National: Why a Data-Security Expert Fears U.S. Voting Will Be Hacked lexandra Wolfe/Wall Street Journal

In 2005, a concerned Florida election supervisor asked the Finnish data-security expert Harri Hursti to hack into one of the state’s commonly used voting machines to test its vulnerability. The verdict wasn’t reassuring. By modifying just a few lines of code on the machine’s memory card, Mr. Hursti says, he could change the results of a mock election. That same model, he adds, will be among those used in the 2020 elections. (A spokesperson for the machine’s vendor, Dominion Voting, says that these weaknesses were fixed in 2012, but Mr. Hursti says that he has tested the new version and found the updates insufficient.) Mr. Hursti has spent the past 15 years trying to draw attention to the weaknesses in America’s voting systems. Last month, he was featured in an HBO documentary called “Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections,” about far-reaching security breaches in multiple U.S. elections that he says have gone unfixed. He warns that both the American political establishment and the public are far too complacent. “Once you understand how everything works, you understand how fragile everything is and how easy it is to lose this all,” Mr. Hursti says in the film.

National: ‘We’ve got to get going.’ States under pressure to plan for the general election amid a pandemic | Daniel Bush/PBS

The presidential election in November is still more than six months away, but states are already under pressure to start making preparations for holding a general election during a public health crisis, including expanding vote-by-mail systems in time to handle a potential spike in absentee ballots this fall. The primaries have offered a preview of possible problems in November, with court battles over voting rights and public health concerns over in-person voting underscoring the challenges of carrying out an election amid the coronavirus pandemic. Many states delayed primaries scheduled for this spring, but there is no serious discussion about seeking a change in the federal law to allow for the Nov. 3 general election to be moved to a later date. Barring a major unforeseen turn of events, the widespread assumption is that the presidential contest will go forward as planned. But while the general election is more than half a year away, states considering any changes in November need to start preparing now in order to have contingency plans ready in time for the fall, according to interviews with Democratic and Republican Party leaders, current government officials, former state officials in charge of elections, and others.

Kentucky: State to allow mail-in ballots for every registered voter in June 23 primary | Ben Tobin and Phillip M. Bailey/Louisville Courier Journal

Kentucky is allowing all registered voters to mail in their ballots for the state’s rescheduled primary election June 23 — a major bipartisan agreement designed to avoid in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed the executive order Friday after reaching an agreement with Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams. It comes weeks after a messy fight in Wisconsin that forced voters to go to the polls, leading to at least 19 of them testing positive for COVID-19. Beshear and Adams have been in talks for weeks about the best way for Kentuckians to exercise their right to vote amid the outbreak. “While there will be significant education and work required, we are committed to making sure this election will be held in a safe manner while we are in this worldwide health pandemic,” Beshear said in a statement.

National: States rush to prepare for huge surge of mail voting | Zach Montellaro and Laura Barón-Lopez/Politico

A huge surge in voting by mail is coming whether states prepare for it or not — and without clear direction from the federal government, states are preparing to muscle through their own changes to get ready for the glut of mail ballots coming their way in November. Wisconsin’s conflict-ridden April 7 elections went off without the state government making any major policy changes to encourage absentee voting, but more than two-thirds of voters cast their votes via the mail anyway, many times higher than the 12 percent absentee voting rate in the spring 2016 election. The surge overwhelmed election officials, with some staff working 100 hour weeks to try to fill all the ballot requests and reports of the state’s system crashing under the intense workload. In the aftermath, election administrators in other states are moving quickly to avoid getting overwhelmed themselves. States that have already mastered massive vote-by-mail systems are serving as informal information clearinghouses for others, dispensing advice on everything from how to line up the best vendors for printing and distributing paper ballots to setting up drive-by or other drop-off points for voters who don’t want to rely on the U.S. Postal Service.

National: States’ election funding requests indicate numerous anticipated hurdles | Alisa Wiersema/ABC

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has already thrown the 2020 primary season into disarray, but now with just over six months until November, the aftershocks of the spread of COVID-19 threaten to rock the general election, leaving states grappling with a slew of underlying logistical hurdles embedded in the administration of the voting process. Filings submitted by states and territories to the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission as part of the CARES Act–a $2 trillion economic stimulus package President Donald Trump signed into law last month– indicate that election officials are already scrambling to address inevitable changes ahead, but given the decentralized nature of U.S. elections, each state seems to be angling at different solutions to mitigate voting amid the pandemic. The outlined tactics include a myriad of issues including tangible solutions — like using the funds to purchase cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment for poll workers — to more nuanced endeavors, like bolstering vote-by-mail efforts and absentee voting procedures. Some states even specify plans to dedicate a portion of their granted funds to run communications campaigns aimed at educating Americans about any newly-implemented changes to the voting process.

National: Joe Biden Steps Up Warnings of Possible Trump Disruption of 2020 Election | Katie Glueck/The New York Times

For months, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has argued that under pressure and political duress, President Trump may pursue increasingly extreme measures to stay in power. In November, Mr. Biden said he feared that “as the walls close in on him he becomes more erratic. And I’m genuinely concerned about what he may do in order to try to hold on to the office.” In January, Mr. Biden fretted: “He still has another nine or 10 months. God knows what can happen.” And on Thursday, he added some urgency to his warnings, suggesting that Mr. Trump might try to delay or otherwise disrupt the election. “Mark my words, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Mr. Biden said at a fund-raiser, according to a news media pool report. Mr. Trump, he suggested, is “trying to let the word out that he’s going to do all he can to make it very hard for people to vote. That’s the only way he thinks he can possibly win.” It was an extraordinary claim for the presumptive Democratic nominee to make about an opponent, especially for Mr. Biden, a former vice president and Washington veteran who prides himself on civility and respect for American institutions, including and especially the presidency.

Editorials: Why can’t we just vote online? Let us count the ways. { The Washington Post

Elections in the United States have been thrown into disarray by a pandemic that makes packing into polling places a risk the country cannot afford to take. Why, some are asking, isn’t voting over the Internet the smartest option in the modern age? Let us count the ways. The greatest threat to democracy on Election Day is hacking, and cybersecurity experts have long agreed that the intelligent response is to take as much cyber out of the security equation as possible. Pen-and-paper ballots let officials count hard copies and compare them with electronic tallies after the fact. Critical infrastructure that’s disconnected from the Web keeps systems further from adversaries’ reach. Putting voting online, of course, follows the precise opposite of this advice. An Internet election presents plenty of penetration points for an enemy to attack. Election officials must figure out how to ensure the security of individuals’ personal devices (many of which are already infected by some sort of malware) as well as how to keep remote adversaries away from a server that’s necessarily connected to the Web. Then there’s the trouble of guaranteeing voters are who they say they are. This task is easier for, say, the Estonian e-government, which issues ID smart cards with advanced authentication capabilities to every citizen — but researchers say even that nation’s vaunted I-voting system is all too vulnerable.

Editorials: We can’t have another Wisconsin. States should emulate Virginia and Maryland on voting. | The Washington Post

Wisconsin officials said Tuesday that 19 people who voted in person or worked at polling places during the state’s April 7 election have tested positive for covid-19. This is not proof that these people contracted the illness while waiting in line to vote or while handing out ballot papers. At the same time, there may be people who caught the disease while voting but have not been tested. Whatever the number, it is too many: People should not have to risk their life in order to exercise their right to vote. State Republicans refused to relax rules that forced many Wisconsinites to take that risk. The Election Day chaos that resulted shows what happens when many people fear infection at the polls, a circumstance that might well persist into November. But Wisconsin Republicans appear to have learned no lesson. “The only reason they [Democrats] would want to expand voting would be to create an opportunity for potential fraud or because they want to give themselves some kind of partisan advantage,” state Rep. Robin Vos (R), Wisconsin’s State Assembly speaker, told the New York Times. “The current situation is pretty fair to everybody.”

Editorials: The ‘voter fraud’ fraud | Steve Mulroy/The Hill

Many states have moved toward voting by mail for the 2020 elections due to pandemic concerns, leaving only seven states lacking this option for all voters. Members of Congress have called for national legislation for a vote-by-mail option for federal elections this year, which would cover the remaining states. President Trump and some other Republicans have resisted, arguing that mail voting risks election fraud. There’s little empirical evidence to back up this fraud claim, but there have been enough instances of absentee ballot fraud over the years to make it worth a look. Evidence for the pro-vote-by-mail side may come from an unlikely source: A database of fraud cases maintained by a conservative think tank that raises alarms over voter fraud and is decidedly not in the pro-mail ballot camp. Its data suggests that mail ballot related fraud is actually more common in states that restrict absentee voting than in other states. The Heritage Foundation is an established conservative think tank. It has long raised the alarm about the perceived dangers of voter fraud, most notably as a justification for strict voter photo identification laws for in-person voting. But they have also spoken out against mail-in voting, suggesting, among several complaints, that it raises an unacceptable risk of fraud.

Editorials: Trump’s Attacks on the Post Office Threaten Democracy | David H. Gans and Rebecca Damante/Constitutional Accountability Center

In the weeks since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit the United States, President Trump has waged war on one of our nation’s oldest institutions: the United States Postal Service (USPS). For example, earlier this month, the President threatened to veto a coronavirus relief package if it included emergency funding for USPS. And this is not the first time the President has attacked this important federal institution; he has also called the Post Office Amazon’s “Delivery Boy” and accused USPS of becoming “dumber and poorer.” Trump’s attacks come at a time when we need the Post Office most—our ability to hold elections in November and to fulfill our constitutional obligation to hold a national census depends on it. The Post Office has a long history dating back to the founding era.  It is one of a handful of institutions that is directly mentioned in the Constitution’s text.  Although our national charter left many details to be filled in, the Framers recognized that a postal system would be essential to unify the nation and encourage the spread of ideas across distant states.

Voting Blogs: Much ado about mail voting | Gavin Thompson Weise/U.S. Vote Foundation

The Wisconsin primary held earlier this month has shown us that in-person voting right now is impractical, if not downright dangerous. Mail voting, meanwhile, is offering an attractive solution to a very sticky problem – how to complete the 2020 primaries and general election without major health risks. Not surprisingly, academicians, voting advocates, and of course, politicians, have all jumped into the discourse. For voting rights advocates, it is an unprecedented moment to push forward an important agenda issue, an opportunity to expand enfranchisement and improve turnout. Opponents of mail voting have been quick to point out the risks of voter fraud, although with underwhelming evidence. Republican candidates, including President Trump, have expressed concerns about the GOP’s chances if the electorate votes predominantly by mail. But there is again little evidence to support such a claim. According to Richard Hasen, law professor at the University of California – Irvine and author of the Election Law Blog, Republicans and Democrats alike benefit from by mail voting “Republicans have long enjoyed the convenience of vote by mail”, says Hasen. “Heavily Republican Utah uses all mail elections and regularly elects Republican legislators. Voters across the political spectrum like the option of vote by mail.”

Georgia: Judge considers whether Georgia ballot postage cost is a poll tax | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge appeared skeptical Friday about ordering Georgia’s government to cover the postage cost of returning primary election ballots in a case arguing that it’s an unconstitutional poll tax. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg was deciding whether to revoke the requirement for voters to pay for a 55-cent stamp on their absentee ballots, which are already being mailed to voters and tell them to “place sufficient postage here” before returning them for the state’s June 9 primary.“How do you do this without confusing people? How do you do this without creating a disparity in the voting process if some people are given stamps now when other hadn’t?” Totenberg asked during a four-hour court hearing held online via a Zoom videoconference. “There’s a host of problems.”Totenberg didn’t immediately issue a ruling Friday in the lawsuit, which says voters shouldn’t have to pay to cast their ballots. The lawsuit by Black Voters Matter, a group founded in 2016 to increase African American voter registration and turnout, asks the judge to rule that the cost of voting by mail creates a barrier for those unwilling to risk buying stamps or voting in person during the coronavirus pandemic. “The point is that folks shouldn’t have to put themselves at risk,” Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said during the hearing. “Requiring this postage stamp creates a barrier to certain communities, low-income communities.”

Indiana: Counties preparing for mail-in voting surge as voters seek to stay home | Sara Barker and Steve Garbacz/KPC News

Standing in line close together then touching the same machine everyone else in your neighborhood has touched might not be the best way to vote during a pandemic. Now, county clerks and elections workers are preparing to hurdle obstacles that would make primary voting safe and accessible to everyone. Part of this is complying with an order handed down from the Indiana Secretary of State’s office, which is somewhat of a compromise between in-person and absentee voting. To come up with that voting plan, the Secretary of State’s office surveyed clerks of whether they’d like to see mailed ballots or in-person votes. Indiana Democrats had pushed for an entirely vote-by-mail primary due to coronavirus, but the state election commission didn’t choose to go that far.

Maryland: An election during a pandemic? There’s never been one like Tuesday’s Baltimore-area congressional contest | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Maryland’s first election since the coronavirus pandemic will not only fill a vacant Baltimore-area congressional seat but test how well voters — and the state — navigate a balloting-by-mail system that had to be hurriedly devised because of the health crisis. There has never been a Maryland election like Tuesday’s, in which voters will decide who will complete the remainder of the 7th Congressional District term of Democrat Elijah Cummings, who died in October. The health crisis has shelved campaign rallies and handshaking, limited in-person voting to three sites, and left election officials to dramatically expand a vote-by-mail operation previously used only for people who requested absentee ballots. “This is the first time Maryland has had a mail-in ballot, and who knows what that will do to participation,” said Matthew A. Crenson, a professor emeritus of political science at Johns Hopkins University. “People are home and there is a lot less to do. When people have time on their hands, do they spend it on politics or Super Bounce Out?” Crenson said, referring to the popular video game.

New York: Cuomo orders postage-paid absentee ballot applications to be sent to all New York voters | Max Greenwood/The Hill

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) issued an executive order Friday requiring state election officials to send postage-paid absentee ballot applications to all voters amid the coronavirus pandemic. “I am issuing an Executive Order to ensure every New York voter automatically receives a postage-paid application for an absentee ballot because no New Yorker should have to choose between their health and their right to vote,” Cuomo said in a statement. New York is one of more than a dozen states that requires its residents to provide an excuse to receive an absentee ballot. That changed earlier this month when Cuomo signed an executive order allowing all New Yorkers to vote absentee in the state’s June 23 primary election.  Voters will still have to request an absentee ballot ahead of the primary, but Cuomo’s executive order on Friday effectively makes that process free, taking away the need for voters to pay for postage when they return their applications for an absentee ballot.

Ohio: Five states vote only by mail; should Ohio? | Laura A. Bischoff/Dayton Daily News

The coronavirus pandemic already led Ohio officials to abruptly shut down in-person voting just hours before hundreds of thousands of voters were about to cast primary ballots March 17. Could another surge of COVID- 19 cases in the fall disrupt the general election in November? Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said he’ll deliver a list of contingency options to lawmakers and the governor to consider in case the state needs to conduct a vote-by-mail election in November. LaRose said Ohio would need to have decisions on those options by late August. LaRose said he’ll again advocate for a legal change to allow absentee ballot requests be made online — rather than by mail — and a system to automatically send absentee ballot applications to all voters, provide for pre-paid postage, increase staffing at county boards of elections and reduce the total number of polling places.

Ohio: ‘More time would have been helpful’: Ohio election officials face ballot issues due to postal service delays | Meg Cunningham/ABC

Ohio, the first state to cancel its in-person voting in favor of an entirely mail-in election, has hit some hiccups as the state tries to transition voting procedures amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, the state’s chief election official, wrote in a letter to Ohio’s Congressional delegation that due to delays with the United States Postal Service, some voters likely will not receive their requested absentee ballots in time for the Tuesday night deadline to return them. “As we approach the April 28th deadline to complete the election, we are faced with an obstacle that is outside of our control, and we need your help to overcome it. As Ohioans rush to submit their vote-by-mail requests, and our boards work overtime to fulfill them, we are finding that the delivery of the mail is taking far longer than what is published by the United States Postal Service (USPS) as expected delivery times,” LaRose wrote in his letter. “As you can imagine, these delays mean it is very possible that many Ohioans who have requested a ballot may not receive it in time,” he continued.

Wyoming: Could Wyoming expand its vote-by-mail program this year? | Nick Reynolds/Stae Tribune

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed people’s daily lives, upending how we make trips to the grocery store, how we worship and a plethora of other rituals. So it is with our elections. Over a month ago, the Wyoming Democratic Party announced it would be suspending the in-person portion of its presidential caucus, citing public safety concerns tied to the virus. Almost immediately, the decision sparked controversy among some members, who feared their ballots could arrive late, or not at all. When the votes were finally counted last weekend, however, not only did it turn out that the party could successfully conduct a ballot entirely by mail, but that it could achieve record turnout in the process, reporting a 38 percent participation rate: roughly double that seen in prior caucuses. Nearly all of it was done by mail. And all of it was orchestrated by a staff of three people with the help of a handful of volunteers scattered throughout the state.