Yes, The Voting Machines Were Changed & PRO V&V's Jack Cobb? His Fingerprints Are All Over It.
For more than two decades, two men in Huntsville, Alabama, have quietly held the keys to America’s voting machines.
First, there was Shawn Southworth, who floated from lab to lab like a ghost in a white coat. Certifying code he didn’t test, using scripts he didn’t write, for companies that paid him not to ask questions. When one lab got shut down, he surfaced at another. The name on the door changed. He didn’t. From Wyle Labs to Nichols Research to PSINet to Metamore to CIBER INC, and eventually, back to Wyle.
Then came Jack Cobb, real name Ryan Jackson Cobb, Southworth’s quiet shadow.
Today, Cobb runs Pro V&V, one of just two private labs entrusted to decide whether the machines used in U.S. elections are secure, reliable, and accurate.
His lab signs off on critical software updates. His word alone determines whether changes are too small to test, or too dangerous to ignore. Whether the voting machines are secure and trustworthy, or just signed off by someone who says they are.
When confronted with scrutiny after my last article,
originally posted June 7th, 2025, had made national headlines,
Cobb told Newsweek that “most of these articles are completely made up.”
He then wrote the changes off as “insignificant.”
That’s not new. That’s his signature move.
Because back in the early 2000s, according to official EAC documents following his leave, Cobb was employed as Project Manager at CIBER Inc., a now-defunct voting system testing lab that lost its federal accreditation for doing exactly what he appears to be doing now.
In fact, during federal audits, CIBER was cited multiple times for lacking documentation, ignoring quality standards, and failing to test for basic tampering vulnerabilities. Cobb was the one managing those projects.
And when the feds finally shut CIBER down, Cobb didn’t lose access. He leveled up.. migrating to another lab alongside Practice Director Shawn Southworth, then founding his own. All whilst conveniently omitting his history with CIBER from the public.
This isn’t oversight. It’s muscle memory. Cobb didn’t just learn from Southworth. He inherited the infrastructure of secrecy along with a federal stamp of legitimacy. And in the last twenty years, no one has stopped him.
Back to CIBER, Inc.
To understand how he got away with it, you have to go back to where he learned it. Back to CIBER, Inc. The lab that taught him how to pass broken machines, skip security checks, and call it “certified.”
In 2006, federal auditors showed up unannounced to peek behind CIBER’s curtain after tons of concerning reports and public outcry, and what they found wasn’t a lab. It was a stage play. Smoke, mirrors, and paperwork dressed up as science.
Not only was critical documentation missing, the lab had no standardized testing methods at all. Each evaluation was a snowflake.. custom, vendor-fed, and barely reviewed. Their so-called quality assurance process was just a checklist someone probably scribbled during lunch.
But the most damning part? They let the people who made the damn systems (vendors) write the script. Literally.
According to the EAC documents, not only were they using client-provided testing scripts, CIBER didn’t even have a core test script of their own
So, instead of designing and conducting independent, scientific tests, CIBER used whatever test plans the voting machine and system manufacturers (a.k.a vendors) handed them. Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia. The companies that stood to profit from passing certification were the ones choosing how they’d be tested.
And Shawn Southworth, CIBER’s Practice Director at the time, was the man making it happen. The EAC came down so hard that they failed to notice the man right beneath him. Jack Cobb, Project Manager.
So, let’s take a step back:
We know based off official documentation from CIBER that at some point between 2004 and 2007, Jack Cobb was Project Manager at CIBER’s voting system testing lab. The job that put him at the helm of certifying the very machines that count our votes in American elections.
We also know that, according to CIBER, Cobb was in charge of managing test projects from start to finish, including:
Drafting test plans & scripts
(Which, remember, audits later found out that they didn’t actually have any of their own.)
Overseeing staff
Maintaining timelines
Communicating directly with the voting machine vendors themselves such as Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia, some of their biggest customers.
So, he didn’t just run the logistics. He also ran the lab when his boss, Practice Director Shawn Southworth, was away.
“Acts as ITA Practice Disorder in the absence of the Director” is in the very job description provided by CIBER to the EAC.
So, there is no denying that when it came to accountability, Cobb was at the top of the food chain.. making him not just negligent, but likely knowingly complicit in certifying voting systems that had not been properly or lawfully tested.
When the federal government revoked CIBER’s ability to certify voting machines in 2007 because of this, you might expect the people responsible to face consequences.
They didn’t.
Instead, they moved across town. To Wyle Laboratories… yet another voting machine testing lab tucked away in the same quiet corners of Huntsville, Alabama.
For Southworth, it wasn’t a reinvention. It was a ritual. Since the 1990s, he’d bounced from election lab to election lab—Nichols Research, PSINet, Metamore, CIBER—shedding accountability like a snake sheds skin.
The only difference now was this time he brought someone with him.
Jack Cobb. The very man who would go on to found Pro V&V, one of just two labs in the nation that certifies the voting machines used in U.S. elections in the 2016 election, in the 2020 election, in the 2024 election, and even today.
And, while ultimately Southworth appears to have completely disappeared off the radar (the only possible trace I found being this LinkedIn page which I cannot confirm is him) Cobb was ready to jump in.
In 2011, just four years after the collapse of CIBER, Cobb founded his own lab: Pro V&V
Same city. Same blueprint. New man at the top.
By 2015, Pro V&V had achieved full accreditation from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
Just like CIBER, INC… Pro V&V is a privately owned, for-profit corporation., headquartered once again in Huntsville, Alabama.
There was no in-depth review of Cobb’s past, no accountability for his role in CIBER or any accountability for participating in CIBERs fracturing of the foundation of election integrity for money.
Nope. Just a rubber stamp and a fresh start. And just like that, he went from failed project manager to federal gatekeeper. His lab, private, vendor-funded, and entirely insulated from public records laws, was suddenly the authority on what counted as a “secure” voting system in the United States.
But what does that actually mean?
It means that when voting machine vendors like ES&S, Dominion, or Unisyn want to update or change their product, they don’t go to the government. They go to Jack Cobb.
Pro V&V looks at those changes and decides whether they’re significant, whether they require new testing, or whether they can be rubber-stamped as “de minimis” changes. That’s a regulatory term meaning “too minor to matter.”
Minor hardware tweaks. Harmless. No red flags. Nothing to see here.
ProV&V ultimately decides if a submitted change meets the de minimis criteria before submitting it to the EAC. The approvals always come from Cobb himself, or Wendy Owens, the program director there.
De minimis rules explicitly state they not supposed to cover software changes, firmware changes, or anything that changes system functionality, behavior, reliability, or performance.
So, no firmware, software, or functionality changes. Period.
So why is Pro V&V—one of only two labs in the country trusted to certify U.S. voting systems—slapping that label on software changes and quietly sending them up the chain?
And worse… why is the EAC signing off without objection?
Two recent examples of this can be found in ECO’s approved just a few months before the 2024 presidential election, buried in plain sight..
In ECO 1188, ES&S and Pro V&V quietly removed a critical integrity check from the vote-reporting system. The configuration.ini file, which controls how vote totals are generated and reported, was reclassified so that the system no longer checks to make sure it is running the certified and approved software. This could cause a difference in how ballots are counted by the machines.
ECO 1167, this other change from ES&S and Pro V&V tells the voting system to stop and alert when it’s running different election software than what was officially approved. In the summary, it sounds like a clean up… but it comes with implications. In plain terms, this means the machine will no longer throw a warning if that file is altered, intentionally or not.
These software changes were both signed off as de minimis by Pro V&V and EAC officials. These are not the only examples. Not by far. These are just two of the recent and critical ones worth telling you about. I highly, highly recommend you visit the EAC website and see more for yourself.
The private corporations who own the machines — the very machines the federal government pays them for with our tax dollars — really saw this and decided that instead of putting the time, effort or money into fixing the errors in the software, they’d simply remove important election tampering safeguards that were put there in the first place for to prevent election fraud.
So, I want you really reflect on the fact that not only did Pro V&V approve these changes to software to prevent election fraud, they also decided they were minor, and they sent them both as de minimis to the EAC.
The EAC then looked at both of these and somehow agreed and approved it. Some federal official saw these and went, “Oh yeah, that’s fine” before approving election fraud safeguards.
So, now we have two less election fraud safeguards… quietly dismantled, without testing, explanation, or oversight. But I’d wager a bet this is likely the first you’re hearing of it.
It’s like taking the batteries out of your smoke detector because you didn’t like the beeping. Easier? Sure. Safer? Absolutely not. The more you teach a system to stay quiet, the less likely it is to speak up when something really is wrong.
Who Are The Federal Officials Approving The Election Machine Changes?
Do they even have the credentials to look at these changes and go oh, that makes sense..? We have no idea, and there is no clear way to find out.
For example, a MAJORITY of the Pro V&V’s election machine change requests that were approved from EAC officials, were sent from their their director, Wendy Owens. These were signed off as De Minimis, despite not meeting criteria, by none other than EAC official Mr. Michael L. Walker.
My biggest concern here is that there is a program director employed at Pro V&V named Michael Walker; this individual also spoke on behalf of Pro V&V at the EAC at one point.
There is no way for me to verify—through the EAC or Pro V&V—whether the Michael Walker listed as approving these election software changes on behalf of the EAC is the same Michael Walker employed at Pro V&V.
And that’s a problem. I can’t say for sure they are the same person. But I can’t say for sure they are not.
Why are individuals with such critical roles in our election infrastructure allowed to remain anonymous to the public?
There’s no bio. No photo. No professional record. Nothing.
I’m filing a FOIA request to obtain their credentials and affiliations, but let’s be honest I shouldn’t have to do that just to find out who is signing off on changes to the machines that count our votes. There’s also no guarantee they’ll give me the information either.
And here's the kicker: Pro V&V is a private company. They operate in the shadows while wielding the authority to approve or deny updates to national voting systems.
They are, effectively, the gatekeepers of our elections.. and yet they answer to no one… And since they’re a private, for profit company, they’re not subject to public records laws. So FOIA requests don’t work here.
Therein lies the issue with the privatization of essential government services, including our own elections. Keep corporations out of the damn government.
When the government and the corporations are in bed together the secrecy is the point.
This private corporation ultimately has the power to greenlight changes that affect how your vote is cast, counted, or reported.
The EAC polishes it to make it seem like they’re really making sure that these changes submitted by these private, for-profit labs are on the up-and-up, but honestly? It’s bullshit.
The way that it actually works is a corporation pays Jack Cobb to ‘test’ and approve a change to their voting machines or systems. Once he approves it, it goes to the EAC, and then once they sign off the company can make the change.
It sounds nice. Even like they’re really making sure things are official.
That is until you find out that the EAC does not conduct its own technical review of change requests at all — whether de minimis or full modifications — they rely only what private labs like Pro V&V says.
The EAC receives the paperwork and makes a decision based solely on what the lab provides. For de minimis, they just confirm the lab’s provided summary of the change fits the policy definition & anything bigger they approve it if the lab did the testing and says it passed.
The truth about EAC approvals?
There is no peer review.
They do not actually test and verify the findings on the equipment.
Nobody is checking their work and there is no requirement to prove that the change wouldn’t affect election outcomes.
They do not investigate changes unless something goes wrong (which is what happened with CIBER).
The entire approval process for these serious machine updates takes place in a black box: the election machine companies propose, labs (paid by those same companies) endorse, and a single EAC official signs off. The voting machine is changed without you ever knowing.
The public sees nothing while it’s happening. Most people never know they do.
We get a brief summary in the form of an ECO released after the fact on the EAC’s website. There’s never an announcement. Most people don’t even know about them. Want to know whether a system was tested after a software change? Good luck.
You'll need to cross-reference internal change logs with multi-page PDFs labeled things like “Test Plan Addendum for ES&S EVS 5.2.0.3 Revision 2 – Final.”
And that’s if it’s even posted. Love corporate bureaucracy.
So here we end the story for now:
Two decades in, and the same ghosts are still running the show… only now, they’ve got federal stamps and private funding. The watchdogs are asleep. The guards are paid by the people trying to get past the gate.
We’re told our elections are secure because someone at a privately owned lab said so, based on paperwork you can’t see, tested with tools you can’t question, and approved by a federal agency that doesn’t verify any of it.
And this? This is just the surface.
There’s far more to Jack Cobb’s story than one defunct lab and a rubber-stamped resume. In fact, the evidence I didn’t even get to in this piece includes internal emails, vendor correspondences, and contracts that pull the curtain back even further on how this system operates in the shadows. Cobb’s name pops up in procurement records.
In state-level certification documentation. In conflicts of interest no one’s ever questioned. Contracts that, as far as I could find, no journalist has ever published. Evidence of a revolving door between labs and clients and a pipeline of decisions with zero transparency.
So, stay tuned.
Because Cobb may have inherited the keys to America’s voting machines. But I’ve got more receipts and I’m not done yet.
Note From The Author:
I don’t put my work behind a paywall. These stories are too urgent, too raw, too real to keep locked away.
When 90% of mainstream media outlets are owned by 6 billionaires, it’s becomes hard to know who to trust. I don’t take checks from billionaires, and I don’t take notes from PR firms. I just tell the damn story because I’m not part of the mainstream media.
My belief is that almost everyone has their angle, their agenda. The truth is usually hiding somewhere in between. And that’s what I’m chasing.
I don’t need to sanitize what’s happening. I’ll just tell it like it is.
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Thank you for being here.
Here in Australia we vote by marking pieces of paper using a pencil. This may seem primitive, but allows votes to be counted and re-counted if required. Voting is also compulsory, which is a fine thing, and applies to all citizens aged 18 and beyond. I suspect that if the UK had a similar system they might still be in the European Union…as for your country, you might well have found yourselves inaugurating the first female president.
Thank you for this work. Alarming implications, to be sure. Assuming you are aware of
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/she-won-they-didnt-just-change-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true