Debunking the Myth of Secure Elections in Idaho

The Twelve Flawed "Principles of Idaho Elections"

Prior to the 2024 Election, Idaho’s secretary of state distributed a flyer to all registered voters to assure them that voting in Idaho was “Easy”, “Secure” and “Accurate”. The flyer outlined Twelve Principles that “ensure the accessibility, integrity, and security of Idaho’s elections”.

The problem with these principles is that they are misleading. Many state “partial truths” that intentionly obscure known problems with Idaho elections, or mislead by omission, but there is compelling evidence that Idaho elections are known to be vulnerable to fraud in numerous ways. As early as 2021 Dr. Douglas Frank proved that computerized algorithms were being used to corrupt Idaho voter rolls, and insert fraudulent ballots. Since that time citizens have brought proof of corrupt voter rolls, absentee ballot fraud, and even tabulator fraud to the attention of authorities, and their concerns have been dismissed. These are serious problems, that should be acknowledged, and corrected, not papered over.

It is understandable that political leaders who are charged with securing fair elections want Idaho voters to believe that their elections are honest and safe. But instead of investigating credible charges of fraud, or working to resolve known vulnerabilities, they claim that proven problems don't exist, and that voters have nothing to worry about.

We have reviewed the twelve principles of Idaho Elections, and can show that in many cases they state half-truths intended to provide false confidence to voters. And in other cases they omit the mention of critical weaknesses entirely.

Lets walk through each of these misleading claims of accuracy and security in Idaho elections, and see the full truth of the matter.

Idaho Elections are Not Secure

4) Voter ID is Required—It is true that presentation of official Photo-ID is required" to register to vote in person. But Idaho allows for both electronic voter registration and mail-in registration. And it is impossible to present a valid photo-ID to an election official when there is no need to appear in person.

What is used in lieu of photo-ID, in these cases, is knowledge of a valid Idaho driver’s license number or social security number. But it is not difficult for fraudsters to obtain DL numbers, and if they do they can register online and immediately request an absentee ballot, without ever appearing before an election official. This serious loophole is discussed in the article Electronic Registration Opens the Door to Fraud.

But does this really happen? Yes it does. As of March 2024, at least seven percent of voters in Kootenai County, who have registered since 2020 have ONLY voted by absentee ballot, NEVER in person.

5) Voter Roll Cleanup—It is true that proprietary software is used to "systematically" verify voter rolls. Unfortunately the approach SOS office takes to validate voter rolls is entirely flawed. First because it provides for continuous mass data collection on every Idaho voter, and secondly, because the statue (HB 339) has major loopholes that allow for continued fraudulent registrations. (These problems are discussed in the article Data Collection Disguised as Election Integrity).

The primary reason that the "systematic validation" provided for by HB 339 entirely fails to produce clean voter rolls is that verification of all registered voters is done at one time, 90 days before the election. But that means new voters who register in the three months prior to elections—that is, almost all new electors—are able to vote at least once before potential problems are detected. And even if fraudulent registrations are removed from the rolls the following year, nothing prevents bad actors from from re-registering before the next election.

Idaho’s computerized approach to both online registration and "systematic" voter roll cleanup is extremely problematic. The only way to maintain valid voter rolls is to eliminate electronic registration altogether, and thoroughly verify all mail-in and in-person registrations before they are included in the official rolls.

8) No Internet Connection—It is true, but meaningless to claim that that Idaho’s tabulation machines have "No Internet connection". What people want to be assured of is that no wireless communication with tabulators is possible. But any electronic device with a wireless card, or a USB wi-fi adaptor can communicate wirelessly with any other computer in close proximity, using an alternative wireless protocol, such as Bluetooth. So it is almost certain that Idaho tabulators can, in fact, communicate wirelessly with laptops or pollbooks in the same location.

To say a device has "no internet connection" only means it does not have an internet IP address, and cannot communicate directly with a remote computer in Boise or Beijing. But since most tabulators operate in close proximity to electronic pollbooks, and all of Idaho's e-pollbooks are connected to the internet, this means Idaho tabulators could in fact, be controlled by the same centralized Election Management software that manages Idaho pollbooks.

Idaho Elections are NOT Accurate

9) Certified by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission—Idaho tabulators were certified by the U.S. EAC under obsolete VVSG 1.0 stuandards. But the certification process only confirms that a tabulator is capable of counting votes accurately. It does not and cannot guarantee the security of the system, and it does not make any claim that the machine cannot be hacked.

Furthermore, the certification comes with a long list of disclaimers that explicitly state that the product is not “endorsed by the U.S. Government and no warranty . . . is either expressed or implied.”

The first version of EAC standards for security was so notoriously weak, they were improved in 2021. But none of Idaho's tabulators currently meets the VVSG 2.0 standards and no standards for testing Idaho's electronic pollbooks have even been devised.

No Access to Physical Ballots is given, even after many years—Idaho statutes require that physical ballots be kept for at least two years after an election. After that time the County Clerk can order that they be destroyed. But even after they are "obsolete" regular citizens cannot have access to them.

Concerned citizens who want access to "obsolete" ballots to practice hand-counting technique have requested access to them from five different Idaho County Clerks. But in all cases these requests were denied. It is the position of the Secretary of State's office, that releasing the physical ballots to citizens, no matter how long after an election occurs, could impugn the integrity Idaho's system of elections. Why is this?

12) Recounts are NOT Hand Counted—According to Idaho statutes, all races that were originally counted on an electronic tabulator must be recounted on the same tabulator.

It is true that up to 5% of ballots may be hand-counted and compared to a machine count of the same ballots. But unless the sample hand-count varies by half a percent or more from the machine count, the rest of the ballots MUST be tabulated by machine.

This explains why so few candidates request recounts, and why recounts virtually always verify the initial result . By law, Idaho elections must be recounted in exactly the same way the initial results were calculated, and even candidates who pay $100 per precinct for a recount are not given free access to review the physical ballots.

10) Public Logic and Accuracy Tests—“Logic and Accuracy” tests are done in advance of each election, but they are extremely simple, and only verify that each candidate and issue on the ballot is capable of being read and recorded successfully. L& A tests assure basic functionality, and make sure the current election was "programmed" correctly, but they do nothing to assure accuracy beyond making sure the machine can recognize and record votes for each candidate.

11) Post Election Audits—The post-election audits that Idaho does after each election are very limited. Only a few precincts in a few counties are selected to be audited, and only one race per county is considered. In some cases, early and absentee votes are not included in the audit, and in most cases, no case are more than 5% of precincts are hand-counted.

Even worse, the counties and issues to be audited are selected randomly. And since Idaho is a state where only a small percentage of races are usually competitive, races selected “randomly” are highly unlikely to fraudulent. the only place where fraud is likely to occur is in these competitive races.

Evidence of Fraud is Ignored

Credible evidence of fraud in numerous Idaho elections has been routinely dismissed by election authorities. The current Secretary of State stated during the 2022 campaign that he believed that no fraud occurred in Idaho during the 2020 election, even though Dr. Douglas Frank provided clear evidence that both voter rolls and ballots counted had been manipulated by .