Editorials: Resist push for online ballot box | The Seattle Times

The ubiquity of online life comes with devastating vulnerabilities. Even one of the world’s richest men, Jeff Bezos, is reportedly not safe from hackers of electronic devices. Despite this well-established risk, Washington elections officials are moving in disjointed directions about internet security. In Olympia, Secretary of State Kim Wyman wants to bar emailed ballot returns because of potential fraud and network tampering via attachment. In King County, Elections Director Julie Wise is aiding a local public agency’s experiment with online voting. The King County move is a badly flawed approach to broadening elections access. Washington’s elections must — without exception — be kept safe from online tampering. The best way to do this is to keep elections computers entirely off the internet. House Bill 2647 and Senate Bill 6412 are Wyman’s request legislation that would ban returning ballots by email. The proposal would close a vulnerability without meaningfully limiting access for military and overseas voters. Their current extended voting window of 30 or 45 days to download, print and return ballots reasonably allows for international postal delays.

National: Analysts question whether FBI election cybersecurity changes are robust enough | Jonathan Greig/TechRepublic

The FBI released new guidelines on how it will approach cyberattacks on elections after facing years of criticism from lawmakers across the country for their response to Russian intrusion attempts during the 2016 election. State officials, particularly those in Florida, were incensed when the Mueller Report revealed that two county voting databases were breached by Russian hackers ahead of the 2016 election. The FBI never told state-level officials and only coordinated with people in the counties that had been hit, waiting nearly two years until meeting and explaining the situation to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The new guidelines, explained on a media call last Thursday and in a press release last Friday, say the FBI will notify a state's chief election official and other local election workers in the event of any cyberattack. "Understanding that mitigation of such incidents often hinges on timely notification, the FBI has established a new internal policy outlining how the FBI will notify state and local officials responsible for administering election infrastructure of cyber activity targeting their infrastructure," the FBI statement said.

National: Weakening Encryption Could Impact Election Security, Coalition Says | Frank Konkel/Nextgov

A coalition for secure elections sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr Wednesday, criticizing the AG for recent comments he made calling on companies to create a “backdoor” through encryption. The letter, published by the Project on Government Oversight, warns such backdoors—even if expressly for use by law enforcement—would weaken the security of encrypted services and devices, “opening the door” for hackers to harm users. “While encryption does not guarantee safety from all forms of malicious hacking, it is a vital safeguard to minimize risk. The Department of Justice has previously asked companies to create a ‘backdoor’ through encryption that would be accessible to law enforcement—but it is simply not possible to create a ‘backdoor’ that could not also be accessed by malicious hackers,” the letter states.

National: Tech Companies Volunteer to Beef Up Presidential Campaigns’ Cybersecurity | Alexa Corse/Wall Street Journal

Nearly a dozen technology companies said they will provide free or reduced-cost cybersecurity services to presidential campaigns, which experts and intelligence officials have warned are ripe targets for intrusion and disinformation. They join a growing number of firms offering protection on a nonpartisan basis, a trend that has gained steam in the past 18 months or so, since federal regulators eased rules to make such offers permissible under campaign-finance laws. The Federal Election Commission made policy changes after urging from nonprofits and technology companies, including Microsoft Corp. Campaigns have struggled to make their information more secure in part because of budget pressures and the fast-moving nature of a campaign. “Any dollar that a campaign spends on extra levels of cybersecurity is a dollar they’re not spending on voter contact and getting their candidate elected,” noted Matt Rhoades, campaign manager for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

California: Lawsuit claims new Los Angeles County voting machines could favor some candidates | Jason Ruiz/Long Beach Post News

A lawsuit filed Thursday by the City of Beverly Hills alleges that the machines to tabulate votes that are being deployed by Los Angeles County for the upcoming March 3 elections could give some candidates an unfair advantage. In a statement the city said that the issue is that only four candidates can be displayed at one time on the screens and that the confusion between the “More” and “Next” buttons could lead to those not listed on the first page being overlooked by voters. Potential for the city’s suit was first reported by LAist, which earlier this month reported the Beverly Hills City Council was considering the action after it received a preview of the machines and noticed the potential for confusion. One of its incumbent members is listed fifth on the ballot, which means he would appear on the second screen and potentially be skipped over by voters. The county is using VSAP (Voting Solutions for All People) machines for the first time during the March elections, but have rolled them out for demonstrations in the past few months including at November’s California Democratic Party Endorsing Convention hosted in Long Beach. Voters can use the machines to electronically mark selections, with the machine printing out a paper version of their votes to be turned into county officials. The machines have yet to be certified by state election officials.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Comment on Los Angeles County VSAP 2.0 Certification

The following is a comment on the certification process for Los Angeles County’s VSAP 2.0 system. To view a pdf, click here.

Los Angeles County Voting Systems for All People (VSAP) 2.0 Certification
Comment of Pamela Smith, Senior Advisor, Verified Voting

January 20, 2020 Verified Voting commends Los Angeles County for the decade-long process of reimagining a voting system that must effectively serve the nation’s most populous and most diverse voting jurisdiction, as that system approaches certification and use in California’s upcoming elections. We have appreciated the opportunity to participate on the County’s Technical Advisory Committee since it was established and provide vigorous comment through the development process. We also appreciate the changes brought about by California’s lawmakers and Secretary of State Padilla to establish a more rigorous set of requirements for testing and examination of voting systems prior to approval for use. We believe, however, that there is a gap in the certification process that must be addressed for it to be fully transparent and to enable the public to more fully understand voting system compliance with California’s requirements.

The California Voting System Standards (CVSS)[1. https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/regulations/currentregulations/elections/voting-system-certification-regulations/] framework is supported by a set of regulations1 which govern a sequence of events for certification of a system, from application and provision of documentation and system/s for test, to a series of tests by qualified testing entities on security, software, functionality and more, to a set of reports to be published prior to a public hearing and comment period, and to eventual approval or denial of certification.

The required publications include test reports from the involved testing authorities, and a staff report from the Office of Voting Systems Technology Assessment (OVSTA). Reviewing these reports show test results that are characterized as failing or not complying with requirements in some instances, while the subsequent Staff report indicates that the system is in compliance, which seems contradictory at best, and it is not clear to the public how to reconcile those reports.

Georgia: Fearing long lines, Georgia election officials reject voting proposal | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia’s election board rejected a proposal Wednesday that could have resulted in long lines of voters, instead introducing a plan to require more voting machines during this year’s high-turnout presidential election. Still, the State Election Board’s proposed rules won’t provide as many voting machines as mandated by a state law passed last year, which called for one voting booth for every 250 voters in each precinct. Election officials said they will likely try to change that law during this year’s legislative session. With a new voting system being rolled out during the March 24 presidential primary, the State Election Board approved rules for the state’s voting machines and proposed several other changes dealing with absentee ballot rejections, provisional ballots, paper ballot backups and accessibility options for people with disabilities. The board’s most consequential decision determined how many voting machines are available in each precinct on Election Day.

Iowa: Caucus app sparks election security concerns | Ben Popken/NBC

With less than two weeks until Iowans line up to cast the first votes to pick a Democratic presidential nominee, party officials are reassuring voters that a new app used to report its caucus votes is secure. It’s not clear if they are correct. The app will be used in Iowa and Nevada by caucus managers — local registered Democrats who sign up to organize and run the caucus process in each location — to expedite the process, calculate and assign delegates and report results back quickly. The app will also be used in satellite voting locations across the country and overseas. But questions about the app remain unanswered, including who developed it and whether it has been subjected to independent security testing. Security experts say that the app is a potential target for early election interference, particularly since it is downloaded on to the personal phones of the caucus managers. Party officials say operational security prevents them from disclosing specifics about the app. Kiersten Todt, managing director of the Cyber Readiness Institute, a nonprofit group that provides cybersecurity advice to small and medium-size businesses, said those phones “can be breached in a heartbeat.”

Nevada: Amid hacking fears, Nevada Democrats to use app for caucus results | Jason Hidalgo, Ryan Foley and Christina Cassidy/Reno Gazette Journal

Nevada is one of two early caucus states to use new mobile apps to report caucus results amid heightened worries about election hacking. The Silver State will be joining Iowa in using mobile apps to gather results from thousands of caucus sites. The decision to use the apps was made to increase transparency and help run the caucuses more smoothly, said Shelby Wiltz, director of the Nevada State Democratic Party Caucus, on Monday. "NV Dems has been committed to making our First in the West Caucus the most accessible, expansive and transparent caucus yet,” Wiltz said. “We developed a reporting application in order to streamline the caucus process and provide our volunteers with additional support to run their caucuses as efficiently as possible.” Although the technology is intended to make counting easier, however, it also raises concerns about the potential for hacking or glitches. Party officials said that they worked closely with the Democratic National Committee and security experts while picking and vetting the app vendor that was chosen. They declined to name the vendor, however, citing security reasons.

New Hampshire: Paper Ballots Are Hard to Hack, But That’s Only Part of the Election Security Puzzle | Casey McDermott/New Hampshire Public Radio

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has long projected confidence about the security of the state’s elections. In the fall of 2016, as national security officials were warning state elections offices to “be vigilant and seek cybersecurity assistance” from federal partners, Gardner declined — saying New Hampshire didn’t need the extra help. “We have a system that, we don’t have to be concerned that it’s going to be something different this time because of some imaginary foreign element out there or something that might be interfering with this election,” Gardner said at the time. Since then, Gardner — the nation’s longest serving elections chief — continued to downplay the risk facing New Hampshire. When asked about election security at a meeting of the state’s Ballot Law Commission a few months before the 2018 midterms, he had a simple response. “You want to know about being hacked? You see this pencil here?” Gardner said, holding one up for emphasis. “Want me to give it to you and see if you can hack this pencil? We have this pencil. This is how people vote in this state. And you can’t hack this pencil.”

New Jersey: New Jersey will soon allow you to register to vote online | Brent Johnson and Matt Arco/NJ.com

Looking to register to vote in New Jersey? You will soon be able to do it online under a bill Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law Tuesday. The new law (S589) requires the Garden State’s secretary of state to create and maintain a secure website to allow eligible voters to register to vote using an online form. It takes effect in June. It’s the latest move Murphy and his fellow Democrats who control the state Legislature have made to open up voting in New Jersey. They have also expanding mail-in voting, made voter registration automatic when you apply for a driver’s license, and restored voting rights to people on probation and parole. New Jersey is the 38th state to institute online voter registration, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The District of Columbia also has it and Oklahoma is phasing in a similar program.

Pennsylvania: Federal judge delays voting machine case against Department of State | Emily Previti/PA Post

A federal judge on Friday ordered a month-long delay in a case that seeks to bar the use of a specific voting machine in the upcoming presidential primary. Hearings were to begin Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to determine whether the ExpressVote XL touchscreen tabulator violates a legal settlement that set higher standards for election security in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Northampton and Cumberland counties selected the XL as part of an election system update required of all Pa. counties by the end of 2019. The delay ordered by the judge leaves the counties in limbo. Officials from the counties and the Pa. Department of State say shelving the XL and shifting to different voting systems so close to the election would create chaos for voters. They say plaintiffs could and should have acted sooner — and U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond agreed with that point in the order issued Friday.  A key issue in Diamond’s decision to delay the next hearing until Feb. 18 is the potential that one of the plaintiffs attorneys, Ilann Maazel, could be called as a witness by the DoS. If the state insists on calling Maazel, Diamond said he would remove the lawyer from the case. The delay, the judge said, is intended to give the plaintiffs time to prepare new counsel.

Pennsylvania: More new electronics for voting in Northampton County? Election officials hit pause. | Kurt Bresswein/Lehigh Valley Live

Northampton County officials are considering spending about a quarter of a million dollars on specially configured iPads to check in voters at the polls beginning with the 2020 primary election. County Executive Lamont McClure's administration sprang the proposal on the county election commission during its quarterly meeting Thursday. Director of Administration Charles Dertinger was looking for a recommendation on the purchase to bring to county council, calling the timeline tight to get the new ePollbooks ordered and delivered. Commission Chairwoman Maudenia Hornik, elected by her colleagues to the leadership role at the start of the meeting, pushed back on having to make a decision immediately. She wants to do her own research on the options available, especially after the problems the county had with new touchscreen paper-ballot voting machines in November's election. "We just made a huge purchase and we've got egg on our face," Hornik said during Thursday's meeting at the courthouse and government center in Easton. "I didn't know we were voting tonight. ... i just feel as if I don't want to do this hastily."

Tennessee: New Shelby County election machinery debate heightens fraud claims on all sides | Bill Dries/The Daily Memphian

Shelby County Commissioner Michael Whaley may have framed the debate on a new voting system that is about to land at the county building. “It’s easy to probably find studies on either side of this,” he said Wednesday, Jan. 22, as commissioners prepared to debate a resolution coming up at the Monday, Jan. 27, commission meeting endorsing hand-marked paper ballots. They would replace the touchscreen machines used in Shelby County elections. The resolution by Commissioner Van Turner is part of a new push by critics of computer-based voting machines. Turner said his goal is to “build integrity into the system.” The committee discussion on a day when committee sessions ran long showed there are disagreements on the matter within the Shelby County Election Commission, the organization that has a request for proposal out now for a new voting system to be used at some point during the current election year.

Washington: Secretary of state questions online, mobile voting plan in King County race | David Gutman/The Seattle Times

Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman expressed concerns Wednesday with newly announced plans to allow voters in one obscure King County election to vote online through mobile devices. The plan, which went into effect Wednesday, allows voters to cast ballots through a touch-screen device in the race for King Conservation District Board of Supervisors. That election, which is held annually for a volunteer position on a board with no regulatory power, has traditionally drawn voter turnout of only about 1%. Because of a quirk in state law, the conservation district has to hold its elections in the first three months of the year, so voting can’t piggyback on the primary or general election ballots in August or November. And, sending out paper ballots to all 1.2 million eligible voters in the district would eat up about a quarter of the small agency’s annual budget. So, they’re trying voting by mobile device, the first election in the country to offer that technology to every eligible voter. “Any time you connect a system online, it becomes vulnerable to attack,” said Wyman, a Republican, who oversees most of the state’s elections, but not those of conservation districts.

National: Hackers Are Coming for the 2020 Election — And We’re Not Ready | Andy Kroll/Rolling Stone

… Four years ago, for an embarrassingly modest price, Russia pulled off one of the more audacious acts of election interference in modern history. The Internet Research Agency, the team of Kremlin-backed online propagandists, spent $15 million to $20 million and wreaked havoc on the psyche of the American voter, creating the impression that behind every Twitter avatar or Facebook profile was a Russian troll. Russian intelligence agents carried out the digital version of Watergate, infiltrating the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, stealing tens of thousands of emails, and weaponizing them in the days and weeks before the election. Russian-based hackers tested election websites in all 50 states for weak spots, like burglars casing a would-be target. “The Russians were testing whether our windows were open, rattling our doors to see whether they were locked, and found the windows and doors wide open,” says Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. “The fact that they didn’t interject themselves more dramatically into our election was, I think, almost luck.”

Tennessee: Local advocates push for paper ballots in Shelby County | Kirstin Garriss/Cox Media Group

Some voters and elected officials are pushing for a more secure voting machine system in Shelby County. The group known as SAVE or “Shelby Advocates for Valid Elections” want paper ballots for future elections. Members of SAVE said Chattanooga/ Hamilton County already uses this same hand marked paper ballot system. It’s similar to filling out a scan-tron like you do for the SAT. But Shelby County election officials said what works in a smaller county may not work here and the risk for error increases with this system. 2020 is a big election year and members of SAVE want to make sure voting is as secure as possible.

National: Acting DHS secretary says he expects Russia to attempt to interfere in 2020 elections | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Friday that his agency “fully expects” Russia to attempt to interfere in U.S. elections in 2020. “As we saw in 2016, we fully expect Russia to attempt to interfere in the 2020 elections to sow public discord and undermine our democratic institutions,” Wolf said during an event hosted by the Homeland Security Experts Group in Washington, D.C. Wolf also highlighted cyber threats from China and Iran. According to the report compiled by former special counsel Robert Mueller and to findings by the U.S. intelligence community and the Senate Intelligence Committee, Russia launched a sweeping interference effort in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, using both hacking and disinformation tactics.

National: Amid hacking fears, key caucus states to use app for results | Ryan J. Foley and Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

Two of the first three states to vote in the Democratic presidential race will use new mobile apps to gather results from thousands of caucus sites — technology intended to make counting easier but that raises concerns of hacking or glitches. Democratic Party activists in Iowa and Nevada will use programs downloaded to their personal phones to report the results of caucus gatherings to the state headquarters. That data will then be used to announce the unofficial winners. Paper records will later be used to certify the results. The party is moving ahead with the technology amid warnings that foreign hackers could target the 2020 presidential campaign to try to sow chaos and undermine American democracy. Party officials say they are cognizant of the threat and taking numerous security precautions. Any errors, they say, will be easily correctable because of backups.

National: US election still vulnerable to attacks, despite security improvements | Cynthia Brumfield/CSO Online

Days away from the Iowa caucuses, and less than 11 months from the general election, voting and election security continues to be a challenge for the U.S political system. Threats to a secure election appear to loom as large today as they did in 2016, when Russian state-backed hackers and social media trolls threw U.S. political campaign and election efforts into chaos, turmoil that has only become clear after the fact. Certainly, voting security has made great strides since 2016. State and local governments took advantage of a funding boost under the Help America Vote Act to improve their infrastructure and better coordinate among themselves to harden election systems. Congress allocated an additional $425 million as part of a spending compromise that was passed and enacted in late-December, giving election officials even more latitude to make improvements. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) tells CSO that the agency has seen marked improvements in security over the past few years. “In our work with all 50 states and more than 2,400 local jurisdictions, we’ve seen a maturation in the risk management practices across the sector,” the spokesperson says. “Whether implementing controls like multifactor authentication and intrusion detection systems or exercising incident identification, communications, and response, the progress for election security is real.”

Editorials: Are we really listening to what MLK had to say? | Peniel Joseph/CNN

In 2020, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday falls in a national election year, one that reminds us of the importance of voting rights, citizenship and political activism to the health of our democracy. King imagined America as a "beloved community" capable of defeating what he characterized as the triple threats of racism, militarism and materialism. The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, alongside the 1954 Brown Supreme Court decision, represents the crown jewels of the civil rights movement's heroic period. Yet King quickly realized that policy transformations alone, including the right to vote, would be insufficient in realizing his goal of institutionalizing radical black citizenship toward the creation of the "beloved community." King argued that justice was what love looked like in public. 2020 also marks the 55th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act, legislation that proved transformative for black citizenship, at least until the 2013 Shelby v. Holder Supreme Court decision that has helped enable the increase of voter suppression nationally. The most powerful way Americans can honor King now is through the pursuit of new national voting rights legislation that ends voter suppression and ID laws, allows prisoners to vote and automatically registers every 18-year-old citizen to vote.

Editorials: Connecticut needs to share election security test results | David Levine/Connecticut Post

As the 2016 presidential election demonstrates, U.S. election systems — from the voting machines themselves to internet-connected electronic pollbooks (e-pollbooks) — are vulnerable to cyberattacks, including from foreign governments seeking to undermine the integrity of our democracy. Connecticut recently found that e-pollbooks are not completely secure and could be vulnerable to cyberattacks that disenfranchise voters. Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, it is essential that Connecticut make these results widely known, so other state and local governments can take necessary precautions. Earlier this year, Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill chose not to give funding she already had received for e-pollbooks to local jurisdictions after the University of Connecticut’s Center for Voting Technology Research (VoTeR Center) reviewed proposals from three vendors and found that none of them was sufficiently secure. This development is remarkable not only in light of the nationwide trend towards adopting e-pollbooks, but it also reflects a complete reversal by Merrill, who secured funding for the e-pollbooks in 2015 because she initially thought they would be more accurate and less work than paper pollbooks. Merrill is now concerned that election officials have acquired the technology too quickly and that there has not been a sufficient consideration of the risks and benefits of e-pollbooks.

Georgia: A Georgia election server was vulnerable to Shellshock and may have been hacked | Dan Goodin/Ars Technica

Forensic evidence shows signs that a Georgia election server may have been hacked ahead of the 2016 and 2018 elections by someone who exploited Shellshock, a critical flaw that gives attackers full control over vulnerable systems, a computer security expert said in a court filing on Thursday. Shellshock came to light in September 2014 and was immediately identified as one of the most severe vulnerabilities to be disclosed in years. The reasons: it (a) was easy to exploit, (b) gave attackers the ability to remotely run commands and code of their choice, and (c) opened most Linux and Unix systems to attack. As a result, the flaw received widespread news coverage for months. Despite the severity of the vulnerability, it remained unpatched for three months on a server operated by the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University, the group that was responsible for programming Georgia election machines. The flaw wasn't fixed until December 2, 2014, when an account with the username shellshock patched the critical vulnerability, the expert’s analysis of a forensic image shows. The shellshock account had been created only 19 minutes earlier. Before patching the vulnerability, the shellshock user deleted a file titled shellsh0ck. A little more than a half hour after patching, the shellshock user was disabled.

Iowa: Democrats revamped their caucuses to fend off disinformation. Now some fear the changes could sow new confusion in tight 2020 race. | Isaac Stanley-Becker/The Washington Post

When Democrats here went to bed on the night of their first-in-the-nation caucuses four years ago, the bitterly fought contest between Hillary Clinton and the insurgent Sen. Bernie Sanders was too close to call. So an abrupt predawn notice from the state party declaring Clinton the winner sent some into a fury. Shaky videos of coin tosses deciding delegates in Clinton’s favor spread on Twitter. Stories multiplied of confused caucus-goers, untrained volunteers and mathematical inconsistencies, all amid a wave of suspicion that the party was manipulating the process for Clinton’s benefit. “I never got a satisfactory explanation for how they arrived at their number,” said J. Pablo Silva, a historian at Grinnell College who wasn’t alerted when the state party transferred a delegate from Sanders to Clinton in the precinct in this small college town where he was serving as a caucus secretary. Now, as Iowa Democrats hurtle once again toward the opening faceoff of a hard-fought presidential primary cycle — with at least four candidates seemingly in contention to win Iowa’s Feb. 3 contest — some in the party fear that reforms put in place to prevent the disarray of 2016 may create an entirely new set of problems in 2020.

Iowa: Linn auditor’s complaint that voter registration vulnerable dismissed | Jason Clayworth/Des Moines Register

Linn County Auditor Joel Miller's complaint that Iowa’s voting system is prone to hackers was dismissed Friday by a state commission without a public hearing on the allegations, an action Miller contends violates federal law. “We won’t rush to judgment on what to do next, but I think there is a good case to appeal because federal law is very clear that a hearing shall be heard and that didn’t happen,” Miller said. Miller in an August complaint filed with Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said Iowa’s voter registration system does not meet security safeguards mandated under the federal Help America Vote Act. He has declined to offer details about how the system could be hacked, citing confidentiality concerns. In its 2-to-1 vote Friday, Iowa’s Registration Commission approved a motion filed by the Iowa Attorney General’s Office to dismiss the complaint in part because of its lack of specifics.

Minnesota: New Primary System Brings Data-Sharing Concerns | Briana Bierschbach/Minneapolis Star Tribune

Sean Fahnhorst works behind the scenes for the state of Minnesota preparing the state budget based on the preferences of his boss — the governor. He likes his gig and wants to do similar work indefinitely, no matter who’s in charge. That’s why he’s hesitant to participate in the state’s new presidential primary election on March 3, which technically kicks off Friday with the start of early absentee voting. It’s the first primary in the state in nearly 30 years, a switch made after high turnout in 2016 bogged down the party-run caucus system with long lines and confusing rules that frustrated voters. Minnesota’s new presidential primary system, run and paid for by the state, is expected to be logistically smoother. But for many voters like Fahnhorst, there’s a big trade-off. The new system also records voters’ party preference and provides that data to the chairs of each major political party.

New Hampshire: Election security looms ahead of primary | Jake Lahut/Keene Sentinel

Amid ongoing efforts by foreign entities to influence American democracy, concerns have arisen nationwide about election security. At a 2018 “hackathon” in Florida, an 11-year-old was able to electronically break into a replica of the Sunshine State’s voter rolls in a matter of minutes, changing names and even election tallies. Legislation that would give states a total of $1 billion to require backup paper ballots in precincts nationwide — to be used alongside electronic machines to ensure an accurate recount if those machines are hacked — has been stalled in Washington by the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate. With each state using different election laws under the hyper-localized American system, the election security landscape remains complicated in the first general-election year since the Russian meddling efforts. An early test of voter confidence will come in the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary next month.

North Dakota: New electronic pollbooks set to go out to North Dakota counties | Jack Dura/Bismarck Tribune

raining sessions on new electronic pollbooks are planned throughout the next week and a half for North Dakota election officials. The new devices -- 990 of them -- will be distributed to North Dakota's 53 counties for use at polling locations after being delivered to the state in February. Pollbooks are records of voters of a precinct. The devices, which resemble an iPad, will speed up what has been a paper process for most counties in checking voters and add an element of security, according to North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger. "One of the things when it comes to election integrity is that once you come in and show your ID, that automatically goes back into our central voter file and so if you attempted to vote, let's say, in Minot or drive up to Killdeer or some other place, they would know that you voted already," Jaeger said Monday. North Dakota has no voter registration, but maintains a central voter file which is essentially a database of who has voted.

Editorials: Ballot images must be made public after all New York elections | New York Daily News

Honoring Dr. King’s legacy, state Senate Elections Committee Chairman Zellnor Myrie is introducing the New York Voting Rights Act to protect the franchise for citizens. He is also advancing welcome transparency with a bill requiring that the electronic images of the paper ballots be made public no later than a week after voting. This should have happened a decade ago with the arrival of computerized scanners. Those machines take a photo of each paper ballot and store it electronically. Having the images available allows anyone to examine the results, while keeping the original ballot secure. The state’s highest court made of botch of it with a terrible ruling last spring that locked away the images. Myrie’s bill sets it straight.

Pennsylvania: Cumberland County receives ExpressVote XLs as two courts continue to litigate their eligibility | Zack Hoopes/The Sentinel

Cumberland County received some of its new voting machines this week, the same machines that are the subject of state and federal lawsuits and that experienced mistabulations in Northampton County in the last election. Cumberland and Northampton counties, along with Philadelphia, are in limbo regarding the current or future use of the ExpressVote XL, a product of Election Systems and Software. Cumberland County received the first shipments of its 400-machine order this week, according to Bethany Salzarulo, director of the county’s elections bureau. Salzarulo said she and her staff were aware of the Northampton issues, which officials there blamed on ES&S not adequately communicating the necessary testing procedures to elections staff. Proper testing would have caught the errors well before election day, Salzarulo said, something Cumberland County staff is prepared to do regardless of ES&S.