The trial in the lawsuit brought against Georgia state election officials got underway last week as a group of voters are seeking to stop the state from using Dominion’s touchscreen voting machines, the Associated Press reported.
The voters, along with the election integrity group Coalition for Good Governance, alleged that Dominion Voting System machines are vulnerable to attack and infringe on the fundamental right of citizens to have their votes accurately counted.
Officials in the state argued that it is up to the state and not the courts to determine how Georgia’s elections are run. The officials maintain that every appropriate measure has been taken to protect citizens’ right to vote and the Dominion system is secure and reliable.
During opening statements, attorney David Cross, who represents a group of voters, told US District Judge Amy Totenberg that state officials showed little concern over evidence that Dominion’s machines are vulnerable to attack, and have failed to take any appropriate steps to remedy the problem.
The Plaintiffs’ expert witness J. Alex Halderman, a computer science expert from the University of Michigan, examined a voting machine from Georgia and provided the court with a lengthy report listing the vulnerabilities he found and how those vulnerabilities could be exploited to alter election results.
In June 2022, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published an advisory based on his findings urging the jurisdictions that use the machines to mitigate the vulnerabilities Halderman identified.
Cross also called out Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for saying that Halderman’s findings were “way off base” and that only someone with the kind of access Halderman was given could “do something,” but not someone in “the real world.” Cross said the trial would show that the only one not living in the “real world when it comes to election security” is Raffensperger.
Bryan Tyson, who is representing Georgia elections officials in the trial, noted that Halderman found no evidence of malware installed on the voting machine he examined and argued in his opening statement that the plaintiffs have provided no evidence that the Georgia voting machines were hacked or any votes were altered.
Dominion Voting Systems is not named in the lawsuit.
