Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wants the United States stop using electronic voting machines and have every citizen mail-in paper ballots in time for the 2020 election.
“We’ve done it for decades,” Wyden told the current and former secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security about Oregon’s election practices during a Wednesday hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“It’s been supported by Democrats, Republicans. I’d like in 2020 every American to get a ballot by mail,” Wyden added. “I think it’s a national scandal the security issues you’ve talked about and the idea that so many of our people wait in these [voting] lines only to be told they ought to go somewhere else.”
Wyden said electronic machines are riddled with security issues and must be replaced with a method that cannot be hacked or manipulated.
“Five states have no paper trail, no way to prove the numbers the voting machine put out are legitimate,” he said.
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the fact that not all electronic voting machines have the ability to audit results is a major concern in her department.
“If there is no way to audit the elections, that is absolutely a national security concern,” Nielsen said. “You must have a way to audit and verify the election results.”
Wyden said Oregon’s method has been used for two decades and passionately advocated for DHS to continue implementing it nationally. He also said security concerns about fraudulent ballots were a nonissue.
“We’ll show you how to do it,” Wyden offered. “Basically, say right on the envelope, if you aren’t the person that you say you are, you are in one heck of a bad way. You are going to face serious, serious penalties and that’s why it has worked.”
