Free Speech For People and the Electronic Frontier Foundation hosted a virtual panel featuring U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, Actor and Activist Alyssa Milano, and a prominent group of panelists including filmmakers, computer scientists and election security advocates to discuss vulnerabilities in U.S. election systems revealed in a new HBO documentary – Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections.

The new documentary, which uncovers previously unreported events and information about weaknesses in today’s U.S election technology, is free to watch on Youtube until May 25, 2020. 

Panelists included Free Speech For People Counsel Courtney Hostetler, who discussed our election security work, including our lawsuit challenging the implementation of the ExpressVote electronic voting system in several North Carolina counties. 

“We are in the stage of litigation where we are pushing forward. We would like to see the counties that are using the ExpressVote enjoined and required to choose a different certified system ahead of these crucial November elections,” said Hostetler. 

Free Speech For People recently issued a letter to the Intelligence and Homeland Security committees of Congress urging them to launch inquiries into two highly concerning incidents revealed in the new HBO documentary. The film interviewed a hacker in India who credibly claimed to have hacked into Alaska’s election system and asserted he gained access to, and could have altered vote totals on Alaska’s election management system. The claim was supported by documents obtained from the Alaska Division of Elections. The second incident involved the hacking and theft of voting system test reports from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The documents stolen are non-public technical documents that provide details of the voting system software versions, weaknesses and configurations.

“The data that was retrieved by the hacker could potentially provide a roadmap to how existing vulnerabilities could be exploited and leveraged by hackers going forward. That’s really serious stuff,” said Susan Greenhalgh, Senior Advisor on Election Security for Free Speech For People.

Watch the full discussion here.