A cyberattack on the U.K.'s Labour Party, ahead of December elections, is a reminder that the favorite hobby of autocratic foreign regimes is attacking institutions in democratic countries. It's a reminder that there are 356 days before the presidential election in the U.S., and that Moscow Mitch McConnell continues to refuse to bring up House-passed legislation to protect our elections.
The rewards for McConnell could be great. One, he'll need all the help he can get keeping Republicans in power after Nov. 3, 2020. But there's a much more direct benefit for him: campaign contributions from the two dominant elections systems vendor lobbyists, Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Dominion Voting Systems, such as those he got this summer, just before he blocked votes on the House bills. Together, these companies produce about 80% of the voting systems used in the U.S. One of them, ES&S, is the nation's largest voting systems vendor and has provided about half of all systems in use in the country. It also has an extremely troubling record. It was the system in use in Georgia in 2018 when more than 150,000 ballots cast didn't register votes a single office, that of lieutenant governor. In Indiana's Johnson County, the brand-new machines malfunctioned to a degree that officials couldn't figure out whether some people had voted multiple times. The county scrapped its contract with ES&S and had to fork out more than $1.5 million to entirely replace its equipment. The problems in ES&S' systems aren't limited to the most recent election, though. Back in 2006, its machines in Florida caused around 18,000 votes to disappear.
Johnson County got off easy, a ProPublica investigation finds: "The company has a reputation among both its competitors and election officials for routinely going to court when it fails to win contracts or has them taken away, suing voting jurisdictions, rivals, advocates for greater election security and others." Elections expert Dan Wallach, a computer science professor at Rice University, says we need the same kind of competition for voting systems that every other industry faces. "These companies' litigiousness creates a barrier to competition that becomes a barrier to improving our elections," he told ProPublica. Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden agrees. "The market is broken," Wyden said. "Markets work well when you have tough standards, when you have real regulations and vigorous oversight. And here you have none of that."
We won't get it, either, if Moscow Mitch continues to have his way, and if ES&S lobbyists continue to write checks and gain his ear. ES&S defends its aggressive business practices, which include hiring former elections officials as lobbyists. "Lobbyists help ensure legislators have accurate information for use in serving the best interest of the citizens they represent," the company said in a statement provided to ProPublica. "Lobbying is a normal practice employed by all election vendors and is common across all industries."
So is corruption.
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