North Carolina: GOP’s plan to deceive voters about its radical ballot measures | Slate

In November, North Carolina voters will have an opportunity to approve six constitutional amendments proposed by the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature. These amendments range from silly to atrocious, and a majority are designed to prevent the state’s Supreme Court and Democratic governor from protecting voting rights. But voters may have little idea what any of the amendments do, because Republicans have hatched a plan to give themselves the power to write the ballot language without any input from Democrats. The North Carolina GOP decided to alter the state constitution for a few reasons. First, they hoped to drive up Republican turnout by tossing some red meat to the base. Second, they want to stop Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper from expanding access to voting rights by stripping him of his constitutional authority to oversee state elections. Third, and relatedly, they want to prevent the left-leaning state Supreme Court, and the rest of the judiciary, from striking down GOP-sponsored voter suppression laws. (A federal appeals court struck down Republicans’ previous voter ID law, ruling that it appeared to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”)

Virginia: Voter Roll Purges Attract Scrutiny | WVTF

In the last presidential election cycle, almost half a million more people in Virginia were purged from the voter rolls than the previous election cycle. That change comes even as election officials used a faulty database to delete voters who allegedly moved. Jonathan Brater at the Brennan Center for Justice says Virginia is one of four states that has conducted illegal purges. “In recent years, we have seen Virginia attempting to remove higher numbers of suspected non-citizens from the voter rolls. But it turns out that many of those people actually are citizens.”

Cambodia: ‘Democracy has died’: Cambodia’s exiled politicians call for election boycott | The Guardian

Over the past ten months, Ky Wandara’s life has, by his own account, been hell. As the former treasurer of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) for 20 years he had fought to bring the dictatorial three-decade rule of prime minister Hun Sen to an end. But in October, just weeks after Hun Sen began a crackdown which saw the CNRP leader, Kem Sokha, arrested for treason and the eventual dissolution of the party altogether, Ky Wandara was forced to flee to Thailand, along with over 100 CNRP members. He has no hope of returning home. The crackdown in Cambodia has intensified and in Sunday’s election, Hun Sen has no legitimate challengers. While over 20 parties will run in the election, they are either considered to be bogus (candidates include an ex-warlord and a woman who claims that spirits came to her in a dream and instructed her to run) or puppets for Hun Sen.

Mali: Arab gunmen shut down Mali’s Timbuktu days before vote | Reuters

Armed protesters from Mali’s Arab community fired shots into the air, burned tyres and torched vehicles in Timbuktu on Wednesday, bringing the desert city to a standstill days before an election seen as a test of stability across the country, officials said. The Arab youths, mostly petty traders, were protesting against worsening insecurity and alleged ill treatment by security forces in northern Mali, which has been plagued by Islamist violence, Tuareg separatists and ethnic tensions ever since armed groups took over parts of the region in 2012. Demonstrators filled the streets, forcing shops and banks to shut, witnesses said, though there were no reports of casualties.

Pakistan: Election in disarray as incumbent rejects result | The Guardian

Pakistan’s general election has been plunged into chaos after the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) said it would reject the result amid widespread allegations that the military was rigging the ballot in favour of the party led by the former cricketer Imran Khan. With only a third of the vote counted by 3am – an hour after the result was officially due – Khan’s Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led in 110 seats, with the PMLN trailing on 68. Results continued to trickle in slowly on Thursday, hours after Khan’s supporters took to the streets to celebrate victory.

Zimbabwe: Opposition leader rules out election boycott despite credibility concerns | The Times

MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa has ruled out a boycott of the seven-member alliance in next Monday’s election‚ even though he expressed strong reservations around the credibility and transparency of the polls. Supporters gathered outside the party headquarters cheered Chamisa for his decision to participate in the election. “We can’t boycott our victory. Winners don’t quit. Winners don’t boycott‚” Chamisa told journalists at the MDC’s headquarters. At the heart of the tiff is the clash between the MDC Alliance and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). The alliance accuses the ZEC of refusing to give it access to the voters roll and refusing to let it see the ballot paper — which‚ among other things‚ it believes will mysteriously see an X cast for Chamisa disappear and move to the box allocated to the incumbent‚ President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Post Election Audits: Verified Voting’s Guide to RLAs in One Infographic

Verified Voting debuted its latest infographic, “A Flowchart for Conducting Risk-Limiting Audits,” at the National Association of Secretaries of States (NASS) 2018 Summer Conference in Philadelphia. In addition to sharing this with election officials at the conferences this summer, Verified Voting is working closely with jurisdictions to demonstrate how to implement robust post-election audits. Check…

National: States and counties are not ‘sitting back’ on election cybersecurity, officials tell Congress | StateScoop

Four state, local and federal officials briefed members of Congress Tuesday on the need to increase cybersecurity around voting infrastructure, a task that grows more urgent for state and local governments as the November midterm elections approach. While the nearly three-hour hearing before the House Oversight Committee was frequently sidetracked by representatives’ diversions into topics including the investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, federal agencies’ search rankings and President Donald Trump’s latest tweets, the witnesses also got a few words in about how ready election officials are to repel cyberattacks and how well states are partnering with the federal government to make voting more secure.

National: The White Hats in the War Against Election Meddling | Inc.com

The underlying mechanism of American democracy–the U.S. election system–has been under attack by foreign hackers. Special Counsel Robert Mueller last week indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. While the Russians are charged with hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the Department of Homeland Security found that hackers also targeted election systems in 21 states, including battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. And while Congress approved $380 million in grant money for state election officials to upgrade their cybersecurity posture, many American states are ill- equipped to defend against cyberwar waged by nation states. That’s why Cloudflare, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity company, is offering its services free to state and county government websites that support elections, report election results, host voter registration services, and poll location information.

National: Officials push for more election security dollars | FCW

The federal government allocated $380 million to protect and improve election system security. In a June 24 House Oversight Committee hearing, officials and House Democrats made the case for a few dollars more. Thomas Hicks, commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission, confirmed that $335 million of the $380 million in the omnibus spending bill passed in March earmarked for election security assistance has been dispersed to states and that 100 percent of the funds have been requested. The remaining $45 million is expected to be distributed by next month.

National: Judiciary Democrats call for hearings on NRA’s role in Russia’s 2016 election meddling | The Hill

Two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling on the panel to examine whether top officials at the National Rifle Association (NRA) were aware of Russia’s attempts to contribute money to the Trump campaign through the gun rights group. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) pressed Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in a letter to hold public hearings on the matter, a request that comes after federal authorities indicted a Russian woman last week that they allege acted as a Kremlin agent. Maria Butina was indicted for allegedly working to advance Russia’s interests by cultivating relationships with Republican power players as well as infiltrating “organizations active in U.S. politics.”

National: Trump has now walked back his walk-back on U.S. intelligence and Russia | The Washington Post

Six days ago, President Trump held a news conference to walk back comments he made suggesting that he did not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a plan to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. “Let me be totally clear in saying that — and I’ve said this many times — I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Trump said in that statement. Trump then said he realized, after seeing the backlash to his news conference, that one statement needed clarifying. That’s when he offered his now-infamous “double-negative” defense. “In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t.’ . . . The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’ Sort of a double negative.” But on Sunday, he suggested that the investigation was “all a big hoax.”

National: New initiatives make voting more accessible to senior citizens | CS Monitor

Kathleen Henry, 80, wants all her neighbors to vote, even if they can’t drive, read, or remember as much anymore. Soon after the former civics teacher moved to the Greenspring retirement community here in 2003, she took a leading role in running the campus’s polling place and registering voters. Just this year, Ms. Henry said, she’s registered 72 residents as new voters. If a resident doesn’t have an up-to-date government form of identification – as is the case for 18 percent of citizens over 65 – Henry works to bring in a county official to take their picture to comply with Virginia’s voter ID law.

Editorials: The Trump administration’s deception on the census should be a major scandal | Paul Waldman/The Washington Post

I realize that many times before you’ve been told, “If this weren’t the Trump administration where there’s a new scandal every day, this would be a major scandal.” You sighed and said, “I’m sure that’s true,” then moved on. But let me explain why the administration’s treatment of the U.S. census should, in fact, be a major scandal, particularly given some blockbuster news we just got. This scandal has a malign conspiracy, public lies, possible perjury, and an unrelenting assault not just on a core American institution enshrined in the Constitution but on democracy itself. As you may have heard, the Trump administration has decided to add a question to the 2020 Census asking whether those answering are U.S. citizens. It’s already widely known that it’s hard enough already to get people, particularly in immigrant communities, to answer the questions, because there’s not only concern about privacy but also fear that the census will be used to target people for harassment or even deportation.

National: Commerce Secretary Grew Impatient Over Census Citizenship Question, Emails Reveal | NPR

A few months after he started leading the Commerce Department, Secretary Wilbur Ross became impatient. As a powerful decider for the U.S. census, he had a keen interest in adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census as soon as possible. “I am mystified why nothing [has] been done in response to my months old request that we include the citizenship question. Why not?” he wrote in a May 2017 email to two Commerce Department officials. The email was among the more than 2,400 pages of internal documents the Trump administration filed in federal courts Monday as part of the lawsuits against Ross’ addition of a controversial citizenship question to the 2020 census. NPR has filed Freedom of Information Act requests for similar documents. The court filing also includes census-related articles by NPR and other news organizations compiled by federal agency press offices. The Commerce Department and the Census Bureau are facing six lawsuits from more than two dozen states and cities, plus other groups, that want the question removed. 

Editorials: Let noncitizens vote. What’s the worst that could happen? | GustavoArellano/Los Angeles Times

As if President Trump’s America needed more reason to hate California, here comes news that San Francisco began to register noncitizens last week to vote for local school board races this November. Actually, it’s old news: Voters OK’d the plan in 2016 with the passage of Measure N. But its implementation has triggered Fox News and their peers, and has Republican politicians whispering that this is the latest Democratic plot to use undocumented Mexicans to destroy America — never mind that most of the people now eligible to vote in San Francisco are actually Chinese. Conservatives need to calm down. Noncitizen voting already is happening in some Maryland towns, and democracy there is still alive. Giving them access to the ballot box is a great gesture — it lets more people hold government accountable, adds a shot of vitality to our democracy, blah blah blah.

Editorials: The Battle For The Right To Vote Has Never Been Won | Josh Marshall/TPM

There is no democracy without the vote. There is no democratic legitimacy. There is no rule of law. And yet the vote has been contested throughout our country’s almost 250 year history. We think most often of the march toward universal suffrage rights for all adult citizens: the vote for all white men in the 1820s and 1830s, the extension of voting rights to African-American men in 1870 (15th Amendment) and women in 1920 (19th Amendment). But these de jure enactments have never been the whole story.

California: Could Russia hack California’s elections? It would be hard, but not impossible | San Francisco Chronicle

Although California has received an “all-clear” from government agencies looking into Russian attempts to hack into voting data for states across the nation, safe today doesn’t mean safe tomorrow, a leading computer security expert warned. “The bottom line is, be nervous,” said Matt Bishop, a UC Davis computer science professor who specializes in computer security. California has been pushing hard to make its voting systems more secure and more efficient since Florida’s famous “hanging chad” election of 2000. …  San Francisco’s system is typical, said John Arntz, the city’s elections chief. There’s an “air gap” in the electronic voting machines and the equipment that tallies the votes, he said.

Florida: Judge: Florida’s early-voting-on-campus ban shows ‘stark pattern of discrimination’ | Tampa Bay Times

Gov. Rick Scott’s elections officials showed “a stark pattern of discrimination” in blocking early voting at state college and university campuses, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. The decision by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker is yet another voting rights defeat for the Republican governor, and could yet emerge as an issue in his campaign to unseat three-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. Walker issued a preliminary injunction that directs Scott’s chief elections official, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, to tell all 67 counties that they can use campus buildings for early voting this fall. Detzner has until Friday to tell the judge he will obey.

Georgia: Trump, Election Hacking, and the Georgia Governor’s Race | The New Yorker

Last week, when Donald Trump endorsed Brian Kemp over Casey Cagle in Georgia’s Republican-gubernatorial-primary runoff election—which takes place on Tuesday—it looked like the President was simply choosing the candidate who was running as the self-proclaimed “politically incorrect conservative.” But, in fact, there is very little political distance between Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, and Cagle, the lieutenant governor: both are avowed right-wing Christians who extol the blessed trinity of school choice, the elimination of abortion rights, and the primacy of the Second Amendment, and both are vocal supporters of Trump. They are so closely aligned politically that the New York Times called the President’s endorsement “unexpected.” And, though it’s possible that Trump split the difference by focussing on the candidates’ most significant policy disagreement—Kemp is a vociferous critic of the Affordable Care Act, and Cagle wants to expand Medicaid in Georgia—he also happened to endorse a candidate whose views on election hacking and Russian meddling most reflect his own.

Georgia: A closer look: Election system security in Georgia | WSAV

There has been a lot of talk about election security over the last year. Now, there is word that the national controversy over Russians meddling in the 2016 election may be closer to home than many believed. In a recent report from the U.S. House of Representatives, Georgia was named as one of the top four states with vulnerable election systems. The report says that in 2016, Russian hackers tried to penetrate the state system and maybe even county election offices.

New Hampshire: Officials say college students don’t have standing to sue over election law | Union Leader

Six college students listed as plaintiffs in a lawsuit that challenges the Senate Bill 3 election reform bill are legally able to vote in New Hampshire and lack the standing necessary to challenge the law, New Hampshire officials said in recent court filings. The six produced proof of dormitory addresses, leases or New Hampshire driver licenses during the discovery process, when lawyers queried the opposing party about claims made in the lawsuit. Under the law, the documents are enough to prove residency for voting purposes. One of the six was registered to vote before the suit was filed; another voted twice after the suit was filed.

North Carolina: State details plans for $13M in election security upgrades | WRAL

State officials will spend more than $7 million over the next two years to upgrade and secure the decade-old system that forms the backbone of the state’s elections. They’ll use several million more in mostly federal dollars to fund additional auditing and cybersecurity measures as the state works to harden election systems in the wake of nationwide Russian interference in 2016. State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement spokesman Patrick Gannon said the agency has no indication of any “successful infiltration” into North Carolina election systems during the last election. But state officials are taking seriously mounting evidence from the U.S. intelligence community and federal investigators of widespread disinformation campaigns and repeated attacks on critical election infrastructure across the country.

Cambodia: Rulers cajole and coerce voters to boost election turnout | Reuters

For the past month, the deputy village chief of a hamlet in rural Cambodia has had a singular focus. A member of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the deputy chief says he has been instructed to press every adult in the hamlet to vote in Sunday’s national election. “Every day we are telling people of the achievements of the party, that they should be grateful and it’s an obligation to vote,” he wearily told Reuters in his home in Kampong Thom province, on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals.

Ghana: President names new election chief, opposition dismayed | Reuters

Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo on Monday named lawyer and governance specialist Jean Mensa to head the national electoral commission, dismaying the main opposition party which said Mensa was an unsuitable choice. She replaces Charlotte Osei who was fired by Akufo-Addo last month for “misbehaviour and incompetence,” relating to alleged breaches of Ghanaian procurement laws. Osei denied the accusation. Until her appointment, announced by the presidency, Mensa headed the Accra-based Institute of Economic Affairs think-tank, organisers of presidential debates ahead of general elections in Ghana. The West African nation, a major commodity exporter, will hold elections in December 2020, a vote that is likely to be a close contest between Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party and the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Congo: Opposition set demands for December poll | AFP

Opposition parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday called on President Joseph Kabila to step down ahead of elections in December but ruled out boycotting the poll. In an exceptional move, five parties signed a joint statement setting out demands ahead of the December 23 presidential vote, whose outcome is crucial for the sprawling, volatile DRC. “We are not going to boycott the elections, because we have known from the very beginning that this is the ruling party’s plan, to push the opposition into boycott the elections,” said Delly Sesanga, a supporter of exiled opposition leader Moise Katumbi.

Pakistan: Explosion kills 31 as Pakistanis vote in general elections | Associated Press

A suicide bomber struck outside a crowded polling station in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta, killing 31 people as Pakistanis cast ballots Wednesday in a general election meant to lead to the nation’s third consecutive civilian government. The attack in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, also wounded 35 people and several were reported to be in critical condition, raising concerns the death toll could rise further, according to hospital official Jaffar Kakar, a doctor. A witness who was waiting to cast his ballot, Abdul Haleem, said he saw a motorcycle drive into the crowd of voters just seconds before the explosion. Haleem’s uncle was killed in the explosion.

National: The Midterm Elections Are Already Under Attack | WIRED

With primaries underway and less than four months to go until this year’s midterm elections, early signs of attack have already arrived—just as the US intelligence community warned. And yet Congress has still not done everything in its power to defend against them. At the Aspen Security Forum on Thursday, Microsoft executive Tom Burt said that phishing attacks—reminiscent of those carried out in 2016 against Hillary Clinton’s campaign—have targeted three midterm campaigns this year. Burt stopped short of attributing those efforts to Russia, but the disclosure is the first concrete evidence this year that candidates are being actively targeted online. They seem unlikely to be the last. “The 2018 midterms remain a potential target for Russian actors,” said Matt Masterson, a senior cybersecurity adviser to DHS, at a Senate hearing last week. “The risks to elections are real.”

National: Week Of Trump Reversals Puts 2018 Election Security In The Spotlight | NPR

With less than four months to go, how much are this year’s midterm elections at risk for the kind of interference sowed by Russia in 2016? It’s a question that’s coming up again after President Trump’s seemingly shifting positions this week about Russia’s responsibility for the interference in 2016, and after special counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking the Democratic Party and state election computer networks. It would be “foolish” to think Russia is not trying to influence the 2018 elections, said Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum. “They have the capability and they have the will,” Nielsen also said. But two years after the first tendrils of the Russian influence and disruption campaign were detected, the U.S. response remains incomplete because of partisan politics, bureaucratic confusion and differing priorities among state and local governments.

National: Russian firm indicted in special counsel probe cites Kavanaugh decision to argue that charge should be dismissed | The Washington Post

A Russian company accused by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of being part of an online operation to disrupt the 2016 presidential campaign is leaning in part on a decision by Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh to argue that the charge against it should be thrown out. The 2011 decision by Kavanaugh, writing for a three-judge panel, concerned the role that foreign nationals may play in U.S. elections. It upheld a federal law that said foreigners temporarily in the country may not donate money to candidates, contribute to political parties and groups, or spend money advocating for or against candidates. But it did not rule out letting foreigners spend money on independent advocacy campaigns. Kavanaugh “went out of his way to limit the decision,” said Daniel A. Petalas, a Washington lawyer and former interim general counsel for the Federal Election Commission.