National: ‘Our democracy can’t function’ without poll workers. Here’s how some states are protecting them | Phillip M. Bailey/USA Today

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon is nervous about the 2024 presidential election. The Gopher State will need roughly 30,000 elections workers to oversee and administer hundreds of polling places, but it’s becoming difficult to get civic-minded Americans to volunteer. That's because Minnesota, like many other states, saw an uptick in abusive behavior towards poll workers leading up to last year’s midterms, he said. “If we continue to see a climate that is increasingly negative or unwelcoming to them, we're going to have problems recruiting and retaining those folks,” Simon told USA TODAY. “It is a problem in Minnesota. It is a problem nationally.” Full Article: Ahead of 2024, election workers get new protections in some states

California: With more costs to come, Shasta County will spend $950,000 on new voting system after hand count approval | Damon Arthur/Redding Record Searchlight

Shasta County officials on Thursday approved spending $950,000 to hire a company to provide the equipment needed to hand-count ballots, something that hasn't been done in California in decades, at least not on the scale proposed in the county. The Board of Supervisors' action comes even as elections officials try to develop a process that does away with machine counting and instead manually tallies ballots. County officials are also trying to figure out all of the costs associated with converting from machine counting. The board's vote was driven by the majority of supervisors' distrust of the vote counting machines it was using, Dominion Voting Systems. But over the past few months a large number of people also urged the board to stick with Dominion, rather than hand counting. Public comment before Thursday's board vote reflected the divide in the community over hand-counting versus machine tabulation. Joann Roskoski, past president of the League of Women Voters in Shasta County, criticized the supervisors for adopting hand counting without knowing all of the costs involved. "We don't even know if it can be done. But for sure, the money you're looking at today is the tip of the iceberg. That money is going to get larger and larger and larger. And I agree with the last speaker that not having come up with a plan before you set sail on the Titanic was a big mistake," Roskoski said. Full Article: Shasta Co. spends $950K on new voting system after hand count approval

National: What’s in Dominion Voting’s $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News | Bente Birkelund/NPR

When Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News over the lies the conservative cable network had broadcast in 2020 about the election tech company, the enormous $1.6 billion damage claim jumped out. The trial begins next week in Delaware and two of the biggest questions facing the jurors will be whether Fox and its executives are liable for broadcasting the lies and, if so, whether $1.6 billion is a remotely realistic amount to ask for. ... According to an analysis provided to NPR by the election security group Verified Voting, Dominion has actually seen a net increase in jurisdictions using Dominion equipment since 2020. The nonprofit monitors election equipment contracts around the country. For example in 2020, 1,161 jurisdictions used Dominion election day tabulation equipment. Verified Voting's analysis says 1,861 jurisdictions will use Dominion equipment in 2024. That said, there's been a net loss in the total number of registered voters who will vote with Dominion's machines in upcoming elections. Full Article: What's in Dominion Voting's $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News : NPR

National: Election officials have ideas for stopping a 2024 crisis before it even starts | Zach Montellaro/Politico

Election officials have one major goal ahead of 2024: Make Democracy Boring Again. Election administration has faced an unprecedented amount of scrutiny — and tumult — since the 2020 election. Officials have faced death threats and unprecedented public harassment stemming from mis- and disinformation. Many workers are leaving the field. Now, the Bipartisan Policy Center is out with a new report with 23 recommendations for election administration to turn down the temperature. The premise of the report, shared first with POLITICO, is to make behind-the-scenes improvements to how elections are administered in 2024 and beyond. “Election officials do want elections to become boring again,” said Rachel Orey, the associate director of the BPC’s Elections Project and an author of the report. “We need to think more realistically about what it is that we actually need to do to improve elections.” They might have their work cut out for them.
Full Article: Election officials have ideas for stopping a 2024 crisis before it even starts - POLITICO

National: GOP distrust in voting machines persists as Dominion and Fox News head to legal showdown | Fredreka Schouten and Marshall Cohen/CNN

First, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors in rural northern California voted to cancel its contract with Dominion Voting Systems, citing public distrust of the company’s machines. Then, the supervisors agreed to shift to hand-counting ballots in future elections after receiving written assurance from one of the most vocal 2020 election deniers – MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell – that he would provide “financial and legal” resources to the county if it faced “pushback” over the move. The decision by a majority of supervisors in this deeply conservative county to end the Dominion contract – years before its expiration date and over the objection of the county’s top election official – illustrates how the attacks against the company continue to reverberate more than two years after the 2020 election. Dominion is preparing to face off in the coming days against Fox News in a Delaware courtroom in a high-profile $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. Dominion claims the network “recklessly disregarded the truth” by peddling conspiracies advanced by former President Donald Trump and his allies about its voting systems. Fox News has denied any wrongdoing. Dominion has also sued Lindell and Trump-aligned attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, along with two smaller right-wing networks, Newsmax and One America News Network. Each lawsuit offers detailed rebuttals of the conspiracy theories that have flourished in pockets of the country and conservative media circles ever since Trump and his allies began pushing claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Full Article: GOP distrust in voting machines persists as Dominion and Fox News head to legal showdown | CNN Politics

National: Misinformation Defense Worked in 2020, Up to a Point, Study Finds | Tiffany Hsu/The New York Times

Not long after misinformation plagued the 2016 election, journalists and content moderators scrambled to turn Americans away from untrustworthy websites before the 2020 vote. A new study suggests that, to some extent, their efforts succeeded. When Americans went to the polls in 2020, a far smaller portion had visited websites containing false and misleading narratives compared with four years earlier, according to researchers at Stanford. Although the number of such sites ballooned, the average visits among those people dropped, along with the time spent on each site. Efforts to educate people about the risk of misinformation after 2016, including content labels and media literacy training, most likely contributed to the decline, the researchers found. Their study was published on Thursday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. “I am optimistic that the majority of the population is increasingly resilient to misinformation on the web,” said Jeff Hancock, the founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab and the lead author of the report. “We’re getting better and better at distinguishing really problematic, bad, harmful information from what’s reliable or entertainment.”

Full Article: Misinformation Defense Worked in 2020, Up to a Point, Study Finds – The New York Times

National: These state officials praised ERIC for years before suddenly pulling out of the program | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

When newly elected Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis kicked off a series of election security reforms in 2019, he said, “protecting the integrity of Florida’s elections” was one of his “top priorities.”  In addition to giving $2 million to local election offices to shore up defenses and initiating a review of all 67 counties’ cyber practices, he also that year announced that Florida was joining the Electronic Registration Information Center — an obscure nonprofit that would help the massive state clean its voter roll and reach out to eligible but unregistered voters. “We want to make sure that the voter rolls are accurate, and one of the best ways to do that, I think, is for Florida to join the Electronic Registration Information Center, known as ERIC,” DeSantis said at an August 2019 news conference. So, starting the following year, Florida shared motor vehicle and voter registration data with ERIC. Using similar data from states across the country, ERIC produced a list of people who were registered in Florida but had moved, died, or otherwise rendered themselves ineligible to vote in the state. It also provided Florida with a list of people who were eligible to vote but had not registered. Full Article: Why these states left ERIC after praising the voter roll-checking program - Votebeat: Nonpartisan local reporting on election administration and voting

National: Fox Election-Conspiracy Theories Spur Deluge of Threats, Dominion Voting Says | Jef Feeley/Bloomberg

Dominion Voting Systems remains “under siege” from threats spawned by 2020 election-conspiracy theories propounded by Fox News TV hosts and guests, a lawyer for Dominion told a judge. For more than two years, a deluge of threats has made it nearly impossible for the company to hire and retain workers, Dominion attorney Megan Meier said Tuesday at a pre-trial hearing. She said the threats are tied to false statements by Fox personalities who claimed Dominion engineered its machines to steal votes from ex-President Donald Trump. Dominion has sued Fox for $1.6 billion in damages, claiming defamation because the network aired bogus claims it rigged the presidential election to benefit Democratic candidate Joe Biden. The case is set for trial in Delaware this month. “The impact of these threats cannot be overstated,” Meier told Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis. The threats aren’t just against Dominion employees, she said. State officials who consider buying the company’s voting machines also are targeted, Meier said. Full Article: Fox 2020 Election Conspiracy Theories Spur Threats, Dominion Voting Says - Bloomberg

Arizona: Maricopa County election investigation: Ballots were too long, paper too heavy for printers | Caitlin Sievers/AZ Mirror

Ballots that were too long and paper that was too heavy for some of Maricopa County ballot printers caused the majority of Election Day tabulation problems on Nov. 8, 2022, according to a report by a team of independent investigators the county hired to get to the bottom of the Election Day chaos. The ballot-printing problems, which caused tabulators to reject some ballots, led to frustration and long lines at some voting centers on Election Day. The printer malfunctions, which occurred at around 70 of Maricopa County’s 229 voting centers open that day, also fueled conspiracy theories from people like Republican Kari Lake, who lost her bid for governor to Democrat Katie Hobbs by around 17,000 votes. Lake claimed in her election challenge lawsuit that someone had intentionally tampered with the printers in an effort to disenfranchise in-person Election Day voters, who swung heavily Republican. But the trial, appellate and Arizona Supreme courts did not find Lake’s claims to be valid. Likewise, the independent investigation team found no evidence of tampering. Source: Maricopa County election investigation: Ballots were too long, paper too heavy for printers

Editorial: Hand-counting ballots is a costly mistake for California county | San Luis Obispo Tribune

Some California counties have toyed with the idea of hand-counting election ballots, especially when denialism was at its peak following the 2020 election. In San Luis Obispo County, for example, Supervisor Debbie Arnold once tried to add manual tallies to a list of proposed election “reforms.” Fortunately, the suggestion went nowhere. But now one county has actually decided to make the switch — turning back the clock in a stunning show of bullheadedness. The Board of Supervisors in Shasta County, a pocket of right-wing extremism in Northern California, voted 3-2 to hand-count all ballots going forward — a process described as “exceptionally complex and error-prone” by the county’s top election official. It’s the first county in California to take that misbegotten step, which plays right into the hands of conspiracy theorists who will never concede that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Let’s hope it’s the last county to do so. Source: Hand-counting ballots is a costly mistake for California county | San Luis Obispo Tribune

Former Colorado County ClerkTina Peters Is Sentenced in Obstruction Case | Neil Vigdor/The New York Times

Tina Peters, a Trump loyalist who was barred from overseeing elections in a Colorado county after her indictment on charges related to tampering with voting equipment, was sentenced on Monday to home detention after she was convicted in a separate obstruction case. Ms. Peters, the former clerk in Mesa County, was given four months of house arrest and 120 hours of community service in connection with her February 2022 arrest in Grand Junction, Colo., on a misdemeanor obstruction charge, according to court records. A jury convicted Ms. Peters last month of stonewalling investigators from the district attorney’s office in Mesa County when they tried to seize an iPad from her that she had used to record a court proceeding. According to an affidavit, police officers responded to a local bagel shop where they said that Ms. Peters, a Republican, resisted while she was being searched and was taken into custody. Full Article: Tina Peters, Former Colorado County Clerk, Is Sentenced in Obstruction Case - The New York Times

Georgia: Voting equipment and check-in upgrades funded in state budget | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia legislators approved half of the money needed to replace heavy voting equipment across the state, along with additional funding for a quicker voter check-in process and election investigators. The most expensive elections purchase in the state budget was $2 million for new power supply devices that connect to voting machines in precincts across the state. The power supplies will be more portable for poll workers, weighing about 30 pounds each instead of the current equipment that weights 80 pounds. Some of the older power supplies have already stopped working, four years after they were purchased as part of Georgia’s $107 million statewide voting equipment from Dominion Voting Systems. “The uninterrupted power supplies required by our ballot-marking devices are currently at the end of their life cycles, and some have actually begun to fail,” said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “The $2 million investment made by the Legislature will begin the upgrade process to new units that are more reliable and have a longer life cycle.” Because the General Assembly only appropriated half of the $4 million it would cost to replace power supplies statewide, many precincts will have to wait for new equipment. Legislators could consider that funding next year. Full Article: Voting equipment and check-in upgrades funded in Georgia budget

Louisiana Secretary of State Ardoin won’t seek reelection | Sara Cline/Associated Press

Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, who has overseen elections in the state for the last five years, announced Tuesday that he will not seek reelection this year. In recent years, the Republican has faced increasing scrutiny while supervising an effort to replace Louisiana’s outdated voting machines, which do not produce paper ballots that are critical to ensuring election results are accurate. The ongoing process to buy new machines was thrust into the national spotlight after allegations of bid-rigging, voting machine companies claimed favoritism, and conspiracy theorists — who support former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and unsuccessfully urged Ardoin to ditch voting machines altogether and instead rely on hand-counted paper ballots — inserted themselves into the conversation.  “I hope that Louisianans of all political persuasions will stand against the pervasive lies that have eroded trust in our elections by using conspiracies so far-fetched that they belong in a work of fiction,” Ardoin said in a statement Tuesday. “The vast majority of Louisiana’s voters know that our elections are secure and accurate, and it is shameful and outright dangerous that a small minority of vocal individuals have chosen to denigrate the hard work of our election staff and spread unproven falsehoods.” Full Article: Louisiana Secretary of State Ardoin won't seek reelection | AP News

Nevada lawmakers consider requiring voting machines for all in-person voting | Sean Golonka/The Nevada Independent

After multiple rural counties attempted to eliminate or consider eliminating the use of mechanical voting machines last year, Nevada lawmakers are considering a bill that would require such machines to be used for in-person voting. The change would primarily affect Nye County, where county officials last year transitioned away from the use of electronic voting machines amid the spread of election fraud conspiracy theories that targeted Dominion Voting Systems, a major manufacturer and provider of voting equipment nationally and in Nevada. AB242, which comes from the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections, would prohibit the use of paper ballots for in-person voting, instead requiring the use of voting machines for in-person voting. Voting machines used in Nevada include the Dominion electronic voting machines used in 15 counties, including Clark and Washoe counties, and mechanical ballot marking devices used in Carson City and Lander County. Assemblywoman Tracy Brown-May (D-Las Vegas) presented the bill and said the measure was intended to “address the inadequacies in accessibility for people with disabilities to be able to cast their votes.” Full Article: Lawmakers consider requiring voting machines for all in-person voting – The Nevada Independent

New Hampshire: New House GOP proposal for voting machines emerges | Kevin Landrigan/The New Hampshire Union Leader

Cities and towns could qualify to use some of the $12 million federal Help America Vote Act grant surplus to replace aging voting machines under a move a House Republican leader is backing — reviving a proposal supported by leading House and Senate Democrats. House Election Laws Committee Chairman Ross Berry, R-Merrimack, proposed Tuesday to graft this proposal onto a Senate-passed bill (SB 70) to create a voter information portal that would permit citizens online to more easily register to vote, update their information or request absentee ballots. The state Senate earlier killed separate legislation (SB 73) to permit the use of Help America Vote Act (HAVA) money for voting machines while Berry's House committee decided to retain its own legislation on the topic (HB 447) until early in 2024. Berry said he was hoping his gambit could permit both these ideas to become a reality. "We know our colleagues on the other side of the wall really love the portal," Berry said. "Let's marry the two and have our cake and eat it too; that's what the bill does." Senate Election Laws and Municipal Affairs Committee Chairman James Gray, R-Rochester, said the Senate remains dead-set against using HAVA grants so communities could replace their AccuVote machines, the only technology allowed for cities and towns that don't have paper balloting. Full Article: New House GOP proposal for voting machines emerges

Most South Dakota county auditors disagree with election drop box ban | Stu Whitney/South Dakota News Watch

When the question of using election drop boxes for South Dakota early voting was raised in a House State Affairs committee hearing in Pierre in early February, the discussion took on an ominous tone, mirroring national rhetoric over the integrity of American elections. “It’s simply too easy for bad actors to abuse these drop-off sites to dump unauthorized ballots illegally,” said Republican Rep. Kirk Chaffee of Whitewood. He was the prime sponsor of House Bill 1165, which modified absentee voting rules and banned the use of unmonitored drop boxes in South Dakota. T.J. Nelson, a lobbyist for Opportunity Solutions Project, a conservative advocacy group that has pushed for restrictions to absentee voting in state legislatures, also issued warnings while working with legislators and county auditors to make it “easier to vote but harder to cheat,” a mantra used by supporters of early-voting reforms. Full Article: Most South Dakota county auditors disagree with election drop box ban - South Dakota News Watch

Texas lawmakers take first steps to reverse course on costly requirement for election technology that doesn’t exist | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Texas lawmakers are trying to undo an expensive election problem they didn’t realize they had created in the first place. In 2021, they passed a law that is set to require counties to purchase vote-counting equipment that does not yet exist and that would cost taxpayers more than $100 million. The measure, when it was proposed, went unnoticed and passed on a voice vote without debate. After Votebeat reported in February on the unprecedented problem with the law and election officials’ deep concerns, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican, and other lawmakers filed legislation to ease the conundrum the measure had forced on Texas counties, which would be prohibited from using their current vote-counting equipment and required to purchase new equipment each election. Hughes said during a committee hearing last month that there had been a “misunderstanding on the scope” of the provision. Hughes’ new proposal, Senate Bill 1661, would amend the language of that law to allow counties to continue to use the voting equipment they have without any additional costs to counties or taxpayers. “When this became law, the hope was that it would get fixed this session, and we’re glad to see it’s getting addressed,” said Chris Davis, the Williamson County elections administrator. “We’re glad [lawmakers] recognize their mistake.”

Full Article: Texas lawmakers walk back election voting equipment requirement | The Texas Tribune

Virginia: Hounded by baseless voter fraud allegations, an entire county’s election staff quits | Jane C. Timm/NBC

Lindsey Taylor loved running elections here. The previous registrar had spent nearly three decades in the job, and Taylor, 37, hoped to do the same when she was hired in 2019. She loved her staff and the volunteer poll workers, and she took pride in the detail-oriented work. She implemented dozens of new laws in 2020, ran elections through the pandemic and impressed many in the rural, conservative, tight-knit community of Buckingham County. But then the voter fraud claims started. In January, the GOP assumed control of the Buckingham County Electoral Board that oversees her office, and local Republicans began advancing baseless voter fraud claims that baffled her. The electoral board made it clear it wanted her out of the job. “There were people saying that they had heard all these rumors — that the attorney general was going to indict me,” Taylor said, days after leaving the office for the last time. “Mentally, I just — I couldn’t take it anymore.” Three weeks ago, frustrated and heartbroken, Taylor, along with two part-time staffers, quit. Their resignations followed a deputy registrar who left in February, citing the same conflict. The four departures left residents without a functioning registrar’s office; there was no way to register to vote or certify candidate paperwork, at least temporarily. Full Article: Amid baseless voter fraud claims, an entire county election staff quits

Wisconsin’s Judicial Election Tests Democratic Norms | Alice Clapman/Brennan Center for Justice

The results of Wisconsin’s 2023 election, shifting control away from the conservative majority after 15 years, have set up a critical test for Republicans and, more broadly, for that state’s democratic systems. As a nation, we should pay attention. Wisconsin has long been an example of one party solidifying its political power at the expense of democratic norms. For over a decade, Wisconsin Republicans have entrenched themselves in the legislative majority with two of the worst gerrymanders in the country, drawing districts that have yielded them legislative majorities wildly out of step with their actual share of votes in the state. In 2018, after losing both the governorship and the attorney general’s office, they called a special session to pass, in the literal dead of night, omnibus legislation stripping power from those offices, confirming 82 last-minute executive appointments, and making it harder to vote in future elections. Unfortunately, Wisconsin is far from alone in this respect: in multiple states, such as North Carolina, Iowa, Montana, and Alaska, Republican legislators have been stripping power from other democratically elected branches. And of course, both parties have engaged in gerrymandering, though not to the same degree. Full Article: Wisconsin’s Judicial Election Tests Democratic Norms | Brennan Center for Justice