With votes counted in cyberspace, election theft is easy and democracy itself in danger. CODE RED takes you behind the headlines and shows why it is perilous to accept the official results of many of our elections, including the Trump victory now being challenged. CODE RED will help you understand how and why citizens who value democracy are working to investigate and expose electoral cybercrime. “Jonathan Simon’s CODE RED is unique, easy-to-understand, and vastly important.” - Andrew Kreig, Justice Integrity Project
“As a professional statistician, I found CODE RED’s data, analysis, and conclusions compelling.” - Dr. Elizabeth Clarkson, Wichita State University
“Jonathan Simon’s research is thorough and his case is more than compelling … He has provided an important public service.” - John Zogby, founder of The Zogby Poll
CODE RED is about what has happened to American elections, American politics, and America since computers took over the vote counting just a few short years ago. The new Election 2016 Edition brings the troubling story up to date, provides more data and analysis, and issues a specific action plan for opening up the darkness of vote-counting cyberspace and restoring an observable counting process to American elections.
CODE RED identifies the red flags--including the glaring ones waving over the 2014 election and the 2016 primaries--and provides accessible examinations of why those flags are red It is a disturbing and provocative call to action. It is about saving our democracy and our country. Now, before it's all gone.
Free and fair elections are the bedrock of a democracy. America, which considers itself the beacon of democracy, has turned to computerized counting for virtually all of its public elections. But trusting our democracy to a concealed, computerized vote counting system is like building a house on quicksand. Several other advanced democracies—including Germany, The Netherlands, and Ireland—have moved away from the computerized tabulation they initially embraced, having recognized the manifest security risks it entails. But America has continued to entrust its elections to privatized and concealed vote counting despite mounting and voluminous evidence that the vulnerabilities to manipulation are not merely hypothetical but are actually being exploited, with profound political consequences.
CODE RED shows how America has come to adopt and embrace such a system and why America is so collectively resistant to any serious reconsideration of its safety and appropriateness. We examine the role of election administrators, politicians, and the media in stifling investigation of the validity of suspect American elections and, more generally, of the safety and rationality of a system proven by experts to be easily corrupted. We also examine the nexus between computerized elections and the veer of American politics over the past few years since the computers took over the counting.
Finally, CODE RED urges possible ways out of this mess, and evaluates the prospects for reform. The conclusion is that time is running short for a political (i.e., non-revolutionary) resolution, and that restoration of electoral legitimacy and political balance will depend on an exercise of public will not witnessed in America within living memory.
CODE RED combines analysis and advocacy and concludes with a powerful call to action: "We need only to break a spell that has been cast on us--a spell of convenience, passivity, helplessness. We need only remember that democracy is not something that we watch, it is something that we do."
Dr. Simon's expertise in polling and statistical analysis derives from his former employment as a political survey research analyst in Washington, DC. He has also authored, both individually and in collaboration, numerous papers related to various aspects of election integrity. He has been active in election integrity efforts since 2001, appearing in several election integrity-related films and as an interviewee on several dozen live programs.
Dr. Simon is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law. He is admitted to the Bar of Massachusetts and holds membership in the legal honor society Order of the Coif.
