New York: State Contemplates Voting Machines with Troubled Track Record | Brigid Bergin/WNYC

The New York State Board of Elections may approve a voting machine with a troubled track record. The State is testing the Express Vote XL from Election Software & Systems. The machine uses a touchscreen and marks the ballot FOR the voter. But the machines were used in a Pennsylvania judicial election last year where thousands of votes weren’t counted due to mechanical error. Advocates say New York needs a higher standard. “To be sure [the machines] are minimally hackable and that the vote will reflect the intent of the voter so that they can be cast and accurately counted is to have hand-marked paper ballot,” said Susan Lerner, head of Common Cause New York. A spokeswoman for ES&S said the machines use layers of security and have been approved by the federal government.

National: ‘Online and vulnerable’: Experts find nearly three dozen U.S. voting systems connected to internet | Kevin Monahan, Cynthia McFadden and Didi Martinez/NBC

It was an assurance designed to bolster public confidence in the way America votes: Voting machines “are not connected to the internet.” Then Acting Undersecretary for Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security Jeanette Manfra said those words in 2017, testifying before Congress while she was responsible for the security of the nation’s voting system. So many government officials like Manfra have said the same thing over the last few years that it is commonly accepted as gospel by most Americans. Behind it is the notion that if voting systems are not online, hackers will have a harder time compromising them. But that is an overstatement, according to a team of 10 independent cybersecurity experts who specialize in voting systems and elections. While the voting machines themselves are not designed to be online, the larger voting systems in many states end up there, putting the voting process at risk. That team of election security experts say that last summer, they discovered some systems are, in fact, online. “We found over 35 [voting systems] had been left online and we’re still continuing to find more,” Kevin Skoglund, a senior technical advisor at the election security advocacy group National Election Defense Coalition, told NBC News.

National: Chinese Technology in Voting Machines Seen as Emerging Threat | Michaela Ross/Bloomberg

The infiltration by foreign countries like China into election voting equipment is emerging as a growing concern among vendors, who are actually asking for more federal regulation as they grapple with a lack of domestic suppliers producing critical technologies. Top executives of the three largest voting machine vendors—Hart InterCivic, Dominion Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software—told the House Administration Committee Thursday they are hoping for guidance and support from the Department of Homeland Security on how to secure their subcontractors. Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said the hearing marked the first time all three CEOs of the largest companies supplying voting machines in the U.S. agreed under oath that they’d welcome comprehensive regulations from the federal government. The executives told committee members they have no choice but to rely on components from China due to a lack of U.S.-made equivalents, a problem facing developers of other technology products including 5G telecommunications and drones.

National: U.S. Probes If Russia Targeting Biden in 2020 Election Meddling | Chris Strohm/Bloomberg

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are assessing whether Russia is trying to undermine Joe Biden in its ongoing disinformation efforts with the former vice president still the front-runner in the race to challenge President Donald Trump, according to two officials familiar with the matter. The probe comes as senior U.S. officials are warning that Russia’s election interference in 2020 could be more brazen than in the 2016 presidential race or the 2018 midterm election. Part of the inquiry is to determine whether Russia is trying to weaken Biden by promoting controversy over his past involvement in U.S. policy toward Ukraine while his son worked for an energy company there. Trump was impeached by the House and faces a trial in the Senate over his pressure on Ukraine’s president to investigate Biden, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, as well as an unsupported theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election.

National: Keeping US elections safe from hackers | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Robert Mueller’s former chief of staff from his time at the FBI says Washington isn’t doing nearly enough to secure U.S. election systems in the wake of the special counsel report on Russian interference in 2016. John Carlin, who now chairs the law firm Morrison & Foerster’s global risk and crisis management group and co-chairs its national security practice group, told The Hill in a recent interview that foreign threats against elections are “here and present,” adding that he “absolutely” expects Moscow to attempt to interfere in this year’s vote. “The overall message that the seriousness of what they found in terms of the Russian government interfering in our elections in a sweeping and systematic action, you would hope that this is the type of report that would drive in a bipartisan way all Americans to see what we can do to prevent it from occurring again,” said Carlin. “I wish there would be more of a bipartisan focus on what Russia did and holding them [to] account.” Carlin noted that while “there have been improvements” from the federal government to address election security concerns — most notably $425 million Congress designated to states for election security as part of the recent appropriations cycle — the ongoing “plague” of ransomware attacks poses a new threat.

National: Cyber Threats to Elections Reported Nationwide | Associated Press

West Virginia reported unusual cyber activity targeting its election systems. The Texas governor said the state was encountering attempted “attacks” at the rate of “10,000 times a minute” from Iran. Information technology staff in Las Vegas responded to an intrusion, though the city says no data was stolen. All told, state election officials in at least two dozen states saw suspicious cyber activity last week, although it’s unclear who was behind the efforts and no major problems were reported. Long before a U.S. drone strike assassinated a top Iranian general, there were already concerns about foreign efforts to hack American institutions and its elections. The conflict with Iran has exacerbated those fears. Yet as the recent spate of reports makes clear, not all suspicious cyber activities are equally troublesome, the work of a foreign government or a precursor to the type of Russian interference seen in the 2016 election on behalf of Donald Trump.

National: Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment | Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Rosenberg/The New York Times

With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair, according to security experts. The hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment was dominating the news in the United States. It is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for. But the experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment. The Russian tactics are strikingly similar to what American intelligence agencies say was Russia’s hacking of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that case, once they had the emails, the Russians used trolls to spread and spin the material, and built an echo chamber to widen its effect.

Idaho: Voter registration system to be overhauled, according to election officials | Trevor Fay/KBOI

The Idaho State Voter Registration System (ISVRS) needs to be replaced, according to the Canyon County Clerk’s Office. CBS2 News spoke with election officials about what needs to happen to get the voting system up to speed. Chris Yamamoto, Canyon County Clerk, and Chief Elections Officer, worked with the Idaho Secretary of State to replace the ISVRS. Yamamoto wants the new system to be GIS-based, meaning it keeps track of voter addresses. He says the current system is known to crash when many people use it at once, like during elections.

Illinois: Mayor Lori Lightfoot wants to spend nearly $19 million on new Chicago touchscreen voting machines before March primary election | John Byrne/Chicago Tribune

Chicago voters are poised to see updated voting machines that election officials said will provide more security in the March primary election, thanks to nearly $19 million Mayor Lori Lightfoot wants to move from the city’s streetlight replacement program to pay for the new equipment. Under the spending plan aldermen advanced Monday, the bond money will be transferred to the Chicago Board of Elections to buy new touchscreen voting machines that will generate a paper ballot that voters will feed into ballot readers when they’re done voting. The city has borrowed money for the “smart streetlight” program that Mayor Rahm Emanuel championed through his public-private Infrastructure Trust as a way to save energy costs and speed the replacement of broken lights.

Pennsylvania: Voting security advocates seek to block use of Northampton County’s machines | Peter Hall/The Morning Call

Warning of immediate and irreparable harm to the election system, voting security advocates asked a Pennsylvania court to block the use of troubled voting machines in Northampton County and elsewhere in the 2020 elections. Leading a group of Northampton County and Philadelphia voters in a lawsuit over the machines, the National Election Defense Coalition and Citizens for Better Elections filed a motion Friday in Commonwealth Court seeking a preliminary injunction requiring the state to decertify the ExpressVote XL electronic voting system for the April primary and November general election. Citing new information from voters who encountered difficulty using the machines last year and a vote of “no confidence” in the ExpressVote XL by Northampton County election commissioners, the advocates said there is “no way to repair voters’ trust in the machines.” “If voters do not trust the machines, they cannot trust the outcome of the election,” the advocates said. “If that is to happen, the entire state of democracy starts to crumble under the weight of suspicion, distrust and frustration.”

South Dakota: State House bill for online voter registration | Anderley Penwell/KOTA

A State House Bill has been introduced that would allow South Dakota voters to register to vote online. House Bill 1050 is sponsored by the Committee on Local Government at the request of the State Board of Elections. If passed, the county auditors will still be in charge of maintaining voter registration records in their respective counties and any eligible voter with a valid drivers license or state-issued ID card can register to vote through the online system.

Wisconsin: Election officials look to launch security outreach plan | Todd Richmond/Associated Press

Wisconsin officials are considering spending more than a quarter of a million dollars on a public relations push to reassure voters that elections in the state are secure after nearly three-quarters of respondents to a survey this fall said they were worried about threats. Wisconsin Elections Commission staffers planned to ask the six commissioners Tuesday for permission to spend $260,000 to hire Madison-based advertising firm KW2 to develop the campaign, which could include online content, videos, news releases and graphics. The money would come from a $7 million federal grant the state received in 2018 to bolster election security. The commission has already hired KW2 to research voter impressions on election security. Those efforts are expected to cost about $140,000. That money will also come from the federal grant. The firm conducted an online survey in October of 1,116 Wisconsin adults’ impressions of election security. Less than a third of respondents — 29% — said they had confidence in election security nationally. More than half — 54% — said they had confidence in state elections.

Japan: Push to spread e-voting may mean allowing use of off-the-shelf tablets | The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry aims to allow the use of commercially available tablets and personal computers for electronic voting in local elections. E-voting became possible in 2002 and 10 local governments and assemblies have since implemented the voting method. But e-voting has not been used since 2016. To encourage the implementation of more electronic voting, the ministry plans to review the current guidelines that effectively limit devices to those specialized for e-voting. As mistakes in local elections have been rapidly increasing nationwide, the ministry believes that e-voting can be effective for preventing mistakes in vote counting. During fiscal 2020, the ministry aims to improve the circumstances to make it possible for local governments and assemblies to resume the implementation of e-voting. The guidelines stipulate criteria on devices used for vote counting in elections in which e-voting is implemented. It effectively only allows the use of electronic devices specialized for e-voting because of durability and measures to prevent fraudulent voting. However, compared with devices that were available in 2002, the performance of commercially available electronic devices has remarkably improved and there are now more lower-priced models.