National: Lack of security clearances hampers federal Election Assistance Commission | Politico

Only half the members of a federal commission advising states on election threats have security clearances, raising questions about whether it can effectively help local and state officials defend against adversaries such as Russian hackers. And no members of the four-person Election Assistance Commission had clearances during the past two election cycles, including the period when Kremlin-linked hackers are suspected of mounting a range of cyberattacks against state election offices, the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. The delay in issuing security clearances for commission members is part of a massive backlog of application approvals throughout the entire federal government. But it’s a particularly acute problem for the EAC, one of the key agencies offering guidance to state and local officials about how to protect themselves from security risks. “The people entrusted with securing our elections need to know what threats they’re supposed to address,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the lawmakers who has focused the most on election security, told POLITICO in a statement. “An Election Assistance [Commission member] without a security clearance is like making a baseball player hit without a bat.”

National: Nielsen departure could deal a blow to Trump administration’s cybersecurity efforts | The Washington Post

Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation as secretary of homeland security could deal a blow to the Trump administration’s cybersecurity efforts — as she was one of the last civilians in its top ranks with extensive cybersecurity expertise. That’s a dangerous position, experts say, as the nation barrels toward a 2020 election that will likely be targeted by Russian hackers and the Homeland Security Department launches a major campaign to get government and industry to stop buying technology from China’s Huawei and other companies deemed national security threats. “Hopefully whoever runs DHS will prioritize its vital cybersecurity mission, but it makes a difference if the person at the top has a background in cyber and knows from experience how important it is rather than just being told,” former State Department cyber coordinator Chris Painter told me. “DHS is spread thin among multiple priorities as it is, and without a clear mandate from department leadership that cybersecurity is a prime mission, their efforts risk being sidelined.” Nielsen – who The Post reported was forced to step down because Trump was dissatisfied with her handling of the border — had, by far, the longest cybersecurity resume of any DHS secretary in history. She advised President George W. Bush on cybersecurity and homeland security issues, founded a consulting group called Sunesis Consulting focused on cybersecurity and critical infrastructure, and served as a senior fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security. Her acting successor, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan, by contrast, has no substantial background in the field.

National: Scrutiny and suspicion as Mueller report undergoes redaction | The Washington Post

The escalating political battle over special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report centers on redactions — a lawyerly editing process that has angered distrustful Democrats eager to see the all evidence and conclusions from his 22-month investigation of President Trump’s conduct and Russia’s elaborate interference operation during the 2016 campaign. Attorney General William P. Barr is redacting at least four categories of information from the report, which spans nearly 400 pages, before issuing it to Congress and the public. Legal experts say he has wide discretion to determine what should not be revealed, meaning the fight over blacked-out boxes is likely to spawn months of fights between Congress and the Justice Department, and it may end up in the courts. The first public confrontation is imminent, with Barr scheduled to appear Tuesday and Wednesday before the House and Senate Appropriations committees for hearings ostensibly about the Justice Department’s budget. He is expected to face extensive questioning about the Mueller report and his ongoing redaction process, though, and his testimony will be scrutinized for any sign he is trying to protect the president. “There’s a lot of pressure all pointing in the direction of doing a robust release,” said John Bies, who held senior roles in the Justice Department during the Obama administration and now works at American Oversight, a liberal watchdog group. “We are very hopeful the attorney general will do the right thing here and make everything public that can lawfully be made public.”

Georgia: State moving forward with new type of voting system; some opponents react | WSAV

How you vote in Georgia will be changing, according to a new law signed recently by Governor Brian Kemp. The law calls for scrapping the old, and now somewhat controversial, voting machines. Those will be replaced with a new system including what is termed “Electronic Ballot Marking Devices” as well as new types of digital scanners to actually record votes. Supporters, which include many state lawmakers as well as Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, say the new system will provide a verifiable paper trail. Opponents say just the opposite. “The state is going to spend $150 million to $200 million and not be one bit better off than they are today,” said Marilyn Marks from the Coalition for Good Governance. “They should just keep the un-auditable system.”  Marks’ group is still embroiled in a lawsuit with the State of Georgia over issues from the 2018 election. Marks has a list of concerns starting with the Electronic Marking Devices, which it’s said will print out a paper ballot that can then be verified by a voter and ultimately scanned by the digital scanner to actually cast the ballot. She says two of the largest vendors that make these machines don’t really provide a paper ballot per se, but actually something more like a bar code. Marks asserts any new system will not truly have a verifiable paper trail and that she expects “many court challenges.”

Editorials: New Pennsylvania voting security measures could disenfranchise voters with disabilities | Imani Barbarin and Gabe Labella/Philadelphia Inquirer

Imagine getting up early on election day having done your homework on the issues, educated yourself on candidates’ positions, and chosen whom to vote for, only to find poll workers who do not know how to turn on, set up, or assist you in using the voting machine. That is exactly the type of story we at Disability Rights Pennsylvania heard, along with a host of others, during the last presidential election in 2016 when we ran a hotline for disabled voters. During the 2016 election, less than 20 percent of polling places were accessible to people with disabilities. Some voting systems rarely had instructions included, others lacked tactile buttons for people with low vision, and for some systems, the voters could not verify that the ballot reflected their choices. For these reasons, voter turnout for people with disabilities remains under 50 percent. According to the American Association of People With Disabilities, 16 million of the eligible 35 million voters with disabilities cast a ballot in the 2016 election. With election security on the minds of legislators, there is fear that changes to polling technology will only further disenfranchise citizens with disabilities in the coming election. Pennsylvania Bills S.B. 411-419 have been introduced in the House and Senate to update and reform the election system. This comes as counties and the disabled across the state test new voting systems that create a paper trail through different formats.

South Dakota: Secretary of State Office received another $3 million to beef up election security | KELO

Among the many adjustments the South Dakota Legislature made last month to state government’s current budget was adding $150,000 to the Secretary of State Office’s operational budget. That’s so the office can move ahead with using $3 million from a 2018 federal election security grant that Congress approved, according to Kea Warne. She is deputy secretary for elections for Secretary of State Steve Barnett, who took office in early January. Congress took the action in March 2018 after people from other nations such as Russia tried ways to influence the 2016 U.S. elections. Many states including South Dakota still needed approval from their legislatures before channeling the money toward greater election security. “Our office has not spent any of those funds to date, as we asked for the Legislature to provide the five percent match money for the federal grant during the 2019 legislative session,” Warne said. South Dakota’s lawmakers approved that $150,000 request as part of SB 180, which amended the 2019 general-appropriations act for state government. It becomes effective June 28. The 2020 state budget starts July 1, 2019. “Our office has been approved by the federal Election Assistance Commission to spend the full $3 million on new election equipment for the counties,” Warne said.

Wisconsin: Election security bolstered by cybersecurity, other measures | The Capitol Report

On the eve of the 2018 midterm elections, computer security specialists from across the country descended on the DEFCON 26 Hacking Conference in Las Vegas. These “white hat” hackers sought to probe the security features of voting machines and election systems in an effort to identify weaknesses. The results were alarming to election security experts. Hackers at DEFCON’s Voting Village found that an 11-year old trained only in basic coding techniques was able to hack into a mock-up of Florida’s election results website and change its reported vote totals. Conference attendees were also able to identify a vote tabulation machine — the Election Systems & Software M650 — that could be hacked in under two minutes, or as the report says, “within the time it takes to vote.” In recent years, Wisconsin’s election security practices have come under scrutiny, most notably by Democrats in the U.S. House Administration Committee, who concluded in July 2018 that Wisconsin was one of the 18 states most vulnerable to cyber attacks on election infrastructure.

Canada: Rebuking Tech Giants, Canada Braces for Possible Election Interference | The New York Times

Canada is expecting foreign interference in its national election in October, and is considering stronger regulation of social media companies to ensure they block meddling in the voting, the minister responsible for election integrity said on Monday. The minister spoke after the release of an updated report by Canada’s electronic eavesdropping and security agency on online interference by other countries in the Canadian election. “We judge it very likely that Canadian voters will encounter some form of foreign cyber interference related to the 2019 federal election,” the report said. “However, at this time, it is improbable that this foreign cyber interference will be of the scale of Russian activity against the 2016 United States presidential election.” “Canada is a target of choice for those who seek to undermine our democracy,” said the minister, Karina Gould, at a news conference in Ottawa. The report does not indicate what countries are likely to attack Canada, and both Harjit Sajjan, the defense minister, and Shelly Bruce, who heads the electronic security agency, declined to elaborate.

Canada: Freeland says foreign election meddling in October federal vote is likely | CTV

Malign foreign actors will likely try to meddle in the Canadian federal election in October, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland warned Friday, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at Russia as the most likely culprit. Freeland sounded the alarm over election interference at a G7 foreign ministers’ gathering in France. At a parallel G7 meeting of interior ministers, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the bloc wants the world’s big internet companies — Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft — to do more to stop their platforms from being exploited. The dual G7 ministerial mirrored a similar joint meeting in Toronto almost one year ago that unfolded against the backdrop of a van attack on Yonge Street that left 10 people dead. A year later, their meetings occurred just weeks after 50 people were killed in two attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Canada’s upcoming federal election also attracted interest, sparking a question to Freeland about the likelihood of Russian interference. “We are very concerned,” the minister replied. “I think our judgment is interference is very likely and we think there has probably already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy.”

India: Supreme Court orders Election Commission to increase VVPAT verification from one Electronic Voting Machine to five | India Today

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Election Commission to increase the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips from one Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) per Assembly constituency to five. The Supreme Court observed that increase in VVPAT verification “would be of greater satisfaction not only of political parties but also for the entire electorate”. “This court would like to observe that neither the satisfaction of the Election Commission, which is a constitutional body, nor the system of EVMs, is being doubted,” the bench said. The bench also said that it was not questioning the accuracy of election results, but the issue was of satisfaction of the electorate. The court’s direction came on a plea by leaders of 21 opposition parties who wanted it to be hiked to 50 per cent of EVMs per Assembly constituency. The opposition parties had argued that the Election Commission was conducting VVPAT matching for less than 0.44 per cent of EVMs in the country.

Israel: Hackers stole Israeli voters information; officials deny theft | IBT

A group of Israel based hackers claimed that just a few days prior to the parliamentary election, they conducted a cyber-attack into the database of Israeli voters. But the officials have dismissed the claims. Israel’s parliamentary election or Knesset election will take place on Tuesday, April 9. But, on Saturday, April 6 the hacking group claimed that they have stolen important information of on millions of Israelis as they successfully broke into the voter registry. Later, the Central Elections Committee of Israel stated that they had no evidence of any cyber breach. As per a Hebrew-language daily newspaper, Hamodia, the authority has dismissed the hackers’ claims and mentioned that the accessed data was from another data leak in 2006. The report also added that there are thousands of hackers around the world and they aim regularly to attack Israel-based web sites.

Turkey: Erdogan’s party seeks full recount in Istanbul | Associated Press

Turkey’s ruling party said Sunday that it will appeal for a full recount of all votes cast in Istanbul’s mayoral election, which the opposition narrowly won in a major setback for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the March 31 local elections, the opposition not only prevailed in a tight race in Istanbul’s financial and cultural center, it also took control of Ankara, the capital. Erdogan’s party, which held both cities for decades, contested the results, claiming the elections were “tainted.” The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, won the right for a recount of votes previously deemed invalid. On Sunday, Ali Ihsan Yavuz, an AKP deputy chairman, said the party would appeal to the country’s top election authority for a total recount of votes in Istanbul’s 38 districts, not just of ballots that were canceled.