Page 3 - Paper Backup News Today

One of the things were learning is its always good, its old-fashioned but its always good to have a paper backup system of voting. its called paper. not highly complex computers, paper. a lot of states are doing that. going to a paper backup. and i think thats a great idea. were studying it closely. various agencies, including homeland security, are studying it carefully. >> but are you worried about russians frying to meddle in -- trying to immediate until the mid-term elections? >> president t...

Security analyst and a senior fellow at the policy institute and a former fbi agent, as well. mr. watts, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you. >> let me start with the basics here. about a year ago you were on this show. we talked about the russian interference and you sort of talked about things that needed to be done. has anything been done to protect future elections? >> no. theyve worked on the critical infrastructure designation, but the number one thing we got to do is ensure the...

That voting tallies had been changed in one or the other of the states. it would have really been a blow to our democratic process. >> all right. wou with some of the states so close like pennsylvania as one of them, it actually seems to me important, whether we knew of the russian meddling in our election, when we knew it. did we know it last fall? last summer? and what efforts were taken? because, you know, that makes a difference to me or did we just learn recently? did we just figure it out ...

If they were into our system and attempting to make technical changes so that they could change votes, that would be, i think, something that we ought to react strongly against. but i cant see in what the fbi says, anyway, that there is any evidence that that is what happened. it could happen in circumstances in which we are having a recount, and for a quarter of the voting machines in the country, they use only touch screens. and they dont have paper backup. we should have learned back in 200...

Slim. talk about why in particular pennsylvania represents more of an uphill climb for jill stein. >> one of the challenges with pennsylvania, and you have to look at each state as its own case. what are the machines like, whats the process like. some described pennsylvania and a recount possibility as a nightmare scenario. they use a lot of machines described as electronic machines that are very old that dont have a paper backup. so that creates a set of processes that have to go forward for ho...

Paper ballots substituted for them. we understand an actual lawsuit is going to be filed by donald trump and the republican party to take those machines out of action for the rest of the day and to substitute that with paper ballots. now, whether or not that happens and whether or not that will have an effect when the finally tallies are done, remains to be seen. i can tell you pennsylvania isnt sensitive just because its one of the swing states, its sensitive because two-thirds of the voting ma...

Moment in the count in pennsylvania. >> were talking about automated machines? a computerized program? >> were talking about touchscreen machines where you go to touch -- the candidate your voting for, without paper backup, you touch and it lights up for your candidate. multiple voters saying when they touched donald trump, hillary clintons light is still light. as i say, thats -- now, these machines are known for this problem. one of the things, you have to -- theres a stylus and your finger. y...

>> thats why he hates "the new york times," they pay attention. >> were talking about election vulnerability, hacking, the best way to guard against hacking, have a paper backup of your vote. 80 will have that. 20% of those wont. some of those 20% are in pennsylvania and virginia. >> when we walk out we have a piece of paper that -- >> theres a piece of paper that remains there, 80% its a backup if the results look questionable. >> you dont want anybody walking away with saying how they voted. t...

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