Morocco: Authorities say they foiled suicide attack plan for election day | Reuters

Moroccan authorities said on Tuesday they had foiled a planned suicide attack on Oct. 7 parliamentary elections after the arrest of a suspected Islamic State militant cell of 10 women earlier this week. The Interior Ministry said on Monday that for the first time a group of female suspects had been arrested, the latest in series of militant cells the North African kingdom says it has broken up. Morocco is holding a parliamentary election on Friday in which the Islamist PJD party is favored to win after five years leading the ruling coalition in a constitutional monarchy where the king remains the ultimate authority. “One of the women was seeking more visibility and was planning an operation on the election day,” Abdelhak Khayyam, head of Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), the judicial arm of the domestic intelligence service, told reporters in Rabat. “It was a suicide attack and we found bomb-making materials,” he said, without giving further details.

National: Can you hack the vote? Yes, but not how you might think | Network World

With Donald Trump already talking about the presidential election being rigged, Symantec has set up a simulated voting station that shows how electronic systems might be hacked to alter actual vote tallies for just a few hundred dollars. They found that while it’s possible to change the number of votes cast for each candidate, it would be very difficult to do so on a large enough scale to swing the election one way or the other. However, enough machines in random precincts could be provably compromised so that general public confidence in the official outcome would be undermined, says Samir Kapuria, Symantec’s senior vice president for cyber security. Using a voting-machine simulator that contains an aggregate of known vulnerabilities from real-world voting machines and some that Symantec found itself, Kapuria demonstrated several ways attackers could taint voting results.

Alabama: Counties to take up cost of voting machines designed aid visual and hearing impaired voters | WAAY

Voting machines designed to help visual and hearing impaired have been in place for years, but the cost of maintaining them will soon fall back from the state to the counties. According to the Alabama Secretary of State’s office, the state received about $45 million in 2002 from the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) fund. That money was put toward updating old voting machines and creating an online voter registration system. During this summer’s meeting of the Alabama Probate Judge’s Association, Secretary John Merrill talked about the fact that the funds are all but gone at this point and that counties will need to take up the cost of running and maintaining these machines.

California: Brown vetoes bill to broaden ranked-choice voting | San Francisco Chronicle

Legislation that would have allowed all cities in California to use ranked-choice voting, the system in San Francisco and three other Bay Area communities that lets voters rank candidates by preference and decide an election in a single round of ballots, has been vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Ranked-choice, also known as instant-runoff voting, gives voters the option of choosing multiple candidates in order of preference. After the ballots are first counted, the candidate with the fewest top-rank votes is eliminated and the next choices of that candidate’s supporters are apportioned among the remaining candidates. The process continues until one candidate gets a majority.

Florida: Democrats sue Florida, challenging key part of mail ballot law | Tampa Bay Times

On the eve of the first huge wave of mail ballots being sent to Florida voters, Democrats filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Gov. Rick Scott’s chief elections official, challenging a law that results in thousands of ballots being discarded each election. The Florida Democratic Party (FDP) and the Democratic National Committee sought an injunction in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee to prevent county canvassing boards from rejecting ballots in cases where the signature of a voter on the mail ballot envelope does not match the same voter’s signature on file. The lawsuit noted that state law has a “cure” mechanism for voters who forget to put a signature on a mail ballot. They can return a signed affidavit to their county elections office confirming their identity. But no such cure exists for cases known as mismatched signatures. Hundreds of them were invalidated across the state in the Aug. 30 primary for that reason, and the number likely will be much larger in November because millions more people will be voting.

Illinois: Legal interpretation expands same-day voting registration opportunities | Northwest Herald

Legal interpretation of a federal ruling curtailing expanded same-day registration will allow the practice at early voting stations. The state’s county clerks, after a conference call last week, agreed that early voting stations still would be allowed to register people to vote, McHenry County Clerk Mary McClellan said. Legal counsel for the Illinois State Board of Elections concurred with the interpretation, she said. U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan slapped a preliminary injunction on a state law that requires counties with more than 100,000 residents to implement a system by which voters can register at the same time they cast ballots at any polling place through Election Day.

Missouri: Federal judge orders St. Louis Election Board to allow disabled to vote on electronic machines | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A federal judge on Friday ordered the St. Louis Election Board to make electronic machines available to the disabled for absentee voting in the Nov. 8 general election after two blind men sued the board. The lawsuit alleged that not making the technology available was a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. U.S. District Judge Audrey G. Fleissig said the temporary restraining order against the Election Board is in effect until a decision is made on the men’s request for a preliminary injunction. A hearing is set for Oct. 13. However, the attorney for the men, John J. Ammann, said he is working with the Election Board to extend the order for electronic voting “throughout the election period.” The order applies to all people who could not otherwise vote without access to a touch-screen machine, which allows a blind person to vote with the help of audio equipment.

Nevada: US Justice Department backs Nevada tribes on voting test | Associated Press

The Justice Department is siding with two Nevada tribes’ interpretation of a key part of the U.S. Voting Rights Act at issue in a legal battle with state and county officials over minority access to the polls. Lawyers for the two Paiute tribes are scheduled to go before a federal judge in Reno Tuesday with their emergency request for a court order establishing satellite voting sites on their reservations before the November election. They accuse Nevada’s Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, Washoe and Mineral counties of illegally denying tribe members voting access afforded to people in wealthier, mostly white neighborhoods. The counties say the sudden change would cost too much, and the state argues it has no authority to intervene. But the Justice Department said in a new filing Monday all three appear to be confusing voting rights with “voting convenience.”

New York: The Gentleman Rests, New Opera About the 2000 Election | Broadway World

The Gentleman Rests is a concert performance of a new opera depicting the special session of congress in 2001 in which the Congressional Black Caucus attempted to halt the certification of Florida’s votes for the contested presidential election due to alleged disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of Floridians. Composer Dave Ruder (thingNY) sets transcripts of the congressional session to music for five vocalists, viola, trombone, Rhodes piano and bassoon, including the ironic drama of Al Gore (as President of the Senate) following congressional protocol by gaveling over each objecting Black Caucus member, hastening the end of his presidential ambitions. … After two months of post-election chaos in Florida in late 2000, the congressional session depicted in Ruder’s opera was the final step declaring Bush the winner. The Congressional Black Caucus repeatedly tried to raise objections about the results from Florida, citing widespread disenfranchisement and irregularities (that, as usual in the history of US voting, impacted African-Americans hardest), and each objection was turned away because no senator would second them.

North Carolina: No more straight-ticket option in voting booths this November | WLOS

After a federal judge struck down much of North Carolina’s controversial voter ID law back in July, one provision remained, and it might have the most powerful effect on this November’s election–especially in local races all over the state. The 2013 law eliminated straight-ticket voting, meaning that in the November election, for the first time, you’ll no longer be able to fill out one bubble to vote all-Democrat, or all-Republican. Technically, you’ve always had to fill out two bubbles in North Carolina, since the vote for president has required a separate vote since the 1960s. This provision might lower vote totals, and make for tighter local races on November 8.

South Carolina: Republicans, Democrats support early voting measure | Post and Courier

Legislation that would have created early voting in South Carolina died in the Statehouse this past year, but several Republicans and Democrats say one such proposal could gain traction next year. A House bill that would let voters head to the polls 15 days before primaries and general elections was supported by eight Republicans and seven Democrats as well as state party leaders. Passing such a bill would put the state in line with neighboring Georgia and North Carolina, both of which have early voting. Currently, if South Carolina voters wish to vote before Election Day they need to cite one of 16 reasons, such as work or vacation, in order to vote by absentee ballot, either through the mail or in person at their county election commission office.

Pennsylvania: Voting machines could be susceptible to hackers | The Ledger

Ever since Pennsylvania began using computerized voting machines a decade ago, critics have worried that hackers could throw an election by shifting votes from one column to another. But that’s far from the only fear in 2016, a year when Illinois’ voter registration database has been hacked and Democratic Party emails were purportedly raided by Russian hackers. “People have talked about Russia supporting Donald Trump,” said University of Iowa computer science professor Douglas Jones, who co-authored a 2012 book about election security. “But I think it would be to their advantage just to have a chaotic election, one that would weaken whoever won. … And if you wanted to cook an election, you don’t have to do anything massive.”

Wisconsin: DMV workers at 7 more stations give wrong voter ID info | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Workers at seven Division of Motor Vehicles stations across Wisconsin provided inaccurate or incomplete information about the availability of IDs for voting, newly released recordings show. “You’re not guaranteed to get an ID card. Nothing’s guaranteed,” a worker at the DMV station in Hudson told a woman on Wednesday. That conflicts with what Attorney General Brad Schimel’s office has claimed in court documents. His assistants have claimed all DMV workers have been trained to tell people they will get credentials for voting within six days, even if they don’t have birth certificates. The recordings could further roil litigation over Wisconsin’s voter ID law. On Friday, a federal judge ordered the state DMV to investigate an incident in which three DMV workers gave incorrect information about whether a Madison man could get an ID without a birth certificate. The recordings were made by the group VoteRiders, which assists voters in getting IDs and describes voter ID laws on its website as “challenging and confusing.”

Bosnia: Elections A Triumph For Nationalist Parties | RFE

It was not about “the economy, stupid.” It was not about jobs. It was not about general impoverishment. It was about identity. The three nationalist parties — Bosnian Muslim, Serb, and Croat — are the clear winners of the Bosnian local elections. Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik’s (Serbian) Alliance of Independent Social Democrats posted its best results in a decade. At a press conference after preliminary results were announced on October 3, Dodik told journalists that his policy of defending the existence of Republika Srpska (an entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina) had been his winning card, and that people recognized who would betray them and who would protect them. Just before the press conference, a journalist spotted Dodik on the phone and asked whom he was speaking with. Dodik thought for a moment and then, through a half-smile, said, “I was talking to Moscow!” It appeared to have been intended as a reminder of his preelection meeting with the Russian president, which made some people nervous.

Colombia: After voters’ rejection president scrambles to save peace accord with FARC rebels | The Washington Post

Colombia’s president tried Monday to keep alive an agreement to end Latin America’s longest-running war after a shocking rejection by voters, but his opponents made clear their price for joining the effort will be steep. President Juan Manuel Santos invited Colombia’s political parties to an emergency meeting Monday and asked them to form a big-tent coalition to rework the deal and make it more appealing to the voters who spurned it in Sunday’s referendum by a narrow margin. Santos told Colombians that a month-old bilateral cease-fire with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) would remain in effect. He ordered his negotiating team to return to Cuba, where the peace talks were held, to resume contacts with FARC leaders.

Congo: Commission expects presidential vote delay to Dec 2018 | Reuters

The president of Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral commission said on Saturday that he expects the presidential election, originally scheduled for this November, to be delayed until December 2018, lawmakers present at his speech said. The announcement is likely to stoke political tensions after at least 50 people died last week in the capital Kinshasa in clashes between protesters and security forces over accusations that President Joseph Kabila is deliberately delaying the poll to cling to power. Kabila denies he is behind the delays, which he says are due to logistical and budgetary constraints in the impoverished, infrastructure-starved country.

National: DHS urges states to beef up election security | The Hill

The Department of Homeland Security on Saturday urged state election officials to seek assistance in boosting cyber security ahead of November’s elections, after hackers tapped into voter registration systems in a small number of states. In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said 21 states have sought the Department’s assistance to improve cyber security. Johnson said hackers have been scanning state computer systems, a possible prelude to actual cyber attacks. “These challenges aren’t just in the future — they are here today,” Johnson said. “We must remain vigilant and continue to address these challenges head on. Before November 8, I urge state and local election officials to seek our cybersecurity assistance.” At least four states have had voter registration systems hacked in recent weeks. Officials in Arizona and Illinois said their systems had been improperly accessed this summer, and ABC News reported Thursday that at least two other voter registration systems were compromised. But those voter registration systems are distinct from vote tabulation systems, which county, local and state election officials maintain independently of internet-based systems. That makes the tabulation system much more difficult to hack, experts say, without physical access to the tightly guarded voting machines themselves.

National: Cyberattack threatens U.S. voting | Boston Herald

“There is a risk at large here,” Symantec Senior Vice President Samir Kapuria said. According to Symantec, the simple technological hardware in voting machines makes it relatively easy to take down a whole system of machines at a voting location. Many electronic voting systems have a cartridge in the back that holds ballot information. It’s basically a USB drive. “If somebody was really nefarious and put some tailor-made malware on one of those cartridges, that would walk from an individual system back to the nest,” Kapuria said. The problem becomes even worse when you consider that many locations do not keep a paper trail of voter receipts. There’s no simple solution to this problem, especially given that different counties and states use different types of voting machines.

National: Why Trump wants his supporters to monitor the polls in ‘certain areas’ | CS Monitor

Donald Trump renewed calls this weekend for supporters to travel to precincts outside their own Nov. 8 to keep a vigilant eye out for voter fraud. “We don’t want to lose an election because you know what I’m talking about,” the Republican presidential candidate told an overwhelmingly white crowd in Manheim, Pa. on Saturday. “Because you know what? That’s a big, big problem, and nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody has the guts to talk about it. So go and watch these polling places.” Saturday was the second night in a row Mr. Trump urged supporters to poll watch, adding on to his repeated warnings in August that the election is “rigged” because of voter fraud. But Trump’s exhortations concern voters’ rights advocates who fear amateur poll watchers could intimidate and even harass minority voters The conflict, then, shows the difficulty with the practice: can Republican poll watchers “safeguard democracy,” as one exponent in Louisville said in 2004, without reverting to voter intimidation, particularly if they raise challenges at polls based on voters’ race, religion, or ethnicity?

National: Senators: Some mail-in voter registration deadlines defy law | Associated Press

Two Democratic senators say nine states are violating federal law with their mail-in voter registration deadlines for the November election, potentially disenfranchising thousands of people by blocking applications as many as three days earlier than other states. U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Patrick Leahy of Vermont asked the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to intervene and work with election officials in those states to ensure compliance with the National Voting Rights Act. The states cited in their letter Thursday are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. “The right to vote is too precious to have something so simple to fix potentially prevent so many Americans from participating in the upcoming Election,” the senators wrote. The calendar appears to be the culprit. The deadline for registering by mail under federal law — 30 days before the election — falls on a Sunday this year. The next day happens to be Columbus Day, when there will be no postal service, preventing registrations from being postmarked. All other states have adjusted their deadlines to account for the long holiday weekend, accepting registration applications postmarked by Tuesday, Oct. 11.

National: Some voters with disabilities say they are treated like ‘second-class citizens’ at the polls | Business Insider

… A new analysis of voter accessibility data by the disability advocacy group Ruderman Family Foundation reveals that impediments to entering polling locations, difficulty obtaining absentee ballots, inadequate training of poll workers, a lack of privacy while voting, among other problems, plague an estimated more than 3 million eligible voters with disabilities. If unaddressed, advocates say, these issues could impact nearly a quarter of voters this fall. In a white paper released by the foundation on Sept. 26, experts’ analysis of voter data suggests that as many as 10% of people with disabilities report difficulties trying to register to vote or obtain an absentee ballot, which eliminate the need to travel to polling locations. “It is fundamentally unfair for 20% of the American voting population to face barriers to a full and fair participation in their right to cast a vote,” Jay Ruderman, president of the foundation, said in a press release. “America should and can do better to include people with disabilities in our elections.”

National: How Columbus Day could disenfranchise thousands of voters | CS Monitor

Two Democratic senators have a new voting rights nemesis: Columbus Day. US Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Patrick Leahy of Vermont say the federal holiday could disenfranchise “hundreds of thousands” of Americans whose voter-registration applications wouldn’t be postmarked until after nine states’ deadlines to register by mail. In a letter addressed to the US Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) Sept. 30, the senators asked the agency to work with election officials in the nine states to extend their deadlines past the October 10 Columbus Day holiday. The senators’ letter shows how voting rights advocates are “aggressively calling attention to any potential for disenfranchisement,” as the Associated Press’s Christina Cassidy writes, in the first presidential election since the Supreme Court watered down the Voting Rights Act in 2013. While courts have been asked to rule on controversial voter ID laws since then, the senators are also concerned about other ways Americans might not be able to vote. “The right to vote is too precious to have something so simple to fix potentially prevent so many Americans from participating in the upcoming Election,” wrote Mr. Schumer and Mr. Leahy in the letter.

Editorials: To safeguard the vote, we can start by replacing our old machines | Mary Sanchez/Alaska Dispatch News

How vulnerable to tampering or malfunction will our electoral system be Nov. 8 when millions show up to cast their ballots? It’s a topic of considerable interest. “I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have got to be honest,” Trump told Ohio voters in August, according to CBS News. He was not being honest. He was hedging the possibility that he will be the loser. However, there are serious problems that need attention. For example, America’s voting machines are aging. Many are approaching the end of their intended lifespan. Voting machines are designed to last about 10 to 15 years, and a significant number in the U.S. are beginning to face the end of their cycle. They aren’t exactly held up with baling wire and twine, but cause for concern exists. A full 42 states have voting machines that are at least a decade old, and 14 states have some polling places that lack a paper trail to backtrack and recheck the tallies.

Verified Voting Blog: Andrew W. Appel: My testimony before the House Subcommittee on IT

This article appeared originally at Freedom to Tinker on September 30, 2016. I was invited to testify yesterday before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Information Technology, at a hearing entitled “Cybersecurity: Ensuring the Integrity of the Ballot Box.”  My written testimony is available here.  My 5-minute opening statement went as follows:

My name is Andrew Appel.  I am Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University.   In this testimony I do not represent my employer. I’m here to give my own professional opinions as a scientist, but also as an American citizen who cares deeply about protecting our democracy. My research is in software verification, computer security, technology policy, and election machinery.  As I will explain, I strongly recommend that, at a minimum, the Congress seek to ensure the elimination of Direct-Recording Electronic voting machines (sometimes called “touchscreen” machines), immediately after this November’s election; and that it require that all elections be subject to sensible auditing after every election to ensure that systems are functioning properly and to prove to the American people that their votes are counted as cast. There are cybersecurity issues in all parts of our election system:  before the election, voter-registration databases; during the election, voting machines; after the election, vote-tabulation / canvassing / precinct-aggregation computers.  In my opening statement I’ll focus on voting machines.  The other topics are addressed in a recent report I have co-authored entitled “Ten Things Election Officials Can Do to Help Secure and Inspire Confidence in This Fall’s Elections.”

California: Brown signs legislation to overhaul voting system | San Francisco Chronicle

California will overhaul its election system beginning in 2018 so that voters have more options on when and where to cast their ballots in future elections, under a bill Gov. Jerry Brown signed Thursday. SB450 by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, and Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, allows counties to opt into the new system, and if they do, those counties would be required to mail all voters a ballot that can be cast at voting centers up to 10 days before election day. The ballots can also be returned by mail. “People lead increasingly complicated lives; we should provide them with maximum flexibility when it comes to voting,” Allen said in a statement. “Under this new law, people will be able to choose the time and place to vote that is most convenient for their lifestyle and their schedule.”

Editorials: What’s the Matter with Kansas: The Voting Edition | Ciara Torres-Spelliscy/Jurist

Here’s the background of the Newby case. Kansas, Georgia and Alabama have been trying to make voting harder for voters through a series of restrictive voter ID laws. Another approach of these states has deployed is forcing voters to produce documentary evidence that they are American citizens when they register to vote. Asking for documentary proof of citizenship may sound reasonable enough, at first blush, but this runs afoul of the federal “motor voter” law which bars states from asking for additional information when voters register to vote using a standard federal form. The whole point of the motor voter law (whose formal name is National Voter Registration Act of 1993), was to make it easier for eligible Americans to register to vote when they were at the local DMV. While the legislators who pass these restrictive voting laws may think they are barring non-citizens from voting, instead these laws can disenfranchise regular Americans, especially those who were born at home instead of a hospital. These Americans may find it difficult, or well neigh impossible, to produce documentation of their birth proving that they are who they know they are: American citizens.

North Carolina: Motion Seeks to Modify Early Voting Ruling in North Carolina | Associated Press

An emergency motion was filed Saturday asking a federal judge to require the N.C. State Board of Elections to comply with a previous decision addressing early voting in North Carolina. The motion filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of a group called “The Duke Intervenor Plaintiffs” seeks to get the board to modify the early voting plans of Nash, New Hanover, Mecklenburg, Guilford and Forsyth counties. According to the motion, the board recently approved early voting plans that the plaintiffs think run counter to the decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Also, the motion says if the court finds it necessary to issue an order of contempt, the plaintiffs would move for an order to show why the board shouldn’t be held in civil contempt for violating the court’s order.

North Carolina: Democrats seek more early voting hours in key North Carolina counties | The Hill

Attorneys behind the lawsuit that struck down a sweeping North Carolina election reform measure filed an emergency motion on Saturday to extend early voting hours in five key counties. The new motion, filed by Marc Elias, the top lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, seeks to extend early voting hours in Nash, New Hanover, Mecklenburg, Guilford and Forsyth counties. President Obama won four of those five counties in 2012. The motion comes after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that a 2013 state election reform law disproportionately impacted low-income and minority voters. The three-judge panel that struck down the law said it had been enacted by the legislature with intent to discriminate against voters who typically back Democrats.

Ohio: A million Ohio voters didn’t get absentee ballot mailing | The Columbus Dispatch

The news release said, “Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted today announced his office will begin mailing absentee ballot applications to voters statewide this weekend.” What it didn’t say was that more than a million of Ohio’s 7.7 million registered voters wouldn’t get the mailing, because Husted’s office had pared the list beforehand. The 1,035,795 voters left out fall into two categories:

• 650,730 who have changed their address. This includes 568,456 who moved within Ohio; they were sent cards asking them to update their address. The 82,274 who moved out of state were mailed information on how to cancel their Ohio registration.

• 385,065 who did not vote in either the 2012 or 2014 elections and have not responded to queries about their address from their county board of elections.

“We’re working extremely hard to encourage participation this November and to help people make sure they have the information they need to cast a ballot with ease,” said Husted spokesman Joshua Eck.

Ohio: State may spend up to $150 million replacing aging voting machines | Journal News

Imagine using a computer that’s more than a decade old. That’s what Butler and Warren county voters are doing, which is why there’s a statewide push to replace the older machines before the 2020 presidential election. Some of these are simple paper ballot scanners, such as Warren County’s 184 machines. Butler County has 1,600 electronic voting machines that record a voter’s ballot to a unique card inserted into the machine. To help solve this issue of aging voting equipment, the state is looking at providing upwards of $115 million to $150 million in funding to the county boards of elections, which likely would pay for at least half of their costs, said Aaron Ockerman, the executive director for the Ohio Association of Election Officials. “It’s a real opportunity for the state and the local governments to solve a problem,” Ockerman said.