Chinese parts, hidden ownership, growing scrutiny: Inside America's biggest maker of voting machines
Dec. 19, 2019, 3:30 AM PST
By Ben Popken, Cynthia McFadden and Kevin Monahan
OMAHA, Neb. — Just off a bustling interstate near the border between Nebraska and Iowa, a 2,800-square-foot American flag flies over the squat office park that is home to Election Systems & Software LLC.
The nondescript name and building match the relative anonymity of the company, more commonly known as ES&S, which has operated in obscurity for years despite its central role in U.S. elections. Nearly half of all Americans who vote in the 2020 election will use one of its devices.
That’s starting to change. A new level of scrutiny of the election system, spurred by Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, has put ES&S in the political spotlight. The source of the nation’s voting machines has become an urgent issue because of real fears that hackers, whether foreign or domestic, might tamper with the mechanics of the voting system.
That has led to calls for ES&S and its competitors, Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems and Austin, Texas-based Hart Intercivic, to reveal details about their ownership and the origins of the parts, some of which come from China, that make up their machines.
But ES&S still faces questions about the company’s supply chain and the identities of its investors, although it has said it is entirely owned by Americans. And the results of its government penetration tests, in which authorized hackers try to break in so vulnerabilities can be identified and fixed, have yet to be revealed.
The secrecy of ES&S and its competitors has pushed politicians to seek information on security, oversight, finances and ownership. This month, a group of Democratic politicians sent the private equity firms that own the major election vendors a letter asking them to disclose a range of such information, including ownership, finances and research investments.
"The voting machine lobby, led by the biggest company, ES&S, believes they are above the law,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Intelligence Committee who co-signed the letter.
“They have not had anybody hold them accountable even on the most basic matters.”
ES&S Chief Executive Tom Burt dismissed criticism as inevitable and impossible to answer, but he called for greater oversight of the national election process.
“There are going to be people who have opinions from now until eternity about the security of the equipment, the bias of those companies who are producing the equipment, the bias of the election administrators who are conducting the election,” Burt said in an interview. “I can’t do anything to affect those people’s opinions.”
“What the American people need is a system that can be audited, and then those audits have to happen and be demonstrated to the American public,” Burt said. “That's what will cut through the noise.”
Supply chain questions
ES&S invited NBC News journalists into its headquarters, the first time it has done so for a national news organization. The walls were decorated with images of the Constitution and inspirational messages about quality control. In glass-walled rooms etched with the company’s patents, technicians tested machines under tight security.
Burt, a native Nebraskan, has called for federal regulations that would require voting machine companies to address some of the key questions posed to ES&S. In June, he wrote an op-ed asking Congress for more regulation, which would include requirements for paper backups of individual votes, mandatory post-election audits and more resources for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to speed improvements.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/chinese-parts-hidden-ownership-growing-scrutiny-inside-america-s-biggest-n1104516