Dominion Part of Council That Disputed Election Integrity Concerns in DHS Statement

Dominion Voting Systems used statement, which obscured company’s council membership, to dispute concerns over voting systems

After allegations emerged that called into questioned the integrity of voting machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—part of the Department of Homeland Security—issued a statement on Nov. 12 disputing the allegations, saying “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”

What the agency failed to disclose, however, is that Dominion Voting Systems is a member of CISA’s Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council, one of two entities that authored the statement put out by CISA.

Epoch Times Photo A screenshot taken on Nov. 16, 2020, of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency website shows the members of the Sector Coordinating Council. (Screenshot/The Epoch Times) In addition, Smartmatic, a separate voting machine company that has been the subject of additional concerns, is also a member.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Dominion and Smartmatic had input or were otherwise involved in CISA’s Nov. 12 statement.

The joint statement on the integrity of the Nov. 3 election was issued by the Executive Committee of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC), an Executive Committee representing a coalition of certain state & local government officials and government agencies, and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC), a coalition primarily composed of voting system manufacturers that also includes Democracy Works, an organization which promotes the use of technology to increase voter participation.

The statement claims, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too,” says the statement.

Some of the allegations surrounding the integrity of the presidential election, including by President Donald Trump’s legal team, have been focused on the voting systems provided by Dominion, and to a lesser extent, Smartmatic. Both Dominion and Smartmatic have dismissed concerns over their systems.

Both companies are listed as members of CISA’s Sector Coordinating Council and appear to be actively involved as they are named as “Organizing Members” of the SCC. Among the key objectives of the SCC is to “serve as the primary liaison between the election subsector and federal, state, and local agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), concerning private election subsector security and emergency preparedness issues.”

The Charter states the primary mission of the Council is to “advance the physical security, cyber security, and emergency preparedness of the nation’s election infrastructure, in accordance with existing U.S. law. This mission will be accomplished through voluntary actions of the infrastructure owners and operators represented in the Council.”

CISA’s Reliance on Commercial Vendors CISA says that it “works to ensure the physical security and cybersecurity of the systems and assets that supports the Nation’s elections,” including voter registration databases, IT infrastructure and systems to manage elections (including counting, auditing, and validating election results), voting systems, storage facilities for voting system infrastructure, and polling places including early voting locations.

In effect, CISA appears to act as something of an interface between commercial vendors and state & local governments.

“CISA is committed to working collaboratively with those on the front lines of elections—state and local governments, election officials, federal partners, and vendors—to manage risks to the Nation’s election infrastructure,” the agency states on its website.

As CISA notes, they do not have direct oversight or responsibility for the administration of our nation’s elections as that responsibility lies with state and local governments.

“Ultimate responsibility for administering the Nation’s elections rests with state and local governments, CISA offers a variety of free services to help states ensure both the physical security and cybersecurity of their elections infrastructure,” the agency writes on its website.

Dominion Using CISA to Deny Allegations On Nov. 12, this publication published an article detailing a number of concerns raised about the integrity of Dominion Voting Systems in a sworn Aug. 24 declaration from Harri Hursti, a poll watcher and acknowledged expert on electronic voting security.

Hursti’s observations were made during the June 9 statewide primary election in Georgia and the runoff elections on Aug. 11, 2020, and centered primarily, although not exclusively, around the Dominion systems and equipment.

“The scanner and tabulation software settings being employed to determine which votes to count on hand marked paper ballots are likely causing clearly intentioned votes not to be counted” “The voting system is being operated in Fulton County in a manner that escalates the security risk to an extreme level.” “Voters are not reviewing their BMD [Ballot Marking Devices] printed ballots, which causes BMD generated results to be un-auditable due to the untrustworthy audit trail.” As part of the article, we reached out to Dominion Voting Systems for comment on Nov. 11 about the allegations contained in Hursti’s sworn statement, to which the company did not respond. Our article was published on the morning of Nov. 12. That afternoon CISA published its statement denying any problems with the voting systems.

The next day, Nov. 13, Dominion sent us an email titled “SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: FACTS & RUMORS,” which cited the joint statement published by the GCC and SCC, of which Dominion is an organizing member.

Epoch Times Photo A screenshot taken on Nov. 16, 2020, of the “Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council Charter,” dated Feb. 15, 2018, shows both Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic as organizing members. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency uses “EISCC” and “SCC” interchangeably to refer to the Sector Coordinating Council. (Screenshot/The Epoch Times) Nowhere in its email did Dominion disclose that it had any affiliation with CISA, or was an active member of the SCC, one of the issuing councils. The email itself referenced the statement in third-party fashion:

“According to a Joint Statement by the federal government agency that oversees U.S. election security, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity, & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): ‘There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.’ The government & private sector councils that support this mission called the 2020 election ‘the most secure in American history.’”

CISA did not respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times about whether it has investigated the claims made in the Georgia lawsuit about Dominion.

Concerns Raised in Georgia Lawsuit While it remains unclear whether CISA and the GCC/SCC have evaluated concerns raised in the Georgia lawsuit, their public statements categorically deny any problems with the systems.

However, in an Oct. 11 order just weeks prior to the presidential elections, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg agreed with the concerns associated with the new Dominion voting system, writing that the case presented “serious system security vulnerability and operational issues that may place Plaintiffs and other voters at risk of deprivation of their fundamental right to cast an effective vote that is accurately counted.”

Despite the court’s misgivings, Totenberg ruled against replacing the Dominion system right before the presidential election, noting that “Implementation of such a sudden systemic change under these circumstances cannot but cause voter confusion and some real measure of electoral disruption.”

Given the recent timing of Judge Totenberg’s order, it does not appear that any of these issues were addressed by Dominion, CISC, or any of its affiliated organizations or Councils, despite their later statements claiming there were no such issues.

CISA boss, Krebs:

16 Nov: Politico: CISA chief Chris Krebs remains at his post
By MARTIN MATISHAK; With help from Eric Geller
— It’s Monday morning, do you know where CISA DIrector Chris Krebs is? Spoilers: Still at work, amid new theories about why he’s on thin ice with the White House...

KREBS WATCH — After frenzied speculation last week that he would be the next Trump administration official unceremoniously shown the door, CISA Director Chris Krebs remains on the job. In fact, on Saturday Krebs — who’s been telling associates he expects to be fired — shot down another baseless claim about the 2020 election, tweeting: “Quick Election Security Disinfo Debunker: election-related servers WERE NOT recently seized in Europe by the US Army contrary to #disinfo rapidly spreading across social media. Don’t buy it & think 2x before you share.” The day before that, CISA urged users to patch Apple vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild.

That’s not to say the weekend wasn’t without drama for Krebs or the agency he helms. The New York Post sparked debate online after it reported that Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf had refused to fire Krebs. The article, citing unnamed sources, says that Krebs earned President Donald Trump’s ire not only for debunking false claims, but for keeping Matt Masterson, who served as U.S. Election Assistance Commission chair during the Obama administration, on as a senior adviser on election security; holding what’s been dubbed a “watch party” at the agency’s headquarters on election night; and being close with former DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor, who recently outed himself as “Anonymous.”

But many, including a former top DHS lawyer, pointed out that only the president has the power to fire Krebs, suggesting the Post’s story was planted by allies of Wolf, who has pushed to have the full Senate approve his nomination to be DHS chief.

Of course, Krebs’ job status could change with a presidential tweet...
But (CIA Director, Gina) Haspel — who briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee last week and paid a visit to the Capitol Hill office of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — has split the GOP, with some demanding her ouster and others defending her work. Meanwhile, Wray hangs on...
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-cybersecurity/2020/11/16/cisa-chief-chris-krebs-remains-at-his-post-791666

21 Nov 2019: The Hill: DHS cyber agency invests in election auditing tool to secure 2020 elections
BY MAGGIE MILLER
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) cybersecurity agency announced Thursday it would partner with election officials and private sector groups to develop an election auditing tool that can be used to help ensure the accuracy of votes in 2020.
DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is partnering with non-profit group ***VotingWorks on an open-source software tool known as Arlo, which is provided to state and local election officials for free.

According to CISA, Arlo conducts an audit of votes by selecting how many ballots and which ballots to audit and comparing the audited votes to the original count.
“Heading into 2020, we’re exploring all possible ways that we can support state and local election officials while also ensuring that Americans across the country can confidently cast their votes,” CISA Director ***Christopher Krebs said in a statement.
Krebs added that “At a time when we know foreign actors are attempting to interfere and cast doubt on our democratic processes, it’s incredibly important elections are secure, resilient, and transparent.”

Use of post-election audits have been widely recommended by experts as a major step to secure elections, particularly in the wake of attempted Russian interference in 2016.
The use of audits was a step recommended by the Senate Intelligence Committee to secure elections in volume one of its bipartisan report on Russian interference efforts in 2016...
https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/471577-dhs-cyber-agency-invests-in-election-auditing-tool-to-secure-2020

following provides links:

Archived: Influence Watch: ***VotingWorks
VotingWorks is a left-of-center non-profit provider of voting machines and open-source election verification software. In November 2019, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it would partner with VotingWorks to pilot the use of its vote verification software in six battleground states during the November 2020 election. In April 2020, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, VotingWorks announced it would be providing technological assistance to states and local jurisdictions seeking to scale-up voting by mail opportunities...

VotingWorks was created within and incubated by the left-leaning Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) in December 2018 and later and spun off as a separate non-profit. CDT’s major donors are large technology firms, such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft; and large left-of-center foundations, including George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society, the Ford Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation...

In November 2019 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it would partner with VotingWorks to pilot the use of Arlo in six battleground states during the November 2020 election...

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, VotingWorks announced it would be helping states scale-up voting by mail. An April 2020 news release announced VotingWorks was building VxMail, a set of tools to help implement and deploy vote-by mail with services such as ballot printing, envelope stuffing, mailing, ballot receipt, signature verification, and ballot tabulation...
https://archive.is/7Egpy

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