Over the last decade… and especially the last four years… Americans have heard credible reports about how susceptible electronic voting machines are to hackers and foreign interference in our elections. Cybersecurity experts reported that these machines could, indeed, be hacked and completely change the results of an election. Based upon these reports and the myriad of news stories, eye-witness and video accounts of suspicious activities, lawsuits, affidavits and data presentations since the presidential election, we believe such did occur in some states. We believe current voting machines can be hacked and that scares us about future elections here in Tennessee.

In April 2021, the Tennessee Election Commission (TEC) created a subcommittee to re-examine all five brands of voting machines used in Tennessee elections to ensure they “meet the minimum criteria for certification.” The plan was simply to re-certify them.

However, instead of stopping at a mere re-certification check, we demand the subcommittee hire top cybersecurity/IT experts to do a full Machine Forensic Audit on representative machines from all five brands to assure that all brands are trustworthy. Any brand that reveals security issues which can’t be fixed should be removed immediately from the list of approved brands available for use by Tennessee counties and an appropriate replacement be identified by the Tennessee Election Commission.

Yet, more than eleven months later, nothing has been done by the Election Commission.

We also believe that voting machines should meet all certification standards of the Election Assistance Commission’s Voluntary Voting System Guideline 2.0 just updated February 2021.

Tennessee Voters for Election Integrity, a collection of citizens who want to ensure elections are transparent, trustworthy, accurate and free of fraud, is firmly behind this intensified step, one which election security/integrity experts and cybersecurity/IT experts have long advocated.