Peter LaBarbera wrote in a June 19 WorldNetDaily article:
A newly released, 96-page report by a computer expert in election security has found that one model of Dominion voting machines widely used in the 2020 election “suffers from critical vulnerabilities that can be exploited to subvert all of its security mechanisms.”
In the unsealed July 1, 2021 report, University of Michigan computer science professor Alex Halderman, with the help of Prof. Drew Springall, conducts a “security analysis” of Dominion Voting System’s “ballot marking devices,” or BMDs, in particular, the corporation’s “ImageCast X (ICX) BMD.”
The unsealing of the “Halderman Report” by a federal judge is part of a long-running case brought by citizens attempting to block Georgia from using the Dominion machines. Halderman’s deep analysis has led many of the same media who belittled Donald Trump and conservatives who claimed vote fraud in 2020 to switch their attention back to the potential for hacking in Dominion Voting System’s voting machines.
“Expert report fuels election doubts as Georgia waits to update voting software: A newly unsealed expert report arguing that Georgia’s Dominion voting machines are vulnerable to hacking is fueling election doubts in Georgia,” reads a headline in an NBC News story published Friday.
Noting that Dominion – which recently reached a $787 million settlement with Fox News over what it said were erroneous claims by Fox hosts about its voting machines – has downplayed the potential for hacking into its devices, NBC reported: “But federal authorities have identified the same vulnerabilities, and more than 20 cybersecurity experts rushed to defend Halderman’s report this week.”
LaBarbera quoted heavily from the NBC article — but not the part in which other experts pointed out the unlikelihood of those vulnerabilities being successfully exploited:
A second report, also unsealed by the judge, was authored by national security nonprofit MITRE. That group argued the hacks identified by Halderman were “operationally infeasible” based on normal voting practices, scale considerations, and adherence to strict security measures.
It’s a view shared by Georgia officials, who included the MITRE report in a press release that criticized Halderman’s report.
“The Halderman report was the result of a computer scientist having complete access to the Dominion equipment and software for three months in a laboratory environment. It identified risks that are theoretical and imaginary. Our security measures are real and mitigate all of them,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote in a letter to state lawmakers, which Raffensperger’s office shared with NBC News.
He continued: “Is it possible for a team of bad actors to break into Georgia’s 2,700 voting precincts, install malware that changes election outcomes on 35,000 pieces of equipment, and sneak back out — all the while being undetected and leaving no trace? I’ll put it this way: It’s more likely that I could win the lottery without buying a ticket.”
Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for Raffensperger’s office, said Friday that responding to this report all day felt like he was “stuck in a Dumb and Dumber paradox,” referencing a character’s response to a one in a million likelihood: “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
The NBC article also added: “There is no evidence that hackers have attempted to exploit any of the identified vulnerabilities, or that any such hack has occurred in previous elections.” LaBarbera ignored that too; instead, he resorted to the usual WND dodge when promoting dubious claims — hyping the person’s claimed qualifications. Indeed, the last two paragraphs of LaBarbera’s article is simply a copy-and-paste of Halderman stating his own qualifications, as well as a link to his curriculum vitae.