Evansville Courier and Press from Evansville, Indiana • A3

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Give us a call today, and the perfect plan for you. Insurance products are not insured by the FDIC or any federal government agency, provide no bank guarantee and are not a deposit. IN (270) 827-3543 Henderson Evansville EC-EHG0003730-02 BURNING LEGS? Today 812.490.VEINwww.evansvilleveins.comCall paper, are the method of voting on election day. instructed by the clerk to do everything we can to ensure that somebody gets to Gibbs said. were never instructed to say, got to use the electronic machine or you why you have the provisional ballots.

bigger responsibility is to help ensure some- body gets to But Hayden pointed out, and Gibbs acknowledged, that provisional ballots are permissible under seven criteria in law and a refusal to use a machine one of them. The seven criteria names not appearing on poll lists and voters failing to produce among them involve questions about voter eligibil- ity that are adjudicated later by elections Vot- ers without ID are given 10 days to produce it. There is an eighth category called with a line that can be in, but the state encourages poll workers to use it in instances such as when a court or- der extends the hours that polls are open and voters cast ballots during that period. The Indiana Election 2019 Election Ad- Manual is clear. a provisional ballot or a regular ballot is issued to a voter depends upon whether the name does or does not appear on the poll list, and depends on whether the voter has been chal- lenged as not eligible to vote in the it states.

Hayden, a member of the state clerks legislative committee, said she will approach local leg- islators. not enough, she said, that a refusal to use machines among the seven criteria for issu- ing provisional ballots. need she said. Suspicious minds Gibbs and local elections said they remember the last time someone refused to cast his ballot on a machine but former Mayor Russ Lloyd Jr. soon forget the day it happened while he was a poll worker at Caze Elementary School.

It was the countywide 2016 primary election. A vot- er demanded a paper ballot, Lloyd said, then stormed out when he was a provisional ballot. gentleman said it was his constitutional right to cast a paper ballot, and he trust the machines that were Lloyd said. was probably with him about 45 minutes because the election board kind of went back and forth. They said a voter does not really have the option of doing a provisional ballot, but they were going to do it for him as a courtesy because this guy was causing so much But the voter questioned whether his sealed provi- sional ballot really would be counted.

guy was kind of a conspiracy theorist, and he said, trust Lloyd said. though a provisional ballot is sealed once the voter makes his choices, and not opened until the election board opens them, he said, somebody can just open which is not A suspicious voter can plenty of past election mishaps to feed those suspicions, many involving hu- man error. In 2015, 379 ballots from Fifth Ward were not included in city election results be- cause they were inadvertently left in a storage drawer. It was enough ballots to a close race for city clerk, but no election results changed when the lost votes were found and counted. More than 3,700 absentee ballots cast in-person in Warrick County for in 2012 counted due to an error by an electronic voting machine technician.

War- rick County said Indianapolis-based Micro- Vote, which serviced the machines, found that one of its electronic technicians incorrectly uploaded votes cast early at the Warrick County Elec- tion The technician reportedly used a micro- chip card-reader that have the storage capacity to hold the total number of early votes cast. Election Systems Software the compa- ny that manufactured Vanderburgh roughly 500 voting machines acknowledged in a letter last year to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden that it installed potential- ly hackable remote-access software on election-man- agement systems a small number of customers be- tween 2000 and The company said it stopped selling those machines in 2007 and none are still in use. Assurances responded to a request for comment by send- ing a security product bulletin about the machines Vanderburgh County uses.

devices do not contain software that can be altered. Each device contains which is password protected, by a release number and by federal and state it states. Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson has said repeatedly that none of the electronic voting machines are ever connected to the internet. the recommendation of (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security), Indiana installed highly sensi- tive intrusion detection sensors known as ALBERT sensors to monitor internet accessing web- sites and Lawson wrote in an op-ed for the Indianapolis Star last year.

systems the same technology the federal government uses to de- fend their own networks have responded extremely well to testing and have revealed no attacks on Indi- voter Looking ahead But there are concerns. In a letter sent in July to the U.S. Election Assis- tance Commission, Wyden decried a cyber- security crisis created by states using out-of-date soft- ware to administer elections, leaving our democracy needlessly vulnerable to Indiana was one of states to receive a grade of in an election security assessment the Center for American Progress released in February 2018. The main issue: Not all counties had paper-ballot backups for their electronic voting machines. The state has since received more than $7 million in federal funds to secure its machinery.

Hayden said Vanderburgh County got about $15,525, which it used to provide security cameras where election equipment is stored and a badge access mechanism for the equip- ment. The state has required all counties to transition to paper trail voting machines by 2029. Voters could still use touch screen machines but would then receive a paper receipt that they would verify. It would be scanned and counted and placed in a secure lockbox. The paper ballot could be helpful in the event of recounts.

In the meantime, Vanderburgh County voters who demand paper ballots in lieu of machines at polling places have few options fewer still if Hayden is suc- cessful. Lloyd pointed to the authority of county govern- executive governing body over the matter. ultimate remedy for the guy who wants a pa- per ballot would be to run for county commissioner, be elected and then work with the commissioners to get them to change the voting method. Or go to the com- missioners and make your case to he said. Vote Continued from Page 1A Voters Katie Stahl, left, and Scott Hayes, right, cast their ballots at St.

James United Methodist Church on Nov. 5. MACABE BROWN COURIER PRESS WASHINGTON Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday the top for allegedly pro- posing a deal with the White House behind back to resolve the matter of a Navy SEAL whose case has been championed by President Donald Trump. At request, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer submitted his resignation Sunday, said the chief spokesman for the Pentagon, Jonathan The was a dramatic turn in a fast-changing and politically charged controversy involving Navy Chief Petty Edward Gallagher. On Wednesday the Navy had Gallagher that he would face a Navy SEAL review board to determine if he should be allowed to remain in the elite force.

Gallagher was acquitted of a murder charge in the stabbing death of an Islamic State militant captive, but a military jury convicted him of posing with the corpse while in Iraq in 2017. He was demoted from chief petty to a 1st class petty Trump this month restored rank. In a statement issued by Esper said he had lost and in Spencer after learn- ing that the Navy secretary had proposed to the White House to allow Gallagher to retire in his current rank and without losing his sta- tus as a SEAL. Esper said that in previ- ous conversations with Spencer about the Gallagher matter, Spencer had not told Esper of his proposal to the White House. Esper faulted Spencer for a of on the matter.

A spokesperson for Spencer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Esper on Sunday directed that Gallagher be allowed to retire at the end of this month, and that the Navy review board that was scheduled to hear his case start- ing Dec. 2 be cancelled, said. At direc- tion, Gallagher will be allowed to retire as a SEAL at his current rank, said. He said Esper had con- cluded that Gallagher could not, under the circum- stances, receive a fair shake from the Navy, and thus should be allowed to retire.

In the written statement, Esper said of Spencer: am deeply troubled by this conduct shown by a senior DOD Unfortunately, as a result I have deter- mined that Secretary Spencer no longer has my dence to continue in his position. I wish Richard Pentagon chief Navy secretary over SEAL case Robert Burns ASSOCIATED PRESS Navy Secretary Richard Spencer submitted his resignation Sunday at the demand of Defense Secretary Mark Esper. EPA-EFE Gallagher.