What Voting Machine Manufacturers Are Doing to Avoid 2020

Ed Smith still remembers the weeks after Election Day 2020. The election compliance expert was working at the time for voting technology provider Smartmatic: a mostly low-key company that supplied ballot-marking devices to Los Angeles County. However, when the polls reported the vote count, then-President Donald Trump lost to challenger Joe Biden – and Trump began an all-out war over the results. Companies like Smartmatic are under siege.

Trump and his allies have accused Smartmatic and its competitor Dominion Voting Systems of conspiring to rig the vote for Biden. And while Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani made false claims in court, armies of online supporters descended on staffers like Smith. Twitter users found his background at several voting technology companies and concluded, “This must be the guy,” he recalls. People “threatened me, wanted to come to my house and show me some love.” Smith was proud of his many years of experience – work that he considered socially useful. But as Trump undermined trust in the system, Smith’s own mother began to believe the election had been stolen. Misinformation and online attacks “just created an atmosphere that made me very sad.”

Four years later, Trump is back on the ballot. He said early on that his rivals wanted to steal the election and refused to guarantee he would accept the results. Dominion, Smartmatic and other election technology providers are going on the offensive to convince the public of their reliability. But they face a challenge that sometimes seems insurmountable: combating conspiracy theories amid a crisis of confidence.

Communication was “an afterthought for election officials” when Smartmatic entered the industry two decades ago, said Samira Saba, the company’s director of communications. The job of election commissions was mainly to ensure that votes were counted and voter lists were up to date. “Today, election officials around the world recognize that disinformation is one of the biggest challenges they face, if not the biggest,” Saba said. Edge in an email.

While some activists have long sowed doubt about the voting system, Smith says the industry “was caught off guard in 2020 by the volume and severity of misinformation.” False statements came not only from fringe figures, but also from the sitting president and the leader of the Republican Party. Major television networks such as Fox News repeated their statements.

The companies’ first move was a wave of libel suits against news outlets and conspiracy theorists, which were quite successful in court. Newsmax reached a settlement with Smartmatic in September, and judges allowed Smartmatic’s lawsuits against Fox, One America News (OAN) and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell to resolve. Dominion reached a $787 million defamation settlement with Fox last year, with cases against OAN, Newsmax, Lindell, Powell and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy of former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani put Dominion’s litigation on pause late last year, but a judge overturned his bankruptcy this summer, allowing the case to continue.

Lies about the election haven’t disappeared from conservative news outlets, but tactics have changed, according to left-wing media watchdog group Media Matters. “The difference we’re seeing in 2024 is that MAGA spokespeople seem to have been able to steer the conversation away from specific potential defamatory statements, especially in relation to voting campaigns, even as these types of statements continue to circulate on social media. networks,” John Whitehouse, senior adviser at Media Matters, said in a statement. “The lesson for MAGA media seems to be that mainstream audiences want more election denial—and they’ll give it to them.”

But the court of public opinion is no less important. This election, Smartmatic and Dominion are maintaining pages on their websites that check false claims about their technologies and explain how their companies operate. Smartmatic began publishing guidance on combating misinformation and disinformation in 2016. Its latest edition walks election officials through steps such as auditing the media channels through which citizens receive information, building relationships with journalists and influencers, and creating a crisis communications plan. He advises election officials to “be empathetic and concerned” and “make sure your explanation is no more complicated than a lie.”

Voting technology companies aren’t the only ones trying to explain how these systems work and defend their reliability. State governments are creating fact-checking pages that “pre-debunk” election misconceptions. Election officials have emphasized ways voters can monitor the system, such as live broadcasts from ballot processing centers. Local election officials also conduct extensive public testing of voting machines in the weeks and months leading up to elections.

Still, convincing voters they can trust the system can be challenging, especially if it requires proof. Not is happening.

Allowing voters to watch the process themselves could help, said Sarah Cutter, executive director of the nonpartisan trade group American Council on Election Technology (ACET). Chester County resident Jay Schneider was among those skeptical of the 2020 election process. “Honestly, as the 2020 election approached, I thought, ‘What’s going on seems a little sketchy. There are some scams going on around the country,” he said. PA spotlight in history 2023. But after working on the polls himself, he became so convinced of the power of checks and balances in the system that he decided to take on a larger role in the process as an election judge.

Smith agrees that personal experience with the system is valuable. “When you know about these kinds of checks and balances, you realize that it would just be a pipe dream to have an election the way people say it would be,” he says.

However, in Smith’s experience, successful persuasion depends on the person and the situation. Many people are content to learn more about the election system’s anti-fraud checks, he said, but “for a certain percentage of people… you can tell them whatever you want to tell them, you can show them whatever you want to show them.” “It just doesn’t seem to be realized.”

Part of the problem is that conspiracy theorists, including Trump and his allies like Giuliani, have undermined trust in the very institutions that are trying to restore it. Smith says people “are less willing to go to the Secretary of State’s website and say, ‘Well, Secretary X said it’s safe to vote by mail and here’s why.’ Now people just don’t trust this man.”

Election technology companies are “not shying away” from scrutiny, Cutter says. “But when scrutiny turns into suspicion and then public trust declines, then disinformation and disinformation begin to fill the void.”

Some false statements may arise due to misunderstandings. The industry was “surprised” by calls for paper ballots, Cutter says, since “98 percent of jurisdictions” do use paper—some simply mark ballots using electronic devices designed to be more accessible.

Likewise, while securing voting machines is important, the machines are only part of a larger system. “American elections have built-in checks and balances,” says Cutter, as does the government itself. “Essentially, no two jurisdictions will have the same combination of election technology and procedures that will allow them to be compromised at a systemic level.”

To cause significant damage on a nationwide scale, an attacker would have to become familiar with countless combinations of hardware and software. And similarly, one company like Dominion couldn’t simply flip a switch to change the outcome of an election, because there are processes in place to identify mechanisms that aren’t working properly.

The backlash against voting tech companies “strengthens their resolve,” Cutter says, “once the election gets into your bloodstream, a lot of people never leave that space.” But it still bore fruit. Some ACET members have installed additional security cameras and some have even developed an emergency office relocation plan, she said.

They are not the only ones preparing for the possibility of violence. Across the country, election officials have stepped up security measures in anticipation of threats. Wall Street Journal It was recently reported that election officials in Arizona have undergone active shooter training, and the Maricopa County elections office now has armed guards and metal detectors. And even before Election Day in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, fires at ballot boxes damaged hundreds of ballots.

Cutter has a question for people who believe false stories about a stolen election: “Why do you want it to be true? Because I still believe in America. I believe in our innovation, in the hope we give to the world. And I believe in the resilience of America and the accountability we have built into our systems.”

“Every American deserves a fair, free, safe and secure election,” she says. “They got them. We have receipts.