see url:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republicans-say-they-care-about-election-fraud-heres-how-they-could-actually-prevent-it/
see full report...The difference between voter security and voter
suppression...
Quote<<<
Republicans care a whole lot about election security these days. Fueled
in part by the “Big Lie,” the baseless claim that there was widespread
fraud in last year’s election, Republican lawmakers around the country
have made an aggressive push to pass new laws to prevent what they saw
as a nightmare scenario from happening again. While the motivation to
improve election security is spurious, the ostensible goal isn’t —
everyone would agree that a secure election is important for democracy.
Experts say there’s one very effective way for state legislatures to
make the voting process more secure: pass legislation to update voting
machines. But instead of prioritizing this effort, many Republicans are
instead focused on limiting voter access.
“It would be terrific to see the focus on election security lead to more
investments in better, more trustworthy systems,” said Mark Lindeman,
co-director of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election security
organization.
The gold standard for voting security is hand-marked paper ballots,
according to security experts. That’s because a paper ballot eliminates
the risk of technical difficulties or certain kinds of malicious acts
(think hacking) that could change or destroy your vote, and any concerns
can be addressed with a recount. Because of that, most states currently
use hand-marked paper ballots or have voting machines that generate
paper records for verification.
But in six states — Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey,
Tennessee and Texas — some or all voters still cast ballots on machines
that have no paper record whatsoever, according to data from Verified
Voting. While there’s no evidence that these machines have ever been
hacked during an election, it’s technically possible, and they’re also
prone to all kinds of undesirable malfunctions, including losing votes.
With no paper backup to audit, these machines are the kind of election
security liability that politicians say they’re invested in fixing.
>>>End of Quote
