Episode 36: The Fight for Secure Elections - with Donna Curling

Miles To Go

Today is Election Day—at long last. I am exhausted, and I suspect many of you feel the same way.

I am in Georgia to cover this important day in history for the PBS News Hour. I'm sure you know by now Georgia is one of the seven swing States where the actual decision will be made on who is our next president.

Despite no evidence to support the notion, Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly questioned the Integrity of the vote tallying process in this country. Georgia became one of the main targets of these so-called election deniers in the wake of the 2020 election.

But long before the likes of Mike Lindell and Sidney Powell descended on places like Coffee County to try and steal the presidency from Joe Biden, Donna Curling was raising questions about the security and integrity of the machines that Georgia uses to record and tabulate votes.

The lawsuit, now called “Curling v. Rafensperger,” began when Donna had just moved to Georgia and voted on machines made by Diebold, which left no verifiable paper trail of voter intent. She was dismayed by this, eventually leading her and the other plaintiffs to sue the state in 2017 to stop using the machines.

The machines that the state bought in 2019 to replace the DREs are so-called Ballot Marking Devices made by Dominion Voting Systems. Curling and her fellow plaintiffs believe these devices are still vulnerable. They have consistently advocated for what computer scientists say is the gold standard for voting: paper and pen. Oh, the irony.

So, the suit remains active even as the BMDs do here in Georgia. Hopefully, election deniers will not raise false allegations about the performance of these machines - using them as a way of planting seeds of doubt in the Integrity of the election.

As for Donna Curling, she will continue her fight to have Georgia join the 70% of voters in the United States using hand-marked paper ballots.

I had a great conversation with her. I hope you enjoy it.

#ElectionDay #Democracy #VotingIntegrity #newshour