Juan,
I see one of your items for action alerts deals with concerns people have with the Dominion Voting machines.
Allow me to give you my assessment of the machines as a retired GS-13 Information Systems Security Officer.
When the machines were being tested a group of individuals were allowed to go an observe the testing of those machines. I availed myself of that opportunity and thouroghly questioned the lead tester of those machines. Here are my notes on the testing and functioning of those machines.
1. The machine accepts a Ballot on Demand. When you go to the voter registration polling place and receive your ballot, you mark how you want to vote and when finished you take your ballot and YOU, YOURSELF, place your ballot into the machine. If the ballot is marked wrong or you did not follow the instructions on how to mark your ballot properly the machine will kick it back out to you and a judge or poll watcher will help you fix what you did wrong for resubmission.
2. When testing the machines the test results are kept with each individual device so checks can be done later if there are any questions about its functionallity.3. Each Test / Set up cycle is certified by the tester and initials or signatures have to be placed on each test cycle.4. Each Dominion machine has a lock on it until it is ready for use and then is unlocked. It cannot be used and is indeed unfunctional until the lock is removed.5. Each device has a battery backup in case of loss of power so it will remain functional.6. The device has a GREAT Power indicator that lets you know if an electrical outlet is functional or not.7. The machine is unhackable and their is no way one can hack into it as it is NOT connected to the net in any way shape or form. I verified this myself by looking at all ports on the machine and observing the unavailability of any ports that can be used to connect to the net.8. Handicapped people are accommodated through Audio Files and the device has the ability to accomodate the blind.
All in all, it is a very secure device. At the end of the day and the end of voting, the memory card is removed from the machine, supposed to be placed in a secure box and hauled to the voting center where the memory card is inserted into whatever device they have there at the voting center and downloaded and votes counted that way. The physical ballots, that have remained locked into the Dominion machine are taken along with the memory card to verify that the votes counted and the ballots submitted match in number.
I hope this gives you some insight into what I meticulously observed and recorded when given the chance.If there are any other concerns I can sure help somebody address those issues having the background that I do.
Thank you,
Michael Potts
