Utah: Hackers penetrate voting machines used in 2016 election at SLC cybersecurity conference | KSL

Huddled in the corner of a small room in the Salt Palace Convention Center are a group of hackers and a row of 12 voting machines. The machines, all of which were used during the 2016 election in Utah, are now strewn in pieces across a table as attendees of HackWest’s first annual cybersecurity conference pour over them, searching for vulnerabilities. And they’ve found a pretty major one. Any hacker can enter a voting booth, remove the card reader from the machine, turn off the machine, then power it back on again. Once the voting machine has turned back on, the screen will display a “no card reader” error message. All the hacker has to do from there is pop the card reader back in, and the machine will display the system setup.

Virginia: After irregular ballot helped decide a Virginia House election, state aims to make ballot more clear | The Virginian-Pilot

It was the ballot seen around the world. One voter’s flawed attempt to be counted in Newport News in December helped decide a pivotal Virginia House election and political control of the chamber. The bubbles for both candidates, David Yancey and Shelly Simonds, were filled in, but Simonds’ had a slash through it. A court had to decide the voter’s intent, which tied the race and setup the infamous name drawing out of the bowl. But had the voter simply asked for another ballot after his or her mistake, the whole thing could have been avoided.

Wisconsin: GOP aims to block judge’s order to call special election | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

One day after a judge dealt Republicans a setback by ordering special elections, Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow GOP leaders in the Legislature said they will pass legislation to block those elections. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said they would take up legislation to change special election rules after a Dane County judge ruled that Walker must call special elections to fill two legislative seats that have been vacant almost three months. Walker quickly committed to signing the bill, which has not yet been released. “It would be senseless to waste taxpayer money on special elections just weeks before voters go to the polls when the Legislature has concluded its business. This is why I support, and will sign, the Senate and Assembly plan to clarify special election law,” Walker said in a statement. 

Egypt: Polls open amid concerns over voter apathy | The Guardian

Egyptians are going to the polls on Monday in an election that is almost certain to result in victory for the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, after all credible opponents after all credible opponents were prevented from getting on the ballot. The country’s 60 million eligible voters have a choice between the incumbent and a little-known candidate who has previously expressed support for Sisi. But amid concern that the personality campaign that inspired “Sisi-mania” before the 2014 election is likely to be met with widespread voter apathy this time, the government has mounted a fierce campaign in an attempt to boost numbers at the polls. Turnout is seen as the only issue that will be in doubt in this election.

Hungary: Disunity and Gerrymandering Frustrate Anti-Orban Voters | The New York Times

In Budapest 1, a parliamentary district at the heart of the Hungarian capital, most voters will not support the party of Viktor Orban, the country’s far-right prime minister, in a general election on April 8. Yet as things stand, Mr. Orban’s party, Fidesz, will hold on to the seat — and its huge majority in Parliament. That speaks as much to the relative strength of Mr. Orban’s base as it does to his gerrymandering and his allies’ takeover of most private news outlets. But it’s also because Hungary’s gaggle of small left-liberal opposition parties, who collectively form a majority in seats like this one, refuse to join forces behind a unity candidate.

Italy: We still don’t know who will lead Italy. But one clear winner is the Kremlin. | The Washington Post

Italy’s Parliament convened Friday for the first time since anti-establishment forces shattered the old-line political system, and it remains unclear who will lead the country. But one victor is certain: the Kremlin. The populist Five Star Movement and the far-right League — the two parties most likely to bring together a ruling coalition — have called for a swift end to European sanctions against Russia. Both want to reorient the NATO defense alliance away from its increasingly robust stance in Eastern Europe, where it has stationed troops and tanks to defend against a possible conflict with the Kremlin. And both say Russia is a valuable partner in the global fight against terrorism in Syria and elsewhere.

Mexico: Mexico fights its own ‘fake news’ battle ahead of vote | AFP

With allegations of Russian interference and a flood of “fake news,” the race for Mexico’s presidential election is shaping up to look a lot like the last one in its giant northern neighbour, the United States. The campaign for the July 1 polls officially opens Friday, but already the internet is swarming with dubious “news” stories: there are allegations of meddling by Moscow, and attention is fixated on scandal-rocked data miner Cambridge Analytica’s local activities. Trying to get ahead of the curve, the National Electoral Institute (INE) recently signed deals with Facebook and Twitter, and is due to sign another with Google, seeking to fight the fake with the true. “We are going to ask all the social networks to let us publish official information” on their platforms, said INE board member Enrique Andrade. That includes broadcasts of the three presidential debates and live election results.

New Zealand: Legal battle over prisoner voting ban heard at Supreme Court | Radio New Zealand

The career criminal, Arthur Taylor, has taken his legal battle challenging a ban on prisoner voting to this country’s highest court. The High Court and Court of Appeal have already ruled against them, but in December the Supreme Court agreed to give them one last hearing. In 2010, Parliament passed a law preventing all sentenced prisoners from voting, regardless of the length of their sentence. However, earlier electoral legislation allowed prisoners serving a jail term of less than three years to vote.

Sierra Leone: Sierra Leone court halts preparations for presidential run-off | AFP

Sierra Leone’s High Court on Saturday ordered the electoral commission to halt preparations for a March 27 presidential run-off following a legal filing by a lawyer linked to the ruling party. The order stops the National Electoral Commission (NEC) from working until “the hearing and determination of this court”, adjourning the matter until Monday, the eve of the vote. This would allow time for the commission to submit a question to the Supreme Court, it said, after which the High Court would sit again to reconsider the matter.

Turkmenistan: Pro-government candidates in election for rubber-stamp Turkmen parliament | Reuters

Turkmenistan is voting in a parliamentary election on Sunday, with a choice of three parties and some independents, but all the candidates are ultimately loyal to President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, leader of the gas-rich nation. One of the candidates is the president’s son, Serdar Berdymukhamedov, regarded by observers as a potential successor to the 60-year-old leader, who is referred to by local people as Arkadag, or Protector. Although the vote takes place against the backdrop of foreign currency shortages brought on by a drop in gas exports, there are no opposition parties in the former Soviet republic of six million. Polling stations greeted voters with national music and dance shows, and snacks.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for March 19-25 2018

Congress has included $380 million to address elections and cybersecurity in a massive omnibus funding bill passed this week. The funds had been originally authorized in the Help America Vote Act of 2002 but had not been appropriated until now. The bill priorities the replacement of aging voting machines, with equipment that provides a paper trail and the conducting of post-election audits.

Earlier in the week the Senate Intelligence Committee released preliminary recommendations on election security, the first of several documents the committee will release on Russia’s meddling in the country’s elections. As pointed out in a Washington Post oped “[t]he committee concluded, therefore, that “states should rapidly replace outdated and vulnerable voting systems,” recommending machines with “a voter-verified paper trail and no WiFi capability.” States replaced many voting machines after the 2000 election controversy, a generation of systems that is showing its age. States should also begin conducting routine post-election audits designed to detect fraud.”

Verified Voting joined other voting advocates in criticizing amendments made to Georgia Senate Bill 403, which would replace the state’s direct recording electronic voting machines. As re-written, the bill would allows the state to by new DREs, albeit with paper trail printers. “It’s really important that Georgia gets this right,” said Marian Schneider, the president of the Verified Voting Foundation, a Philadelphia-based organization whose mission is to safeguard elections. ”The voting system that Georgia chooses has to have a voter-marked paper ballot that’s retained by the system and is available for recount and audit.”

The New York Times commented on the significance of the Kris Kobach’s trial in Kansas. The ACLU has challenged a 2013 state law that requires prospective voters to prove their citizenship before they can register. For two weeks Kobach and others have struggled to support their assertions that thousands of fradulant votes have been cast in Kansas elections. As the Times notes Kobach “has won plenty of converts, even though he has failed to identify more than a tiny handful of possible cases of fraud. In his eight years as secretary of state, he has secured a total of nine convictions, only one of which was for illegal voting by a noncitizen; most were for double-voting by older Republican men.”

Following a directive from the Michigan Secretary of State, the state will hand-count ballots for all precincts selected in the post-election audit, during this year’s May election and November general election. But the reforms don’t fully reassure Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan. He noted that under Michigan procedure, post-election audits occur after the results are already certified, rendering the practice moot when it comes to disputing a race outcome. “It severely limits the utility of an audit if you do it months after an election and creates more opportunity for pieces of paper to be lost or tampered with,” he said.

According to a release issued by the organization Equally American, the fact that U.S. citizens living U.S. territory being denied the right to vote for president of the United States is not just morally wrong, it is a violation of international law.  A case brought by former Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Rosselló before the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights argues that by denying U.S. citizens in the territories voting representation in the federal government, the United States is violating its international law obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and other international agreements.

A judge ruled that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker must call special elections to fill two vacant seats in the Legislature. Walker had declined to call those elections after two GOP lawmakers stepped down to join his administration in December, choosing instead to leave the seats vacant until the next general election.

According to reports this week Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), have worked in more than 200 elections across the world, including Nigeria, Kenya, the Czech Republic, India and Argentina. The right-leaning digital marketing firm targets voters with propaganda to influence their voting decisions.

The Washington Post reported on their investigation into election administration the Russiuan Presidential election. According to the Post, “[o]n the basis of data about poll workers that we collected and analyzed, a number of reasons exist to be doubtful that Russia’s election commissions were balanced and unbiased. We spent several months monitoring the composition of precinct commissions before the 2018 election. We used official data disclosed by the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.

 

National: Congress included $380 million for election security in spending bill | Business Insider

Congress provided $380 million in election security funding as part of its massive spending bill, a move that reflects the growing consensus in Washington that more needs to be done to ensure the integrity of America’s elections. The funding would go to the Election Assistance Commission, which then must distribute the funds to states within 45 days to replace aging voting machines, implement post-election audits, and provide cybersecurity training for state and local officials, among other election security related improvements. “In this challenging political time, this has to be seen as a win and a recognition that [election security] is an important responsibility,” Adam Ambrogi, the director of the Elections Program at the Democracy Fund, told Business Insider. “The federal government needs to aid the states. The states don’t have this money laying around.”

National: ‘Lone DNC Hacker’ Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer | The Daily Beast

Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It’s an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft. That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. The Daily Beast has learned that the special counsel in that investigation, Robert Mueller, has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team.

Editorials: The Senate has released election-security recommendations. Now it’s time to act. | The Washington Post

The House Intelligence Committee voted on party linesThursday to release a one-sided report on the panel’s hastily closed Russia investigation, deepening the partisan morass and enabling President Trump to undermine law enforcement and the intelligence community. The Senate Intelligence Committee, meanwhile, has taken Russia’s continuing attacks on the nation’s democracy more seriously than its House counterpart. The Senate probe continues in a bipartisan — and, as of now, constructive — manner. The panel on Tuesday released preliminary recommendations on election security, the first of several documents the committee will release on Russia’s meddling in the country’s elections. It will take some time to get the committee’s full analysis, which must undergo declassification review. But with primary elections already starting, acting on the recommendations is urgent.

Georgia: Voting groups oppose bill to change Georgia’s voting machines | Atlanta Journal Constitution

Several election integrity organizations are unifying against a bill to change Georgia’s voting system, saying the legislation fails to ensure verifiable election results. The legislation, Senate Bill 403, would replace Georgia’s electronic voting machines with a system that uses paper to some extent. But opponents of the measure say it doesn’t truly commit to paper ballots for audits and recounts.  They’re concerned that the bill allows the state to continue its heavy reliance on voting methods that could be vulnerable to hacking, and it gives county election supervisors the power to refuse to do paper recounts, even in close races. “It’s really important that Georgia gets this right,” said Marian Schneider, the president of the Verified Voting Foundation, a Philadelphia-based organization whose mission is to safeguard elections. ”The voting system that Georgia chooses has to have a voter-marked paper ballot that’s retained by the system and is available for recount and audit.”

Kansas: Kris Kobach’s Voting Sham Gets Exposed in Court | The New York Times

The modern American crusade against voter fraud has always been propelled by faith. That is, an insistent belief in things unseen — things like voters who show up at the polls pretending to be someone else, or noncitizens who try to register and vote illegally. Fraud like this is so rare as to be almost unmeasurable, and yet its specter has led to dozens of strict new laws around the country. Passed in the name of electoral integrity, the laws, which usually require voters to present photo IDs at the polls or provide proof of citizenship to register, make voting harder, if not impossible, for tens of thousands of people — disproportionately minorities and others who tend to vote Democratic. The high priest of this faith-based movement is Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate who has been preaching his gospel of deception to Republican lawmakers for years. He has won plenty of converts, even though he has failed to identify more than a tiny handful of possible cases of fraud. In his eight years as secretary of state, he has secured a total of nine convictions, only one of which was for illegal voting by a noncitizen; most were for double-voting by older Republican men.

Michigan: Manual election audits to debut in Michigan 2018 race | Associated Press

New measures to bolster security for Michigan’s 2018 midterm elections were announced this month, but experts said they don’t address all past gripes with state procedures. During this year’s May election and November general election, Michigan will hand-count ballots for all precincts selected in the post-election audit, secretary of state spokesman Fred Woodhams said. The state currently uses paper ballots that are scanned through optical voting machines. Past elections’ audits required reviewing voting machine equipment as well as procedural compliance of poll workers, he said, but did not entail recounting paper ballots. … But the reforms don’t fully reassure Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan. He noted that under Michigan procedure, post-election audits occur after the results are already certified, rendering the practice moot when it comes to disputing a race outcome.

U.S. Territories: Territorial Leaders Argue Denial Of Voting Rights Violates International Law | The Virgin Islands Consortium

Leaders from Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands are now arguing that U.S. citizens living U.S. territory being denied the right to vote for president of the United States is not just morally wrong, it is a violation of international law, according to a release issued by Equally American, formerly We the People, a nonprofit that advocates for equal rights and representation in U.S. territories. Nearly 4 million citizens living in U.S. territories – a population greater than 21 states and larger than the five smallest states combined – are denied the right to vote for President and voting representation in Congress simply because of where they happen to live. This includes more than 100,000 veterans and active duty service members living in U.S. territories. At the same time, decisions made by the federal government impacting residents of U.S. territories can literally mean life or death, a fact thrown in stark relief by the six month anniversary of Hurricanes Maria and Irma hitting Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Wisconsin: Judge orders Scott Walker to hold special elections in Holder suit | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Dealing a setback to Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans, a judge ruled Thursday the governor must call special elections to fill two vacant seats in the Legislature. Walker declined to call those elections after two GOP lawmakers stepped down to join his administration in December. His plan would have left the seats vacant for more than a year. Voters in those areas took him to court with the help of a group headed by Eric Holder, the first attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama.

Kenya: How Cambridge Analytica Influenced Poll | allAfrica.com

An undercover investigation has blown the lid off the workings of Cambridge Analytica, the British data company that was suspected and now boasts of influencing Kenya’s 2017 presidential election. In a three-part series titled ‘Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks’, Britain’s Channel 4 News exposes how the right-leaning digital marketing firm targets voters with propaganda to influence their voting decisions. In the investigation, the company’s bosses, including chief executive Alexander Nix, are secretly filmed saying they discreetly campaign in elections across the world through a web of shadowy front companies or by using sub-contractors.eny

Russia: Who counted the votes in Russia? We checked. | The Washington Post

On March 18, 2018, Russians reelected President Vladimir Putin by a huge margin. Official reports say that 67 percent of voters went to the polls and that 76 percent of those supported the incumbent. This result comes as zero surprise, and media coverage has focused on the lack of true opposition candidates and allegations of ballot-stuffing. But there is more to this story. About 800,000 poll workers at more than 95,000 polling stations across Russia delivered basic administrative services for this election. This army of street-level bureaucrats verified voter identities, issued/counted the ballots and established the voting tallies at each precinct.  How did Sunday’s election look, behind the scenes? We tend to assume that poll workers, whether they are in South Dakota or the Northern Caucasus, are professional and independent. Put simply, we expect poll workers to leave aside their political biases and ensure that voting takes place according to fair and impartial procedures.

National: States to get at least $3 million each for election security in spending deal | USA Today

States will receive at least $3 million each to protect their voting systems against Russian cyber attacks under a provision added to a sweeping government spending deal that Congress has reached. The $1.3 trillion spending deal includes a total of $380 million for election security grants. The House passed the bill Thursday and sent it to the Senate for approval. States have been scrambling to improve their cyber security after Homeland Security officials revealed last year that Russian hackers tried to breach election systems in at least 21 states in 2016. Although no actual votes were changed, hackers broke into Illinois’ voter registration database.

National: New Voting Machines Have Been Declared A National Security Priority. And Congress Looks Likely To Pay For Them. | Buzzfeed

Pressure is mounting for Congress to take dramatic steps to ensure the security of US voting systems with just seven months to go before the crucial 2018 midterm elections. On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen called the need for new voting machines that produce a paper trail “a national security issue,” and Republican Sen. Richard Burr, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, added his name as a cosponsor to a bill that would provide money to replace voting equipment that can’t be audited. But whether that funding will be appropriated remains uncertain. The Secure Elections Act has been slow to gain cosponsors, but its provisions were folded into the Senate’s must-pass omnibus spending bill to keep the government open as the Senate heads toward a Friday deadline to avoid another government shutdown.

National: GOP Shuts Down House Russia Probe Despite New Revelations | Bloomberg

Republicans shut down the House Intelligence Committee’s contentious Russia probe Thursday, despite new revelations that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign may have benefited from the exploitation of personal information from millions of Facebook users. In a closed-door meeting, the panel voted over Democrats’ objections to approve and release a Republican-written final report, said Michael Conaway, a Texas Republican who led the panel’s investigation. “House Intelligence Committee votes to release final report,” Trump said in a Twitter posting Friday morning in his first comment on the vote. “FINDINGS: (1) No evidence provided of Collusion between Trump Campaign & Russia. (2) The Obama Administrations Post election response was insufficient. (3) Clapper provided inconsistent testimony on media contacts.”

National: Senators introduced revised version of election cyber bill | The Hill

A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday unveiled revised legislation to secure U.S. voting systems from cyberattack. The bill, originally introduced in December, retains its original tenets, including authorizing grants for states to replace outdated voting systems with more secure technology. However, it contains several revisions that appear designed to address individual states’ concerns with the bill. The new bill, like its predecessor, aims to address future threats to voter registration databases and other systems following Russian interference in the 2016 presidential vote. The Department of Homeland Security has said that Russian hackers tried to break into election systems in 21 states before the election, as part of a broader interference plot. In one case, hackers successfully breached a voter registration database in Illinois.

National: Efforts to Secure Elections Moving Too Slowly, Senators Tell Homeland Security Chief | The New York Times

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee pressured Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, on Wednesday to speed up key election security measures, even as she trumpeted the adoption of important improvements ahead of November’s midterm elections. Ms. Nielsen told the senators, who are investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, that the department made significant strides in recent months working with state and local election officials to improve communication about threats and share cybersecurity resources. Those efforts include comprehensive risk assessments and cyberscans meant to identify vulnerabilities in election systems. But under questioning, Ms. Nielsen signaled that one of those undertakings, to grant full security clearances to state election officials so they could receive classified information on cybersecurity threats in a timely way, had been slow going. Of the up to 150 state election officials designated to receive clearances, only about 20 have them, she said.

Georgia: Democrats outraged over push to limit weekend voting | Associated Press

Georgia Republicans want to limit early voting so that no county can offer it on both on a Saturday and a Sunday. Democrats are outraged; they say the plan is designed to help GOP candidates. “They’re targeting likely Democratic voters to stifle the opportunity to cast a ballot,” said Sen. Lester Jackson, a Savannah Democrat and the chairman of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. “Working-class Georgians need opportunities to participate in the governmental process.” Under a bill sponsored by Sen. Matt Brass, R-Newnan, counties would only be able to offer early voting on weekdays and one weekend day. County officials would get to choose whether the polls would be open on one Saturday or one Sunday, but not both.

Minnesota: Wait will go on for felons seeking return of voting rights | Minnesota Public Radio

By the narrowest of margins, a bill to return the right to vote for felons faster than would happen otherwise stalled again Thursday at the Capitol. The bill was put on hold following an 8-7 show of hands vote in the House Public Safety and Security Policy Committee, with Rep. Nick Zerwas joining all Democrats on the losing side. Zerwas, R-Elk River, is a bill cosponsor. The proposal could arise later as a potential amendment on the House floor to another bill, but the likelihood of success is slim. A companion measure has previously gotten through the Senate — though not since Republicans took control in 2017 — but the House has typically been the bigger struggle. The bill would change the law so felons would be able to vote once they are no longer incarcerated.

Pennsylvania: GOP chief justice slams Republican judicial impeachment move | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Thursday that he is “very concerned” about an effort to impeach his four colleagues who voted to overturn the state’s congressional district map and impose a new one. “Threats of impeachment directed against Justices because of their decision in a particular case are an attack upon an independent judiciary, which is an essential component of our constitutional plan of government,” Chief Justice Thomas Saylor said in a statement. Justice Saylor, elected to the court as a Republican, dissented from the majority in the case.

Wisconsin: Thousands of Milwaukee voters have been dropped from rolls, including some erroneously | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Thousands of Milwaukee voters have been dropped from voter rolls — including some erroneously — through the state’s registration system, city officials said Wednesday. Some 44,000 voters were removed from city rolls after the state started using a new process in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), they said. It’s unclear how many of those were dropped in error. “This is not a problem that has been caused at the local level,” Mayor Tom Barrett said at a City Hall news conference. Barrett said problems were caused by incorrect data provided by the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the U.S. Postal Service, leading some voters who haven’t actually moved or changed addresses to be erroneously dropped from the rolls. “We are very concerned with the number of legitimate voters whose records have been deactivated,” Barrett said.