National: Voter confidence is the biggest election security challenge, DHS cybersecurity official says | The Washington Post

A top cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security says the biggest election security challenge going into the midterms isn’t a technical one. It’s convincing voters that their ballots are secure. “To me the No. 1 threat is around public confidence in the process,” said Matt Masterson, who coordinates a range of DHS election security efforts as senior cybersecurity adviser within the department’s National Protection and Programs Directorate. “How are we talking about this? How are we educating the public so they have confidence in the process and will show up and vote? Because the best response to any attempts to undermine confidence in the process is to vote.” Now that voters know that nation-states such as Russia want to disrupt U.S. elections, it’s going to take a continuous effort from DHS and other government agencies at all levels to make sure they keep turning out at the polls, Masterson told me in a recent interview in his office in Arlington, Va. And that won’t go away come November. 

National: National labs will probe election tech for vulnerabilities under planned DHS program | CyberScoop

The government is currently planning a cybersecurity program that would allow federally funded national scientific laboratories to privately probe and then document security flaws existing in U.S. election technology, most of which is developed and sold by private companies, according to a senior U.S. official. Rob Karas, director of the National Cybersecurity Assessments and Technical Service team at the Homeland Security Department, said that multiple election technology vendors had already shown an interest in engaging on the effort. Karas declined to name the firms, but said the initiative will begin later this summer. The outreach process is still ongoing.

Editorials: The Battle for Voting Rights Lives On | Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg

The first thing to know about the Supreme Court decision that allows Ohio to purge its voter rolls is that it was a case of statutory construction, not constitutional interpretation. The justices were only trying to figure out what ordinary laws say, not what the Constitution means. … The second thing to know is that the Constitution doesn’t matter here in large part because there is no established constitutional right to vote for Ohio or anyone else to violate. Should there be? Yes. While Scott Lemieux points out the limits of advocating for and even passing a constitutional amendment making a right to vote explicit, there’s an excellent case to be made that such a right is already right there in the Constitution — indeed, that it is fundamental to the entire project the Framers were undertaking, even if, for them, that right was severely restricted, something that the 15th, 19th and 26th amendments corrected. The Constitution certainly does not require direct election for all offices, but it does require that all offices, directly or indirectly, get their authority from popular elections, which to me at least strongly implies that voting is fundamental to their notion of a republic. (I should remind everyone at this point that “republic” and “democracy” are best treated as synonyms, regardless of the vocabulary folks used in the 18th century, when they had a lot less experience with these things.)

California: Los Angeles County Invests $300 Million in New Voting System | MyNewsLA

Los Angeles County officials voted Tuesday to spend roughly $300 million on a major redesign of its voting system in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election, even as an independent consultant investigates a glitch in the existing process that led to nearly 120,000 voters being left off polling place rosters last week. The new system, which has an electronic interface at the polling place but generates a paper ballot for record keeping, is part of a broader update that includes allowing voters to cast a ballot over an 11-day period prior to and including Election Day. The county will also do away with assigning traditional polling places and instead allow voters to drop in at any vote center convenient to them.

Georgia: Officials and voters debate a new voting system for Georgia | Atlanta Journal Constitution

An effort to trash Georgia’s electronic voting machines got underway Wednesday amid disagreements over how to make the state’s elections secure and accurate. The first meeting of a group that will recommend a replacement voting system showed divides over whether Georgia should use pen-and-paper ballots or touchscreen machines to print ballots. Brought together by Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Secure, Accessible & Fair Elections (SAFE) Commission will review options for the state’s next voting system and then make a recommendation to the General Assembly before next year’s legislative session. A new voting system could be in place in time for the 2020 presidential election.

Georgia: Decision allows Georgia to remove inactive voters from the rolls | McClatchy

A federal lawsuit challenging Georgia’s system of removing inactive voters from the registration rolls was formally withdrawn on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Ohio’s similar voter “purge” policy did not violate federal law. In a 5-4 decision, the high court held that Ohio is not violating the National Voter Registration Act by sending address-confirmation notices to registered voters when they fail to vote in a federal election — and then eliminating their names from the rolls if they don’t respond and fail to vote in the next two federal elections over a four-year period. The decision reversed a lower court ruling that found Ohio’s policy violated the voter-registration law by using non-voting to trigger the confirmation notices.

Maine: Voters vote to keep ranked-choice voting, with supporters holding commanding lead | Portland Press Herald

Mainers supported ranked-choice voting for the second time in two years with the passage of a people’s veto on Tuesday, making the state the first in modern times to overhaul its system for choosing candidates. Supporters of Question 1 held a big lead statewide as of 10:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to unofficial results from the Associated Press. With 77 percent of precincts reporting, the measure to proceed with ranked-choice voting had a total of 127,048 yes votes, and  106,607 no votes, results showed. The race was called early Wednesday morning. Maine voters first approved ranked-choice voting by referendum in November 2016, but the law was mired in legal challenges for nearly a year. The Republican-led Legislature passed a bill in October 2017 that sought to delay implementation, and supporters then responded by gathering enough signatures to force a people’s veto. That’s what was on the ballot Tuesday.

Missouri: State sued over voter ID law | The Kansas City Star

A national progressive organization filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Missouri’s voter ID law on behalf of a 70-year-old Jackson County woman. The suit was filed in Cole County by Priorities USA, a Democratic-aligned group that advocates for voting rights and works to identify “opportunities for progressives to stand up to the Republican agenda,” according to its website. Missouri voters in 2016 approved the voter ID requirement as an amendment to the state’s Constitution by a 26-point margin. But attorneys for Priorities USA argue that it creates undue burdens for voters who lack the required photo identification.

Nevada: Washoe officials looking at reports that candidates were left off ballots | Reno Gazette Journal

Washoe County is looking into multiple reports of candidates being left off primary election ballots, officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon. Officials also heard complaints from voters who said Washoe’s new voting machines had offered them a previous voter’s candidate choices, potentially giving them a chance to cast a ballot in races they aren’t eligible to vote in. County Registrar of Voters Deanna Spikula said fewer than 10 voters had been affected by the glitches.  “At this time none of these issues will affect tabulation and again, all voters have successfully cast their ballots at the polls,” Spikula said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference.

North Carolina: If Voter ID Referendum Passes, Can It Survive A Legal Challenge? | WFAE

A bill filed by Republican legislative leaders last week would let voters decide whether to add a constitutional amendment to require photo IDs at the polls. A federal court shot down a previous attempt at Voter ID laws in North Carolina. If the question gets on the ballot this fall and passes, would it stand up to a legal challenge? Legal experts say there’s nothing inherently unconstitutional about Voter ID laws – 34 states have them. The issue is the motivation behind the laws. “What makes them unconstitutional is if they’re adopted with an intent to discriminate against a particular racial group, or racial groups,” Duke University Law School professor Guy Charles said.

Pennsylvania: Anti-gerrymandering bill amended by Senate GOP; Democrats call it ‘poison pill’ | Philadelphia Inquirer

With time running out to alter how Pennsylvania’s political maps will be drawn in 2021, Republicans in the state Senate made a dramatic change to a redistricting bill Tuesday that prompted key activists to pull their support and begin lobbying against it. One day before the bill came up for a final vote in the chamber, State Sen. Ryan Aument (R., Lancaster) introduced an amendment that would allow voters to decide whether appellate judges — including state Supreme Court justices — should be elected from regional districts rather than statewide. Democrats described it as a “poison pill” and an attempt to retaliate against Democratic state Supreme Court justices who just five months earlier voted to overturn the state’s congressional lines on the ground that they had been gerrymandered to favor Republicans.

Tennessee: Shelby County Commissioner Wants New Voting Machines ASAP | Local Memphis

Nothing will get an elected official angrier than when you talk about voting and voting machines. Exhibit A the Shelby County Diebold Voting Machines or as Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland calls them the dee-bold machines. He wishes they machines would just go away. just head for that big election in the sky just up and dee. “I don’t have any confidence in that dee-bold machine,” Roland told other commissioners, “And I think the public don’t have any confidence. And I think because of the machines that might be why we have a lack of participation in Shelby County in elections. I think that’s one thing we can change.” This whole thing just popped up in a meeting where Elections Administrator Linda Phillips wanted commissioners to give the elections commission $175-thousand dollars to buy something else. “We need the devices that create the voter access card to be used with our current voting machines,”she says.

Texas: Woman Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for Voter Fraud Loses Bid for New Trial | The New York Times

A judge who sentenced a Texas woman to five years in prison for voting illegally because she was a felon turned down on Monday the woman’s bid for a new trial. “Prison is a lot closer for her today,” Alison Grinter, a lawyer for the woman, Crystal Mason, 43, said on Tuesday, noting that her client would appeal the decision to a higher court. Sharen Wilson, the Tarrant County district attorney, declined to comment. Ms. Mason was convicted of illegal voting in a one-day trial held March 28 before Judge Ruben Gonzalez, a state district court judge who sentenced her that day to five years in prison. She has been free on bond pending appeal.

Colombia: A fragile peace deal is at stake in Colombia’s runoff election | Ken Frankel/The Globe and Mail

In Colombia’s first presidential elections since the signing of the 2016 peace agreement ending its 50-year war with the FARC insurgency, candidates have competed on issues that affect people’s daily lives and future prospects, rather than who can claim the firmest hand in dealing with armed conflict and real or exaggerated threats. Political space has been opened for a broader discussion. This is especially true on the left, which had traditionally hewn closer to the centre than elsewhere in Latin America for fear of being branded by the right as soft on the security file. In first-round voting, candidates who backed the peace accord from the beginning received 59 per cent of the votes. Though they lamented the government’s inadequate preparation in implementing aspects of the accord, they agreed that Colombia had to turn the page. However, the only major candidate who had originally opposed the peace agreement, Ivan Duque, received 39 per cent of the vote.

Croatia: Conservatives seek a vote on curbing minority rights | Reuters

Croatian conservatives campaigning for a change in election laws submitted enough signatures to parliament to call a referendum on reducing the legislative rights of ethnic minority groups, conservative group said on Wednesday. The group said the proposal called for reducing the number of lawmakers in parliament from 150 to a maximum 120. It also would reduce the number of MPs representing minorities and ban them from voting on crucial issues, such as government formation and budget. A vote may be held in September or October, the group said.

Iraq: Federal Court Rejects Amendments to Cancel Electronic Vote Counts | Al Bawaba

Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by the country’s election commission to invalidate legislative amendments under which electronic vote count has been abolished. Last week, the Iraqi parliament amended the election law to adopt only the manual count of votes in the May 12 parliamentary election. The court “unanimously decided to reject the request to stop executing provisions of the third amendment to the election law,” Iyas al-Samouk, a spokesman for the court, said in a statement.

Mexico: Cyber attack on Mexico campaign site triggers election nerves | Reuters

The website of a Mexican political opposition party was hit by a cyber attack during Tuesday’s final television debate between presidential candidates ahead of the July 1 vote, after the site had published documents critical of the leading candidate. The National Action Party (PAN) said that its website, targeting front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, likely suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyber attack with the bulk of traffic to the site nominally coming from Russia and China. Lopez Obrador’s Morena party said it had nothing to do with the outage. The Chinese and Russian embassies in Mexico did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters could not confirm the PAN’s account of the attack.