The special House committee hearings investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — which begin Thursday night in prime time — may serve multiple purposes: They could reveal more evidence that could be used to file criminal charges for attempted election subversion against some of former president Donald Trump’s lawyers, against people who tried to manipulate the count of electoral college votes and potentially against Trump himself. They could provide the most comprehensive account yet of the unprecedented attempt by Trump and his allies to disrupt the peaceful transition of power after the 2020 election — a gift to future historians. But the most important thing the hearings can do — given that, if someone tries to steal the next election, they won’t do it precisely the way Trump and his allies tried in 2020 — is to shift our gaze forward: They can highlight continuing vulnerabilities in our electoral system and propose ways to fix them, before it is too late. The hearings also represent the best chance to galvanize public support to address these weak points, which is important, because the window for passing such legislation is closing; if Republicans retake the House in November, they will never put forth bills that imply the country needs protection from Trump, their kingmaker. If these hearings don’t spur action by this summer or fall, expect Congress to do nothing before the 2024 elections, at which point American democracy will be in great danger. Any attempt to subvert the next presidential election is likely to be far more efficient and ruthlessly targeted than the last effort. It will be focused on holes and ambiguities in the arcane rules for counting electoral college votes set forth in the Constitution and in a poorly written 1887 law, the Electoral Count Act.
Nevada: Tech glitches delayed voting results in Washoe County primary | Mark Robison/Reno Gazette Journal
Washoe County tested its voting results dashboard back in May, but on the night of Nevada's primary election, things didn’t go smoothly – so it has revised testing protocols to keep reporting delays from happening again. On Tuesday, there wasn’t a problem counting votes. Washoe County had the ballot data, but it couldn't get it onto its website’s dashboard where the public, candidates and journalists could see the data. If you were at the Washoe County complex on Ninth Street, results were printed on paper. RGJ staff took photos of those printouts and shared them on its internal communication app in order to report numbers as soon as possible. The situation got so desperate that Washoe County’s communications manager Bethany Drysdale resorted to tweeting out a PDF of election results. “Actually things went really, really well, which is why it was so disappointing, because posting results was the only issue,” Drysdale told the RGJ by phone when asked about technical issues. “Tabulating, scanning of the votes – all that went great.” Early on election night, the field for some candidate names such as George “Eddie” Lorton were blank, although their vote totals were visible. It turns out quotation marks caused the feed to break.
Full Article: Tech glitches delayed voting results in Washoe County primaryNew Mexico secretary of state sues county commission over refusal to certify primary results | Fredreka Schouten/CNN
New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order a three-member county commission to certify the results of the June 7 primary elections in Otero County -- after commission members refused to do so this week, citing concerns about Dominion vote-counting machines. The action by the Otero County Commission is one of the first examples of a county blocking the certification of results in the 2022 election cycle, and Oliver, a Democrat, warned of the potential for similar moves in other New Mexico communities. In a statement, Oliver said the Otero County Commissioners were "appeasing unfounded conspiracy theories and potentially nullifying the votes of every Otero County voter who participated in the primary" with their action. On Monday, the commissioners -- meeting as a county canvassing board -- declined to certify the results after repeatedly raising questions about the vote-tallying process. "I have huge concerns with these voting machines," one commissioner, Vickie Marquardt, said during the meeting. "I really do. I just don't think in my heart that they can't be manipulated." "I do not trust these machines," she added. "I want Otero County to have a fair election for everybody." Dominion machines have been the subject of conspiracy theories since the 2020 election from people who subscribe to former President Donald Trump's falsehoods about election fraud. The company has filed several defamation lawsuits.
New Mexico: Otero County declines to certify primary election results | Nicole Maxwell/Alamogordo Daily News
The Otero County Commission did not approve the 2022 Primary election canvass at its special meeting Monday, June 13. The decision came after discussions at this and other Otero County Commission meetings where it was established that the Commission does not trust the accuracy of the Dominion Voting Machines. "I do not trust these machines and I want Otero County to have a fair election for everybody," Otero County Commission Chairwoman Vickie Marquardt said. New Mexico Secretary of State spokesman Alex Curtas said that the Otero County Commission did not follow any current legal protocols. "We are evaluating our next steps on the Otero commission’s vote today regarding the hand counting of ballots, but there is no current legal protocol for such measures outside the post-election audit," Curtas said. "Again, that vote by the commission was not following any legal election protocols is not based on any issue identified in the 2022 Primary Election Results specifically."
Full Article: Otero County declines to certify New Mexico primary election resultsNew York: Lobbyists killed a bill to protect elections with an assist from the NAACP | Sam Mellins/Albany Times Union
New York’s elections could soon be at risk of getting hacked. That’s because the state Board of Elections may soon approve certain voting machines that experts say are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks. A bill that would have banned those machines passed the state Senate last month, but it died in the state Assembly after the elections committee chair refused to let it come to a vote. After passing the Senate on May 31, the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, D-Brooklyn, and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Westchester, seemed like a solid bet for passage in the Assembly, since it was sponsored by nearly half of the Assembly’s Democrats, as well as several Republicans. But it never got a vote. It was blocked by a team of opponents, including Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, D-Brooklyn, who chairs the chamber’s Election Law Committee, lobbyists for the voting machine company Election Systems & Software, and—perhaps unexpectedly—the New York State chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, which used language taken directly from a lobbyist’s memo to successfully pressure key lawmakers to kill it. ... Election Systems & Software, the voting machine company that lobbied against the bill, is currently seeking state approval for the ExpressVote XL, a ballot-marking machine it manufactures. The machine encodes voters’ choices in barcodes, rather than the traditional filled-in bubbles next to the candidates’ names. Since humans can’t read barcodes, it’s impossible for voters to check whether their selections have been correctly recorded once the machine prints their ballot. The voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems is also seeking state approval for the ImageCast X voting machine, which functions very similarly to the ExpressVote XL. Full Article: Lobbyists killed a bill to protect elections with an assist from the NAACPOregon secretary of state orders extensive post-election audit in Clackamas County | Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle
Clackamas County must perform a more extensive post-election audit than other counties because of its ballot-printing issues, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan ordered Friday. After every election, the secretary of state directs each county to hand-count votes in at least two races on randomly selected batches of ballots to compare with machine-tabulated results. Fagan on Friday said Clackamas County must do more to rebuild trust with voters after a printing issue that delayed results and constantly changing statements from County Clerk Sherry Hall, who oversees elections. “My mission as Oregon’s secretary of state is to build trust,” Fagan said. “But let’s face it, weeks of negative headlines eroded Oregonians’ trust in elections. Even though processing the votes in Clackamas County was slow, it is now my responsibility to confirm that it was done correctly so voters can trust the election results.” Two weeks before the May 17 election, and after ballots had already been sent out, Hall learned that a portion of the county’s ballots had been printed with defective barcodes. That printing error didn’t affect any of the contests on a ballot, but it meant tabulation machines couldn’t detect which races were on a specific ballot. Fixing it meant county election workers, working in teams of two, needed to hand-copy each defective ballot onto a new ballot with a usable barcode. That takes about three minutes per ballot, with one member of the team reading off votes, the second filling out a new ballot and then switching roles to ensure the two ballots match. Full Article: Oregon secretary of state orders extensive post-election audit in Clackamas County – Oregon Capital ChronicleWisconsin Election Investigator Fined $2K Daily for Contempt | Scott Bauer/Associated Press
A judge on Wednesday issued a scathing ruling against the investigator hired by Republicans to look into the 2020 election in Wisconsin, accusing him of unprofessional and misogynistic conduct, forwarding his decision for possible disciplinary action against Michael Gableman. Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington ordered that Gableman be fined $2,000 a day until he complies with his earlier ruling. He also determined that Gableman violated his oath as an attorney following his “disruptive and disrespectful” appearance in court last week. At that hearing, Remington found a defiant Gableman to be in contempt after he refused to answer questions under subpoena in the courtroom. His attorneys tried unsuccessfully to block the subpoena. “Wisconsin demands more from its attorneys,” Remginton wrote. “Gableman’s demeaning conduct has discredited the profession and every other person sworn ’to commit themselves to live by the constitutional processes of our system.” The order comes in an open records lawsuit filed by liberal government watchdog group American Oversight. It is one of three open records lawsuits the group filed against Gableman, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and the state Assembly. The group has won a series of victories before Remington and another Dane County judge after Gableman and Vos failed to produce the requested records in a timely manner.
Full Article: Wisconsin Election Investigator Fined $2K Daily for Contempt | Political News | US News
New Mexico county wants to halt use of vote-count machines | Morgan Lee/Associated Press
A Republican-led county commission in southern New Mexico is seeking to change the way ballots are collected and counted in the run-up to November’s mid-term election. Otero County’s three-member commission includes Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin, who ascribes to unsubstantiated theories that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Griffin was convicted of illegally entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds — though not the building — amid the riots on Jan. 6, 2021. The commission voted unanimously Thursday to recount ballots from this week’s statewide primary election by hand, remove state-mandated ballot drop boxes that facilitate absentee voting and discontinue the use of vote tabulation machines in the general election. The initiatives were proposed by Griffin and drew support from an advocacy group for “forensic” election reviews that has combed through Otero County election records and canvassed local addresses for registered voters in search of discrepancies in the 2020 election. New Mexico uses paper ballots that can be double-checked later in all elections, and also relies on tabulation machines to rapidly tally votes while minimizing human error. Tabulation equipment is subject to precertification and election results are audited by random samplings to verify levels of accuracy.
Full Article: New Mexico county wants to halt use of vote-count machines | AP NewsDo Ballot Barcodes Threaten Election Security? | William T. Adler/Center for Democracy and Technology
Bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have been repeatedly debunked. But that hasn’t stopped election conspiracy theorists from attempting to gain influence in election administration, either as low level poll workers or as top state election officials. The infiltration of election deniers into positions of power in administering elections poses a grave danger to American democracy: the possibility that an insider will manipulate election systems in order to bring about a desired election outcome. This elevated insider threat makes it more important than ever that our voting systems are resilient to attack and manipulation. Many 2020 conspiracy theories concerned the voting systems in Georgia, where President Trump focused intensely on discrediting the results. That year, Georgia used ballot marking devices (BMDs) for the first time, for all in-person voters. BMDs are touch screen computers that print out a paper ballot—a major improvement over the paperless machines Georgia had previously been using. Now, voters could physically inspect the record of their vote, rather than be forced to trust the machines to record the votes accurately. BMDs are widely used in U.S. elections and offer several benefits over hand-marked paper ballots (HMPBs). For instance, because they have a variety of user interface options, BMDs enable voters with visual or motor disabilities to vote independently and privately when they might otherwise be unable to do so with a HMPB. But all computerized systems are susceptible to attack. Therefore, the use of BMDs—particularly by large numbers of voters who do not require them for accessibility reasons—has been criticized as posing a serious security threat to elections. The balance between these benefits and risks should be carefully considered. Full Article: Do Ballot Barcodes Threaten Election Security? - Center for Democracy and TechnologyActivists say cyber agency weakens voting tech advisory | Kate Brumback/Associated Press
The nation’s leading cybersecurity agency released a final version Friday of an advisory it previously sent state officials on voting machine vulnerabilities in Georgia and other states that voting integrity activists say weakens a security recommendation on using barcodes to tally votes. The advisory put out by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, has to do with vulnerabilities identified in Dominion Voting Systems’ ImageCast X touchscreen voting machines, which produce a paper ballot or record votes electronically. The agency said that although the vulnerabilities should be quickly mitigated, the agency “has no evidence that these vulnerabilities have been exploited in any elections.” Dominion’s systems have been unjustifiably attacked since the 2020 election by people who embraced the false belief that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. The company has filed defamation lawsuits in response to incorrect and outrageous claims made by high-profile Trump allies. The advisory CISA released Friday is based on a report generated by University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, an expert witness in a long-running lawsuit that is unrelated to false allegations stemming from the 2020 election. The machines are used by at least some voters in 16 states, according to a voting equipment tracker maintained by watchdog Verified Voting. In most of those places, they are used only for people who can’t physically fill out a paper ballot by hand. But in some places, including Georgia, almost all in-person voting is done on the affected machines.
Source: Activists say cyber agency weakens voting tech advisory | AP NewsNational: The GOP drive to install thousands of poll workers sets off alarms | Fredreka Schouten and Kelly Mena/CNN
State and local election officials in Michigan and other political battlegrounds are gearing up to deal with a new element in this year's elections: a large influx of Republicans seeking to become poll workers, recruited by the Republican National Committee and other conservative organizations to play an active role in administering the midterm elections. The development -- and a recent story in Politico detailing GOP recruitment sessions and how some of these would-be poll workers cling to debunked claims about fraud in the 2020 election -- have raised alarms that Republican election deniers could infiltrate official election operations and undermine the process.
The surge in interest also comes against the backdrop of efforts by former President Donald Trump's allies, such as Steve Bannon, to carry out what he calls a "precinct committee strategy," with the goal of installing Trump loyalists in local Republican Party positions and election posts. "It is jarring to know that there is a political party, or a cohort of a political party, that is feeding folks misinformation and will use that as motivation to potentially interfere with our elections and with citizens' right to vote," Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, told Fredreka in a recent interview. Benson, who said she has been following the uptick in GOP poll worker applications for weeks as part of her regular discussions with local election officials, met Monday with the state attorney general's office, the Michigan State Police and local officials to discuss, among other topics, how to protect against election interference, her aides said.
Full Article: The GOP drive to install thousands of poll workers sets off alarms - CNNPolitics
National: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections | Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times
Key figures in the effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election have thrown their weight behind a slate of Republican candidates for secretary of state across the country, injecting specious theories about voting machines, foreign hacking and voter fraud into campaigns that will determine who controls elections in several battleground states. The America First slate comprises more than a dozen candidates who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. It grew out of meetings held by a conspiracy-mongering QAnon leader and a Nevada politician, and has quietly gained support from influential people in the election denier movement — including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, and Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com executive who has financed public forums that promote the candidates and theories about election vulnerabilities. Members of the slate have won party endorsements or are competitive candidates for the Republican nomination in several states, including three — Michigan, Arizona and Nevada — where a relatively small number of ballots have decided presidential victories. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the secretary of state, State Senator Doug Mastriano, who is aligned with the group, easily won his primary for governor last month. The candidates cast their races as a fight for the future of democracy, the best chance to reform a broken voting system — and to win elections.
Full Article: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections - The New York TimesNational: Trump allies explored using armed workers to seize vote data | Sarah D. Wire/Los Angeles Times
Supporters on the fringes of former President Trump’s circle explored seeking sweeping authority after the 2020 election to enlist armed private contractors to seize and inspect voting machines and election data with the assistance of U.S. marshals, according to a draft letter asking the president to grant them permission. The previously undisclosed “authorizing letter” and accompanying emails were sent on Nov. 21, 2020, from a person involved in efforts to find evidence of fraud in the election that year. The documents, which were reviewed by The Times, are believed to be among those in the possession of the House Jan. 6 committee, which is scheduled to begin public hearings Thursday. The letter appears to be one of the earliest iterations of a draft executive order presented to the then-president in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, by then- Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, former national security advisor Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com Chief Executive Patrick Byrne in an effort to take control of voting machines. The email and attached draft letter were sent to Cyber Ninjas Chief Executive Doug Logan and cybersecurity expert Jim Penrose by Andrew Whitney, a British technology entrepreneur who made his way inside Trump’s circle in 2020 after he sought the president’s support for Oleandrin, a toxic botanical extract Whitney claimed was a miracle cure for COVID-19. Logan, who went on to conduct a partisan “audit” of election results in Maricopa County, Ariz., and Penrose worked for weeks after the 2020 election with a group including Powell, Flynn and Byrne that sought access to voting machines in an attempt to find proof of election fraud. Full Article: Trump allies explored using armed workers to seize vote data - Los Angeles TimesNational: The Supreme Court may take territories off the map of the US | Stephen Kinzer/The Boston Globe
May the United States rule foreign territories without granting their inhabitants constitutional rights? Yes, according to landmark Supreme Court decisions in the “Insular Cases” more than a century ago. Without those decisions, our overseas territorial empire could not have existed. Suddenly that decision is under fierce attack from within the Court itself. The fate of America’s five populated colonies — Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands — may hang in the balance. In April the Supreme Court decided what seemed to be an abstruse case about federal benefits owed to Puerto Ricans. But Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion began with a startling passage. He asserted that the United States has no business deciding anything for Puerto Rico because our ownership of that island — and by extension other US colonies — is unconstitutional. “A century ago in the Insular Cases, this Court held that the federal government could rule Puerto Rico and other territories largely without regard to the Constitution,” Gorsuch wrote. “It is past time to acknowledge the gravity of this error and admit what we know to be true: the Insular Cases have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes. They deserve no place in our law. . . . And I hope the day comes soon when the Court squarely overrules them.”
Full Article: The Supreme Court may take territories off the map of the US - The Boston GlobeAlaska commission asks court to stop certification of U.S. House primary election, alleging failure to accommodate visually impaired voters | Iris Samuels/Anchorage Daily News
The Alaska State Commission for Human Rights is suing the lieutenant governor and the Division of Elections over what it says is a lack of sufficient accommodations for visually impaired voters in the U.S. House primary race — the state’s first all-mail election. In a complaint filed Wednesday in state Superior Court in Anchorage, plaintiff Robert Corbisier, executive director of the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights, alleges that the ballots that were mailed to every registered voter in the state for the special primary election “do not provide an opportunity to visually impaired voters to vote privately, secretly and independently.” The lawsuit names Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer — who oversees elections in Alaska — and Division of Elections director Gail Fenumiai as defendants. Meyer’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit. The Division of Elections deferred comment to the Department of Law. With only three days to go until the Saturday voting deadline, the commission is asking for the certification of election results to be delayed until “visually impaired Alaska voters are given full and fair opportunity” to vote. On Wednesday, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Una Gandbhir granted a motion for expedited consideration of the request. A hearing hadn’t been scheduled as of late Wednesday, according to online court system records.
Full Article: Alaska commission asks court to stop certification of U.S. House primary election, alleging failure to accommodate visually impaired votersArizona: Lawsuit vs. voting machines factually flawed, Maricopa County claims | Howard Fischer/Arizona Daily Star
A lawsuit by two Republican candidates seeking to require a hand count of the 2022 election is both legally and factually flawed, a lawyer for Maricopa County is telling a federal judge. Candidates Kari Lake, running for governor, and Mark Finchem, running for secretary of state, claim counting machines are unreliable because they are subject to fraud and hacking. Those claims are based on mere allegations from states like Georgia, Wisconsin and Colorado “but not Arizona or Maricopa County,” said Emily Craiger, lawyer for Arizona’s most populous county, in a new 21-page legal filing. She told Judge John Tuchi that allegations machines are vulnerable because of “foreign manufacturing of components by hostile nations’’ are so generic as to not even merit his consideration. Craiger also pointed out that Arizona law requires various checks of counting equipment both before and after each election. There’s also a random hand count of selected races in at least 2% of the precincts to compare the tally made by volunteers from both major parties with what the machine recorded. She also told Tuchi a hand count of all ballots — nearly 2.1 million in Maricopa County alone — would be impossible. It took the firm hired by the Senate to audit the 2020 election more than three months, she pointed out, and that count was only of the presidential and U.S. senate races. “But ballots in Maricopa County seldom have fewer than 10 races in a primary,’’ Craiger said. “A general election, which includes judicial retention races, can have 60 to 70 races to count.’’
Full Article: Lawsuit vs. voting machines factually flawed, Maricopa County claims | Arizona and Regional News | tucson.com
Arizona early voting upheld by judge, rejecting GOP attempt to end it | Mary Jo Pitzl/Arizona Republic
There's nothing unconstitutional about Arizona's early voting law, a Mohave County judge determined Monday. The ruling, knocking down a lawsuit from the Republican Party of Arizona, is a win for the state's election officials and Arizona voters who use the early-voting system, a vast majority of the electorate. And it's another setback for the state party, which has argued the practice violates the Arizona Constitution's requirement for ballot secrecy. Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen boiled down the essence of the case in his four-page ruling to this: "Is the Arizona Legislature prohibited by the Arizona Constitution from enacting voting laws that include no-excuse mail-in voting? The answer is no." He noted that the no-excuses mail-in voting that lawmakers approved in 1991 provides protections for secrecy. For example, the ballot return envelopes are designed in a way to ensure the voter's choices are not visible. In addition, the envelopes are "tamper evident" so election workers can notice if someone has tried to open the ballot envelope. Jantzen denied the Republican Party's case as well as its request for a preliminary injunction that would have blocked almost all early voting for the Nov. 8 general election. That would have required millions of Arizona voters to obtain their ballot at the polls and cast it there.
Full Article: Arizona early voting upheld by judge, rejecting GOP attempt to end itGeorgia Republican candidates call for recount in Chatham County, statewide after Dekalb County recount | Will Peebles/Savannah Morning News
A trio of Savannah Republicans who lost their primary election races on May 24 are seeking a recount. Chatham Elections Supervisor Billy Wooten says he won't be asking the secretary of state for one. Chatham Board of Elections candidates Robin Greco and Jennifer Salandi have joined fellow Savannahian Jeanne Seaver, who ran for lieutenant governor, in her call for a recount. The push follows a recount in Dekalb County prompted by voting equipment issues. Chatham did not have the same scope of issues seen in Dekalb. Seaver, who finished last in the lieutenant governor primary with 7.5% of the vote, has formally petitioned Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for a statewide recount. Contacted Friday, Seaver said that if there were discrepancies in Dekalb, the Secretary of State's office has an obligation to investigate whether there were similar issues with the Dominion voting system machines statewide. It's not about her winning or losing, she said. "It's all about the right thing to do. They did it in one county because someone requested it. What about the 158 other counties?" Seaver said.
Full Article: GA Republicans question Dominion voting machines, call for recount
Georgia Candidate Who Appeared to Get Few Votes Was Actually in 1st Place | Neil Vigdor/The New York Times
A candidate for a county office near Atlanta was vaulted into first place after a series of technical errors made it appear that she had not mustered a single Election Day vote in a vast majority of precincts in last month’s Democratic primary, election officials determined. The candidate, Michelle Long Spears, was shortchanged by 3,792 votes in the District 2 primary for the Board of Commissioners in DeKalb County, Ga., that was held on May 24, according to newly-certified results released on Friday. In all but four of the district’s nearly 40 precincts, no Election Day votes were recorded for Ms. Spears, who had received more than 2,000 early votes. She said that she immediately alerted state and county election authorities. “When I visited several precincts (including my own) after Election Day and saw ZERO votes reported for myself, I was shocked and knew that wasn’t accurate,” Ms. Spears said in a text message. After conducting a hand count over the Memorial Day weekend and auditing those returns, election officials determined that they had drastically underreported the vote totals for Ms. Spears.
Michigan lawmaker offered ‘forensic audit’ in bid to access voting machines | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News
A Michigan lawmaker who attempted to get an unidentified group of people access to voting machines in the battleground state told one clerk the team was hoping to perform a "forensic audit," according to an email obtained by The Detroit News. The message, which was sent by Markey Township Clerk Sheryl Tussey to other officials in northern Michigan's Roscommon County, reveals the individuals who were looking to obtain voting equipment were using the same terminology that supporters of former President Donald Trump were wielding in their push to advance unproven claims of fraud in the November 2020 election. "I did hear from someone who wanted to do a 'forensic audit,'" Tussey wrote in an email on May 5, 2021. "Rep. Daire Rendon contacted me a while back and asked if some people could come up and get my machine for that reason, and I said no that I wasn't comfortable with that." Tussey's email — which was sent to 18 recipients, including other local clerks — sheds new light on Rendon's requests to multiple clerks in her district to get access to vote-counting machines. The News first reported May 20 on Rendon's entanglement in an investigation by Michigan State Police and Attorney General Dana Nessel's office into unauthorized access to vote-counting tabulator machines after the 2020 election. Full Article: Michigan lawmaker offered 'forensic audit' in bid to access voting machinesMichigan widens probe into voting system breaches by Trump allies | Nathan Layne and Peter Eisler/Reuters
State police in Michigan have obtained warrants to seize voting equipment and election-related records in at least three towns and one county in the past six weeks, police records show, widening the largest known investigation into unauthorized attempts by allies of former President Donald Trump to access voting systems. The previously unreported records include search warrants and investigators' memos obtained by Reuters through public records requests. The documents reveal a flurry of efforts by state authorities to secure voting machines, poll books, data-storage devices and phone records as evidence in a probe launched in mid-February. The state’s investigation follows breaches of local election systems in Michigan by Republican officials and pro-Trump activists trying to prove his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. The police documents reveal, among other things, that the state is investigating a potential breach of voting equipment in Lake Township, a small, largely conservative community in northern Michigan's Missaukee County. The previously unreported case is one of at least 17 incidents nationwide, including 11 in Michigan, in which Trump supporters gained or attempted to gain unauthorized access to voting equipment.
Full Article: Exclusive: Michigan widens probe into voting system breaches by Trump allies | ReutersMichigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley arrested on Jan. 6 riot-related charges | Robert Snell, Craig Mauger and Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News
FBI agents arrested Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley on Thursday on misdemeanor charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, injecting a new round of turmoil into Michigan's upcoming primary election. Kelley, 40, became one of the highest-profile individuals nationally to face charges so far in federal authorities' ongoing investigation. Federal court records describe Kelley as being an active participant in the riot, climbing onto portions of the Capitol, encouraging yelling, gesturing to participants and removing a covering from a temporary structure outside the Capitol. Kelley declined to answer reporters' questions after he was released on bond Thursday afternoon following a brief hearing in federal court in Grand Rapids. He was greeted by a crowd of his supporters outside the federal courthouse, including GOP attorney general candidate Matt DePerno. "We love you, Ryan," said one of Kelley's backers at the end of his initial hearing in a courtroom. Prosecutors filed four charges against Kelley. They are knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building; disorderly and disruptive conduct; knowingly engaging in any act of physical violence against person or property in a restricted building or grounds; willfully injuring or committing depredation against property of the U.S. If convicted, Kelley faces a maximum punishment of up to one year in federal prison and a fine of up to $100,000 for each charge. He was freed on a personal recognizance bond. His next hearing will take place over Zoom on June 16.
Full Article: Ryan Kelley, Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate, arrested on Jan. 6 riot-related chargesMontana: Here’s why the primary ballots in Lincoln County are being counted by hand | Kiana Wilson/KPAX
Lincoln County has had to resort to hand counting all the ballots for the primary election because the ballots were cut too short and will not work in the automatic counting machines. This will delay the election results. “This is a very, very tedious, monotonous process. It takes a lot of you know, concentration and focus. And I don't you know, I would rather take it slow and steady and be accurate 100% of the time rather than trying to push it and stretch it out until six o'clock in the morning and end up with shoddy results,” Lincoln County Elections Administrator Paula Buff said Wednesday. The whole ballot snafu began when the ballots arrived a week late from the Couer D’Alene Printing Press, without a test deck. After retrieving the test deck, Buff cuts the test deck to the required 14” to run in the machine. But when the absentee ballots arrived, they were a ¼" too short and would not run through the machines. After many tests and possible solutions, Buff and members from the Montana Secretary of State’s office decided that the best course of action would be to hand count all of the ballots. Despite the complications, election officials say it comes down to the community. "I kind of send out the Bat Signal at the last minute and, 'hey, who wants to count?' and you know, I mean, most of our, you know, election judges are elderly, but, you know, they have some serious stamina and staying power,” Buff said. “And, you know, some of them have more energy than me, I think." Full Article: Here's why the primary ballots in Lincoln Co. are being counted by handMontana: Wrong-sized ballots delay results in US House race | Amy Beth Hanson/Associated Press
Ballot printing errors have delayed election results for Montana’s new congressional seat, forcing a small northwestern county to count votes by hand in the unexpectedly close Republican primary race between former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and former state Sen. Al “Doc” Olszewski. Zinke led Olszewski by 1,181 votes, or 1.5 percentage points, out of 80,194 votes counted, as of 3:30 p.m. local time Wednesday. Lincoln County had an estimated 6,000 ballots to hand count. Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, was considered the favorite in the race and had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. “The race appears to answer the question of whether President Trump is a ‘kingmaker,’ as Zinke has previously said,” said Christina Barsky, a University of Montana professor who teaches classes in election administration, government and public budgeting. The trouble in Lincoln County stemmed from a vendor printing the ballots on the wrong-sized paper, meaning they could not be run through a machine tabulator, the secretary of state’s office said Wednesday. By law, ballots have to either all be counted by machine or all counted by hand, spokesperson Richie Melby said. Lincoln County Clerk and Recorder Robin Benson said in a statement that the hand count was expected to take two to three days. Election officials started counting ballots on Tuesday.
Source: Wrong-sized ballots delay results in Montana US House race | AP NewsNew Hampshire Vote Counting Law Will Divert Ballots With Overvotes | Kevin Landrigan/The New Hampshire Union Leader
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law a pivotal ballot-counting reform Tuesday, June 7, that grew out of the post-election ballot mess from the 2020 election in Windham. The bipartisan measure will, for the first time, require vendors to program vote-counting machines to divert into a side compartment any ballot that appears to have too many marks on it for a single office. The bill's prime sponsor, Hillsborough Democratic state Rep. Marjorie Porter, said the change should prevent a repeat of the chaos in Windham. If this had been in place before the 2020 election, it would have immediately flagged the absentee ballots that were incorrectly read by Windham's automated voting machines on Election Day because of folds through one of the candidates' names. After a hand recount, all four Republican candidates for state representative in Windham picked up nearly 300 votes apiece. The leading Democratic candidate lost nearly 100 votes after the recounts. A never-before-used folding machine was deployed in Windham to cope with the high number of absentee ballots. Full Article: Latest New Hampshire Vote Counting Law Will Remove OvervotesPennsylvania Republicans are no closer to re-inspecting Fulton County’s 2020 voting machines | Sam Dunklau/WITF
A planned inspection of a rural Pennsylvania county’s voting equipment from 2020 remains on hold, despite a recent state court decision. South-central Fulton County, encouraged by state Senate Republicans, has been seeking a second inspection of Dominion voting machines that it used during the 2020 election. But the county has been mired in court challenges. At issue is whether Fulton can have its Dominion machines inspected, and whether the Department of State can stop an inspection from happening. Supporters of the effort have not explained how such an inspection would be carried out and have not clearly explained why one is necessary more than a year and a half after the machines were used. Former President Donald Trump, who won 85 percent of the vote there, continues to falsely assert that he lost to President Joe Biden because of systemic ballot fraud and procedural issues. There is no evidence of widespread fraud or machine tampering in Pennsylvania. Fulton County’s latest examination was set to happen in January after Commonwealth Court sided with the county in a lawsuit – but the state Supreme Court halted it when the Department of State appealed the lower court’s decision. It’s been on pause ever since. “I’m just a little frustrated with the Supreme Court for their delay,” said Sen. Cris Dush (R-Cameron), who leads the Senate committee that has spearheaded the latest inspection effort. Full Article: Pennsylvania Republicans are no closer to re-inspecting Fulton County’s 2020 voting machines | WITFRhode Island Senate committee to vote on remote voting bill despite warnings of risks | Katherine Gregg/The Providence Journal
The state's top election officials raised warning flags. One state lawmaker after another stated their misgivings when it popped up a year ago. But a bill to allow remote voting is once again headed to a vote at the Rhode Island State House. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the bill, S2118, to allow disabled and military voters to "electronically receive and return their mail ballot." The proposal was not included in the much-heralded "Let RI Vote" bill, allowing online applications and eliminating longstanding witness requirements for mail ballots, that Gov. Dan McKee is expected to sign into law on Wednesday. And only one person spoke in favor of the legislation at a hearing earlier this year: the lead sponsor, Sen. Stephen Archambault, D-Smithfield. Others voiced their support in writing, including the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights. But in a letter of concern to lawmakers, Cranston's director of elections, Nicholas Lima, wrote: "There are significant cybersecurity concerns ... despite assurances that some electronic ballot vendors tend to promote to the contrary. "No current technology exists that allows a [ballot] to be transmitted ... electronically, without risk of interception or alteration by hostile threat actors – including well-equipped nation state actors that are intent on disrupting American elections by any means necessary.
Full Article: Rhode Island Senate committee to vote on remote voting billTennessee: Long Stalemate Ends on New Shelby County Voting Machines | Jackson Baker/Memphis Flyer
At long last, after at least two years of steady contentiousness between the County Commission and the Shelby County Election Commission, a resolution may have been reached on the matter of what kind of voting method should replace the currently used outmoded machines. But that auxiliary verb “may” is necessary. At several points during three-and-a-half hours of intense disagreements and outright verbal combat, various commissioners would invoke the prospect of reconsideration — that parliamentary device which allows voters for a majority position to call for a revote later on. Though a flurry of secondary issues became part of the argument, the essential debate at Monday’s commission meeting was between proponents of hand-marked paper ballots and defenders of the Election Commission’s preference for electronic ballot-marking devices. The commission had voted twice previously in favor of hand-marked paper ballots and had specifically rejected ballot-marking devices, but the resolution before the body on Monday called for almost $6 million to purchase ballot-marking machines from the Election Systems & Software company. It also allowed for a “compromise” procedure whereby voters could either ask for paper ballots or use the ballot-marking machines. Partisans of hand-marked paper ballots tended to be skeptical regarding the bona fides of that provision. At the end, in any event, the resolution would pass, though at various intervals a series of amendments that would have transformed it one way or another were introduced and then withdrawn. The final version targeted November as the changeover date, though Election Administrator Linda Phillips and Election Commission chairman Mark Luttrell had asked for action before the August county election on grounds that the county’s existing machines were on their last legs.
Full Article: Memphis Flyer | Long Stalemate Ends on New Voting Machines