Venezuela: Venezuela to vote on constituent assembly after months of protests | The Guardian

Venezuela’s beleaguered government appeared prepared to go ahead with a vote on Sunday that critics at home and abroad have warned will seal the demise of the oil-rich nation’s democracy. At least five people were killed last week after the opposition stepped up its protests against the controversial vote that will elect a 545-member constituent assembly with the power to rewrite the constitution and dissolve state institutions. A government ban on public demonstrations in the run-up to the election reduced turnouts for nationwide protests called by the opposition, but sporadic looting and clashes between protesters manning barricades of tree branches and barbed wire were reported in several cities on Friday night. Despite the continuing threat of repression, the opposition coalition, known as MUD, called for mass demonstrations in Caracas on Sunday while voting takes place.

National: Voter Registration Data from 9 States Available for Sale on Dark Web | Dark Reading

Threat intelligence company LookingGlass Cyber Solutions says it has discovered over 40 million voter records from nine different states being traded in an underground forum for stolen credit card data and login credentials. The voter records being offered for sale include the voter’s full first, last and middle name, voter ID, birthdate, voter status, party affiliation, residential address and other details. The data belongs to voters in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Washington State. Over the last two days, voter databases from at least two of the states—Arkansas and Ohio—were sold for a mere $2 each, or a total of $4 for almost 10 million voter records. That suggests financial gain is not the primary reason for the activity, according to LookingGlass. ‘Logan,’ the individual who has advertised the data and is selling it on a site called RaidForums, has hinted at possessing voter records for an additional 20 to 25 states, says Jonathan Tomek, director of threat research at LookingGlass Cyber Solutions.

National: Kris Kobach says Trump’s fraud panel will keep voter data secure. Some states aren’t buying it | Los Angeles Times

After weeks of legal battles and bipartisan pushback from top election officials nationwide, President Trump’s voter fraud commission has renewed a message for the states: It’s safe to pass along your data about voters. “Individuals’ voter registration records will be kept confidential and secure throughout the duration of the commission’s existence,” Kris Kobach, vice chairman of the commission, wrote in a letter sent late Wednesday to all 50 secretaries of state. Even so, by Thursday, much of the criticism that greeted an earlier request from the commission was repeated by election officials and activists, who have expressed concerns about privacy and have called the panel both a sham created by an insecure president and a tool to suppress votes. … The letter from Kobach is the second in less than a month requesting that secretaries of state submit voter data to the so-called Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

National: Senate panel moves bill to deter foreign meddling in US | Associated Press

The Senate is moving forward with legislation to combat cyberattacks and deter foreign interference amid an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The bill approved by the Senate intelligence committee 14-1 Thursday will now move to the Senate floor. According to the panel, the legislation would ensure the intelligence community is well-positioned to detect cyberattacks, strengthen information-sharing with states to protect voting systems and “send a message to Moscow that we will not accept their aggressive actions.”

National: Voter fraud commission will almost certainly ‘find’ thousands of duplicate registrations that aren’t duplicates. Here’s why. | The Washington Post

Did Vice President Pence commit voter fraud? You might think so, if you looked at voter registration data that includes only each voter’s name and birth year. Mike Pence registered to vote eight times and cast seven ballots across six states in the November 2016 election. But you would be wrong. Each of these registration records belongs to a different person. Their only crime is that they share their name and were born in the same year as the vice president. The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, led by the vice president, has gotten considerable attention for requesting voter registration information (including names, birthdays and Social Security numbers) from each state. Presumably, the commission will use the names and birthdays in these lists to identify potential duplicate registration records between states.

National: With New Sanctions, Senate Forces Trump’s Hand on Russia | The New York Times

The Senate on Thursday approved sweeping sanctions against Russia, forcing President Trump to decide whether to accept a tougher line against Moscow or issue a politically explosive veto amid investigations into ties between his presidential campaign and Russian officials. The Senate vote, 98 to 2, followed the passage of a House bill this week to punish Russia, Iran and North Korea for various violations by each of the three American adversaries. In effect, the measure would sharply limit Mr. Trump’s ability to suspend or lift sanctions on Russia — handcuffing a sitting president just six months into his term with the nearly unanimous support of a Republican-led Congress.

Editorials: Trump’s Election Integrity Commission is illegal and unconstitutional — that’s why we filed a lawsuit | Sherrilyn Ifill /Salon

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund recently filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging President Trump’s Election Integrity Commission as illegal and unconstitutional. Our complaint makes clear that to falsely allege that voter fraud exists is nothing more than a pretext for the suppression of Black and Latino voters. Ours is the seventh suit against the commission, and the first to allege that it discriminates against voters of color. Statements made by President Trump and his surrogates demonstrate the connection between race and the commission’s search for voter fraud. Without offering any evidence, the president has repeatedly claimed that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that he lost the popular vote in the 2016 election because of millions of “illegal” votes cast for Hillary Clinton. He has couched these allegations in racially coded terms, implying that voter impersonation is perpetrated mostly by immigrants or residents of predominantly Black urban centers. A few weeks before the election, then-candidate Trump told a predominantly white crowd in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, “I just hear such reports about Philadelphia. … We have to make sure that this election is not stolen from us and is not taken away from us.” He added: “Everybody knows what I’m talking about.”

Editorials: As Hackers Target U.S. Voting Machines, We Need Leaders Who’ll Put Country Over Party | Karen Hobert Flynn/Just Security

“If there has ever been a clarion call for vigilance and action against a threat to the very foundation of our democratic political system, this episode is it,” former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told senators in May. Clapper’s warning about the impact of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the potential damage from future cyberattacks around the world packed a particularly powerful wallop. Over the next few days in Las Vegas, a group of white hat hackers will run a “Voting Machine Hacking Village,” using real U.S. voting machines to back up Clapper’s alarm with a demonstration of the vulnerability of some of our voting systems. This private effort, part of DEF CON, the world’s largest hacker convention, highlights a serious public problem: our election infrastructure was attacked and will be again; our federal and state governments must do much more to protect our most cherished right as Americans, our vote.

Colorado: No evidence 5,000 Colorado voters who unregistered were ineligible to vote, secretary of state says |

There is no evidence any of the more than 5,000 Colorado voters who have withdrawn their registrations following the Trump administration’s request for voter information were ineligible to participate in elections, Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Thursday. “It’s my hope that citizens who withdrew their registration will re-register, particularly once they realize that no confidential information will be provided and that the parties and presidential candidates already have the same publicly available information from the 2016 election cycle,” Williams said in a written statement. “Clearly we wouldn’t be asking them to re-register if we didn’t believe they were eligible.” Williams’ remarks come as his office prepares in the coming days to send publicly available voter data — including names, addresses, party affiliations and birth years — to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Julia Sunny, a spokeswoman for Williams, said the information is slated to be submitted by Monday night.

Florida: Broward elections supervisor Brenda Snipes to testify in voter list trial | Sun Sentinel

Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes will testify in federal court in Miami on Monday about allegations the county has a bloated voter list because her office isn’t doing enough to purge ineligible voters. Snipes will be defending her office against a suit brought by the American Civil Rights Union, a conservative Virginia-based group that has been challenging voter registration lists nationwide. The nonprofit organization says it wants to make sure voter lists accurately reflect only eligible voters to reduce the potential for voter fraud.

Maine: Dunlap balks at Trump fraud panel’s new request for Maine voter data | Bangor Daily News

Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap’s office said Thursday that a second request for state voting data from President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission raises concerns about the panel’s work. The Presidential Commission on Election Integrity’s vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, sent letters to Maine and other states on Wednesday seeking personal voter information. It’s similar to a June request to all states that was rejected by Dunlap’s office. However, Kobach’s second request says identifiable voter information won’t be made public — only summarized — and will be deleted by the federal government when the panel is done. His first request said identifiable information would be public.

Editorials: New York’s unlevel field | Albany Times Union

New York has a voting problem. Maybe the only people who don’t think so are politicians who don’t want certain voters to vote. It’s the same problem that has kept state legislators clinging to whatever power they can wield over redistricting: politicians can choose their voters, rather than citizens choosing their leaders. It’s nothing less than a challenge to democracy in the state. In New York, fewer eligible voters register and fewer registered voters cast ballots than elsewhere. … Why, it’s fair to wonder, would lawmakers resist making voting as convenient as possible for all citizens? The most generous answer would be cluelessness — that some of these part-time lawmakers making what many New Yorkers would consider a nice full-time salary don’t know what it’s like to juggle the demands of a single parent household or a two-income family, making it hard for adults to take off what might end up being a few hours to vote.

Oregon: Richardson alters policy on selling voter registration lists | Portland Tribune

Secretary of State Dennis Richardson said Thursday that he plans to change the type of voter registration information that is publicly available after receiving a second request from President Trump’s election integrity commission. Richardson said the commission’s June 28 request for specific — and not all publicly available — information about Oregon voters raised privacy questions and prompted “a full legal and policy review.” He announced a new policy that covers the kind of voter registration information a political party or organization can purchase from the state. “Balancing the need for both privacy and transparency is a critical challenge in the internet age,” Richardson said.

South Dakota: Supporters hope to try again with redistricting amendment | Associated Press

Supporters of a constitutional amendment that would take control of redistricting from South Dakota legislators and give it to an independent commission hope to put the amendment before voters in 2018, a key supporter said Thursday. Attorney General Marty Jackley this week filed an explanation of the amendment with the secretary of state’s office, a step required before petition gatherers can spread out across the state. Supporter Rick Weiland, a former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, said the plan — a reprise from 2016 — would make elections fairer in South Dakota.

Utah: Gov. Herbert Lukewarm On Redistricting Ballot Initative | KUER

Gov. Gary Herbert says he thinks a new ballot initiative to reform Utah’s redistricting process is worth considering, but isn’t ready to throw his support behind it. Herbert weighed in on the proposed independent redistricting commission Thursday during his monthly news conference at KUED. He said the trick to creating such a body would be ensuring its impartiality. “I think it’s worth having the discussion…if you can truly get it independent,” he said.  “Somebody has to make the appointment, and so you want to make sure when the appointment’s made that that’s an independent review…or  else you can have it just as biased as if you let the legislature do it.”

Ghana: Cash from voter ID replacements intact – Charlotte Osei | GhanaWeb

The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Charlotte Osei has said that that commission has not expended monies it accrued from the replacement of voter IDs for Ghanaians ahead of the 2016 December elections. According to her, the EC made over GH¢2.5 million from the replacement process and more than GH¢42,000 cedis from the sale of media accreditation cards. Answering an urgent question filed by the Member of Parliament for Subin, Eugene Antwi on how much the Commission accrued from the process and how it was spent, Charlotte Osei said all monies were currently in the Commission’s account at GCB Bank.

Kenya: How Kenyans use tech to stop election fraud | CNN

Kenya’s last two general elections have been tarnished by allegations of fraud and outbreaks of violence, which have divided the nation since. The country is hailed as Africa’s Silicon Savannah and when citizens head to the polls again on August 8, they will be using technology to make sure these elections are free and credible. A game-changing court ruling recently declared that results announced by constituency tallying centers must be regarded as final and a transparent system to transmit results has been created to prevent rigging. As a result, an officer at each polling station will transmit real-time numbers electronically through a secure mobile phone.

Russia: ‘Big hunt’ for Russian hackers, but no obvious election link | Associated Press

Pyotr Levashov appeared to be just another comfortable member of Russia’s rising middle-class—an IT entrepreneur with a taste for upmarket restaurants, Thai massages and foreign travel. Then police raided his vacation rental in Barcelona, marching him out in handcuffs to face charges of being one of the world’s most notorious spam lords. Levashov’s April 7 arrest was one in a series of American-initiated operations over the past year to seize alleged Russian cybercriminals outside their homeland, which has no extradition agreement with the United States. They come at a fraught moment in relations between Moscow and Washington, where politicians are grappling with the allegation that Kremlin hackers intervened in the U.S. election to help President Donald Trump. Through their lawyers, several defendants have suggested their arrests are linked to the election turmoil. Experts say that’s possible, though an Associated Press review of the cases found no firm evidence to back the claim.

Venezuela: As election looms, Maduro opponents question voter ID database | Washington Times

Venezuela’s partisan divide is so deep and bitter that even the ID requirements for voters in Sunday’s critical elections have sparked controversy. Critics who fear the government of leftist President Nicolas Maduro wants to use the vote to push through a new constitution to keep him in power are questioning not just the motive but also the method of the national vote. When Venezuelans vote on Sunday to elect members of a constituent assembly, they will use special government-issued ID cards that have two numbers on the back. Plugged into the electoral system database, the numbers generate the identities of two people, said Gabriela Febres-Cordero, a former minister of trade for Venezuela.

California: Worried about election hacking, L.A. County officials are turning to hackers for help | Los Angeles Times

Local election officials are looking for some good hackers. As part of an effort to create a new voting system, Los Angeles County computer specialists are headed this week to Defcon, one of the world’s largest hacking conventions, where attendees will try to compromise a new target — voting equipment. County Registrar-Recorder Dean C. Logan said he hopes Defcon’s new Voting Village will give his staff more to worry about as they work to revamp the way Los Angeles County votes. Defcon, which draws 20,000 participants to Las Vegas yearly, has set aside a space this year for hackers to pick apart voting machines, assail voter-registration databases and carry out mock attacks on various voting processes from around the country.

National: Hackers plan to break into 30 voting machines to put election meddling to the test | USA Today

Think of it as a stress test for democracy. Hackers plan to spend this weekend trying to break into more than 30 voting machines used in recent elections to see just how far they can get. U.S. election officials have consistently said that despite Russian attempts to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, no votes were tampered with. … However, experts in election voting software say no states routinely perform post-election vote audits to ensure that the reported vote count tallies with ballots, Singer said. Moreover, there were no forensic examinations of any of the voting machines used in the 2016 presidential election, in part because many election-machine vendor contracts prohibit it, Singer said. That’s a red flag for hackers at DefCon.

National: Top hacker conference to target voting machines | Politico

Hackers will target American voting machines—as a public service, to prove how vulnerable they are. When over 25,000 of them descend on Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas at the end of July for DEFCON, the world’s largest hacking conference, organizers are planning to have waiting what they call “a village” of different opportunities to test how easily voting machines can be manipulated. Some will let people go after the network software remotely, some will be broken apart to let people dig into the hardware, and some will be set up to see how a prepared hacker could fiddle with individual machines on site in a polling place through a combination of physical and virtual attacks. … With all the attention on Russia’s apparent attempts to meddle in American elections—former President Barack Obama and aides have made many accusations toward Moscow, but insisted that there’s no evidence of actual vote tampering—voting machines were an obvious next target, said DEFCON founder Jeff Moss. Imagine, he said, what a concerted effort out of Russia or anywhere else could do.

National: Lawmakers reach deal for Senate Russia sanctions vote | Reuters

U.S. lawmakers reached an agreement on Wednesday paving the way for the U.S. Senate to pass a bill as soon as this week to impose new sanctions on Russia and bar President Donald Trump from easing sanctions on Moscow without Congress’ approval. Earlier on Wednesday, Russia warned it was edging closer to retaliation against Washington after the House of Representatives backed new U.S. sanctions on Moscow, while the European Union said the move might affect its energy security and it stood ready to act too.

National: Facebook funds Harvard group trying to fight election hacking | The Hill

Facebook said on Wednesday that it will give funding to a nonprofit at Harvard that is trying to curb cyberattacks aimed political groups and election systems. The social media giant’s money will go to Defending Digital Democracy, a group led by former campaign chairs for Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, based at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Though Facebook is providing the initial funding for the center, it said that it hopes other participants will help the organization transition into a group with several members who share information and analysis in “critical areas of the democratic process.”
At Black Hat, an IT security conference, Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos said the project was born out of the company realizing that no one was taking responsibility for issues of election hacking. “A huge amount of harm falls outside what we considered to be our problem,” Stamos said. “The real problems is that those issues is generally not anybody else’s problem either.”

Editorials: Will Republicans ever get serious about Russian sabotage of the next election? | Sarah Posner/The Washington Post

In testimony this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, issued a dire warning. The United States, Priestap told lawmakers, “is under relentless assault by hostile state actors and their proxies” and “our economy, our national security and our way of life are being actively threatened by state actors and their proxies today and every day.” Today’s hearing was about enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a federal statute that requires agents of foreign actors to disclose, via public filings, their relationship with the foreign actor and the financial relationship between them. It’s like a lobbying disclosure form for people who are advocating on behalf of foreign individuals or entities. Although Priestap has previously warned the Senate Intelligence Committee about Russia’s capabilities for interfering in future elections, today’s testimony was about far more extensive efforts by foreign actors to undermine every facet of public life — including upcoming elections.

California: President Trump’s voter fraud panel asks again for data from California – and again the answer is no | Los Angeles Times

For the second time in less than a month, California’s chief elections officer has refused to hand over data to President Trump’s voter fraud commission, arguing on Wednesday that the inquiry is still part of an “illegitimate” exercise. “I still have the same concerns,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla said. “I can’t in good conscience risk the privacy of voters in California with this commission.” The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which met for the first time last week, originally asked for the information from California and other states on June 29. A federal court refused last week to block the commission’s request, though as many as 21 states have insisted they won’t hand over details on voter names, addresses and political party affiliations.

Georgia: Latino groups push for more Spanish voter info in Gwinnett County | Atlanta Journal Constitution

Two Latino advocacy groups sent letters last week to Gwinnett County and several cities therein, alleging varying levels of noncompliance with a new mandate to provide Spanish-language voting materials to their constituents — and threatening litigation if they don’t change things quickly. Leaders from the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials and New York-based LatinoJustice believe the county and multiple cities are not yet fully in line with the requirements of a U.S. Census Bureau designation handed down in December. They cited government websites that provided plenty of election information in English but little or no such information in Spanish.

Editorials: Kris Kobach and Kansas’ SAFE Act | Chelsie Bright/The Conversation

If you want to understand President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission, it helps to study what happened in Kansas. Six years before Trump was tweeting about stolen elections and unsubstantiated claims of millions of fraudulent votes, Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, was promoting the idea that widespread voter fraud threatens the integrity of our electoral system. It should come as no surprise that Trump chose Kobach to be the vice chairman of Vice President Mike Pence’s new Commission on Election Integrity. This appointment gives Kobach a national platform by which to pursue his agenda. Kansas’ voter ID law went into effect when I was a graduate student at the University of Kansas. The pervasive campaign promoting the new law piqued my interest. My co-author and I set out to assess the impact advertisements – specifically, the “Got ID?” campaign – had on voter turnout during the 2012 election.

Minnesota: State to provide funds to counties for election equipment | Park Rapids Enterprise

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon stopped in Hubbard County last week as he toured the state talking about the need to replace aging election equipment. Simon was seeking $28 million from the Legislature to help counties pay for the project. In May, a bill was signed into law that created a $7 million grant fund to help replace the aging equipment by 2020. The fund provides up to a 50 percent match between the state and counties for mandatory equipment and up to a 75 percent match for electronic poll books. Grant applications are expected to be made available in September, with an expected submission deadline in mid-December, according to Secretary of State’s office.

Massachusetts: Court ruling renews push to streamline voter ballot access | Associated Press

Efforts to streamline access to the ballot in Massachusetts are picking up steam after a court tossed out a state’s 20-day voter registration cutoff deadline. Voting right advocates say they’re renewing their push for two measures, including one that would let eligible voters register on Election Day and a second that would create a new automatic voter registration system. The rekindled interest comes after Suffolk Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins ruled Monday that the requirement that voters register at least 20 days before an election violates the Massachusetts Constitution and potentially disenfranchises thousands of would-be voters.