National: Hack Brief: As FBI Warns Election Sites Got Hacked, All Eyes Are on Russia | WIRED

In any other year, hackers breaking into a couple of state government websites through common web vulnerabilities would hardly raise a blip on the cybersecurity community’s radar. But in this strange and digitally fraught election season, the breach of two state board of election websites not only merits an FBI warning—it might just rise to the level of an international incident. On Monday, an FBI alert surfaced warning state boards of election to take precautions against hackers after two election board websites were breached in recent months. According to Yahoo News, those breaches likely targeted Arizona and Illinois board of election sites, both of which admitted earlier this summer that they’d been hacked. Cybersecurity researchers are already speculating that the attacks link to Russia, pointing to the string of recent, likely Russian attacks that have hit the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. “Someone is trying to hack these databases, and they succeeded in exfiltrating data, which is significant in itself,” says Thomas Rid, a cybersecurity-focused professor in the War Studies department at King’s College of London and author of Rise of the Machines. “In the context of all the other attempts to interfere with this election, it’s a big deal.”

National: FBI says foreign hackers penetrated state election systems | Yahoo

The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials. The FBI warning, contained in a “flash” alert from the FBI’s Cyber Division, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News, comes amid heightened concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about the possibility of cyberintrusions, potentially by Russian state-sponsored hackers, aimed at disrupting the November elections. Those concerns prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to convene a conference call with state election officials on Aug. 15, in which he offered his department’s help to make state voting systems more secure, including providing federal cyber security experts to scan for vulnerabilities, according to a “readout” of the call released by the department.

National: Harry Reid Cites Evidence of Russian Tampering in U.S. Vote, and Seeks F.B.I. Inquiry | The New York Times

The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, asked the F.B.I. on Monday to investigate evidence suggesting that Russia may try to manipulate voting results in November. In a letter to the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey Jr., Mr. Reid wrote that the threat of Russian interference “is more extensive than is widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results.” Recent classified briefings from senior intelligence officials, Mr. Reid said in an interview, have left him fearful that President Vladimir V. Putin’s “goal is tampering with this election.” News reports on Monday said the F.B.I. warned state election officials several weeks ago that foreign hackers had exported voter registration data from computer systems in at least one state, and had pierced the systems of a second one. The bureau did not name the states, but Yahoo News, which first reported the confidential F.B.I. warning, said they were Arizona and Illinois. Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona’s secretary of state, said the F.B.I. had told state officials that Russians were behind the Arizona attack.

National: Stealing Voter Files Was Shockingly Easy for These Hackers | The Daily Beast

The FBI says that computer hackers accessed, and in one case stole, voter registration files in two states, potentially compromising personal information and putting crucial election data at risk just three months before voters head to the polls. And if that weren’t unsettling enough, the techniques that the hackers used were neither sophisticated nor particularly hard to employ, proving that it’s not just high-end hackers from foreign governments, like the ones believed to be targeting U.S. political organizations, that elections officials need to worry about in the runup to November. “I don’t think anyone can assume that these vulnerabilities would be unique to these states,” Pamela Smith, the president of Verified Voting, a nonprofit group that advocates transparency and security in U.S. elections, told The Daily Beast. “This is a time when assuming is not the best thing to do.”

National: How Electronic Voting Could Undermine the Election | The Atlantic

It’s 2016: What possible reason is there to vote on paper? When we use touchscreens to communicate, work, and shop, why can’t we use similar technology to vote? A handful of states, and many precincts in other states, have already made the switch to voting systems that are fully digital, leaving no paper trail at all. But this is despite the fact that computer-security experts think electronic voting is a very, very bad idea. For years, security researchers and academics have urged election officials to hold off on adopting electronic voting systems, worrying that they’re not nearly secure enough to reliably carry out their vital role in American democracy. Their claims have been backed up by repeated demonstrations of the systems’ fragility: When the District of Columbia tested an electronic voting system in 2010, a professor from the University of Michigan and his graduate students took it over from more than 500 miles away to show its weaknesses; with actual physical access to a voting machine, the same professor—Alex Halderman—swapped out its internals, turning it into a Pac Man console. Halderman showed that a hacker who has access to a machine before election day could modify its programming—and he did so without even leaving a mark on the machine’s tamper-evident seals. But it wouldn’t even take a full-fledged cyberattack on an electronic voting system to throw a wrench in a national election. Even the specter of the possibility that the American electoral system is anything but trustworthy provides ammunition to skeptics to call foul if an election doesn’t go their way.

Arizona: Russian hackers targeted Arizona election system | The Washington Post

Hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, and the FBI alerted Arizona officials in June that Russians were behind the assault on the election system in that state. The bureau described the threat as “credible” and significant, “an eight on a scale of one to 10,” Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan (R), said Monday. As a result, Reagan shut down the state’s voter registration system for nearly a week. It turned out that the hackers had not compromised the state system or even any county system. They had, however, stolen the username and password of a single election official in Gila County. … This spring, a DHS official cautioned that online voting is not yet secure. “We believe that online voting, especially online voting in large scale, introduces great risk into the election system by threatening voters’ expectations of confidentiality, accountability and security of their votes and provides an avenue for malicious actors to manipulate the voting results,” said Neil Jenkins, an official in the department’s Office of Cybersecurity and Communications.

California: Election Officials on guard after cyber attacks on elections databases in two states | Los Angeles Times

California’s elections agency announced that there is no evidence that the state’s voter registration databases had been targeted by the foreign hackers who reportedly infiltrated elections systems in Arizona and Illinois. Yahoo News reported Monday that personal voter registration information for up to 200,000 people at the Illinois Board of Elections had been downloaded by foreign hackers. The FBI issued an alert early this month warning state elections officials about the data breach, according to the Yahoo report. A spokesman for California secretary of state said the agency, which oversees elections statewide, was aware of the cyber attack reports. “We have no evidence of any breaches or hacks of our system,” agency spokesman Sam Mahood said. Mahood declined to say whether any extra precautions are being taken, saying the agency does not disclose its security protocols. The secretary of state’s website has been down most of Monday but Mahood said that was not caused by a hack or breach. Unlike some other states, California counties have maintained their own databases of registered voters. However, the secretary of state’s office is in the process of centralizing voter registration information in a statewide VoteCal database, which is expected to be operational in September.

Colorado: More voter registration efforts targeting homeless population | The Denver Post

Sandra Abdoulaye wants to cast a vote in this year’s presidential election but wasn’t sure she was eligible to register, because she is homeless. On Friday, volunteers at the resource center run by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless asked the 60-year-old a few questions, and soon, Abdoulaye was filling out the one-page form to register to vote, listing a shelter for both her home and her mailing address so the state can send her a ballot. “It was fast and easy,” Abdoulaye said. “I don’t know why anyone would refuse.” This year, some organizations and the Secretary of State’s office are targeting voter registration efforts at people who are homeless. In Colorado, voters have long been able to use any location — a shelter or a park — as a home address, as long as they also list a mailing address where they can receive ballots. Having an identification card isn’t a requirement to register.

Georgia: State That Exposed 6 Million Voters’ Private Data Says It Doesn’t Need Election Security Aid | ThinkProgress

Georgia’s aging, paperless voting machines have been called a “sitting duck” for hackers. Six million Georgia voters had reams of personal information exposed by a data breach in Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office earlier this year. Yet Kemp is refusing an offer from the Department of Homeland Security to help shore up the cyber-security of the state’s vulnerable voting machines. Instead, he accused the federal government of attempting to “subvert the Constitution to achieve the goal of federalizing elections under the guise of security.” He said the state is capable of handling its own election security, and opined a hack is “not probable at all.” Less than a year ago, Kemp’s office accidentally mailed out a dozen discs containing the private information of more than six million Georgia voters, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, and driver’s license numbers. At the time, Kemp told state lawmakers that while he is “no expert on data security,” he was confident that no information “made it out to the bad guys.” A year before that, tens of thousands of new voter registrations went missing from the state’s database — the vast majority of them belonging to low-income people of color.

North Carolina: Slicing, dicing North Carolina’s registered voters | The Charlotte Observer

Early voting schedules for the fall elections remain unresolved in at least one-quarter of North Carolina’s counties after a federal court ruling that struck down key portions of the state’s 2013 voter identification and ballot access law. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined Republican legislators acted with discriminatory intent toward black voters when they approved several provisions, including one that reduced the number of early voting days from a maximum of 17 days to 10. Early in-person voting is popular in North Carolina, used by more than half of the people casting ballots in the 2012 presidential election, when it covered 17 days. Its use could make a difference Nov. 8. County boards of elections had approved 10-day plans for early voting sites and hours of operation. They had until late last week to give the State Board of Elections revised plans based on a schedule beginning Oct. 20 instead of Oct. 27.

North Carolina: Experiment shows ‘better way’ for voting districts | The Charlotte Observer

Retired state judges and justices who experimented with drawing the state’s congressional districts without regard to voters’ party registration have produced a plan that creates a few districts where candidates of either party would have a chance to win. The redistricting simulation, a project of Duke University and Common Cause North Carolina, aims to show one way the state’s 13 congressional districts could look if drawn without political considerations. It includes six likely Republican districts, four likely Democratic districts, and three toss-ups, the sponsors said. The experiment produced results strikingly different from the districts legislators approved this year. Legislative Republicans drew the existing congressional map to elect 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats. No district is considered competitive. Common Cause is suing over the current congressional map, claiming that extreme partisan gerrymandering violates the Constitution.

Editorials: A path to justice for ex-convicts in Virginia | The Washington Post

The Virginia Supreme Court’s impressionistic reading of the state constitution, by which it conjured a provision absent from the actual text, has sent Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) back to the drawing board in his effort to restore voting rights to tens of thousands of former convicts, who are disproportionately African American. The governor’s determination is commendable, both to reverse an essentially racist legacy of the commonwealth’s history and to ensure that future elections in the state are as broadly democratic as possible. Mr. McAuliffe is following in the footsteps of recent predecessors from both parties, who have regarded the permanent disenfranchisement of former convicts as an injustice. (Virginia is one of just a handful of states with such an onerous ban.) Those governors expanded the restoration of voting rights, taking advantage of explicit constitutional language that enables them to do so — a power that the document’s principal draftsman, University of Virginia law professor A.E. Dick Howard, said was virtually unlimited. Mr. McAuliffe is moving aggressively to further right a wrong that has deprived more than 200,000 Virginians from voting, in some cases for a half-century or longer after they paid their debt to society.

Wisconsin: Analysis: New Wisconsin Voter ID Rules Expose Law’s Real Aim | NBC

A federal appeals court on Friday offered what some described as a compromise over Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law. But a closer look suggests the new rules will still keep eligible voters from the polls, maintaining a barrier to voting in a crucial presidential swing state this fall. To voting rights advocates, the arrangement underscores more starkly than ever how voter ID laws are designed not to ensure the integrity of the election, as their backers claim, but to make voting harder for certain groups. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit last week overturned a lower court’s ruling that had required Wisconsin to let people without acceptable ID cast a ballot if they signed an affidavit attesting to their identity. The appeals court said the affidavit option wasn’t necessary, because Wisconsin recently promised to make it very easy to get an ID at the DMV. Specifically, in a set of emergency rules issued in May amid litigation over the ID law, the state said it would mail a free temporary ID to anyone who comes to a DMV office to request one, showing whatever documentation they have. (Previously, many voters were required to show a birth certificate or other underlying documentation to get a voter ID). As long as the state keeps to that pledge and publicizes the new rule, there’s no need to soften the law, the appeals court unanimously concluded.

Armenia: Election Deal Collapses | RFE/RL

The Armenian authorities officially confirmed on Monday that they will not implement a recent agreement with the opposition that was supposed to ensure the proper conduct of next year’s parliamentary elections. The Central Election Commission (CEC) attributed the deal’s collapse to logistical problems related to the introduction of a biometric registry of voters meant to prevent multiple voting by government loyalists. The compromise agreement reached with three parliamentary opposition parties in June committed the authorities to installing electronic machines that would check voters’ identity through plastic ID cards containing their fingerprints. The landmark deal, which took the form of amendments to Armenia’s new Electoral Code, also envisaged live online broadcasts of voting and ballot counting from all 2,000 or so polling stations across the country.

Canada: Citizenship only requirement to vote, say two expatriates denied ballots | National Post

Citizenship – and nothing more – guarantees the right to vote, say two disenfranchised Canadian expatriates whose legal struggle to reclaim their votes is headed to the Supreme Court of Canada in a case affecting more than one million non-resident Canadians. Gillian Frank, a Toronto native, and Jamie Duong, a Montreal native, wanted to vote in the 2011 general election but, since both work at U.S. universities, were refused online ballots under a 1993 Canada Elections Act rule that bars citizens from voting if they’ve lived outside Canada for more than five years. The rule was loosely enforced until 2007, when the then-Conservative government said expats’ short-term visits back home no longer reset the five-year clock, as had been the practice.

Gabon: Presidential poll ‘lacked transparency’: EU observers | AFP

Gabon’s presidential election “lacked transparency”, the head of the 73-strong EU electoral monitoring team in the country said on Monday, a day before the official results were due out. Speaking to reporters in the capital Libreville, Bulgarian MEP Mariya Gabriel said Saturday’s vote in the oil-rich Central African country, was “managed in a way that lacked transparency.” “The mission condemns the lack of transparency in the electoral bodies which failed to make essential information available to the campaigns, like the electoral roll or a list of polling stations,” she said. The EU observers said that a week before the election only half of voters had received their ballot cards. The remarks came after a bitterly disputed election in which both sides accused the other of electoral fraud. Official results will not be published until Tuesday, and there are fears that the tensions may erupt into a repeat of the violence seen after the disputed 2009 election.

Indonesia: Government plans e-voting for 2019 presidential elections | GovInsider

The Indonesian Government is looking at electronic voting for the 2019 presidential and legislative elections. The plan is being discussed by ministries under the Coordinating Minister for Politics, Legal and Security, revealed Soedarmo, director general of politics and general administration. The government is yet to make a final decision, however. Digital voting will help eliminate fraud and will return voting results within minutes, he said, according to the Jakarta Globe. Over 700 cases of election fraud were received by the constitution court during the 2014 elections. Most cases were rejected due to lack of evidence.

Iraq: Electoral Commission rejects proposal to register Shia militia as party | World Bulletin

Iraq’s official electoral commission on Sunday rejected proposals to allow the Hashd al-Shaabi, an umbrella group of pro-government Shia militias, to register itself as a political party in advance of elections slated for next year. The decision came one day after prominent Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr declared that the country’s next government would be a “government of militias” if the Hashd al-Shaabi were allowed to field candidates in provincial council and parliamentary polls slated for 2017 and 2018 respectively. In a Sunday statement, the commission said it had based its decision on the fact that the Hashd al-Shaabi constituted a “military organization with links to the [Iraqi] security agencies”.

National: Two swing states decline DHS security for voting machines | The Hill

Two swing states, Pennsylvania and Georgia, are declining an offer from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to scan their voting systems ahead of the 2016 elections. In August, DHS offered to help states thwart potential hacking amid cybersecurity concerns about just how easily a U.S. election could be manipulated. Georgia and Pennsylvania, however, have opted out. Instead, the two states will rely on their own systems to monitor potential election hacking, reports NextGov. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp cited state sovereignty concerns. “The question remains whether the federal government will subvert the Constitution to achieve the goal of federalizing elections under the guise of security,” he told Nextgov in an email. “Designating voting systems or any other election system as critical infrastructure would be a vast federal overreach, the cost of which would not equally improve the security of elections in the United States.”

National: Elections security: Federal help or power grab? | Politico

The federal government wants to help states keep hackers from manipulating the November election, amid growing fears that the U.S. political system is vulnerable. But Georgia’s top election official is balking at the offers of assistance — and accusing the Obama administration of using exaggerated warnings of cyberthreats to intrude on states’ authority. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s objections add to a bumpy start for the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to shore up safeguards for the election, during a summer when cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee have called attention to weaknesses across the electoral system. Cybersecurity experts call tougher protections long overdue for parties, political advocacy groups and voting machinery, but DHS’ efforts risk becoming caught in the same partisan arguments about state sovereignty that have hung up programs such as President Barack Obama’s Medicaid expansion. “It seems like now it’s just the D.C. media and the bureaucrats, because of the DNC getting hacked — they now think our whole system is on the verge of disaster because some Russian’s going to tap into the voting system,” Kemp, a Republican, told POLITICO in an interview. “And that’s just not — I mean, anything is possible, but it is not probable at all, the way our systems are set up.”

National: Voting Hurdles Often Keep College Students Away From the Ballot Box | News21

Students at Rollins College in Florida are designing custom “I voted” stickers for absentee voters. Across the country, the University of Southern California has partnered with county officials to host voter registration events with prizes, games and free food. And at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the student government plans campuswide voter registration drives as well. Across the country, groups and organizations promoting civic engagement among college students have spent hundreds — if not thousands — of hours trying to galvanize this large, yet often elusive group of potential voters. The Campus Vote Project, one of the most prominent college voter outreach groups, has launched an initiative to establish “voter-friendly” campuses. So far, more than 90 institutions, including Rollins College, have agreed to commit to things such as hosting voter registration drives, inviting candidates to speak or offering rides to the polls to increase voter education, registration and mobilization. Why go to the trouble of recruiting college voters? College students have the potential to influence elections. There were 17.3 million undergraduate students enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in 2014, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Experts predict that population will increase to 19.8 million by 2025.

National: Selfies in voting booths: Depending on where you live, they may be illegal | Ars Technica

“Dude, check out who I voted for!” We soon could be seeing a lot more selfies with that caption. That’s because legislation legalizing ballot selfies in voting booths landed on California Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk on Friday. Assembly Bill 1494 amends California law that, for now, says “a voter shall not show” a ballot “to any person in such a way as to reveal its contents.” The new law awaiting the governor’s signature says “a voter may voluntarily disclose how he or she voted if that voluntary act does not violate any other law.” The measure passed the state Senate earlier this year and the state Assembly last week on a 63-15 vote. “I see this as a First Amendment issue,” Assemblyman James Gallagher, a Republican representing Yuba City and one of the bill’s sponsors, told colleagues during a floor vote. “All this does is to say that those who want to share how they voted have the right to do so.” Across the US, the law in the 50 states on voting booth selfies is mixed. No federal law addresses the issue, and there’s a smattering of court challenges across the country. Consult these guides from the Huffington Post and the Digital Media Law Project on whether it’s OK to snap a picture of yourself showing your votes on the November 8 presidential ballot.

Editorials: When Poll-Watching Crosses the Line | Jocelyn Benson/Politico

As we near another historic presidential election, the fog of anxiety about the election is returning on a scale we haven’t seen in decades. Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that the general election may be “rigged” nationwide. He has called on his supporters to monitor the polls on Election Day, and said that voting locations should “have the sheriffs and the police chiefs and everybody watching.” Trump’s running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, doubled down on Trump’s suggestions, telling a New Hampshire audience that “the integrity of ‘one person, one vote’ is at the core of democracy, and that happens one precinct at a time.” Trump and Pence are partly correct: There is great value in having elections monitored. Poll watching helps to preserve an open, transparent democratic process by ensuring that elections are administered in a manner that protects access while inviting scrutiny. Poll observers can ensure the law is followed, provide support for voters and poll workers in navigating often confusing and ever-evolving election regulations. But in nearly a decade of organizing vote-monitoring efforts around the country, I have seen firsthand how volunteer monitors—often positioned as “challengers” at the polls—can intimidate and harass even the most seasoned poll workers and voters, interfere with the process, delay voting, and potentially alter the election’s outcome.

Alaska: Newly enacted Native language voting provisions rolled out at polls in August primary | Alaska Dispatch News

Before choosing a primary ballot at a polling place set up at the Manokotak City Office this week, Mike Toyukak glanced at two sample ballots offering Yup’ik translations of the English ballots available for voters to chose from. From signing for his ballot to depositing it into the ballot box, it only took Toyukak a few minutes to vote. But the scenario he encountered — the Yup’ik language sample ballots, an interpreter on hand had he needed one, and even a Yup’ik glossary of terms available for the poll workers to refer to — were years in the making. And Toyukak was at the heart of the change. His first language was Yup’ik. And for years, when he went to vote he was confronted with an English ballot, and difficulty understanding all the nuances it contained. Although he knows some English, he also knew that others were having an even more difficult time with the language.

California: Sanders Fans’ Fight Over Voter Rules Tossed | Courthouse News Service

With the California primaries long over, a federal judge tossed a suit brought by Bernie Sanders supporters accusing election officials of violating their voting rights in the run-up to the June election. U.S. District Judge William Alsup dismissed the case as moot on Thursday, telling plaintiffs’ counsel William Simpich that “there is plenty of time to take an appeal.” The lawsuit was filed less than three weeks before the June 7 primary by a group of Oakland-based Bernie Sanders supporters calling themselves the Voting Rights Defense Project. The American Independence Party and two San Francisco voters joined in the lawsuit.

Florida: Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon is registered voter at vacant Florida home | The Guardian

Donald Trump’s new presidential campaign chief is registered to vote in a key swing state at an empty house where he does not live, in an apparent breach of election laws. Stephen Bannon, the chief executive of Trump’s election campaign, has an active voter registration at the house in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which is vacant and due to be demolished to make way for a new development. “I have emptied the property,” Luis Guevara, the owner of the house, which is in the Coconut Grove section of the city, said in an interview. “Nobody lives there … we are going to make a construction there.” Neighbors said the property had been abandoned for several months. Bannon, 62, formerly rented the house for use by his ex-wife, Diane Clohesy, but did not live there himself. Clohesy, a Tea Party activist, moved out of the house earlier this year and has her own irregular voting registration arrangement. According to public records, Bannon and Clohesy divorced seven years ago.

Editorials: Guam residents should have right to vote for president | Pacific Daily News

A legal battle once again highlighted the struggle of Guam residents to have equal voting rights. A federal court recently ruled that Congress can deny the right to vote for president for state residents who move to certain U.S. territories. The lead plaintiff is U.S. citizen Luis Segovia, a former Illinois resident who lives in Guam. As things stand now, the veteran can’t vote for president in November. Neil Weare, co-counsel of the plaintiffs, said in an email to the Pacific Daily News that despite this legal setback, the stories of Segovia and the other plaintiffs will continue to help push a national conversation about voting rights in territories.

Illinois: Redistricting referendum won’t appear on ballot | Associated Press

A divided Illinois Supreme Court narrowly ruled Thursday that a voter referendum seeking to change how Illinois draws political boundaries is unconstitutional, making it ineligible to appear on the November ballot. The high court, in a 4-3 decision, affirmed the ruling by a Cook County judge who determined the ballot initiative seeking to give legislative mapmaking power to an independent commission instead of lawmakers didn’t meet constitutional muster. It’s the second failed attempt to overhaul redistricting by petition in two years. The ruling in the high-stakes case – falling the day before an election deadline to certify fall ballots – had the potential to alter Illinois’ political power dynamic, where elected officials in the Democratic-leaning state run the once-a-decade process. But in a 63-page ruling the majority justices said the measure didn’t meet narrow constitutional requirements.

Missouri: Voter ID law once again stirring controversy as veto override possibility looms | The Kansas City Star

A decade ago, Missouri Republicans began their quest to require voters to present a government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot. Every time they’ve gotten close to succeeding, something has come along to put the kibosh on the idea — either a court ruling, a Democratic filibuster or Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto pen. GOP leaders believe they’ll take the first step toward finally putting the issue to rest when they return to the Capitol next month to consider whether to override Nixon’s latest veto of a voter ID bill. Then in November, voters will weigh in on an amendment to the state constitution allowing a voter ID law, a necessary second step in the process because the Missouri Supreme Court previously declared voter ID laws unconstitutional. “I’m very confident,” said Rep. Justin Alferman, a Gasconade County Republican who sponsored the voter ID bill this year. “A lot of work and compromise went into this year’s bill, and I don’t think the Democrats are going to fight this very hard.”

Pennsylvania: Advocates Say Electronic Voting Machines Should Print Paper Ballots | WESA

Allegheny County has been held as a model for its handling of electronic voting testing and inspection. It’s the only county in Pennsylvania to conduct parallel testing, meaning an independent organization randomly selects machines on Election Day and simulates usage. Despite testing, some local groups aren’t convinced the machines are secure. Vote Allegheny Treasurer Secretary Audrey Glickman said the county needs to upgrade its system to one that prints a paper ballot. “Then we can have a statistically significant audit and have some means of recounting what the vote was,” Glickman said. “Right now we can’t recount the vote.”