NTF issue paper: cong215.doc. 2-22.
NEBRASKA TAXPAYERS FOR FREEDOM ISSUE PAPER:
CONG. BACON BILL SECURES ELECTION SYSTEMS.
BACKGROUND. Conservative voters across the nation are still seething at the amount of vote fraud that occurred in the 2020 national election, fraud that cost us the presidency and congressional seats. These voters fear the same chicanery will occur in the 2022 elections, including in our own state elections. Therefore, it is necessary for NE voters to safeguard this basic constitutional right, to demand that our state and national officials pass legislation to guarantee honest, secure voting in 2022.
THE BILL. Cong. Don Bacon (2nd Dist.) introduced HR 5358, to require the Sec. of Homeland Security to establish an election research program to test the security of election systems used in the U.S. This bill currently is in both the Committee on Homeland Security and Committee on House Administration, awaiting a vote to advance it to the full House for debate. If the bill passes, within 6 months the Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, coordinating with the chiefs of election service provider companies, must establish and administer election research program policies and procedures to test every election system used by service providers, in order to identify potential vulnerabilities in voting machines and the voting process. Qualified independent security researchers would apply a federal methodology to each election system to identify such vulnerabilities. DHS, after consulting with the Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, must establish the qualifications for the researchers.
RATIONALE. Voting machines play an integral role in ensuring the integrity of elections. It is crucial that voting machines follow their design, recording citizen votes in a secure and accurate manner. Voters must appear confident that their votes recorded as cast, that their privacy protected, and that a machine is tamper-proof and not subject to external or internal manipulation. To provide this level of confidence, voting machines currently tested against standards before use in an election, but those standards vary in quality from state to state. Some states adopt federal standards, several develop their own standards and others use a hybrid of both approaches. We must have confidence that our voting process is secure and accurate. Physical security of voting equipment and ballots necessary. Machines able to maintain an audit record subject to post-election review. Ensuring that machines cannot become connected to the Internet or networked during a voting period to avoid hacking. Voting machines must register and record accurately all votes cast. Ballots securely monitored from ballot box to final count.
TAKE ACTION NOW. NE will have several contentious campaigns and close votes in our 2022 elections. HR 5358 would guarantee security and accuracy throughout the voting process. This legislation would instill confidence in NE voters that their votes counted precisely as planned. Using the information above, lobby NE Cong. Fortenberry and Smith to support this bill all the way through to victory.
Email netaxpayers@gmail.com for congressional contact information and join our NTF Congress Watch Project.
Research, documentation, and analysis for this issue paper done by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom. This material copyrighted by Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom, with express prior permission granted for its use by other groups in the NE Conservative Coalition Network. 2-22. C