11-23-20 it appears the bulk—if not all—of the testing of the election equipment is conducted by only two companies, Pro V&V and SLI Compliance. Electronic voting systems have become increasingly incorporated into the election process, raising concerns over their security, reliability, and accuracy in the process….
after enjoying a 10-year career at Dominion,
In May 2019 just as the agency was preparing for the 2020 election it announced the departure of Ryan Macias, who had served as EAC’s acting director of testing and certification. Macias’s position was an important one—he was responsible for managing EAC’s program that “works with the country’s top voting equipment vendors to certify and decertify voting system hardware and software, and accredits labs for testing equipment,” according to the website CyberScoop. Additionally, Macias had been overseeing an “important update to voting system security guidelines.”
On May 9, 2019, the EAC announced that they had selected Jerome Lovato, who had worked at the EAC since September 2017, to replace Macias. That question was answered on May 21, 2019, with the announcement that the EAC was adding two individuals to its voting certification program--Bowers, recently the director of certification for Dominion and a 10-year veteran with the firm, and Paul Aumayr, a former Maryland election official. An article describing the new hires noted “It was not immediately clear how the EAC might mitigate any potential conflicts of interest that could arise with hiring Bowers, the former director of certification at Dominion Voting Systems, onto the EAC program.”
The EAC website describes Bowers as managing “voting system testing and certification projects as well as assisting the development of new Voluntary Voting System Guidelines” but fails to disclose any direct mention of her role at Dominion Voting Systems. “Prior to joining the EAC, she was the Director of Certification for a voting system manufacturer and has worked in the election industry in software development and certification since 2008,” the website states.
Under EAC staff members, Bowers is listed as acting CIO/CISO, while Aumayr is listed as senior election technology specialist. Despite the important role the EAC plays in election integrity, they list only a total of 23 staff members, five executives (of which Lovato is one), and four commissioners. The EAC does have a large board of advisers comprised of 37 individuals. Both Bowers and Aumayr appear to have hit the ground running as a July 9, 2019, update from the EAC Testing and Certification blog lists Aumayr as the project manager for Dominion Voting Systems’ “Democracy Suite 5.5B” and Clear Ballot’s “ClearVote 2.0” while Bowers is listed as the project manager for Election Systems & Software’s (ES&S) “EVS 6.1.0.0” and Unisyn Voting Solutions’ “OpenElect 2.1.”
All four of these companies are members of CISA’s Sector Coordinating Council, one of two councils that issued a recent Nov. 12 joint statement on the election, claiming it was the “most secure in American history.” On the EAC website there are seven voting system test laboratories (VSTL) listed. However only two of these testing labs, Pro V&V and SLI Compliance, are listed on the page as accredited, as the others are listed as having their accreditation expired. From early 2017 on, these two companies are the only testing labs to have provided voting system certification, according to a listing of certifications by the EAC.
For one of the two companies used, Pro V&V, the EAC fails to publicly provide the accreditation certificate on its website, instead linking to a page giving a “page could not be found” warning. The latest certificate listed for Pro V&V on the company’s profile overview on the EAC website has an issue date of Feb. 24, 2015, and is effective through Feb. 24, 2017. It’s unclear if the company’s accreditation is truly expired or if the fault lies with the EAC website.
Despite being responsible for the testing and data used in the certification of entire voting systems, including that of Dominion’s recently certified “Democracy Suite (D-Suite) 5.5-C Voting System (Pro V&V Test Report, June 16),” while simultaneously providing system testing across the nation, Pro V&V has only a single office listed, located in a business suite, that’s supported by a surprisingly crude and sparse website.
The website description of Pro V&V’s facilities omits the “Suite” portion of their address while claiming their “office and laboratory layouts allow ample space for test equipment, software, and hardware used in the testing process.” Their site also claims they have the option of expanding into additional space within the same complex. Pro V&V, like Dominion Voting and Smartmatic, is a member of CISA’s Sector Coordinating Council, the same council that recently issued the joint statement on the 2020 presidential election. The other primary testing lab, SLI Compliance, also is a member of the same council.
In response to recent allegations of potential problems with the integrity of Dominion’s voting machines used in the Nov. 3 election, Pro V&V has been cited repeatedly as an authority in denying these allegations, including the recount in Georgia….The statement was widely cited by media organizations and others as evidence that claims of problems with voting machines in Georgia were meritless. A closer examination of the statement however indicates that the only thing Pro V&V did was extract “the software or firmware from the components to check that the only software or firmware on the components was certified for use by the Secretary of State’s office.”
The headline of the release appears to have been more important than the scope of the actual functions performed by Pro V&V….
In an Aug. 24 sworn declaration, Harri Hursti, an acknowledged expert on electronic voting security, provided a firsthand description of problems he observed with Georgia’s new voting systems during the June 9 statewide primary election and the runoff elections on Aug. 11. Hursti told the court of a series of problems, including the fact that “the scanner and tabulation software settings being employed to determine which votes to count on hand-marked paper ballots are likely causing clearly intentioned votes not to be counted.” Hursti also said that “the voting system is being operated in Fulton County in a manner that escalates the security risk to an extreme level,” and that “voters are not reviewing their BMD [Ballot Marking Devices] printed ballots, which causes BMD-generated results to be un-auditable due to the untrustworthy audit trail.”…
only three employees of Pro V&V--Jack Cobb, Michael Walker and Wendy Owens--have been located in reviewed documents. It was Owens and Walker who performed the Nov. 26, 2019, testing for the certification of Dominion Voting Systems Democracy Suite 5.5-A and it was these same two individuals who provided the April 13 and June 16 testing of Dominion’s Democracy Suite 5.5-C. Additionally, Pro V&V and Dominion are both members of the same CISA council.
Indeed on Oct. 2 a letter from Wendy Owens of Pro V&V was sent, confirming “that this version of the ICX software corrected the issue with displaying of two column contests.” The letter concluded with a recommendation from Pro V&V that the software change to Dominion’s systems be “deemed as de minimis.”
On Oct. 3 a declaration from Dr. J. Alex Halderman was filed that refuted the procedures of Pro V&V’s testing, noting that the “report makes clear that Pro V&V performed only cursory testing of this new software. The company did not attempt to independently verify the cause of the ballot display problem, nor did it adequately verify that the changes are an effective solution. Pro V&V also appears to have made no effort to test whether the changes create new problems that impact the reliability, accuracy or security of the BMD system.”
On Oct. 11, Judge Amy Totenberg issued a ruling (pdf) in the case, noting that “despite the profound issues raised by the Plaintiffs, the Court cannot jump off the legal edge and potentially trigger major disruption in the legally established state primary process.” Although Totenberg ruled to allow the Dominion system to be used in the Nov. 3 election, she voiced real concerns, stating the “risks are neither hypothetical nor remote.” She also noted that Cobb, the director of Pro V&V, “plainly indicated that he actually claims no specialized knowledge or background in cybersecurity engineering and did not himself perform any security risk analysis of the BMD [Ballot Marking Device] system.” https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LMFMkmkDS0sJ:https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/the-small-world-of-voting-machine-certification_3587972.html+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
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jack.cobb@provandv.com
- Phone Number
256-713-1111
Pro V&V is a software and systems third party test laboratory. Our current staff has over 30 years test experience in multiple industries. We specialize in providing compliance testing services for regulated industries. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/pro-v-v
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Name | Title | Board Seat | Contact Info |
Ryan Cobb | President, Board Member and Laboratory Director |
To view Pro V&V’s complete executive team members history, request access »
Pro V&V Board Members (1)
Name | Representing | Role | Since |
Diane Gray | Board Member | 000 0000 |
https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/88623-64#overview
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