Analyzing the Georgia State Election Technology Acquisition Decision
Edward Perez, Global Director, Technology Development
Preface by Gregory Miller, Co-Founder
Election technology infrastructure—America’s digital process and platforms of democracy administration in the digital age—is a sector of critical infrastructure. Protecting the sovereign act of public elections is a matter of defending democracy. Therefore, the Institute believes the acquisition, implementation, operation, and protection of election and voting systems, services, and directly related technology is a matter of national security not to be taken lightly. Cyberterrorism directed at disrupting our sovereignty — and the sovereignty of all democracies worldwide — compels pragmatic intellectual honesty about equipment acquisition. All parties to such transactions have an imperative duty to focus first on acquisitions that maximize security and integrity, lower costs for taxpayers, and ensure that elections conducted on such equipment are verifiable, accurate, secure and transparent in process.
When the Institute observes unusual deviation from this compelled practice, it must be called out and examined. The State of Georgia’s current legislation and efforts to acquire new voting technology for the 2020 election is emerging as a one such case that cannot and should not be ignored. The Institute’s Global Director of Technology Development, Edward Perez, himself a 15-year veteran of the commercial voting and election administration technology industry, recently noted the extent to which the Georgia Secretary of State’s Elections Division is proceeding to drive a specific acquisition that defies the logic and warnings of the super majority of computer scientists, election technology and security experts, and election integrity professionals. Why is that?
Mr. Perez produced an analysis in the Briefing that suggests there is very good reason to ask. The analysis presented in the Briefing is very likely to also be useful for other jurisdictions around the nation, as it contains relevant price estimates for voting technology available in the marketplace today, as well as a repeatable methodology that can be used by election officials and stakeholders in other states.
