed, yet superficial, reforms to shorten lines on election day.

How good is Venezuela’s election system? At least one former President who should know, Jimmy Carter, calls it the best in the world! <read>

The Carter Center, founded by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in 1982, is a non-profit human rights organization with a self-described emphasis on â??seeking to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health around the world. Founder and former President Jimmy Carter recently stated “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world” Hector Vanolli, director of the Carter Center in Venezuela, says that the automization (is this a word?) of every step of the process, from pre-election voter registration, to election day voting, to post ballot tallying, along with its auditability, is what sets the Venezuelan electoral system apart from other countries.

Yet not to let a question go unanswered, Venezeula announced last night that it will audit 46% of its elections. Why 46%? Because the automatically audited 54%, way beyond what any state in the U.S. audits. <read>

Op-Ed: Internet Voting Security; Wishful Thinking Doesn’t Make It True

This was a simple online poll that was easily compromised. Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved. Before we entrust critical public functions such as voting to such software, the public deserves a solid demonstration that such claims are truly substantiated, and policy makers need to be schooled in a proper skepticism about computer security. That has not yet happened.

“Internet Voting Security; Wishful Thinking Doesn’t Make It True”

Duncan Buell

On March 21, in the midst of Kentucky’s deliberation over allowing votes to be cast over the Internet, its daily poll asked its readers, “Should overseas military personnel be allowed to vote via the Internet?” This happened the day before their editorial rightly argued against Internet voting at this time.

One of the multiple choice answers was “Yes, it can be made just as secure as any balloting system.” This brings up the old adage, “we are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.” The simple fact is that Internet voting is possible – but it is definitely NOT as secure as some other balloting systems. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact. Votes cast over the Internet are easily subject to corruption in a number of different ways.

To illustrate this point, two colleagues of mine wrote simple software scripts that allowed us to vote multiple times in the paper’s opinion poll. We could have done this with repeated mouse clicks on the website, but the scripts allowed us to do it automatically, and by night’s end we had voted 60,000 times. The poll vendor’s website claims that it blocks repeated voting, but that claim is clearly not entirely true. We did not break in to change the totals. We did not breach the security of the Courier-Journal’s computers. We simply used programs instead of mouse clicks to vote on the poll website itself.

Some policy makers are wishing that the net were secure and the security promises of vendors were true, and they are not listening to the computer experts who know otherwise. Why shouldn’t we entrust computer voting security to government and its vendors? Ask that of South Carolina taxpayers; hackers have shipped overseas all tax records and identifying information from 1998 to 2012. Wishful thinking is dangerous when it causes us to fail to protect our best interests; we must defend our data just as we defend our shores.

This was a simple online poll that was easily compromised. Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved. Before we entrust critical public functions such as voting to such software, the public deserves a solid demonstration that such claims are truly substantiated, and policy makers need to be schooled in a proper skepticism about computer security. That has not yet happened.

There is an irony in hacking an online poll about whether voting can be hacked. But it points to a much-needed dialogue between policy makers and computer security experts. Elections are too important to be entrusted, without proof, to the marketing hype of an Internet voting company. The nation’s real elections should be decided by the voters in the nation’s jurisdictions, not by whichever entity – foreign or domestic – happens to have the best software bots running on any given biennial Tuesday in November.

As Professor Buell points out “Internet voting vendor software will be harder to compromise, but this shows that computer security is hard and claims must be proved.”. That has been tested once, in Washington, D.C. and the result was exposure of a clearly insufficient Internet voting system.

For now we await vendors willing to subject their systems to ongoing rigorous professional and open public adversarial testing. We admit it will take a lot to satisfy us that systems are sufficiently secure from outsiders and insiders. But it seems vendors are hardly willing try.

PS: Not so long ago another newspaper’s poll was compromised, by parties and methods not disclosed, will little lessons learned by the newspaper.

The problem with Internet voting, in video and in text

Timely for us in Connecticut as our Legislature contemplates online, email, or fax voting for military voters, while they also contemplate mandating towns to provide Internet access to all registrars.

All we can say is “If election officials cannot afford to be on the Internet, how can they provide online, email, or fax voting? If they do not use email, how can they understand Internet Security?”

Barbara Simons has a Ted Talk on Internet voting along with an extensive paper, co-authored with Doug Jones.

As they say: “We frequently are asked, ‘If I can bank online, why can’t I vote online?’ The question assumes that online banking is safe and secure. However, banks routinely and quietly replenish funds lost to online fraud in order to maintain public confidence.”

Testimony: Three bills, including the National Popular Vote

Monday I testified on three bills, primarily the National Popular Vote Compact. Although I oppose the bill, and have since 2007, I actually favor the popular election of the President. Yet, we have a mismatch between our current state-by-state election system which not a match for the demands of a national popular vote that is fair and one we can trust. Like Europe before the Euro, we have a lot of work to do and details to attend to before we could make the change.

S.B. 432 National Popular Vote
S.J. 18 Applauding the Electoral College
H.J. 36 Early Voting
(links are to testimony, which have links to the bills)

I also prepared written oral remarks <read>. I adjusted my actual remarks to address critical issues raised or overlooked earlier in the hearing.

In 2007 and 2009 I was the loan dissenter in testimony opposing the Compact for technical reasons. Since 2011, I have been joined by a growing number of others. This year, most prominently, by former State University System Chancellor, William Cibes. I am sure, all things considered, Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have liked to join us in person.

Testimony: Online voting and three other bills

The hearing was close to six and one-half hours, 11:00am – 5:30pm. I was next to the last speaker. I applaud the committee members and public staying until the end, especially the two Co-Chairs and the Senate Ranking Member – they really listened to me and the last speaker, they asked excellent questions and provided the time for complete answers. Five Registrars of Voters also stayed as well.

On Friday we submitted testimony on four bills, limiting our oral testimony to the bill for online voting:

S.B. 283 Online Voting for Military Voters
S.B. 668 Training Election Officials
H.B. 6100 Voluntary Rationalization of Election Functions
H.B. 6111 Uniform Military and Overseas Voting
(links are to testimony, which have links to the bills)

The hearing was close to six and one-half hours, 11:00am – 5:30pm. I was next to the last speaker. I applaud the committee members staying and public until the end, especially the two Co-Chairs and the Senate Ranking Member – they really listened to me and the last speaker, they asked excellent questions and provided the time for complete answers. Five Registrars of Voters also stayed as well.

I also prepared written oral remarks <read>. I adjusted my actual remarks to address critical issues raised or overlooked in this hearing and the on three days before on email and fax voting.

That nobody in either hearing or the Tuesday press conference mentioned the free express mail service available from the USPS and FVAP (Federal Voting Assistance Program). Those unaware included election officials, military who told of snail mail being too slow, and Voting Assistance Officers (VAOs)charged by Congress with providing information to assist military voters. Here is the flyer that should have been posted around the globe <flyer>
Statistics show that ballots mailed through the USPS/FVAP program were almost all returned within 5-7 days.
I pointed out that the very same VAOs that are charged with making military members aware of the express mail program, are also charged with making computers, printers, scanners, and fax machines available for voting.

In Tuesday’s hearing, Representative Alexander, a recent VAO told of the process for faxing votes and his associated fears: Votes to be faxed are passed up the line through several levels from the soldier before they are faxed. Representative Alexander was concerned that some along the way might change votes, not recognizing the seriousness of the matter.
My concerns hearing that were: What happens to the paper ballot after it is faxed? No matter how honest and secure the process, the average soldier might suspect that his/her ballot would be seen by someone in the chain-of-command and might decide to vote in the way they thought their leaders might what.

No video of the hearings available yet. Another hearing tomorrow, Monday. I will be testifying on three more bills.

State Of The Union, voting

The value and risk will be in the details. Will the commission effectively address problems without causing unintended consequences? Or will it be a mixed bag of expensive reforms like the Help America Vote Act? Time will tell if the Commission and the Congress follow through on sensible reforms and heed the advice of advocates to consider voting integrity as part of actual reforms.

On Tuesday President Obama mentioned improving voting in the State Of The Union address:

We must all do our part to make sure our God-given rights are protected here at home. That includes our most fundamental right as citizens: the right to vote. When any Americans – no matter where they live or what their party – are denied that right simply because they can’t wait for five, six, seven hours just to cast their ballot, we are betraying our ideals. That’s why, tonight, I’m announcing a non-partisan commission to improve the voting experience in America. And I’m asking two long-time experts in the field, who’ve recently served as the top attorneys for my campaign and for Governor Romney’s campaign, to lead it. We can fix this, and we will. The American people demand it. And so does our democracy.

Perhaps the President was at least in part influenced by letters from advocates, sent after his previous reference to fixing the problems surfacing in last November’s election <here> <hear>

Here are the high level details spelled out by the Whitehouse <read>

Reduce Long Voting Lines: The Presidential Commission on Election Administration will develop recommendations for state and local election officials to reduce waiting times at the polls and improve all citizens’ voting experience.

Commonsense, Non-Partisan Solutions: The Commission will be co-chaired by two recognized practitioners and experts in the field, Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsberg, whose experience in this field include Bauer’s role as General Counsel for the President’s campaign and Ginsberg’s as National Counsel for Governor Romney’s campaign…

There are many good improvements possible. But often what seems like common sense turns out to be incorrect reasoning . For instance, as we have pointed out here many times, early voting actually reduces turn-out, flying in the face of the common sense notion that it would obviously increase turn-out. <here> <here>

We are also skeptical of another section:

Assist members of the military and other voters: The Commission will also make
recommendations to improve the experience of voters facing other, comparable
obstacles in casting their ballots, such as members of the military, overseas voters,
voters with disabilities, and voters with limited English proficiency.

We hope that when assisting the members of the Military and other Overseas voters that the Commission will look to states that have been successful in the practical implementation of the MOVE Act. Rather than the common sense counter factual argument that “If we can bank safely online line, why can’t we vote online” (We cannot because voting is a much harder to secure application and online banking is safe for us only because banks pay the billions lost each year in looses due to fraud)
Time will tell if the Commission and the Congress follow through on sensible reforms and heed the advice of advocates to consider voting integrity as part of actual reforms. In addition to skepticism we are hopeful reading these words from the details that may lead the Commission in a positive direction:

Practical Reforms: By Executive Order, the President will charge the
Commission to consider such issues, and identify practical, commonsense steps
that state and local election officials can take to improve the Election Day
experience. The Commission will also identify the practices of voting
jurisdictions where voters have the best Election Day experience.

For more reactions see <TheVotingNews> <BradBlog>