Podcasts about help america vote act

A new book published jointly by NCSL and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission is aimed at serving as a resource for election administrators, secretaries of state, state legislators and legislative staff. It will be available soon in digital form on the NCSL website. “Helping America Vote: Election Administration in the United States” was the focus of this podcast and features a discussion with Commissioners Ben Hovland and Donald Palmer.The EAC was established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which was Congress' response to the problems with the 2000 election. The commission's goals include adopting voluntary voting system guidelines, serving as a national clearinghouse for election administration and certifying voting systems. The commissioners are bipartisan. Hovland, chairman until earlier this year, is a Democrat, and Palmer, the current chairman, is a Republican. The commissioners discussed a variety of topics related to elections including the pros and cons of our decentralized voting system, the importance of election administration as a profession, the value of a bipartisan approach to election administration and who they hope will read this book. ResourcesElections and Campaigns Program, NCSLU.S. Election Assistance Commission

J.P. Duffy is joined by Jeff Zaino, vice president of the AAA-ICDR's Commercial Division, to discuss the AAA's upcoming centenary and its enduring reputation as a trusted choice for resolving commercial conflicts across industries. The conversation delves into the AAA's significant milestones and accomplishments, highlighting its commitment to innovation, including its approach to AI and the recent appointment of Bridget McCormack as president and CEO. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Hello and welcome to Arbitral Insights, a podcast series brought to you by our international arbitration practice lawyers here at Reed Smith. I'm Peter Rosher, Global Head of Reed Smith's International Arbitration Practice. I hope you enjoy the industry commentary, insights and anecdotes we share with you in the course of this series, wherever in the world you are. If you have any questions about any of the topics discussed, please do contact our speakers. And with that, let's get started.  J.P.: Welcome back to the next episode of Arbitral Insights, in which we'll discuss the American Arbitration Association with Jeff Zaino, who's the vice president of the AAA's commercial division. I'm J.P. Duffy. I'm an international arbitration partner based in New York that acts as both counsel and arbitrator in international arbitration seated around the world under a variety of governing laws and arbitral rules. I'm qualified in New York, England, and Wales in the DIFC courts in Dubai, where I previously lived and practiced. I routinely represent clients and arbitrations involving a range of issues and frequently sit as an arbitrator in commercial disputes as well. I also have the good fortune to be a member of the AAA's commercial division arbitrator roster, the ICDR panel, and I'm a member of the AAA-ICDR Life Sciences Steering Committee and a member of the ICDR Publications Committee as well. So I get to do a lot with the AAA, which is really a wonderful organization. As I mentioned, with me today is Jeff Zaino, who's the vice president of the commercial division of the AAA in New York. He oversees administration of the large, complex commercial caseload, user outreach, and panel of commercial neutrals in New York. He joined the association in 1990, and Mr. Zaino is dedicated to promoting ADR methods and services. He's also written and published extensively on the topics of electronic reform and ADR, including several podcasts with the ABA, talks on law, and corporate counsel business. And he's appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and Bloomberg to discuss national election reform efforts and the Help America Vote Act. He was deemed a 2018 Alternative Dispute Resolution Champion by the National Law Journal and received awards for his ADR work from the National Academy of Arbitrators, Region 2 and Long Island Labor and Employment Relations Association. In 2022, Jeff received the Alicott Lieber Younger Committee of the Year Award for the New York State Bar Association Commercial and Federal Litigation Section. And in 2023, the Chairman's Award, NYSBA Dispute Resolution Section. So as you can tell, Jeff is a highly experienced, highly lauded arbitration expert, but we're really lucky to have his valuable insights today. So before we begin with some of the substance, let me just give a little bit of background on the AAA and the commercial division so that those that are less familiar have a little bit of information about what we're going to discuss today. The AAA is a non-profit alternative dispute resolution service provider headquartered in New York that administers arbitrations, mediations, and other forms of dispute resolution, such as ombudsperson and dispute avoidance training. It was founded in 1926 to provide an alternative to civil court proceedings, and that makes the AAA one of the oldest arbitral institutions in the world, as well as one of the largest, having administered over 11,553 business-to-business cases in 2023 alone, with a total value of over $19.1 billion. So that should give you a pretty good idea of the scope of what the AAA does. Notably, the AAA has several divisions that offer users substantial subject matter expertise. For instance, the commercial division, which Jeff heads, specializes in business-to-business disputes of all sizes, but has a particular expertise with large complex cases across a variety of industries, including accounting, communications, energy, entertainment, financial services, franchise, hospitality, insurance and reinsurance, life sciences, sports, and technology. There are also separate AAA divisions that focus exclusively on construction issues, consumer disputes, employment matters, government issues, healthcare, and labor disputes. Lastly, as many of our listeners will know, the AAA has a well-known international division, the International Center for Dispute Resolution, or what's colloquially known as the ICDR, that focuses on disputes that have an international component. Before we get into some of our recent developments, Jeff, if you could tell us a bit about what makes the AAA different than other arbitral administrators, I'm sure our audience would love to hear that.  Jeff: Sure. Hey, thanks so much, J.P., for having me today, and thanks for the kind words at the beginning. It's great to be here today. Well, you mentioned it. The AAA is the largest and oldest ADR provider in the world. We have over 700 staff worldwide and 28 offices, including one in Singapore. And we have a huge panel, and you're on that panel. We have 6,000 arbitrators on our panel, and we consider them experts in the industry. And we're really proud of our panel. And like you mentioned, we're hitting our 100th anniversary in 2026. And since then, when I started, I started in the 90s, like you mentioned, 1990. From 1926, when we were founded, to 1990, we did a million cases, one million cases. And then, since then, from 1990 until now, 2024, we hit 8 million, 8 million cases. So it's growing. And I feel that's because of AAA, AAA-ICDR. Again, we've been around for almost 100 years, and we keep on growing. And I feel that we took the A out of ADR. I mean, everyone says alternative dispute resolution, but I really think now it's, and you'll probably agree with me, J.P., that it's dispute resolution. It's something in our toolbox and it's not alternative any longer. And then another thing about us, a huge difference about AAA-ICDR is we're not for profit. That makes us unique in this space. Profit-based companies are a little bit different than what we are. We're not criticizing them, but we're unique in the sense that we work directly for the parties, not for the arbitrators.  J.P.: That's a really interesting stat, Jeff. Let me unpack some of that because I think, first off, if I understood that correctly, you said up until 1990, there were 1 million cases administered. Is that right?  Jeff: That's correct. We did 1 million cases from our founding, 1926, a year after the Federal Arbitration Act in 1925. So we did 1 million when I came on board in 1990. And then from 1990 until now, we've done a total of 8 million. So we doubled that, or tripled it. It's been amazing how the growth that we've seen. And also during a pandemic, we saw a huge growth at AAA-ICDR.  J.P.: And Jeff, one thing that I think you're obviously very involved with the New York State Bar, and I've done quite a bit with the New York State Bar myself over the years. One thing that I noticed, and you just reminded me of this, was an uptick in submission agreements during the pandemic, by which I mean parties taking existing disputes for which there was no arbitration clause, drafting an arbitration clause for it to submit it and move it into arbitration. And I think some of that was a function of the recognition that disputes would founder if the courts were closed and that parties needed things done. Did you see that kind of growth during the pandemic of submission agreements as well?  Jeff: Absolutely. The courts were shut down, like you mentioned, for three to four months worldwide. And the ADR providers, like the AAA-ICDR, did not shut down. And we did have submissions, more submissions than we've ever seen. And usually it's only about, I would say, 2%, 3% of our caseload is submissions, but we saw the court systems. And I had, personally, I had over a billion dollar case, a bankruptcy case that came to us from Texas and it was mediated. We had two mediators, one in Connecticut and one in Texas. We had six parties, 40 people showed up on the Zoom, J.P., it was amazing. And that was a submission to AAA through the court system. The judge talked to the parties and said, listen, we're shut down. This is an important matter. Why don't you go to AAA? And so, yes, we did see submissions during the pandemic. I'm not sure if that's going to continue on. Most of our disputes are features of contract, as you know.  J.P.: Yeah. I mean, that's always going to be the case in arbitration, right? That the vast majority of cases will be subject to a pre-dispute arbitration clause. But I think it's really interesting when you see submission agreements like that, because I think it's a clear recognition that one, arbitration is a really valuable tool. And two, it's a real plus for the AAA and a real nod of confidence that those are submitted to AAA because that's parties taking something they know has to be figured out and saying, all right, AAA is the guy to do. I wanted to pick up, too, on that exponential growth of 8 million cases between 1990 and the present versus 1 million over the first, you know, what is that, 70-something years or 60-plus years?  Jeff: 60-plus years, absolutely, yeah. J.P.: Are there particular industries that you've seen significant growth in since the 1990 period that you were discussing, like between 1990 and the present? Are there particular industries that you are seeing more growth in or that you think there could be more growth in? Just be curious to get your views on that.  Jeff: Sure, sure. And my area of commercial, as you know, because you're on the commercial panel and the ICDR panel, is healthcare. And I know you're a big part of healthcare. Also, financial services. We've seen a huge growth in that in the last five years. We put together an advisory committee for financial services on insurance. And then also, as you probably know, consumer. We saw a big amount of consumer cases during the pandemic and even prior to the pandemic. And that's a big caseload. It's about 30% of our caseload at AAA-ICDR. But again, people criticize that sometimes and say, well, that's not fair to the consumer. They're forced into arbitration. But what I say, J.P., to law students and when I speak at events like this, I say, listen, we don't draft ourselves into contracts. AAA-ICDR does not do that. People draft us into contracts and we just try to make the process, we try to level the playing field. And we do a lot of consumer, but we do a lot of high-end commercial cases, as you know, a lot of international cases and things like that. But the two areas, I would say, a long way to answer to your question, J.P., is I would say healthcare and financial services, insurance, that's where we're seeing a lot of growth and also technology.  J.P.: The consumer aspect is one that is obviously very, very, very hot right now, given things like the mass arbitration rules and things like that. And we will probably touch on that in a bit, but it's a really valuable service to provide. And that's one thing that I think the AAA really does well. As you mentioned, it's a not-for-profit organization. It's not an organization that's out to make money off of consumer disputes. It's really there to help everybody resolve them. So something for everyone to keep in mind.  Jeff: The company bears the cost, not the consumer. And I hope people know that, that we're not out, like you said, we're not out to make a big buck on this. We're just trying to level a playing field and access to justice for these people.  J.P.: Yeah. And that's really what it is. At the end of the day, it's access to justice. And a lot of times the alternative is small claims court, which is not always a great choice. I've sat as an arbitrator in small claims court a few times, and I can tell you it's a great process when it works, but it can be a challenging process as well so  Jeff: Without a doubt.  J.P.: Always something to keep in mind. Yeah. Well, let's talk then about some of the recent developments because there have been quite a few. And as you mentioned, it's coming up on the centennial for the AAA-ICDR. And a lot has happened, obviously, in the 100 years of its existence, almost 100 years of its existence.  Jeff: Sure.  J.P.: And quite a few of those things are pretty monumental. And one of the biggest ones, I guess, is that in February 2023. Bridget McCormack took over as president and CEO of the AAA-ICDR from India Johnson, who was in that role for a lot of years. Bridget was previously the chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, if I'm correct, and was also a professor and associate dean at the prestigious University of Michigan Law School. So she brings a pretty extensive wealth of experience to the AAA. Now that she's been in that role for about a year and a half, how have things been different at the AAA-ICDR under Bridget's leadership?  Jeff: It's been wonderful. I mean, Bridget brings such life to the company right now. I mean, India Johnson was great. She put our house in order, our finances. but Bridget is now doing a wonderful job in getting out there. I'm not sure, J.P., have you met her yet?  J.P.: I have not had the pleasure of meeting her in person, but I'll sort of preview for our listeners that we are in the process of trying to get Bridget into our firm to talk to everyone about what the AAA-ICDR does and give sort of an insider's view for our partners.  Jeff: Oh, wonderful. She's such a dynamic speaker. If you go on YouTube, you'll see she speaks all the time. It's amazing. Whenever I ask her to speak at an event in New York, I feel bad about asking her because I know how busy she is, but she does agree. But I have to find a space in her calendar because if you see on LinkedIn, I know you're on LinkedIn too, J.P., and she is everywhere. It seems like every week she's speaking somewhere, very dynamic, and she embraces AI. And I know we're going to talk about AI a little bit, but also innovation. And she's been doing such a terrific job being the face of the AAA, and we needed that. India, again, did a wonderful job, but Bridget is out there and around the world doing international events, doing events here domestically. And it really, I think, is getting the word out there about ADR and about, well, I should say DR, sorry, dispute resolution, and also access to justice. Being a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan, doing a terrific job. And really, the people in the company are very excited. We have 700 plus employees, and we're excited with our new president. It really has been a great time with her.  J.P.: You know it's funny. The one thing I've universally heard from anyone who works there when I ask about Bridget is everyone says great energy, great leadership, and really, really, really strong presence, which is really wonderful to hear because you seem to be echoing that pretty strongly as well.  Jeff: Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, when she works a room, when she talks at an event, and it's great. We're forward-looking right now, big time. The AAA now is looking, AAA-ICDR, looking towards the future with innovation, with ODR, and we're going to talk about that, and with access to justice, which I love. And she's doing a terrific job.  J.P.: Well, that's great to hear. And I think we are going to talk about odr.com in just a second. But before we do that, I'd just be curious, because they may well be the same thing. But what would you say Bridget's greatest accomplishment is so far?  Jeff: I would say being the face of the AAA and embracing new ideas. For years, we didn't really, we moved kind of slowly. We embraced new ideas, but we moved slowly like a battleship turning around or an aircraft carrier turning around. We moved slowly. We're not doing that any longer. Bridget wants to move on quickly, which is great, and embrace things that are going on. And I think we're ahead of the curve on a lot of things, with acquiring ODR, with our embracing AI, with her ideas about innovation, access to justice. We are, I think, really ahead of the curve with respect to these areas, ahead of law firms, ahead of some of our competitors. And I attribute that to Bridget.  J.P.: That's really great to hear. That's really great to hear. And it's really hard with a large organization to be nimble. Exactly. I know we do that pretty well at Reed Smith, I think, too, but it's a challenge, and it does require great leadership in order to get everybody on board with that. So it's wonderful to hear that's happening at the AAA-ICDR, and you see it.  Jeff: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. And also, we're almost 100-year-old organizations, so you would think that we wouldn't be thinking about these innovation things in the future, but we are, which is terrific. We're an old organization, but not really. We're ready for the future.  J.P.: Well, let's talk about that future a bit because it's clear that there's a strong focus on that. And one of the first things that I noticed is the odr.com resourceful internet solutions acquisition. So for those that don't know anything about that, maybe you could fill the audience in and give us a bit of background about that one and what it's done for the AAA-ICDR.  Jeff: Sure. We just recently, a few months ago, acquired odr.com. It's a company that's been around for approximately 25 years. Online dispute resolution that can be completely customized for your needs for online dispute resolution. And they've been doing a wonderful job for many years. Okay. obviously much smaller than the AAA-ICDR, but they've been working with us. I'm not sure if you know this, J.P., but they've helped us with our no-fault business in New York. They help us set up our system initially years ago. So we've had a relationship with them for probably two decades with ODR. So we recently acquired them and we're working with them. Their most important area is right now is mediation. They have mediate.com and we're looking at  our mediation.org and combining those two. Okay. And we want to expand our mediation business. And again, I mentioned it a couple of times, access to justice. We want high volume cases. Okay. We do obviously high-end cases, high dollar cases, but right now we're seeing with odr.com, we can spread the business, we can grow the business and we can expand our mediation business. And that's what we're trying to do because mediation is growing. As you know, J.P., it's it mediation has grown tremendously over the last couple of decades. But now with ODR online dispute resolution, I mean, it's going to really grow, I think. So that's what that's why we acquired it. And, you know, Colin Rule, I'm not sure, J.P., if you've ever met Colin Rule. The head of ODR.com.  J.P.: I have not had the pleasure.  Jeff: Yeah, he's he's phenomenal. know if anyone that's listening to this podcast, you just Google Colin Rule. He's been in this space for many, many years and he's a phenomenal person. And I'm really excited about this acquisition. And I think we're going to work so well together.  J.P.: Jeff, just for people like me that are a little bit less savvy with how some of these things work technologically and sort of mechanically, is odr.com and mediate.com is a function of that, right? Or a part of that?  Jeff: Yeah, it's a part of it. Yeah. And I believe they have arbitration.com, but now it's going to be merged in with the AAA. And the platform of odr.com is going to be used for our mediation services at AAA for online mediation services.  J.P.: Okay. That's what I was getting at. So this is like a platform where users or parties and the mediator all log in, communicate with each other. Exchange their positions, and do everything that way. So is it correct to say it's sort of a virtual mediation platform?  Jeff: Yeah, without a doubt. And now the timing is perfect, J.P., because we just came off the pandemic about a couple of years ago, and we were seeing, as you probably know, as an arbitrator at AAA, we were doing thousands of virtual hearings arbitration and also mediation, and it worked. It really worked.  J.P.: Yeah. And that's really one of the true benefits that came out of the pandemic, in my view. Prior to the pandemic, I had always done certain aspects of cases virtually. And there was video conferencing was something that you could suggest, but that parties and frankly, arbitrators were not always that willing to embrace. But I think the pandemic really showed everyone that you can do things virtually. Efficiently, cost-effectively, and in a way that you don't need an in-person hearing for, and that it can be really successful. So I'm sure the timing has been right for odr.com and that acquisition. In terms of integrating it, what's the full timeline for getting it fully integrated, if you don't mind my asking?  Jeff: Sure. I mean, right now we're focusing on mediation. Okay. That's going to be our focus for the next several months. And then I think we're going to try to see if we can move this into arbitration also, because we're still seeing a lot of arbitrations, not a lot. I mean, I would say that 30% of our arbitrations are still being done in the virtual world. We're starting to see, and JP you've been at my Midtown office in Midtown Manhattan on 42nd Street, and we're starting to see about 60 to 70% capacity as an in-person for arbitration. But there's still a segment that wants to do it in the virtual world. And this is where odr.com comes into play. And right now it's, but the focus right now is mediation and working with our mediation team at the AAA-ICDR.  J.P.: Got it. Well, you know, it's funny. I have an employment partner who told me the odds of them ever doing an employment mediation below a certain value in person again are slim to none.  Jeff: Interesting.  J.P.: Yeah. And I think you guys have really hit the nail on the head with this.  Jeff: Well, with labor similar to employment, we're seeing almost 80% of labor cases now in New York City, I'm talking, are being done virtual, maybe even a little bit more than that. They got so used to doing it in the virtual world for labor cases, union management. It's interesting to see where we're going with this. But commercial type disputes, the type that you handle, J.P., we're starting to see more people coming back into in-person. However, we're not seeing the days of a witness flying in from Paris for one hour because we have all the technology at the offices, our offices around the country, the voice activated camera. So we don't need to ship in people for one hour. It's a waste of money.  J.P.: Yeah. And that's, you know, that's really the great thing that this technology allows for, which is, you know, I just did a, to mention the hearing space, Jeff, I just did a pretty large week-long hearing earlier in the year at the AAA's offices on 42nd Street. And it was great, but there were, you know, and I do, you know, myself prefer in-person for certain things, but, you know, during that hearing, we had witnesses that were exactly what you're describing, I mean, really only required to confirm a few issues or give, you know, a short cross examination and they were located in pretty diverse regions. Absolutely no reason to incur the time or expense or frankly, just the headache of bringing those people in from around the world for scheduling purposes and everything else.  Jeff: Sure.  J.P.: We did those, you know, we did those witnesses virtually and that is a real, that's a real benefit. You know, you sort of do that hybrid approach and you can save, it's way more efficient, It's way more cost-effective, and it is just easier from a scheduling perspective. So this is a really great development.  Jeff: Yeah, and J.P., have you noticed, I mean, when you were probably at my office on 42nd Street, we have now the big monitors. And I've noticed that arbitrators like yourself and advocates like yourself are using more technology in the rooms. We have these cupboards in our hearing rooms where the binders used to go, the big binders for exhibits and things like that. No longer am I seeing that. Most arbitrators are now using our, we provide iPads, we have the big monitors, and it seems like people are going away from paper, which is great too.  J.P.: Yeah, it's funny. I'm sort of like probably the last of the Mohicans where people really had to do things like mini books. Like when I was a real junior associate, we would have hearing bundles that were in mini book form and they were, you'd have 55 volumes and everything would be in there. I mean, there's sort of those nightmare stories where parties would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just pulling together the paper for a hearing. And that, you know, that to me always seemed a little bit crazy. In this day and age, it is totally unnecessary. I would much prefer to have everything electronically. And that hearing space really allows for that. So really, really great to hear that parties are embracing that because it's such a cost savings and it's an efficiency. You know, it just doesn't need to be the way it was.  Jeff: Sure.  J.P.: Well, let's talk then a bit about some of the AI stuff that you were mentioning, because I think that is really, I have to confess, I don't understand it as well as I should. I think most people, if they were being honest, probably have an inkling of what it does, but don't really know. I'd love to hear what the AAA-ICDR is doing with AI, because it's a really, really, really groundbreaking development.  Jeff: Absolutely. Well, if you Google Bridget McCormack, our president, she speaks on AI quite frequently and it really has embraced it. And how have we embraced that AAA? Well, she encourages the staff to use it. And we have, she's even recommended certain programs that we should use. But with respect to how are we using it with respect to running our business? Well, we have ClauseBuilder and you know about ClauseBuilder. It's a tool that was developed in 2013 where people can go online and develop a clause for arbitration. Now we have ClauseBuilder AI, which as opposed to going through various modules with the original ClauseBuilder, you can just type in, I want an employment clause. I want three arbitrators. I want limited discovery. And the clause builder AI will build that clause for you. That's something we just rolled out. Also for arbitrators, scheduling orders. We have an AI program right now for arbitrators where a scheduling order usually takes an arbitrator, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, J.P., usually about an hour to two hours after you do the preliminary hearing. Well, now AI reduces that time to probably a couple of minutes for an arbitrator. So we rolled that out. And we obviously were having discussions about low dollar cases, high volume cases. Can AI be used? And we're looking into that. We haven't rolled that out yet. It's not going to eliminate you, J.P., but it's something that we're looking at right now. And we are embracing it. I use it for various things. I'll give you an example. I use it for if I'm doing an educational program, I'll type in, you know, I'm doing a program on arbitration and discovery. Can you give me a good title for this program? I've been doing this for years. I've used a lot of different titles for programs, and it's wonderful to use AI for those purposes and for editing things. So I like the fact that our company embraces it. Some companies do not. Some law firms, as you know, J.P., do not embrace AI. And we had that case last year where I think an attorney, it wasn't arbitration, it was litigation, where he cited cases through AI that never existed.  J.P.: Yeah, that's actually happened more than once since then. And it's been kind of amazing to me. Yeah, it's funny. We as a law firm at Reed Smith have definitely embraced AI. We've got a person who's sort of C-suite level that addresses that and that heads that function up. And I know we are trying to bring it in much more for things that are sort of routine, that don't require necessarily true attorney time. And it is a real game changer. I mean, you know, anybody who doesn't get on board with AI is going to get left behind at some point because it is truly, truly the wave of the future, in my view.  Jeff: Oh, absolutely. And the way I look at it, people say, well, it seems scary or whatever. But what about Google Maps and things that we've embraced years ago? I couldn't live, J.P., without Google Maps. So that's technology that it's going to help us. It's not going to take us over or whatever. It's going to help us enhance what we're doing.  J.P.: Yeah, I think the concerns about Skynet are a little bit, you know, Skynet and Terminator are a little bit far-fetched, but it is something that we all need to get on board with. It's a lot like the way that, you know, when I first started practicing the notion of uploading paper documents to be reviewed and then using search terms was really scary for a lot of people, but that, you know, that became commonplace and you couldn't function without it. This will do the same thing to the extent it's not the same. Now, Jeff, what's the overlap, if any, between that you see between some of the AI initiatives and odr.com?  Jeff: We're not really combining those yet, but I think we will. There's discussions about it, but right now we're focusing on mediation with odr.com and we're discussing rolling out AI with various things to help to assist our arbitrators, are mediators, but I think eventually, you know, there'll be a combination, I think, but right now there's not.  J.P.: Got it. Well, we'll stay tuned because I can't imagine those two things are going to stay in separate houses for too long. Well, we could talk all day about what's going on at the AAA-ICDR right now because it's just amazing. I mean, it's really incredibly, incredibly dynamic at the moment. But what I'd like to do is sort of shift ahead to looking ahead to the future. We talked a bit earlier about how the AAA is rapidly approaching its centennial anniversary, And that's kind of a natural reflection point for any organization. If you were to sort of sum things up and say, what accomplishments from its first century of existence that the AAA is most proud of, what do you think you would point to?  Jeff: Well, I would point to two things. First, how amazing the AAA-ICDR was and also other ADR providers. When pandemic hit, within a week, we were up with 700 employees doing thousands and thousands of cases. And I was worried about the arbitrators, not you, J.P., but other arbitrators with the technology. And our 6,000 arbitrators, it was flawless. It was amazing or seamless. It really went well. And that I'm very, very proud of because I had been with the AAA for a long time prior to that. And I was really concerned that the arbitrators weren't going to get it. We weren't going to be able to understand Microsoft Teams, Zoom, all that kind of stuff. So we did a great job during pandemic. We had some of our best years during pandemic with respect to helping society in arbitrating cases. But also some of the things that we've done for state and federal governments, you know, state and federal governments, Storm Sandy, Katrina. Those are the things I'm very proud of. I was a part of the Storm Sandy stuff where we administered 6,000 cases for homeowners and with insurance companies. And we were able to do that very quickly. And we're a not-for-profit. So the federal government and the state governments look at us and will hire us to do those kind of projects. And we can quickly mobilize because of our staff. So those two things really stand out in my career at AAA.  J.P.: That's a really, really interesting thing to point to because that truly embodies the best that the AAA can offer. It's an incredible service that really helped people with real-life issues during really challenging times. So wonderful to hear. What would you see for the next 100 years in the AAA? Like, you know, looking forward, I know it's going to be here for, it's going to be having its two, it's bicentennial at some point. It will absolutely occur. What would you see is, you know, if you were to fast forward yourself a hundred years and still be in the seat, because by then technology will have kept us all alive for the next hundred years, and you're Jeff Zaino 2.0, sitting around in 200 years, where would you see the AAA-ICDR at that point?  Jeff: Well, I'm on part of the committee for the 100-year anniversary. We have a committee already formed two years in advance to get ready for our 100th year anniversary, and we're talking about this stuff. And I think some of the themes that Bridget's talking about, access to justice, I think we're going to be, we saw from 1990 to now 8 million cases, we're going to see far more. We're going to see the public now embracing arbitration. When I was hired by the AAA in the 90s, I didn't even know what AAA stood for. I mean, with the name, American Arbitration Association. I didn't know what arbitration was. We are reaching out to law schools. We're doing collaboration with a lot of law schools in New York and throughout the country, throughout the world. And I think the word's going to get out there that arbitration is the way to go. Our mediation is too. And I'm excited about that. Also, we're going to see far more diversity at AAA and also in the community. And that's something that we really care about at the AAA. Right now, J.P., as you probably know, any list that goes out at the AAA is a minimum of 30% diverse. So we're going to see an increase in that area, but also access to justice for the public.  J.P.: Really, really great. And I think we will all watch with rapt attention to see what happens because it's only good things in the future for the AAA-ICDR, that's for sure. Well, Jeff, I just want to thank you. But before we wrap this up, I'm going to reserve my right to bring you back for another podcast because there's so much more we could talk about. So, but is there anything I missed that we should hit on now that would be great for the audience to hear? I know there's just so much going on.  Jeff: Well, I hope the audience when in 2026, when we have our 100th anniversary, I hope people participate in it because we're going to do things worldwide and we're going to be doing events everywhere. And that year we really are, we have a huge team of people that are working in our 100th year anniversary and not to just necessarily promote AAA-ICDR, but to promote arbitration and mediation. And that's what we're going to be doing in 2026, and I'm very excited about it.  J.P.: You heard it here first, folks. Arbitration is the future. And Jeff said it himself. So we will definitely watch closely. Well, good. And just to give a very quick preview on this one, too, because Jeff, you mentioned it. We are going to, in the future, have your colleagues from the ICDR side of the house come on, and we're going to bring some of the new folks from Singapore and a few other people. So more to come. And it's just incredible to see.  Jeff: We look forward to it. And J.P., I'd love to have another sit down with you. It's been great.  J.P.: Good. We absolutely will. So that then will conclude our discussion at the American Arbitration Association for now. And I want to thank our guest, Jeff Zaino of the AAA Commercial Division for his invaluable insights. And I want to thank you, the audience, for listening today. You should feel free to reach out to Reed Smith about today's podcast with any questions you might have. And you should absolutely as well feel free to reach out to Jeff. I know he's super responsive and he would love to chat with you directly if you have any questions. And we look forward to having you tune in for future episodes of the series, including future updates with Jeff and our podcast with the ICDR as well. So thank you everyone. And we will be back.  Outro: Arbitral Insights is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. For more information about Reed Smith's global international arbitration practice, email arbitralinsights@reedsmith.com. To learn about the Reed Smith Arbitration Pricing Calculator, a first-of-its-kind mobile app that forecasts the cost of arbitration around the world, search Arbitration Pricing Calculator on reedsmith.com or download for free through the Apple and Google Play app stores. You can find our podcast on podcast streaming platforms, reedsmith.com, and our social media accounts at Reed Smith LLP.  Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers.  All rights reserved.  Transcript is auto-generated.

rev 1 Today, we sit down with state election officials from Pennsylvania, Florida, and Georgia. We add a subject matter expert to the mix and the result is listeners will get a fantastic overview of challenges, solutions, and places to get more information on election security.  Challenges: Of course, we have the “usual suspects” like disinformation and denial of service attacks. However, in today's world we have much more to concern ourselves with. Election officials have been physically threatened and many are leaving their job. This has caused a situation in Pennsylvania where 2/3 have left jobs. As a result, we have new people. Solutions: One if the simplest to implement and most cost effective is to have tabletop exercises. If there is a issue, who to call.  What happens if an unanticipated attack occurs, who to contact. Funding sources like the Help America Vote Act were highlighted, and the necessity of testing systems and maintaining cybersecurity was underscored. In addition, NIST and CIST offer an amazing amount of help. Some of it is specifically directed to election officials.

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, Nate Persily forecasts complications along with it.Persily, a Stanford law professor and a leading expert in election law and administration, says the coming election cycle could pose unprecedented challenges for voters and election officials alike. “We are at a stage right now where there's a lot of anxiety about election administration,” he says. “There's a significant share of the population that's completely lost confidence in our system of elections.”With nearly every state having altered its election laws since 2020 and a significant turnover in election administrators, Persily says the stage is set for a potentially bumpy ride this November. As voter confusion and AI-powered disinformation loom overhead, Persily says the integrity of our democracy may well depend on our collective ability to weather this less-than-perfect storm.Connect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford  Law Magazine >>> Twitter/XLinks:Nate Persily >>> Stanford Law School Page(00:00) Chapter 1: Introduction and Challenges Ahead for the November Election Nate Persily outlines the primary concerns for the upcoming election, including voter confusion, changes in election laws, and the pressures faced by election officials.(00:03:27) Chapter 2: Decentralization and Election Administration The panel discusses the challenges of managing a national election run by numerous local jurisdictions, including issues with certification and varying local procedures.(00:05:44)  Chapter 3: The Evolving Election Timeline Persily, Karlan, and Ford explore how election day has expanded into an extended voting period, covering early and mail-in voting, and the implications for counting and certification.(00:17:41) Chapter 4: Technology, Disinformation, and Media Influence Examines the impact of technology and disinformation, including deep fakes and misinformation about voting procedures, and their effects on public trust.(00:23:37) Chapter 5: Building Confidence in the Electoral Process Persily discusses strategies to bolster confidence in the election process, emphasizing support for election officials and the role of local leaders in maintaining trust.

Send us a Text Message.Cori Bush's primary loss: a turning point for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party? Join us as we navigate the political landscape shaped by Bush's defeat to St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell. We'll uncover the heavy financial influence of AIPAC and explore its broader implications within the Democratic Party, particularly concerning the Israel-Hamas conflict. Despite this setback, we highlight key victories for Squad members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Summer Lee, dissecting what these results mean for the future of progressive politics in Congress.Discover the hidden complexities of voter suppression and the profound impact of the Help America Vote Act. We delve into the investigative findings of journalist Greg Pallast, uncovering the stark disparities faced by voters dealing with provisional ballots and the often overlooked process of ballot curing. We'll also contrast the Supreme Court's decisions on gun rights versus voting rights and provide an inside look at the upcoming debates between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, revealing the high-stakes political maneuvers at play.Finally, we bring you a groundbreaking antitrust ruling against Google that might just reshape the tech industry. By examining how Google has maintained its monopoly and the potential regulatory shifts for other tech giants, this segment provides valuable insights into the future of big tech. Our episode also pays homage to the intellectual rigor of William F. Buckley's "Firing Line," reflecting on the importance of respectful debate and its enduring impact on public discourse. Tune in for a comprehensive blend of political analysis, historical context, and thoughtful commentary that promises to enlighten and engage. Support the Show.

Litigation groups filed a new lawsuit against Pennsylvania this week for its 2018 directive restricting local election officials from verifying voter eligibility. According to the lawsuit, the secretary of state directed all 67 county election boards to ignore the mandates of the Help America Vote Act requiring election officials to verify the driver's licenses and ... The post Lawsuit Says Swing State Ordered Election Officials Not to Verify Voter Eligibility  appeared first on The New American.

Full Hour | Today, Dom led off the Dom Giordano Program by offering up his thoughts on some new shocking developments centered on the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid, noting that it's come out that excessive force was permitted. Dom is furious about this, asking what the Biden administration think the consequences would be had President Trump or a family member had been shot during the raid. This then brings Dom to a pushback by commentators on the Left who argue that the conservative reaction to this news proves Republicans are anti-law enforcement, completely undressing the argument. Then, Dom welcomes in Wally Zimolong, local attorney and longtime friend of the Dom Giordano Program, back onto the Dom Giordano Program after he announced that he, along with America First Legal, has filed an administrative complaint against the Pennsylvania Department of State regarding patent violations of the Help America Vote Act of 2022, which allows ineligible voters, and non-citizens, to vote. Wally expresses the deep impact that this Act has had on voter integrity, noting the importance of securing elections to solidify faith in our Democracy and elections. Also, Zimolong previews other efforts that he's working on to ensure a fair election, including satellite voting offices in Republican areas, mirroring an effort by Democrats. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Dom welcomes in Wally Zimolong, local attorney and longtime friend of the Dom Giordano Program, back onto the Dom Giordano Program after he announced that he, along with America First Legal, has filed an administrative complaint against the Pennsylvania Department of State regarding patent violations of the Help America Vote Act of 2022, which allows ineligible voters, and non-citizens, to vote. Wally expresses the deep impact that this Act has had on voter integrity, noting the importance of securing elections to solidify faith in our Democracy and elections. Also, Zimolong previews other efforts that he's working on to ensure a fair election, including satellite voting offices in Republican areas, mirroring an effort by Democrats. (Photo by Getty Images)

Former Congressman Bob Ney from Ohio is the guest on the first episode of Golf and Politics. Bob Ney has been a mentor and friend to hosts, Rob and Matthew, and played a significant role in their careers. The conversation covers Bob Ney's impact on the steel industry with the ubiquitous ‘stand for steel' campaign, the infamous St. Andrews golf trip to Scotland and the subsequent investigation that landed Bob in prison (and resulted in House rules about accepting gifts and golf rounds) which leads to a discussion about the role of golf in politics and how the media coverage during this time was intense and had a significant impact on Bob Ney and his family. The boys then switch gears to fun stories from Bob and the host's time on the Hill including the golf skills of Presidents from Clinton and Bush to Trump and Biden. The episode also includes personal stories of how Bob Ney influenced Rob, Matthew and Cory's lives. Overall, the episode provides insights into the intersection of golf and politics and the experiences of a former Congressman. Bob Ney had a significant impact and influence during his time in politics, including his ability to make an impact and influence through his speeches. He also took kids on house tours, which had a positive political and personal impact. Bob shares his greatest legislative accomplishment and regret, predicts the president in 2025, and reflects on his favorite and least favorite colleagues in Congress. Finally, he opens up about his journey to sobriety and the impact it has had on his life. Takeaways Bob Ney played a significant role in the careers of the hosts, Rob and Matthew. Golf is becoming a topic in politics, with discussions about the golf skills of politicians like Trump and Biden. Bob Ney's impact on the steel industry and his advocacy for jobs in his hometown are noteworthy. The episode highlights the personal stories and experiences of the hosts with Bob Ney. Resistance to trade deals and the March for Steel had a significant impact on the steelworkers' movement. The Clinton-Gingrich Unholy Alliance and Trump's stance on China shaped the trade policies of their respective administrations. The events of January 6th at the Capitol highlighted the need for accountability and the importance of the Capitol Hill police. Bob Ney's greatest legislative accomplishment was the Help America Vote Act, while his greatest regret was voting to give the president full faith and authority in Iraq. Bob Ney's prediction for the president in 2025 is Donald Trump. Bob Ney's journey to sobriety has been a transformative experience in his life. Get Bob Ney's book

With elections approaching in much of the country, Cliff Perez, Systems Advocate with the Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley gives us a short history lesson on the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Read more here: https://www.eac.gov/about/help_america_vote_act.aspx What do you think? Follow the podcast on social media and on your favorite podcast platform! Facebook and Twitter: @blaisinshows Support Blaisin' Access Podcast by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/blaisin-access-podcastRead transcript

 Paulding County News Podcast Sunday 24, 2023  Runaway step-siblings missing in Paulding County, deputies asking for help:    Bryson Barton and Chloe Huges have come up missing in Paulding County. Paulding County deputies are seeking help from the public to locate two missing step-siblings, Bryson Barton (15) and Chloe Hughes (14), who ran away from their home on Billy Bullock Road in Dallas at approximately 2:30 a.m. Neither teen has a cell phone. While authorities don't believe the teens are in immediate danger, their family is concerned about their whereabouts. Bryson Barton is 6 feet tall, around 190 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes, last seen in a gray shirt and blue jeans. Chloe Hughes is 5 feet 5 inches tall, approximately 130 pounds, with blonde hair and hazel eyes, last seen in a blue hoodie and flannel pajamas. We were also just informed that they were found and are now safe back at home!...........This from Fox 5    Paulding County Recognized for Pioneering Election Innovations: How it Impacts Our Residents:    Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has commended Paulding County for its contributions to secure elections in Georgia. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) previously recognized the county for its election innovations and selected it for a study on list maintenance practices in line with the Help America Vote Act. The study will focus on voter registration methods, maintaining accurate voter lists, and ensuring proper polling site assignments, using credit-bureau data for improved accuracy. Raffensperger praised Paulding County's commitment to election administration excellence and acknowledged Georgia's leadership in elections, including measures like automatic voter registration, early voting, and absentee voting without an excuse. The state has received recognition for election integrity and voter accessibility from various organizations...........This from Newsbreak      Walmart Opens First-Ever Pet Services Center in Dallas, Georgia:  Walmart is launching its first-ever Walmart Pet Services center in Dallas, Georgia, aiming to provide affordable pet care services to customers. With two-thirds of U.S. households owning pets and a significant increase in pet adoption during the pandemic, the pet industry is expected to grow to $277 billion by 2030. Walmart's new center will offer low, transparent pricing for services such as routine veterinary care, grooming, and self-serve dog wash. These services will be provided by qualified professionals in collaboration with PetIQ. The move is part of Walmart's mission to offer convenient and affordable health care solutions for families, including their pets, and may expand to other communities in the future. Walmart is also enhancing its pet offerings nationwide and introducing a pet pharmacy experience online. Additionally, Walmart+ members can access pet-related benefits, such as virtual veterinary consultations and discounts on services like dog walking and sitting...........This from Walmart.com         Weather:    Fall is here!! I repeat FALL IS HERE! This next week is going to have the highs in the 70's and the lows sitting in the low 60's to the high 50's. This is the perfect weather for bonfires and those after noon games!   #weatherreport #coolingoff #high70s #low80s #pleasestaycool #toohot #humidity #mostlysunny #outdooractivities #perfectweather    Paulding County Arrest Reports:  PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE INDIVIDUALS HAVE ONLY BEEN ARRESTED AND HAVE NOT HAD THEIR DAY IN COURT WHEN WE RECORDED THIS PODCAST. WE WISH THEM LUCK ON THEIR DAY IN THE COURT.  Jonah Miller was booked on 9/16/2023. It was pulled over by a white tag light that was out, and the officer then found out that he was driving under the influence of Alcohol. He was then booked for both a DUI and a tag light.  AGAIN, PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE INDIVIDUALS HAVE ONLY BEEN ARRESTED AND ARE NOT CONVICTED. THEY HAVE NOT HAD THEIR DAY IN COURT WHEN WE RECORDED THIS PODCAST. WE WISH THEM LUCK ON THEIR DAY IN THE COURT.     Paulding Officer dies after battling cancer    Melanie (Hunton) Bell, Bonding and Visitation Clerk for the Paulding County Sheriff's Office, has passed away after battling cancer, according to an announcement by the Paulding County Sheriff's Office. Visitation for Ms. Bell will be held on Sunday, September 24, 2023, from 5-7 PM at Jones Wynn Funeral Home in Villa Rica, Georgia. Funeral services will take place on Monday, September 25, 2023, at 1 PM in the chapel at Jones Wynn Funeral Home, followed by a graveside service at Melrose Cemetery (Villa Rica Hwy). The family has requested attendees to wear vibrant colors in honor of Ms. Bell's colorful personality. Jones Wynne Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.........This from the Paulding County sheriffs Facebook page      PCHS honors family   Paulding County High School Honors Avery James Cox's family on Firday August 26th during Halftime. Avery James Cox's life was taken too soon. His family started the Avery James Cox foundation to help financially support the community efforts related to sports for youth through highschoolers............This from the Dallas New Era    Sports:  From the Paulding Sports Chronicles  3 out of our 5 teams won this past Thursday night.  Paulding County lost to East Paulding   Hiram lost to Woodland 2-12  South Paulding ran bases around Huges 19-1  North Paulding beat Mt. Paren 8-0    Weird news:  Alligators in the sewer myth is true:  In Oviedo, Florida, a work crew discovered a 5-foot alligator residing in a sludge-filled pipe during a routine pothole inspection. The shocking encounter was captured on video and has garnered attention on social media. The workers initially mistook the alligator for a toad until they saw its glowing eyes. While the discovery may seem like a Florida version of the "alligators in the sewer" urban legend associated with New York City, it's not uncommon for alligators to be found in storm runoff networks in Florida. The article also mentions previous incidents of alligators appearing unexpectedly in places like New York City parks and Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn...........This from Ny post    Well Paulding County: If you are missing an alligator in your pond, check the sewers!    Can you speak chicken? AI can translate for you:  Researchers in Japan have used AI to decode the emotional states of chickens by analyzing their vocalizations. The study, led by University of Tokyo professor Adrian David Cheok, employed a technique called Deep Emotional Analysis Learning (DEAL) to identify six distinct emotional states in chickens, including hunger, fear, anger, contentment, excitement, and distress, with 80% accuracy. The team collaborated with animal psychologists and veterinary surgeons, analyzing 80 birds and around 200 hours of chicken sounds. The findings have implications for animal welfare, veterinary medicine, poultry farming conditions, and human-animal interaction. They also plan to create a free app for farmers to communicate with their chickens using this technology.  Wow Paulding County you can now use AI to talk to your chickens!!!!    Here are some things you're talking about: Call us with your thoughts or story at 404.997-8655  From What's Happening in Paulding County Facebook Page:  An anonymous member posted “Last night we lost our Australian Shepherd, Lulu to an unbelievable seizure. When the seizure started and we recognized after a minute or so that this was not a typical one for her (she had a history is seizures) we immediately started loading her up to get her to the emergency vet closest to us which is Westside Animal Emergency. They turned us away. Despite us having a dog actively seizing non-stop they turned us away saying they were “at capacity” and too busy. By this time the seizure was into the 20 minute mark.   Our only choice at this point was to drive another 30-40 minutes away to Blue Pearl in Marietta. I called them and let them know we were coming and how long at that time the seizure had been going.   We got there and they rushed out the door to help us. Within a minute or so we were with the vet telling us the seizure had gone on so long that it had raised Lulu's body temperature to at least 109 because that is as high as the thermometer would go. Her seizing for almost an hour caused the temperature spike. At this point the vet felt while they could try to stabilize her and see if there was permanent brain damage but I knew the chances of Lulu making any meaningful recovery were almost non-existent. A fever that high plus the seizure made recovery impossible so we had to make the best choice for Lulu and let her be at peace.   I say all of that to say, IF Westside EMERGENCY Animal clinic had done their job and taken in a true EMERGENCY within the first minutes of the seizure, I wonder would we still have Lulu with us today? Instead, we came home to an empty bed that was Lulu's. Her doggie siblings are looking for her. Her human sister, dad and I are just heartbroken without our sweet pup.   I have nothing positive to say about Westside. We have never heard anything good about them and now I know why. I attempted to use them only because they were closest to us and time was critical. I even called our vet today and told them how we were treated. If you live in our area and ever need an animal ER, go anywhere but Westside.   The staff at Blue Pearl was amazing, loving and loved on Lulu with us as she was passing. They petted her, stroked her paws and talked to her right along with us. They are what a true animal ER should be and I am so grateful they were there and willing despite how busy they were.”  These are your responses from actual Paulding county citizens - as reported on Whats Happening Paulding County   Kacie Ignacio from Dallas “This is horrendous… I am SO SORRY for your loss. “  Lynn Tyler Nemzer from Dallas “I'm so sorry

Meet Paula F. Casey who for more than thirty years has worked to educate the public about the role that the state of Tennessee played in securing the passage of the nineteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In the title of this episode, I referred to Paula as an “unstoppable suffragist”, not an “unstoppable suffragette”. Paula will explain the difference and the importance of these two words. I find this episode extremely fascinating and well worth the listen for everyone as what Paula says puts many things and ideas into historical perspective. I hope you find Paula Casey's comments as stimulating and informative as I. About the Guest: Paula F. Casey of Memphis has dedicated more than 30 years to educating the public about Tennessee's pivotal role in the 19th Amendment's ratification with a video, book, e-book, audiobook, and public art. She is also an engaging speaker on the 19th Amendment and voting rights. She was just named Chair of the National Votes for Women Trail (https://ncwhs.org/votes-for-women-trail/), which is dedicated to diversity and inclusion of all the women who participated in the 72-year struggle for American women to win the right to vote. She is also the state coordinator for Tennessee. Paula produced "Generations: American Women Win the Vote," in 1989 and the book, The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage, in 1998. She helped place these monuments - bas relief plaque inside the State Capitol (1998); Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument (Nashville's Centennial Park 2016); Sue Shelton White statue (Jackson City Hall 2017). The Memphis Suffrage Monument "Equality Trailblazers" was installed at the University of Memphis law school after 5 years of work. The dedication ceremony was held on March 27, 2022, and is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YTNND5F1aBw She co-founded the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Heritage Trail (www.tnwomansuffrageheritagetrail.com) that highlights the monuments, markers, gravesites and suffrage-related sites. How to Connect with Paula: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-casey-736110b/ Twitter: @pfcasey1953 Websites: paulacasey.com, theperfect36.com, tnwomansuffrageheritagetrail.com, memphissuffragemonument.com About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00   Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Well and a gracious hello to you wherever you happen to be today. This is your host Mike Hingson on unstoppable mindset. And today we get to interview a lady I met just a few weeks ago at one of the Podapalooza events. And if you remember me talking at all about Podapalooza, it is an event for podcasters would be podcasters. And people who want to be interviewed by podcasters, and anybody else who wants to come along. And we've had four of them now altogether, and I've had the opportunity and the joy of being involved with all of them. And Paula Casey is one of the people who I met at the last podapalooza endeavor. Paula is in Memphis, Tennessee, and among other things, has spent the last 30 years of her life being very much involved in dealing with studying and promoting the history of women's suffrage in the United States, especially where Tennessee has been involved. And we're going to get to that we're going to talk about it. We're going to try not to get too political, but you know, we'll do what we got to do and will survive. So Paula, no matter what, welcome to unstoppable mindset, how are you?   Paula Casey  02:29 I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. It's always a joy to talk with you.   Michael Hingson  02:34 Well, I feel the same way. And we're glad to do it. So let's start, as I like to do at the beginning as it were. So tell us a little bit about you growing up and all that and you you obviously did stuff. You didn't get born dealing with women's suffrage. So let's go back and learn about the early Paula.   Paula Casey  02:53 Okay, I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, which is the capital of the great State of Tennessee. But you know, I was 21 years old before I knew that it was Tennessee, the last state that could possibly ratify the 19th amendment. And it's just mind boggling to me when I look back and think, Well, how did we learn about this? I said, basically, it was because the textbooks only had one or two sentences. And they usually said, a napkin women were given the right to vote in 1920 as though it were bestowed by some benevolent entity. And it wasn't until after college, and I met my dear friend, the light gray, Carol, when Yellen that I learned how significant the women's suffrage movement was, and how it is even more surprising that my state Tennessee became the last state that could read it back.   Michael Hingson  03:50 Well, so when you were growing up in high school and all that, what were you kind of mostly interested in? Because you didn't just suddenly develop an interest in history.   Paula Casey  04:00 I have good history teachers. And I'm very fortunate that I didn't have football coaches. I have real history teachers. And I was involved in Student Council. I was an active girl scout. My parents were very good about making sure that my sister and I had lots of extracurricular activities. And I was a good kid. I didn't do anything wrong. I was a teacher pleaser. I wanted to do well. I wanted to go to college because our parents brought us up girls are going to college. And we've my sister and I both knew that we were going to the University of Tennessee and mark small go big orange and go lady balls and just for the people who care about football, Tennessee right now is number one and the college football rankings. So we're happy about that. But I have always been a staunch supporter of University of Tennessee because that was where I really learned about how important history was. And I was journalism, major journalism and speech. So that helped me on my path to public speaking, and learning more about this nonviolent revolution really became my passion and helping to get women elected to office.   Michael Hingson  05:11 Well, let's deal with what you just said. I think it's an extremely important thing. I'll come at it in a little bit of a roundabout way, the Declaration of Independence talks about us having life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And it talks about all men are created equal. And all that spine, although I think if you ask most people, when we talk about being created equal, they interpreted as meaning everybody is supposed to be equal. But you pointed out that usually what people say is that women were granted the right to vote. Tell me more about that.   Paula Casey  05:51 Rights are crafted by the Constitution. And in the case of voting rights, the constitution provides for initially man with property white men of property. Then in 1870, the 15th Amendment provided for black man, the newly freed black male slaves. The 14th amendment is the first time the word male m a l. E appears in the Constitution. And the suffragists back then and let me just clarify this in the United States. It was suffragist, the British for the suffragettes and they were considered so radical that the Americans wanted to distinguish themselves. So people in the United States who advocated for women to have the right to vote or suffragist. So the constitution grants the right to vote and our Constitution has been expanded to provide for more groups to participate in the franchise, however, and I want to emphasize this set up by people understand us, what the 19th Amendment did was remove the barrier of gender, it does not guarantee a right to vote. Our United States Constitution does not guarantee the right to vote, it will grant the rights for removing particular barriers in our lighter Native Americans and Asians and all that. Well, at the end, I was around in the early 70s, when I was at University of Tennessee in Knoxville, when the 26th Amendment was ratified, which extended the right to vote to 18 year olds, and I got to vote in my first election when I was 19. And I have never missed an election. I just think it's so important that we vote because that's part of what democracy is all about. And the suffragists did not believe that democracy is a spectator sport. They believed in self government, and they wanted to participate in their government. That's why they fought for 72 years to win that right, and to be able to participate by voting and running for office.   Michael Hingson  08:13 So going back to when the Constitution was formed. So what you're saying is essentially, that the original Constitution truly was only dealing with men and not women being created equal, white man with property. Yeah. And what do you think about people today, who say that our constitution shouldn't be any evolving and evolutionary kind of thing, that we should go strictly by what the Constitution says,   Paula Casey  08:52 I have two words for you.   Michael Hingson  08:55 Why nice to be nice, be nice,   Paula Casey  08:58 white supremacy. That's what that means. When you talk about this originally, originalist stuff. It's silly. It represents white supremacy. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  09:09 And that's, that's really the issue. I don't know of any governing document that is so strict, that it shouldn't be an evolutionary kind of a thing. We grow our attitudes change, we learn things. And we realize that we've disenfranchise from time to time, which is kind of some of the what you've been talking about in history trope.   Paula Casey  09:42 And people who say that, yeah, I don't know if they really believe it. Yeah, you see these surveys or polls where they say, Oh, the average American didn't understand the Bill of Rights and the Bill of Rights wouldn't pass today. Well, thank goodness it did pass. And I want to say MIT to you that I don't think the 19th amendment would have been ratified in this country, had it not been for the First Amendment. And as a former newspaper journalist, I'm a big believer and the First Amendment, I've been a member of the National Federation of press women since 1977. And the First Amendment is absolutely our guiding star. And it is so important for people to understand the significance of the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights and all of the additional amendments, the founding fathers, and if there were some women in there, too, even though they don't get recognized, like Abigail Adams, who believed that the Constitution should evolve a non violent revolution is what it was about the passage of the Constitution. And when I speak every year, generally on Constitution Day, which is September 17, I always point out that Benjamin Franklin said, when he was asked in 1787, Dr. Franklin, what have you created? And he said, a republic, if you can keep it, and we need to heat those words. Tell us more. Why. I think that those individuals who were involved in the creation of the Constitution, and it was not an easy task. And there were very, very strong disagreements, but they did agree on democracy. And you know, Mike, that's what this is all about. Whenever we talk about the suffrage movement, whenever I'm involved in markers, or monuments, highlighting the suffrage movement, I always point out this is about democracy and the rule of law. The suffragists believed in democracy, and that is why they fought a non violent revolution, 72 years from 1848 to 1920. But I believe that they proved the Constitution works. That's what it's about. And   Michael Hingson  12:11 you say that because of the fact that that women's suffrage passed, or what, what makes you really say the Constitution works   Paula Casey  12:20 because they persevered. They utilized every tool available to them and a non violent way, particularly the First Amendment. And when you think about what is in the First Amendment, freedom of press, freedom to peaceably assemble the freedom to petition your government for redress of grievances, their ability to communicate, and to persevere for a cause in which they deeply believed. I mean, these women were not fly by night. They play the long game. And I think that's what we can learn from down the first generation of women. And this goes back to Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott and Megan bloomer. All the people who were at Seneca Falls in 1848. It was July 19, of 20 of the bait Team 48. They believed in democracy, they believed in self government and rule of law. They persevered within the parameters of what was available to them to peaceably assemble to petition their government. And I've got to tell you, I got to go to the National Archives, back in the early 90s. And I saw the handwritten letter from Susan B. Anthony, addressing her concerns her grievances with the United States government. And all of these women who were out there fighting, I mean, literally doing everything they could to make sure this issue was not diminished. As many people tried to do, that it wasn't swept aside, they overcame enormous obstacles, but they believed in something greater than themselves. And that was democracy and the rule of law.   Michael Hingson  14:08 What is the lesson that we should learn today about the importance of women's suffrage? I mean, you've been dealing with this now for over 30 years. Well, a long time, actually. And so what is the real significance of it?   Paula Casey  14:23 Why is so significant about studying the suffrage movement is that these women were prepared for the long game. They knew that it was not going to happen overnight, or possibly within their lifetimes. They fought the long fought for the long game. And when you look at persistence, perseverance, everything that they embodied there were poignant. out they were absolutely brilliant and we need to understand what they did and how they worked. To secure a right that we all take for granted today. And that's why when I hear these silly things about, oh, the worst thing that ever happened, this crash was women getting the right vote, you know, and all that garbage. I just feel like we need to study what they did. And what was so significant, because it was peaceful, nonviolent, they adhere to the rule of law. They certainly enacted every part of First Amendment. And then those went and made it possible for us to have the rights we enjoy today. And you have to remember that everything that we enjoy today, these rights came because other people were willing to fight or dock for them. And that's the whole thing about the right to vote. I mean, I'm the widow of a Vietnam veteran, and my husband served in Vietnam. I know, we still have a lot of questions about that war. But my daddy, who just died this year, he was a world war two veteran as well as a Korean War veteran. My father in law was an Army veteran who was throughout World War Two. So I take this right to vote seriously. And when I think about what our having grown up in Nashville, and Tennessee, and I've been in Memphis, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in 1968, fighting for equal rights. And I've been in Memphis since January 1981. So I'm very passionate about women's rights, civil rights, the right to vote, we need to know our history. And we need to understand that a lot of people fought died for us to have these rights, particularly the right to vote.   Michael Hingson  16:42 Well, without getting overly political about the process, we certainly seem to be having some challenges today, because there is a what appears to be a growing number of people who would retract a lot of the things that have been brought about and some of the rights that have been expanded and made available. And it's it's scary, I know that we who, for example, have happened to be persons with disabilities are worried about some of the voting issues. Because if they, if the wrong, people decide to take complaint and get complete control, they could pull back the Help America Vote Act, and the whole issue about having voting machines that are accessible and taking away accessible ballots and so on. And there's so many other things going on? How do we get people to truly understand what happened with women's suffrage and similar sorts of things? And how do we get people to recognize the dangers that we face today?   Paula Casey  17:47 That is such a great question. And I've got to tell you, Mike, I think about this just about every day. Here's what you got to remember, ever since the beginning of this country, we have had people who consider themselves superior, and who do not want everyone to vote, it took me a long time to understand that. Because, you know, growing up in Nashville, and I mean, I had a great upper middle class life. And, you know, I'm educated, I've traveled I mean, I think I'm a fairly nice person. And I want everybody to vote. And I just couldn't understand that there were people who would not want every American citizen to exercise the franchise, and that has become more and more apparent. And I have to tell you, I think that the election of Barack Obama had a lot to do with that with the backlash. And the idea that there are folks in this country who do not believe that everyone should have the right to vote. And so therefore, they consider themselves justified in putting up barriers to the voting process, which makes it incumbent upon people like us who want everyone to have access to the ballot, to try to figure out how to overcome the obstacles that they place in our path. At Bat, again, takes us back to the women's suffrage movement. Those women endured all kinds of ridicule. I mean, it just it's amazing when you look back and see the newspapers, and things that were written and said letters and things that are in archives, people who were dismissive both men and women, dismissive of the right to vote, because that was something that many people from the beginning of this country onward, felt like it should be limited, any access. So those of us who have been fighting for expanded access, are going to have to keep on fighting. We can't give up and that's what the suffrage just taught us cannot give up Have   Michael Hingson  20:01 you talked about the concept? And the fact that this was a nonviolent movement? Did those early suffragists experienced much violence from people?   Paula Casey  20:14 Yeah. Oh, yeah. Especially when they marched the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, DC, and in New York City and night content, the I mean, Thurber police and looked the other way, a geonet. Something that's happening today, too. But the idea that not everyone celebrated having universal suffrage. And that's what I believe in universal suffrage, no matter what you believe. And you still should have access to the ballot, and we need to make it as accessible as we can. But we've just got to keep fighting because we've got to overcome the people that don't want everyone to have access to the ballot.   Michael Hingson  21:01 You studied this a lot. What do you think the Founding Fathers view would be today? When founding mothers for that matter?   Paula Casey  21:09 Better? Such a great question, because everybody likes to think that they know what they would think. And I have to tell you, I have been on a run of reading David McCullough's books. I am just really into BS, I'm researching 76 right now. And I've had John Adams forever. I've never finished it. So I'm going to finish that. Then I've got to do Teddy Roosevelt. And then I'm going to do Harry Truman. But the thing about John Adams, when Abigail wrote him to remember the ladies, he was dismissive. And he thought it was silly. And these man, okay, yes, they were products of their time. But there were very few real feminist among them. That's what made Frederick Douglass stand out because he was so willing to stand up for women's suffrage. But she looked back at those men. And I mean, honestly, my they didn't know any differently. You think about what they were through. And the idea that women should be equal participants in a democracy was certainly a foreign thought to them. But there were so many people. And there were also areas that didn't allow women to vote. But you know, New Jersey actually extended the franchise and then took it away. And then when people started moving westward, to develop the West, there were the men were adamant that because women were helping homestead and settled all of that land out there that they should be voting, if there were states that were not going to come into the Union if their women couldn't vote. So this is not that unusual of an idea. But it took particularly enlightened man and women who pushed for it to happen. And I've got to point this out. I do not bash man because it took the man and those 36 state legislatures to ratify a Ninth Amendment, they voted to willingly expand power, and that needs to be acknowledged. Weird, we're   Michael Hingson  23:20 we're dealing with this, this whole issue of suffrage and rights and so on. Were any of the early founders of the United States, right from the outset? Supportive or more supportive? Do you think? Or do you know,   Paula Casey  23:35 trying to think, abolition and suffrage became closely linked? Yeah. So for those who advocated the abolition of slavery, they were probably more amenable. But again, what this really is about is the whole idea of who is a citizen? And I think that's where and the founding of this country, clearly black people and Native Americans were not considered citizens. The question about women. I can't think right offhand of any, quote, founding father who advocated for women to bow, they may have come up, you know, some of them may have come around, but you look back and think, who are the guys that we think about as founding fathers? I don't think any of them was particularly feminist, or encouraging of women being thought of as citizens with full voting rights. And then you got into the issue of taxation without representation. You know, nothing's new. That's what you learned studying the women's suffrage movement is it's all been said or done for who is a citizen who should have the right to vote?   Michael Hingson  24:58 Well, I'm I'm think I mentioned to you When we chatted before, and you just brought up abolitionists, and I always remember the story of William Lloyd Garrison, who was trying to gain more people into the abolitionist movement. And he directed some of his people to contact the Grimm case sisters who were very staunch suffragists, right? And see, I got the word, right. And they said, No, we can't do that. That's not what their priority is. Their priority is all about women's separatists that's going to detract from what we're all about. And in Henry Mayer's book all on fire in telling the story, he says that Garrison said, it's all the same thing. And that's absolutely right. Whether it's the right to vote, whether it's the right to attend public school, whether it's the right of persons with so called disabilities to have equal access, which doesn't necessarily mean we do things the same way, but equal access to things in the United States. It's all the same thing. Right. And I think that's the most important message that we all want to take away. Or at least that's part of the important message that we should take away. I don't know how we change people's minds today, though, we're getting such a polarized world? And how do we get people to understand why being more open to everyone having equal opportunities, whether it be the right to vote or whatever? How do we get people to deal with that?   Paula Casey  26:45 I think we have to learn from what the separatists stat, we have to persevere. We have to be creative, and innovative. We just can't give up. This is the long game we are in for the fight of our labs. And it won't get better if people give up. That's why we've got the hang in there. And truly, it is about democracy, you either believe in democracy or don't. And that, to me is the bottom line. And when he talks about polarization, I think we also have to factor in disinformation, foreign governments being involved in our political processes. And frankly, as a former newspaper journalist, and someone with a journalism degree, I have to tell you, I think the media have failed us. They are not reporting on things that are happening. And I've got to tell you this mike, in the 1970s, my husband and I were in the newspaper business back then he was a great journalist, great editor. And we started watching the corporatization of news in the mid to late 70s. And now it's like what, six or seven corporations, on all the major media, this is not good for our country. We work for a family owned newspaper business in Tennessee, that was bought out. And then now you have these giant firms and hedge funds, evil, I think they're evil, and they're buying up all of the media, this is not good for our country. And this means it is difficult to get the message out to people. And I really thought that social media would help and if anything, is probably been more of a hindrance. Sadly,   Michael Hingson  28:35 when you don't have any kind of governing governors on what you do, like what we saw for several years recently, then, yeah, it certainly doesn't help does it? Not. So well fight disinformation, as well as apathy. Yeah, and apathy is certainly a part of it. And you talked about the importance of voting, and we I've talked to a number of people who have never voted, oh, I'm not going to do that it won't make a difference and so on. And they, and they continue to feel that way. And they just don't vote and they're not young people. But I've also found young people who do that, but I know some people who are in their 40s and 50s. And they've never voted in an election. And they're fine with   Paula Casey  29:28 that. Yeah, that's that's what's so sad because you've got to have parents or teachers, someone who inculcate in a young person, that it's important to better and I will tell you, my sister and I grew up in a home where my parents were two newspapers voted in every election. My sister and I knew that it was important, we registered to vote. I mean, I I got to vote first time and I was 19. But I registered as soon as I could, after the 26th Amendment was ratified. And I've just think People have got to understand that democracy doesn't work. If you don't participate, democracy is not a spectator sport. And here again, this is something else that this brings up. When did they stop teaching civics in the schools? I love civics. I love teaching civics talking about civics. That's part of the problem right there.   Michael Hingson  30:24 There are a lot of challenges. I think I know the answer to this one, since Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment. But why is it called the perfect 36?   Paula Casey  30:36 The editorial cartoonists of the day, the Tennessee the perfect 36 Because they did not know where that last state was going to come from. So think about here, let me set stage 3435 states have ratified. Three states absolutely refused to consider it because their governors were opposed. Connecticut, Vermont, Florida, nine states had outright rejected it. And berries were primarily in the south lawn with Maryland, a couple of years. Non states were checked it. It fell to Tennessee. And because Tennessee had a well organized group of suffragists across the state in all 95 of our counties, and we have wonderful man who supported this effort, including our United States senator Kenneth McKellar, who was from Memphis. So the stage was set. When Carrie Chapman Catt came to Nashville to stay at the Hermitage Hotel, which is fabulous. And I want your listeners to go to the heart teach hotel if they're ever in Nashville, because it's so significant in the suffrage battle. Both the Pro and anti suffrage forces stayed at the Hermitage and Carrie Chapman Catt stayed there. Along with Representative Joseph pan over from Memphis, who was the floor later, Carrie Chapman cat asked him to be the suffrage fight. So because of the editorial cartoonist and because we were the last state that could ratify, that's where the name of the perfect 36 came from.   Michael Hingson  32:20 Well, for you personally, what really got you interested in becoming so deeply involved in studying the suffrage movement because it's clearly become very personal for you.   Paula Casey  32:34 My husband, dad and July 1988. And Carolyn Yellin, spent a lot of time with me. We had actually been at the National Women's Conference in November of 1977. That was an exciting time I was one of the youngest delegates there. And Carol Lam talked to me about the research that she had done and and I want people to know about this because this is really important. After back McCain was killed in Memphis in 1968. Carolyn Yellin her husband, David Yellin, who was a broadcaster and several other folks put together a group called the search for meaning committee. And they compiled everything they could about what was happening in Memphis. And every book that has been written since then about Dr. King, and what happened in Memphis, has utilized their research. Well, while Carolyn was doing this research, she came across this Tennessee story and she was working with from Oklahoma. She didn't even come here from New York City. He ran the broadcasting department, a inaugurated at what was then known as Memphis State University. And Carolyn said, you know, this is kind of important. Yeah, that may, Tennessee was last, I think the ratify. So she started doing research. And she found descendants. And she also talked with two of the man who were still living. Harry Byrne died in 1977. Joseph Hanover did not got until 1984 and I met him in 1983. He was the for later, who Mrs. Cat had asked, Can the pro surfers votes together, had it not been for Joe Hannover. I'm telling you tonight, the amendment would not have been ratified in Tennessee. He Carolyn always said to me, he was the real hero. So we started working on a book because she had said she wanted to do this book. So I'm thinking I have a lot of graduated from UT Knoxville and the University of Tennessee press will want to do this book, because we have all this original research. So we're calling you to press. And the woman said to me, and we've already dealt with on women's suffrage, and was very dismissive. And I was just really stunned and I said Okay, thank you. So I started thinking about it later and I wished I'd had the presence of mind to say she nobody ever says that about the Civil War. You know, all they do is write books about the damn civil war. I mean, I grew up in Nashville, believe me, I had been, I was indoctrinated with Lost Cause mythology. So I start looking. And finally we get somebody who's willing to publish it. And you gotta remember this. We published it originally in 1998. I've done a re plan, and I've done the e book and the audio book, and Dr. Dre and Sherman came to Memphis in 1994. We started working on the book in 1996. We got the first edition published in May of 1998. And I was able to put it in Carolyn's hands, her breast cancer had returned, and she got in March of 99. So I was just so grateful that her research resulted in that book. And then Dr. Sherman, who had her PhD from Wright first wrote about the long journey from the Revolutionary War up to what happened in Nashville in 1920. So we're really proud of the book, and I continue to sell it to libraries and individuals because you know, that history is it's very well recorded in our book. And so I'm really proud of it and I've got a hold of a copy. The perfect body six, Tennessee delivers women's suffrage and the cover is Downtown Memphis Main Street, 1916. It was called The Great monster suffrage point.   Michael Hingson  36:29 Do you know if the book has been put into audio format today?   Paula Casey  36:33 Yes, Dr. Sherman read the audio books. I have an audio book and the ebook and awkward formats.   Michael Hingson  36:39 So is it on   Paula Casey  36:39 Audible? Yes. Oh, it's on lots of ebook platforms and an audio book platforms.   Michael Hingson  36:47 Well, great. Then I'm gonna go hunted down. I think that will be fun to read.   Paula Casey  36:54 Music terrible. I forgot period music. We had a great producer David Wolf out Albuquerque did the audio. But   Michael Hingson  37:02 here's a question totally off the wall. totally subjective. But do you think Abraham Lincoln would have supported this women's suffragists movement?   Paula Casey  37:15 I do. And let me tell you why. It's so interesting. You should ask that. Have you heard about Jon Meacham? snoo book?   Michael Hingson  37:22 No, I have not. Okay.   Paula Casey  37:23 Jon Meacham is a Tennessee boy. We were at the Chattanooga you know, he lives in Nashville May. I was in New York City for years and years. And he and his wife are in Nashville because he is a professor at Vanderbilt University. And he was on Lawrence O'Donnell, I think last night on Well, whenever it was on MSNBC, talking about his new book about Abraham Lincoln. And then there was like, Abraham Lincoln. I mean, it he has fast to think of keep up with Cain. He believed in abolishing slavery, but he traded people with dignity. And I think that he could have been persuaded that, you know, the union wasn't gonna provide as a women's voting union was gonna define over whether it was okay to enslave other human beings. And when you think about the idea that it was okay to own other human beings that's just repulsive just today, but back then, Lincoln had his work cut out for him. But I do think because he believed and he he studied them. She's such a thoughtful man. And I'm looking forward to reading John's book, because I think all of his books are terrific. But I really want to read this one, because I think Abraham Lincoln was enlightened in his own way, and he probably would have come around to support it. Yeah,   Michael Hingson  38:53 he just had other issues that were as important, if not more important, like keeping the country together if he could. Right. So it was, it was certainly a big challenge. And,   Paula Casey  39:07 you know, 1848, by Seneca Falls happened, but then the surfer just recognized that the Civil War was going to take priority over everything. And so they were essentially derailed, but it was after the Civil War. And the 14th and 15th amendments came up or 13th amendment, you know, to abolish slavery, but the 15th Amendment, extended the franchise to the newly freed black male slaves, and I want to point something out here. There's a lot of misinformation about who could vote and the aftermath of the Civil War and then later and they you heard this and I heard this a lot in 2020, during the centennial celebration, and let me point out that separatist endured a pandemic just like we have, and they persevered and they want to spike the pandemic. And there is a school We'll start, which I happen to agree with that the 1965 Voting Rights Act would not have applied to black women. Had the 19th Amendment not been ratified the 15th Amendment and the 19th Amendment event, the Voting Rights Act was about the enforcement of those two amendments. And when people say, Oh, we're black women are unable to vote. No, that is not true. The 19th Amendment did not say white women. It says equality of suffrage shall not be denied. I can't have sex. That's all it says I can't have sex. And so it removes the gender barrier to voting and had nothing to do with race. What did have to do with race was the states. The constitution grants the right to states set the policies and procedures for voting. And it was in the States where you have Jim Crow laws, and Paul taxes and literacy tests and all that garbage that was designed to keep people from voting. The states did it, not the Ninth Amendment. And we have documentation of black women voting in Nashville, Clarksville, Tennessee, about Tachyon and Memphis,   Michael Hingson  41:15 you have been involved in placing various suffragist related art around Tennessee. Can you tell us or would you tell us about that?   Paula Casey  41:25 Yes, I am very excited about this. When you go to a city, wherever you go in this country, you notice if you're working about the public art, and who is depicted in statuary, and for too long, we have not acknowledged the contributions of women and public art. So back in 1997, Van state senator Steve Cullen from Memphis, who is now my ninth district, Congressman Steve is great. Steve is the one who said we have got to have something inside state capitol. So put me on this committee. And he said you're going to serve on this committee. And there's going to be a blind competition that the Tennessee Arts Commission will sponsor and we're going to select somebody to design something to go inside state capitol because think about this, Tennessee ratified August 18 1920. And up until February of 1998. There was nothing inside the Tennessee State Capitol building that depicted Tennessee's pivotal role. Oh, American women's vote today, thanks to Tennessee. So Steve puts me on this committee. We have a blind competition. Owl on the far west Wednesday. And on the back of our perfect 36 book, I have a picture of the bar leaf that is hanging between the House and Senate chambers, and the Tennessee State Capitol building. Okay, fast forward to 2009. Former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin came to Nashville to give a speech at the Economic Summit for women and she was picked up by Tierra backroads and she said to the women who picked her up, take me to see your monument to the suffragist. I know that Kelsey was the state that made it Wow. And they said, Oh, Governor, we're so sorry, the state capitol building is closed. And this is where that bodily is hanging inside State Capitol. And she said to them, you Tennessee women should be ashamed. You should have something that is readily accessible. So that started our efforts to put together the Tennessee women's suffrage monument. And we commissioned our look bar and 2011 We got really serious in 2012. I was asked to be the president in May of 2013, which mount where you raise the money and I raise 600,000 for this $900,000 monument that is now in Centennial Park. Nashville. Centennial Park is gorgeous. It's historic. Susan B. Anthony was actually in that park in 1897. And she inspired and Dallas Dudley of Nashville to get involved Suffrage Movement. And Anne was beautiful and wealthy. And she became a great suffrage leader on the state level and the national level. So we got together at our McQuire studio in Nashville. He's at West Nashville. And they asked me who should we put on this minute but and because Carolyn Yellin had been my mentor and my friend, I said, we need to have an Dallas deadly from Nashville. Frankie Parris from Nashville who was a major black separatist, who registered over 2500 Black women to vote in Nashville in 1998. We had Sue Shaun White and Jackson who was the only Tennessee woman put in jail fighting for suffrage. And Abby Crawford Milton from Chattanooga, there wasn't really anybody that I was going to push for from Memphis at that moment because I knew that we were eventually going to do a Memphis separate monument. But I said, Karen Chapman Catt, who was originally from Iowa, and you know, okay, so yeah, New York, Carolyn Yellen said that Carrie Chapman Catt should have been the first woman to become a United States Senator from New York. But she was so spent after the savage battle and she had a serious heart condition. So I said when he put Carrie Chapman Catt on there because she wanted to pick it in statuary. She was brilliant. And so we had the spot women heroic scale. They're nine feet tall. They're in the Nashville Centennial Park. So that's the Tennessee one separate monument. Allen was commissioned to do to get our Knoxville I worked on the advising the Tennessee triumph and Clarksville, Tennessee. And it's fabulous. It's got a woman putting her ballot in the ballot box. And beyond Ben Jackson, I helped raise the money and that was only 32,000 to do a burst of soup shot right in front of Jackson City Hall and bed, Memphis, my hometown. We have the Memphis suffrage monument equality trailblazers, that monument cost $790,190 average every penny of it because I have wonderful friends, and a city council on a county commission that gave major money so that we could preserve the legacies of these important people. And so in the Memphis monument, which is at the law school, for the University of Memphis, facing the Mississippi River, I live right down by the river. You can see that monument in the daytime or at night. And what's so great about this, Mike is that people see it and they just rave about it. And school children go there and they read about these remarkable people. And I point this out to everyone when I'm doing chores, or when I gave speeches. The reason we do these markers and monuments is because these people deserve to be remembered. And when we're all gone, that was mine knits and markers will be there telling the story and I'm just grateful that I had been able to have this experience to preserve the wiper sees of these remarkable Oregon people.   Michael Hingson  47:35 Now as I recall the monument at the University of Memphis the ceremony dedicating it is on YouTube, yes. Do you know how people can easily find it? Do you know a link or   Paula Casey  47:50 I think if you go on YouTube, you can type in Downtown Memphis Commission because the Downtown Memphis Commission produced it. It's on their YouTube channel and I actually have it on my YouTube channel, Paula FKC. And I believe it's easy to find it was March 27 2022, the dedication ceremony for the Memphis suffrage monument, but you can actually see it and I've got to tell you this, I'm so excited. My friend, Michelle duster, who is the great granddaughter about to be Wales and I'm going to hold up her book out to be the queen Michelle gave me her family's blessing. And she and her brothers wanted to write the bio that's lasered on the class for ATAPI wills. And Alan had sculpted a bust of atopy Wales along with five others. And she was so excited about it. And we had so much fun when she came to Memphis. And it was just such a great experience for us to celebrate the wives of atopy wills and Mary Church, Terrell, and all of the people from Memphis, Shelby County, who fought to get that night keep that amendment ratified. And then those women whose careers were made possible in politics, because of the suffragists victory, said, Michelle has been a great ally and champion of our monument.   Michael Hingson  49:14 So I think we've talked around a lot of this, but ultimately, what can we learn from the Chuffer suffragists movement? What lessons can we take forward? And I guess even before that, do you think that those who led and were the basis of the separatist movement would be surprised at what we're experiencing today? Now?   Paula Casey  49:40 I think they would just take it in stride, and they would expect it because they've dealt with backlash, and obstacles, ridicule, sarcasm, obstructionism, they saw it all. That's why I keep telling people when you study history, you learned that nothing is new. And it is so important for us to recognize the people who help move history forward, they help make sure that our society goes forward and that we are on the right side of history, when it comes to the expansion of rights, and inclusion, diversity, inclusion, all of this should just be something that we do, because it's the right thing to do. And because we understand how important it is for everyone, to participate in our government, in our society, why don't we want to be close, I don't want to live on Wi Fi. But I want to celebrate people who have done great things. I want to be able to tell young people that they can be aspirational, that they can vote to the example set by these people who accomplish something right over enormous opposition.   Michael Hingson  50:58 Clearly, these women, and anyone who is committed to this process, to use my term would be unstoppable, which is, which is a great thing. And clearly you are helping to promote that. And I think that is extremely important. And it does go beyond suffrage, women's suffrage, it goes to anyone who has been disenfranchised by whatever the system might be. And we do have to fight the fights, we can't step back, we have to stand for what we believe in. And I think that it is important that we do it in a non violent way. I suspect that if he had lived back in the time of women's suffrage, Gandhi would be a very great supporter, don't you think?   Paula Casey  51:51 Yeah, he would have come around. Yeah, he was kind of sexist.   Michael Hingson  51:55 Well, you know, it's the environment. But non violence was certainly his   Paula Casey  51:59 right. As Susan B. Anthony was entered non violence long before Gandhi and dark cane and she never gets recognized for it. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  52:09 Yeah, it did not start in the 1900s. But it is something that we all ought to take to heart. Now. Let's let's be clear, non violence, as opposed to civil disobedience.   Paula Casey  52:25 Right, right. Yeah. I mean, Susan Bay was all for civil disobedience. And you know, like when she tried to vote, and Elizabeth every Merriweather from Memphis was so inspired by Susan B. Anthony's example, that she went to go vote in Memphis in 1873. And she said they gave her a ballot, probably because she was considered an aristocracy. But she said she wasn't sure if her vote was counted. Yeah. And so that's the whole thing about, you know, who can vote who's citizen who has access to the ballot. And another thing that we have to think about is who's going to count the votes? We're never used to have to worry about that so much.   Michael Hingson  53:07 And it's unfortunate that we have to worry about it today. I think for the longest time, we assumed that the system worked. And mostly I think it did. And it does. But now, there is so much fear and so much distrust because of what some are doing that we have to be concerned about. Who's counting the votes? I watched a news report last night about how ballots are handled in San Bernardino County. And the process is absolutely amazing. When the ballots come in, the first thing that's checked is is the signature and the comparison is made as to whether it's a legal signature that's done by a group of people. And then the ballot is opened. And the ballot is just checked for anything damaged or anything that looks irregular. And then it goes to a different group of people now a third group that counts the ballots, and one of the points that they made, and I actually hadn't thought of it, although I should have. But until they mentioned it is and none of the machines and none of the technologies and none of the process involved in counting the ballots in San Bernardino County and I suspect in a lot most places, nothing is connected to the internet. Right? Oh, nothing can go off and destroy or warp the ballot, the process. That's good to know. Yep, I think it should be that way. I've seen some companies who are concerned enough about the internet and what people can do that their accounting systems are never attached to the internet and it makes perfect sense given everything that's going on today. So other computers can be compromised. But the accounting and monetary parts of the companies are not connected to the internet at all. They're not on the network, right? Even the local network.   Paula Casey  55:14 So what can I mention the three man who were so essential in Tennessee? Sure. This is such a great story. And I have to tell you, my friend, Bill Haltom, of Netflix is a great author and retired attorney. He did this book, because I asked him to on representative Joseph Hanover rock, Kent mother vote. Joseph Hanover, was an immigrant from Poland. His family was Orthodox Jewish, and they fled, because the Tsar took their property. And so many Jewish immigrants were coming into this country, because they had to flee oppression. And he came to this country along with his mother and two brothers, his father came first and ended up in Memphis, and saved the money for them to flee Poland. Now, let me tell you, my key talk about unstoppable mindset. Those people who were searching for freedom, and they had crossed a frozen lake and come across in the bowels of a steamship. And Joe was five years old, and he went upstairs and start bands and people were throwing money at it. When they got to this country, they came through Ellis Island, and band came through via St. Louis down to Memphis, some in Memphis. And he was so taken with this country and the country's founding documents, because his parents kept telling their boys they had three and then they had two more. And they told them, you're living in the greatest country. You have rights in this country that we did not have public. You've got study the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. And of course, the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848, at Seneca Falls was patterned after the declaration of independence. So Mr. Joe decides that he's going to run for the legislature, and he went to law school and studied by all Lampe in his family's home in being Hampton, which is a part of Memphis back then it was north of Memphis. I am so excited because the national votes for women trail, I've been the Tennessee coordinator, and I really pushed to get one of the poverty foundation markers for Mr. Joe. We got it last week, it has been put up on the side of the Hanover family home. And I encourage people who are listening or watching this podcast to look up the national votes for women trail and see all of the people across the 48 states because remember, Alaska and Hawaii weren't states back. We have got Mr. Joe hit with his marker. Then we've also got the sculpture that Allah required date of Harry burn. Now Mr. Joe knew the morning of August 18th 1920, that he was two boats short of ratification in the House, the Senate in Tennessee had passed it 25 Four, but the house was very close to being deadlocked. And because of the opposition and the money, here's what you've got to remember. People who are opposed to right are always going to have more money. That's just a given. So you have to be smarter, and work harder and be more innovative. Mr. Joe did everything he could to keep those pro surfers votes together and it came down to two votes. And he didn't know where they're going to come from. That this is anecdote that Bill Haltom and I've done some research. We think this is true. There was a state representative from West Tennessee north of Jackson and Gibson county named banks Turner. He was a farmer, a Vanderbilt educated lawyer and he had been antiseptic. Now banks Turner ended up sitting and Governor Roberts office on the morning of August the 18th. That vote was gonna take place in the house. And Governor Roberts, who had actually he came around but he supported it. So he's talking to governor of Ohio governor Cox Governor Cox was besieging Governor Roberts of Tennessee to please get Tennessee to pass because remember, both political parties thought that women would vote for them in the 1920 presidential election. The best flip the push was to make it possible for American women to vote in the presidential election. Now Tennessee had as did other states, something called limited suffrage or municipal suffrage where women can only vote in school board or presidential electors, but not universal suffrage, which meant they could vote now elections. So Tennessee women worked and I think would have had a chance to vote. But the political parties wanted Tennessee to ratify so that women and all the 48 states would have the opportunity to vote in the 1920 presidential election. So banks Charter, the Vanderbilt educated lawyer and farmer from Gibson County, Tennessee who had been an Attock is sitting there listening to Governor Roberts and the conversation. And Governor Roberts pointed at banks Turner and said something to the effect of I'm sitting here looking at the man who can make this happen. So banks charter didn't tell anybody that he had met with Senator Roberts and he goes to the floor of the house. And there were attempts made to table the notion which meant to kill it, because they didn't want to have to go on record, and a special session of 1920 if they could delay it until the regular session in January of 1921, and then effectively kill it for all time. Well, Johanna never knew that he was to vote short. Though Joe Hanover and banks Turner voted to table the voted against tabling the motion Harry Berg voted twice to table the motion. However, banks Turner kept it alive because it deadlocked 4848, which meant the amendment was alive and proceeded to the farm vote for ratification. The Speaker of the House was Seth Walker from Lebanon, Tennessee and he was a very wildlife lawyer had initially been four separate Jiminy ends up being an atta. And he thought that because it had deadlocked on the motion to table 4848 that the same thing was gonna happen with the actual vote of ratification, which would have killed it, that he did not know that Harry Barr, who was a state representative from now to candidacy outside of Chattanooga, and was received a letter from his mother and widow who own property, and she wanted to be able to vote in our elections. So she says in this letter, dear son, her rod vote for suffrage. I had been reading the paper with you see where you stood and haven't been able to say anything. Please help Mrs. Cat put the rat and ratification from his mother. So Harry, what the roll call was taken, voted for it voted ah. And it caught the anti separatists by surprise. But the processor just realized that it was going to pass 49 to 47. And so SEC Walker, being a parliamentary maneuver specialist, changed his vote from May to ah, so that he would be able to prevail anxiety to bring it up for reconsideration. But what that did was it gave it a constitutional majority 50 to 46. So that it would pass constitutional muster, and they had attempts to be railing and all kinds of shenanigans. But Tennessee, became the last state to ratify the perfect 36 on August 18 1920. And we celebrate that accomplishment and everything with those men did. And I have been very pleased that we got a Tennessee Historical Commission marker in Gibson County for thanks, Turner. We've got the Harry burn statue, and there's a marker in his home place and Nauta and then I have got the Palmer foundation mark of Joe Hanover. And Adam afar, Scott did his best on the Memphis suffrage monument. So what these men did, because they believed in democracy and rule of law, it will be there for future generations to know   Michael Hingson  1:04:25 what a great story and there's no better way to end our episode today then with that and what it really means if people want to learn more about all of this and maybe contact you and learn about your book and so on. How can they do that?   1:04:45 thperfect36.com theperfect36.com or Paulacasey.com And I would love to hear from folks you know the books are available the audio book, the ebook and the DVD generations American women when the This is all about celebrating democracy and the rule of law and the right to vote. And thank you so much.   1:05:08 Well, Paula, thank you and I really appreciate you coming on. I love history I have not read enough David McCullough books and have to work on that some but and we will, but I have Red Team of Rivals. So that's not David McCollum. But still, history is an important thing for us. And we learned so much that whatever we think is new really isn't same concepts coming up in a different way. Right. But thank you all for listening. I'd love to hear from you. Please. Wherever you are, just shoot me an email. Let me know what you thought of today's podcast. Please give us a five star review. This is an informative episode and one that I think people really need to hear. So I hope you will pass on about this. Give us a five star rating. Email me at Michaelhi M I C H A E L H I at accessibe.com or visit our podcast page. www dot Michael hingson H i n g s o n.com/podcast. And definitely let us know your thoughts. And once more Paula Casey, we really appreciate you coming on and educating us and telling us all about this subject which is I think so important and teaches us so many lessons we need to take to heart.   Paula Casey  1:06:25 Thank you.   1:06:29 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

CDR discusses with caller Dan, his experience at today's hearing filed by Bob Borer, for Help America Vote Act, the recount of how Nebraska is not in compliance of it.

In this special presentation of Hudson Mohawk Magazine, Blaise Bryant brings us a two-part conversation about accessible voting for people with disabilities. First Cliff Perez from the Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley in Troy discusses the history behind the Help America Vote Act, his experiences as a disabled voter, and what he sees for the future. Then we hear from Keith Gurgui with the Resource Center for Accessible Living in Kingston who shares his voting experiences and his perspectives on the future of accessible voting.

During the 2022 midterm election, 38.3 MILLION VOTERS with DISABILITIES will have the opportunity to participate in the democratic process. These voters may include you, one of your friends, or a family member.....Voters with disabilities face unique obstacles when casting their ballots. Join Jimmy in the discussion how the about how the HELP AMERICA VOTE ACT ensures that all voters with disabilities have the right to mark, cast and verify their ballots privately and independently. websites in this episode: Election Assistance Commission (EAC) www.EAC.gov Find your State& Local Election office: www.EAC.gov/vote Living With A Disability: www.famousapple.com/group

Join America's Roundtable co-hosts Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy for a conversation with J. Christian Adams, President and General Counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation as we discuss the post-election audit in Arizona and other battleground states and the efforts being undertaken in Texas to preserve the sanctity of the ballot. Through J. Christian Adams and his team's leadership efforts, a significant case was settled in April 2021, representing a big win for election integrity in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and for America. Pennsylvania will now remove the names of 21,000 deceased registrants who remained on the voter rolls less than a month before last year's general election. U.S. Election Assistance Commission: "Since the 2000 presidential election and the enactment of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, post-election audits have become a focus for the election community to enhance public confidence in the outcome of elections." https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/electionofficials/postelection/PostElectionTabulation_Audits.pdf For further reading, an op-ed by J. Christian Adams: The Washington Examiner: Abuse of power by Biden's Justice Department: Let Arizona conduct its own election audit Link: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/abuse-of-power-by-bidens-justice-department-let-arizona-conduct-its-own-election-audit Lawsuit to Remove Dead Voters in Pennsylvania Ends with Win for Election Integrity https://publicinterestlegal.org/blog/lawsuit-to-remove-dead-voters-in-pennsylvania-ends-with-win-for-election-integrity/ Settlement Agreement | PUBLIC INTEREST LEGAL FOUNDATION - Plaintiff vs. VERONICA DEGRAFFENREID, in her official capacity as the Acting Secretary of the )Commonwealth of Pennsylvania - Defendant https://publicinterestlegal.org/files/Settlement-Agreement-Executed-by-PILF-and-secretary.pdf https://ileaderssummit.org/services/americas-roundtable-radio/ https://ileaderssummit.org/ | https://jerusalemleaderssummit.com/ America's Roundtable on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/americas-roundtable/id1518878472 Twitter: @ElectionLawCtr @ileaderssummit @NatashaSrdoc @JoelAnandUSA America's Roundtable is co-hosted by Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy, co-founders of International Leaders Summit and the Jerusalem Leaders Summit. America's Roundtable radio program - a strategic initiative of International Leaders Summit, focuses on America's economy, healthcare reform, rule of law, security and trade, and its strategic partnership with rule of law nations around the world. The radio program features high-ranking US administration officials, cabinet members, members of Congress, state government officials, distinguished diplomats, business and media leaders and influential thinkers from around the world. America's Roundtable is aired by Lanser Broadcasting Corporation on 96.5 FM and 98.9 FM, covering Michigan's major market, SuperTalk Mississippi Media's 12 radio stations and 50 affiliates reaching every county in Mississippi and also heard in parts of the neighboring states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, and through podcast on Apple Podcasts and other key online platforms.

Alysoun McLaughlin, Deputy Election Director, Montgomery County, MD, joins Brianna and Eric for a conversation about the origins of the Help America Vote Act from her direct experience as an on-the-ground election policy professional in the early 2000s.

Voting laws have been capturing headlines, and not just in the context of Georgia but with nearly 20 other states considering similar voter restrictive legislation as well. In 2020, some of the biggest national security issues played out in the context of elections. This week, NSLT welcomes Nate Persily, the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, to discuss the role of federal and state governments in elections, the use of new technology, and the implications these laws have on national security and democracy. Nate Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School: https://law.stanford.edu/directory/nathaniel-persily/ This episode references: - One Person, One Vote rule: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/one-person_one-vote_rule - For the People Act of 2021: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text - John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act: https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/s4263/BILLS-116s4263is.pdf - Help America Vote Act: https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ252/PLAW-107publ252.pdf - Honest Ads Act: https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/s1989/BILLS-115s1989is.pdf - The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process, 5th Edition. Issacharoff, Karlan, Pildes and Persily. 2016: https://www.westacademic.com/Issacharoff-Karlan-Pildes-and-Persilys-The-Law-of-Democracy-9781634608015 - Nathaniel Persily, “Can Democracy Survive the Internet?” (2017). https://journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/07_28.2_Persily-web.pdf - Stanford Cyber Policy Center: https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu - NSLT Ep. 146, "How does CISA and the intelligence community protect American elections? With Dan Sutherland" https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/national-security-law-today/id1276946676?i=1000494060109

This is episode two of a three-part series on election security. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) was established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). EAC is an independent, bipartisan commission charged with developing guidance to meet HAVA requirements, adopting voluntary voting system guidelines, and serving as a national clearinghouse of information on election administration. EAC also accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, as well as audits the use of HAVA funds. Benjamin Hovland was nominated by President Donald J. Trump and confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate on January 2, 2019, to serve on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Commissioner Hovland serves as the Designated Federal Officer for the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC). Donald Palmer was nominated by President Donald J. Trump and confirmed by unanimous consent of the United States Senate on January 2, 2019, to serve on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Commissioner Palmer is a former Bipartisan Policy Center Fellow where he advanced the recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration to resolve the voting technology crisis, find ways to reduce lines of voters and improve the voting experience. ————————————————————————— To learn more about this episode, including podcast transcripts and show notes, visit *salt.org/talks* ( http://salt.org/talks ) Moderated by Anthony Scaramucci.

The Illinois House passed a bill to expand vote-by-mail and curbside voting. This bill allows Illinois to use federal funds distributed to states for election administration through the 2002 Help America Vote Act to create and maintain secure collection sites for mail ballots. The bill awaits Senate approval. Illinois State Representative Mark Batinick joins John Howell to discuss.

OPEN:  Kind of a hodgepodge for you today, including the etymology of the word hodgepodge which is "a kind of stew, especially "one made with goose, herbs, spices, wine, and other ingredients." Earlier it was an Anglo-French legal term meaning "collection of property in a common 'pot' before dividing it equally" (late 13c.). Immediately that doesn’t make sense to me.  So… first it was a legal term meaning a collection of property and then it became goose stew?  See how I can take a throw-away thing like a definition and turn it into a rabbit hole? Among other nonsense the Senator and I discuss briefly are:  White Privilege should not include males under 5’8” who are bald The Kansas City Chiefs name is racist and needs to be changed A Buccaneer is a racist term  Rape is okay if it’s in the name of freedom Paul Revere was gay Superbowl Advertising Costs this year  SKD Knickerbocker is not a brand of pants at the GAP, it’s a political consulting firm We start of with the Senator playing “Alone Again, Naturally” by Gilbert O’sullivan as if this is a great idea…. After that we mainly try to stay away from politics and talk about the Superbowl, which is obviously over now, but we keep going back to politics like a couple of moronic moths drawn to a flame.  No offense to any moths who may be listening.  About thirty minutes in the Senator goes off on a jag about Alex Padilla.  Alex Padilla is California’s former Secretary of State- now Senator in Washington DC taking Kamala Harris’ place.  Here is our Senator’s beef with the newly appointed Senator Alex Padilla: During Padilla’s time in office as S.O.S. he awarded a contract for $35 million dollars to an organization called SKD Knickerbocker which is  a public affairs and political consulting firm that specializes in working for Democratic Party politicians.   SKD Knickerbocker created a voter outreach campaign called Vote Safe California.  At least some of the funds to pay them came from the CARES Act which is the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Did the campaign cost $35M?  I don’t know.  But guess who is  VERY closely tied to President-slash-Grandpa Joe?  SKD Knickerbocker.  In fact, Anita Dunn, who is one of the firm’s partners and founding members was part of the Biden campaign and per the New York Times, was "elevated" during 2020 to essentially having "effective control of the campaign."  So, the Senator is  going to tell you later that California Secretary of State Alex Padilla paid SKD Knickerbocker $35M from their invoices by using local funds, which included federal money allocated through the Coronavirus CARES Act.  So one might make the claim that Coronavirus relief funds went indirectly to the Biden campaign.  I wouldn’t make that claim, but there are a number of republicans in Washington (surprise!) who are asking about it and are not getting answers.  So that is what you will hear our senator get tee’d off about.  Here’s what tee’s me off about this story: when I went to research this… and we’re talking moron research not journalism, I searched and searched and the only recognizable news source I could find was Fox News.  Of course Fox News is going to run a slanderous story on a democrat, and I’m not interested in that.  So I kept searching Alex Padilla plus… 35 MILLION DOLLARS, the Help America Vote Act, and finally… when I combined Alex with the CARES Act, I found a news story from Newsweek Magazine.  Hell, I even wrote to the journalist who wrote the goddamn article because, not surprisingly, both the offices of Mr. Padilla and Mr. Newsome did not have a response at the time of publication.  Will I hear back from the journalist?  I don’t know… have you left this stupid podcast a good rating or made a comment?  There’s your answer.   What pisses me off about this story is that the always accused liberal media… and most news sources are left leaning… it’ a goddamn fact… they don’t choose to cover a story when it’s about a democrat.  And if you tack on that the democrat is a Latino who is the first Latino to represent  California in the Senate.  Mmmm… might not be worth the blowback.   So here for you is The Modern Moron’s clunky episode with lots of Valentine’s Love sent straight to you with a kiss… thank you for listening.   CLOSE:  Politics… is obviously about money and power.  And I do believe there are people who get into politics with the absolute best of intentions.  But it becomes obvious very quickly that you can do more good with more money.  And if you just cut a corner here or look the other way there, you can get some more money to do more good.  But things get cloudy and murky and the corner you cut to help your good cause might be damaging someone else’s cause.  Gross… I don’t see how they keep the energy to exist in that toxic environment.   I wonder what the egos are like in the Senate?  We know the Lindsay Grams and the Nancy Pelosi’s and the Ted Cruz’s have an elevated sense of themselves, they couch it in their religion or some other pretentious bullshit but the ego is there puffing up every day… how their message is more righteous and the other party’s message is so damaging to the country.  What a happy note to end on… How about congratulations to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and let’s not pay attention to the impeachment trial going on in DC with one side trying to keep a sociopath from holding public office ever again and the other side upholding the freedom of speech for a violence inciting sociopath who says in his speech to walk to the capital peacefully, that he’s responsible for the violence.  Don't’ get me wrong, I can’t stand Trump as a president but how do you convict a guy for inciting violence when he literally says go peacefully.  He is so toxic to this country, but don’t hate HIM because, once again, he covered his bases enough to elude conviction.  They don’t call him The Teflon Don for nothing.  And with a rimshot… and a silly sound effect… we can all end with a chuckle… Thank you for listening to the Modern Moron and have a great week America.   The Bald Truth - Matt Dilliard - YouTube  Newly Appointed Calif. Senator Alex Padilla Faces GOP-Sought Probe Over State Contract - Newsweek Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditators | Daniel Goleman | Big Think - YouTube

The bipartisan Election Assistance Commission has been advising local election officials on how to meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act, to ensure vote access and sound systems for handling ballots. We spoke to my next guest back in April, when the 2020 election seemed a ways off. Now that's its over, the Federal Drive checked in again with the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, Ben Hovland.

Voters elect officials in representative democracies who pass laws, interpret laws, enforce laws, or appoint various other representatives to do one of the above. The terms of elected officials, the particulars of their laws, the structure of courts that interpret laws, and the makeup of the bureaucracies that are necessarily created to govern are different in every country.  In China, the people elect the People's Congresses who then elect the nearly 3,000 National People's Congress members, who then elect the Present and State Councils. The United States has a more direct form of democracy and the people elect a House of Represenatives, a Senate, and a president who the founders intentionally locked into a power struggle to keep any part of the government from becoming authoritarian. Russia is setup similar. In fact, the State Duma, like the House in the US are elected by the people and the 85 States, or federal subjects, then send a pair of delegates to a Federal Council, like the Senate in the US, which has 170 members. It works similarly in many countries. Some, like England, still provide for hereditary titles, such as the House of Lords - but even there, the Sovereign - currently Queen Elizabeth the second, nominates a peer to a seat. That peer is these days selected by the Prime Minister. It's weird but I guess it kinda' works.  Across democracies, countries communist, socialist, capitalist, and even the constitutional monarchies practice elections. The voters elect these representatives to supposedly do what's in the best interest of the constituents. That vote cast is the foundation of any democracy. We think our differences are greater than they are, but it mostly boils down to a few percentages of tax and a slight difference in the level of expectation around privacy, whether that expectation is founded or not.  2020 poses a turning point for elections around the world. After allegations of attempted election tampering in previous years, the president of the United States will be voted on. And many of those votes are being carried out by mail. But others will be performed in person at polling locations and done on voting machines.  At this point, I would assume that given how nearly every other aspect of American life has a digital equivalent, that I could just log into a web portal and cast my vote. No. That is not the case. In fact, we can't even seem to keep the voting machines from being tampered with. And we have physical control over those! So how did we get to such an awkward place, where the most important aspect of a democracy is so backwater. Let's start  Maybe it's ok that voting machines and hacking play less a role than they should. Without being political, there is no doubt that Russia and other foreign powers have meddled in US elections. In fact, there's probably little doubt we've interfered in theirs. Russian troll farms and disinformation campaigns are real. Paul Manafort maintained secret communications with the Kremlin. Former US generals were brought into the administration either during or after the election to make a truce with the Russians. And then there were the allegations about tampering voting machines. Now effectively stealing information about voters from Facebook using insecure API permissions. I get that. Disinformation goes back to posters in the time of Thomas Jefferson. I get that too.  But hacking voting machines. I mean, these are vetted, right? For $3,000 to $4,500 each and when bought in bulk orders of 16,000 machines like Maryland bought from Diebold in 2005, you really get what you pay for, right? Wait, did you say 2005? Let's jump forward to 2017. That's the year DefCon opened the Voting Machine Hacking Village. And in 2019 not a single voting machine was secured. In fact, one report from the conference said “we fear that the 2020 presidential elections will realize the worst fears only hinted at during the 2016 elections: insecure, attacked, and ultimately distrusted.” I learned to pick locks, use L0phtCrack, run a fuzzer, and so much more at DefCon. Now I guess I've learned to hack elections. So again, every democracy in the world has one thing it just has to get right, voting. But we don't. Why? Before we take a stab at that, let's go back in time just a little.  The first voting machine used in US elections was a guy with a bible. This is pretty much how it went up until the 1900s in most districts. People walked in and told an election official their vote, the votes were tallied on the honor of that person, and everyone got good and drunk. People love to get good and drunk. Voter turnout was in the 85 percent range. Votes were logged in poll books. And the person was saying the name of the official they were voting for with a poll worker writing their name and vote into a pollbook. There was no expectation that the vote would be secret. Not yet at least. Additionally, you could campaign at the polling place - a practice now illegal in most places. Now let's say the person taking the votes fudged something. There's a log. People knew each other. Towns were small. Someone would find out.  Now digitizing a process usually goes from vocal or physical to paper to digital to database to networked database to machine learning. It's pretty much the path of technological determinism. As is failing because we didn't account for adjacent advancements in technology when moving a paper process to a digital process. We didn't refactor around the now-computational advances. Paper ballots showed up in the 1800s. Parties would print small fliers that looked like train tickets so voters could show up and drop their ballot off. Keep in mind, adult literacy rates still weren't all that high at this point. One party could print a ticket that looked kinda' like the others. All kinds of games were being played.  We needed a better way.    The 1800s were a hotbed of invention. 1838 saw the introduction of a machine where each voter got a brass ball which was then dropped in machine that used mechanical counters to increment a tally. Albert Henderson developed a precursor to a computer that would record votes using a telegraph that printed ink in a column based on which key was held down. This was in 1850 with US Patent 7521. Edison took the idea to US Patent 90,646 and automated the counters in 1869. Henry Spratt developed a push-button machine. Anthony Beranek continued on with that but made one row per office and reset after the last voter, similar to how machines work today.    Jacob Meyers built on Berenek's work and added levers in 1889 and Alfred Gillespie made the levered machine programmable. He and others formed the US Standard Voting Machine Company and slowly grew it. But something was missing and we'll step back a little in time. Remember those tickets and poll books? They weren't standardized.    The Australians came up with a wacky idea in 1858 to standardize on ballots printed by the government, which made it to the US in 1888. And like many things in computing, once we had a process on paper, the automation of knowledge work, or tabulating votes would soon be ready to take into computing. Herman Hollerith brought punched card data processing to the US Census in 1890 and punch cards - his company would merge with others at the time to form IBM.    Towards the end of the 1890s John McTammany had aded the concept that voters could punch holes in paper to cast votes and even went so far as to add a pneumatic tabulation. They were using rolls of paper rather than cards. And so IBM started tabulating votes in 1936 with a dial based machine that could count 400 votes a minute from cards. Frank Carrell at IBM got a patent for recording ballot choices on standardized cards. The stage was set for the technology to meet paper. By 1958 IBM had standardized punch cards to 40 columns and released the Port-A-Punch for so people in the field could punch information into a card to record findings and then bring it back to a computer for processing. Based on that, Joseph Harris developed the Votomatic punched-cards in 1965 and IBM  licensed the technology. In the meantime, a science teacher Reynold Johnson had developed Mark Sense in the 1930s, which over time evolved into optical mark recognition, allowing us to fill in bubbles with a pencil. So rather than punch holes we could vote by filling in a bubble on a ballot.   All the pieces were in place and the technology slowly proliferated across the country, representing over a third of votes when Clinton beat Dole and Ross Perot in 1996.    And then 2000 came. George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in a bitterly contested and narrow margin. It came down to Florida and issues with the ballots there. By some tallies as few as 300 people decided the outcome of that election. Hanging chads are little pieces of paper that don't get punched out of a card. Maybe unpunched holes in just a couple of locations caused the entire election to shift between parties. You could get someone drunk or document their vote incorrectly when it was orally provided in the early 1800s or provide often illiterate people with mislabeled tickets prior to the Australian ballots. But this was the first time since the advent of the personal computer, when most people in the US had computers in their homes and when the Internet bubble was growing by the day that there was a problem with voting ballots and suddenly people started wondering why were still using paper.    The answer isn't as simple as the fact that the government moves slowly. I mean, the government can't maintain the rate of technical innovation and progress anyways. But there are other factors as well. One is secrecy. Anywhere that has voting will eventually have some kind of secret ballots. This goes back to the ancient greeks but also the French Revolution. Secret ballots came to the UK in the 1840s with the Chartists and to the US after the 1884 election. As the democracies matured, the concept of voting rights matured and secret ballots were part of that. Making sure a ballot is secret means we can't just allow any old person to look at a ballot.    Another issue is decentralization. Each state selects their own machines and system and sets dates and requirements. We see that with the capacity and allocation of mail-in voting today.    Another issue is cost. Each state also has a different budget. Meaning that there are disparities between how well a given state can reach all voters. When we go to the polls we usually work with volunteers. This doesn't mean voting isn't big business. States (and countries) have entire bureaucracies around elections. Bureaucracies necessarily protect themselves.    So why not have a national voting system? Some countries do. Although most use electronic voting machines in polling places. But maybe something based on the Internet? Security. Estonia tried a purely Internet vote and due to hacking and malware it was determined to have been a terrible idea. That doesn't mean we should not try again.    The response to the 2000 election results was the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to define standards managed by the Election Assistance Commission in the US. The result was the proliferation of new voting systems. ATM machine maker Diebold entered the US election market in 2002 and quickly became a large player.    The CEO ended up claiming he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to” Bush. They accidentally leaked their source code due to a misconfigured server and they installed software patches that weren't approved. In short, it was a typical tech empire that grew too fast and hand issues we've seen with many companies. Just with way more on the line. After a number of transitions between divisions and issues, the business unit was sold to Election Systems & Software, now with coverage over 42 states. And having sold hundreds of thousands of voting machines, they now have over 60% of the market share in the us. That company goes back to the dissolution of a ballot tabulation division of Westinghouse and the Votronic. They are owned by a private equity firm called the McCarthy Group.    They are sue-happy though and stifling innovation. The problems are not just with ES&S. Hart InterCivic and Dominion are the next two biggest competitors, with equal issues. And no voting machine company has a great track record with security. They are all private companies. They have all been accused of vote tampering. None of that has been proven. They have all had security issues.   In most of these episodes I try to focus on the history of technology or technocratic philosophy and maybe look to the future. I rarely offer advice or strategy. But there are strategies not being employed.    The first strategy is transparency. In life, I assume positive intent. But transparency is really the only proof of that. Any company developing these systems should have transparent financials, provide transparency around the humans involved, provide transparency around the source code used, and provide transparency around the transactions, or votes in this case, that are processed. In an era of disinformation and fake news, transparency is the greatest protection of democracy.    Providing transparency around financials can be a minefield. Yes, a company should make a healthy margin to continue innovating. That margin funds innovators and great technology. Financials around elections are hidden today because the companies are private. Voting doesn't have to become a public utility but it should be regulated.    Transparency of code is simpler to think through. Make it open source. Firefox gave us an open source web browser. ToR gave us a transparent anonymity. The mechanisms with which each transaction occurs is transparent and any person with knowledge of open source systems can look for flaws in the system. Those flaws are then corrected as with most common programming languages and protocols by anyone with the technical skills to do so. I'm not the type that thinks everything should be open source. But this should be.    There is transparency in simplicity.  The more complex a system the more difficult to unravel. The simpler a program, the easier for anyone with a working knowledge of programming to review and if needed, correct. So a voting system should be elegant in simplicity.   Verifiability. We could look at poll books in the 1800s and punch the vote counter in the mouth if they counted our vote wrong. The transparency of the transaction was verifiable. Today, there are claims of votes being left buried in fields and fraudulent voters. Technologies like blockchain can protect against that much as currency transactions can be done in bitcoin. I usually throw up a little when I hear the term blockchain bandied about by people who have never written a line of code. Not this time.    Let's take hashing as a fundamental building block. Let's say you vote for a candidate and the candidate is stored as a text field, or varchar, that is their name (or names) and the position they are running for. We can easily take all of the votes cast by a voter, store them in a json blob, commit them to a database, add a record in a database that contains the vote supplied, and then add a block in chain to provide a second point of verification. The voter would receive a guid randomly assigned and unique to them, thus protecting the anonymity of the vote. The micro-services here are to create a form for them to vote, capture the vote, hash the vote, commit the vote to a database, duplicate the transaction into the voting blockchain, and allow for vote lookups. Each can be exposed from an API gateway that allows systems built by representatives of voters at the federal, state, and local levels to lookup their votes.    We now have any person voting capable of verifying that their vote was counted. If bad data is injected at the time of the transaction the person can report the voter fraud and a separate table connecting vote GUIDs to IP addresses or any other PII can be accessed only by the appropriate law enforcement and any attempt by law enforcement to access a record should be logged as well. Votes can be captured with web portals, voting machines that have privileged access, by 1800s voice counts, etc.   Here we have a simple and elegant system that allows for transparency, verifiability, and privacy. But we need to gate who can cast a vote. I have a PIN to access by IRS returns using my social security number or tax ID. But federal elections don't require paying taxes. Nextdoor sent a card to my home and I entered a PIN printed on the card on their website. But that system has many a flaw. Section 303 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 compels the State Motor Vehicle Office in each state to validate the name, date of birth, Social Security Number, and whether someone is alive. Not every voter drives. Further, not every driver meets voting requirements. And those are different per state.    And so it becomes challenging to authenticate a voter. We do so in person, en masse, at every election due to the the staff and volunteers of various election precincts. In Minnesota I provided my drivers license number when I submitted my last ballot over the mail. If I moved since the last time I voted I also need a utility bill to validate my physical address. A human will verify that. Theoretically I could vote in multiple precincts if I were able to fabricate a paper trail to do so. If I did I would go to prison.    Providing a web interface unless browsers support a mechanism to validate the authenticity of the source and destination is incredibly dangerous. Especially when state sponsored actors as destinations have been proven to be able to bypass safeguards such as https. And then there's the source. It used to be common practice to use Social Security Numbers or cards as a form of verification for a lot of things. That isn't done any more due to privacy concerns and of course due to identity theft.    You can't keep usernames and passwords in a database any more. So the only real answer here is a federated identity provider. This is where OAuth, OpenID Connect, and/or SAML come into play. This is a technology that retains a centralized set of information about people. Other entities then tie into the centralized identity sources and pull information from them. The technology they use to authenticate and authorize users is then one of the protocols mentioned.    I've been involved in a few of these projects and to be honest, they kinda' all suck. Identities would need to be created and the usernames and passwords distributed. This means we have to come up with a scheme that everyone in the country (or at least the typically ill-informed representatives we put in place to make choices on our behalf) can agree on. And even if a perfect scheme for usernames is found there's crazy levels of partisanship. The passwords should be complex but when dealing with all of the factors that come into play it's hard to imagine consensus being found on what the right level is to protect people but also in a way passwords can be remembered.    The other problem with a federated identity is privacy. Let's say you forget your password. You need information about a person to reset it. There's also this new piece of information out there that represents yet another piece of personally identifiable information. Why not just use a social security number? That would require a whole other episode to get into but it's not an option. Suddenly if date of birth, phone number (for two factor authentication), the status of if a human is alive or not, possibly a drivers license number, maybe a social security number in a table somewhere to communicate with the Social Security databases to update the whole alive status. It gets complicated fast. It's no less private that voter databases that have already been hacked in previous elections though.    Some may argue to use biometric markers instead of all the previous whatnot. Take your crazy uncle Larry who thinks the government already collects too much information about him and tells you so when he's making off-color jokes. Yah, now tell him to scan his eyeball or fingerprint into the database. When he's done laughing at you, he may show you why he has a conceal and carry permit.    And then there's ownership. No department within an organization I've seen wants to allow an identity project unless they get budget and permanent head count. And no team wants another team to own it. When bureaucracies fight it takes time to come to the conclusion that a new bureaucracy needs to be formed if we're going anywhere. Then the other bureaucracies make the life of the new one hard and thus slow down the whole process. Sometimes needfully, sometimes accidentally, and sometimes out of pure spite or bickering over power. The most logical bureaucracy in the federal government to own such a project would be the social security administration or the Internal Revenue Service.     Some will argue states should each have their own identity provider. We need one for taxes, social security, benefits, and entitlement programs. And by the way, we're at a point in history when people move between states more than ever. If we're going to protect federal and state elections, we need a centralized provider of identities. And this is going to sound crazy, but the federal government should probably just buy a company who already sells an IdP (like most companies would do if they wanted to build one) rather than contract with one or build their own. If you have to ask why, you've never tried to build one yourself or been involved in any large-scale software deployments or development operations at a governmental agency. I could write a book on each.    There are newer types of options. You could roll with an IndieAuth Identity Provider, which is a decentralized approach, but that's for logging into apps using Facebook or Apple or Google - use it to shop and game, not to vote. NIST should make the standards, FedRAMP should provide assessment, and we can loosely follow the model of the European self-sovereign identity framework or ESSIF but build on top of an existing stack so we don't end up taking 20 years to get there.  Organizations that can communicate with an identity provider are called Service Providers. Only FedRAMP certified public entities should be able to communicate with a federal federated identity provider. Let's just call it the FedIdP.  Enough on the identity thing. Suffice it to say, it's necessary to successfully go from trusting poll workers to being able to communicate online. And here's the thing about all of this: confidence intervals. What I mean by this is that we have gone from being able to verify our votes in poll books and being able to see other people in our communities vote to trusting black boxes built by faceless people whose political allegiances are unknown. And as is so often the case when the technology fails us, rather than think through the next innovation we retreat back to the previous step in the technological cycle: if that is getting stuck at localized digitization we retreat back to paper. If it is getting stuck at taking those local repositories online we would have retreated back to the localized digital repository. If we're stuck at punch cards due to hanging chads then we might have to retreat back to voice voting. Each has a lower confidence interval than a verifiable and transparent online alternative. Although the chances of voter fraud by mail are still .00006%, close to a 5 9s. We need to move forward. It's called progress. The laws of technological determinism are such that taking the process online is the next step. And it's crucial for social justice. I've over-simplified what it will take. Anything done on a national scale is hard. And time consuming. So it's a journey that should be begun now. In the meantime, there's a DARPA prize. Given the involvement of a few key DARPA people with DefCon and the findings of voting machine security (whether that computers are online and potentially fallible or physically hackable or just plain bad) DARPA gave a prize to the organization that could develop a tamper proof, open-source voting machine. I actually took a crack at this, not because I believed it to be a way to make money but because after the accusations of interference in the 2016 election I just couldn't not. Ultimately I decided this could be solved with an app in single app mode, a printer to produce a hash and a guid, and some micro-services but that the voting machine was the wrong place for the effort and that the effort should instead be put into taking voting online.  Galois theory gives us a connection from field theory and group theory. You simplify field theory problems so they can be solved by group theory. And I've oversimplified the solution for this problem. But just as with studying the roots of polynomials, sometimes simplicity is elegance rather than hubris. In my own R&D efforts I struggle to understand when I'm exuding each.  The 2020 election is forcing many to vote by mail. As with other areas that have not gotten the innovation they needed, we're having to rethink a lot of things. And voting in person at a polling place should certainly be one. As should the cost of physically delivering those ballots and the human cost to get them entered.  The election may or may not be challenged by luddites who refuse to see the technological determinism staring them in the face. This is a bipartisan issue. No matter who wins or loses the other party will cry foul. It's their job as politicians. But it's my job as a technologist to point out that there's a better way. The steps I outlined in this episode might be wrong. But if someone can point out a better way, I'd like to volunteer my time and focus to propelling it forward. And dear listener, think about this. When progress is challenged what innovation can you bring or contribute to that helps keep us from retreating to increasingly analog methods.  Herman Hollerith brought the punch card, which had been floating around since the Jacquard loom in 1801. Those were individuals who moved technology forward in fundamental ways. In case no one ever told you, you have even better ideas locked away in your head. Thank you for letting them out. And thank you for tuning in to this episode of the History of Computing Podcast. We are so, so lucky to have you.

Are all states ready for election day? What's the deal after November 3rd? How will Covid 19 affect our elections? Election expert Ben Hovland gives us all the answers.Hovland is the current Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The EAC is an independent, bipartisan commission that serves as a national clearinghouse of information on election administration and much much more. As part of their effort the EAC has already distributed almost a billion dollars to States to help with election security concerns and respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Find out more about the EAC, innovations in election security, and Hovlands voting ritual. Our guest hosts for this episode are Judge Ann Aiken and Robert Reeves.

In this episode, Anil and Melissa talk with Lou Ann Blake, the NFB's Help America Vote Act project coordinator, about the November 3 election and how blind people can cast our votes. They discuss what the law says about the rights of blind voters, different ways we can vote accessibly, and what the NFB is doing to ensure that more blind voters can cast our ballots privately and independently. They urge everyone to vote and to take our forthcoming voting survey so we can learn how jurisdictions are doing in protecting the rights of blind voters. Watch our video "The Blind Voter Experience" to learn about your rights under federal law and how to exercise them. Also, take a look at our voting resources page.

Today, we're going to talk about the 2020 election and voting in the time of a pandemic. With COVID-19, what does that mean for showing up at the polls?  A little bit of background about how voting laws work. The Elections Clause of the Constitution lets states basically govern their own elections, including for federal office. So when you're voting for president in your local state, your state is deciding how you're going to vote. Is it mail in? Do you have the right to do an absentee ballot? Do you have to have an excuse to do an absentee ballot? Congress can regulate federal elections under that Elections Clause when they deem they need to. There's something called Help America Vote Act. And I'm sure everybody's familiar with the National Voter Registration Act, which encourages voter registration. So where we are now is that different states have different rules about mail in and absentee voting. Because of the pandemic, a lot more states are changing their laws to allow more mail in and absentee voting. About two thirds of all states already had rules that allowed no excuse mail in voting. And that's changed over time. There are more states that have no excuse or coronavirus pandemic excuse mail in voting. And there are even some states like Nevada that are actually requiring mail and voting and are closing all of the in-person polls. The big challenge in every one of these cases, is a balance between, is there voter fraud from mail in voting? Is there a risk of when you get mail in ballots, are they going to be fake? Or, is it easier to fake a vote for one person or another? Versus, what are people's healthcare concerns about showing up at the polls? Their right to vote, how is that stymied by this pandemic and how do we address that? Nevada decided to do all mail in voting. In fact, nobody can show up to the polls. And that was challenged in court, on the voter fraud basis, and ultimately overruled. And so Nevada, as of now, is going to have all mail in voting. There are cases that go the other way too, for different reasons. For example, in Wisconsin, they extended the date by which you can vote during a primary by six or seven days. And that case went all the way to the US Supreme Court. And the US Supreme Court ended up reversing the district court decision and saying, "Nope, you can't do that, Wisconsin. You can't extend the voting date." There was a dissent by Justice Ginsburg that had some fair points, but right now, the short answer is there's a hodgepodge of case law decisions. But I think when we get to November, that most states are going to have either no excuse mail in voting, or mandatory mail in voting, and you're going to be able to cast your ballot by mail. Either way, whether you're Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green Party, register to vote and make sure that your vote counts. 

Please tell us more about what you like about Wireframe. Tap here and complete our audience survey.The fundamental design feature of a democratic society is a citizen's right to vote. But ensuring that every person is able to vote is not as easy as it seems. Everything from how you design a paper ballot, build an electronic terminal, process a mail-in ballot, engineer a public space for private voting, and so on, brings hundreds of complicated design decisions. We look at how design choices are sometimes at odds with political ones.In this episode: Wireframe producer Dominic Girard and host Khoi Vinh learn why designing for elections is a never-ending challenge. After the 2000 US Presidential Election, voter Andre Fladell sued after a flaw in the design of his ballot caused him to vote for the wrong candidate. Drew Davies of Oxide Design loves trying to bring order to ballot chaos, and has been trying to help the civic design process for nearly twenty years. Designer Whitney Quesenbery at the Center for Civic Design has been leading the charge in all things election design - and continues to support election officials on everything from signage, to electronic machines to mail-in ballots. Meanwhile,  Los Angeles County redesigned their voting systems this year. Called the Voter Solutions for All People, it's an ambitious project that updates the county's ballot machines to something modern, electronic, secure and, most importantly, user friendly. Kate Ludicrum and Jon Fox talk about how they helped it come together in time for the California Primary. Read the PDF transcript of this episodeWireframe reveals the stories behind user experience design and how it helps technology fit into our lives. It’s a podcast for UX/UI designers, graphic designers, and the design-curious. Hosted by Khoi Vinh, one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business.Learn more about designing with Adobe XD at adobe.ly/tryxd.

In this episode host Doug McKenty discusses the questionable process behind vote counting during elections in the United States with Jonathan Simon, co-founder of the Election Defense Alliance and author of the book Code Red. Listen in as they discuss what Jonathan describes as Americans "wall of denial" about the serious integrity issues surrounding the electronic voting machines used to compile the vote count for many citizens as they cast their ballot each November. While elections in the US have never been squeaky clean, Jonathan describes just how skewed the numbers became after the passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2004. This act proliferated the use of electronic voting, which offers no way to verify the election results but instead demands that we trust the corporations behind the machines. Jonathan presents evidence from a variety of sources that reveal a "red shift" away from pre-election and exit polls that consistently favors Republican candidates over their Democratic opponents. He also mentions how the proprietary nature of the software that runs the machines makes it impossible for anyone to analyze the data. Literally, the man behind the curtain is counting votes, and handing us the results with no transparency or accountability. For those of you who perceive Russia and Syria to be banana republics, you might be surprised what you find when you discover the real process behind the American election system. Find out more about Jonathan Simon at http://codered2014.com/ and as always, discover more about The Shift at https://theshiftnow.com/.

Good morning, it's Wednesday, January 8th. I'm Crystal Orren and these are the top headlines from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Central Arkansas will be sunny and mild today, with a high of 62 and a low tonight of 44. Our top story: State and federal officials announced this week that Arkansas is eligible for about $5 million in new federal Help America Vote Act funds. These funds are part of The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, signed by President Trump on December 20.

The currently legal ability of obscenely rich people to bribe lawmakers and law enforcers is the source of many - if not all - of our political problems. In this episode, get an update on the few democracy-enhancing bills that have moved in this Congress and Jen speaks to Sam Fieldman - the National Counsel at Wolf-PAC - who explains how we can constitutionally end the role of money in politics by going around Congress. Joe Briney joins Jen for the thank you's. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! ______________________________________________________ Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD129:The impeachment of John Koskinen CD192: H.R. 1 Outline Recommended Reading Article: Ensuring elections 'free from foreign intrusion' by John Sarbanes and Brian Frosh, Baltimore Sun, July 3, 2019 Article: Alexander-Murrary Bill, by Donald Shaw, ReadSludge.com, June 10, 2019. Article: Microsoft and Election Guard by Whitney Webb, MPN News, May 24, 2019. Document: Ballot-Marking Devices (BMDs) Cannot Assure the Will of the Voters    SSRN, May 21, 2019 Article: DHS to Assess Risks Posed to Ballot-Marking Devices by Mark Niese, GovTech, May 2, 2019. Article: DHS, FBI say election systems in all 50 states were targeted in 2016 by Sean Gallagher, ARS Technica, April 10, 2019. Article: Amid Election Integrity Criticism, Georgia Governor Signs Bill to Replace Voting Machines by Greg Bluestein and Mark Niesse, Governing, April 5, 2019.  Article: Firm’s close ties to Georgia stir concerns about voting system purchase by Mark Niesse, Atlanta Journal, January 30, 2019 Article: “Our best friend in this debate is the public,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters on Friday. by Ella Nilsen, Vox, January 04, 2019. Article: How the GOP is using the Help America Vote Act to block voting, by Thom Hartmann, Salon.com, November 23, 2018. Article: The Latest: Some Georgia Statewide Races Too Close to Call  U.S. News, November 7, 2018. Article: VOTING MACHINES ARE STILL ABSURDLY VULNERABLE TO ATTACKS by Lily Hay Newman, Wired, September 28, 2018. Article: Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States by Kim Zetter, Vice News, July 17, 2018. Article: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Ran—and Won—as a Movement Candidate, by DD Guttenplan, The Nation, June 27, 2018. Article: Voting machine vendor treated election officials to trips to Vegas, elsewhere  by Greg Gordon, Amy Renee Leiker, Jamie Self and Stanley Dunlap, McClatchy DC Bureau, June 21, 2018. Document: LD-2 Lobbying Report Disclosure Form Secretary of the Senate Office of Public Records, 2018 Data: Lobbying Spending Data:Lobbyists representing Election Systems & Software, 2018  OpenSecrets.org, 2018. Article: The Fraud Behind Article V Convention Opposition  by Sam Fieldman, Medium.com, October 12, 2017. Article: Some Machines Are Flipping Votes, But That Doesn't Mean They're Rigged  by Pam Fessler, NPR, October 26, 2016. Document: 2012 REDMAP Summary Report  Redistricting Majority Project, January 4, 2013. Document: Report on Proper Use of Campaign Funds and Resources  Committee on Ethics, January 4, 2013. Document: Title 36 organizations  Every CRSRReport.com, June 17, 2011.  _____________________________________________________ Bill Outline H.R. 2722: SAFE Act Sponsor: Zoe Lofgren of northern California 74 pages Passed the House on June 27, 2019 225-184 Only GOP yes: Newbie Rep. Brian Mast - 38 year old wounded Afghanistan war veteran representing the Palm Beach area Went to the Committee on Rules and Administration in the Senate Title 1: Financial Support for Election Infrastructure Subtitle A: Voting System Security Improvement Grants Sec. 102: Paper ballot requirements “The voting system shall require the use of an individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballot of the voters’ vote that shall be marked and made available for inspection and verification by the voter before the voter’s vote is cast and counted, which shall be counted by hand or read by an optical character recognition device or other counting device." “The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to correct any error on the paper ballot…” Recounts: The paper ballot “shall constitute the official ballot and shall be preserved and used as the official ballot for purposes any recount or audit conducted with respect to any election for Federal office in which the voting system is used.” Sec. 104: Durability and readability requirements for ballots Ballots must be on “durable” paper, which means it is capable of withstanding multiple recounts by hand without compromising the fundamental integrity of the ballots” and they must maintain readability for 22 months. Sec. 105: Recycled Paper Ballots must be printed on recycled paper starting on January 1, 2021. Sec. 107: These rules will apply “for any election for Federal office held in 2020 or any succeeding year.” Grandfathered equipment: Districts using machines that print paper ballots with the votes already tallied can use those machines until 2022, but they must offer every voter the opportunity to vote using a blank paper ballot, which are not allowed to be designated as provisional. Sec. 111:Grants for equipment changes Federal tax money will be given to states to replace their voting system, if needed. Grant amount: At least $1 per the average number of people who voted in the last two elections To use these grants, the states can only buy voting equipment from a vendor “owned and controlled by a citizen or permanent resident of the United States” The vendor must tell government officials if they get any part of their election infrastructure parts from outside the United States Authorizes (but doesn’t appropriate) $600 million for 2019 and $175 million for each even number election year through 2026 Subtitle B:Risk-Limiting Audits Sec. 121: Risk-limited audits required for all elections for Federal office State election officials will make the rules for how these will be done Sec. 122: Federal government will pay for audits Authorizes “such sums as are necessary” Title II: Promoting Cybersecurity Through Improvements in Election Administration Sec. 201: Voting system cybersecurity requirements Vote counting machine rules Machines that count ballots must be built so that "it’s mechanically impossible for the device to add or change the vote selections on a printed or market ballot” The device must be “capable of exporting its data (including vote tally data sets and cast vote records) in a machine-readable, open data standards format” The device’s software’s source code, system build tools, and compilation parameters must be given to certain Federal and State regulators and “may be shared by any entity to whom it has been provided… with independent experts for cybersecurity analysis.” The devise must have technology that allows “election officials, cybersecurity researchers, and voters to verify that the software running on the device was built from a specific, untampered version of the code” that was provided to Federal and State regulators. Loophole for moles: The Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security can waive any of the requirements other than the first one that prohibits machines that can change votes. The waivers can be applied to a device for no more than two years. The waivers must be publicly available on the Internet. Not effective until November 2024 election. Ballot marking machines and vote counters can’t use or “be accessible by any wireless, power-line, or concealed communication device” or “connected to the Internet or any non-local computer system via telephone or other communication network at any time.” Effective for the 2020 general election and all elections after Ballot marking devices can’t be capable of counting votes States may submit applications to Federal regulators for testing and certification the accuracy of ballot marking machines, but they don’t have to. Sec. 202: Testing of existing voting systems 9 months before each regularly scheduled general election for Federal offices, “accredited laboratories” will test the voting system hardware and software with was certified for use in the most recent election. If the hardware and software fails the test, it “shall” be decertified. Effective for the 2020 General Election. Sec. 203: Requiring use of software and hardware for which information is disclosed by manufacturer “In the operation of voting systems in an election for Federal office, a State may only use software for which the manufacturer makes the source code… publicly available online under a license that grants a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, sub-licensable license to all intellectual property rights in such source code…." …except that the manufacturer may prohibit people from using the software for commercial advantage or “private monetary compensation” that is unrelated to doing legitimate research. States “may not use a voting system in an election for Federal office unless the manufacture of the system publicly discloses online the identification of the hardware used to operate the system” If the voting system is not widely-used, the manufacture must make the design “publicly available online under a license that grants a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, sub-licensable license to all intellectual property rights…” Effective for the 2020 General election Sec. 204: Poll books will be counted as part of voting systems for these regulations Effective January 1, 2020 Title III: Use of voting machines manufactured in the United States Sec. 301: Voting machines must be manufactured in the United States HR 391: White House Ethics Transparency Act of 2019 Pdf of the bill Reported June 12, 2019 out of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform 23-16 On January 28, 2017 - a week after taking office - President Trump issued an executive order that requires all executive agency appointees to sign and be contractually obligated to a pledge that… The appointee won’t lobby his/her former agency for 5 years after leaving Will not lobby the administration he/she previously worked for Will not, after leaving government, “engage in any activity on behalf of any foreign government or foreign political party which, were it undertaken on January 20, 2017, would require me to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938” Will not accept gifts from registered lobbyists Will recuse themselves from any matter involving their former employers for two years from the date of their appointment If the appointee was a lobbyist before entering government, that person will not work on any matter that they had lobbied for for 2 years after the appointment BUT Section 3 allows waivers: “The President or his designee may grant to any person a waiver of any restrictions contained in the pledge signed by such person.” Sec. 2: Requires any executive branch official who gets a waiver to submit a written copy to the Director of the Office of Government Ethics and make a written copy of the waiver available to the public on the website of the agency where the appointee works. Backdated to January 20, 2017 (President Trump’s inauguration) H.R. 745: Executive Branch Comprehensive Ethics Enforcement Act of 2019 Reported March 26, 2019 out of the Committee on Oversight and Reform 18-12 Pdf of the bill  Sec. 2: Creates a transition ethics program Requires the President-elect to give Congress a list of everyone in consideration for security clearance within 10 days of the applications submission and a list of everyone granted security clearance within 10 days of their approval. Requires the transition team to create and enforce an “ethics plan” that needs to describe the role of registered lobbyists on the transition team, the role of people registered as foreign agents, and which transition team members of sources of income which are not known by the public Transition team members must be prohibited by the ethics plan from working on matters where they have “personal financial conflicts of interest” during the transition and explain how they plan to address those conflicts of interest during the incoming administration. The transition team ethics plan must be publicly avail on the website of the General Services Administration Transition team members need to submit a list of all positions they have held outside the Federal Government for the previous 12 months -including paid and unpaid positions-, all sources of compensation that exceed $5,000 in the previous 12 months, and a list of policy issues worked on in their previous roles, a list of issues the team member will be recused from as part of the administration. Transition team members that do not comply will not be granted any access to the Federal department or agency that isn’t open to the public. S. 195 : Creates a transition ethics program: Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act Pdf of the bill   Reported 4/10/19 out of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. On Senate Calendar Sec. 2: Definitions “Congressionally mandated report” means a report that is required to be submitted to Congress by a bill, resolution, or conference report that becomes law. Does NOT include reports required from 92 nonprofit corporations labeled as “Patriotic and National Organizations” (“Title 36 corporations”) Sec. 3: Website for reports 1 year after enactment, there needs to be a website “that allows the public to obtain electronic copies of all congressionally mandated reports in one place” If a Federal agency fails to submit a report, the website will tell us the information that is required by law and the date when the report was supposed to be submitted The government can’t charge a fee for access to the reports The reports can be redacted by the Federal agencies Resources Twitter Link: Rachel Maddow Twitter Link  Twitter. Employment Profile: Employment History for Richardson, Sean J OpenSecrets.org Employment Profile: Employment History for Jen Olson  OpenSecrets.org Email Link: Sam Fieldman Email at Wolf-PAC   PDF Email: Email with Eli Baumwell of the W.V. ACLU Volunteer Link: Volunteer for Wolf-PAC Resource Link: Article V Wolf-PAC Resource Link Documentary: Wolf Pac Documentary Congressional Dish Interview: Interview with Sam Fieldman from Wolf-PAC Preet Bharara Podcast: Taking Trump to Court (with David Cole) YouTube Video: Wolf PAC Call for Volunteers - Get Money Out of Politics! YouTube Video: Mike Monetta On Why Wolf-PAC Is Making A Movie YouTube Video: Wolf PAC Resolution Passes New Jersey Senate  YouTube Video: Fight Against Money In Politics: Cenk Uygur (Wolf-PAC Presentation) YouTube Video: Republican Vermont Representative Vicky Strong YouTube Video: Americans for Prosperity testify in New Jersey YouTube Video: Hawaii Senate Judiciary Hearing on 2018 SCR 76, Wolf-PAC YouTube Video: Cenk Uygur's Speech at The Conference to Restore the Republic YouTube Video: Article V Debate Document: Case Docket: Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm'n Document: Brief by ACLU in support of Citizens United Document: Brief by former members of the ACLU in support of neither party Document: Essay on Term Limits Document: Article V of the US Constitution - Overview Document: Virginia Plan (First draft of the Constitution) Document: Full Text of Congressional Regulations on Article V Document: 1984 Version of Congressional Regulations on Article V Document: 1987 Version of Congressional Regulations on Article V  Document: Congressional Record Archive Copy of Congressional Regulations on Article V Document: The Fix It America Constitutional Amendment Document: Take Back our Republic Document: Role of Congress Document: American Promise 28th Amendment Document: United for the People Amendments Reference Website: Massachusetts Commission Govtrack: H.R. 2722 Document: H.R. 391 Document: H.R. 745 Document: H.R. 745 Document: H.R. 964 Document: S. 195   Sound Clip Sources Watch on C-Span: House floor debate on HR 2722 June 27,2019 sound clip transcripts pdf Watch on C-Span: William Barr Testifies on Mueller Report Before Senate Judiciary Committee May 1, 2019 1:57:55 Sen. Amy Klocuchar (MN): For the last two years, Senator Lankford and I, on a bipartisan bill with support from the ranking and the head of the intelligence committee; have been trying to get the Secure Elections Act passed. This would require backup paper ballots. If anyone gets federal funding for an election, it would require audits, um, and it would require better cooperation. Yet the White House, just as we were on the verge of getting a markup in the rules committee (getting it to the floor where I think we would get the vast majority of senators), the White House made calls to stop this. Were you aware of that? Attorney General William Barr: No. Sen. Amy Klocuchar (MN): Okay, well that happened. So what I would like to know from you as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer if you will work with Senator Lankford and I to get this bill done? Because otherwise we are not going to have any clout to get backup paper ballots if something goes wrong in this election. Attorney General William Barr: Well, I will… I will work with you, uh, to, uh, enhance the security of our election and I’ll take a look at what you’re proposing. I’m not familiar with it. Sen. Amy Klocuchar (MN): Okay. Well, it is the bipartisan bill. It has Senator Burr and Senator Warner. It’s support from Senator Graham was on the bill. Senator Harris is on the bill and the leads are Senator Lankford and myself, and it had significant support in the house as well. Hearing: Committee on Oversight and Reform:Strengthening Ethics Rules for the Executive Branch, February 6, 2019 Watch on Youtube *28:00 Rep Jordan (OH): 2013 we learned that the IRS targeted conservative for their political beliefs during the 2012 election cycle systematically for a sustained period of time. They went after people for their conservative beliefs, plan in place, targeted people. They did it. The gross abuse of power would have continued, if not for the efforts of this committee. 2014 the Obama Administration doubled down and attempted to use the IRS rule making process to gut the ability of social welfare organizations to participate in public debate. Congress has so far prevented this regulation from going into effect, but HR 1 would change that. Hearing: Judiciary Committee For The People Act Of 2019, January 29, 2019  Witness: Sherrilyn Ifill - President and Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Watch on YouTube 32:00 Sherrilyn Ifill: Well before the midterm election, in fact, Georgia officials began placing additional burdens on voters, particularly black and Latino voters, by closing precincts and purging. Over half a million people from the voter rolls the voter purge, which removed 107,000 people, simply because they did not vote in previous elections and respond to a mailing was overseen by the Republican candidate for governor Brian Kemp, who was also the secretary of state. LDF and a chorus of others called on him to recuse himself from participating in the election. But he refused.  ______________________________________________________ Community Suggestions See Community Suggestions HERE. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations ______________________________________________________ Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

Discussing her recent article "Is it Time to Expose the Women Still Celebrating the Confederacy?" Kali Halloway talks institutional racism with Thom. She is the director of the Make it Right project, and she says their nemesis- the United Daughters of the Confederacy- is not an innocuous group. ------- Thom mind-melds with his callers on the subject of racism. Former prison laborer Tony in Alabama speaks up. We hear audio of a police shooting narrowly avoided. ------- How Republicans hijacked the Help America Vote Act and used it to block Democrats from voting. ------- Laura in Santa Rosa and Harriet in Llano try to figure out what in the world right-wingers are thinking, and decode Faux News codewords for racism. ------- Thom discusses the new documentary "The Long Shadow" with filmmaker Frances Causey on the eve of the film's Los Angeles premiere showing. ------- Thom reads from 'Minority Leader' by Stacey Abrams. ------- More from filmmaker Frances Causey. ------- Thom reads from 'Taking Bullets' by Haki R. Madhubuti, chapter title 'Terror Amid Perpetual Empire'. ------- Dan in Granby says Democrats should not shift to the center, stay Progressive to win. ------- Ellen Rattner of Talk Media News knows who's been writing themselves big checks. ------- And finally, Bill in Clifton NJ asks Thom why he actually agrees with A.G. Whitaker about something.

Thom considers whether Republicans may be guilty of violating not only traditional American values of democracy, but also federal laws including The Help America Vote Act. How should we be improving our voting systems? -------- Callers chime in with their support for Beto in 2020, and other thoughts. Jeanette in Mr. Vernon thinks Democrats will lose if they run another corporate Democrat- and not a Progressive like Beto- for president. -------- The company that makes a life-saving opiate overdose drug has raised the price from $440 to over $2000. What could go wrong? -------- Talk Media News headline time with Ellen Rattner. -------- Laura Wallach of Public Citizen's Tradewatch talks NAFTA 2.0 with Thom. -------- Thom reads from 'Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America' by Seth Arbramson. -------- And finally, Thom interviews author Seth Abramson as he lays out the accumulated evidence that our president is unduly influenced by President 'Thumbs Up and a Smile' Putin.

It's always special when you share time with another successful entrepreneur, especially one with the heart of advocacy. Our guest is Kati 'Jazz' Gray-Sadler, a St. Louis native, fondly nicknamed ‘Jazz’ is rightfully called a modern day Renaissance Woman! Jazz is the Chief Executive Officer of Gray-Sadler Enterprises, Inc., a business services firm and Producer of Philadelphia based LesBe Real Radio Talk/Media. Today, LesBe Real media outletscover major events seen by more than 5 million online viewers and radio broadcast heard by more than 60,000 monthly listeners on Philadelphia WKDU 91.7FM and MIXCLOUD Podcast!She has served on numerous Boards and Commissions and was appointed to serve on the Mayor’s Commission for LGBT Affairs the City of Philadelphia, PA and also serves on the Advisory Board for PHLDiversity a division of the Convention and Visitors Bureau in 2017.In 2015 Founded and is the Board President of Fifty Shade of Purple Against Bullying aka FSP Against Bullying a national non-profit organization whose mission is to work with victims (both children and adults) of bullying and administering programs accessed by more than 20,000 individuals annually.Jazz is no stranger to Activism. She a parent and IEP Advocate for Intellectual Disabilities including Autism Spectrum Disorder and has lead grass roots human rights campaigns. In 1999 she succeeded at a brief but historical political career, by winning a landmark election making her the first Mayor candidate in thehistory of New Jersey to win by ‘personal choice’ ballot. Her historical election in Chesilhurst went on to become the framework that changed voter laws and influenced what’s now the ‘Help America Vote Act of 2002. Jazz’s candor, quick wit and magnetic personality has become the trademarks forher success. When asked about her greatest accomplishments, she’ll simply state, “consistently showing up as an authentic person is the greatest measure of any success.” To say she’s making huge impacts as an Activist and Community Leader would be an understatement.Contact: www.graysadlerenterprises.com

Since the 2016 election, our country has been questioning whether our elections are secure, fair, and accurate. In this episode, we examine the threats to our election administration, both real and overblown. Please Support Congressional Dish - Quick Links Click here to contribute a lump sum or set up a monthly contribution via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North Number 4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD175: State of War CD172: The Illegal Bombing of Syria CD167: Combating Russia (NDAA 2018) LIVE CD108: Regime Change CD041: Why Attack Syria? Additional Reading Report: Dramatic increase in voters purged from voter rolls between 2014 and 2016 by Adia Robinson, ABC News, July 24, 2018. Article: Mueller's latest indictment suggests Russia's infiltration of U.S. election systems could get worse by Lawrence Norden, Slate, July 26, 2018. Article: State election officials didn't know about Russian hacking threat until the read it in the news, emails show by Sam Biddle, The Intercept, June 20, 2018. Article: Supreme court upholds Ohio's purge of voting rolls by Adam Liptak, The New York Times, June 11, 2018. Article: What we know and don't know about election hacking by Clare Malone, FiveThirtyEight, April 10, 2018. Report: America's voting machines at risk - An update by Lawrence Norden and Wilfred U. Codrington III, Brennan Center for Justice, March 8, 2018. Article: The dark roots of AIPAC: America's Pro-Israel Lobby by Doug Rossinow, The Washington Post, March 6, 2018. Article: Wyden presses leading US voting machine manufacturer on potential hacking vulnerabilities by Olivia Beavers, The Hill, March 6, 2018. Article: They myth of the hacker-proof voting machine by Kim Zetter, The New York Times, February 21, 2018. Article: No instant profits in US electronic voting machines, Financial Times, 2018. Article: Virginia is replacing some of its electronic voting machines over security concerns by Andrew Liptak, The Verge, September 10, 2017. Report: It took DEF CON hackers minutes to pwn these US voting machines by Iain Thomson, The Register, July 29, 2017. Article: Russian hackers broke into elections company used in Miami-Dade, Broward by Tim Elfrink, Miami New Times, June 6, 2017. Report: Exclusive: Trump says Clinton policy on Syria would lead to world war three by Steve Holland, Reuters, October 25, 2016. Article: The best Congress AIPAC can buy by L. Michael Hager, Foreign Policy Journal, March 22, 2016. Article: AIPAC-linked group launches $5 million ad campaign against nuke deal by Adam Kredo, The Washington Free Beacon, July 17, 2015. Article: The non-pliticians who profit from Election Day by Megan McCarthy, Fortune, November 4, 2014. Report: Diebold indicted: Its spectre still haunts Ohio election by Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Free Press, October 31, 2013. Article: The mysterious case of Ohio's voting machines by Kim Zetter, Wired, March 26, 2008. Letter: Elections: Federal efforts to improve security and reliability of electronic voting systems are under way, but key activities need to be completed, GAO, September 2005. Article: Ohio's odd numbers by Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair, March 2005. Article: Diebold's political machine by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Mother Jones, March 5, 2004. Resources Brennan Center for Justice: The Help America Vote Act Congress.gov: S.2261 - Secure Elections Act GovTrack: H.R. 3295 (107th): Help America Vote Act of 2002 Internet Research Agency Indictment: Mueller John Husted, Secretary of State of Ohio Report: President/Vice President Voting Report: November 2, 2004 Justice.gov: New Indictment of Mueller Source Watch: Ashcroft Group Info Sound Clip Sources Hearing: Election Security Preparedness, Senate Rules and Administration Committee, C-SPAN, June 20, 2018. Witnesses: Matthew Masterson - National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security Jim Condos - Vermont Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft - Missouri Secretary of State Steve Simon - Minnesota Secretary of State Connie Lawson - Indiana Secretary of State Shane Schoeller - Clerk for Greene County, Missouri Noah Praetz - Director of Elections for Cook County, Illinois 2:40 Senator Roy Blunt (MO): January of 2017, the Department of Homeland Security designated our country’s election infrastructure to be critical infrastructure. This designation began the formalization of information sharing and collaboration among state, local, and federal governments through the creation of a Government Coordinating Council, some of our witness this day are already sitting on that newly formed council. More recently, in the 2018 omnibus, Congress appropriated right at $380 million to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to help states enhance their election infrastructure. As of this week, 38 states have requested $250 million of that money, and about 150 million of it has already been disbursed to the states. 6:45 Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN): So, we have a bill, Senator Lankford and I along with Senator Harris and Graham and Warner and Burr, Heinrich, and Collins. It’s a bipartisan bill called the Secure Elections Act, and we have been working to make changes to it along the way and introduce it as amendment, but it really does four things. First of all, improves information sharing between local election officials, cyber-security experts, and national-security personnel. Second, providing for development and maintenance of cyber-security best practices. We all know, I think there’s five states that don’t have backup paper ballots, and then there's something like nine more that have partial backup paper ballots. And while we’re not mandating what each state does, and we do not want each state to have the exact same election equipment—we think that would be a problem and could potentially lend itself to more break-ins—we think it’s really important that we have some floor and standards that we set that given what we know, I don’t think we’d be doing our democracy any good if we didn’t share that and we didn’t put in some floors. Third, the bill will promote better auditing our election’s use of paper backup systems, which I mentioned, and finally, it’s focused on providing election officials with much-needed resources. As you all know, we were able to get $380 million to be immediately distributed to the state, not play money, money that’s going out right now to states across the country, based on populations. We didn’t have some complicated grant process that would have slowed things down. The money went directly to state election officials as long as the state legislature authorizes it to get accepted and get to work to update their systems. 11:50 Jay Ashcroft: But before we move forward, we should briefly look back to the impetus of why we are all here today: allegations that outside actors threaten the integrity of our elections during the 2016 election cycle. While these are serious allegations, it is vitally important to understand that after two years of investigation, there is no credible—and I could strike “credible” and just put “evidence”—there is no evidence that these incidents caused a single vote or a single voter registration to be improperly altered during the 2016 election cycle. It was not our votes or our election systems that were hacked; it was the people’s perception of our elections. 30:50 Matthew Masterson: For those voters who have questions or concerns regarding the security or integrity of the process, I implore you to get involved. Become a poll worker; watch pre-election testing of the systems, or post-election audits; check your registration information before elections; engage with your state- and local-election officials; and most importantly, go vote. The best response to those who wish to undermine faith in our democracy is to participate and to vote. 1:08:00 Senator Roy Blunt (MO): Should the federal government make an audit trail, a paper audit trail, a requirement to have federal assistance? Jay Ashcroft: I don’t think so. Jim Condos: I do think so. Steve Simon: I think there is a federal interest in making sure that there's some audit process. Sen. Blunt: Well, now, what I’m asking about is, should there be a way to recreate the actual election itself? And I don’t know quite how to do that without paper, even if you had a machine that was not accessible to the web. Jay Ashcroft: I believe states are moving to do that, without federal legislation. So that’s why I don’t think that federal legislation needs to be done to that. 1:23:30 Shane Schoeller: I do want to address one area that concerns Secure Elections Act, that is on page 23, lines three, four, and five. It says, “Each election result is determined by tabulating marked ballots, hand or device.” I strongly recommend for post-election auditing purposes that a state-marked paper ballots, because I believe the opportunity for fraud in electronic ballot-casting system that does not have a paper trail’s too great. *1:32:00 Shane Schoeller: Even if you do a post audit with the machine, how would you know if something’s been compromised if you can’t at least compare the results of the paper ballot. And I think that’s the assurance it gives. Clearly, the machine, when you have an accurate election, does do a better job of counting the ballots. I’m talking about in the case where clearly fraud has occurred, then the paper ballot is going to be the evidence you need in terms of if your system inside that machine is compromised. 1:32:30 Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN): I think for a while people were talking about, well, why doesn’t everyone just vote from home, which is great when you can mail in a ballot, we know that, but vote from home just from your computer, and that would mean no paper records of anything. Could you comment about that? Noah Praetz: I think that’s 100% inappropriate for civil elections. Sen. Klobuchar: Got it. Shane Schoeller: I find it ironic because this is my first term, although I ran for this office in 2014, that was actually a common theme that I heard. Sen. Klobuchar: Right. I was hearing it, and I was—I kept thinking— Schoeller: Mm-hmm. Sen. Klobuchar: —about our state with, they’re not going to keep dwelling on it, with that high voter turnout. But, you know, that involved a paper ballot— voice off-mic: incredible integrity. Sen. Klobuchar: —and incredible integrity. But it involved people—they could vote by mail, and we’ve made that even easier, but they had actual paper ballots that they did, and then they were fed into this machine to count, with auditing. But you’re right. That’s what people were talking about. Why can’t you just do it from your home computer and have no backup, right? Schoeller: Right. And that was one of the things I actually had to disagree when that viewpoint was put forth, particularly in one city that I remember. And even after I became elected, I went to a conference of other elected officials, and there was a group of speakers, and they all were talking about this, and there was actually one speaker— Sen. Klobuchar: Like voting from Facebook. Schoeller: Correct. Sen. Klobuchar: Just kidding... Schoeller: But they actually disagreed, and I went up, and I think I was the only election official that day—this was prior to 2016—that didn’t think that it was a good idea. But I think we have evidence now from 2016 that clearly—that’s a convenience that we just can’t afford. 1:35:05 Noah Praetz: We’ve got a piece of paper that every voter looked at. Senator Amy Klobuchar: Mm-hmm. Praetz: So worst-case scenario, a Sony-type attack with full meltdown of all systems, we can recreate an election that’s trusted and true. Hearing: Election Security, Senate Judiciary Committee, C-SPAN, June 12, 2018. Witnesses: Adam Hickey - Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division at the Department of Justice Matthew Masterson - National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security Kenneth Wainstein - Partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, LLP Prof. Ryan Goodman - New York University School of Law Nina Jankowicz - Global Fellow at the Wilson Center 9:00 Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA): We know that Russia orchestrated a sustained and coordinated attack that interfered in our last presidential election. And we also know that there’s a serious threat of more attacks in our future elections, including this November. As the United States Intelligence Community unanimously concluded, the Russian government’s interference in our election—and I quote—“blended covert intelligence operations, such as cyber activity, with overt efforts by the Russian government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social-media users or trolls.” Over the course of the past year and a half, we’ve come to better understand how pernicious these attacks were. Particularly unsettling is that we were so unaware. We were unaware that Russia was sowing division through mass propaganda, cyber warfare, and working with malicious actors to tip scales of the election. Thirteen Russian nationals and three organizations, including the Russian-backed Internet Research Agency, have now been indicted for their role in Russia’s vast conspiracy to defraud the United States. 39:40 Senator Mike Lee (UT): First, let’s talk a little bit about the integrity of our election infrastructure. We’ll start with you, Mr. Masterson. Were there any known breaches of our election infrastructure in the 2016 election? Matthew Masterson: Thank you, Senator. Yes, there was some publicly discussed known breaches of election infrastructure specifically involving voter-registration databases. Sen. Lee: Are there any confirmed instances of votes being changed from one candidate to another? Masterson: There are no confirmed instances of that. Sen. Lee: And were any individual voting machines hacked? Masterson: No, not that I know of. 42:55 ** Senator Mike Lee**: One approach to some of this, to the threat, the possibility of election infrastructure or voting machines being hacked from the outside is to go low-tech. Some states have gravitated toward that. For example, some states have started making moves back toward paper ballots so that they can’t be hacked. Is this something that’s helpful? Is it something that’s necessary that you think more states ought to consider? Matthew Masterson: Yeah. Senator, the auditability and having an auditable voting system, in this case, auditable paper records, is critical to the security of the systems. In those states that have moved in that direction have implemented means by which to audit the vote in order to give confidence to the public on the results of the election. In those states that have non-paper systems have indicated a desire—for instance, Pennsylvania—to more to auditable systems. And so at this point, resources are necessary to help them move that direction. Sen. Lee: By that, you mean either a paper-ballot system or a system that simultaneously creates a paper trail. Masterson: An auditable paper record. Correct, sir. 1:22:08 Senator Kamala Harris (CA): Will you talk a bit about what you have seen in terms of the risk assessments you’ve been doing around the country? I believe 14 states have been completed. Is that correct, 14? Matthew Masterson: I believe it’s 17 states have been completed— Sen. Harris: Right. Masterson: —thus far, as well as 10 localities. Sen. Harris: And what generally have you seen as being the vulnerabilities— Masterson: Sure. Sen. Harris: —in those assessments? Masterson: Thank you, Senator. Generally speaking, within the election’s infrastructure sector, we’re seeing the same typical vulnerabilities you’d see across IT systems, so managing software updates, outdated equipment or hardware, as well as general upgrades that need to take place as far as what configuration management within systems to limit the damage that could be done if something were to take place. And so— Sen. Harris: Resilience. Masterson: What’s that? Sen. Harris: Their resilience. Masterson: Yeah, their resilience. Sen. Harris: Mm-hmm. Masterson: Exactly. Thank you, Senator. And so this sector is no different in what we see in the work we’re doing with them. 2:15:00 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI): But what I want to talk about in my time is the problem of shell corporations, because for all of the emphasis that the witnesses have put on policing and prosecuting foreign influence in our elections, you can neither police or prosecute what you cannot find. And at the moment, we have both a shell-corporation problem, which was emphasized by Mark Zuckerberg in his testimony when he said their political advertisement-authentication program would only go to the first shell corporation and not seek any information about who was actually behind it. I don’t think Putin is stupid enough to call it Boris and Natasha, LLC. It’s going to sound more like Americans for Puppies and Peace and Prosperity. But it’s a front group, and it’s got Putin or whomever else behind it, and until we can know that, we cannot enforce effectively, period, end of story. Similarly, when our election system has these colossal channels for dark money, anonymized funding, if you can’t find out what special interest is behind anonymous money, you can’t find out if there’s a foreign interest behind that money. Darkness is darkness is darkness, and it hides malign activity, both foreign and domestic. And I’d like to ask each of you to comment on that. We’re concerned about trolling. Obviously, that’s facilitated by shell corporations. You talked about general propaganda campaigns. Obviously, facilitated by shell corporations. Campaign finance laws, you’ve called out for a need for effective disclosure. You can’t have effective disclosure if the only thing you’re disclosing is a front corporation and you don’t know who’s really behind it. So, if I could ask each of you three on that, then that’ll be the end of my time. Kenneth Wainstein: Sure, I’ll go first, Senator Whitehouse. And thank you for kind words, and good to work with you again. Always is. Sen. Whitehouse: We were good adversaries. Wainstein: We were. Adversaries who were working for the same goal. Sen. Whitehouse: Yes. Wainstein: Look, as a prosecutor, former prosecutor, looking at this issue, of course you want to know more about the corporations than less. There are obviously First Amendment issues and other concerns out there in the election context, but absolutely, there’s no way to sort of resist your logic, which is we’ve seen the use of corporations in a variety of contexts, whether it’s money laundering or otherwise, but we’ve seen here in the election interference and disinformation context, and a lot of that— Sen. Whitehouse: In fact, they’re widely used in the criminal context for money-laundering purposes and to hide the proceeds of criminal activities, correct? Wainstein: Absolutely. Sen. Whitehouse: So to the extent that what Putin is running is essentially a criminal enterprise of himself and his oligarchs. Why would they not look to what criminal enterprises do as a model? Wainstein: Yeah, it’s meat-and-potatoes criminal conduct. Sen. Whitehouse: Yeah. Wainstein: No question. And all intended to hide the fact of the source of this malign activity. Hearing: Election Security, Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, C-SPAN, February 13, 2018. Witnesses: Robert Butler - Co-Founder and Managing Director, Cyber Strategies LLC Heather Conley - Director of the Europe Program Center for Strategic and International Studies Former Dep. Asst. Sec. of State for EU & Eurasian Affairs in GWB admin, 2001-2005 Richard Harknett - Professor of Political Science and Head of Political Science Department, University of Cincinnati Michael Sulmeyer - Director, Cyber Security Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University 7:15 Senator Ben Nelson: First, the department has cyber forces designed and trained to thwart attacks on our country through cyberspace, and that’s why we created the Cyber Command’s National Mission Teams. A member of this subcommittee, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Shaheen, we all wrote the secretary of defense last week that they, the department, ought to be assigned to identify Russian operators responsible for the hacking, stealing information, planting misinformation, and spreading it through all the botnets and fake accounts on social media. They ought to do that. That’s—the Cyber Command knows who that is. And then, we ought to use our cyber forces to disrupt this activity. We aren’t. We should also be informing the social-media companies of Russia’s fake accounts and other activities that violate those companies’ terms of service so that they can be shut down. 18:20 Heather Conley: You asked us what role DOD could play to protect the U.S. elections, and I think, simply, DOD working with Congress has got to demand a hold of government strategy to fight against this enduring disinformation and influence operation. We don’t have a national strategy. Unfortunately, modernizing our nuclear forces will not stop a Russian influence operation. That’s where we are missing a grave threat that exists in the American people’s palm of their hand and on their computer screens. 19:05 Heather Conley: As one of the most trusted institutions in the United States, the Department of Defense must leverage that trust with the American people to mitigate Russian influence. Simply put, the Department of Defense has to model the bipartisan and fact-based action, behavior, and awareness that will help reduce societal division. This is about leadership, it’s about protecting the United States, and as far as I can see, that is in the Department of Defense job description. Hearing: Cybersecurity of Voting Machines, House Oversight Subcommittee and Government Reform Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Affairs, C-SPAN, November 29, 2017. Witnesses: Christopher Krebs - Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary National Protection & Programs Directorate, Department of Homeland Security Tom Schedler - Secretary of State of Louisiana Edgardo Cortes - Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections Matthew Blaze - Associate Professor, Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania 4:24 Representative Robin Kelly (IL): In September of this year, DHS notified 21 states that hackers affiliated with the Russian government breached or attempted to breach their election infrastructure. In my home state of Illinois, the hackers illegally downloaded the personal information of 90,000 voters and attempted to change and delete data. Fortunately, they were unsuccessful. 5:05 Representative Robin Kelly (IL): Earlier this year, researchers at the DEF CON conference successfully hacked five different direct-recording electronic voting machines, or DREs, in a day. The first vulnerabilities were discovered in just 90 minutes. Even voting machines not connected to the Internet still contained physical vulnerabilities like USB ports that can be used to upload malware. Alarmingly, many DREs lack the ability to allow experts to determine that they have been hacked. Despite these flaws, DREs are still commonly used. In 2016, 42 states used them. They were more than a decade old, with some running outdate software that is no longer supported by the manufacturer. 20:30 Tom Schedler: In terms of voting-machine security, remember that with the passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2002, states were required to purchase at least one piece of accessible voting equipment for each polling place. 23:55 Edgardo Cortes: Virginia has twice has been put in the unfortunate position of having to decertify voting equipment and transition to new equipment in a condensed timeframe, based on security concerns of previously used DREs. These steps outlined in detail in my written testimony were not taken lightly. They place a financial and administrative stress on the electoral system. They were, however, essential to maintain the public’s trust and the integrity of Virginia elections. The November 2017 general election was effectively administered without any reported voting-equipment issues. Thanks to the ongoing partnership between the state, our hardworking local election officials, and our dedicated voting-equipment vendors, the transition to paper-based voting systems on a truncated time line was incredibly successful and significantly increased the security of the election. 25:45 Edgardo Cortes: To ensure the use of secure voting equipment in the future, Congress should require federal certification of all voting systems used in federal elections. This is currently a voluntary process. Federal certification should also be required for electronic poll books, which currently are not subject to any federal guidelines. 28:20 Matthew Blaze: Virtually every aspect of our election process, from voter registration to ballot creation to casting ballots and then to counting and reporting election results, is today controlled in some way by software. And unfortunately, software is notoriously difficult to secure, especially in large-scale systems such as those used in voting. And the software used in elections is really no exception to this. It’s difficult to overstate how vulnerable our voting infrastructure that’s in use in many states today is, particularly to compromise by a determined and well-funded adversary. For example, in 2007 our teams discovered exploitable vulnerabilities in virtually every voting-system component that we examined, including backend election-management software as well as particularly DRE voting terminals themselves. At this year’s DEF CON event, we saw that many of the weaknesses discovered in 2007, and known since then, not only are still present in these systems but can be exploited quickly and easily by non-specialists who lack access to proprietary information such as source code. 38:40 Matthew Blaze: The design of DRE systems makes their security dependent not just on the software in the systems but the hardware’s ability to run that software correctly and to protect against malicious software being loaded. So an unfortunate property of the design of DRE systems is that we’ve basically given them the hardest possible security task. Any flaw in a DRE machine’s software or hardware can become an avenue of attack that potentially can be exploited. And this is a very difficult thing to protect. Representative Gary Palmer: Do we need to go to, even if we have some electronic components to back it up with paper ballots because your fallback position is always to open the machine and count the ballots? Blaze: That’s right. So, precinct-counted optical-scan systems also depend on software, but they have the particular safeguard, but there is a paper artifact of the voter’s true vote that can be used to determine the true election results. DRE, paperless DRE systems don’t have that property, and so we’re completely at the mercy of the software and hardware. 47:00 Christopher Krebs: When you characterize these things as attacks, I think that is perhaps overstating what may have happened in the 21 states, as was mentioned, over the course of the summer. The majority of the activity was simple scanning. Scanning happens all the time. It’s happening right now to a number of probably your websites. Scanning is a regular activity across the web. I would not characterize that as an attack. It’s a preparatory step. 58:15 Matthew Blaze: There is no fully reliable way to audit these kinds of systems. We may get lucky and detect some forensic evidence, but ultimately the design of these systems precludes our ability to do a conclusive audit of the voter’s true intent. That’s why paperless systems really need to be phased out in favor of things like optical-scan paper ballots that are counted at the precinct but backed by an artifact of the voter’s true intent. 1:02:42 Tom Schedler: The system that we’re looking at, we’re not out for bid yet, would be one that would produce, even though you would vote on an electronic machine, it would produce an actual paper ballot that you could hold in your hand—Representative Paul Mitchell (MI): My concern with that— Schedler: —and then cast ballot only with that point when you put it into a secure box. Rep. Mitchell: My concern with that, and Dr. Blaze makes the point, is that if you produce a paper result after you put something into the machine, if in fact the machine is tampered with, you could in fact end up with just confirming the tampered information. Schedler: Yes, sir. Speech: Hillary Clinton on National Security and the Islamic State, Council on Foreign Relations, November 19, 2015. 12:35 Hillary Clinton: So we need to move simultaneously toward a political solution to the civil war that paves the way for a new government with new leadership and to encourage more Syrians to take on ISIS as well. To support them, we should immediately deploy the special operations force President Obama has already authorized and be prepared to deploy more as more Syrians get into the fight, and we should retool and ramp up our efforts to support and equip viable Syrian opposition units. Our increased support should go hand in hand with increased support from our Arab and European partners, including Special Forces who can contribute to the fight on the ground. We should also work with the coalition and the neighbors to impose no-fly zones that will stop Assad from slaughtering civilians and the opposition from the air.   Hearing: Electronic Voting Machines, House Administration Committee, C-SPAN, September 28, 2006. Witnesses: Edward Felton - Computer Science Professor at Princeton University Keith Cunningham - Board of Elections Director of Allen County, Ohio Barbara Simons - Association for Computer Machinery, Public Policy Committee Co-Chair 19:54 Edward Felten: Two weeks ago my colleagues, Ari Feldman and Alex Halderman, and I released a detailed security analysis of this machine, the Diebold AccuVote-TS, which is used in Maryland, Georgia, and elsewhere. My written testimony summarizes the findings of our study. One main finding is that the machines are susceptible to computer viruses that spread from machine to machine and silently transfer votes from one candidate to another. Such a virus requires moderate computer-programming skills to construct. Launching it requires access to a single voting machine for as little as one minute. 1:45:23 Keith Cunningham: Can they be improved? Absolutely, and I think throughout my comments I was very definite to say that these machines, as they currently sit, are not reliable. My question back to you, though, in that regard is, who’s going to pay to fix it, because one of the problems we have right now is in the last 24 months every election jurisdiction in this country has spent the $3 billion we spoke about earlier on new election equipment, and that’s what’s in place. So without somebody stepping forward to fund that enterprise, I don’t know how we’re going to improve them ourselves. 1:51:00 Barbara Simons: I wanted to remind the panelists of what happened in Carteret County, North Carolina, in, I believe it was, ’04, where paperless DREs were used and over 4,000 votes were lost. I mean, there's this concern about being able to reprint paper ballots or paper VVPATs. When you lose votes in a DRE, which has no paper, there is nothing you can do, and in fact, there was an election for—the statewide election—for agricultural commissioner, where the separation between the two candidates was such that the results could have been reversed by those missing votes. And it went to court, it went to two different courts, where they first tried to hold a recount just for the county itself. That was thrown out. Then it went for a statewide recount, and that was thrown out because we had no laws to deal with what happens when DREs fail. And finally, there were a number of people who submitted subpoenas or petitions say they had voted for one of the candidates, and based on those submissions, it looked like the judge was going to declare that candidate the winner, and so that was how the election was decided. This is not a way to hold elections in this country. Community Suggestions See more Community Suggestions HERE. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)  

On January 10, 2018, the Supreme Court heard argument in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, a case involving a dispute over the process for removing inactive voters from voter registration lists in the State of Ohio.The National Voters Regulation Act of 1993 (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) require that States maintain their lists of registered voters in such a way as to ensure proper removal of individuals no longer eligible to vote for certain reasons, such as a felony conviction. In addition, the State of Ohio has undertaken steps to ensure inactive registrants are still living at the address at which they are registered to vote. The principal way Ohio does this is by comparing names and addresses contained in its own voter registration database to the National Change of Address (NCOA) database generated from U.S. Postal Service data. Ohio’s Secretary of State then provides each county’s Board of Elections (BOE) with a list of registered voters who appear to have moved. The BOE thereafter sends each of these voters a postage-prepaid forwardable notice on which the voter must indicate whether he or she still lives at the address of registration. Recipients of this notice are subsequently removed from the voter registration list if they (1) do not respond to the confirmation notice or update their registration, and, (2) do not subsequently vote during a period of four consecutive years that includes two federal elections. Ohio has also implemented a “Supplemental Process,” however. Under this process each BOE compiles a list of voters who have not engaged in “voter activity” for the past two years (meaning filing a change of address form with a state agency, casting an absentee ballot, voting in person on election day, or casting a provisional ballot). The BOE sends these registrants a confirmation notice similar to the one used in the NCOA process. Voters sent a confirmation notice are removed from the rolls if they subsequently fail to vote for four years and fail either to respond to the confirmation notice or re-register. The A. Philip Randolph Institute and other affiliates sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted in federal district court, alleging that Ohio’s Supplemental Process violated the NVRA and HAVA, and seeking an injunction reinstating voters removed from the state registry under the Supplemental Process. Although the Secretary amended the confirmation notice format during the course of the litigation, neither the original version nor the revised version attempts to inform recipients who have moved how properly to register to vote in their new district. The district court denied relief and gave judgment in favor of the Secretary. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, however, reversed that judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. The Supreme Court then granted certiorari to address whether Ohio’s Supplemental Process runs afoul of NVRA and HAVA.To discuss the case, we have Michael Morley, Assistant Professor of Law at Barry University School of Law.

On January 10, 2018, the Supreme Court heard argument in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, a case involving a dispute over the process for removing inactive voters from voter registration lists in the State of Ohio.The National Voters Regulation Act of 1993 (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) require that States maintain their lists of registered voters in such a way as to ensure proper removal of individuals no longer eligible to vote for certain reasons, such as a felony conviction. In addition, the State of Ohio has undertaken steps to ensure inactive registrants are still living at the address at which they are registered to vote. The principal way Ohio does this is by comparing names and addresses contained in its own voter registration database to the National Change of Address (NCOA) database generated from U.S. Postal Service data. Ohio’s Secretary of State then provides each county’s Board of Elections (BOE) with a list of registered voters who appear to have moved. The BOE thereafter sends each of these voters a postage-prepaid forwardable notice on which the voter must indicate whether he or she still lives at the address of registration. Recipients of this notice are subsequently removed from the voter registration list if they (1) do not respond to the confirmation notice or update their registration, and, (2) do not subsequently vote during a period of four consecutive years that includes two federal elections. Ohio has also implemented a “Supplemental Process,” however. Under this process each BOE compiles a list of voters who have not engaged in “voter activity” for the past two years (meaning filing a change of address form with a state agency, casting an absentee ballot, voting in person on election day, or casting a provisional ballot). The BOE sends these registrants a confirmation notice similar to the one used in the NCOA process. Voters sent a confirmation notice are removed from the rolls if they subsequently fail to vote for four years and fail either to respond to the confirmation notice or re-register. The A. Philip Randolph Institute and other affiliates sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted in federal district court, alleging that Ohio’s Supplemental Process violated the NVRA and HAVA, and seeking an injunction reinstating voters removed from the state registry under the Supplemental Process. Although the Secretary amended the confirmation notice format during the course of the litigation, neither the original version nor the revised version attempts to inform recipients who have moved how properly to register to vote in their new district. The district court denied relief and gave judgment in favor of the Secretary. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, however, reversed that judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. The Supreme Court then granted certiorari to address whether Ohio’s Supplemental Process runs afoul of NVRA and HAVA.To discuss the case, we have Michael Morley, Assistant Professor of Law at Barry University School of Law.