Louisiana voters are not buying the Republican Secretary of State’s request for the state to buy $100 million in Dominion voting machines.
This past Tuesday we reported on the bill being pushed through the Louisiana legislature that does little to protect fair and free elections while giving ultimate power to the Secretary of State who is pushing the state to buy $100 million in Dominion voting machines.
Numerous Americans from the Bayou state wrote to us after the above article was posted and thanked us. Others have asked to keep the story alive.
One reader shared the following:
Two days ago we broadly circulated a piece in Louisiana the GP wrote regarding the corruption of Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin. That piece was a massive help in our effort to inform the people of Louisiana of what is really happening at the Capitol. Thank you!
We need you one more time. The State Senator who is acting in collusion with the SOS is Sharon Hewitt. She is the author of Senate Bill 221, a horrible piece of legislation that does nothing to protect us against the most lethal threat to the integrity of our vote: electronic voter fraud. The best cybersecurity experts in the country have said that no electronic voting system is invulnerable- ALL of them are acutely vulnerable to external manipulation and vote switching and provide no mechanism for reliable audit or recount. Further, it appears that Hewitt and Ardoin are jockeying to award a $100m election contract to Dominion Voting Machines. The following are the major problems with the bill:
1) SECURE PAPER BALLOTS. Although Sen Hewitt is on record acknowledging that the people of Louisiana are demanding this, it is nowhere in her Bill. This is HUGE, as the best cyber experts in the world say all electronic voting systems can easily be hacked, and secure, readable, counterfeit-proof paper ballots with a dumb scanner is the only reliable way to secure our vote. Sen. Hewitt knows this.
2) INDEPENDENT CYBERSECURITY EXPERTS. The bill is anemic regarding outside, independent, skilled cybersecurity experts who will test the systems and determine all vulnerabilities and recommend the best system. The bill also provides no criteria for the selection of such experts. We must have independent, highly skilled outside experts with experience in cybersecurity fraud who will sign sworn, written disclosures that they have no financial, proprietary, or professional interest in any vendor or in the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office.
3). ARBITRARY SOS APPOINTMENT POWER. The bill gives SOS Ardoin sole authority to choose the 5 member Evaluation Committee that will make the final recommendation regarding which voting company will receive $100 million dollars of taxpayer money. Ardoin has repeatedly demonstrated that he is ethically compromised, as Sen. Hewitt has CLEARLY pointed out, in writing. It is bewildering that her bill affords this type of power to him. Kyle Ardoin will not even exclude Dominion Voting Systems from consideration. WHAT are we doing? Ardoin has an agenda.
4). MORE BUREAUCRACY, NO TRANSPARENCY. The bill sets up a bureaucratic commission to consider and recommend a voting system and strips the Attorney General’s office of its traditional oversight authority over this process. This must be reinserted. After doing research today after speaking with Sen. Hewitt, I feel even stronger about this than I did before. The AG has had oversight authority over our election systems for 50 years, and it should stay that way.
5) FOREIGN VENDORS. We have repeatedly requested that the following amendment be added to Hewitt’s bill, which should be non-controversial: “No contract for the provision of any electronic voting machines shall be awarded to any provider that is wholly or partially owned by any foreign country or foreign company.” The fact that Hewitt refuses to agree to this language speaks volumes.
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