‘Bloody Sunday’ 60th anniversary marked in Selma with remembrances and concerns about the future | Kim Chandler and Sifiyah Riddle/Associated Press

On Sunday, Selma, Alabama marked the 60th anniversary of the clash that became known as Bloody Sunday. The attack shocked the nation and galvanized support for the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965. The annual commemoration pays homage to those who fought to secure voting rights for Black Americans and brought calls to recommit to the fight for equality. For those gathered in Selma, the celebration comes amid concerns about new voting restrictions and the Trump administration’s effort to remake federal agencies they said helped make America a democracy for all. Speaking at the pulpit of the city’s historic Tabernacle Baptist Church, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said what happened in Selma changed the nation. He said the 60th anniversary comes at a time when there is “trouble all around” and some “want to whitewash our history.” But he said like the marchers of Bloody Sunday, they must keep going. Read Arfticle

National: Election officials face limited options as federal security resources fall away | Jessica Huseman andJen Fifield/Votebeat

A nonprofit agency that suddenly lost some of the federal funds it used to provide crucial election security support to states gave more details about the effect of the cuts in an email sent to state government officials on Wednesday. In a memo the Center for Internet Security said it is evaluating the impact of the funding cuts and will continue providing many services as it does so, though it didn’t address how long that would continue. Those services include help responding to cybersecurity incidents such as hacking and ransomware attempts, and coordinated sharing of data about threats that can help election officials assess whether something is an isolated event or part of a larger attack. CIS promised regular updates as it works “to determine how best to support these critical services without federal funding.” Several states have passed laws in recent years banning private funding or support for election offices, limiting their ability to seek outside help. The CIS memo appears to acknowledge that some state and local officials might need to withdraw from services because of those laws. Read Article

National: The Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center loses federal support for threat intelligence, incident response | Colin Wood/StateScoop

The Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which has supported the cybersecurity operations of state and local governments since its creation in 2004, has lost some of its federal funding. On Wednesday, a CISA spokesperson clarified that some of the MS-ISAC’s work will continue, and that the $10 million in defunded activities is “less than half” of the funding it provides CIS. State and local government officials have for years praised the resources provided by both organizations, which included intelligence briefings on emerging cybersecurity threats, notices on the latest security patches, incident response support, penetration testing and hundreds of Albert sensors, devices that help election administrators detect anomalous network activity. Read Article

National: CISA halts support for states on election security, U.S. official confirms | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

The federal government has halted election security activities and ended funding for the system that alerts state officials of election security threats across state lines, a representative of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency told state election officials last week. The March 3 email confirmed for secretaries of state and state election directors what they had read in news reports and noticed happening in practice: that President Donald Trump’s administration has suspended or dismantled federal support for election security, at least for now. Read Article

National: Trump administration halts funding for two cybersecurity efforts | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

The Trump administration has cut millions of dollars in federal funding from two cybersecurity initiatives, including one dedicated to helping state and local election officials. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, has ended about $10 million in annual funding to the nonprofit Center for Internet Security, a CISA spokesperson said in an email Monday. It’s the latest move by Trump administration officials to rein in the federal government’s role in election security, which has prompted concerns about an erosion of guardrails to prevent foreign meddling in U.S. elections. Read Article

National: DOGE axes CISA ‘red team’ staffers amid ongoing federal cuts | Carly Page/TechCrunch

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has fired more than a hundred employees working for the U.S. government’s cybersecurity agency CISA, including “red team” staffers, two people affected by the layoffs told TechCrunch. The people, who asked not to be named, said affected employees were axed immediately when their network access was revoked with no prior warning. The layoffs, which happened in late February and early March, are the latest round of staff cuts to hit the federal cybersecurity agency since the start of the Trump administration. Read Article

National: Newsmax agreed to pay Smartmatic $40M in settlement with the voting machine company | Zoë Richards/NBC

Newsmax agreed to pay Smartmatic $40 million as part of a settlement last year following the voting technology company’s election defamation lawsuit against the right-wing news outlet, according to a new regulatory filing. The settlement, reached in September, included a cash payment and an option to purchase stock in Newsmax, the media company said in its filing. Newsmax said payments totaling $20 million have already been made, with the rest coming before July. “Management believes the settlement with Smartmatic will, subject to the payment of all consideration in a timely manner, eliminate future legal expenses the Company would have expected to bear related to this suit, which could have included costly appellate legal actions and other matters,” Newsmax wrote. Read Article

Opinion: Trump Is Still Trying to Undermine Elections | Sue Halpern/The New Yorker

So far, it’s a tossup which of the Trump Administration’s wrecking balls will prove most destructive: the one that accelerates global warming, the one that abandons our allies, the one that torches the economy, or the one that compromises public health. Yet all of these are distractions from the President’s long-standing pet project: decimating free and fair elections. It may be that we have become so accustomed to hearing Donald Trump’s false claims about rigged elections and corrupt election officials that we have become inured to them, but in the past seven weeks he has pursued a renewed multilateral program to suppress the vote, curtail the franchise, undermine election security, eliminate protections from foreign interference, and neuter the independent oversight of election administration. And, as with the rest of Trump’s calamitous agenda, he is doing it in full view of the American people. Read Article

Arizona Secretary of State Proposes Alternative to Defunded National Election Security Program | Matt Cohen/Democracy Docket

After the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) cut funding to its election security programs, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) is taking matters into his own hands and forming an alternative program to fill CISA’s void for state and local election offices. According to a memo obtained by Democracy Docket, Fontes’ office wants to form a new organization called VOTE-ISAC, “an independent organization committed to safeguarding elections and restoring international confidence in the integrity of our democratic processes.” The idea for the program is to fill the void left by CISA’s crucial Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC). Read Article

Colorado calls DOJ interest in Tina Peters’ case a ‘grotesque attempt to weaponize the rule of law’ | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Colorado is asking a federal judge in Denver to reject the U.S. Justice Department’s statement of interest in the case of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters. In its filing, the state writes that the DOJ intervention has no legitimate basis and is a “grotesque attempt to weaponize the rule of law.” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser submitted the filing Tuesday in response to the DOJ’s statement of interest. “The United States cites not a single fact to support its baseless allegations that there are any reasonable concerns about Ms. Peters’ prosecution or sentence, or that the prosecution was politically motivated,” writes Weiser. Read Article

Georgia lawmakers keep election bill alive so they can change it | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Late at night in the Georgia House last week, representatives pushed through a hastily rewritten elections bill with little notice, less debate and no hint of its significance. This short bill is called a “vehicle” — a piece of legislation that can be amended to include very different election proposals, some of which never received a hearing or committee vote. House Bill 397, which passed the House and awaits action in the Senate, creates a process to remove members of the State Election Board. But Republicans might alter it to include ideas that did not survive last week’s deadline for bills to clear at least one legislative chamber, such as prohibiting voters from turning in their absentee ballots in-person the weekend before Election Day, banning last-minute election rules and a plan to withdraw Georgia from a national voter registration accuracy organization. Read Article

Michigan is short of clerks to oversee elections, but harassment and workload turn people away | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

In Michigan, local clerks have a lot of responsibilities. They manage elections, issue marriage certificates, handle requests for public documents, and numerous other duties. And just the election part has grown in recent years. Changes to the state Constitution to expand voting rights — like Prop 3 in 2018 and Prop 2 in 2022 — have increased the amount of work clerks have to put into elections. They now have to stand ready to register voters on Election Day, run at least eight days of early voting, and manage the distribution of absentee ballots to a growing list of voters every election cycle. The growing demands of the job — combined with the low pay people have come to associate with civic jobs — are discouraging new recruits, limiting the pipeline of talent for a critical role in the democratic process. In 2024, research found, 90% of clerk races in Michigan had only one candidate, and some small communities struggled to find anyone to run. Reasd Article

Missouri: St. Louis-based KNOWiNK first to get federal EAC certification for electronic poll books | Samir Knox/St. Louis Business Journal

A Creve Coeur company became the first in the nation to receive a key federal certification for its digital voter ID and verification technlogy. Knowink said the certification of its Poll Pad product from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission is a “seal of trust” for its customers that might encourage more election jurisdictions to use its products. “This first-in-nation certification is a testament to our dedication to constant innovation, top-tier security and full transparency in the election process,” Knowink CEO & Founder Scott Leiendecker said in a statement last week. Founded in 2011 by Scott Leiendecker, former city of St. Louis elections director, Knowink produces a suite of technology products marketed towards government elections directors to help manage everything from voter verification to vote tabulation and reporting. Read Article

North Carolina Supreme Court race hangs on unresolved ballot challenges | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

With voter confidence reportedly on the rise, it might be tempting to think that the battles over election integrity are over. But there’s one contest from the November 2024 general election that isn’t settled yet, even though it’s now March. And what’s happening in the North Carolina Supreme Court race is sending a clear signal that losing candidates will continue to contest the rules under which elections are conducted. Jefferson Griffin, a Republican, lost his bid for election to the court by just 734 votes to incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat who was appointed to a vacant seat in 2023 and then ran for a full term. Read Article

Opinion: North Carolina elections will be in chaos if Griffin wins case | Cherie Poucher, Kathy Holland, Larry Hammond and Meloni Wray/Raleigh News & Observer

We are among a group of 42 former county directors of elections who recently provided state judges with our perspective about Jefferson Griffin’s request to disqualify more than 65,000 voters in the 2024 N.C. Supreme Court contest. Members of our group come from every part of the state and have more than 750 years of combined experience in managing elections. Though normally behind-the-scenes administrators, we are speaking out now because of the significant impact this case could have on the integrity of our state’s election system. First, the election laws that voters relied on to cast their ballots in 2024 have been in place for years. Election directors relied on those rules to conduct the election in a uniform manner across the state, without favoritism or bias. Changing these laws and rules in the middle of an election is disruptive. Changing them after an election to apply to the election already held is chaos. How can the public trust our election system if the rules can be changed after the results are known in order to produce a different outcome? Read Article

Texas: In Guadalupe County, an elections academy aims to strengthen residents’ trust in voting | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Guadalupe County’s Citizens Elections Academy is the brainchild of Lisa Hayes, the county’s elections administrator, who modeled the idea after a similar initiative by local law enforcement. Across the state, counties and cities offer local government citizens’ academies and local law enforcement agencies run police department academies, but Guadalupe County’s academy — launched in the fall of 2023 — is the first to focus solely on elections. The goal, Hayes said, is to increase confidence and trust in the election process. It’s part of a broader effort by Texas election officials to address rampant spread of misinformation following the November 2020 election. Across the state, election officials have hosted open houses, workshops, and additional public testing of voting equipment beyond what’s required by law to try to regain voters’ trust. Read Article

Utah Was a Rare Red State to Champion Mail Voting. That Era Is Likely Ending. | Alex Burness/Bolts

House Bill 300, which passed the Republican-controlled legislature March 6, would end universal vote-by-mail in Utah. It’s a landmark reform that would close an era in which Utah occupied a unique place in the national patchwork of election rules: Since 2019, it’s been the only reliably red state in the country to automatically mail a ballot to every registered voter. HB 300 would instead require any Utah voter to proactively request a mail ballot. It would also impose additional restrictions on how they must return these ballots, for instance by ending the grace period for when they must be delivered to election offices by postal workers. Read Article

Wisconsin appeals court tosses improper temporary injunction for emailed absentee ballots | Destiny DeVooght/Courthouse News Service

A Wisconsin appeals court reversed on Wednesday a temporary injunction by the circuit court that would allow visually impaired voters to request emailed absentee ballots to be digitally marked and returned in person. In 2024, Disability Rights Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin filed suit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission, alleging the present absentee voting scheme is unlawful to print-disabled absentee voters because they cannot cast their ballot privately and without assistance. Specifically, they argued that this violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and Article III of the Wisconsin Constitution, which states that “all votes shall be by secret ballot,” according to the appellate brief. Read Article