National: Schumer warns of possible cover-up by Trump administration | The Hill

Following an emergency Democratic caucus meeting Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) warned that Trump officials might try to cover up improper contacts with Russian intelligence. Schumer said there is legitimate concern that President Trump’s circle of advisers may try to destroy evidence that could shed light on the substance of reported conversations with Russian agents. “There is real concern that administration, transition and campaign officials may try to cover up ties to Russia by deleting emails, texts and other records that could shine a light on those connections,” Schumer said at a press conference outside the Senate chamber following the meeting. He said such electronic records are “likely to be the subject” of congressional investigations and “must be preserved.”

National: Senate Democrats unify around congressional probe of Trump ties to Russia | Washington Post

Senate Democratic leaders agreed Wednesday to a bipartisan probe inside Congress of allegations that people linked to President Donald Trump – including ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn – had frequent contacts with Russia during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. Democrats agreed to push forward with an ongoing Intelligence Committee investigation into Russia’s purported activities into the election, expanding the probe to include contacts made by Flynn and perhaps other Trump campaign officials with the Kremlin. They united around this course of action despite pressure from some Democrats to demand an independent commission to pursue the matter from outside Congress.

Editorials: Making Voting White Again: The Trump administration’s continued repetition of bogus claims of voter fraud has a very specific purpose. | Jamelle Bouie/Slate

Birtherism, the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born abroad and thus ineligible for the presidency, served a very specific purpose. It was a tool of delegitimization, a means to drive xenophobic suspicion and racial hostility. It’s why Donald Trump, its chief advocate, never truly dropped the crusade—not after wide condemnation from critics and fact-checkers; not after wide ridicule from much of the public; and not after Obama released his long-form birth certificate, debunking the charge outright. “A lot of people question it,” said Trump in a 2015 question-and-answer session with Fox News’ Sean Hannity a few months before he announced his bid for the White House. Trump’s birtherism didn’t just feed anti-Obama distrust and paranoia among conservative voters. It helped feed a sense of grievance—a feeling that their country had been hijacked by nefarious forces, and they needed to take it back. And whether Trump realized it or not at the time, it also helped till ground for his eventual presidential campaign and its message of nativist anger and racist hostility. It is now important to remember all of this, as Trump and his backers stoke another conspiracy theory, aimed at delegitimizing a different set of opponents.

Florida: Lawmakers consider allowing guns at polling places | Tampa Bay Times

Concealed guns at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games, local bars and even voting booths could be commonplace under a sweeping measure introduced this week in the Florida Legislature. With the recent, tragic history of the Pulse nightclub massacre last June in Orlando and the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting last month, two conservative Republican lawmakers want to do away with all of Florida’s “gun-free zones” — 15 locations in state law where concealed weapons are currently prohibited. Sen. Dennis Baxley of Ocala and Rep. Don Hahnfeldt of the Villages have proposed eliminating all state-imposed restrictions on where Florida’s concealed weapons permit holders can carry their guns — with the goal of allowing businesses, institutions and people to have greater control over their own protection, Hahnfeldt said.

Nevada: Report: ‘Motor voter’ law could cost Nevada $5M or $90,000 | Associated Press

Adopting a proposed “motor voter” law in Nevada to register eligible people to vote when they apply for a driver’s license or other state identification card could cost as much as $5 million, state analysts said in a long overdue report released Tuesday. But state officials called the report outdated and anticipate a much lower price tag for the program, which is projected to enroll at least 120,000 voters in the first year. Under a 2016 voter-initiated petition, Nevadans would be registered to vote through the Department of Motor Vehicles unless they opt out. The petition also calls for the voter rolls to be updated when people renew driver’s licenses or otherwise update their information with the DMV. In the report filed six months late, fiscal analysts at the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau said implementing the program, should it become law, would cost $5 million if the state decided to implement a new registration database to facilitate data transfers between state and local agencies.

North Carolina: Black voters in Jones County haven’t been heard, they say. Can a new lawsuit change that? | CSMonitor

Black residents of Jones County, N.C., have struggled for years to ensure local representation, some say, but they hope that a new lawsuit will finally bring results. On Monday, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., joined with two law firms to bring a suit on behalf of black residents of Jones County, N.C. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that the county’s at-large voting system has systematically prevented black residents, who comprise almost one-third of the county, from electing the candidates of their choice to the county’s five-member Board of Commissioners. Since the five candidates receiving the most votes from across the county are elected to the board, the white majority can vote as a bloc to prevent black candidates from winning seats, the plaintiffs say. They argue that this election system has effectively sidelined the black community’s issues, since it is relatively easy to be elected without their votes. Instead, the plaintiffs propose creating single-member local districts, giving predominantly black neighborhoods a higher likelihood of electing their chosen candidate.

Texas: Pasadena won’t fight voting rights order; elections will proceed as planned | Houston Chronicle

The city of Pasadena will not fight an appellate court ruling over its election system, a decision that will allow the upcoming May council elections to proceed with eight-single member district seats, according to the lead attorney for the city in the closely watched voting rights case. The elections will proceed under the district format and will not using six neighborhood council and two at-large seats, a system a district judge ruled was discriminatory against Latino voters. The city, through its attorneys, sought a stay of Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal’s order, but the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of appeals upheld the order.

Texas: Illegal voter ‘can’t believe’ she got 8 years in prison | The Star-Telegram

Rosa Maria Ortega voted for Republican Ken Paxton for Texas attorney general in 2014. Now, as she sits behind a plate glass window Monday with heavy eyes and wearing a tan Tarrant County Jail jumpsuit, she’s crushed that Paxton and others can celebrate her incarceration as sending a message about illegal voting. Ortega, 37, a permanent resident who arrived in Texas as an infant and has four children, all U.S. citizens, was charged with two counts of illegal voting for voting illegally in elections in 2012 and 2014. On Thursday, a Tarrant County jury handed down a sentence of eight years in prison and a $5,000 fine for each count. After serving her sentence, she will likely face deportation. She believes she is wrongly being used as an example of voter fraud. “I thought I was doing something right for my country. When they gave me the sentence they just broke my heart, and they didn’t just break my heart, but I already knew my family was going to be broken, my kids especially,” Ortega said Monday during an interview at the jail, where she will remain for about a month until being transported to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility. “To me, it’s like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this. I just can’t.’ ”

Wisconsin: Scott Walker signals support for recount changes | Wisconsin State Journal

Gov. Scott Walker signaled support Wednesday for a bill that would only allow candidates to request a recount in state and local races if they trail the winner by a certain margin. The bill is a direct response to last year’s presidential recount that was triggered and paid for by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who received 1 percent of the vote. The recount, which cost Stein’s campaign a little more than $2 million and county and municipal clerks thousands of hours of additional work during a traditionally busy time of year, resulted in Donald Trump extending his lead over Hillary Clinton by 131 votes. It also revealed more than 11,000 errors in how ballots were counted on election night out of 3 million total votes cast, but no major flaws in the state election system. Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, and Reps. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, and Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, are lead sponsors of the bill, which LeMahieu said in December he would introduce in response to the recount. Walker also signaled support for such a proposal then, but details weren’t yet available.

Wisconsin: Lawmakers Look To Change Wisconsin Recount Law | Wisconsin Public Radio

A new proposal from state lawmakers would only allow second place finishers to request election recounts in Wisconsin, a policy change that would have prevented Wisconsin’s recent presidential recount. The new proposal says only a second place finisher who comes within one percent of the winner can request a recount. That would have been about 7,5000 votes in the last presidential election. The bill’s sponsors say it’s in response to the presidential recount requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein last year. Stein only received about one percent of the vote in Wisconsin.

Bangladesh: Prime Minister says government considering using electronic voting machines in general elections | bdnews24

The government is considering introducing electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the parliamentary elections due by early 2019, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has told Parliament. In response to an MP’s question on Wednesday, she said, “The plan to introduce E-voting in the next parliamentary election can be taken into consideration in order to further ensure the people’s voting right in accordance with all existing laws for free, fair and impartial elections.” The ruling Awami League proposed the introduction of E-voting during talks on forming the new Election Commission with President Md Abdul Hamid on Jan 11. The Awami League leaders later said they meant use of EVMs by E-voting.

Ecuador: Opposition Looks Ahead to Second Round to Build Coalition | PanAm Post

Rafael Correa has so dominated political life in Ecuador for 10 years that the election in many ways appears to be a referendum on his legacy. While the opposition criticizes Correa for dramatically expanding the size of the state at the expense of the private sector, excessive hiring of public servants, cracking down on freedom of the press, and ruling with an authoritarian style, supporters praise him for investing in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and transportation. However, every one seems to agree that Correa’s famed confrontational style worked to his detriment. The word often repeated here in reference to his administration is “prepotente”: indeed Lenin Moreno, Correa’s hand-picked successor herein faces his greatest electoral challenge: seeking to disassociate himself from the imperial nature and penchant for conflict of his mentor and predecessor.

France: Foreign Minister warns Russia against meddling in election | Reuters

France said on Wednesday it would not accept interference by Russia or any other state in its presidential election, and would retaliate if necessary. The pledge by Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault followed complaints by the party of election frontrunner Emmanuel Macron that his campaign was the target of ‘fake news’ put out by Russian media, as well as internet attacks on its databases. “We will not accept any interference whatsoever in our electoral process, no more from Russia by the way than from any other state. This is a question of our democracy, our sovereignty, our national independence,” Ayrault told parliament. He said France would set clear limits, “including retaliatory measures when that is necessary, because no foreign state can influence the choice of the French, no foreign state can choose the future president of the Republic.”

Philippines: Supreme Court allows election recount for defeated Marcos | Reuters

The Philippine Supreme Court will allow a protest into the disputed election of the country’s vice president, giving the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos a chance to prove his claim that he was robbed of the number two post. Social activist Leni Robredo was elected vice president in May 2016, winning by about 260,000 votes over Marcos’ son and namesake. Popularly known as Bongbong, he said he was the rightful winner and votes were stolen from him. Marcos had asked the court to order a recount of more than a million votes in the south and nullification of balloting in three provinces. Robredo in turn asked the court to reject his petition. On Thursday, Marcos released the court’s Jan. 24 ruling which found his petition “sufficient in form and substance”.

National: Did Trump Aides Speak With Russian Intelligence Before the Election? | The Atlantic

If the leaks that doomed Michael Flynn were a signal from the intelligence community, perhaps the message they intended to carry was: You ain’t seen nothing yet. The national security adviser’s abrupt resignation Monday night, which the White House says was a firing, came after it became clear that Flynn had lied to the public and to Vice President Mike Pence, alleging he had not discussed sanctions against Russia’s ambassador to the United States. On Tuesday evening, The New York Times added a set of new, if in some cases merely suggestive, information about further contacts between the Trump team and the Russian government—some of it directly contradicting statements made by Trump aides. The newspaper reports that four current and former intelligence officers say that Trump political and business associates “had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.” The contacts came in the context of Trump repeatedly praising Russian President Vladimir Putin on the trail, as well as what intelligence officials and the Obama administration say were Russian efforts to boost Trump’s presidential hopes with hacks targeting Hillary Clinton and her political allies.

National: The Inside Story of the Chaotic Trump-Clinton Recount | New Republic

Five days after Donald Trump was elected president, Alex Halderman was on a United Airlines flight from Newark to Los Angeles when he received an urgent email. A respected computer scientist and leading critic of security flaws in America’s voting machines, Halderman was anxious to determine whether there had been foul play during the election. Had machines in Wisconsin or Michigan been hacked? Could faulty software or malfunctioning equipment have skewed the results in Pennsylvania? “Before the election, I had been saying I really, really hope there’s not a hack and that it’s not close,” he says. “Afterwards, I thought, ‘Wait a minute, there’s enough reason here to be concerned.’ ” Now, wedged into a middle seat on the cross-country flight, Halderman stared in disbelief at the email from Barbara Simons, a fellow computer scientist and security expert. Working with Amy Rao, a Silicon Valley CEO and major Democratic fundraiser, Simons had arranged a conference call with John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, to make the case for taking a closer look at the election results. Could Halderman be on the call in 15 minutes? United’s wi-fi system didn’t allow for in-flight phone calls. But Halderman wasn’t fazed. “I’m blocked,” he emailed Simons, “but I can try.” Within minutes, Halderman had circumvented the wi-fi and established an interface with computers at the University of Michigan, where at 36 he is the youngest full professor in the history of the computer science department. He dialed in to the call but did not speak, afraid of drawing attention to the fact that he was violating the airline’s phone ban.

National: State election officials say DHS vague on rules for election aid | FCW

State election officials had more questions than answers after a Department of Homeland Security presentation explaining why election systems should be deemed critical U.S. infrastructure. Geoff Hale, DHS’ cybersecurity strategy and integration program manager, outlined the changes and benefits that the recent designation provides during a Feb. 14 Election Assistance Commission meeting. The primary benefits, Hale said, are added protections against nation-states, guaranteed priority in DHS assistance requests and greater access to information on vulnerabilities. “Without institutionalizing this through a designation of critical infrastructure, there’s no guarantee the services would be available,” he said. “Being critical infrastructure, there are a set of international norms that” prevent countries from attacking these networks, said Hale. “And potentially waiting nine months for a risk and vulnerability assessment may not work on a procurement timeline” for election officials. Hale also stressed that the “full threat information” available to states that opt in for DHS assistance is not subject to state sunshine laws or Freedom of Information Act requests.

National: Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the research. | The Washington Post

The Justice Department just got a new boss: Jeff Sessions. He is raising alarms in the civil rights community. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is concerned about his “record of hostility” toward the Voting Rights Act and the enforcement of civil rights. The NAACP-Legal Defense Fund lamented that it is “unimaginable that he could be entrusted to serve as the chief law enforcement officer for this nation’s civil rights laws.” No one knows for sure how Sessions will perform as attorney general — the former Republican senator from Alabama did, after all, once vote to renew the Voting Rights Act, in 2006 — but for many his record is deeply troubling. What we do know is that voter identification laws are spreading rapidly around the country. Before 2006, no state required photo identification to vote on Election Day. Today 10 states have this requirement. All told, a total of 33 states — representing more than half the nation’s population — have some version of voter identification rules on the books. As we detail below, our research shows that these laws lower minority turnout and benefit the Republican Party.

National: New Mac malware pinned on same Russian group blamed for election hacks | Ars Technica

APT28, the Russian hacking group tied to last year’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, has long been known for its advanced arsenal of tools for penetrating Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux devices. Now, researchers have uncovered an equally sophisticated malware package the group used to compromise Macs. Like its counterparts for other platforms, the Mac version of Xagent is a modular backdoor that can be customized to meet the objectives of a given intrusion, researchers from antivirus provider Bitdefender reported in a blog post published Tuesday. Capabilities include logging passwords, snapping pictures of screen displays, and stealing iOS backups stored on the compromised Mac. The discovery builds on the already considerable number of tools attributed to APT28, which other researchers call Sofacy, Sednit, Fancy Bear, and Pawn Storm. According to researchers at CrowdStrike and other security firms, APT28 has been operating since at least 2007 and is closely tied to the Russian government. An analysis Bitdefender published last year determined APT28 members spoke Russian, worked mostly during Russian business hours, and pursued targets located in Ukraine, Spain, Russia, Romania, the US, and Canada.

National: Senators from both parties pledge to deepen probe of Russia and the 2016 election | The Washington Post

Top Republican and Democratic senators pledged Tuesday to deepen their investigation of Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election in the wake of Michael Flynn’s resignation as President Trump’s national security adviser, opening a new and potentially uncomfortable chapter in the uneasy relationship between Trump and Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said such an investigation is “highly likely,” and the top two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), stood side by side Tuesday to announce that the committee’s ongoing probe must include an examination of any contacts between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government. Flynn resigned late Monday after revelations of potentially illegal contacts with Russia last year and misleading statements about the communication to senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President Pence. “We are aggressively going to continue the oversight responsibilities of the committee as it relates to not only the Russian involvement in the 2016 election, but again any contacts by any campaign individuals that might have happened with Russian government officials,” said Burr, the chairman of the intelligence panel.

Editorials: The president lays the groundwork for a nationwide voter intimidation program | Sherrilyn Ifill/The Washington Post

White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller argued Sunday that President Trump was the victim of voter fraud in the election. “Voter fraud,” Miller insisted, “is a serious problem in this country.” This statement is untrue. He also said that “the White House has provided enormous evidence” of this fraud. This is also untrue. The president himself has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims, from last week’s allegation that then-Sen. Kelly Ayotte lost her race in New Hampshire because thousands of voters were bused in from Massachusetts to his fact-free insistence that he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes because of 3 million to 5 million votes cast by “illegals.” And when he called for a “major investigation,” he was hardly opaque about his aims, with his press secretary, Sean Spicer, saying that the probe would be focused on “urban areas,” the same areas Trump told his supporters to “watch” on Election Day. Let’s dispense with the easy part. This issue has been studied, and every credible academic review has concluded that widespread voter fraud does not happen in this country. There are isolated incidents, such as the Iowa woman accused of voting twice for Trump. But there is no evidence that millions, thousands or even hundreds of instances of in-person voter fraud occur in the United States. One of the most reliable studies found only 31 instances of fraud in more than 1 billion votes cast over nearly 15 years. A person is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud.

Arkansas: No non-citizens voted in voter fraud case cited by White House | The Guardian

A case cited by the White House as evidence that non-citizens cast illegal votes in American elections did not actually involve any non-citizens voting, the latest in a series of misleading statements on the subject by the administration. Donald Trump’s deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, referred in a television interview on Sunday to an incident in her native Arkansas, which she said supported Trump’s claims about voter fraud. Trump has repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that he lost the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent, because millions of non-citizens voted illegally. His claim has been widely dismissed as a fabrication. … After the president and a senior aide revived the claims last week, Huckabee Sanders was asked on MSNBC: “Do you think that there are 3 to 5 million undocumented immigrants who cast votes, and that that would have swung the president’s election, in terms of the popular vote, his way?” Huckabee Sanders replied: “Look, I don’t know how many different voters voted illegally, but I do know that it exists. In my home state of Arkansas, there was a judge that was caught with, I think, roughly 180 ballots sitting on his kitchen table. So to pretend like voter fraud isn’t something real and doesn’t exist is laughable.”

Florida: State wipes out Independent Party of Florida | Orlando Sentinel

Lynn Dierksen of Orlando was surprised to get a new voter ID card in the mail this week which revealed she was suddenly without a party. The Independent Party of Florida, founded in 1992, was stripped of its official status because it didn’t use a certified public accountant to audit its finances in 2014. “I really don’t like the change going out without people being informed,” said Dierksen, who had to call the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office to learn why she no longer belonged to the Independent Party. “Right now, with what’s going on with politics, I’m just suspicious of everything.”

Indiana: Bill on automatic registration to get hearing | Tribune Star

Terre Haute legislator Clyde Kersey’s bill to establish automatic voter registration in Indiana through Bureau of Motor Vehicles will get a hearing today in the Indiana House Elections and Apportionment Committee. But the proposal’s “automatic” element will likely be diminished. Instead of applicants for BMV licenses and identification cards being automatically registered as voters, simultaneously, BMV employees would be required to ask customers if they want to become registered to vote. “So it’s an improvement, but a small improvement,” said Kersey. He’s a Democrat, whose party is vastly outnumbered by the Republican super majority in the House.

Editorials: Meet the creator of ‘alternative facts,’ Kris Kobach | The Hutchison News

When the White House accused the press of actively covering up millions of illegal votes cast in the 2016 election, they suggested a conversation with the country’s most reliable source for overblown fears about illegal voting. America, meet the not-so-illustrious Kris Kobach. While you might come to know him as a Trump fan and a talking head on national news shows, in Kansas we’ve long known the Secretary of State in a quite different capacity: As a questionable administrator of the state’s elections who has an unquenchable thirst for the power to prosecute those who dare run afoul of his enhanced registration and identification requirements for voting. He didn’t really make his case, despite appearances on both CNN and the Kobach-friendly Fox News. Oh, and he’s not so good at the record-keeping required by the office he runs. The Kansas Legislature granted Kobach the power to prosecute people who double voted, or failed to comply with voting laws. And after making so much hay about the issue, Kobach produced a total of nine cases worthy of bringing to court – in most cases elderly voters who misunderstood some of the laws.

Maine: Pair of Bills Take Aim at College Voters | Maine Public

Voting rights advocates and college students in Maine are hoping to defeat a pair of bills that could make it more difficult for some people to vote. The Legislature will hold a public hearing on Wednesday to weigh the proposals, which have emerged at a time when Republican leaders, including the president, are saying the electoral system is wrought with voter fraud. The bill sponsored by House Republican Leader Ken Fredette deals with a section of voting law dealing with people who tend to move around — military service members and college students. But Fredette’s bill only targets students. It would require them to do one of three things before they can vote: register their car in Maine, prove they pay income or property taxes or show a driver’s license with a residence that matches where they want to vote. Fredette says the proposal is simple, to ensure that college students claiming Maine residency on Election Day are actually residents. “The last thing I want to do is disenfranchise anyone from voting,” he says. “However, we do have a Constitution and the Constitution says you in fact have to be a resident to vote.” But opponents have a different view.

Nevada: Election official wants to ban guns from Nevada polling places | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria told a state Assembly panel on Tuesday that lawmakers should consider banning guns from polling places to guard against voter intimidation. Guns are banned at some Nevada polling places, such as at schools where weapons are illegal, but other polling locations are not included in such a prohibition, Gloria told the Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections. A voter could be intimidated seeing an individual carrying a weapon in a polling place, he said. No such legislation has been proposed in the 2017 session.

New Jersey: Democrats want to push future presidents to do what Trump wouldn’t: Release tax returns | Philadelphia Inquirer

If President Trump, or anyone else, wants to get on the New Jersey ballot to run for president in 2020, he could have to release his tax returns, if some Democratic lawmakers have their way. Whether legislators have that power was an open question Monday, as the Assembly Judiciary Committee advanced a bill that would require candidates for president and vice president to disclose their federal income tax returns in order to appear on the state’s ballot. “Anybody who tells you they know whether it’s constitutional or not is not correct,” Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California, Irvine, said of a state’s ability to require tax-return disclosure to get on the ballot. The bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman John McKeon (D., Morris), acknowledged that the proposal raised constitutional questions, but argued that such laws would likely be upheld “prior to the election four years from now.”

Texas: Murder, rapes have led to lighter sentences in Tarrant County than voter fraud | The Star-Telegram

The eight-year prison sentence given to a Grand Prairie woman for voting illegally has been touted by politicians as a case that sent a message. “In Texas you will pay a price” for voter fraud, tweeted Gov. Greg Abbott. “This case shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure,” state Attorney General Ken Paxton said. But critics argue that Rosa Maria Ortega’s punishment, which was decided by a jury and drew national attention, was too harsh. “Illegal voting should be sanctioned but not like a violent felony,” The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial Monday. Sam Jordan, spokeswoman for the Tarrant County district attorney’s office, said the eight-year sentence was the jury’s decision. “Our prosecutors — one from the attorney general’s office and one from our office — made no punishment recommendation,” Jordan said. “We said do what you think is right. We didn’t ask specifically for penitentiary time.”

Vermont: Some Republicans and town clerks cry foul over recount | Burlington Free Press

A second recount for a state House seat has some Republicans and town clerks crying foul, but Democrats say the incumbent who lost has a right to ask the Legislature to resolve the contested election. Susan Hatch Davis, a Progressive from Washington, went to court after the November vote showed Republican Robert Frenier of Chelsea beat her by eight votes, and a recount showed he won by seven. The court refused to authorize a second recount, so Davis asked the Legislature to intervene. Now the House Republican leader is accusing Democrats of trying to steal a seat to prevent the GOP from sustaining a governor’s veto.