National: Bipartisan House committee members agree on cyber threats to elections, if not how to address it | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Members of two House Science subcommittees drilled experts about the security of voting machines during a hearing Tuesday afternoon, putting the spotlight on election security as congressional Democrats continue to push for action on the issue.  House members were given the chance to discuss the vulnerabilities of voting systems during a hearing held by the House Science subcommittees on investigations and oversight and on research and technology. While there was disagreement over specific Democrat-backed election security bills, subcommittee members seemed to come together over the need to address cybersecurity risks to voting machines. “When it comes to cybersecurity, the threat is constantly changing,” investigations subcommittee Chairwoman Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) said. “It is our responsibility in Congress to help states arm themselves with advanced, adaptive strategies to prevent, detect, and recover from intrusions.”

National: Warren calls for major changes to US elections in latest campaign proposal | Christina Prignano/The Boston Globe

Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling for major changes to the way millions of Americans cast ballots in a proposal released on Tuesday, declaring the patchwork system of election administration run by the states a “national security threat” in the wake of attempted Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Warren wants Congress to standardize elections for federal office, with uniformly designed ballots and brand new voting machines in every polling place nationwide, combined with a “Fort Knox”-like security system to prevent tampering. The system would be run by a new federal Secure Democracy Administration. “This is a national security threat, and three years after a hostile foreign power literally attacked our democracy, we’ve done far too little to address it,” Warren wrote in a post on the Medium website announcing the plan. It is the latest in a series of detailed proposals released as she campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination and prepares for the first debate on Wednesday night.

National: Elizabeth Warren aims for the fences on election security | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top-polling candidate in the first Democratic presidential debate tonight, also has the most ambitious plan for how to protect U.S. elections from foreign hackers. But that aim-for-the-fences approach, which Warren introduced in an eight-page blog post Tuesday, is sure to be a nonstarter among Republicans. And it will face serious scrutiny from some of Warren’s Democratic opponents who are championing a more practical approach to securing elections. Warren’s plan would basically federalize election security. Washington would set all the rules for protecting federal elections against hackers — such as using hand-marked paper ballots and conducting security audits — and it would also foot the bill. States that didn't meet her requirements would face lawsuits from a new agency named the Secure Democracy Administration. It comes after the 2016 election in which Russian hackers and trolls stole emails and launched a disinformation campaign aimed at helping elect Donald Trump. Warren would commit $20 billion over 10 years to the plan, which also focuses on improving ballot access for minorities and ending gerrymandering. “Our elections should be as secure as Fort Knox. But instead, they’re less secure than your Amazon account,” the policy plan declares.

National: House Panel Grapples With Election Security Ahead of 2020 | Megan Mineiro/Courthouse News

A bipartisan warning came out of a House committee Tuesday that the U.S. election system remains vulnerable to attacks from Russia and other foreign adversaries as the 2020 elections nears. Democrats on two subpanels of the House Committee on Space, Science and Technology called for a federal response to safeguard voting across the country, shadowed by some Republicans who cautioned elections should remain in the hands of state officials. But members were in agreement that every point of connectivity across the increasingly digital election system poses a vulnerable risk to the “cherished” democratic process. This consensus comes on the heels of special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in “sweeping and systematic fashion.” Experts at Tuesday’s hearing said across the country, election systems are weakened by aging technology and lack of expertise among personnel. Efforts to make voting more accessible and convenient also expose systems to targeting by foreign actors.

National: Senate GOP blocks election security bill | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked an attempt by Democrats to pass legislation aimed at bolstering the country's election infrastructure despite a stalemate in the chamber on the issue. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, tried to call up the Election Security Act, which would require backup paper ballots and provide election security grants to states, before it was blocked. "We know there's a continued threat against our democracy. What we need to do now is address these facts with a common purpose, to protect our democracy, to make sure that our election systems are resilient against future attacks," Klobuchar said from the Senate floor. Under the Senate's rules, any one senator can try to pass a bill or resolution by unanimous consent, but any one senator can also block that request. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) objected, arguing that he and Klobuchar were trying to draft separate legislation together and that he didn't want to see election security become a partisan issue.

National: GOP senators nix vote on Election Security Act, similar bills wend their way through Congress | Teri Robinson/SC Media

Republicans in the Senate rebuffed an attempt by presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, to bring the Election Security Act to a vote Tuesday. “We know there’s a continued threat against our democracy. What we need to do now is address these facts with a common purpose, to protect our democracy, to make sure that our election systems are resilient against future attacks,” said Klobuchar when calling for a vote on the act, which would require voting systems to have paper ballots and give states grants for election election security. “There is a presidential election before us and if a few counties in one swing state or an entire state get hacked into there’s no backup paper ballots and we can’t figure out what happened, the entire election will be called into question,” she said. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who has worked with the Minnesota senator on bipartisan election security legislation, thwarted her efforts, noting their past collaboration and saying, “I think we still can resolve this and we can actually get a result, but a partisan proposal will not get us an end results where both parties come together and get to resolve this.”

National: Pelosi: Congress will receive election security briefing in July | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Wednesday that Congress will receive an election security briefing from administration officials next month, as Democrats put pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to allow votes on election security bills. “Next month we will take further steps to harden our democratic institutions against attacks, and on July 10 we will receive the all-member election security briefing we requested from the administration so we can continue to protect the American people,” Pelosi said during a press conference. The Democratic leader announced the date after McConnell told reporters earlier this month that a briefing would take place, while not giving any more details. Pelosi was joined at the press conference Wednesday by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other congressional Democrats to promote passage of the Securing America’s Federal Elections (SAFE) Act, which the House is set to vote on this week.

Verified Voting Blog: Statement to House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Joint Investigations & Oversight and Research & Technology Subcommittee

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Chairwoman Sherrill, Ranking Member Norman, Chairwoman Stevens, Ranking Member Baird and committee members, thank you for the invitation to submit a written statement in connection with the Joint Investigations & Oversight and Research & Technology Subcommittee Hearing on “Election Security: Voting Technology Vulnerabilities.” Our statement will focus on 1) a brief overview of technologies in use for election administration; 2) describe some of the risks associated with those technologies as well as solutions for mitigating those risks; 3) review the role that NIST and other agencies have played in developing technologies for secure elections; and 4) suggest regulatory changes necessary to address advances in voting technology and the changing threat model facing our elections.

The scale and scope of threats to U.S. elections go far beyond what the current federal policy framework can address. Since the Help America Vote Act was passed, technology has advanced and the security threat landscape has also evolved. It’s time to re-think the regulatory framework to align it with the current environment. Your committee plays a crucial role in shaping our collective response. We urge the committee to take the steps necessary to enact mandatory security measures for all technology that touches election administration, to ensure that the foundation of our democracy is protected from ongoing threats.

Hawaii: Governor Ige Signs All-Mail Voting, Automatic Recount Bills | Blaze Lovell/Honolulu Civil Beat

When you vote for the next U.S. president or Honolulu’s next mayor, you probably won’t do it in a polling booth. Gov. David Ige signed into law Tuesday afternoon bills establishing an all-mail voting system starting with the 2020 elections along others mandating automatic recounts in close races. He also signed a bill that allows for ballots to be electronically transmitted for voters with special needs. Those bills were among 18 others Ige signed Tuesday covering homelessness, mental and physical health, kupuna care and traffic safety. The state Office of Elections has already begun work on getting the all-mail voting system ready for the 2020 elections. Voters should be getting their ballots, along with prepaid return envelopes, about 18 days before each election.

New York: Top court: Ballot images aren’t public | Ekuzabeth Izzo/Adirondack Daily Enterprise

The state’s highest court has ruled in favor of Essex County in a lawsuit that called into question whether electronically scanned images of ballots can be obtained without a court order following an election. In an opinion released June 13, state Court of Appeals Chief Judge Janet DiFiore wrote that electronic images of ballots should be subject to the same restrictions as paper ballots, which can only be examined within two years of an election with a court order or direction from a state legislative committee. “The Election Law’s closely regulated framework for handling of ballots and reviewing their contents balances ballot secrecy, anti-tampering measures, accuracy and finality,” DiFiore wrote. The Court of Appeals’ 4 to 3 decision marks the end to a four-year-long lawsuit that started with a Freedom of Information Law request in 2015. Bethany Kosmider, a former Crown Point town supervisor and chairwoman of the county Democratic committee, sought access to electronic images of ballots cast in the 2015 general election through a FOIL request filed that year.

New York: Rensselaer County election system, site, malfunctions and shows incorrect results | Steve Maugeri/WRGB

Primary night was a longer than usual in Rensselaer County. Republican election commissioner Jason Schofield says some of the results coming out of the machine weren't correct. That lead to some incorrect unofficial results going on up on their website. "Someone in our office had looked to see how a particular candidate had done. That candidate had prevailed in is primary in one town about a 50 vote margin. When we inputted the disk, it had him losing the election 70 votes to one vote," Schofield said. That prompted them to shut down their system and resorted to counting by hand. He says this is a necessary step to avoid misleading voters or candidates during the primaries. The Board of Elections still have to count absentee ballots, but they won't be counted using these machines. All of them will be counted by hand. The Board of Elections hopes to have the final results in by next week.

North Dakota: New voting machines being ‘put through the paces’ | Prairie Public Broadcasting

New voting machines for North Dakota are set up in a room at the Capitol. "We're putting them through the paces, said Deputy Secretary of State Jim Silrum. "We want to make sure they can handle our open primary, and any election we would throw at it." It is the Secretary of State's job to certify the new devices, and de-certify the devices that are no longer used. Silrum said the contract to finalize the purchase of the new devices will likely be finished by the end of the week, and the plan is to have all the devices in Bismarck by the end of July. After that, county election officials will be trained on them.

Pennsylvania: House considers $90M for voting machines, end to straight-party voting | Jan Murphy/PennLive

The state House of Representatives is poised to vote on Thursday on a bill that calls for the state to borrow up to $90 million to help counties defray the cost of buying new voting machines. The bill, which has the state picking up 60 percent of a county’s tab, also includes some election reforms. The most significant reform: the bill would eliminate the straight-ticket voting option in general elections. Senate Appropriations Committtee Pat Browne, R-Lehigh County, said the majority Republicans have not yet discussed the legislation as a caucus and haven’t committed to it. Providing the funding to help cover the cost of voting machine replacement has been a major concern to county commissioners since Gov. Tom Wolf last year ordered all of the state’s voting machines to be de-certified by the end of this year. He wants them replaced with ones that have a verifiable paper trail by no later than next year’s presidential primary. The cost of replacing the machines was estimated between $93 million and $150 million, according to the Department of State. House Appropriations Committee Stan Saylor, R-York County, said the money the state is borrowing won’t be available until 2020-21, but "we just wanted to make sure the county commissioners had that assurance they were receiving dollars.”

India: Activists write open letter to parties, seek all future elections be held with paper ballots | The Times of India

A group of activists Thursday jointly demanded that all elections in the country in future should be held with paper ballots, following reports of alleged irregularities in functioning and transport of electronic voting machines during the recent Lok Sabha polls. At a press conference here, the activists from different organisation also released an 'open letter' addressed to political parties, saying, "The opposition parties should raise the matter with the electoral authorities." Activist and poet Gauhar Raza, former DUTA chief Nandita Narain, JNUSU president N Sai Balaji, AISA Delhi president Kawalpreet Kaur and Shabnam Hashmi, among others, cited various incidents reported during the Lok Sabha polls. "There were reports of several EVMs being left unattended, or many voters complaining about malfunctioning of EVMs. Then, there was a debate over counting of VVPATs. The elections left several doubts in our minds," Kaur told reporters.

Russia: Russia’s trolling tactics are getting more elaborate | Shannon Vavra/CyberScoop

Facebook’s early May takedown of a Russian political disinformation operation was much larger than previously thought, according to research published this weekend by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. The Russian-linked actors behind the campaign went well beyond just amplifying political narratives on Facebook, and in fact began much earlier by planting false stories and then later amplifying these fake stories using fake accounts. In one case, these Russian-linked actors impersonated Sen. Marco Rubio’s Twitter account in a tweet that made it look like he was disparaging Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters. Then-Defense Secretary of the UK Gavin Williams was also victim to a similar photoshop effort. One of the false stories that the Russian trolls created and amplified through fake accounts includes a storyline that a Spanish intelligence agency rooted out an anti-Brexit pilot to assassinate Boris Johnson. Johnson is now in the running to serve as the UK’s next prime minister.

Switzerland: Swiss Delay Plans for Nationwide e-Voting, Citing Flaws | Associated Press

Swiss officials are delaying plans to introduce electronic voting across the Alpine country, saying it's "premature" because of problems testing the security and reliability of the system. The Federal Council said there is support for e-voting in addition to mail-in and in-person balloting. Some Swiss cantons, or regions, have already used e-voting systems, and the federal government has supported work on a nationwide system.

National: State officials demand voting system vendors reveal owners after Russian hacks and investments | Ben Popken/NBC

Election officials in North Carolina and Maryland are scrutinizing top voting system vendors for potential foreign ownership, demanding more transparency after revelations of Russian penetration into 2016 election systems and a Russian oligarch’s majority investment in an election data firm used by Maryland. In April, the report by special counsel Robert Mueller revealed that Russian-backed hackers inserted malware into a company’s system for voting registration in Florida during the last presidential election as part of the Kremlin-backed disruption campaign. The company name was redacted but executives for VR systems have said it was probably them, the AP reported. VR Systems disputed it was hacked. VR systems was also the vendor in Durham County, North Carolina, that experienced Election Day glitches and slowdowns. The federal Department of Homeland Security announced in early June that it will audit the laptops used that day, the government’s first forensic audit of equipment that malfunctioned during the election.

National: U.S. Sees Russia, China, Iran Trying to Influence 2020 Elections | Alyza Sebenius/Bloomberg

A Trump administration official said that Russia, China, and Iran are trying to manipulate U.S. public opinion ahead of the 2020 elections but that none has successfully corrupted physical election infrastructure, which remains a potential target for state and non-state actors. China has primarily used conventional media outlets to advocate for certain policies, including trade, while Russia and Iran have been more active on social media platforms, a senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters on Monday, speaking on the condition of not being identified. The administration has previously named the three countries for attempting to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections and the 2018 midterms. The official didn’t provide specific examples of interference, saying it could compromise efforts to stop them. A second official on the call said the administration wouldn’t necessarily disclose all foreign influence efforts over concern doing so would hamper enforcement.

National: Security officials tracking 2020 election interference by Russia, China, and Iran | Rob Crilly/Washinton Examiner

Intelligence and law enforcement officials say they are tracking efforts by Russia, China, and Iran to influence voters ahead of the 2020 elections and do not believe hackers have been able to disrupt election infrastructure — so far. Government agencies are under intense pressure to avoid a repeat of 2016 amid the continuing fallout from Russian attempts to sway the outcome of the presidential election. Analysts warn that America’s election infrastructure needs an overhaul to prevent foreign interference while social media companies, such as Facebook, are under intense pressure to ensure that their platforms cannot be used to spread false or misleading information. Although intelligence agencies believe influence efforts were not responsible for President Trump’s shock win, this time around officials say they are tracking efforts that could affect the outcome.

National: Clemson professors warn Russian trolls coming for 2020 | Bristow Marchant/The State

Many Americans think they know what a Russian troll looks like. After the 2016 election, voters are more aware of bad actors on social media who might be trying to influence their opinion and their vote on behalf of a foreign government. But Clemson University professors Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren warn that picture may not be accurate. “People I know — smart, educated people — send me something all the time and say ‘Is this a Russian? Is this foreign disinformation?’” said Linvill, a communications professor at the Upstate university. “And it’s just someone saying something they disagree with. It’s just someone being racist. That’s not what disinformation looks like.” Linvill and Warren, who teaches economics, would know. The two compiled a database of roughly 3 million tweets identified as the products of Russian government-backed accounts both before and after the 2016 election. Now, the researchers say there are no signs Russia — and even other countries — have slowed their efforts to manipulate social media for their own ends, and are getting more sophisticated about how they use it.

National: US Public Might Not Be Told About Foreign Efforts to Alter Next Election | Jeff Seldin/VoA News

Senior U.S. officials say they are already busy buttressing the nation’s defenses against foreign interference for the 2020 presidential election. Only they admit the public may be kept in the dark about attacks and intrusions. Intelligence and election security officials have warned repeatedly that Russia, among other state and nonstate actors, remains intent on disrupting the upcoming elections and that the Kremlin may even have gone easy on the U.S. during the 2016 midterm elections, seeing the ability to impact the 2020 presidential race as the bigger prize. At the same time, election and security officials have come under increased scrutiny for failing to reveal the size and scope of Russia’s efforts to hack into voter databases and other critical systems. In April, special counsel Robert Mueller released his report into Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as well as allegations of obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.

Editorials: U.S. cyber attacks raise oversight questions | Gregory D. Vuksich/Albuquerque Journal

Media reports … (June 17, CNN) revealed that “the U.S. is escalating cyber attacks on Russia’s electric power grid and has placed potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system.” Presumably in response to Moscow’s apparent cyber efforts to influence this country’s 2016 presidential election, this action is apparently “intended partly as a warning and also to put the U.S. in a position to conduct cyber attacks should a significant conflict arise with Russia.” The obvious first question is whether pre-positioning a physically destructive offensive capability inside another country’s critical national infrastructure is an appropriate escalatory step in the cyber relationship between the world’s two most highly armed nuclear powers. While this country certainly must address the evident Russian attempt to influence America’s 2016 electoral outcome via fake internet plants – a manifestation in which Americans themselves indulged – is the threat of physical destruction of Russia’s critical infrastructure credible, excessive and/or dangerous? And, one now wonders where the next steps along this escalatory path might go given the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure understood to have been executed by the U.S. and Israel. Does this suggest that the escalatory threshold for further cyber violence between nuclear powers may not be as high as currently thought?

Editorials: Florida must double down on vote security | The Daytona Beach News-Journal

The growing recognition in state government that more must be done — and soon — to secure Florida voting systems from tampering and disruption is a promising thing to see. But so much more remains to be done. Last week Gov. Ron DeSantis announced new plans for assessment, monitoring and training to help both the state Division of Elections and Florida’s 67 county supervisors of elections. They included a welcome do-over for getting federal funds to the beleaguered elections supervisor. Some $2.3 million that had gone unspent now will go to local programs for enhancing election security. And that’s in addition to the $2.8 million just appropriated by the Florida Legislature. Which means more help is on the way. “This has become an issue in the last couple of months in a way that I did not, and really nobody, appreciated,” the governor said at a press conference.

Georgia: Lawsuit aims to restore federal oversight of Georgia elections | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A lawsuit alleging widespread voting problems in Georgia is pursuing an ambitious solution: restoration of the Voting Rights Act and federal oversight of elections. After notching an initial court victory last month, allies of Stacey Abrams will now attempt to prove through their lawsuit that Georgia’s election was so flawed that it prevented thousands of voters from being counted, especially African Americans.The lawsuit links civil rights and voting rights with the aim of showing that elections are unfair in Georgia because racial minorities suffered most from voter registration cancellations, precinct closures, long lines, malfunctioning voting equipment and disqualified ballots. More than 50,000 phone calls poured into a hotline set up by the Democratic Party of Georgia to report hurdles voters faced at the polls.If successful, the case has the potential to regain voting protections that were lost because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in a case involving the Voting Rights Act, the landmark legislation approved in 1965. The court decided that several states with a history of discriminatory practices, including Georgia, no longer had to obtain federal clearance before making changes to elections.

North Carolina: Russian hacking in Durham? DHS looking into machines used in 2016 election | Mona Tong and Rose Wong/The Chronicle

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating the equipment—provided by a company allegedly targeted by Russian hackers—used in Durham County during the 2016 election. On Election Day in 2016, certain voting machines malfunctioned by incorrectly telling voters they had already cast their ballot, leading affected polling stations to switch to paper poll books, according to the Washington Post. The equipment also asked some people for photo identification, which was not legally required at the time. This snafu created lengthy delays and led some precincts to extend voting hours. Durham County then tapped the cybersecurity company Protus3 to conduct an investigation into the situation in 2016. The firm concluded that poll workers caused the error for several voters, but it was inconclusive about the other issues and offered ideas for further investigation, leading North Carolina to deem the findings inconclusive.

Australia: ACT to introduce limited online voting next year | Justin Hendry/iTnews

The ACT Electoral Commission is planning to introduce limited online voting in time for next year’s territory election to allow Canberrans to cast their ballot if travelling overseas. The electronic voting system, which could bear resemblance to NSW’s iVote system, will be developed as part of a refresh of the commission’s election management system. The refresh of the commission's existing custom-made TIGER system was handed $1.5 million in this month’s territory budget, with separate funding for electronic voting also set aside. The core system has been in place since 1995 and is used to support all administrative tasks associated an ACT election every four years. TIGER, which contains the the electoral role information on around 300,000 ACT electors in a Microsoft Access 365 format, is also used to “support referendums, interstate elections and small external fee-for-service elections”.

India: Satara MP demands re-election using ballot papers | Anagha Deshpande/The Hindu

Nationalist Congress Party MP from Satara Udayanraje Bhosale on Monday voiced support for the ballot paper voting system as against the Electronic Voting Machine, which has been mired in controversy following multiple allegations of rigging. Mr. Bhosale’s statement comes days after Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi president Prakash Ambedkar announced he would be taking the issue to court. Saying that the EVM process was ‘manipulative’, Mr. Bhosale said that a difference of 672 votes was observed between the votes cast and votes counted in constituencies like Wai, Koregaon, Karad, Patan and Satara. “The statistics are there for everyone to see. It is clear that something was wrong with the entire election process. I don’t know why they call the EVMs fool-proof,” Mr. Bhosale said.

Editorials: Venezuela’s insecure elections have caused political uproar | Kristen Nyman/The Detroit News

Venezuela uses what has been referred to as the most secure voting system in the world. Its Smartmatic voting machines are theoretically tamper-proof, requiring biometric voter authentication twice during the process. The system operates offline during the time votes are cast, so any direct attempts by hackers to change votes are rendered ineffective. The machines generate paper copies of votes, which are placed in a secure lockbox and counted manually multiple times for verification. Voter-verified paper trails are generated in the form of take-home receipts. Finally, the system is auditable at every stage of the vote. On the surface, it is difficult to see how the voting process could be more secure. Yet despite this impressive level of security, Venezuelans are violently protesting in the streets less than a year after the vast majority apparently elected President Nicolas Maduro using these highly secure Smartmatic machines. This begs the question: How did Maduro go from winning with almost 70 percent of the vote one year to hanging onto his presidency by a thread the next? The short answer is that Maduro never had the support of the people to begin with, and that his second term was the result of a fraudulent election.

National: House panel backs election security bill in wake of Russian interference in 2016 | Hailey Fuchs/The Washington Post

A House panel on Friday backed legislation to improve election security ahead of next year’s contests as Democrats press for shoring up the nation’s voting system after Russia interfered in the 2016 election. On a party-line vote of 6 to 3, the House Administration Committee endorsed the Securing America’s Federal Elections (SAFE) Act of 2019, whose provisions would include mandating paper ballots that could be verified, providing $600 million in grant money to update voting equipment and establishing cybersecurity requirements for elections. The full House is expected to consider the bill next week. However, the Senate is unlikely to act on the measure. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opposes such a measure, casting the legislation as unnecessary while pointing to the millions of Americans who voted in the 2018 midterm elections. Nevertheless, Democrats are pressing ahead in the House.

National: Group sues for records on US election hacking vulnerability | Tom Davies/Associated Press

A voting security advocacy group is trying to force a leader of a state election officials association to release documents on whether she wrongly asserted that U.S. election systems are safe from hacking. The National Election Defense Coalition filed a lawsuit Thursday against Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson alleging she’s violated state law in denying public record requests since September for her communications about election security with the National Association of Secretaries of State. Lawson was the bipartisan association’s 2017-18 president and is currently co-chair of its cybersecurity committee. The coalition argues that Lawson’s public statements have downplayed the vulnerability of election systems. It pointed to her testimony for a 2017 U.S. Senate intelligence committee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 election during which she said it was “very important to underscore that voting machines are not connected to the internet or networked in any way.”