Michigan: Republican clerk could be charged in voting-system breach | Nathan Layne/Reuters

A Michigan township official who promotes false conspiracy theories of a rigged 2020 election could face criminal charges related to two voting-system security breaches, according to previously unreported records and legal experts. A state police detective recommended that the Michigan attorney general consider unspecified charges amid a months-long probe into one breach related to the Republican clerk’s handling of a vote tabulator, according to a June email from the detective to state and local officials. Reuters obtained the email through a public-records request. The clerk, Stephanie Scott, oversaw voting in rural Adams Township until the state last year revoked her authority over elections. Scott has publicly embraced baseless claims that the 2020 election was rigged against former U.S. President Donald Trump and has posted online about the QAnon conspiracy theory. In a second breach of the township’s voting system, the clerk gave a file containing confidential voter data to an information-technology expert who is a suspect in other alleged Michigan election-security violations. The expert, Benjamin Cotton, worked with voter-fraud conspiracists seeking unauthorized access to election systems in other states, according to court records reviewed by Reuters. The incident has not been previously reported.

Full Article: Republican clerk could be charged in Michigan voting-system breach | Reuters

Nevada county’s plans to hand-count early ballots challenged | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

A rural county in Nevada where conspiracy theories about voting machines run deep is planning to start hand-counting its mail-in ballots two weeks before Election Day, a process that risks public release of early voting results. Several voting and civil rights groups said Monday they objected to the proposal and will consider legal action if Nye County pushes ahead with its plan. Nevada is one of 10 states that allow local election offices to begin tabulating ballots before Election Day, but the machines that typically do that are programmed not to release results. Nye County officials are planning a full hand-count in addition to a primary machine tabulation for the November election. The move was prompted by unfounded claims of fraud involving voting machines in the 2020 presidential election. Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf said hand-count teams will start tallying mail-in ballots on Oct. 26, just under two weeks ahead of Election Day. Hand-count tallies are done publicly for transparency, with observers in the room. That raises the possibility that someone keeping score could make early results from the count public before most voters have even cast their ballot, voting experts said.

Full Article: Nevada county’s plans to hand-count early ballots challenged | AP News

Pennsylvania: Unresolved areas in mail voting law likely to spur fresh confusion, legal challenges | Stephen Caruso and Katie Meyer/WITF

As millions of Pennsylvanians once again go to the polls this November, some key questions on mail ballots remain unsettled, opening the door for more legal action and public confusion after the upcoming gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. In a recent live event with Spotlight PA, Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman stressed that these issues will not affect the accuracy of the vote. But rules on key voting mechanics such as drop boxes or a chance for voters to fix a ballot error could vary by county. As such, people who plan to vote by mail should brush up on local rules to ensure there aren’t any issues with their ballots, Chapman said. “I really want people to make a plan to vote,” she said. “Think about it. Do you want to vote by mail?” Elections in Pennsylvania have become highly political, and the state election law has some gray areas. The patchwork of mail voting rules largely stems from 2019, when the legislature and governor passed a bipartisan overhaul of the commonwealth’s election law and allowed no-excuse mail voting for the first time.

Full Article: Unresolved areas in Pennsylvania mail voting law likely to spur fresh confusion, legal challenges | WITF

Rhode Island: ExpressVote ballots to be reviewed by Board of Elections, Secretary of State’s office | Amy Russo/The Providence Journal

The state’s Board of Elections has adopted new protocols for checking ExpressVote machines ahead of the general election on Nov. 8. In a plan released on Wednesday, the board said 522 machines and 592 DS200 tabulators will be tested in preparation for early voting on Oct. 19 and the general election. According to the document, tests involve a “checklist to check hardware and software functionality.” That includes seeing whether the machines power on properly, verifying precinct numbers and addresses, and ensuring ballots can be marked accurately, among a host of other checks. The board said Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea’s office already started proofing English and Spanish ballots on Saturday, the latter of which showed errors during the primary elections. At the time, some of those ballots featured the incorrect list of candidates. Mayor Jorge Elorza appeared to place blame both on Gorbea’s office and the board, calling for the ExpressVote machines to be removed during the primary. However, as the request was made last-minute and there was no viable alternative for those ADA-compliant machines, that was not possible.

Full Article: ExpressVote ballots to be reviewed by BOE, Secretary of State’s office

Texas: Conspiracy theorists and 16-hour days: Inside the stress elections officials face ahead of the midterms | Pooja Salhotra/The Texas Tribune

Since Todd Stallings began working in Nacogdoches County’s elections office in 2003, his responsibilities have grown exponentially. So has his stress. First came a shift toward digital voting records, along with new state legislation that created more duties for elections officials. Then, accusations of foreign interference in the 2016 presidential race stoked the public’s fear about election integrity. And conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election have led to heightened scrutiny. Although election deniers at one point concentrated their efforts in states like Arizona and Georgia, supporters of former President Donald Trump have since sent a barrage of public information requests to elections offices nationwide, including those in the smallest and reddest Texas counties, where Trump won handsomely. So on top of fulfilling their normal job duties, such as preparing ballots and updating polling information, officials are fielding questions from concerned voters. The increased demands have left some workers burned out. According to the secretary of state’s office, 30% of Texas elections workers have left their jobs since 2020. In one county, the entire elections administrator’s office resigned. “There’s just more and more to do,” Stallings said. “Which is fine, but it’s when there’s stuff we aren’t prepared for — that’s what kind of turns everyone into a panic.”

Full Article: Texas elections administrators face growing scrutiny from public | The Texas Tribune

Texas elections-monitoring group forced to name source of hacked poll worker data | Cameron Langford/Courthouse News Service

Counsel for a Texas voter fraud conspiracy group, in open court Thursday, reluctantly provided the name of a man who set off an FBI investigation into a software company’s compromised U.S. poll worker data. Eugene Yu, CEO and founder of Konnech Inc., a Michigan election logistics software purveyor, was supposed to be at a hearing Thursday in Houston federal court for his company’s lawsuit against True the Vote, a Texas nonprofit that backs Donald Trump’s claims voter fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election. But Yu was in Michigan working out a bail agreement following his arrest Tuesday “on suspicion of theft of personal identifying information” by investigators with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, with help from local police. According to District Attorney George Gascón, Konnech has a contract with LA County that mandates it keep election worker information on secure servers in the United States, and a probe by his office found probable cause to believe Konnech was storing the data on servers in China. Yu’s bail deal stipulates he must report to LA County by Oct. 14 to face charges. Konnech’s software helps local governments manage poll workers and coordinate allocation of equipment, it has nothing to do with registering voters or counting ballots, the company says.

Full Article: Texas elections-monitoring group forced to name source of hacked poll worker data | Courthouse News Service

Virginia: Technical Problems In Voter Registration System Cause Delays In Processing Over 100,000 Voter Records | Margaret Barthel/DCist

A technical problem with Virginia’s statewide voter registration system has led to significant delays in the processing of new voter registrations and updates to existing ones. As a result of the delay, the commonwealth’s elections office sent a big batch of more than 100,000 voter records to local registrars to process, an unexpected volume of…

Wisconsin: Madison’s absentee ballot drop boxes are illegal but they’re staying put — as permanent artworks criticizing Supreme Court ruling | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Madison city officials have wrapped more than a dozen dormant absentee ballot drop boxes in art and criticism of a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling barring voters from returning their ballots anywhere but a clerk’s office or polling station. The drop boxes, once painted to resemble the capital city’s bright blue flag, have been transformed into permanent monuments against the court’s July ruling that arrived amid a two-year battle between city officials and Republicans who promoted former president Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud. The boxes now feature the artwork of New York-based artist Jenny Holzer that includes Sojourner Truth’s “Truth is powerful and will prevail.” Madison city officials previously featured Holzer’s work in 2020 as part of a voter outreach campaign. “It’s really important for us to acknowledge that the state Supreme Court made a very bad decision and to acknowledge the Legislature has failed to act to make it easier and safer for people to vote,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said. “We do not want to remove the drop boxes in the wake of the state Supreme Court decision — I wanted to transform them to acknowledge what’s happening in this state and let them stand as a testament to the fact that the truth is powerful and will prevail.”

Full Article: Madison absentee ballot drop boxes criticize Supreme Court ruling

Election workers train for battle against conspiracy theories | Arit John/Los Angeles Times

From his perch in an elementary school gym during last month’s Michigan primary, Grand Rapids City Clerk Joel Hondorp oversaw the electronic book of eligible voters, while first-time election workers Kimberly and Shayne Becher helped check people in and explain how to fill out ballots. Kimberly, a 59-year-old counselor from Greenville, said she and her husband wanted to get involved “to learn how this all works,” since neither is convinced that the 2020 presidential election hadn’t been stolen. “You just go to a Trump rally or go to a Biden rally, that will tell you … who won,” said Shayne, a 53-year-old carpenter. Hondorp hopes that the Bechers and others trained by his office, with a successful election behind them, will change their minds about the process. “Hopefully, they’re going to go back and talk to their friends and family … and say: ‘Hey, this is what we observed,’” Hondorp said. Across the country, election clerks have spent the last two years waging an information and public relations battle to restore faith in elections. They’re doing more TV interviews, giving more office tours and retooling their social media presences. They’re keeping up with legislation to overhaul elections and conspiracy theories spreading online. And they’re redoubling their efforts to explain the exhaustive steps they take to prevent fraud and run secure elections.

Full Article: Election workers train for battle against conspiracy theories – Los Angeles Times

How a Tiny Elections Company Became a Conspiracy Theory Target | Stuart A. Thompson/The New York Times

At an invitation-only conference in August at a secret location southeast of Phoenix, a group of election deniers unspooled a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential outcome. Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested that a small American election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States, according to online accounts from several people at the conference. In the ensuing weeks, the conspiracy theory grew as it shot around the internet. To believers, the claims showed how China had gained near complete control of America’s elections. Some shared LinkedIn pages for Konnech employees who have Chinese backgrounds and sent threatening emails to the company and its chief executive, who was born in China. “Might want to book flights back to Wuhan before we hang you until dead!” one person wrote in an email to the company. In the two years since former President Donald J. Trump lost his re-election bid, conspiracy theorists have subjected election officials and private companies that play a major role in elections to a barrage of outlandish voter fraud claims. But the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups. Their claims often find a receptive online audience, which then uses the assertions to raise doubts about the integrity of American elections.

Full Article: How a Tiny Elections Company Became a Conspiracy Theory Target – The New York Times

National: After victory in Nevada, election deniers increase calls to eliminate voting machines across the country | Soo Rin Kim and Laura Romero/ABC

Last month, an effort led by a rural county in Nevada handed election deniers a major victory: In November, several jurisdictions in the state will be hand-counting votes. The Nevada Secretary of State approved a proposal allowing jurisdictions to hand-count votes starting as soon as this fall’s midterm election, after Nye County, based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, decided earlier this year to abandon the Dominion voting machines it had relied on for years. “Everyone said, ‘It’s not you, it’s not the officials,'” said Sandra “Sam” Merlino, who resigned her position as county clerk after the county in March this year decided to use a hand-count instead of voting machines. “But what people don’t understand is, I put my trust in those machines and how the process works.” Last week, Merlino’s successor, Mark Kampf — who himself has been echoing unsubstantiated claims of 2020 election fraud — took a step back and announced a plan to use both hand counting and the Dominion machines for the upcoming elections as a way to cross-check results between the two methods.

Full Article: After victory in Nevada, election deniers increase calls to eliminate voting machines across the country – ABC News

National: Congress’ latest House-Senate wrangle: Preventing the next Jan. 6 | Nicholas Wu, Marianne Levine, Jordain Carney and Kyle Cheney/Politico

Efforts to reform an obscure 135-year-old election law, which Donald Trump tried to utilize to subvert the 2020 election, are reviving a classic congressional rivalry: the House vs. the Senate. After signaling for months that they wanted to go further than the Senate’s proposed adjustments to the law, House members could vote as early as Wednesday on legislation to update the Electoral Count Act, the 1887 statute that Trump and his allies distorted in an attempt to seize a second term he didn’t win. Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), members of the Jan. 6 select committee, on Monday outlined a proposal aimed at preventing rogue state officials and members of Congress from any future attempt at subversion of the transfer of presidential power. That plan is likely to set up an intense period of wrangling with the Senate, which in July teed up a competing bill that boasts bipartisan support, including the 10 GOP co-sponsors necessary to overcome a filibuster. Their proposal reforms the 19th-century law, which sets out deadlines for states to certify their own presidential contests and a process to deliver electors to Washington. The Electoral Count Act then sets out a process for the vice president — acting as president of the Senate — to preside over the count, and outlines a procedure for lawmakers to challenge any electors they deem invalid. The House version is substantially similar to the Senate bill, though it proposes slight variations and lays out certain processes in more detail. House members’ insistence on releasing their own bill is the latest episode in the simmering tensions between the two chambers as they enter their final stretch of legislating in this Congress, with lower-chamber Democrats hoping to go from bill text to passage within a week and the Senate moving more slowly, expecting to hold a markup of their legislation — while retaining GOP support — next week.

Full Article: Congress’ latest House-Senate wrangle: Preventing the next Jan. 6 – POLITICO

National: Meadows texts reveal direct White House communications with pro-Trump operative behind plans to seize voting machines | Zachary Cohen/CNN

As allies of then-President Donald Trump made a final push to overturn the election in late-December 2020, one of the key operatives behind the effort briefed then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about his attempts to gain access to voting systems in key battleground states, starting with Arizona and Georgia, according to text messages obtained by CNN. Phil Waldron, an early proponent of various election-related conspiracy theories, texted Meadows on December 23 that an Arizona judge had dismissed a lawsuit filed by friendly GOP lawmakers there. The suit demanded state election officials hand over voting machines and other election equipment, as part of the hunt for evidence to support Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud. In relaying the news to Meadows, Waldron said the decision would allow opponents to engage in “delay tactics” preventing Waldron and his associates from immediately accessing machines. Waldron also characterized Arizona as “our lead domino we were counting on to start the cascade,” referring to similar efforts in other states like Georgia. “Pathetic,” Meadows responded. The messages, which have not been previously reported, shed new light on how Waldron’s reach extended into the highest levels of the White House and the extent to which Meadows was kept abreast of plans for accessing voting machines, a topic sources tell CNN, and court documents suggest, is of particular interest to state and federal prosecutors probing efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Full Article: Meadows texts reveal direct White House communications with pro-Trump operative behind plans to seize voting machines | CNN Politics

National: False claims, threats fuel poll worker sign-ups for midterms | Sudhin Thanawala/Associated Press

Outraged by false allegations of fraud against a Georgia elections employee in 2020, Amanda Rouser made a vow as she listened to the woman testify before Congress in June about the racist threats and harassment she faced.“I said that day to myself, ‘I’m going to go work in the polls, and I’m going to see what they’re going to do to me,’” Rouser, who like the targeted employee is Black, recalled after stopping by a recruiting station for poll workers at Atlanta City Hall on a recent afternoon. “Try me, because I’m not scared of people.”About 40 miles north a day later, claims of fraud also brought Carolyn Barnes to a recruiting event for prospective poll workers, but with a different motivation.“I believe that we had a fraudulent election in 2020 because of the mail-in ballots, the advanced voting,” Barnes, 52, said after applying to work the polls for the first time in Forsyth County. “I truly believe that the more we flood the system with honest people who are trying to help out, it will straighten it out.”Barnes, who declined to give her party affiliation, said she wants to use her position as a poll worker to share her observations about “the gaps” in election security and “where stuff could happen afterwards.”

Full Article: False claims, threats fuel poll worker sign-ups for midterms | AP News

National: Top State Judges Make a Rare Plea in a Momentous Supreme Court Election Case | Adam Liptak/The New York Times

“It’s the biggest federalism issue in a long time,” Chief Justice Nathan L. Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court said on the phone the other day. “Maybe ever.” He was explaining why the Conference of Chief Justices, a group representing the top state judicial officers in the nation, had decided to file a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in a politically charged election-law case. The brief urged the court to reject a legal theory pressed by Republicans that would give state legislatures extraordinary power. Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard, said the brief underscored how momentous the decision in the case could be. “It’s highly unusual for the Conference of Chief Justices to file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court,” he said. “It’s even rarer for the conference to do so in a controversial, ideologically charged case.” If the Supreme Court adopts the theory, it will radically reshape how federal elections are conducted by giving state lawmakers independent authority, not subject to review by state courts, to set election rules in conflict with state constitutions.

Full Article: Top State Judges Make a Rare Plea in a Momentous Supreme Court Election Case – The New York Times

Editorial: The 3 Types of Election-Denying Republicans Running for Secretary of State | Chris Geidner/The New York Times

Around a dozen election-denying Republican candidates secured their party’s nomination for secretary of state this fall. This is the reality, two years on, that Donald Trump’s election lies have created. There are three types of election-denying candidates, and each one poses distinct problems for civic integrity. There are the swing-state candidates getting lots of justified attention, running in places like Arizona and Michigan, because their elections could have pivotal, clear national implications in the 2024 presidential campaign. There are candidates like Chuck Gray in Wyoming, who is all but certain to take office in January, as Democrats didn’t field an opponent. Election-denying candidates in very red states aren’t getting as much attention now, but they likely will come January, when they are officeholders. They will help set policies in their states — many of which will also have Republican-led legislatures and governors — where extremist ideas could become law. And there are people like Dominic Rapini, Connecticut’s Republican secretary of state nominee, who are running in blue states and unlikely to win. Their campaigns, though, will have critical fallout effects. By virtue of their statewide platforms, even losing candidates can further damage the discourse — in their states and nationally — and increase the risks to our democracy. Election deniers in blue states can uniquely exacerbate Mr. Trump’s undermining of faith in our elections, and they, like their winning counterparts in red states, can set the stage for local election-denying candidates to win now or in the future.

Full Article: Opinion | The Dangers of Election-Denying Secretary of State Campaigns – The New York Times

Arizona election integrity unit found little fraud, exacerbated suspicions | Beth Reinhard and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Washington Post

Republicans across the country have embraced an aggressive tactic this year as they seek to tout baseless claims that voter fraud is a serious threat: arming state agencies with more power and resources to investigate election crimes. Virginia’s Republican attorney general earlier this month announced a new election integrity unit staffed with more than 20 attorneys and investigators “to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections.” Georgia legislators recently empowered the statewide police agency to launch election probes. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last month described the arrests of 20 people for alleged illegal voting as the “opening salvo” of a new elections police force. But a Washington Post examination of an earlier endeavor in Arizona to systematically ferret out voter fraud found it has turned up few cases — and that rather than bolster confidence in elections, the absence of massive fraud has just fueled more bogus theories and distrust. After investigating thousands of complaints in the past three years, a special unit in the Arizona attorney general’s office created to crack down on illegal voting and other election-related crimes has prosecuted just 20 cases in a state of more than 4 million voters. The total represents a slight increase from the 16 cases brought by the office in a previous six-year period, according to court filings and hundreds of pages of public records.

Full Article: Arizona election integrity unit found little fraud, exacerbated suspicions – The Washington Post

California county warns of ‘very aggressive’ people impersonating elections officials | Eric Ting/San Francisco Chronicle

“Very aggressive” individuals impersonating elections officials have reportedly been knocking on Shasta County residents’ doors and questioning their voter registration status, Shasta County’s elections office warned residents this week. “They’re wearing very distinctive neon vests and some kind of ID badge that says ‘voter task force,'” County Clerk Cathy Darling Allen told SFGATE. “We are being told that these people are being very aggressive and intimating that they work in this office when they do not. We want voters to know this isn’t an official effort; we have a whole host of tools we use to verify info. Door knocking is not something we would ever do.” Allen said it is probably a safe assumption that members of the fake “voter task force” are individuals who believe, incorrectly, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. In the time since that election, her office has become a “dumping ground for frustrations” and has had to deal with things ranging from frivolous copy-pasted public records requests to demands that the office preserve records it is required to destroy by California state law. “What we’ve heard is these people aren’t going door-to-door,” Allen said. “People who contacted us said, ‘My house is the only one on the street they went to.'”

Source: NorCal county warns of ‘very aggressive’ voter intimidation

Colorado: Election deniers inundate Jefferson County clerks with unprecedented number of information requests; One clerk calls it ‘morale killer’ | Brian Maass/CBS

As Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder George Stern’s staff is gearing up for the Nov. 8 midterm election, he says his office is being hamstrung by dozens of new open records act requests seeking detailed information about the 2020 election, nearly two years ago. “It’s a huge distraction and morale killer eight weeks before a very important election,” Stern said. “He says he is obligated to respond and fulfill the Colorado Open Records Act requests but calls it frustrating that some are consuming valuable staff time, trying to litigate the 2020 election, which he says was free and fair. Of 380,000 votes cast in El Paso County in the 2020 election, Stern says he is aware of one potential case of attempted fraud. “We’ve received CORA (Colorado Open Records Act) requests — about 15 — in a matter of a few days, all copy and pasted. This is a coordinated effort by somebody,” Stern said. The requests typically ask for a dozen or more obscure pieces of 2020 election, information such as undervotes, overvotes, mark density and cast vote records. Some of the requests demand Stern’s office preserve 2020 election records as the requestor indicates they may sue his office over unspecified 2020 election fraud. “Staff members are exhausted from all this,” Stern explained. “It’s a drain.” Stern, a Democrat, continued, saying, ” We’re seeing this all over the state in big counties, small counties, counties that are left and counties that are right. All clerks are facing it.”

Full Article: Election deniers inundate Colorado county clerks with unprecedented number of information requests; One clerk calls it ‘morale killer’ – CBS Colorado

Georgia election board evaluates Coffee County breach and precautions | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia officials and the CEO of Dominion Voting Systems tried to reassure voters Wednesday that this year’s elections are secure amid a criminal investigation into election skeptics who coordinated copying of data from voting equipment in Coffee County. State Election Board Chairman William Duffey said the breach in Coffee County fits into a pattern of similar incidents in Michigan and Nevada, and he said the board has asked the FBI to participate in an ongoing investigation by the GBI and secretary of state’s office. “What happened in Coffee County was despicable — the idea that people that we entrust with this precious voting role would allow people that were not allowed to be in there,” Duffey said. “The consequence for that kind of conduct should be significant.” The State Election Board called its meeting at the state Capitol on Wednesday to address the Coffee County breach and discuss protections for upcoming elections, including testing procedures and audit plans.

Full Article: Georgia election board evaluates Coffee County breach and precautions

Kansas: Will election conspiracy theories cause permanent damage to democracy? | Katie Bernard/The Kansas City Star

In early September, Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden spoke with a group of Johnson County conservatives known as the “Liberty People” about his efforts to investigate voter fraud. It was a free-wheeling discussion that included calls for the elimination of all voting machines, unfounded insinuations that undocumented immigrants are voting, and promises that the sheriff was closing in on one of the biggest investigations of his career — despite no evidence of widespread fraud in Kansas’ most populous county. An hour in, an older woman piped up with an apparent call for action. “Now that I’m older, I’m not afraid to go to jail,” she said to Johnson County’s top law enforcement officer. Hayden chuckled and reminded her he’s bound by the constitution. “We are not,” the woman responded. The episode, posted to right-wing video sharing site Rumble, highlighted a phenomenon that has grown over the past two years in Kansas and the country as a whole. A growing collection of citizens no longer trust the outcomes of elections and promote claims of massive fraud without any basis or proof. Though exaggerated claims of voter fraud are not new to the Sunflower State, former President Donald Trump’s continued refusal to accept his 2020 defeat helped set a fire in Kansas that continues to spread ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election.

Source: Does election denialism threaten democracy in Kansas? | The Kansas City Star

Maryland: Appeals court denies motion to delay ballot counting; election officials plan to start counting sometime in October | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

A request for an emergency order to delay the start of mail-in ballot counting in Maryland has been denied by the Special Court of Appeals, allowing election officials to begin counting as soon as Saturday though many said they would not. In a one-paragraph order issued late Thursday, Judge Douglas R.M. Nazarian struck down an effort by Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Cox to put a hold on ballot counting as he appeals a lower-court ruling allowing the process to begin as early as Saturday. The Maryland State Board of Elections asked for the early start to accommodate a deluge of mail-in ballots expected to be cast this fall. Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Bonifant sided with the board last week, agreeing the situation constitutes an emergency. Maryland law, established before the widespread use of mail-in ballots that became popular during the pandemic, forbids the canvassing of mail-in ballots until the Wednesday following an election. An additional state regulation set by the board of elections further delays that counting process until 10 a.m. the Thursday after an election. That’s the latest start in the nation for mail-in ballot counting.

Full Article: Appeals court denies motion to delay Maryland ballot counting; election officials plan to start counting sometime in October – Baltimore Sun

Michigan election worker charged with tampering with voting equipment | Nathan Layne/Reuters

An election worker in a western Michigan town has been charged with two felonies after allegedly inserting a flash drive into a computer containing confidential voter registration data during an election in August, local officials said on Wednesday. At the Aug. 2 primary, an election worker was seen inserting a USB drive into the computer used to administer the election at a precinct in Gaines Township in Kent County, according to a statement by county clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons. The incident highlights the so-called “insider threat” risk that has increasingly worried election officials, especially in battleground states like Michigan where falsehoods about systemic voter fraud in the 2020 election have spread most widely. “This incident is extremely egregious and incredibly alarming. Not only is it a violation of Michigan law, but it is a violation of public trust and of the oath all election workers are required to take,” Lyons said in the statement.

Full Article: Michigan election worker charged with tampering with voting equipment | Reuters

Nevada: Hand counting ballots OK, judge rules | Jessica Hill/Las Vegas Review-Journal

A Carson City District Court judge denied a group’s attempt to stop counties from hand counting ballots in the Nov. 8 election. Judge James Wilson ruled this week against the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada’s motion asking to prohibit the Nevada secretary of state’s office from authorizing counties to engage in hand counting. Nye County has decided to implement hand counting in its elections, and in response the Nevada secretary of state adopted regulations on Aug. 26 for how counties should conduct hand counting. The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada challenged the move on Aug. 31 and filed a motion for preliminary injunction Sept. 1, arguing that Nevada’s laws preclude hand counting ballots, and that hand counting could disenfranchise voters. Wilson ruled that Nevada’s law does not prohibit the use of hand counting. Voting is permitted by a “mechanical voting system,” but it is optional, he wrote in his order.

Full Article: Hand counting ballots OK, Nevada judge rules | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Pennsylvania counties can help voters fix problems with their mail ballots, state court rules | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Phildelphia Inquirer

A state judge cleared the way Thursday for Pennsylvania counties to continue helping voters correct small mistakes on their submitted mail ballots, saying nothing in the law prohibits the practice. The decision was a loss, at least temporarily, for Republicans who have tried in recent years to stop local elections officials from offering voters the opportunity to fix errors like missing signatures that would otherwise cause their ballots to be thrown out. “Petitioners have not proven that there is a clear violation of the Election Code or the law interpreting the Election Code,” Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote in her 58-page opinion. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee, which had asked the judge to bar the practice — known as “ballot curing” — before the November election. They cited the fact that there is no consistent curing policy across the state, and that some counties allow voters to fix errors while others do not.

Full Article: Pennsylvania counties can help voters fix problems with their mail ballots, state court rules

Texas court confirms the AG can’t unilaterally prosecute election cases | Alejandro Serrano/The Texas Tribune

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton‘s last-ditch attempt to regain the power of his office to unilaterally prosecute election cases was rejected by the state’s highest criminal court Wednesday. The Court of Criminal Appeals instead upheld its previous ruling that says that the attorney general must get permission from local county prosecutors to pursue cases on issues like voter fraud. Paxton had been fighting to overturn that ruling as the issue of prosecuting election fraud has become fraught in recent years. Paxton sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and has aggressively pursued individual cases of fraud, outraging some voting rights advocates who see the punishments as too harsh for people who made honest mistakes. Last December, eight of the nine members on the all-GOP court struck down a law that previously allowed Paxton’s office to take on those cases without local consent. The court said the law violated the separation-of-powers clause in the Texas Constitution. In the aftermath, Paxton, joined by Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, led a political push to get the court to reconsider its decision, warning that it would allow cases of fraud to go unpunished. His office filed a motion asking the Court of Criminal Appeals to rehear the case, vacate its previous opinion and affirm an appellate court’s judgment, which was in his favor.

Full Article: Texas court confirms the AG can’t unilaterally prosecute election cases | The Texas Tribune

Virginia updates how it conducts risk-limiting audits for election results | Charlotte Rene Woods/Richmond Times-Dispatch

On Tuesday, the Virginia Board of Elections approved a new risk-limiting audit manual ahead of the general election this November. Though election officials were already conducting risk-limiting audits in Virginia, they are now going to happen before state election officials certify election results. That’s because the General Assembly passed legislation that repealed and replaced previous state code relating to the audits. Risk-limiting audits are “a type of post-election audit that utilizes statistical methods and a manual review of paper ballots to confirm that the voting equipment accurately reported the correct outcome of an election,” the manual reads. The audits analyze a random sample of hand-counted ballots to confirm election results along with using auditing software called Arlo. The process helps confirm that voting accurately reported election results. “Now it’s going to be done prior to the certification of the election, whereas before we did it in the months after the election,” said former elections commissioner Chris Piper. For instance, the most recent such audit took place this past January — two months after the 2021 elections — and analyzed the results of the 13th and 75th House of Delegates districts.

Full Article: Virginia updates how it conducts risk-limiting audits for election results

Wisconsin: Records from election probe to be made public | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

All records from the closed Republican-ordered investigation into the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin are being uploaded to a website “for all to see,” an attorney told a judge on Tuesday. The investigation was led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who was fired in August by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, just days after Vos won his primary over an opponent endorsed by Gableman and former President Donald Trump. But the office Gableman led still exists. American Oversight, a liberal watchdog group, has filed four open records lawsuits against Gableman, Vos and the office seeking the records created during the investigation. On Tuesday, during a hearing over a lawsuit American Oversight filed to stop the deletion of records, attorney James Bopp said all electronic and paper records from the office have been turned over to the Assembly chief clerk’s office. The files are being uploaded to a website that will soon be available “for all to see,” said Bopp, who represents the office that he said has no employees. Hundreds of pages of documents have already been made public as the result of other American Oversight lawsuits. Bopp said the data yet-to-be made public that’s being processed now includes text messages on cellphones used in the course of the investigation.

Full Article: Records from Wisconsin election probe to be made public | AP News

National: House passes bill to prevent efforts to subvert presidential election results | Amy B. Wang/The Washington Post

The House voted Wednesday to pass an electoral reform bill that seeks to prevent presidents from trying to overturn election results through Congress, the first vote on such an effort since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob seeking to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral win. The bill passed on a 229-203 vote, with just nine Republicans breaking ranks and joining Democrats in supporting the measure. None of those nine Republican lawmakers will be members of Congress next year — either because they lost their primaries or chose to retire. The Presidential Election Reform Act, written by Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), explicitly cites the Capitol attack as a reason to amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887, “to prevent other future unlawful efforts to overturn Presidential elections and to ensure future peaceful transfers of Presidential power.” “Legal challenges are not improper, but Donald Trump’s refusal to abide by the rulings of the courts certainly was,” Cheney said Wednesday during House debate on the measure. “In our system of government, elections in the states determine who is the president. Our bill does not change that. But this bill will prevent Congress from illegally choosing the president itself.”

Full Article: House passes bill to prevent efforts to subvert presidential election results – The Washington Post

House Passes Overhaul of Electoral Count, Moving to Avert Another Jan. 6 Crisis | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

The House on Wednesday took the first major step to respond to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, voting mostly along party lines to overhaul the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, the law that former President Donald J. Trump tried to exploit that day to overturn his defeat. The bill was the most significant legislative answer yet to the riot and the monthslong campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to invalidate the 2020 presidential election, but it also underscored the lingering partisan divide over Jan. 6 and the former president’s continuing grip on his party. It cleared a divided House, passing on a 229 to 203 vote. All but nine Republicans opposed the measure, wary of angering Mr. Trump and unwilling to back legislation co-written by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and a leader of the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 and what led to them. The partisan division could complicate future negotiations with the Senate, which is moving ahead with its own bipartisan version of the legislation that differs from the House bill in some significant respects. Lawmakers now say they do not expect final approval before Congress returns for a lame-duck session after the Nov. 8 midterm elections. The legislation is aimed at updating the law that governs Congress’s counting of the electoral votes cast by the states, the final step under the Constitution to confirm the results of a presidential election and historically a mostly ceremonial process. Democrats said that the aftermath of the 2020 election — in which Mr. Trump and his allies’ attempts to throw out legitimate electoral votes led to the violent disruption of the congressional count by his supporters on Jan. 6 — made clear that the statute needed to be changed.

Full Article: House Passes Overhaul of Electoral Count, Moving to Avert Another Jan. 6 Crisis – The New York Times