Finchem Sues Katie Hobbs to Ban Electronic Voting Machines in Arizona

Rep. Mark Finchem and Kari Lake filed a lawsuit against Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) and the Maricopa and Pima County Boards of Supervisors, asking the court to block the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona for the 2022 election.

In their complaint, Finchem and Lake cite the vulnerability of electronic machines to hacking, particularly given that many of the machines use foreign computer components sourced from countries like China. Secondly, the lawsuit raises the issue that when the Government uses private companies to count votes, it is unlawfully delegating an “inherently governmental function” to a non-government entity, which hide their technology from the public.

The following is the memo released by Finchem and Lake to accompany the filing of the lawsuit.

Complaint for Injunctive Relief Banning the Use of Insecure Electronic Voting Machines in Arizona

  1. The lawsuit would enjoin the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona. Additional lawsuits may be filed in other states. Legal heavyweights including the law firm of Parker Daniels and Kibort (https://www.parkerdk.com) and Alan Dershowitz crafted the Complaint.
  2. I and Mark Finchem are the plaintiffs. Other plaintiffs may be added in the future.
  3. The lawsuit alleges among other things that the documented unfixable security failures in electronic voting machines—and the lack transparency in these voting systems—violates citizens’ constitutional rights and 42 U.S. § 1983 including: the Fundamental Right to Vote in Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Guarantee of Equal Protection.
  4. The Defendants are Katie Hobbs in her official capacity as Secretary of State, and members of the Boards of Supervisors for Maricopa and Pima Counties in their official capacities.
  5. A similar lawsuit brought by a bi-partisan coalition of plaintiffs is already pending in federal court in Georgia. Curling v. Raffensperger, Case No. 1:17-cv-02989-AT (U.S. Dist. Ct., N.D. Ga.).
  6. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have long criticized the inherent vulnerabilities and insecurity of electronic voting machines, including then Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Senator Amy Klobuchar.
  7. Movies have been made about the ease at which electronic voting machines can be hacked or used to steal elections including: HBO’s documentary Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections.
  8. In addition, I urge you to watch Hacking America’s Computerized Voting Machines posted on my website where computer science experts from the University of Michigan, Princeton University, and Georgetown University all speak about the dangers these machines pose to our Republic and how they have failed to guarantee a free, trustworthy, accurate, and secure vote.
  9. The lawsuit alleges, among other things, that:
    1. Electronic voting machines cannot be made secure from unauthorized intrusion;
    2. Electronic voting machine companies’ use software to determine voter intent and tally votes which is not available to the public for inspection to ensure malware or other flaws are not present;
    3. A recognized computer science expert, University of Michigan Professor J. Alex Halderman, recently found that Dominion Voting Systems’ electronic voting machines in sixteen states, including Arizona, have “critical vulnerabilities” that will be used “to steal votes”— and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) is involved but will not disclose these systemic failures;

      Professor Halderman also testified that: “Malware, once installed, could alter voters’ votes while subverting all procedural protections practiced by the State, including acceptance testing, hash validation, logic and accuracy testing, external firmware validation, and risk-limiting audits (RLAs).”

      The fact that these safety procedures cited by the voting machine companies as so-called “proof” their machine are secure can be DEFEATED should set off the ALARM BELLS. We don’t know our votes are safe. everyone.
    4. Lastly, electronic voting machine companies use critical parts in their systems that are manufactured or assembled overseas including China. This supply chain failure in and of itself presents a clear and present danger to our cherished right to a secure vote.

      Did you know:
      • In 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense found thousands of its computer servers sending military network data to China—the result of code hidden in chips that handled the machines’ startup process?
      • In 2014, Intel Corp. discovered that an elite Chinese hacking group breached its network through a single server that downloaded malware from a supplier’s update site?
      • And in 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned multiple companies that Chinese operatives had concealed an extra chip loaded with backdoor code in one manufacturer’s servers?
  10. Let me be clear, cyber experts agree electronic voting machines do not need to be connected to the internet during an election to be compromised by bad actors.
  11. Even France bans the use of electronic voting machines because of the inherent cyber security threats to elections electronic voting machines pose to elections.
  12. Our Elections determine who the People select to lead of our Counties, and our State, and our Country. We have a right to know that our votes were accurately counted without having to simply rely on black box electronic voting machines.
  13. Finally, the lawsuit will propose a secure alternative to electronic voting machines involving precinct level hand counting procedures of ballots on secure paper, and cameras allowing total transparency to the public including an auditable tabulation.

    To those who say it will take weeks or months to process a vote, I say what did we do in the 1980s and 1990s before the internet and software coded electronic voting machines were used? It didn’t take that long then and it won’t take that long now. If France can do it with their 67 million people, surely the United States of American can do it too.