National: Voting Village brings equipment to lawmakers to boost urgency on election security | Sean Lyngaas/CyberScoop

A year from the 2020 election and with a new round of election security funding stalled in Congress, the DEF CON Voting Village organizers have again taken to Capitol Hill to raise awareness about software vulnerabilities in voting equipment. This time, they brought the equipment with them to drive home their point. “If we’re going to meaningfully introduce funding or introduce new technologies for 2020, time is rapidly running out to be able to do that,” Matt Blaze, a professor at Georgetown University and co-organizer of the Voting Village, told CyberScoop. “We need to act pretty fast.” A handful of House Democrats and their staffers sauntered up to equipment on display, including a ballot-marking device and an electronic voting machine, to ask the researchers about the software bugs they found. “This is really helpful in understanding that these aren’t just abstract problems, that these are real things,” Blaze, an expert in cryptology, told CyberScoop. This is the second time in a month that the Voting Village has hosted an event on Capitol Hill. Last month, Blaze and Harri Hursti, another village organizer, unveiled the village’s annual report on flaws in voting gear that could be exploited by hackers.

National: Threat to US elections in 2020 is not limited to Russia | Eric Tucker/Associated Press

Russia interfered in the 2016 election and may try to sway next year’s vote as well. But it’s not the only nation with an eye on U.S. politics. American officials sounding the alarm about foreign efforts to disrupt the 2020 election include multiple countries in that warning. Concerns abound not only about possible hacking of campaigns but also about the spread of disinformation on social media and potential efforts to breach voting databases and even alter votes. The anxiety goes beyond the possibility that U.S. adversaries could affect election results: The mere hint of foreign meddling could undermine public confidence in vote tallies, a worrisome possibility in a tight election. “Unfortunately, it’s not just Russia anymore. In particular, China, Iran, a couple of others, studied what the Russians did in 2016,” said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Releases Guide Comparing Available Ballot Marking Devices

Characteristics of Currently Available Ballot Marking Devices Verified Voting Releases Guide Comparing Available Ballot Marking Devices Today, Verified Voting published a guide comparing the features of ballot marking devices (BMDs) available in the United States: “Characteristics of Currently Available Ballot Marking Devices By Vendor.” Download the guide here. The guide is intended to be a…

Florida: New U.S attorney tries to restore confidence in Florida elections | Mary Ellen Klas/Miami Herald

As state officials acknowledge that domestic and foreign actors may be constantly attempting to penetrate Florida’s election infrastructure, U.S. Attorney Larry Keefe sees another danger that is equally formidable but perhaps harder to manage: public perception. “All you need is a computer and some shrewd, smart, social engineering-type people to get inside the heads of the Americans … and you can wreak havoc on a free and open society,’’ said Keefe, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Florida. Secretary of State Laurel Lee acknowledged this week that Florida’s election systems are under “daily” attack by foreign or domestic adversaries and, while she wouldn’t detail what the attacks are, she said the state has launched an aggressive campaign to educate and train local election officials to be able to counter those threats. Keefe said those attacks often attempt to “get inside our electronic election infrastructure and change the voter rolls or tabulations.”

Georgia: State Supreme Court affirms results of 2018 election | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Thursday that there wasn’t enough evidence to further dispute last year’s election for lieutenant governor, which had inexplicably low vote totals. An election can’t be overturned based solely on unusual vote counts in the lieutenant governor’s race — tens of thousands fewer than in every other statewide election — the court wrote in its 94-page decision upholding a lower court’s dismissal of the case. Specific evidence of illegal or improper votes is required, it said. The plaintiffs in the case alleged there were about 127,000 fewer votes than expected compared with previous elections, a larger disparity than the 123,172-vote margin of victory for Republican Geoff Duncan over Democrat Sarah Riggs Amico. “A party contesting an election must therefore offer evidence — not merely theories or conjecture — that places in doubt the result of an election,” according to the court’s 8-0 ruling, written by Justice Sarah Warren. “The petitioners in this case have not carried that burden.”

Georgia: $300K fine sought against Georgia in paper ballots lawsuit | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge is being asked to impose more than $300,000 in sanctions against Georgia over its reluctance to turn over election databases, a request that state attorneys say is unjustified because they need to protect election information. The dispute in the lawsuit, which is demanding hand-marked paper ballots be used in elections, could end up costing Georgia taxpayers if U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg agrees to penalize the state. The plaintiffs allege that Georgia election officials repeatedly obstructed efforts to inspect an elections database for tampering or flaws. Called the General Election Management System (GEMS) database, it contains programming for ballots used statewide. But attorneys for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger say they wanted to ensure that election information was secure before disclosing it. After they eventually turned over the database this summer, the plaintiffs didn’t find any infections or problems, according to the state.

Michigan: Active duty military serving overseas could vote electronically under Michigan Senate-passed bill | Lauren Gibbons/MLive

Active duty members of the military serving overseas could send in their absentee ballots electronically under legislation passed in the Michigan Senate Wednesday. Senate Bills 117 and 297, sponsored by Senate Elections Chair Ruth Johnson, R-Holly, and Sen. Paul Wojno, D-Warren, would allow electronic absentee ballot returns for military voters serving overseas. The voter would sign their absentee ballot with an electronic signature verified by the U.S. Department of Defense. Under federal law, states are required to provide electronic absentee ballots to active members of the military 45 days before an election. But because Michigan doesn’t allow electronic absentee ballots, military voters serving overseas currently have to print out the ballot and mail it back – an extra step that can be difficult for people serving in areas with little to no mail service.

New Jersey: Questions of vulnerability surround New Jersey’s aging voting machines | Rob Anthes/Community News

In 2004, Hopewell resident Stephanie Harris went to her polling place for the presidential primary, never expecting what was about to happen would alter her life and the public discourse around voter security for the next decade and a half. When Harris entered the privacy booth that day, she saw one of Mercer County’s then-new touchscreen voting machines facing her, a model called the Sequoia AVC Advantage. She found her candidate of choice on the large paper ballot overlay, pressed the box next to the candidate’s name and then hit a large button at the bottom right of the machine to cast her vote. Typically, at this point, the AVC Advantage will make a noise to indicate a vote has been counted. For Harris, nothing happened. Harris exited the privacy booth slightly confused. A poll worker stopped her, and said her vote didn’t register and that she should try again. Harris did, four times with the same results. After the fifth time, the poll worker shrugged, and said, “Well, I think it worked.” Harris never received definitive confirmation her vote had been cast. To this day, she doesn’t know whether the machine recorded her vote. Harris couldn’t shake the feeling that her vote had been taken away. She asked the county for confirmation or at least an explanation. She didn’t get answers, but she did earn a new nickname, courtesy of a county freeholder—“the Incident in Hopewell.” So she sued.

Pennsylvania: $90M for Voting Machines, Mail-In Ballots Signed Into Law | Associated Press

Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation Thursday that advocates say makes the most significant changes to modernize Pennsylvania election laws in 80 years and authorizes the state to borrow of up to $90 million to help counties buy new voting machines ahead of next year’s presidential election. Wolf, a Democrat, said the legislation takes the nation’s least voter-friendly election laws and puts them in line with states that have the highest voter turnout. The bill was negotiated privately by Wolf and leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature. A draft first appeared last week . It passed the House and Senate on Tuesday and had the support of good-government groups.

Africa: Russia Tests New Disinformation Tactics in Africa to Expand Influence | Davey Alba and Sheera Frenkel/The New York Times

Russia has been testing new disinformation tactics in an enormous Facebook campaign in parts of Africa, as part of an evolution of its manipulation techniques ahead of the 2020 American presidential election. Facebook said on Wednesday that it removed three Russian-backed influence networks on its site that were aimed at African countries including Mozambique, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya. The company said the online networks were linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch who was indicted by the United States and accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Unlike past influence campaigns from Russia, the networks targeted several countries through Arabic-language posts, according to the Stanford Internet Observatory, which collaborated with Facebook to unravel the effort. Russians also worked with locals in the African countries to set up Facebook accounts that were disguised as authentic to avoid detection.

Bolivia: Police fire tear gas as president, opposition wrestle over election audit | Vivian Sequera & Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Protests over a disputed presidential election convulsed Bolivia on Tuesday as police fired tear gas in the capital and the sitting president and opposition candidate wrestled over an audit of the results. The brief suspension of publication of the results from an electronic count of the Oct. 20 presidential election has triggered protests and strikes that have closed roads, schools and businesses around the nation for more than a week. President Evo Morales, a leftist seeking a fourth term, was eventually declared the winner, prompting accusations of fraud from opposition candidate Carlos Mesa and his supporters. In La Paz, opposition protesters mounted road barricades of rope, wooden boards and sheets of metal. Rows of helmet-clad riot police lined some streets, separating Morales’ supporters from protesters opposed to the president. Tear gas was used in at least two locations to disperse protesters.

UAE: E-voting technology adopted by UAE a pioneering experiment in the region | Samir Salama/Gulf News

By adopting an election protection system, the National Election Committee reiterates its commitment to hold an election that is characterised by the highest degree of fairness and transparency by implementing the best internationally recognised practices used in the world’s most successful parliaments, said Dr Anwar Mohammad Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs and Chairman of the National Election Committee. Dr Gargash said on the eve of the early voting that starts today at nine polling stations across the country, the highly accurate e-voting technology adopted by the NEC is a pioneering experiment in the region, which the UAE introduced during the first Federal National Council Elections in 2006.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Praises Pennsylvania’s Election Reform Package that Helps Counties Purchase Voting Machines

View the statement here: Verified Voting Statement on Election Reform Package Marian K. Schneider: “This funding ensures the smooth transition to secure and verifiable voting systems.” “Verified Voting is pleased with the Pennsylvania General Assembly and Gov. Tom Wolf’s commitment to an election reform package that includes funding for counties to help pay for the…

Editorials: A simple step every state could take to safeguard elections | The Washington Post

Election security is a complex challenge. One essential step, however, is so simple it can be carried out with a pen and paper. Pennsylvania officials have announced that Philadelphia and Mercer County will conduct a post-election pilot next month of what’s called a risk-limiting audit. The procedure is new to most of the country, but 12 states are experimenting with it — because it’s that much of a no-brainer. Currently, 17 states are not required by law to verify the accuracy of their vote tallies at all. Those that are mostly do so the “traditional” way, which in this case means the wrong way. The process auditors typically use — manually recounting votes in a predetermined percentage of precincts — tells officials whether a particular machine or group of machines is working, but it doesn’t actually answer the essential question: Did the declared winner actually win? Risk-limiting audits instead do what any mathematician . They hand-count a statistically meaningful sample of all votes to determine whether the original tally was correct. The required sample increases as the margin of victory narrows. It’s easy, and it’s time-consuming only in the tightest elections, or when something actually has been tampered with. Of course, that’s when it’s most worth investing the time. So why isn’t everyone doing it?

National: The Market for Voting Machines Is Broken. This Company Has Thrived in It. | Jessica Huseman/ProPublica

In the glare of the hotly contested 2018 elections, things did not go ideally for ES&S, the nation’s largest manufacturer of voting technology. In Georgia, where the race for governor had drawn national interest amid concerns about election integrity, ES&S-owned technology was in use when more than 150,000 voters inexplicably did not cast a vote for lieutenant governor. In part because the aged ES&S-managed machines did not produce paper backups, it wasn’t clear whether mechanical or human errors were to blame. Litigation surrounding the vote endures to this day. In Indiana, ES&S’ systems were plagued by mishaps at the local level. In Johnson County, for instance, the company’s brand-new machines faltered in ways that made it difficult to know whether some people had voted more than once. “ES&S misjudged the need for appropriate resources to serve Johnson County on Election Day 2018,” a report issued by state election officials later concluded. Johnson County subsequently terminated its contract with ES&S and, this September, paid more than $1.5 million to purchase an entirely new set of equipment. The uneven performance by ES&S in 2018, however, did little to dent its position as one of the most popular and powerful voting technology companies in the U.S. Any number of prior controversies hadn’t either.

National: Here’s where U.S. cyber warriors are working to protect against election threats | Olivia Gazis/CBSNews

The U.S. government’s actions to disrupt Russia’s attempted cyber incursions into the 2018 midterm elections took place in part in a newly constructed Joint Operations Center (JOC) on the National Security Agency’s expanding Fort Meade campus in Maryland. Efforts to protect the 2020 elections are expected to follow a similar drill. Located in the middle of the Cyber Integration Center — a 380,000 square foot, $520 million building whose construction was completed last September — the JOC links two adjoining facilities where NSA and U.S. Cyber Command personnel reside. A massive floor dotted by pods of desks and dominated by three curved, 20-foot-tall screens, the JOC is run by roughly 200 civilian and military officials who work 12-hour, rotating shifts — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. “One of the first activities that were run out of here was NSA and U.S. Cyber Command support to the 2018 elections,” said Colonel Stephen Landry, a senior officer in the NSA’s recently launched Cybersecurity Directorate. That included support, he said, to the Russia Small Group, an election security task force comprising NSA and Cyber Command officials that was created last year by General Paul Nakasone, who heads both agencies. The Russia Small Group was instrumental in carrying out an offensive cyber operation that took the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked troll farm known to have waged an influence campaign in 2016, offline ahead of the November midterms. Nakasone has since publicly touted the success of the group, made it a permanent fixture, and said its approach in 2018 would serve as a model for 2020. (Its members are scattered throughout NSA and Cyber Command, not physically concentrated in the JOC.)

National: Election Assistance Commission Loses Its Top Leaders | Courtney Bublé/Government Executive

s the nation’s elections clearinghouse faces tight funding and criticism from advocacy groups on its new voting guidelines, the agency is losing its top two officials. Election Assistance Commission commissioners voted in early September to not reappoint Executive Director Brian Newby and General Counsel Cliff Tatum, Politico reported. Under the previous succession plan, the chief operating officer would assume the role of acting executive director; however, that position has been vacant since 2015. Commission Chief Information and Security Officer Mona Harrington will assume the role of acting executive director on Wednesday, under the new plan, as the agency starts the search process for a permanent leader. “The [Election Assistance Commission] is charged with providing top quality resources that support accurate, secure and accessible elections for all eligible voters,” the EAC commissioners said in a press release regarding the vacancies. “We are lock-step in our commitment to fulfilling that mandate.”

National: Senate GOP blocks three election security bills for second day | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Senate Republicans blocked three election security bills on Wednesday, marking the second time in as many days they’ve stymied legislation. Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked for unanimous consent to pass three election-related bills. But they were blocked by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who noted that the unsuccessful attempt was the latest by Democrats to pass election security bills in the Senate ahead of 2020. “You know, it’s not a good sign if you’re doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” Blackburn said. Under Senate rules, any one senator can ask to vote on or pass a bill. But because it requires unanimous support, any one senator can also block their requests. Election security has become a point of contention during the Trump era. House Democrats have passed several election-related bills, including a sweeping ethics and election reform measure, but they’ve hit a wall in the GOP-controlled Senate.

National: What Battleground States Need to Do to Prevent Voting Machine Hacking in 2020 | Hadley Hitson/Fortune

Three companies control the fate of United States elections. Election Systems & Software, Dominion Voting Systems, and Hart InterCivic dominate 92% of the voting machine market, standing to make bank as states rush to update their systems before the looming 2020 election.  In 2016, counties in 16 states used paperless equipment without backup records. The Department of Homeland Security later notified six of those states that hackers targeted their systems. There’s now widespread recognition that paperless machines are the least secure. Some state governments control voting methods, others delegate the decision to local authority, but in most of those states, officials are moving to purchase new machines. “The transition is still happening, but I’m hopeful every battleground state will have a paper backup of every vote,” said Lawrence Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at the NYU Brennan Center For Justice. Norden predicts 90% of votes will have paper backups in 2020.

National: Internal Cybersecurity Memo Warns White House Will Get Hacked | Jennings Brown/Gizmodo

In the 1,006 days since Donald Trump became president, his administration has shown little vigilance when it comes to its own security, and a new internal memo suggests the White House is working to weaken its own cybersecurity safeguards. Axios has published a memo written by the White House computer network defense branch chief Dimitrios Vastakis that warns “the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised once again.” The White House did not immediately respond to a Gizmodo request for comment. Vastakis submitted the memo as a letter of resignation last Thursday. As Axios reports, the letter comes after at least twelve top officials were dismissed or resigned from a cybersecurity team that protected the White House from security threats from Russia and other entities. This team—the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (OCISO)—was built after the Obama administration was attacked by Russian hackers in 2014. As the memo states, the OCISO “was established to take on the responsibility of securing the Presidential Information Technology Community (PITC) network.” Since then, the team has “significantly matured the security posture of PITC and no major compromise has occurred,” according to the memo.

National: NSA: ‘We know we need to do some work’ on declassifying threat intel | Shannon Vavra/CyberScoop

One of the National Security Agency’s newly minted Cybersecurity Directorate’s goals is to quickly share information on adversarial threats with the private sector — but the process for doing that needs to be refined, the directorate’s leader said Thursday. “The process in place today is where we know we need to do some work,” Anne Neuberger said while speaking at CyberTalks, produced by CyberScoop. “When we find indications of a threat, we see planning to execute a particular operation, or we see the operation being executed. [But] because we learn about it in a classified way, we treat it as classified.” Part of the difficulty the NSA faces is that adversaries often run operations and then discard their compromised infrastructure, making a protracted declassification process nearly useless since “indicators of compromise pretty much they have a ticking time clock for how useful they are,” Neuberger said. The new directorate, which started operations earlier this month, is measuring success by examining how well it is able to prevent attacks moving forward.

National: Trolls could turn to cyber to disrupt the 2020 census | Amanda Seitz and Rachel Lerman/Fifth Domain

Worried about internet trolls and foreign powers spreading false news, census officials are preparing to battle misinformation campaigns for the first time in the count’s 230-year history. The stakes are huge. Who participates in the 2020 census count could influence how U.S. congressional seats and billions of federal tax dollars to educate children, help low-income families and pave new roads are divvied up. “It’s a fine target,” former U.S. Census Bureau director John Thompson said of the form, which is sent every decade to households in America to count the population. “If you want to disrupt a democracy, you can certainly go about it by disrupting a census.” Already, false and inaccurate social media posts about the census have begun to appear online, where they have been viewed thousands of times. Foremost on everyone’s mind are the misinformation wars waged during the last presidential election to confuse U.S. voters. Fake posts about the census began popping up days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Trump administration could not ask about citizenship status on the 2020 census: Conservative bloggers, Twitter users and pundits falsely blamed former President Barack Obama for scrubbing the question from the form in 2010. In fact, the main census form hasn’t included a citizenship question since 1950, and the bureau’s own analysis found it would discourage people from participating, possibly skewing results.

Colorado: The public, election officials may be kept in the dark on hacks around the U.S. But not in Colorado. | Colleen Long and Christina A. Cassidy/The Associated Press

If the FBI discovers that foreign hackers have infiltrated the networks of your county election office, you may not find out about it until after voting is over. And your governor and other state officials may be kept in the dark, too. There’s no federal law compelling state and local governments to share information when an electoral system is hacked. And a federal policy keeps details secret by shielding the identity of all cyber victims regardless of whether election systems are involved. Election officials are in a difficult spot: If someone else’s voting system is targeted, they want to know exactly what happened so they can protect their own system. Yet when their own systems are targeted, they may be cautious about disclosing details. They must balance the need for openness with worries over undermining any criminal investigation. And they want to avoid chaos or confusion, the kind of disruption that hackers want. The secrecy surrounding foreign hacks is not a hypothetical issue. The public still doesn’t know which Florida counties were breached by Russian agents in the 2016 election. Rick Scott, Florida’s governor in 2016 and now a U.S. senator, was not told at the time and didn’t learn most of the details until this year. And the threat to electoral systems is real. Federal officials believe Russian agents in 2016 searched for vulnerabilities within election systems in all 50 states. And the nation’s intelligence chiefs warn that Russia and other nations remain interested in interfering in U.S. elections.

Ohio: Governor signs into law measure to increase cybersecurity of elections | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) on Friday signed into law legislation that will increase cyber protections for election systems and enhance the overall cybersecurity posture of the state. The legislation, which had bipartisan support, requires post-election audits by county boards of elections to ensure the accuracy of the vote count, while also creating a “civilian cyber security reserve” that can be called into duty to protect state and local government entities against cyberattacks, including those involving elections and those against critical infrastructure  The bill gives the Ohio secretary of state a seat on the Ohio Homeland Security Advisory Council and creates a chief information security officer position within the secretary of state’s office to increase attention on election security issues.  Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R), the top election official in the state, said in a statement on Friday that the legislation will give local officials “the support they need” to combat foreign cyber threats. “Imagine looking out the window and seeing foreign paratroopers parachuting into your town,” LaRose said. “We wouldn’t tell a community, ‘you’re on your own – your sheriff department can fight off that threat.’ Well likewise, in the online world, we can now respond with Ohio’s best cyber warriors so these counties and cities have the support they need.”

Pennsylvania: Cost, Security Questions Arise After Westmoreland County Voting Machine Approval | Deb Erdley/Tribune-Review

Chuck Anderson, the outgoing Westmoreland County commissioner, said he wanted to ensure county residents had the best voting system available before he leaves office in December. The $7.1 million touch screen/scanner system he and fellow Commissioners Ted Kopas and Gina Cerilli approved this month will cost $30 per voter — or nearly triple the $11 per voter Allegheny County paid for a new paper ballot/scanner voting system. Total cost for that system was $10.5 million. The price per voter is based on the number of registered voters. In Allegheny County, there are 952,685 registered voters. In Westmoreland, there are 235,970 voters. “The people from Westmore­land County expect to have the very best, and this is the best solution to the problem,” Anderson said. Experts who follow elections and cybersecurity say that’s not true. They maintain touch screen/scanner systems, such as the ES&S product Westmoreland County officials bought, are both more costly and less secure than systems that rely on paper ballots and scanners. Christopher Deluzio, policy director for the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law and Security, has studied the issue for the past two years. An ongoing study that looked at what counties paid for voting systems found the average cost in places that bought touch screen/scanner systems was just more than $24 per voter, compared to about $12 per voter for those who bought paper ballot/scanner systems.

Rhode Island: Voting Chief Says Paper Ballots Are Essential | Sean Flynn/Newport Daily News

Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea told her audience on Friday how during the March 2016 presidential primary she was accused on election-related websites of rigging the election in favor of Hillary Clinton to the detriment of Bernie Sanders and closing down polling sites. “A year later it was determined that Bernie bots of the Russian Internet Research Agency were at work,” Gorbea said. “If your head is spinning, believe me, everyone’s head is spinning.” Gorbea was addressing more than 140 election officials and information technology experts who gathered for a five-hour Cybersecurity Summit at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center in Newport. Media were allowed to listen for 1 ½ hours, but then cleared out before speakers like Noah Praetz, a senior election security advisor with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Jessica Cone, a specialist with the U.S. Elections Infrastructure — Information Sharing and Analysis Center, made their presentations. “We don’t want to give away our game plan,” Gorbea said.

Texas: Paper-Based Voting Takes Hold in Texas | Erin Anderson/Texas Scorecard

This November, Texas voters may be less surprised by what’s on their ballots than by what their ballots look like. Dozens of counties across the state—including Collin, Dallas, and Tarrant—are rolling out brand-new, “hybrid” voting systems that combine paper-based and electronic balloting. With hybrid systems, voters use an electronic touch screen to mark paper ballots, which are then counted using a separate tabulating machine. Voters can confirm their selections on paper before scanning their ballots for electronic counting, and election officials have a paper record to use for audits and recounts. Electronic ballot-marking eliminates stray marks and over-votes (marking more than one choice in a race) that can make it difficult or impossible to interpret a voter’s intent. The systems include multiple security features and are not connected to the internet. “Russia cannot tie into this voting equipment,” Collin County Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet said at a training class for election workers last week, adding that the rollout has been very smooth during early voting.

Ghana: Electoral Commission Cautioned About Cyber Security Fraud | Kingsley Asare/Ghanaian Times

The National Cyber Security Advisor, Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako has called on the Electoral Commission to put robust cyber security measures in place to protect its system from hacking. Given the reported cases of hacking of electoral systems in other countries during elections, there was the need for the EC to put measures in place to protect the Commission of cyber attack. Dr Antwi-Boasiako made the call in an interview with the Ghanaian Times after a high-level discussion on election and cyber security to close the 2019 National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The one-week programme, attended by participants and ministers from some West African countries was on the theme “Demonstrating Ghana’s cyber security readiness.” It was organised by the Ministry of Communications and National Cyber Security Centre to create awareness on cyber security issues and attacks and the impact of the menace on the economy, corporate bodies and individuals.

Namibia: Lost electronic voting machines Raise Doubt On Election Credibility | Sonja Smith/Namibian

Recent reports that a number of electronic voting machines (EVMs) were missing from the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) have sparked massive public criticism, with some people questioning the integrity of the election body in the run-up to next month’s presidential and National Assembly elections. Some political commentators and legal experts have accused the electoral commission of concealing information regarding the disappearance of the EVMs, while others called for the arrest of people responsible for the missing EVMs. The Namibian reported last week that the Namibian Police were investigating a case involving the disappearance of three EVMs from the ECN. The ECN issued a statement on Sunday, explaining that the missing EVMs were rented out to the ruling Swapo Party to conduct an internal election for the party’s Elders’ Council in 2017. The commission, however, remains tight-lipped about the issue, saying it could not publicly pronounce itself on the matter due to “concerns of compromising the investigation process, as the police are working to trace the EVMs that had gone missing.”