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>The Small World of Voting Machine Certification cont
On May 9, 2019, the EAC announced that they had selected Jerome Lovato, who had worked at the EAC since September 2017, to replace Macias. The resignation of Macias and the subsequent appointment of Lovato raised some concerns in Congress, as noted in a letter sent to the EAC by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.).
“Following the resignation of Ryan Macias, public reporting indicates that the EAC now employs only one full-time staff member dedicated to overseeing the certification process. While we understand that the Commission may be working to hire additional staff, we are concerned by the sudden appointment of Jerome Lovato to be the Director of Testing and Certification especially as reports indicating that Mr. Lovato will be working remotely, more than a thousand miles from EAC headquarters. As states continue to update their election equipment and vendors develop new machines, it is essential that Testing and Certification at the EAC be fully operational,” the senators wrote in their letter.
“Given the length of time the certification process can take, we are concerned that the EAC will not be able to certify the machines that states intend to use as part of their modernization efforts ahead of the 2020 elections.”
The concern over the EAC having only “one full-time staff member dedicated to overseeing the certification process” seems understandable given the potential importance of that duty. The senators asked the EAC what actions they would be taking to shore up personnel in front of the 2020 election.
That question was answered on May 21, 2019 with the announcement that the EAC was adding two individuals to its voting certification program—Jessica Bowers,recently the director of certification for Dominion and a 10-year veteran with the firm, andPaul Aumayr, a former Maryland election official.
An article describing the new hires noted “It was not immediately clear how the EAC might mitigate any potential conflicts of interest that could arise with hiring Bowers, the former director of certification at Dominion Voting Systems, onto the EAC program.”
The EAC website describes Bowers as managing “voting system testing and certification projects as well as assisting the development of new Voluntary Voting System Guidelines” but fails to disclose any direct mention of her role at Dominion Voting Systems.
“Prior to joining the EAC, she was the Director of Certification for a voting system manufacturer and has worked in the election industry in software development and certification since 2008,” the website states.
Under EAC Staff Members, Bowers is listed as Acting CIO/CISO, while Aumayr is listed as Senior Election Technology Specialist. Despite the important role the EAC plays in election integrity, they list only a total of 23 staff members, five executives (of which Lovato is one), and four commissioners. The EAC does have a large Board of Advisors comprised of 37 individuals.
Both Bowers and Aumayr appear to have hit the ground running as a July 9, 2019 update from the EAC Testing and Certification blog lists Aumayr as the Project Manager for Dominion Voting Systems’ “Democracy Suite 5.5B” and Clear Ballot’s “ClearVote 2.0” while Bowers is listed as the Project Manager for Election Systems & Software’s (ES&S) “EVS 6.1.0.0” and Unisyn Voting Solutions’ “OpenElect 2.1.”
All four of these companies are members of CISA’s Sector Coordinating Council, one of two councils that issued a recent Nov. 12 joint statement on the election, claiming it was the “most secure in American history.”
Only 2 Certified Testers of Election Equipment
==On the EAC website, there are seven Voting System Test Laboratories (VSTL) listed. However, only two of these testing labs, Pro V&V and SLI Compliance, are listed on the page as accredited, as the others are listed as having their accreditation expired.
From early 2017 on, these two companies are the only testing labs to have provided voting system certification according to a listing of certifications by the EAC.
For one of the two companies used, Pro V&V, the EAC fails to publicly provide the accreditation certificate on its website, instead linking to a page giving a “page could not be found” warning.
The latest certificate listed for Pro V&V on the company’s profile overview on the EAC website has an issue date of Feb. 24, 2015 and is effective through Feb. 24, 2017. It is unclear if the company’s accreditation is truly expired or if the fault lies with the EAC website.
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