Sharon Meroni

Executive Director

Defend the Vote

Sharon@DefendTheVote.com

September 23, 2013

Rupert Borgsmiller, Executive Director Illinois State Board of Election

Lance Gough, Executive Director Chicago Board of Election Commissioners

David Orr, Cook County Clerk,

Gentlemen:

Illinois election code 5/24c-16 requires that all voting equipment be approved by the Illinois State Board of Elections,

fulfill functional requirements provided by Section 24c-11, mandatory requirements of the federal voting system

standards pertaining to Direct Recording Electronic Voting Systems promulgated by the FEC or the EAC, the testing

requirements of an approved independent testing authority and the rules of the State Board of Elections.

The Dominion Voting systems in use in Chicago and Suburban Cook County fail to meet these requirements and

therefore are not available for use in the upcoming elections in 2014. Further, these systems cannot be approved

because Dominion has stopped the EAC and independent lab testing and certification process prior to approval and

because they no longer manufactures this system. Dominion removed itself from the EAC approval process without

receiving the final approval of any independent lab or the EAC, and when requested by the EAC to submit their election

systems to further testing following failed tests from the independent labs, Dominion Voting responded by pulling the

election system from the EAC certification process.

All 2 Year Interim Approvals by the Illinois State Board of Elections have expired, or will expire on October 18th, 2013.

Dominion cannot request another 2 Year Interim Approval, make any changes or upgrades to the current systems, nor

can they request a final approval because they are no longer in the process of getting their systems certified.

Accordingly, Defend the Vote asserts the Illinois State Board of Elections cannot re-authorize these systems.

In addition, Defend the Vote is seeking clarification about the ‘2 Year Interim Approval’ which was granted by the ISBE

Board on September 20, 2012. We cannot find any place in the public record where a subsequent interim approval was

granted for the WinEDS v 4.0.175 system and we question whether the Dominion Voting Systems in question were used

unlawfully for the 2012 Presidential election, the 2013 Consolidated Primary, and the Consolidated General Election that

followed.

A few facts establishing the sequence of events in this matter.

The Friday August 27th 2010 Board minutes indicate that the system in an earlier form was approved for a ‘2

Year Interim Approval’ and was also dependent on a letter from IBeta – I can find no evidence in the public

record that this letter was received.

September 15th 2010 – Dominion changes the WinEDS version to v 4.0.175 and requests approval. ‘2 Year

Interim Approval’ is granted and expired September 15, 2012.

Fall 2010: Independent lab, IBeta, presented their test report that showed two failed tests in the Dominion

Voting system.

November 30, 2010 IBeta removes itself from the EAC testing and certification program

On January 20, 2011 a letter from the EAC to Ed Smith of Dominion Voting informs Mr. Smith that they have

rejected the IBeta test report because of the two failed tests. The letter states that they do not believe the

testing proves Dominion’s explanation for the failure and subsequently the EAC requires further testing.

March 3, 2011 EAC approves SLI Global as the new testing lab for Dominion, replacing IBeta.

June 8th 2012 SLI Global after finding multiple unresolved errors, recommends for certification pending EAC’s

acceptance of the root cause analysis of these failed tests and any subsequent mitigation plans from Dominion.

The EAC does not accept the root cause analysis and subsequent mitigation plans from Dominion.

Fall of 2012: The EAC requires Dominion to have failed tests reported by IBeta and SLI Global be rerun before

they will approve the reports or certify the system because they do not accept the root cause analysis and

subsequent mitigation plans from Dominion.

February 27, 2013: Rather than conduct the tests, Dominion removes the voting system from the EAC testing

program.

Defend the Vote seeks to have the Dominion System in use by Chicago and Suburban Cook County removed from any

further use in Illinois elections.

Please provide a copy of this letter the members of the Illinois State Board of Elections, The Chicago Board of Election

Commissioners and the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Accordingly, besides a formal protest from any further

certification of the non-compliant Dominion Voting Systems, this letter is a formal request to appear before the various

Boards at their next meetings to discuss election systems in use in Chicago and Suburban Cook County.

Regards,

Sharon Meroni