National: ‘We don’t want voters to be terrified’: Officials seek to allay fears of a ‘rigged’ election | The Washington Post

In an election one side claims is “rigged” as the other was apparently targeted by Russian hackers and Wikileaks, voters may be concerned that some entity will alter the results on Nov. 8. It’s possible, according to some experts, although the likelihood of a significant attack on ballot boxes is exceedingly low. “Everything is hackable,” said Jeremy Epstein, a senior computer scientist at SRI International, a nonprofit California-based think tank. “Everything could have bugs in it.” … The District, Maryland and many counties in Virginia use paper ballots — a gold standard for election-watchers. These ballots are scanned and counted electronically, leaving behind a hard copy of each voter’s preferences. “It seems old-school, but if you have good security practices and a good ballot chain of custody . . . it’s more indelible than bits and bytes in the ether,” said Pamela Smith, president of the nonpartisan Verified Voting, a nonprofit that works for fair elections.

National: Federal and state law enforcement officials concerned About Risk of Violence as Election Day Nears | NBC

Trump supporters held up Clinton “target practice” posters at a rally in Florida Monday, with a bulls-eye framing her face. Two days earlier in Virginia Beach, one Trump backer hoisted a plastic Hillary Clinton head on a stick, while others waved target signs. And several weeks ago, two armed Trump supporters protested outside the congressional campaign office of a rural Virginia Democrat, in what they said was a gesture of solidarity with closet supporters of Trump. Federal and state law enforcement officials say such incidents have heightened their concerns about violence in the final two weeks of the long and bitter Presidential campaign, and well beyond that if Donald Trump loses and refuses to accept the vote as legitimate. “There is a motivated army of ‘fingers in their ears’ supporters of his who believe he’s giving them license to behave badly, and license not to except the findings of the 9,000 bipartisan polling jurisdictions around the country,” one senior federal law enforcement official told NBC News.

National: Some Voting Machines Are Flipping Votes But That Doesn’t Mean The Election Is ‘Rigged’ | NPR

Vote flipping. The stories and conspiracy theories have begun. In every recent election, there have been reports of voters pressing one candidate’s name on a touch-screen machine, only to have the opponent’s name light up instead. It can be unnerving for voters and often leads to allegations that the machines have been “rigged” to favor one candidate over another. Enter election 2016, when the word “rigged” is more politically charged than ever. In the first few days of early voting, there are already scattered reports of vote-flipping machines in North Carolina, Texas and Nevada. … So what’s going on? Are the machines rigged? No, says just about every voting technology expert. “If you were actually trying to rig an election, it would be a very stupid thing to do, to let the voter know that you were doing it,” says Larry Norden, with the Brennan Center for Justice in New York.

Arizona: Court considers law on disqualifying certain provisional ballots | Tucson News Now

There’s a court battle going on over Arizona’s law that allows provisional ballots cast in elections to be disqualified, or thrown out. Voters might have to use a provisional ballot if their voter registration is not up to date or they lost their early ballot or they go to the wrong polling place. A federal appeals court is deciding whether to force the state to count provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct. In Arizona voters have to vote in the precinct assigned to their residential address. The three-judge panel heard arguments Wednesday, Oct. 26. A lawyer for state and national Democrats told the panel nearly 11,000 voters in Arizona had their provisional ballots disqualified in the last presidential election because they voted in the wrong place, and that it affects minority voters more often than not. The Democrats said throwing out the ballots disenfranchises voters and is unconstitutional. The state argued that counting the ballots would be unfair to candidates in local races.

Indiana: Here’s What We DON’T Know About That Sketchy Indiana ‘Voter Fraud’ Probe | TPM

Ever since Indiana State Police raided a voter registration office in Indiana and effectively shut down a voter registration drive aimed at getting African-American voters to the polls, there have been a lot of unanswered questions. Among the biggest: What actually initiated the state police investigation? What was the motivation? What happens to the thousands of legitimate registration forms submitted through the voter registration drive under investigation? Here’s what we know. On Oct. 4, the Indiana State Police executed a search warrant and raided the Indiana Voter Registration Project’s office. They took phones, paperwork and computers as evidence in their investigation into alleged voter fraud. The raid and subsequent statements about the case by the state police have received a lot of media coverage in Indiana, and nationally. “State Police raid Indy office in growing voter fraud case” read the headline in the state’s largest newspaper, the Indianapolis Star. Another one from the Star: “Top Indiana election official alleges more voter fraud.” The case has also been followed by the Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times and The New Republic.

Pennsylvania: Fraud Claims in Philadelphia? They Add Up to Zero | The New York Times

When Donald J. Trump asserts that the election will be rigged against him, he and his surrogates frequently single out one city for special scaremongering. “I just hear such reports about Philadelphia,” Mr. Trump has told voters outside the city. He’s heard “horror shows” about stolen votes there. “Everybody,” he’s added, “knows what I’m talking about.” Rudy Giuliani does: “I’d have to be a moron,” he said, to believe Philadelphia elections are fair. Newt Gingrich, too: To dismiss vote theft there, he said, is to deny reality. Philadelphia attracts attention for its place in a swing state. It was where a 2008 news story about two New Black Panthers patrolling a polling place gained mythic proportions. And the city — once home to a mighty Republican political machine — does have a history of corrupt elections dating to the 1970s-era mayor Frank Rizzo. But the most evocative evidence among conspiracy theorists about Philadelphia today turns on a single data point about the 2012 election. There were 59 voting divisions, or precincts, in the city where President Obama swept 100 percent of the vote. The Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, swayed not one soul in these places. A few conservative pundits have called the pattern statistically impossible. Mr. Trump himself has been incredulous: “I mean, like no votes.” There is another, more credible, explanation. “This is definitely more about math than fraud,” said Jeffrey Carroll, an assistant professor of political science at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia who has analyzed those 2012 results. It is math partly of the G.O.P.’s own making. In fact, there are predominantly black pockets in Philadelphia where no one wanted to vote for Mr. Romney. (Officials including the city’s Republican commissioner have looked at the data and today’s hard-to-rig voting machines and concluded the same).

Texas: Amid early voting rush, Texas sees voter ID hiccups | The Texas Tribune

This much is clear after two days of early voting in Texas: Legal wrangling over the state’s voter identification law is stirring confusion at the polls. Amid Texans’ mad dash to polling places this week, the front end of 12 days of voting before Election Day, civil rights groups and some voters are questioning how some county election officials are portraying the state’s voter identification requirements, which a federal judge softened in August. Among the complaints in pockets of Texas: years-old posters inaccurately describing the rules — more than a dozen instances in Bexar County — and poll workers who were reluctant to tell voters that some could cast ballots without photo identification. Though it’s not clear that anyone walked away from the polls because of misinformation or partial information, civil rights advocates called the sporadic reports troubling.

Washington: ‘New reality’ of vote-by-mail includes delays and problems with postmarks | The News Tribune

The U.S. Postal Service isn’t delivering mail as quickly as it used to, and elections officials say that has the potential to disrupt voting-by-mail in the first presidential election since the service changes took effect last year. First-class mail, which includes ballots, no longer arrives at its destination within one to three days, but instead takes two to five days — a reality that led the Postal Service this year to advise elections officials that voters should mail their ballots back a week before Election Day. Theoretically, the longer delivery timeline shouldn’t matter in a state like Washington, where ballots are deemed valid based on the date they are postmarked, as opposed to the day they arrive at election offices. But documents show that Postal Service officials also have noted issues with postmarking of ballots — and that’s what has elections officials in Washington and across the country especially worried. “Elections officials have indicated illegible or missing postmarks are an issue,” according to a presentation the Postal Service prepared for election officials in August. At that time, the agency said it was “working with elections officials to identify (the) scope of (the) problem.”

Iceland: Tight race to form government as counting begins | The Guardian

Initial counting after polls closed in Iceland’s election put neither the ruling Independence party’s centre-right coalition nor the Pirate party’s leftist alliance in a position to secure outright victory. With roughly one-third of votes counted, support for the mainstream centre-right coalition – particularly Independence – stood at more than 40%, translating to 27 MPs in Iceland’s 63-seat parliament. The opposition alliance had around 43%, giving 29 MPs. That could leave the newly-established Viðreisn – meaning Regeneration – party in the role of kingmaker. Its share of the vote sat at around 11% in early counting. Its liberal, pro-European stance has proved popular among conservative voters seeking a change from the old parties. “We want to improve things in Iceland,” the party leader, Benedikt Johannesson, said as he cast his ballot. “We are a free trade party, a pro-western party, an open society party.” Polls published on Friday before the election showed the governing coalition of the Independence and Progressive parties on about 37% of the vote, while support for opposition parties led by the Pirates – founded barely four years ago by a group of activists, anarchists and former hackers – stood at 47%.

Moldova: Voters to Choose Their President for First Time in 20 Years | Bloomberg

Voters in Moldova will choose their president for the first time in 20 years in elections seen as a tug-of-war between Russia and the European Union for influence. Nine candidates are contesting Sunday’s elections in the former Soviet republic, with polls showing the most likely outcome will be a run-off between the pro-Russian Socialist Party’s Igor Dodon and the pro-European Action and Solidarity’s Maia Sandu. “What’s at stake in this election, and I’m not exaggerating, is for the Republic of Moldova to be or not to be,” Dodon, 41, said in a phone interview Thursday. “Will the current authorities, who mocked the people for seven years and created a corrupt oligarchic system, stay or will changes start?”

National: Cybersecurity Experts Discuss Hacking Election Technology | The Harvard Crimson

Panelists at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum discussed the vulnerability of U.S. election systems to cyber threats Thursday. … Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a non-partisan NGO that promotes the transparency and accuracy of elections, opened the forum with an overview of technology in U.S. elections. According to Smith, technology used in elections, such as voting machines or electronic paper ballot scanners, is vulnerable to hackers. … Smith also described two hacker breaches in the voter registration systems in Arizona and Illinois, which showed that the attacks were not limited to foreign countries. According to Smith, while a foreign power altering vote counts to the point of changing the winner remains improbable, the vote count could still be altered. “This is not so much theoretical at this point. This is happening,” Smith said.

National: We’re Not Ready for Online Voting | Gizmodo

As we move forward, online voting seems shimmeringly imminent, particularly because virtually everything we do, we already do online. But voting is far different than banking, shopping, and communicating. It’s trickier and more complex. However precariously, voting in the United States is hoisted up as an essential part of the political system. In theory, casting ballots gives ordinary citizens a means of control—change is always just one election away. It’s crucial for voters to believe that the mechanisms through which their views are delivered are legitimate, and if those mechanisms are tinkered with or updated, that trust should be preserved. As it stands, there are legitimate concerns involved with current and near-future voting technology. There’s still a long way to go, and with something as vital as voting, there is an infinitely small margin for error. … “You need physical security for your ballots,” Pamela Smith, Verified Voting’s president, says. “Let’s say you return a ballot by email. You’ll have a printed record, but it might not match, if something happened with it in transit.”

National: Entangled in the rigging: Do Trump’s calls for poll watchers constitute incitement? | The Economist

When Donald Trump recently asked his supporters in Ohio to keep an eye out for voter fraud on election day, his plea came with a knowing suggestion: “When [I] say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about, right?” Mr Trump’s worry that the election will be “rigged” has inspired repeated calls for volunteers to serve as poll watchers in cities including Philadelphia, Chicago and St Louis. At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, he had this to say: “You’ve got to go out, and you’ve got to get your friends, and you’ve got to get everybody you know, and you gotta watch the polling booths, because I hear too many stories about Pennsylvania, certain areas”. It would be a shame, Mr Trump said, to lose the White House “because of you know what I’m talking about.” What Mr Trump seems to be talking about is scores of black and Latino voters who are unfriendly to his candidacy and—purportedly—not eligible to vote. With little more than a hunch that “of course…large scale voter fraud” prevails in “certain communities”, Mr Trump ignores studies belying the claim. A review of 12 years of allegations turned up just 10 cases of confirmed fraud. Another study found 31 cases of voter impersonation out of a billion votes cast from 2000 to 2014. There are no signs that Democrats are coordinating a national strategy to harness voter fraud to steal the election.

National: At ‘Poll Watcher Training’ Class, Republicans Trade Rumors, Fears of Fraud | Wall Street Journal

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been raising hackles for weeks about a “stolen” election, and on Wednesday morning, in a suburban public library in northern Virginia, more than two dozen Republicans heeded his call. The group had signed up for a “poll watcher training” class through the local Republican Party. They were mostly retirees, all white, except for one woman from India. Many said they appreciated Mr. Trump’s dire predictions of election fraud in defiance of a number of GOP leaders and elected officials who say he is undermining voter confidence. Experts say fraud, particularly impersonating voters, is scarce, and Mr. Trump has offered no evidence for his claims. “Very clearly there is going to be massive voter fraud, and it will definitely be to ensure Hillary Clinton wins,” said Penny Hendrix, a 52-year-old stay-at-home mom in Fairfax Station. “I’ve been concerned about this for some time, and Trump bringing it up is raising awareness.”

National: Winning in court, losing on the ground: uncertainty clouds U.S. voting rights | Reuters

U.S. voting rights advocates scored a string of courtroom victories this year that rolled back some of the nation’s most restrictive voting laws. Now they face another challenge: making sure those rulings are not undermined by officials who oversee elections at the local level. With early voting already under way ahead of the Nov. 8 election, local officials in several states are trying to enforce restrictions that have been suspended or struck down in court, civil rights advocates say. In some cases, the action appears to be the result of bureaucratic confusion. In other cases, they appear to be actively resisting the law. “There are still too many places where voting is going to be difficult and confusing, not easy and straightforward,” said Leah Aden, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The foot-dragging by local officials adds another element of uncertainty to what already promises to be a volatile election.

National: Voting Rights Groups Brace for Election Day ‘Chaos‘ | Roll Call

Voting rights advocates are preparing for a “perfect storm of chaos” on Election Day — and not just because a hurricane has already affected registrations in some key battleground states. Reports of voter disenfranchisement have already cropped up during early voting, the advocates say. Some Texas election officials are implementing a voter ID law that a federal appeals court struck down as discriminatory. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said he fears the election will be rigged and urged voters to “go out and watch the polls,” prompting fears of voter intimidation among minorities, particularly. This will be the first presidential election since 1964 without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a key enforcement provision in the civil rights law that required certain states to check any election changes with the Justice Department. Because of that decision, the DOJ says it will send poll observers to far fewer states that have a history of disenfranchising voters this year. The department monitored 28 jurisdictions in 18 states in 2014 and 51 jurisdictions in 23 states in 2012.

National: Could the RNC pay for Trump’s ‘rigged’ election claims? | CS Monitor

The Democratic National Committee has requested that a federal judge block efforts by the Republican National Committee to coordinate with Donald Trump as he calls for poll watchers amid claims the election is “rigged” against him. That tactic, the DNC alleges, violates a more than 30-year-old legal agreement meant to keep GOP operatives in line at the polls. Mr. Trump has said Hillary Clinton will defeat him only if voter fraud and other illicit activity at polling places takes place, catapulting the issue of ballot security issues to national attention. While evidence to support those arguments is largely lacking, 43 percent of Trump’s pledged voters say they’ll believe the Republican candidate was cheated out of the election if he loses, according to a Wednesday poll from USA Today/Suffolk University. Some fear that claims of a “rigged election” may spur overzealous Trump supporters to engage in activities that could constitute illegal voter intimidation tactics. Now, Democrats are saying that GOP involvement in any such tactics could violate a 1982 consent decree that bars Republicans from using strategies that intimidate minority voters, and Republicans are trying to steer clear of Trump’s assertions.

National: Legal Skirmishes Erupt Over Voting Rules as Election Day Nears | Wall Street Journal

As residents in many states begin voting, a new round of legal skirmishes is emerging over rules for casting ballots, a potential harbinger of disputes to come. In Texas, voting-rights advocates have urged state officials to address reports that several counties opened the state’s early voting period on Oct. 24 with incorrect signs indicating that voters must show photo identification to cast a ballot. A court order issued in August required the state to make exceptions for people who couldn’t reasonably obtain one of the types of ID the state required. Some locations have acknowledged making initial errors. “There’s no excuse for that, and I own up to it,” said elections administrator Jacquelyn Callanen in Bexar County, home to the city of San Antonio.

Editorials: Internet Voting: Not Ready for Prime Time | Association for Computing Machinery/Huffington Post

Yahoo, the DNC, Federal Reserve, Ashley Madison, US Office of Personnel Management, Google, Sony, Jeep, Charles Schwab, JP Morgan, Target, Symantec, Northrop-Grumman, the US State Department…

The above is a partial list of corporations and agencies that have been hacked in the past few years. Given the incredible computer security resources available to each of them, it is reasonable to expect that it is not a matter of “if” but of “when” any widely used Internet voting system will be hacked. This year 30 states plus Washington, DC are allowing overseas military and civilians to return their voted ballots over the Internet; Alaska allows any Alaskan to vote over the Internet. States typically implement Internet voting with the hope of increasing voter access, especially of military voters, or reducing electoral costs. But it is critical to consider the prospective impact of hacks on election outcomes before allowing voted ballots to be delivered over the Internet. A safer option for military voters with access to postal mail is provided by the 2009 MOVE Act, which requires the posting of blank ballots online at least 45 days in advance of an election. Overseas voters can download the blank ballot, print it, mark it, and then return the marked ballot via postal mail.

Connecticut: New voting devices for voters with disabilities | Monroe Courier

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill announced that Connecticut will have a new accessible ballot marking system at polling places statewide on Election Day, Nov. 8 that is designed to improve the voting experience for people with disabilities. “We know that people with disabilities are some of Connecticut’s most active and engaged citizens and that they will be a force in this year’s presidential election. We want to make sure that when they turn out to vote this November, they have the most high-tech services available,” Merrill said. The new stand-alone, tablet-based system requires no telephone or internet service and is intended to be adaptable to a variety of assistive technologies. The tablet system is a ballot-marking device that replaces the previous phone-fax technology. The previous system required poll workers to use a designated telephone with a secure, pre-registered number to enter the system. Voters were then given a telephone handset after the calls were answered by a computer system that provided an audio ballot. Once the call ended, the ballot was faxed to the polling place.

Georgia: After Voting Machine Issue, Officials Blame Testing | Associated Press

A Georgia voting machine apparently malfunctioned as a voter tried to cast an early ballot for Hillary Clinton, but Donald Trump’s name kept showing up instead. But election officials say they still have confidence in the state’s voting machines. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported the account on Thursday. The newspaper says an unnamed Bryan County voter complains that a touch-screen machine incorrectly showed his presidential selection. The voter said he touched the screen to vote for Democrat Clinton, but instead it selected Republican Trump — twice. On his third try, the voter said he was able to select Clinton. A spokesman for Secretary of State Brian Kemp says the county improperly tested the machine. “We are confident that machines are not ‘flipping’ votes,” said Kemp Chief of Staff David Dove in a statement.

Illinois: Election officials work to protect your vote from high tech threats | WLS-TV

On Chicago’s South Side is a sprawling secure warehouse where election officials are testing every single piece of Chicago’s voting equipment to make sure it’s working right. “We know our reputation, we know what happened 50-60 years ago and we’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Jim Allen, Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. But as voting technology changes new threats emerge. “You’re always concerned that hackers could try to target any part of your system but you try to take enough steps to mitigate the risk,” Allen said. Chicago’s answer to high-tech threats of hackers attempting to manipulate votes is actually a very old technology: paper. Each of the city’s electronic voting machines has a paper record so that voters can check their ballots before they’re cast and so that there’s a hard copy that can be examined in the case of a problem.

Louisiana: Early voting machine most voters never saw was seized in Jefferson Parish. Here’s why … | The Advocate

Early voters often brave long lines in order to cast their ballots ahead of election day, but a select few at Jefferson Parish’s East Bank government headquarters managed to avoid the wait. They got to vote on a special machine inside a conference room in parish Registrar of Voters Dennis DiMarco’s office, skipping the line. Not any more. That perk vanished Wednesday after a staff member in DiMarco’s office let the attorney heading the campaign to recall embattled Parish President Mike Yenni use the machine on the first day of early voting this week, prompting the lawyer to report the situation to election officials. Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler on Wednesday seized both the machine and the book containing the signatures of voters who had cast ballots on it. Neither will be released until officials begin tabulating early votes on Nov. 8. Schedler said in a letter that his action was “necessary to preserve the transparency and integrity of early voting and to promote confidence within the general public regarding the voting process.”

Voting Blogs: Early Voting: Welcome to Massachusetts | State of Elections

This year’s election cycle will be the first in which Massachusetts citizens are permitted to participate in early voting in state elections. This recent development in Massachusetts’ election law is accompanied by several other changes and results from the enactment of An Act Relative to Election Laws, 2014 (HB 3788). More specifically, the reform bill provides for early voting in biennial state elections between eleven and two days before election day. All eligible Massachusetts voters are also now able to register to vote online and readily check their registration status to ensure they are all set to cast their ballot when the time comes. Additionally, this online registration now allows for the pre-registration of sixteen and seventeen year-olds so they can be immediately prepared to vote once they turn eighteen. These revisions to the registration policy represent a concerted and valiant effort to encourage young citizens to participate in the democratic process and exercise their right to vote as soon as they become eligible. This legislative development also depicts a real-life effort of the older-generations providing a form of assistance in helping society’s youth become more politically active, and is refreshing to observe given the flak that our younger generations have taken for low voter turnout.

Montana: State law deletes absentee voter list every two years | NBC

Some absentee voters in Montana did not get their ballot in the mail for this election, and it turns out it may have something to do with state law. The Gallatin County election administrator told NBC Montana that registering to vote absentee is only good for two years. State law requires the absentee voter list to be deleted completely every two years. That means elections offices have to send out renewal forms to absentee voters asking if they want to stay on the list. This is not anything new. “It used to be that people had to do this confirmation after every election, and then it went to every six months, then it went to once a year and now it’s every two years that they have to do this,” said Charlotte Mills, the county election administrator.

New York: New Yorkers sue for the right to take ‘ballot selfies’ | New York Post

A trio of New Yorkers are suing the Board of Elections in hopes of making it perfectly legal to snap a selfie in a voting booth — which is a big no-no in the Empire State and elsewhere around the country. The suit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, argues that “ballot selfies” — or the act of taking a photo with a ballot and then publishing it on social media — should be allowed on election day because they are a valid expression of one’s first amendment rights. “What they want to be able to do is show the photographs to their Facebook friends and Twitter followers,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Leo Glickman, told The Post.

North Carolina: Are there voting-fraud risks? Sure, but the chances of widespread rigging are low | News & Observer

Despite fears of Election Day mayhem, the 2016 presidential race is likely to be the most secure in years, according to experts. That’s because the way America casts and counts its vote is increasingly driven by newer and more reliable technology, they say. “I don’t think we’d be here if we did believe it was rigged,” Amy Muffo, a software development manager from Raleigh, North Carolina, said while waiting in line Thursday to vote early at the Optimist Community Center in suburban Raleigh. So why are others worried? Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has stoked concern with doomsday predictions of election chaos that experts warn are exaggerated. Although the Nov. 8 election is national, it is operated at the state and local level, under differing rules in all 50 states. Forty-one states are generally viewed by experts as relatively risk-free, because they deploy optical-scan technology that scans paper ballots or they have printouts of electronic ballots cast as a backup. It’s the remaining nine states that have generated concern and left room for the perception of manipulation. The vulnerabilities – and how serious they are – differ depending on the state and even the precinct.

Editorials: Protecting your right to vote in Ohio this year | Cleveland Plain Dealer

This presidential election year, millions of Ohioans will be exercising — and already are exercising, in the early-voting period — their precious right to vote. But because of recent federal court decisions, it’s more important than ever that Ohioans protect their franchise by taking extra steps to make sure their right to vote is not being illegally abridged and that their votes will be counted. One recent federal court ruling, for instance, determined that thousands of Ohioans were purged illegally from state voting rolls going back to 2011. How to protect these voters’ rights to vote in the Nov. 8 election was not resolved until last week, when a federal judge ruled that certain voters absent from the voting rolls must be allowed to cast a provisional ballot. It’s important that all Ohio voters now take affirmative steps first to find out if they fall in this category by checking their registration status online or at their county board of elections, and then, if they have been wrongly purged, to understand how they can cast a provisional ballot to make sure their voting rights aren’t unlawfully denied.

Texas: Trump suggests voter fraud is rampant in Texas – where his party oversees the system | McClatchy DC

Donald Trump is worried about “vote flipping” in Texas, a state where Republicans control every statewide elected office, oversee county elections supervisors and maintain the voter registration system. “A lot of call-ins about vote flipping at the voting booths in Texas,” Trump tweeted. “People are not happy. BIG lines. What is going on?” A Tarrant County woman said her vote switched from Republican to Democrat when she cast her ballot at an electronic voting machine earlier this week, but an investigation determined she did not follow the proper instructions. “Our investigations have indicated that the voter did not follow the directions for straight-party voting when they inadvertently click the ‘enter’ button or turn the wheel, causing the change in votes,” Tarrant County elections administrator Frank Phillips said in a statement. “Further, in each incident where we could actually speak to a voter, they tell us that they discovered the changed vote on the summary screen display. This shows that the machine is working exactly as it should.” Phillips said on Thursday his office investigated six first-hand cases of voters claiming their votes were not tallied correctly since the start of early voting on Monday. None of the investigations showed a machine tallying votes incorrectly.

Texas: Voter ID ad dollars do not go far | Houston Chronicle

Texas is not taking part in a discount offered by broadcasters that could have allowed it to air up to four times more television and radio ads to educate the public about changes to the state’s voter ID law. The Texas Secretary of State’s office has been running a 30-second voter ID television and radio spot in English and Spanish for almost two weeks, and has estimated that it will spend at least $1.3 million on a paid media campaign through Election Day to fulfill a court order. Experts, though, have said the TV and radio spend is not nearly enough to spread a message on airwaves in a state the size of Texas, which has 20 total television markets and two of the most expensive in the country in Houston and the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The Texas Association of Broadcasters, which represents the state’s over-the-air television and radio industry, offers a discount program that guarantees to triple or quadruple the ad buying power of a strapped-for-cash government agency or nonprofit seeking to get out a general education message. However, state broadcasters, who use public airwaves to disseminate their programming, said Texas’ voter outreach program did not qualify for the TAB discount.