December 1, 2019

Barbara Simons, Chair

Verified Voting Board of Directors

Dear Barbara,

It is with profound regret that I resign from the VV Board of Advisors. When you invited me to join the
board shortly after the 2016 elections, I agreed for three reasons. First, Verified Voting’s promise to
promote policy positions that “are based on scientific evidence and understood best practices in
election administration” offered hope in addressing a decade or more of willful neglect of those
principles in Georgia. Second, I thought that lending my name to the organization would help in the fight
to eliminate vulnerable, unauditable voting machines in Georgia and nationwide. Third, I understood
that my voice would be joined with the voices of respected colleagues to be sought out, valued, and
debated by the organization’s leadership.

However, it soon became apparent that Verified Voting’s policy positions were unpredictable,
contradictory, and not aligned with the values I once believed we shared. On more than one occasion,
Verified Voting has taken contradictory public stances in the span of a few days, undercutting allies and
supporters. The pattern of espousing new positions and making public statements that take local VV
stakeholders by surprise is nothing new. Rather than seeking out advice, Verified Voting has gone to
great lengths to avoid it. I have tried over the last two years to engage in dialog, but you, Marian, and
her team have been unwilling to have face to face conversations, even when we are in the same city and
sometimes the same building. These apparent disconnects have been seized upon and exploited in
Georgia and other states to weaken, not enhance, the cause of accurate and verifiable elections.

Although my concerns have been growing for some time now, Verified Voting’s involvement in a “pilot
RLA” in Georgia following the recent election makes it impossible to continue as a member of the
advisory board. VV issued and supported misleading public statements that those pilots confirm
outcomes and even prove the security of new election systems. Verified Voting’s seal of approval for
the security theatrics in Bartow County undermines efforts to make elections more accountable. This
exercise conducted behind closed doors and billed as a practice run—even if flawlessly conducted—
could only confirm the correctness of the tally of the unverified (and therefore possibly corrupted)
ballots, not that the ballots tallied were correctly marked. No audit based on an untrustworthy audit
trail can confirm the correctness of the outcome. Billing such an exercise as an RLA and touting it as a
proof of security plays into the hands of cynics. Whatever benefits accrue from this practice, it does not
help public understanding to aid election officials in misstating the results. A similar false claim was
made in Pennsylvania the following week. Verified Voting subsequently tweeted a weak repudiation of
the incorrect Pennsylvania claim, but let stand an identical incorrect assertion in Georgia. That
unrefuted statement will surely be a factor in future litigation.

Most recently, Marian’s essay, posted on verifiedvoting.org shortly after Philip Stark’s November 22
resignation from the board, doubled down on these and other expanded claims. It is a short essay, but I
count at least nine distinct contradictions of prior Verified Voting statements and published positions. In
light of this, the promise to pursue policy positions based on scientific evidence and best practices rings
hollow.
Barbara Simons Page 2 December 1, 2019

I can no longer lend my name to Verified Voting. Some, including anti-transparency activists, conflicted
supporters of ballot marking devices, politicians trying to silence and intimidate critics, and opponents of
evidence-based policy, have already mischaracterized the mainly technical debates within the election
integrity community. If they are successful at confusing the public about the correctness of election
outcomes in Georgia and elsewhere, I fear it will be in some measure due to the absence of values once
embraced by Verified Voting.

Respectfully,

Richard DeMillo

Charlotte B. and Roger C. Warren Professor of Computing and

Executive Director of the Center for 21st Century Universities
Georgia Tech

Atlanta, GA