Editorials: Congress must act to restore the integrity of American elections | Donna Brazile/The Hill

Before the 2017 German election, Angela Merkel issued a loud call to build an election firewall. Everyone listened. By contrast, Eric Rosenbach, in charge of cybersecurity for the Defense Department from 2011 to 2017, told the Financial Times, “They [the states] are just not equipped to be fighting the pointy end of the spear of the Russian [intelligence agency] GRU.” He got that right. Are people listening? To some extent, they cannot hear through the constant distractions. It’s time to issue a loud call to protect our upcoming midterm elections from foreign interference. Where are we now? In April, 38 states took part in an election “cybersecurity bootcamp” conceived and directed by Rosenbach. A few weeks later on May 4, the White House issued a readout of President Trump’s meeting on election security: “The president received an update about current federal election security-related efforts, including…best practices like using paper ballots, issuing security clearances, and conducting security assessments.”

Florida: Russian hackers, long lines, voting data: What Florida elections officials are talking about this week | Tampa Bay Times

The people who count votes in Florida realize the eyes of the nation will be on them again as millions of people make their choices in the 2018 election. Supervisors of elections from the state’s 67 counties will meet this week at a Fort Lauderdale oceanfront resort hotel for three days of brainstorming. They’re preparing for a trouble-free midterm election in the nation’s premier battleground state, with its long history of close races and nail-biting election nights. Here are five specific issues they will deal with at their annual summer conference. The possibility of more malicious attempts, especially from Russian hackers, to disrupt Florida’s election is on every election supervisor’s mind. “It’s the No. 1 priority on every election supervisor’s preparation list,” said Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark. Supervisors will hear from a top official of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on what more should be done to protect the integrity of voting systems. The conference comes just days after President Donald J. Trump eliminated the position of national cybersecurity coordinator.

Illinois: Legislation to disband DuPage County election commission clears Illinois Senate | Daily Herald

DuPage County will gain the power to disband the county election commission if Gov. Bruce Rauner signs legislation now on his desk. The Illinois Senate on Friday unanimously approved the legislation that would amend the Election Code to allow DuPage County to dissolve its election commission and transfer its functions to the county clerk’s office. The state House approved the measure last month. “This is a major step forward for DuPage County government,” county board Chairman Dan Cronin said Friday. “We’re streamlining an operation that’s been around for a while and is antiquated.”

Texas: State lawyers object to proposed motor-voter solutions | Austin American-Statesman

After losing a legal fight over the way Texas handles online voter registration, state lawyers are arguing that fixes proposed by a civil rights group go too far and should be rejected. U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio had given both sides until Thursday to submit plans that will let Texans easily register to vote when they obtain or renew a driver’s license on the Department of Public Safety website. The current system violates the National Voter Registration Act’s motor-voter provision, Garcia ruled, because online users are directed to a separate page run by the Texas secretary of state, where they must download a voter registration form, print it out and mail it to their county registrar.

Burundi: Opposition rejects referendum, alleges intimidation | Associated Press

The leader of a Burundian opposition coalition said Saturday they would not accept the outcome of a referendum on extending the president’s time in office, calling the vote undemocratic and marred by intimidation. As the East African nation awaited the electoral commission’s announcement of the results of Thursday’s vote, Agathon Rwasa said the opposition had proof of arrests of perceived opponents and threats of assassination against those who voted against changing the constitution. “It is a parody. We will not accept the outcome of this referendum because it is a fantasy,” the former rebel leader told The Associated Press, calling on the electoral commission to redo the vote in a way that is free and fair.

Iraq: Election Body Feared Effects of Recount, Member Says | VoA News

As demands for a manual voter recount surge amid claims of election fraud in the Iraqi general elections, the country’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) is concerned a ballot-by-ballot recount could portray the newly introduced electronic system as a failure, one member says. During a telephone interview with Voice of America, Saeed Kakei, a member of the IHEC, said his request for a manual recount was rejected by other members of the election commission who “feared” that a recount could possibly show the failure of the machines. “I told them we should work with transparency. What is the fear for?” Kakei told VOA. “I proposed that they manually recount 25 percent of the ballot boxes, or at least 5 percent, but they refused to do so.”

Ireland: As polls narrow before the abortion vote, is rural Ireland setting up a Brexit moment? | The Guardian

The polls have narrowed so much that a result once nearly taken for granted now hangs in the balance; the media are under fierce attack for bias; and questions are swirling about foreign influence and online ads. As Ireland heads into the last week of campaigning for its historic referendum on abortion, the long shadow of two recent surprise election results – the Brexit referendum across the Irish sea, and Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presidential poll – is hanging over Irish voters. They will decide on Friday whether to repeal an amendment dating back to the 1980s that enshrined in the constitution a near-total ban on abortion. The controls are the strictest in any western democracy, meaning that the battle has been closely watched by anti-abortion activists across the world.

Mexico: 36 local candidates have been assassinated in Mexico. And the election is still 2 months away. | The Washington Post

This election season has been the most violent in Mexico’s recent history, with 36 candidates killed since September, and dozens of other politicians and campaign officials slaughtered. That macabre statistic has created a fresh challenge for the country’s political parties: They are now trying to fill dozens of  candidacies left open by the assassinations. “There are some positions that no one wants to contest right now,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a security expert at Lantia Consultores in Mexico City. “It’s something that we’re seeing in several states in the country.” Earlier this month, the body of Abel Montufar, a candidate for congress from the state of Guerrero, was found in his truck. He had been shot several times. After Montufar’s funeral, members of his party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), began what has become a familiar search.

Venezuela: Nicolás Maduro wins second term | The Guardian

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has shrugged off international condemnation and allegations of vote buying and electoral fraud to claim a second six-year term at the helm of his crisis-stricken nation. Addressing crowds of supporters outside the presidential palace in Caracas on Sunday night, Maduro hailed the “impeccable electoral process” that had returned him to power with 67.7% of the vote. … Venezuela’s election board put turnout at just 46.1%, way down from the 80% registered at the last presidential vote in 2013, due to a boycott by Venezuela’s mainstream opposition. 

Florida: Porous campaign finance laws: ‘You can do almost anything’ | Associated Press

Florida’s wide-open race for governor won’t be decided for another six months, but it’s already triggered a wave of expensive television ad buys from groups taking advantage of gray areas in the state’s campaign finance laws. Campaigns are interpreting the law so liberally — and some experts think they will get away with it — that it could essentially render the laws meaningless. So far, at least $13 million has been spent on television ads in the governor’s race that includes two Republicans and four Democrats vying for the job that will be vacated by Gov. Rick Scott. Television ads are poised to play a crucial role in the race since polls continue to show a majority of the state’s voters don’t really know the Republican or Democratic candidates vying to replace him.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 14-20 2018

The Associated Press posted a widely published article raising concern that “an estimated 1 in 5 Americans will be casting their ballots on machines that do not produce a paper record of their votes.” While many election official defend the accuracy of direct recording electronic voting machines, there is a growing consensus that such machines should be replaced with machines that use voter marked paper ballots. The obstacle to replacing them is cost and the recent authorization of the remaining $380 million in HAVA funds, while welcome, is insufficient to upgrade to paper ballot systems nationwide.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that Florida election supervisors have echoed complaints of election officials in many states that have not yet received any of the federal election security funding Congress sent states nearly two months ago. “We sure wish the money was available. It’s frustrating,” said supervisor Mark Earley in Tallahassee’s Leon County. “This is a big deal. There’s certainly room for improvement, especially in smaller counties.”

In a clear rebuke to Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters in the Republican Party and in the right-wing news media, Republican Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he saw “no reason to dispute” the intelligence assessment that the Russian government tried to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton by meddling in the 2016 election.

Experts and political leaders expressed concerns over the administration’s decision to eliminate the White House’s top cyber policy role, a key position created during the Obama presidency to harmonize the government’s overall approach to cybersecurity policy and digital warfare. “It’s frankly mindboggling that the Trump Administration has eliminated the top White House official responsible for a whole-of-government cyber strategy, at a time when the cyber threat to our nation is greater than ever,” says senator Mark Warner (D – Virginia), the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a statement.

The primary day cyberattack on the Knox County Tennessee election website has underscored the vulnerability of county level IT infrastructure. “Any web server by definition, is connected to the internet, so it’s directly vulnerable to attacks from the internet,” said Doug Jones, an elections cyber security expert at the University of Iowa. Elections websites can be especially vulnerable targets in voting districts that are more rural than Knox County, Jones says, because those counties often don’t have the resources to adequately monitor and secure their sites.

After a federal judge demanded that Texas officials detail how they will begin complying with the National Voter Registration Act, a decades-old federal law that aims to make it easier for people to register to vote, the state has made little efforts to comply. In a new filing the state’s legal adversaries have described the state’s actions as “bad faith foot-dragging.”

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) and Secretary of State Kim Wyman (R) announced that the state would pay the postage for all ballots in the 2018 general and primary elections. Officials said they hope that paying the postage will eliminate a barrier and make it easier for people to vote. Washington, Oregon and Colorado are the only three states that conduct all their elections by mail, but Washington will be the first state to pay for postage among them.

An international commission has formed to try to end meddling in elections in Western democratic nations by Russia and other autocratic countries. The Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity (TCEI), will be co-chaired by former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and will include former Vice President Joe Biden.

Burundians voted in a referendum that could keep the president in power until 2034 and threatens to prolong a political crisis that has seen more than 1,000 people killed and hundreds of thousands fleeing to neighboring countries.

In the face of international condemnation and allegations of vote buying and electoral fraud, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has claimed a second six-year term after an election in which credible opponents had forced off the ballot.Henri Falcón, Maduro’s nearest rival, claimed widespread vote buying and electoral irregularities meant the election was “illegitimate”. “We do not recogonize this electoral process as valid,” he told reporters. “As far as we are concerned there has been no election. There must be new elections in Venezuela.”

National: Election hacking puts focus on paperless voting machines | Associated Press

As the midterm congressional primaries heat up amid fears of Russian hacking, an estimated 1 in 5 Americans will be casting their ballots on machines that do not produce a paper record of their votes. That worries voting and cybersecurity experts, who say the lack of a hard copy makes it difficult to double-check the results for signs of manipulation. “In the current system, after the election, if people worry it has been hacked, the best officials can do is say ‘Trust us,’” said Alex Halderman, a voting machine expert who is director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Computer Security and Society. Georgia, which holds its primary on Tuesday, and four other states — Delaware, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina — exclusively use touch-screen machines that provide no paper records that allow voters to confirm their choices.

National: Top Republican Senator Says ‘No Reason to Dispute’ That Russia Favored Trump | The New York Times

The Republican at the helm of the Senate’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election backed on Wednesday the assessment by American intelligence agencies that Moscow favored Donald J. Trump in the race, contradicting both the president and fellow Republicans in the House. Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he saw “no reason to dispute” the intelligence assessment, which was delivered in the final weeks of the Obama administration. Mr. Burr’s statement, while indirect, offered a clear rebuke to Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters in the Republican Party and in the right-wing news media, who have sought to cast the assessment as the shoddy work of Obama loyalists bitter over Mr. Trump’s election victory. Russia’s only goal, those supporters have insisted, was to sow chaos, and thus it could not have colluded with a campaign it cared little about.

National: White House Eliminates Cybersecurity Coordinator Role | The New York Times

The White House eliminated the position of cybersecurity coordinator on the National Security Council on Tuesday, doing away with a post central to developing policy to defend against increasingly sophisticated digital attacks and the use of offensive cyber weapons. A memorandum circulated by an aide to the new national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said the post was no longer considered necessary because lower-level officials had already made cybersecurity issues a “core function” of the president’s national security team. Cybersecurity experts and members of Congress said they were mystified by the move, though some suggested Mr. Bolton did not want any competitive power centers emerging inside the national security apparatus. The decision was criticized by Mark R. Warner, a senator from Virginia and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I don’t see how getting rid of the top cyber official in the White House does anything to make our country safer from cyber threats,” he wrote on Twitter.

Florida: Amid election cyber-threats, counties plead with state: Send that money | Tampa Bay Times

Faced with cyber-security threats to their voting systems, Florida election supervisors are eager to get access to some of the $19 million in federal election security money Congress sent states nearly two months ago. But they say all they’re hearing from the state is crickets. “We sure wish the money was available. It’s frustrating,” said supervisor Mark Earley in Tallahassee’s Leon County. “This is a big deal. There’s certainly room for improvement, especially in smaller counties.” Congress included $380 million in a 2018 budget bill and in March directed the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to distribute the money to states. President Donald J. Trump signed the budget bill on March 23. “The EAC is releasing this money quickly so that the grants can have an immediate impact,” the commission said on March 29. The money will help counties “immediately begin system upgrades.”

Tennessee: Hack Shows Election Websites Are Vulnerable | NPR

When a WWE wrestler, especially one known for his demonic antics and a move called the “tombstone piledriver,” runs for mayor of your county, you know your election is going to get more attention than usual. But in Knox County, Tenn., it wasn’t the fact that Glenn Jacobs, also known to wrestling fans as Kane, was running for mayor that gained national attention on the county primary day, May 1. It was that the county’s election website, at the time the site was supposed to begin posting election results, came under attack. Malicious cyber actors shut down the county website and broke into the web server, according to county officials and a report done by the cyber security firm Sword and Shield. …”Any web server by definition, is connected to the internet, so it’s directly vulnerable to attacks from the internet,” said Doug Jones, an elections cyber security expert at the University of Iowa.

Texas: Asked to propose a fix to voting rights violation, Texas offers few answers | The Texas Tribune

Told it was breaking the law and asked to propose a fix, Texas seems to have mostly declined in a new filing the state’s legal adversaries have called “bad faith foot-dragging.” Following a ruling last month that Texas was violating a federal law designed to ease the voter registration process, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia orderedboth the state and the voting rights advocacy group that sued Texas to submit detailed plans for fixing the violation. The Texas Civil Rights Project submitted its plan Thursday afternoon. About three hours later, Texas responded with a document criticizing that group’s proposal as overly broad and once again disputing the judge’s ruling. It did not present a clear, specific solution of its own.

Washington: State to pay for ballot postage to boost turnout | Associated Press

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Secretary of State Kim Wyman said Tuesday that Washington state will pay for prepaid postage on mail-in ballots in this year’s primary and general elections in an attempt to boost turnout – but not for voters in King County, where local officials approved their own measure last week. The decision Tuesday came at Wyman’s request and was prompted by King County’s plans. Wyman said it would be unfair if voters in the most populous county could mail their ballots for free while those elsewhere had to pay for stamps, and she asked Inslee to let her spend nearly $2 million to reimburse all 39 counties on prepaid postage this year.

International: Former U.S. and European Leaders Start Group to Fight Election Hacking | Bloomberg

U.S. and European governments have failed to effectively respond to growing threats from Russia and elsewhere to meddle in elections, according to former officials including former Vice President Joe Biden who say they’re going to help close that gap. More than 20 elections in North America and Europe over the next two years will provide ‘’fertile ground’’ for interference like that seen during the U.S. presidential election in 2016, former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters Friday in Washington. “We’re at a stage now that it’s important to make sure we have a well-rounded exploration of the ups and downs of various policy choices, but that we also treat this with some urgency — we have elections this year,” said Chertoff, who’s co-chairman of the new Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity with Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO Secretary General and Danish prime minister.

Editorials: In Tiny Burundi, a Huge Vote | The New York Times

As many as five million people went to the polls in Burundi on Thursday to vote on a referendum to alter the country’s constitution. I came here as one of the few foreign reporters with a visa and accreditation to cover the scenes at the polls, where voters are deciding on some significant changes. The biggest change of the new constitution would be the extension of the presidential term, from five years to seven years. Pierre Nkurunziza, who has been president of Burundi since 2005, is widely expected to use the new constitution — if it passes — to run in 2020. Under the new rules, he could stay in power until 2034 — and then run again (and again) after sitting out for just one term. Most foreign correspondents were denied access, and two weeks ago the government suspended the BBC and Voice of America from broadcasting inside the country. With help from local journalists, I visited polls in the northern province, home to both Burundi’s president and his biggest challenger, Agathon Rwasa, and I spoke with those casting their ballots. These ladies posed for a photo as they waited after the president left his polling station.

Venezuela: Venezuela To Hold Presidential Election But Main Opposition Is Boycotting It | NPR

When Ariles López takes a break from her fruit stall and begins to describe her life in Venezuela, there is a moment when she chokes up and begins to cry. That will not come as a surprise, when you hear her story. López, who’s 47, is among those Venezuelans who say they will vote in Sunday’s election, despite a widely held view that it’s a fraudulent exercise calculated to keep President Nicolás Maduro in power. She is desperate for change, after a year of personal hardship that underscores the scale of the multilayered catastrophe that is engulfing Venezuela: hyperinflation, widespread hunger, deaths from preventable diseases, and a wave of deadly crime.

National: Voting Info in Spanish Often Lost in Translation | WhoWhatWhy

Incorrect translations, hard-to-find details, gibberish, or sometimes no information at all. That’s what many Spanish-speaking American voters encounter when searching for online voting materials in Spanish. In most cities, counties, and states across the nation, there is no federal requirement to present information in anything other than English. But for 263 jurisdictions — the vast majority of which are counties — federal law requires that voter information be presented in a minority language, with Spanish being the most common. California, Texas, and Florida are the only states required to present statewide voter information in Spanish. WhoWhatWhy has examined a number of official government websites across the country, looking at how well English-language voter information is translated into Spanish, how often it’s done, and if there are any major discrepancies between the two. What we discovered is that translated material is often hard to find and sometimes is nonexistent. Also, much of what does exist is poorly translated. In a closely contested election, that could make all the difference. In some instances, certain information just doesn’t get included in Spanish.

National: Jigsaw’s Project Shield Will Protect Campaigns From Online Attacks | WIRED

With midterm elections looming and primaries already underway in many states, anxiety has been building over the possibility of cyberattacks that could impact voting. Though officials and election security researchers alike are adamant that voters can trust the United States election system, they also acknowledge shortcomings of the current security setup. Little time remains to meaningfully improve election security before the midterms. But Google parent company Alphabet’s experimental incubator Jigsaw announced on Tuesday that it will start offering free protection from distributed denial of service attacks to US political campaigns. DDoS attacks overload a site or service with junk traffic so that legitimate users can’t access it. For the last two years, Jigsaw’s Project Shield has focused on fighting DDoS where it might be used for censorship around the world, offering free defenses to journalists, small publications, human rights groups, and election board sites. Now, those tremendous resources and that technical expertise will extend to political campaigns.

National: Judge To Decide Fate Of Civil Lawsuit Alleging Trump Campaign Colluded With Russia | NPR

A federal judge is deciding whether to permit a lawsuit to go forward in which Democrats allege that Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian government’s cyberattacks on the 2016 presidential election. The parties appeared in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. The three plaintiffs are represented by Protect Democracy, a watchdog group made up primarily of former Obama administration lawyers. Two of the plaintiffs, Eric Schoenberg and Roy Cockrum, had their Social Security numbers dumped online by WikiLeaks; a third plaintiff, former Democratic National Committee staffer Scott Comer, said that his sexual orientation and personal medical details were publicized due to the leak of private emails.

National: Mueller hands judge full memo detailing Russia probe scope | Politico

Special counsel Robert Mueller has provided a federal judge with an unredacted version of the Justice Department memo laying out the scope of his investigation and the potential crimes he’s authorized to pursue. However, the memo — long sought after by President Donald Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill, who regularly accuse Mueller of overstepping his bounds — remains classified and not public, leaving its details hidden. The document was filed as an “unredacted memorandum” under seal with the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District of Virginia, where Mueller is expected to try former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on bank fraud charges.

National: Ryan to delay election security briefing, make it classified | The Hill

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has postponed a briefing for members of Congress on the security of U.S. voting systems so that it can be classified. The move comes after Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), pressed GOP leadership to make the briefing classified so that officials could go into sufficient detail about the scope of the threat and the Trump administration’s efforts to protect digital election systems from hackers.  Sources told The Hill that the briefing, originally scheduled for Thursday evening, has been pushed back as a result of logistical issues that prevented it from being classified. GOP leadership is now working to reschedule the briefing.

Florida: UWF Center for Cybersecurity partners with FDLE to enhance cybersecurity | UWF Newsroom

On the heels of a cyberattack that grounded city services in Atlanta, employees entrusted with protecting their agencies trained on how to thwart attacks during two courses at the University of West Florida. The UWF Center for Cybersecurity partnered with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Texas A&M Engineering Extension Services to host the courses on May 10-11 at the UWF Conference Center. Employees from the FDLE, Escambia County Board of County Commissioners, Escambia County School District, Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners and First Judicial Circuit of Florida, among others, participated in the training sessions less than two months after the ransomware attack in Atlanta. “I think the best solutions are always the collaborative ones, so that we can combine efforts to bring more cybersecurity knowledge and awareness to the community and enhance the resiliency of our region and state,” said Dr. Eman El-Sheikh, UWF Center for Cybersecurity director.

Louisiana: Voting Rights Bill for Some Felons Wins Passage | Associated Press

After years of fighting for the change, an effort to restore the voting rights of thousands of Louisiana’s convicted felons still serving probation and parole was successful Thursday, winning final passage amid cheers, high-fives and hugs. A 54-42 House vote gave final passage to the bill by Rep. Patricia Smith, a Baton Rouge Democrat who had faced repeated defeat for the proposal. The measure squeaked out of the chamber, reaching the governor’s desk with one vote more than it needed. Gov. John Bel Edwards intends to sign the change into law, according to spokesman Richard Carbo. It will take effect on March 1, 2019.

Michigan: Judges say gerrymandering lawsuit can proceed with challenges to individual districts | Michigan Radio

A panel of three judges ruled on Wednesday a gerrymandering lawsuit raised by members of Michigan’s League of Women Voters and several other Democrats will proceed. The suit was filed in December against the Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, who is the chief election officer of the state. It challenges the congressional and state legislative maps, which the plaintiffs say unfairly benefit Republicans. The Secretary of State’s office moved to have the case dismissed, saying there were no grounds for a statewide case. The judges agreed the challengers don’t have standing for a statewide case. But they say the case can move forward if someone from each of the 162 districts in the state challenges their individual district’s boundaries.

Missouri: Proposed constitutional amendment would exclude non-citizens from redistricting | Columbia Missourian

A Senate committee passed a resolution Thursday that would exclude non-citizens from the state’s population count when it comes to redistricting. House Joint Resolution 100, sponsored by Rep. Dean Plocher, R-St. Louis, would make it so only U.S. citizens are counted in the population used in reapportionment. While Plocher received criticism from witnesses who said the proposal treats non-citizens as unequal, he said this measure would actually encourage people to become U.S. citizens faster.