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A federal lawsuit challenging Georgia’s system of removing inactive voters from the registration rolls was formally withdrawn on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Ohio’s similar voter “purge” policy did not violate federal law.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.

National: Here’s How That $380 Million in Election Security Funding Is Being Spent | Nextgov

Homeland Security Department inspectors aren’t turning up anything shocking when they assess state and local election systems for cybersecurity vulnerabilities in advance of the 2018 midterms, an official said Tuesday. Most of what Homeland Security is turning up in the risk and vulnerability assessments are the same issues you’d see in any information technology environment, Matthew Masterson, a senior cybersecurity adviser, told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. That includes unpatched software, outdated equipment and misconfigured systems. Homeland Security has conducted risk and vulnerability assessments of 17 states and 10 localities so far, Masterson said.

National: Foreign interference in U.S. elections still going on, Mueller says | Euronews

Foreign efforts to interfere in U.S. elections are still going on just five months before the midterm elections, special counsel Robert Mueller told a judge on Tuesday. Mueller made the assertion in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in his prosecution of 13 Russian nationals and three companies who were indicted in February on charges including interference in the 2016 presidential election. It says the government believes foreign “individuals and entities” are continuing to “engage in interference operations like those charged in the present indictment.” The filing seeks to protect evidence requested by one of the companies, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, which provides food services at the Kremlin and is run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who prosecutors allege is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and has had “extensive dealings” with the Russian Defense Ministry.

National: Democrats unveil push to secure state voting systems | The Hill

A group of Democratic senators is introducing a bill aimed at securing U.S. elections from hacking efforts, the latest response to attempted Russian interference in the 2016 presidential vote. The bill introduced Tuesday is specifically designed to ensure the integrity of and bolster confidence in the federal vote count. It would require state and local governments to take two steps to ensure that votes are counted correctly. Under the legislation, states would have to use voting systems that use voter-verified paper ballots that could be audited in the event a result is called into question. State and local officials would also be required to implement what are known as “risk-limiting audits” — a method that verifies election outcomes by comparing a random sample of paper ballots with their corresponding digital versions — for all federal elections.

National: Congress struggles with ‘more than 30 proposals’ to combat foreign election meddling | Washington Times

Congress is wrestling with more than 30 proposals “to combat different angles of the foreign election meddling issue,” according to Senate Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley. The logjam of legislation — much of it pushed by House and Senate bipartisan efforts — comes as the 2018 midterm election season accelerates toward its November finale that will determine the balance of power in Congress and in statehouses across the nation. “There have been no fewer than 18 pieces of legislation proposed to combat different angles of the foreign election meddling issue in the Senate alone,” Mr. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing exploring election safety and foreign influence.

National: DHS steps up security assistance for states’ election systems | GCN

State and local elections officials  preparing for the 2018 elections are strapped for time and resources, but the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate is stepping in to help. Two weeks ago, at the request of the Elections Government Coordinating Council, NPPD released guidance on what states and localities should do with their share of the $382 million from 2018 Help America Vote Act Security Fund, said Matt Masterson, NPPD senior cybersecurity advisor, during a June 12 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. NPPD provided insights on where the money should be used to address risks in the election process. “We focused first on common IT vulnerabilities that exist across elections — things like patching, training for phishing campaigns as well as manpower,” Masterson said.

National: Democrats and Republicans split over using hacked material in campaigns | CyberScoop

Another Democrat-Republican feud is showing that when it comes to politically charged hacking, politics may not stop at the water’s edge. The divide is focused on whether political parties should be allowed to use insider information that’s provided by hackers; similar to what occurred at the state level in 2016. Last week, a Democratic lawmaker on the House Intelligence Committee introduced a bill that would punish federal candidates if they fail to notify the FBI whenever a suspected hacking group offers them political dirt. On Thursday, Rep. Eric Swalwell introduced the “Duty to Report Act.” The proposed law would make it a crime for campaign staffers to not tip the government off to certain suspected hacking activities.

Editorials: The Ohio Purge and the Future of Voting | Dale Ho/The New York Times

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 to uphold Ohio’s program of canceling registrations of infrequent voters — a decision that history shows disproportionately strikes minority and low-income voters from the rolls. Under Ohio’s program, which a federal appeals court had struck down as violating the National Voter Registration Act, registered voters who don’t cast a ballot in two years are sent a notice asking them to confirm that they still reside at the same address. If they don’t respond, and then fail to vote in the next two federal elections, they are assumed to have moved to a different county and are excised from the rolls.

Editorials: In Ohio, Supreme Court delivers GOP a victory in the war on voting | The Washington Post

Imagine this scenario. Like many people, you didn’t bother voting in the last election or two, because you were busy, or none of the races really interested you, or maybe you’re in the military and were stationed overseas, or maybe you just haven’t gotten around to it for a while. You vaguely remember getting a notice about your registration from the state board of elections, but you threw it away with the other junk mail. You know you’re registered, so there shouldn’t be a problem. Then, on the next Election Day, you show up to vote only to discover that you’ve been “purged.” Because you didn’t vote for a time and you didn’t return that letter, the state has kicked you off the voting rolls. Today, the Supreme Court said that’s just fine.

Maine: With first ranked-choice election, LePage says he ‘probably’ won’t certify results | Portland Press Herald

As Mainers headed to the polls for primary voting Tuesday morning, Gov. Paul LePage announced he may not certify the results. Tuesday is the first time in Maine when voters statewide will use a ranked-choice system, which allows voters to submit a ballot that ranks votes for candidates in order of preference. It is being used in both parties’ voting for gubernatorial candidates, a race for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House in the state’s 2nd Congressional district and a state legislative seat. LePage, in an interview with WCSH-TV, called the voting system “the most horrific thing in the world” and said he “probably” won’t certify the results and instead will “leave it up to the courts to decide.”

Nevada: ‘Isolated’ vote glitches solved with Nevada voting machines | Associated Press

Officials reported “isolated” primary voting glitches Tuesday involving the state’s new touch-screen voting machines in Nevada’s two most populous areas, and blamed the system for a technical problem that delayed the count of ballots in one rural northern county. Registrars in Las Vegas and Reno said a small number of voting machines failed to properly display all candidates’ names early in the day, and a state official and a member of The Associated Press election tabulation team said the vote tally was delayed for more than two hours after polls closed in Pershing County. In no case were voters unable to successfully cast a ballot with help from poll workers, said Jennifer Russell, spokeswoman for the Nevada Secretary of State’s office.

Ohio: No voters will be purged before November election, secretary of state says | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Monday’s Supreme Court decision upholding Ohio’s process of canceling certain voter registrations won’t affect elections held in August and November this year. No voters will be removed as a result of failing to vote for several years, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s office confirmed Tuesday. Ohio’s 88 county board of elections were directed on Monday to not take any action to use the state’s “supplemental process” for removing voters from the rolls ahead of the November election. The supplemental process allows elections officials to cancel registrations if a voter has not cast a ballot in two years and then fails to vote or respond to a notice within the following four years.

Pennsylvania: After 2016 Russian hack attempts on voter data, registration system to be audited | Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said Monday that his office will evaluate the security of the state’s voter-registration system, a target of Russian hackers before the 2016 presidential election. Pennsylvania was one of 21 states whose election data were sought by Russian hackers, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said last year. Though there was no evidence of a breach, DePasquale said, the revelation prompted him and others to test the system’s security. “This is something that has been talked about both locally and nationally for quite some time,” DePasquale said. “I believe it is the right time to make sure we are doing everything we can to make sure our voting system in Pennsylvania is secure.”

Editorials: South Carolina must act to make voting more secure | The Times and Democrat

The General Assembly turned down a request from the State Election Commission and Gov. Henry McMaster to expedite the replacement of the state’s aging voting machines, providing only $4 million of a $20 million request to get going on a project expected to cost about $50 million over two years. With heightened concerns over election tampering, lawmakers should reconsider their decision as soon as possible. Even if all of the funding was provided next year, the earliest South Carolina voters would have access to the new machines that produce a paper trail of their votes would be the November 2020 general election. The state is unlikely to have the new machines in time for the 2020 presidential primaries or other contests held before that time.

Utah: State may move to special elections to fill legislative vacancies | Utah Policy

Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, wants to make a drastic change to how legislative vacancies are filled, taking power away from party delegates and giving it to voters. Currently, when a legislator steps down from office, their replacement is determined by a vote of party delegates from their district. Most recently, Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, retired and Republican delegates in her district chose Rep. Keith Grover, R-Provo, as her replacement. Once Grover’s appointment is approved by Gov. Gary Herbert, GOP delegates in his former House district will then get to pick his replacement. Bramble argues it’s time to scrap that replacement method in favor of a special election.

Virginia: On primary day in Virginia, officials say they’re preparing for more cyberthreats against elections | StateScoop

As five more states hold primary elections Tuesday, one of the biggest concerns in this year’s voting cycle continues to be how secure ballot systems are. But the lead elections official in Arlington County, Virginia, is confident votes there will be counted without issue. “We have a practical, low-key approach,” said Linda Lindberg, Arlington’s director of elections. Arlington is a bit of a model citizen for how jurisdictions conduct elections. Lindberg’s “practical” hews closely to what many ballot-security advocates call for: recording votes on paper ballots, which are then counted by optical scanners. Lindberg said her office also conducts routine tests of its equipment and scans its voter-registration system for vulnerabilities.

Belgium: Intelligence watchdog warns of Russian election meddling | Politico

Belgium’s chief regulator of intelligence services warned that Russia would seek to meddle in local elections coming up in October, he told Belgian magazine Knack and newspaper Le Soir in an interview published Wednesday. Guy Rapaille, who oversees the watchdog for intelligence services in Belgium, Comité R, urged intelligence services to pay close attention to Russian meddling in Belgium’s upcoming local elections in October, as well as regional, federal and European elections in May 2019. He pointed to revelations that the Russian state had contacts with far-right parties. “In France there were sometimes troubling relations with the [far-right party of Marine Le Pen] National Front, one could imagine the same in Belgium too,” he said.

Canada: Federal government unveils plan to boost Canada’s defences against online attacks, crime | The Globe and Mail

The federal government unveiled its plan to bolster Canada’s defences against nefarious online attacks and crime Tuesday, even as it acknowledged a shortage of skilled cyberwarriors to meet the country’s needs. Backstopped by more than $500-million in new funding over the next five years, Ottawa’s newly released cybersecurity strategy lays out a range of initiatives to help Canadians, business and the government better protect against cyberthreats. The strategy was the result of nearly two years of consultations with industry, academics and other experts, and updates the first such plan released by the Harper Conservatives in 2010.