National: Reliability of pricey new ballot marking devices questioned | Frank Bajak/Associated Press

In the rush to replace insecure, unreliable electronic voting machines after Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, state and local officials have scrambled to acquire more trustworthy equipment for this year’s election, when U.S. intelligence agencies fear even worse problems. But instead of choosing simple, hand-marked paper ballots that are most resistant to tampering because paper cannot be hacked, many are opting for pricier technology that computer security experts consider almost as risky as earlier discredited electronic systems. Called ballot-marking devices, the machines have touchscreens for registering voter choice. Unlike touchscreen-only machines, they print out paper records that are scanned by optical readers. South Carolina voters will use them in Saturday’s primary. The most pricey solution available, they are at least twice as expensive as the hand-marked paper ballot option. They have been vigorously promoted by the three voting equipment vendors that control 88 percent of the U.S. market.

National: With 2020 general election approaching, voting security under growing scrutiny | Maya Rodriguez/Scripps Media

It’s the foundation of American democracy: voting. Depending on where you are in the U.S., though, your election experience could look very different from that in your neighboring state or even just your neighbor. “It really does depend on where you are in the country,” said Marian Schneider, who heads up Verified Voting, a non-profit, non-partisan group that advocates for better election security. In particular, the group takes a closer look at when it comes to the use of computers in elections. “We use computers in every aspect of election administration in this country,” Schneider said. “We have also historically underfunded our elections and not put the money into them that we need in order to run a computerized operation.”

National: Russia trying to help Bernie Sanders’s campaign, according to briefing from U.S. officials | Shane Harris, Ellen Nakashima, Michael Scherer and Sean Sullivan/The Washington Post

U.S. officials have told Sen. Bernie Sanders that Russia is attempting to help his presidential campaign as part of an effort to interfere with the Democratic contest, according to people familiar with the matter. President Trump and lawmakers on Capitol Hill also have been informed about the Russian assistance to the Vermont senator, those people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken. U.S. prosecutors found a Russian effort in 2016 to use social media to boost Sanders’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, part of a broader effort to hurt Clinton, sow dissension in the American electorate and ultimately help elect Donald Trump. “I don’t care, frankly, who [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wants to be president,” Sanders said in a statement. “My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do. “In 2016, Russia used Internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020. Some of the ugly stuff on the Internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters.”

National: Sanders blasts Russia for reportedly trying to boost his presidential campaign | Susan Heavey and Simon Lewis/Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Friday warned Russia to stay out of U.S. elections after American officials had told him Moscow was trying to aid his campaign. “The intelligence community is telling us they are interfering in this campaign, right now, in 2020. And what I say to Mr. Putin, if elected president, trust me you are not going to be interfering in American elections,” Sanders told reporters in Bakersfield, California. Sanders, 78, a democratic socialist from Vermont, is considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination and is favored to win the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. The Washington Post on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter, said U.S. officials had told Sanders about the Russian effort and had also informed Republican President Donald Trump and U.S. lawmakers. It was not clear what form the Russian assistance took, the paper said. A congressional source confirmed intelligence officials have told lawmakers Russia appears to be engaging in disinformation and propaganda campaigns to boost the 2020 campaigns of both Sanders and Trump. The source, however, cautioned that the findings are very tentative.

National: Congress to get election security briefing next month amid Intel drama | Jordain Carney/The Hill

The administration is gearing up to brief lawmakers on election security as the country wades deeper into the 2020 primaries. Both the House and Senate will be briefed, separately, on March 10, according to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and a Senate aide. The briefings will come a week after Super Tuesday, when primary voters in more than a dozen states will head to the polls. On March 10, voters in six more states will cast ballots. The announcement of the briefings come as President Trump’s shake up of top intelligence community positions has sparked fierce criticism from Democrats and some national security professionals, and after reports that intelligence leaders have told lawmakers that Russia is again seeking to aid Trump’s campaign efforts. “American voters should decide American elections — not Vladimir Putin. All Members of Congress should condemn the President’s reported efforts to dismiss threats to the integrity of our democracy & to politicize our intel community,” Pelosi said in a tweet on Thursday.

National: DHS Publishes 2020 Strategic Plan for Election Security | Lucas Ropek/Government Technology

With a contentious race for the American presidency underway and fears of foreign influence in electoral politics growing, state governments are looking for ways to bolster their position before voters hit the polls. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently published its 2020 election security strategic plan to help meet that mission, outlining how it hopes to assist states before this year’s presidential contest unfolds. That assistance will come in a number of forms: engaging the nation’s some 8,000 election jurisdictions with planning and response capabilities; facilitating coordination between various state, local and private stakeholders; and deploying personnel to offer assessment and testing of voting infrastructure, including cyberhygiene and penetration tests. At the same time, CISA is also offering assistance to political campaigns and infrastructure, giving security assessments and information sharing services to them, while also highlighting the work of other important intelligence organizations like the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center and the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The CISA report also shines a spotlight on a number of states that are currently role models for election security practices.

Editorials: Calm down, America. If election results aren’t instant, it doesn’t mean they’re ‘rigged.’ | Joshua A. Douglas/USA Today

The contrast between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary offers two lessons for the media and the public, especially for the next two contests in Nevada and South Carolina: Put your trust in professional election administrators, and don’t expect an immediate announcement of the winner. The Iowa Democratic Party, not election professionals, ran the caucuses. The party made mistakes at several turns. It transmitted and tabulated results using a new app that turned out to be unreliable. It then compounded those errors by rushing to report results, which appeared incomplete and potentially inaccurate, over the ensuing days. By contrast, New Hampshire election officials administered the primary. They did it without any hiccups and, importantly, there seemed to be less of a rush to announce the winner. The Nevada Democratic Party is running Saturday’s caucuses, while state election officials are in charge of the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29. Nevada Democrats are trying to learn from the experience of their Iowa counterparts, but the bottom line is unavoidable: The practice of nonprofessionals administering caucuses adds another reason to question the entire caucus system, which is generally undemocratic and unrepresentative to begin with.

California: Man Arrested For Election Cyber Attacks | Christianne McCormick/Canyon News

Federal officers arrested a Santa Monica man Friday morning, February 21 for charges related to a series of cyberattacks on a website for a candidate who was campaigning for a Congressional seat back in 2018. Arthur Dam, 32, was charged with one count of intentionally damaging and attempting to damage a protected computer. Officials accuse him of coordinating cyberattacks on Rep. Katie Hill’s Democratic Rival Rep. Bryan Caforio. Allegedly, Dam staged four cyberattacks in April and May of 2018 that resulted in Caforio’s website to be down for a total of 21 hours. The website first crashed on April 20, 2018 then again on the 21st, 28th and May 29th. The attack that transpired on April 28 was the day of the debate between Hill and Caforio. The attack that transpired on May 29, 2018 was just days before Hill beat Caforio in the June 5 primary.

Florida: Cyber experts: Public should have known about 2016 Palm Beach County elections ransomware | Hannah Morse/The Palm Beach Post

In the wake of the dispute over the cyber intrusion at the county elections office, The Palm Beach Post asked a series of security professionals to weigh in on the revelation of the Zepto virus exposure in September 2016. Is three years too long to learn that a ransomware attack happened at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office? Yes, say cybersecurity and IT experts. In the wake of the dispute over the cyber intrusion at the county elections office, The Palm Beach Post asked a series of security professionals to weigh in on the revelation of the Zepto virus exposure in September 2016. “Not only should they report this, they should understand that just because everything seems normal it might not necessarily be,” said Silka Gonzalez, founder of ERMProtect in Coral Gables. “Even if a hacker is already inside your network and passively stealing your information everything in your workplace is going to look normal and ‘business as usual.’ These things don’t come with sirens and red lights.” The scrutiny over Zepto and its purported encroachment by an unknown entity through an elections office computer in the weeks before the 2016 presidential vote has been a source of controversy. This month, current Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link revealed the previously unknown cyber attack via a Zepto virus. The severity of the episode, however, has been disputed by her predecessor, Susan Bucher.

Illinois: ‘Wake-up call’ led to focus on election security | Bernard Schoenburg/The State Journal-Register

As the March 17 Illinois primary approaches, state and local election officials say they are continually working to keep election records, information and vote totals safe from outside meddling. “What I always say is we’re confident that we’re doing everything we can to stay a step ahead of any cyber attacker,” said Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections. “But all you can ever hope, when you’re dealing with cyber security, is to stay ahead of the next hacker.” Sangamon County Clerk Don Gray, whose office oversees elections in the county, said every election authority has been “working hard … protecting and defending our election apparatus. It is absolutely imperative today that we are proactive and being out in front of cybercriminals.”

Kansas: Counties’ websites may lack security against hackers | Associated Press

Many Kansas counties’websites may be at risk as they lack basic protocols that make it easier for hackers to impersonate websites in order to install malware or trick individuals into giving out their personal information. Out of 105 counties, only eight of them have websites ending in .gov, a domain extension only government officials can control, and 60 counties’ URLs start with “http” rather than the more secure “https.” Experts say it could be a serious concern for smaller governments during a time of increasing cyberattacks, KCUR-FM reported. Local governments have in recent years become frequent targets of ransomware attacks, where hackers hold data hostage in exchange for money.

Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh forum will look at threats to democracy in the internet age | Abigail Mihaly/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Leading expert in cybersecurity David Hickton is warning us that the internet could dismantle democracy. Mr. Hickton, founding Director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security and former United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, will discuss the issue in a lecture this week at the University of Pittsburgh. The “Can Democracy Survive the Internet?” lecture, hosted by the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy at Pitt, will ask the question: Is the internet a force for freedom or for oppression? When his children began instant messaging online, Mr. Hickton realized the internet was an open environment, without sufficient rules or security. “[The cyber world] is designed to make our lives better,” said Mr. Hickton. “But … it’s not coincidental that in some places around the world, digital space is being used to make people less free.”

Editorials: As Washington State’s chief elections officer, I don’t think electronic voting is worth the risk | Kim Wyman/The Seattle Times

The integrity of our elections and our democracy is under attack. Bad actors — both foreign and domestic — seek to damage election infrastructure, manipulate results and sow discourse. Washington has made critical strides in shoring up security for upcoming elections and beyond, but safeguarding our elections is a race without a finish line. With cybersecurity experts warning of the severe vulnerabilities with online or mobile voting, including electronic ballot return methods, I am recommending the Legislature act on a bill I requested to protect Washington voters from cyber intrusion. Currently, Washington allows military and civilian overseas voters to return their ballots by email or fax. Cybersecurity experts, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are imploring states to eliminate these glaring vulnerabilities. Heeding their warnings, I partnered with a bipartisan group of legislators to eliminate email and fax ballot return options for voters serving or living overseas.

Canada: Nova Scotia could see limited internet voting for military with proposed changes | Keith Doucette/The Canadian Press

Limited internet voting for the military and financial reimbursement for candidate expenses related to family care feature in a series of proposed changes to Nova Scotia’s Elections Act tabled Friday. Justice Minister Mark Furey said the changes would reduce barriers to running in elections and make voting easier for members of the military who are serving elsewhere in Canada or overseas. Under the changes, candidates would be reimbursed for extra expenses such as child and spousal care, elder care or care for a person with a disability. “Public service is foundational to our democracy, and my hope is that these changes will reduce barriers to running, especially for women who are primary care givers in so many elements of their family,” Furey said.

Dominican Republic: Government officials ask OAS to investigate e-vote failure | Martín José Adames Alcántara/Associated Press

Officials in the Dominican Republic announced Friday that they have asked the Organization of American States to investigate the failure of an electronic voting system some believe was tampered with in an incident that sparked protests and delayed municipal elections. Government officials said they also requested that the local Justice Department suspend its investigation to allow international organizations to take over. “We must find a way to lend credibility to any investigation that is carried out to determine what happened and if there was any malicious action,” said Flavio Darío Espinal, the president’s legal adviser. The software glitch had forced the Dominican Republic to suspend municipal elections on Sunday, with voting halted after three hours when 50% of polling places using electronic ballot machines reported problems.

National: Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump | Adam Goldman, Julian E. Barnes, Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Fandos/The New York Times

Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him. The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, the president berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump cited the presence in the briefing of Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who led the impeachment proceedings against him, as a particular irritant. During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that he had been tough on Russia and strengthened European security. Some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying that had the official who delivered the conclusion spoken less pointedly or left it out, they would have avoided angering the Republicans. Though intelligence officials have previously told lawmakers that Russia’s interference campaign was continuing, last week’s briefing did contain what appeared to be new information, including that Russia intended to interfere with the 2020 Democratic primaries as well as the general election.

National: Trump sacks intelligence director after congress is warned Russia wants to see him re-elected | Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey and Anne Gearan/The Washington Post

A senior US intelligence official told lawmakers last week that Russia wants to see president Donald Trump re-elected, viewing his administration as more favourable to the Kremlin’s interests, according to people who were briefed on the comments. After learning of that analysis, which was provided to House of Representatives lawmakers in a classified hearing, Mr Trump erupted at his acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, in the Oval Office, perceiving him and his staff as disloyal for speaking to congress about Russia’s perceived preference. The intelligence official’s analysis and Mr Trump’s furious response ruined Mr Maguire’s chances of becoming the permanent intelligence chief, according to people familiar with the matter, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. It was not clear what specific steps, if any, US intelligence officials think Russia may have taken to help Mr Trump, according to the individuals. Mr Trump announced on Wednesday that he was replacing Mr Maguire with a vocal loyalist, Richard Grenell, who is the US ambassador to Germany. The shake-up at the top of the intelligence community is the latest in a post-impeachment purge. Mr Trump has instructed aides to identify and remove officials across the government who aren’t defending his interests, and he wants them replaced with loyalists.

National: Disability rights groups say focus on election security hurting voter accessibility | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Disability rights advocates on Thursday urged election officials to focus on accessibility alongside security for U.S. elections and pushed for more technological solutions that would allow all Americans to cast secure votes. “For people with disabilities, our votes aren’t secure now,” Kelly Buckland, the executive director of the National Council for Independent Living, said at an election accessibility summit hosted by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) on Thursday. “I believe we could make them more secure through technology that is available today.” After Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections — which according to U.S. intelligence agencies and former special counsel Robert Mueller involved sweeping disinformation efforts on social media and targeting of vulnerabilities in voter registration systems — election security has become a major topic of debate on the national stage. Concerns around the use of technology in elections were also heightened this month following the use of a new vote tabulation app by the Iowa Democratic Party during the Iowa caucuses. The app malfunctioned due to a “coding issue,” leading to chaos around the final vote tally.  After these incidents, election security experts have advocated for using more paper ballots to ensure no individual or group can hack the votes, and to ensure no glitch can occur.  However, disability groups on Thursday noted that moving to just paper could make it difficult to vote for blind or visually impaired people, those who have difficulty leaving their homes, or those for whom English is not their first language.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Calls on Florida to Rely on Paper Ballots for Election Recounts – Not Ballot Images

Verified Voting urges the Florida legislature to amend HB 1005 and SB 1312 to require a public manual comparison audit to check that electronic election result tabulations agree with the voter-verified paper ballots to a reasonable scientific standard. Election security researchers agree that all electronic vote tabulations should routinely be manually checked against paper ballots.

A retabulation system can facilitate this verification: election officials can examine a relatively small random sample of the voted paper ballots to ensure that the system counted each ballot accurately. Given heightened public concern about security threats, it is important now more than ever to demonstrate – not just assert – that computerized systems performed correctly.

“For Florida recounts to give Floridians the faith in election results that they deserve, recount procedures must demonstrate, to a reasonable scientific standard, that the computers counted the paper ballots accurately,” said Dan McCrea, Florida Director of Verified Voting. “As members of the Florida legislature recognized in a public hearing – that paper is the best evidence – we urge the legislature to amend the bill to routinely check this evidence.”

Illinois: Citizen Group Questions QR Codes for Voting Audits | Mary Schuermann Kuhlman/Public News Service

Early voting for the March 17 primary is now under way for some Illinoisans, but a citizens group contends voters should wait until Election Day to cast a ballot. Chicago Board of Elections’ new Loop Super Site opened on Wednesday, and features new touch screen voting machines and ballot scanners. Dr. Lora Chamberlain is on the board of the group Clean Count Cook County, which maintains the ballot marking devices have significant flaws. “They print a QR code on the ballot and that’s what’s counted,” she explains. “Not the choices written out, but the QR code. “And there’s no smart app, there’s no machine, it’s proprietary. So the voters can never actually know what’s being counted off their ballot.” The machines print a paper record of the voter’s selections, but Chamberlain notes it doesn’t show races the voter might have missed on the ballot.

Illinois: Chicago gets new ‘giant iPad’-style electronic voting machines | Ella Lee/Chicago Sun-Times

New electronic voting machines were rolled out in Chicago this week — just in time for early voting for next month’s primary elections. The machines are touch-screen, like a “giant iPad” and capture an electronic scan of the voter’s ballot before printing, according to Jim Allen, Chicago Board of Election spokesman. “Even if those paper ballots were to be damaged, lost, destroyed or tampered with, you’d not only have the paper, but also the scanned images of all the ballots cast,” Allen said of the technological capabilities of the machines. There will be roughly 4500 new electronic machines in city-based precincts on March 17. Early voters started using the machines Wednesday at the Loop Super Site, at 191 N. Clark St. And when early voting expands to the rest of the precincts, the machines will be available at those locations as well. In addition to hiring cybersecurity expert and working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, the $22 million upgrade is another effort by the election board to improve security since Russian hackers tapped Illinois’ voter registration system in 2016.

Kentucky: Election Machinery Regularly Scanned by Foreign Hackers, Official Says | DH Kass/MSSP Alert

The state of Kentucky’s election systems are “routinely scanned” by foreign hackers, including North Korea, Russia and Venezuela, a senior election official told legislators in a state House budget subcommittee hearing. “This is not something that is in the past, that happened in 2016,” Jared Dearing, executive director of Kentucky’s Board of Elections told the subcommittee, according to the (Kentucky) Courier Journal. “It happens on a weekly basis.” A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official meets with the board every week to go over every scan against Kentucky’s system, he said. Cyber break-ins at the state election level are a growing concern for security defenders, with many states complaining rightfully that funding to fend off attacks is sorely lacking. “We’re asking county clerks with very, very limited resources, with not enough IT staff, to fully maintain their own systems,” Dearing said. “We’re asking them to participate in national security.” Late last year, some help arrived in the federal government’s fiscal 2020 budget agreement that includes $425 million in state election grants to improve cybersecurity. Increased awareness by state officials combined with supplemental financial support could present new opportunities for managed security service providers (MSSPs) and managed service providers (MSPs).

Michigan: GOP leader opposes bill to process surge of absentee ballots | David Eggert/Associated Press

A top Republican lawmaker on Wednesday came out in opposition to legislation that would ease Michigan election clerks’ ability to process an expected surge of absentee ballots and avoid a delay in releasing results, saying it would set a “dangerous precedent.” Local officials want legislators to let them start opening return envelopes for absentee ballots the day before Election Day. The actual ballots would still stay inside secrecy envelopes until counting on Election Day. As of Tuesday, the number of absentee ballot applications was at 703,400 for the March 10 presidential primary, up 70.5% from 412,425 at the same pointin 2016. The figures have jumped since voters approved a ballot initiative in 2018 that allows people to vote absentee for any reason, according to Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office. The number of returned ballots was at 245,874 three weeks before the primary, up 48% from 165,947 four years ago. While the bill was not expected to be approved in time for the primary, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey’s stance means the proposed change may not be enacted before the November presidential election in a key battleground presidential state.

Minnesota: Standoff looms over election security, provisional ballots | Brian Bakst/MPR News

The Republican-sponsored bill for a provisional ballot system is tied to a measure unlocking more federal funding to enhance election security. The Senate State Government Finance and Policy and Elections Committee advanced it Tuesday on a 6-3 party-line vote. The rules would apply to anyone who registers at the polls. Their ballots would be kept out of counts until additional eligibility and residency verification checks are done within a week of an election. Sen. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, said it’s an election-integrity safeguard. “Once the ballot is in the box, it’s like pouring two cups of water together — one has toxins in it and the other doesn’t. You can’t separate that water again,” he said. “The same thing goes here.” Democrats argued it would impose new voting obstacles — and could tie up legitimate votes — when there isn’t widespread evidence of ineligible people casting ballots. “If a person were to swear erroneously and after the fact be found out that it was a lie, they have a felony. They have a felony,” said Sen. Carolyn Laine, DFL-Columbia Heights. “This is not done light-heartedly. And as we know in the state of Minnesota it is rarely done and usually by mistake.”

Nevada: Caucus chaos again? Experts fear vote-counting problems in Nevada | Adam Edelman/NBC

A new early-voting system, high turnout and questions about a never-before-used digital tool being used to process results could threaten the success of the Nevada Democratic caucuses on Saturday, election experts told NBC News. “I don’t see how any technologist or any party official or any political scientist can promise that this will turn out OK,” said Mark Lindeman, the director of science and technology policy for Verified Voting, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that advocates for election accuracy and transparency. “There are too many tools and procedures that are being rolled out, some at the last minute,” he continued. “And my impression is that the people on the ground who are charged with implementing these procedures and using these tools are not confident they can do it.” Lindeman added, “I hope that it goes better than Iowa, but it is definitely at risk for similar reasons.”

Nevada: Will there be more presidential caucus chaos? ‘Nevada is just praying’ | Seema Mehta and Matt Pearce/Los Angeles Times

Dozens of Democratic volunteers scurried around Doña Maria Mexican Restaurant in polite pandemonium last week as they staged a mock caucus to prepare for the real thing on Saturday in Nevada. A dining area filled with cries of “Salma Hayek!” “Jennifer Lopez!” “Salma Hayek!” as the volunteers playfully grouped themselves by favorite celebrity rather than by favorite candidate to familiarize themselves with the state’s caucus process. That was the fun part. But when it came time to actually count votes — not a mere act of addition but a whole range of subtraction, multiplication and division to award delegates — the room fell quiet as participants stared at a whiteboard spreadsheet more than eight columns wide. The complexity of Nevada’s new rules, which now include adding absentee early voters to the mix, had set in. Democratic officials and campaigns in Nevada are desperately hoping to avoid another caucus meltdown like the one this month in Iowa, where campaigns devoted millions of dollars and deployed hundreds of volunteers in the hopes of emerging as clear winners, only to see the results delayed, misreported and still under challenge of recount. In recent weeks, the Nevada Democratic Party ditched a new app it had planned to use to report results and trained caucus volunteers on new procedures. Meanwhile, campaigns pressured party officials behind the scenes to release more information about how, exactly, the state planned to avoid a retread of the Iowa fiasco. “Everybody in Nevada is just praying and focused on not being Iowa,” said Tick Segerblom, a commissioner in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. “I think we’ve learned our lesson.”

Nevada: In Nevada, a last-minute scramble to make voting tech work | Reed Albergotti/The Washington Post

As early voting came to a close here Tuesday evening, a small group of caucus volunteers waited in the parking lot of a dimly lit strip mall to get a hands-on demonstration of the software they would use to tally votes during Saturday’s Democratic caucus. “This will not be like Iowa,” one of the volunteers said defiantly, referring to the caucus process in that state roiled by technological mishaps. She said she was determined to learn how the software worked and avert any embarrassing glitches. She asked not to be named for fear of upsetting party officials here. As Democratic presidential hopefuls campaign here, the role of technology has hung like a cloud over the process that will help determine the party’s nominee. Nevada’s place early on in the presidential nominating process is a point of pride in this fast-growing Western state. And everyone from volunteers to party officials to ordinary voters is hoping it doesn’t turn into an embarrassment. Nevada’s Democratic Party, which runs the caucus, had planned to use software developed by the same company behind Iowa’s botched caucus app. Nevada had less than three weeks to put a new system in place, a rush to the finish line that also contributed to Iowa’s problems.

North Carolina: New Mecklenburg voting equipment ready for Super Tuesday | Jordan Wilkie/Carolina Public Press

Elections are unpredictable. Election administration does not have to be. For example, the Bipartisan Policy Center and MIT have jointly conducted research on polling-place lines in the 2016 and 2018 elections. Their findings, which are consistent with other research, show that voters of color wait in line, on average, longer than white voters and that election jurisdictions using electronic voting machines had longer wait times than those using hand-marked paper ballots. The factors that cause long lines on election day – outside of unforeseeable problems like storms or power outages – are known weeks if not months in advance. Charles Stewart III is a professor at MIT and an expert on election administration. He has used the predictable nature of things like line length at a polling place to help counties prepare for elections. “If you know how long it takes to serve somebody, so, like how long it takes to check somebody in or how long it takes for somebody to vote, you can estimate the average wait time,” Stewart said. Rather than waiting for the election to see if there were long lines, Carolina Public Press investigated the distribution of voting equipment in Mecklenburg County to detect red flags ahead of primary election day on March 3.

Rhode Island: After Iowa fiasco, is Rhode Island’s voting tech ready for Primary Day? | John Krinjak/WLNE

Who knew a smartphone app could grind a caucus to a halt? Earlier this month in Iowa, it took days for Democratic officials to figure out who won. Here in Rhode Island, that fiasco is raising some eyebrows. “Any time there is a problem in an election in the United States, it’s troubling,” said Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea. With our primary coming up on April 28th, Gorbea wants to reassure concerned voters. “They might mistakenly believe that’s what’s happening in Iowa, could happen in Rhode Island, when it can’t. they have a completely different system. They have caucuses, we have primaries, and we are really well set up for our primary,” said Gorbea. She says Rhode Island is taking steps to make sure it all goes off without a hitch. “Every day until Primary Day and beyond, the state-whether it be the board of canvassers or at the state board of elections or in my office-we will all be working to make sure that that primary election happens smoothly,” said Gorbea.

Tennessee: Shelby County Commission scrambling to move millions to purchase new voting machines | Kendall Downing/WMC

Shelby County Commissioners said Wednesday they’re being forced to move money to fund new voting machines in time for this fall’s presidential election. The last-minute effort comes after the initial plan to pay for the machines through capital improvement funds hit a major roadblock. Last week, county attorney Marcy Ingram revealed a 50-year-old provision would require a county-wide referendum vote for county officials to be able to purchase new voting machines with capital improvement dollars. “It’s really critical we get the funding in place by this Monday that will not require a referendum,” said Mark Billingsley, Shelby County Commission Chairman. Billingsley said commissioners are exploring their funding options quickly. The leading thought at this time includes moving roughly $7.2 mllion from an emergency fund to pay for the new voting machines. It’s expected the state of Tennessee will reimburse $2.4 million. If commissioners wanted to buy the machines with capital improvement funds, as initially planned, they’d have to put the issue to voters.The referendum would delay the purchase date, likely missing November’s election.