Decertification in Pennsylvania By Chris Knight (Florida)
Doubts about the integrity of the US electoral system continue to be raised, even from outside of Trump circles. Thus, there has been a decertification of the voting system of rural Fulton County for future elections, by the Pennsylvania Department of State as an assessment by a third party had violated the Keystone State’s election code.
“Pennsylvania’s top election official has decertified the voting system of rural Fulton County for future elections, saying that an assessment by a third party had violated the Keystone State’s election code.
The Pennsylvania Department of State said in a statement dated July 21 that Wake Technology Services Inc.’s access to the county’s voting system “undermined the chain of custody requirements and strict access limitations necessary to prevent both intentional and inadvertent tampering with electronic voting systems.”
It added that the “unauthorized access” prevents the vendor—Dominion Voting Systems—from “affirming that the system continues to meet state and federal certification standards.”
Wake TSI, a software company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania, had carried out an election assessment that involved its workers visiting Fulton County in December 2020 and in early February. While the company in May released a report that concluded the election was “well-run” and didn’t indicate any signs of fraud in Fulton County, five “issues of note” were uncovered, including three related to Dominion, whose electronic voting system was used in the county for the 2020 election.
“While these may seem minor, the impact on an election can be huge,” Wake TSI said of the issues. At the time, Dominion disputed the report’s findings.
Fulton County officials had allowed Wake TSI to “access certain key components of its certified system, including the county’s election database, results files, and Windows systems logs,” and to “use a system imaging tool to take complete hard drive images of these computers and other digital equipment,” the department noted.
“These actions were taken in a manner that was not transparent,” Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, said in a letter to county officials. She said the access given to Wake TSI has caused the county’s voting system to be “compromised,” and that neither the county, state officials, nor Dominion could now “verify that the impacted components of Fulton County’s leased voting system are safe to use in future elections.”
“I have no other choice but to decertify the use of Fulton County’s leased Dominion Democracy Suite 5.5A voting system last used in the November 2020 election.”
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