National: New study shows Russian propaganda may really have helped Trump | Ken Dilanian/NBC

President Donald Trump and his allies have long insisted that Russian’s 2016 propaganda campaign on social media had no impact on the presidential election. A new statistical analysis says it may well have. The study, by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, does not prove that Russian interference swung the election to Trump. But it demonstrates that Trump’s gains in popularity during the 2016 campaign correlated closely with high levels of social media activity by the Russian trolls and bots of the Internet Research Agency, a key weapon in the Russian attack. “Our results show that the weeks when Russian trolls were accumulating likes and retweets on Twitter, that activity reliably foreshadowed gains for Trump in the opinion polls,” wrote Damian Ruck, the study’s lead researcher, in an article explaining his findings. The study found that every 25,000 re-tweets by accounts connected to the IRA predicted a 1 percent increase in opinion polls for Trump. In an interview with NBC News, Ruck said the research suggests that Russian trolls helped shift U.S public opinion in Trump’s favor. As to whether it affected the outcome of the election: “The answer is that we still don’t know, but we can’t rule it out.” Given that the election turned on 75,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, “it is a prospect that should be taken seriously,” Ruck wrote, adding that more study was needed in those swing states.

National: DOD’s cyber policy deputy clarifies homeland support role | Lauren C. Williams/FCW

The Defense Department is settling into its support role when it comes to defending national infrastructure from cyberattacks. B. Edwin Wilson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, said during a panel talk at the Defense One Tech Summit June 27 that DOD doesn’t replace Homeland Security but has a clear, firm role in relaying intelligence and providing support during elections. “The department does have a role in the defense of the homeland,” Wilson said. “We’re not trying to do DHS’ job … we’re here to support” in areas such as the midterm elections. He added that while DHS’ primary role is securing election infrastructure, DOD shares intelligence on threats to it and help update sensors to compromised systems. “We want to bring the weight, the scale, the scope of the Department of Defense to be able to defend the homeland, our critical infrastructure, and key national interests,” he said.

National: On election security, these members bring a fresh(man) take | Tami Abdollah/Daily Journal

For the past eight weeks, seven freshman members of Congress have quietly met each Monday in a spare House conference room to tackle a problem they feel their more senior colleagues haven’t done enough to address: election security. The six Democrats and one Republican call themselves Task Force Sentry, a title meant to signal their focus on crafting legislation to keep foreign adversaries from interfering with the U.S. political system. They bring a variety of backgrounds to the table, including some with experience in the CIA, military and the technology field. “We’re drawing a line in the sand,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Virginia, a former Central Intelligence Agency operations officer. “We’re standing watch, we’ve been attacked, and a sentry stands watch to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Editorials: The U.S. isn’t prepared to fend off foreign meddling in 2020. We need a national strategy | Casey Corcoran, Bo Julie Crowley and Raina Davis/Los Angeles Times

Russia’s 2016 election interference operation was a clumsy collection of fake memes and leaked emails. Still, it divided American society, eroded trust in national institutions and caught Washington flat-footed. A new wave of sophisticated, artificial-intelligence-enabled influence campaigns is surely headed our way in 2020, yet the United States is nowhere near ready. Continued division over the meaning of meddling in 2016 must not eclipse what should be a clear bipartisan priority — a national strategy to combat malicious foreign influence. The tip of the influence operations spear is found in the Asia-Pacific region, yet few are paying attention. Working with the Defending Digital Democracy project at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, we conducted more than 30 interviews with government officials, journalists and civil society members in Taiwan and found that Taiwanese society is saturated with Chinese disinformation and influence.

Editorials: Election security: The dire issue the Democrats barely mentioned | Dick Polman/WHYY

How was it possible that 20 Democrats, vying to appear on the 2020 ballot, debated last week for four hours without ever assailing the Republicans’ steadfast refusal to protect the 2020 ballot from Russian interference? Didn’t that dire issue warrant at least a few substantive minutes? Mitch McConnell, the GOP Senate leader who’s seemingly determined to do Vladimir Putin’s bidding, continues to block all Democratic reform efforts — including a requirement that all states use backup paper ballots to thwart a cyber-invasion (New Jersey and Delaware don’t have them, nor do most Pennsylvania jurisdictions — although all three states are moving towards buying new voting machines). Candidate Amy Klobuchar, a paper-ballot reformer, zinged McConnell in a random sentence, entrepreneur Andrew Yang said the Russians “have been hacking our democracy successfully and they’ve been laughing their asses off,” and Bill de Blasio said, “we need to stop them” — but you’d have to scour the transcripts with a magnifying glass to find much more. Elizabeth Warren unveiled an election security plan early last week, but, during the debate, she never mentioned it.

California: Russian hackers haunt San Diego Electronic Poll Book | Matt Potter/San Diego Reader

It’s being pitched as the latest voting reform elixir, widely adopted by counties across the country, but a call for proposals to create and operate a so-called electronic voting book system for the San Diego County Registrar of Voters comes amidst rising questions about costs, reliability, and security against Russian hackers. “The Electronic Poll Book system eliminates manual voter lookup, promoting shorter check-in queues with better and immediate alerts for staff or voter guidance,” says the county’s June 26 request for proposals, kicking off a solicitation for services from would-be vendors set to close July 25. “The Electronic Poll Book system will decrease the time it takes to manually complete the election canvass while using fewer resources,” per the document. “As the voter roster increases, the Electronic Poll Book system shall scale up. This allows the County to meet a growing base without impacting the voting experience.” But as with all such outsourcing, the devil is in the details, heavily dependent on the good faith and integrity of vendors, and experiences elsewhere have flashed repeated warnings about the cutting-edge systems.

Michigan: 3 ways Michigan elections remain vulnerable — and what the state can do about it | Riley Beggin/Bridge Magazine

Around 50 elections officials and analysts met at an outpost of the Lansing City Clerk’s office in June, eagerly awaiting the day’s activity: Piloting a relatively new method for ensuring accurate election results. The volunteers — from as near as Delta Township and as far as California — were there to learn an election audit method considered the “gold standard” for verifying votes as the nation barrels toward its first presidential election following widespread Russian tampering in 2016. The method is known as a risk-limiting audit, which essentially involves hand-counting a statistically significant sample of ballots to be confident election results are accurate. A spokesman for the Michigan Secretary of State said it’s one of a handful of techniques the state is testing ahead of the 2020 statewide election, when it will be required to audit elections across the state — a legacy of Proposal 3, the citizen-initiated constitutional amendment passed last November.  The fact that the state is required to audit is a new phenomenon; before the amendment passed last fall, the state audited a fixed percentage of precincts after each election but wasn’t bound by law to do so.  And that change is good news, elections security experts told Bridge. A robust post-election audit is one of the best ways the state can make sure state elections are protected against hacking or manipulation by foreign or domestic adversaries.

Pennsylvania: Politics of elections snares Pennsylvania voting-machine aid | Marc Levy/The Associated Press

The fate of legislation to help Pennsylvania’s counties afford new voting machines before next year’s election is in doubt after getting wrapped up in the politics of voting and election laws. Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday that he will decide later in the week whether to sign or veto the bill, despite the Democrat’s support for the $90 million it carries in borrowing authority to help counties pay for new machines. Hours before the bill passed the Republican-controlled Legislature last week, Republicans unveiled the borrowing provision and attached it to a hodge-podge of changes to election laws. One of those provisions eliminates the single ballot option for voters to select a straight-party ticket in elections, prompting calls from Democrats to veto it. Democrats said it came out of the blue and had never been studied by the committee. Republicans characterized the change as a bipartisan effort to encourage voters to vote for candidates, not parties. Democrats scrambled to see if Wolf had supported it and decried it as a setback to voting access and the civil rights of minorities that would effectively help down-ballot Republican candidates. It is among a couple things in the bill that Wolf said he didn’t like.

Canada: Spy Agency Says Voters Are Being Targeted By Foreign Influence Campaigns | BuzzFeed and the Toronto Star

Canada’s intelligence community has identified foreign actors attempting to directly influence the upcoming federal election campaign, a Toronto Star and BuzzFeed News investigation has learned. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the country’s cyber defence agency, has briefed senior political staff of one federal party about “covert and overt” attempts to influence the Oct. 21 federal election. Canada’s domestic spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), also said Tuesday that “threat actors” are trying to influence Canadian citizens, although the agency tied it to an attack on “democratic institutions” rather than the election specifically. The agencies would not reveal the exact nature of the attempts to influence but said the scope of “foreign interference activities can be broad,” including state-sponsored or influenced media, hacking, and traditional spy operations. “Threat actors are seeking to influence the Canadian public and interfere with Canada’s democratic institutions and processes,” wrote Tahera Mufti, a spokesperson for CSIS, in an emailed statement.

India: Supreme Court seeks Election Commission response on electronic voting machine malfunction complaint | Outlook

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to respond on a plea seeking to remove the provision which criminalizes the reporting of malfunctioning of the electronic voting machines, if proven false. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gagoi asked the poll panel to file its reply within two weeks. The court was hearing a plea filed by advocate Sunil Ahya which has sought liberty to register complaint related with EVM malfunctioning. Ahya said that on August 14 2013, the Conduct of Elections Rules, was amended to insert a new rule 49MA to prescribe a procedure to be followed in case of a complaint realted to the EVM. Ahya told the court that Rule 49MA of the Conduct of Election Rules with Section 177 of Indian Penal Code criminalizes the reporting of malfunctioning of EVM and voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), which may not be fair and just to charge a voter reporting such a complaint.

Philippines: Supreme Court junks pleas on source code review in vote counting machines | Benjamin Pulta/The Inquirer

The Supreme Court (SC) has turned down petitions, which seek to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to allow groups to open and review the source code in the vote counting machines (VCMs) as provided for under Republic Act 9369 or the Election Modernization Act of 1997. In an banc decision dated April 30 and released Monday, the High Court likewise denied the motion of the petitioners — Sen. Richard Gordon, the Bagumbayan-NVP Movement Inc. and Tanggulang Demokrasya — to hold former Comelec chair Sixto Brilliantes Jr. in contempt for his failure to comply with his commitments to the Court during the May 8, 2013 oral arguments to, among others, make the source code available for review and to grant more time to the parties to comply with the requirements to do so. “In deciding that Chairman Brillantes is not liable for indirect contempt, the Court focuses solely on the undertakings that were directly promised to the Court, not those which the petitioner feels were promised,” the SC added. The High Court dismissed on the ground of “being moot and academic” while their plea to cite Brilliantes for contempt was junked for “utter lack of merit.”

National: House Passes Election Security Package, With an Eye on Mitch McConnell | Nicholas Fandos/The New York Times

The House on Thursday approved expansive election security legislation that would mandate the use of backup paper ballots and postelection vote audits to guard against potential foreign meddling, seeking to pressure Senator Mitch McConnell to lift his blockade of election legislation in the upper chamber. Timed to coincide with the July 4 holiday, the House bill, which passed 225 to 184, largely along party lines, is the first and most expansive in a blitz of new measures that House Democrats say they will pass to address vulnerabilities highlighted by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. His report concluded that Russia had conducted “sweeping and systematic” interference in the 2016 presidential election, and members of both parties fear that not enough is being done to prevent that from happening again next year. Other legislation could include a requirement that political campaigns report to the F.B.I. any offer of assistance from a foreign power, new sanctions to punish Russia and other foreign powers that interfere with the American democratic processes, and bipartisan mandates for social media platforms like Facebook to disclose the purchasers of political advertisements. But with the Senate in Republican hands, Democrats have another, more immediate target in mind: trying to shame Mr. McConnell, the majority leader, into dropping his opposition to proposals — even bipartisan ones — and allowing his chamber to consider measures to better protect the vote. House leaders excoriated Mr. McConnell on Thursday and have urged their colleagues to hold events promoting the legislative action as they scatter across the country during the weeklong holiday recess.

National: Democrats promise to punish Russian hacking as Trump seems to make light of it | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Democratic presidential hopefuls promised to punish Russia for its 2016 hacking and disinformation campaign during the second night of their first debate Thursday. But their real target was President Trump, who has wavered on whether Russia was responsible for that hacking campaign — which U.S. intelligence agencies say was aimed at helping his electoral chances and hurting Hillary Clinton. They worry that Trump has been unusually friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.), who’s among the top five candidates in national polls, called Trump the greatest threat to U.S. national security because “he takes the word of the Russian president over the word of the American intelligence community when it comes to a threat to our democracy and our elections.”

National: 2020 Democrats accelerate push for action to secure elections | Magie Miller/The Hill

Democratic presidential candidates are seizing on election security to attack Republicans for not doing enough to safeguard the country against foreign interference. The attacks were also part of this week’s Democratic debates, when a few candidates cited the threat posed by Russia, including their interference in the 2016 election as spelled out in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report released earlier this year. The calls for action comes as Mueller prepares to testify before Congress next month and as Democrats’ push for enhanced election security has stalled because of Republican opposition. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), at the Democratic debate on Wednesday, blamed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for preventing passage of election security legislation. “We let the Republicans run our elections, and if we do not do something about Russian interference in the election, and we let Mitch McConnell stop all the back-up paper ballots, then we are not going to get to do what we want to do,” Klobuchar said.

National: Trump defends election meddling remarks to Putin | Jessica Campos/The Hill

President Trump on Saturday defended his remarks to Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he appeared to make light of Russian interference in the 2016 election. “You have to take a look at the word. I did say it,” Trump said during a news conference at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Osaka, Japan. Trump said Saturday during a news conference that he and Putin had a “tremendous discussion” and suggested election interference came up at another point during their conversation, adding: “I did say it, and I did discuss it a little bit after that, too.” A White House readout issued after the roughly 90-minute meeting between Trump and Putin on Friday made no mention of election interference. Trump had met with Putin Friday where he was pressed by journalists on whether he would tell Russia not to interfere in U.S. elections. “Yes, of course, I will. Don’t meddle in the election, please. Don’t meddle in the election,” Trump said, pointing to Putin and flashing a grin. Putin appeared to chuckle in response.

National: Will Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Enable Foreign Election Meddling? | Jonathan Berr/Forbes

Facebook is trying to convince U.S. regulators that it is ready to fight efforts by foreigners to interfere with the 2020 Presidential Election while at the same time promoting its Libra cryptocurrency that may make it easier to do just that. The social media giant says it will accept the cryptocurrency anywhere where it takes payments and at least for now won’t rule out allowing it to be used to buy political ads “It’s still early, and we are currently focused on building Calibra (The Facebook div8sion that will handle Libra) and working with the Libra Association and its members to launch Libra next year,” according to a Facebook spokesperson. “We don’t have any further specifics to share at this time.”  Some experts are concerned.  “If they design the system poorly then it will be easier for all of this problematic content to be funded,” Syracuse University Jennifer Grygiel recently told The Telegraph, a U.K. newspaper,

National: Three states responsible for half of all paperless e-voting machines in 2018, survey finds | Derek B. Johnson/FCW

Lawmakers and election security experts have focused much of their energies over the past two years on doing away with paperless Direct Recording Electronic voting machines. While such machines are not inherently more vulnerable to being hacked than other types of voting equipment, information security experts say they represent a unique threat because if compromised, they have no backup paper trail that officials can use in audits to detect discrepancies and determine an accurate vote count. Survey results from the Election Assistance Commission showed that just three states — Pennsylvania, Georgia and Texas — were responsible for more than half of all DRE voting machines without voter verified paper trails used across the nation in 2018. The latest Election Administration and Voting Survey released June 27 also showed that 202,599 of the nation’s 334,422 voting machines used in the 2018 election were DRE machines. About one third (67,535) of those machines had paper backups in place, but 135,064 did not.

Editorials: The 2020 issue that matters is democracy itself | E.J. Dionne Jr./The Washington Post

The future of U.S. democracy will be on the ballot next year. No one should pretend otherwise. We witnessed President Trump’s obvious disdain for democratic rights and liberties once again last week during his warm encounter in Japan with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. And the Supreme Court’s partisan, antidemocratic decision on gerrymandering, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., showed how dangerous it would be to expand a right-wing majority hellbent on making our system less inclusive, less fair and less equal. For these reasons, Democratic primary voters should not be knocked for making “electability” their highest criterion in picking a presidential candidate.

Voting Blogs: Stewards of Democracy: The Views of American Local Election Officials | Natalie Adona/Democracy Fund

Local elections officials (LEOs) are the stewards of our democracy, but oftentimes they are left out of important conversations about the future of our elections nationwide. The LEOs from our survey are the chief elections officers in their local jurisdictions. Not to be confused with poll workers, the LEOs surveyed in our new report oversee local election processes and are responsible for ensuring the voting process is fair, free, and secure. Among their many responsibilities, LEOs execute the election laws in their state, make decisions that define the voter experience, and train the permanent and temporary employees that interact with the electorate. It might be hard to imagine but (depending on how you count) between 7,000-10,000 local election officials manage the front line of elections in the United States. Despite their recognition as the people who run elections, LEOs are often left out of national conversations about reform and may not have a seat at the table when important policy decisions are made at the local, state, or federal levels—decisions that they alone will ultimately implement.

Delaware: Governor Carney Signs Early Voting Legislation | Delaware News

On Sunday, the final day of the 2019 legislative session, Governor Carney signed legislation into law that seeks to increase voter participation in Delaware elections by allowing early, in-person voting. House Bill 38, sponsored by Representative David Bentz, will allow registered Delaware voters to cast their ballots at polling places up to 10 days before Election Day. The measure will make it easier for all Delawareans to participate in elections. “Voting is our most fundamental right as Delawareans and Americans,” said Governor Carney. “Regardless of zip code or party affiliation, we should make it easier for all Delawareans to cast their ballots, choose their elected officials, and participate in our democratic process. Thank you to Representative Bentz and other members of the General Assembly for their continued partnership, and for their leadership on this issue.”

Iowa: Democrats express concern about Iowa’s “virtual caucuses” | Eleanor Watson/CBS

Members of the Democratic National Committee expressed skepticism Friday morning about the Iowa state party’s ambitious plan to introduce “virtual caucuses” at the first contest of the presidential primary calendar next February. The discussion came during a meeting of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC), which sat down in Pittsburgh to go over and approve 22 states’ plans for choosing delegates to the Democratic National Convention, including Iowa’s. An RBC member from Iowa, Scott Brennan, gave a presentation outlining the key changes to the Iowa caucus for the 2020 cycle, with the biggest change being the implementation of virtual caucuses, which would allow Iowans to support candidates without ever leaving home. But the chief technology officer of the DNC, Nell Thomas, expressed concern that this new system might not work. “I hope you have a contingency plan,” Thomas said. Critics of the virtual caucuses proposal said they were worried about the capacity of the system, the security behind it, and how complex it will be for the Iowans who use it. “This is the future, but I don’t know if we’re there yet,” committeewoman Donna Brazile, a former DNC chair, said. Another committee member, Frank Leone, said the process sounded like it made voting more complicated than it needed to be.

Louisiana: Secretary of State on voting machines felon registration I voted stickers | Sara Macneil/Shreveport Times

Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin is up for re-election for a four-year term in October and recently visited Bossier City to tour the Cyber Innovation Center and talk to a Republican women’s group. At the state level, the Secretary of State oversees elections, keeps records and authenticates businesses. Ardoin, a Republican from Baton Rouge, took over as interim Secretary of State in May of last year. Ardoin beat Democrat Gwen Collins-Greenup in December in an election with a 17% voter turnout. The Times spoke with Ardoin for an update on current projects and what he’s accomplished since he’s been office. Ardoin talked about reducing the cost and number of elections and bringing in new technology to enhance voter turnout. Issues of controversy raised during Ardoin’s time in office include contract bids for voting machines, registration of felons and “I voted” stickers.

Montana: Secretary of State Corey Stapleton plans to implement new election software in 2020. Election officials worry that’s too fast. | Alex Sakariassen/Montana Free Press

County elections officials are expressing “grave concerns” over Secretary of State Corey Stapleton’s plan to implement a new statewide election system in time for the 2020 elections. Stapleton’s plan calls for Montana counties to begin transitioning from the state’s decade-old Montana Votes election system to a new suite of election software as early as January. Stapleton’s office inked an exclusive $2 million contract with South Dakota-based information technology company BPro on April 30. Missoula County Chief Administrative Officer Vickie Zeier said the secretary’s staff in early June assured county officials that a final determination on the state’s readiness for the transition will not be made until December.  However, emails acquired through a public-records request show Stapleton’s office set its sights on implementing the new software in time for the 2020 elections months ago. In a June 20 letter to Stapleton, the Montana Association of Clerks and Recorders (MACR) called that timeline “very worrisome,” adding, “our suggested implementation goal would be 2021.”

Pennsylvania: House plans funding for voting machine bill, with conditions | Katie Meyer/WITF

Lawmakers are on track to give Democratic Governor Tom Wolf even more money than he asked for to fund voting machine improvements. However, it will come with conditions. Many of Pennsylvania’s voting machines only record votes electronically. That makes it almost impossible to double-check tallies, and led to the commonwealth settling a lawsuit last year that accused it of being susceptible to election tampering. There’s no evidence tampering happened. But Governor Wolf promised to update the machines by 2020 anyway. It’s an expensive undertaking, so in his budget proposal earlier this year, he asked the legislature to give counties $75 million over five years to help pay for it. Republicans have been on the fence about whether all the machines need upgrades. But GOP Appropriations Committee Chair Stan Saylor said Wednesday, his caucus has decided to back a bill that gives counties $90 million — enough to cover up to 60 percent of the cost of updating the machines.

Europe: How Europe’s smallest nations are battling Russia’s cyberattacks | Jenna McLaughlin/Yahoo News

Earlier this year, the country of Berylia came under a coordinated cyberattack. For two days, hackers targeted the island nation’s power grid and public-safety infrastructure, while cyber experts from across Europe worked to counter the attacks. Of course, the island nation of Berylia is imaginary, but the threat is not, and the exercise, known as Locked Shields, involved real network infrastructure provided by companies like Siemens and water-treatment systems from South Korea. Major Gabor Visky, a Hungarian researcher working for the NATO Center in Tallinn, Estonia, where the exercise took place, told Yahoo News during a tour last month that the simulation aims to get “as close as possible to real life.” It’s not surprising that a NATO cyber defense exercise would take place in Estonia, which has long been at the forefront of the digital revolution. The country took many services online years ago, including the 2002 introduction of its now famous digital ID card for accessing government services.

Philippines: Gordon, groups lose bid to scrutinize source code | Tetch Torres-Tupas/The Inquirer

The Supreme Court has dismissed the petitions filed by Senator Richard Gordon and two other groups asking that it compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to allow groups to open and review the source code in the vote-counting machines provided for under Republic Act 9369 or the Election Modernization Act of 1997. Petitioners Bagumbayan-NVP Movement Inc. and Tanggulang Demokrasya specifically want the high court to ask the Comelec to use digital electronic election returns and provide for the basic security safeguards, which include the source code review, vote verification, and random audit in compliance with RA 9369. The high court took note of the existence of several rules and resolutions governing the conduct of the automated elections, including Resolution No. 10458 (General Instructions for the conduct of Random Manual Audit relative to the May 13, 2019 Automated National and Local Elections and subsequent elections thereafter), on December 5, 2018, Resolution No. 10460, or the General Instructions on the constitution, composition and appointment of the Electoral Board; use of the Vote Counting Machines; the process of testing and sealing of the Vote Counting Machines; and the voting, counting and transmission of election results, among others.

Switzerland: E-voting suffers another setback amid expat Swiss concerns | Urs Geiser/SWI

The government has decided to suspend efforts to enshrine electronic voting in Swiss law, but it plans to continue trials using improved systems. The expatriate Swiss community is alarmed by the announcement. A consultation among political parties and the 26 cantons, as well as a series of technical flaws in the current systems, has led the government to review its policy on e-voting, according to the Federal Chancellor Walter Thurnherr. “Opinions are clearly divided. The cantons have come out in favour, but the parties are against,” he told a news conference on Thursday. “This means there is not sufficient support at the moment for the introduction of e-voting on a legal basis.” Thurnherr added that the series of limited e-voting trials underway since 2004 will continue unless “citizens or politicians decide otherwise”, though he also acknowledged that public opposition has grown since the tide started turning against e-voting two years ago. Recently, a committee launched a people’s initiative for a five-year e-voting moratorium amid the controversial discovery of technical problems in the two e-voting systems currently in use.

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.