Election security and voting rights groups wrote to two House and Senate committees in an Aug. 26 letter requesting that they hold hearings on voting machine security.
The National Election Defense Coalition, FreedomWorks, Public Citizen, Free Speech for People, and nine other organizations wrote to the respective chairs and ranking members of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and House Administration Committee.
The letter urged the committees to hold election security hearings – particularly in light of a Senate Select Intelligence Committee July report that found vulnerabilities in American voting systems – and requested that hearing panels “include testimony by election security experts and representatives of the major voting system vendors.”
The groups stressed the need for voting system vendor testimony in light of recent reports disclosing “troubling weaknesses in commercially marketed voting systems.”
“The voting system vendors have operated with little oversight and no regulation for decades,” the letter said. “Given the gravity and urgency of this issue, we write to you to urge the committees to hold a hearing on election system security featuring sworn testimony from officers of the voting system vendors to shed more light on their practices which directly impact the security of the nation.”
The letter also warned of third-party risks that the committee should consider in regard to voting equipment maintenance.
“Many states and localities contract with smaller companies to services, main and program their voting equipment,” the letter said. “This creates another potential vulnerability in the voting system supply chain that has been mostly ignored by election administrators and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.”