PLEASE SIGN GEORGIA VOTERS’ PETITION TO DEMAND

SECURE PAPER BALLOT VOTING SYSTEM THAT PREVENTS ELECTION HACKING

(Text us at 980-292-4042 with your name and address. We will not publish your address. Your
address will be filed only with Clerk of House of Representatives.)

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Open Letter to Members of the Georgia General Assembly
Re: Voting Systems Bill SB403

March 25, 2018

Dear Georgia Senators and Representatives:

We urge you not to pass voting system bill SB403 in haste as the session comes to a close. SB403
fails to mandate verifiable auditable elections using hand-marked paper ballots counted by scanners
and manually audited—the most secure and accurate balloting method. Instead, we ask that you
support HR1699 for a Voting System Study Committee to permit state officials to better assess voting
system security requirements.

We look to you as our representatives to protect our voting rights, including the right to have our votes
counted as cast and secured against malicious interference.

We seek your commitment to oppose SB403 because it contains undemocratic principles and
reckless security practices:

• SB403 permits vulnerable voting machines that use barcodes to record and tabulate the
official ballot. Current law does not permit insecure barcode balloting. The law should not
be changed to permit high-risk technology. Computer scientists agree that barcodes have
no business tabulating Georgia’s elections, likening ballot barcodes to the ability to attach a
keyboard to the tabulation scanner.
• Barcode ballots cannot be audited or manually recounted as claimed.
• Federal (EAC) system certification is not required in SB403.
• Deadlines for election certifications preclude meaningful post-election audits.
• SB403 mandates a schedule of rapid implementation that is recklessly unrealistic, building
in a likely security failure in the 2020 elections.
• Basic ballot security and chain-of-custody controls are absent.
• SB403 mandates centralizing all election programming in the Secretary of State’s office
without proper checks and balances. Single point of failure risk is high.
• SB403 mandates a single source supplier for the system, counter to good business,
cybersecurity, and financial principles.
• SB403 permits cities, including Atlanta, to continue to run municipal elections on the un-
auditable paperless touchscreen ballots.
• Unverifiable barcode balloting systems can cost more than three times the cost of hand-
marked paper ballots counted by optical scanning equipment.

Events of the last several weeks have occurred at the federal level that should also be factored into
any voting system legislation. We ask you to avoid enacting new voting system statutes until the
following considerations can be taken into account, preferably through the proposed Study
Committee:

• Approximately $10.6 million in new federal funding can be granted to Georgia for
enhancing voting system security if requirements are met.
• New voting system standards will be determined by the federal Election Assistance
Commission on April 20, 2018.
• On March 20, 2018, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee issued basic
recommendations for voting system security. SB403 violates those standards.

Leading election integrity organizations have publicly stated their opposition to SB403 for its failure to
mandate secure, auditable, and verified elections. Such organizations include Verified Voting,
Common Cause Georgia, Georgians for Verified Voting, and National Election Defense Coalition.
There is no known citizen support for SB403.

SB403 as constructed degrades election security while promoting the interest of certain vendors to
legally permit the purchase of their new insecure vulnerable technology. Voters, not vendors, should
be the beneficiaries of all new election legislation.

In summary, the Georgia voters want hand-marked paper ballots counted by tabulating scanners and
manually audited in statistically valid audits. Please avoid degrading the election statutes through
SB403 to permit vulnerable new technology to be acquired. We also insist that any new voting system
legislation include basic security requirements, mandatory post-election audits, and transparent
processes permitting full public oversight of its elections.

Thank you for your consideration of our requests.

Respectfully submitted,

Georgia voter signers

VOTER NAME, CITY (to be published)

(Street address will be filed only with Clerk of House of Representatives, not published publicly)