Georgia subpoenas media texts and emails from critic of Georgia electronic voting system | Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder

A plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the state’s electronic voting system is being subpoenaed by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the State Election Board for information that would include her communication with reporters. A subpoena filed Monday in U.S. District Court of Northern Georgia requests Marilyn Marks, executive director of Coalition for Good Governance, to provide every email, text message, details of conversation and any other documents about the unauthorized access of Coffee County’s voting system, including communication she’s had with the media. Marks and a First Amendment advocacy organization accused the state of trying to intimidate reporters and sources from reporting on potentially serious misconduct of some local Coffee election officials scheming with a team of computer forensic experts and Donald Trump loyalists to gain access to sensitive election files in attempt to discredit President Joe Biden’s narrow 2020 election victory in Georgia. Marks said she believes she is being targeted by the state because she was on the March 2021 call that led to the news breaking this year of a breach of the Coffee County voting system and has been outspoken in her criticism of the state’s handling of the investigation. Marks is a critic of the state’s use of Dominion Voting Systems ballot-marking machines that critics say are less secure than hand-marked paper ballots. Marks noted that she is the first person in this case that the state has subpoenaed despite the state election board and secretary of state’s office having been aware of allegations before releasing the recording in February of a phone conversation she had in which Atlanta bails bondsman Scott Hall described chartering a flight to Coffee County to “scan every freaking ballot.”

Full Article: State subpoenas media texts and emails from critic of Georgia electronic voting system  – Georgia Recorder

Kansas certifies defeat of anti-abortion amendment, other results | Jonathan Shorman/The Kansas City Star

The Aug. 2 election in Kansas was the highest-turnout primary election in state history, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s Office said Thursday as top officials met to formally certify the results, including the defeat of an amendment to remove abortion rights from the state constitution. The unprecedented turnout in the Aug. 2 primary election was driven by extraordinary voter interest in the amendment, called Value Them Both by supporters, which would have overturned a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision that found the state constitution protects abortion access. The Kansas State Board of Canvassers voted unanimously to certify the results of the amendment vote and every other state-level and congressional race at the end of a brief meeting in Topeka. In addition to Schwab, the board includes Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Republican state Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who will face each other in the Nov. 8 general election for governor. Kelly and Schmidt shook hands, but otherwise didn’t speak to each other during the meeting as they sat on opposite ends of a table, with Schwab, who chaired the meeting, in the middle.

Source: KS certifies defeat of anti-abortion amendment, other results | The Kansas City Star

Michigan sheriff sought to seize multiple voting machines, records show | By Peter Eisler and Nathan Layne/Reuters

A sheriff in Barry County, Michigan, already under state investigation for alleged involvement in an illegal breach of a vote-counting machine, sought warrants in July to seize other machines in an effort to prove former President Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, documents reviewed by Reuters showed. The proposed warrants sought authorization to seize vote tabulators and various election records from the offices of the Barry County and Woodland Township clerks, the documents showed. The two jurisdictions have not been previously identified as targets in the sheriff’s investigation into suspicions that machines in the county were rigged to siphon votes from Trump. The warrants were submitted in July to the office of Barry County Prosecuting Attorney Julie Nakfoor Pratt, a Republican, who told Reuters she declined to endorse them because she felt the sheriff lacked sufficient evidence to support his suspicions that the machines were rigged. Reuters obtained copies of the documents under a Freedom of Information request filed with the prosecutor’s office. The requests suggest Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, a Republican, was seeking to broaden his investigation of alleged election fraud even as he faced investigation from the state attorney general’s office.

Full Article: Michigan sheriff sought to seize multiple voting machines, records show | Reuters

Nevada: Proposed bill requires counties with unused voting machines to pay back the state funds used to buy them | Taylor R. Avery/Las Vegas Review-Journal

An interim legislative committee Monday voted to request a bill draft that, if passed in the next legislative session, would require any county not using voting machines purchased with state funds to pay back the money used to buy them. The request, which was recommended to the Joint Interim Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections, was brought by Assemblywomen Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas and Brittney Miller, D-Las Vegas. “We would have never thought that a county that came to us and asked for dollars to purchase something would just put them in a closet and not want to use them,” said Carlton, who chairs the committee. “It’s very sad to think that state dollars, taxpayer dollars were given to a county and they bought machines and they’re just gathering dust.” The proposal follows a successful push by election deniers in Nye County to eliminate the use of electronic voting machines in in favor of paper ballots and hand counting the results, a move which saw the county’s long serving clerk, Sam Merlino, resign. She was replaced earlier this month by Mark Kampf, a former executive who has falsely claimed that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Kampf has said that Nye County will both hand count ballots as well as use machines to ensure an accurate tally.

Full Article: Proposed bill requires counties with unused voting machines to pay | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevada approves hand counting votes over fears of machines | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

As parts of rural Nevada plan to count ballots by hand amid misinformation about voting machines, the Nevada secretary of state’s office on Friday approved regulations for counties to hand count votes starting as soon as this fall’s midterm elections. But the revised regulations will no longer apply to the one county that has been at the forefront of the drive to count by hand. That’s because Nye County, in the desert between Las Vegas and Reno, will also use a parallel tabulation process alongside its hand count, using the same machines that are typically used to count mail-in ballots. All ballots in Nye County will resemble mail-in ballots, interim Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf said in an interview earlier this month. Nye County is one of the first jurisdictions nationwide to act on election conspiracies related to mistrust in voting machines. Nevada’s least populous county, Esmeralda, used hand-counting to certify June’s primary results, when officials spent more than seven hours counting 317 ballots cast. The long-time Nye County clerk resigned in July after election conspiracies led to a successful push to hand count votes. Kampf, her replacement, has falsely claimed that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. He has vowed to bring hand counting to the rural county of about 50,000, alongside the parallel tabulation process using machines.

Full Article: Amid fears of voting machines, Nevada approves hand counting | AP News

New Hampshire: Lawsuit seeks to block electronic voting machines | Kein Landrigan/Union Leader

A conservative constitutional lawyer has sued Gov. Chris Sununu and legislative leaders, asserting the state has no authority to use electronic ballot-counting machines at polling places. Daniel Richard of Auburn also sued his hometown and Town Administrator Daniel Goonan for refusing to let him cast a vote by paper ballot and have it hand-counted. In a motion filed Wednesday, Richard asked a Rockingham County Superior Court judge to issue an injunction to stop towns from using the machines for the Sept. 13 primary. He asked to be allowed to make an in-court argument on the topic before voters go to the polls. A Rockingham County Superior Court judge has agreed to hear arguments on Richard’s suit Sept. 9, four days before the primary. “Voting in New Hampshire is non-validated and not in accordance with any known electrical and electronic safety standards — by design, in order to maintain the country’s “first-in-the-nation” vote status,” Richard wrote in his latest filing.

Full Article: Lawsuit seeks to block electronic voting machines in N.H. | Voters First | unionleader.com

Texas: What brought down one county’s entire elections department? It was something in the water. | Natalia Contreras/Votebeat

Last November’s sleepy constitutional amendment election nearly came to blows in Gillespie County, a central Texas county known for its vineyards. A volunteer poll watcher, whose aggressive behavior had rankled election workers all day, attempted to force his way into a secure ballot vault. The burly man was repeatedly blocked by a county elections staffer. Shouting ensued. “You can’t go in there,” the staffer, Terry Hamilton, insisted to the man, who towered over Hamilton. “We can see anything we want!” the poll watcher and his fellow election integrity activists yelled, according to an election worker who witnessed the scene. They accused Hamilton and Elections Administrator Anissa Herrera of a variety of violations of the state elections code, which they quoted, line by line. “Oh Lord, they can cite chapter and verse,” recalled Sue Bentch, a Fredericksburg election judge who saw the confrontation that night. “But you know, just as the devil can cite scripture for its own purposes it seemed to me that it was often cited out of context and misinterpreted.” “Finally, I called the sheriff’s officer,” said Bentch. The officer barred the activists from the vault. “Poor Terry was coming to fisticuffs.”

Full Article: What brought down one Texas county’s entire elections department? It was something in the water.

Washington: Some Republicans in state cast a wary eye on an election security device | Miles Parks/NPR

In northeast Washington state, a remote region nestled against the Canadian border, the politics lean conservative and wariness of government runs high. Earlier this year, a Republican-led county commission there made a decision that rippled across Washington — triggering alarm at the secretary of state’s office, and now among cybersecurity experts who have worked for the past six years to shore up the security of America’s voting systems. It happened on Valentine’s Day during the regular weekly meeting of the three-member commission in Ferry County, where Donald Trump received more than 63% of the vote in the 2020 election. After an agenda that included an update on the county fair and a discussion about a local water and sewer district, the commissioners took up a proposal to disconnect a recently installed cybersecurity device from the county’s computer network. The device, known as an Albert sensor, was designed to alert local governments to potential hacking attempts against their networks. More than 900 Albert sensors have been deployed across the country, primarily to states and counties, and they have been a key component of the federal government’s cybersecurity response following Russian election interference around the 2016 election.

Full Article: Election security device under suspicion by Washington GOP : NPR