Writer Says Letter Was Off Base

Dear Editor,

I am responding to the letter by David W. Waters entitled, “Folly of Electronic Voting Software” published in the 2 November edition of The Paper of Montgomery County.

Mr. Waters uses the arrest of Eugene Yu, the CEO of Konnech that produces PollChief software, as an example of why election software can’t be trusted.  PollChief software is not used for registering, tabulating or reporting votes – it is a platform used to manage poll worker assignments, communications, payroll and to manage polling asset and inventory tracking. Mr. Yu was arrested last month on suspicion of theft, allegedly using Konnech software to steal the personal identifying information of thousands of poll workers stored on PollChief computer servers, at least one of which resides in China.

The author states that the purpose of PollChief software is irrelevant – that “all software is vulnerable.” This is a logical fallacy of composition – inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that is it true from some part of the whole. I can only surmise that his intent, by using this specific example, may be to cast doubt on the integrity of recent and upcoming elections, i.e. to perpetuate the “Big Lie.”

I rely on our legal system to require claims of election fraud to be proven in a court of law by attorneys willing to put their law licenses on the line by presenting actual evidence, not inuendo or opinion. I trust that the resounding loss of at least 63 court cases calling into question the validity of the 2020 presidential election, heard by judges across the spectrum, puts to bed the notion of massive fraud. But surely, all 63 judges were in collusion, even those appointed by our former president!

I am not a cybersecurity expert, but I rely on those who are, and who serve our country daily doing their utmost to keep our elections secure. I would recommend everyone take the time to read the document on election security (and read the embedded links) that is regularly updated by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at bit.ly/3DCtHQD. I would also recommend the Brennan Center’s resource on Election Security at bit.ly/3h2c7xD.

John Roberts

Crawfordsville