Earlier this week, election systems vendor, Liberty Vote, acquired Dominion Voting Systems (DMS).
Liberty Vote was previously known as KnowInk, the manufacturer of Poll Pad and Poll Print technology, which is used in place of paper poll books to check in voters.
DMS has been the center of many election integrity concerns, lawsuits and controversies, especially after the 2020 elections.
KnowInk has had it’s own controversies, primarily centered around it’s internet and wireless connection to the central voting systems during active voting, risking cyber attacks or hacking. One specific concern centers around the hacking of election day voting results as they happen.
Nevada uses both vendors to run the current elections.
The implications for the upcoming 2026 elections are extensive.
Liberty Vote will be used in over 40 States as we head into the 2026 elections.
There are lots of questions that need answering:
- What is the impetus behind this acquisition? Why was DMS sold?
- How much did Scott Leiendecker, CEO of Liberty Vote, pay for this private transaction?
- Will the details of the acquisition transaction and conditions be publicized? How long did the negotiations last before announcement? Is there a schedule?
- How many of the previous DMS executives or key personnel will be retained or contracted with the new Liberty Vote organization? What about John Polous, the founding President and CEO of Dominion Voting Systems, a company he co-founded in 2002 with James Hoover in Toronto, Canada?
- What will happen to the remaining DMS lawsuits pertaining to the 2020 elections? Will they be dropped or settled?
- What steps will Liberty Vote take to bring every machine into compliance with the President’s Executive Order 14248 dated March 23, 2025? When will detailed plans be made public?
- How quickly will the software development personnel, systems and testing be transferred from abroad to the United States? Will any of the foreign software developers be moving to the United States?
- Will Liberty Vote bring all manufacturing to the Unites States with 100% US made components? Are agreements in place with US manufacturers today? Will the new hardware be available in time for the 2026 mid-terms?
- Will the current software, Dominion Democracy Suite 5, be de-commissioned and replaced? Or are there plans to re-certify the existing software stack? …in time for the 2026 elections?
- Will the “new and improved” software be open-source and available to the public? Same for the executable software? …in time for the 2026 elections?
- How will Liberty Vote meet the federal infrastructure requirements for future voting systems? Will this include strict federal cyber security standards.
- How will Liberty Vote prove to the public that future voting systems are not accessed wirelessly or via internet connections?
- Will the current KnowInk PollPad functionality also move to paper-based voter registration check-in, including no internet or wireless connections during elections? How will this be accomplished?
- How do you fix the recently discovered issue about illegitimate certification of existing DMS systems that expose encryption keys in plain text for all to use (and abuse)?
- How do we know the systems upgrades and changes will happen by the 2026 mid-terms? The Liberty Vote press release states that we want fair, secure and honest elections. However, we also want accurate results and processes that are observable.
Cleta Mitchell, founder of the Election Integrity Network, pointed out many similar concerns in her X post yesterday.
She asks the Liberty Vote to “work with election integrity patriots to create manual, replicable, auditable systems to confirm accuracy and honest counting of votes by its machines. “
Cleta adds that Liberty Vote should “show us the books and ownership structure of the company all the way up the food chain: 100% transparency.”
The complexity of our elections
Our elections operations have grown in complexity and costs ever since computer systems and automation have been introduced.
Nevada now has multiple voting methods: in-person, early vote, and universal mail in ballots. Each of these require separate systems, operations and reporting, putting a great burden on election administrators.
Nevadans are allowed to “harvest” mail ballots, leading to surges in mail ballots coming in by the thousands after Election Day.
Case in point: in Clark County, during the 2024 general election, almost 19% of ALL mail ballots were processed after Election Day! That’s 84,350.
Automatic DMV voter registration continues throughout the elections. How are these people vetted? Can we be assured that they are eligible residents and US Citizens?
Same Day Registration adds great administrative strain during the elections.
Case in point: in Clark County, during the 2024 general election, about 18,400 provisional votes were processed and counted. These need verification after the votes are cast, adding more time to providing timely results.
Then there are the missing or erroneous mail ballot signatures that need to be validated, adding more days before final results are announced.
How do we simplify our elections?
It seems that we have opted for more complexity and reliance on the election system vendors.
When you think what we are trying to do it is really quite simple:
- a person casts their vote in person,
- the vote gets tallied at the local level,
- optionally use non-internet connected paper ballot counting devices
- the local totals are summarized, certified and publicized,
- totals are sent in for aggregation at the county and state level
- final results are announced on election night
In Clark County there are about 800 precincts.
If we tallied votes at the local (precinct) level, then summarized the totals and sent them in via aggregated spreadsheets, visible to the public, we would achieve quite a simple solution:
- No proprietary software or certification is needed
- Data fits in memory on any modern Personal Computer
- Millions of spreadsheet-literate users can audit results, insuring accuracy
- Total transparency fosters public trust
In summary
There are many more questions than answers at this time.
Historically, elections personnel are heavily dependent on the vendors for their systems knowledge. It’s unlikely that this will change with Liberty Vote.
Actually, we could argue that the merging of these systems will probably make the vendor dependence greater. It also centralizes most of the elections processing under one vendor.
And will Liberty Vote have the support infrastructure to handle this?
Imagine how Liberty Vote will implement these new systems in 40 states each with many hundreds of locations throughout our country….all in time for the 2026 general election.
They even state in the Liberty Vote announcement that “While these changes will not happen overnight, Liberty Vote’s mission is rooted in American values and committed to transparency, independent audits, and verifiable paper records.”
Unfortunately, Nevada has only 8 months before the primary elections will be upon us.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views.
