'BradCast' 7/19/2019 (Guest: Protect Our Vote Philly's Kevin Skoglund)
On today's 'BradCast':\xa0 An update on the deadly climate change-fueled heat wave bearing down on millions of Americans, and the dangerous escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf, thanks to Trump's withdrawal from the landmark Iran nuclear deal. In May, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the Protect America's Voting and Elections (or PAVE Act), mandating HAND-MARKED paper ballots for every voter to protect manipulated or erroneous elections results, and ensure that results are publicly verifiable after elections. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked all election-related bills to make our democracy more secure before the 2020 election. Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coates, announced a new initiative today to coordinate the Intelligence Community's response to potential election manipulation, at least from foreign threats. But domestic threats -- from election insiders, private voting system vendors, and even simple programming errors -- are as serious and much more difficult to guard against, leaving election protection ultimately to public oversight at the local level. KEVIN SKOGLUND, Chief Technologist for the non-partisan Citizens for Better Elections in Philadelphia, discusses how the Protect Our Vote Philly coalition has successfully petitioned the state of Pennsylvania to re-examine an incredibly expensive voting and tabulation system that security researchers have found contains a remarkable security flaw. The voting system, made by "mega-vendor" ES+S, allows the ballot-marking device's printer to change votes on the computer-printed ballot summary card after the voter has cast their vote, without the voter's knowledge, and also violates state election code in numerous ways. Skoglund explains how these horrible, unsecure systems are proliferating around the country before the 2020 election, instead of simpler, cheaper and verifiable HAND-MARKED paper ballot systems. Why is McConnell disallowing Wyden's PAVE Act, requiring hand-marked paper ballots for all, from becoming the law of the land?