A new analysis from Issue One finds that half of all counties in 11 Western states have lost their chief election official since the 2020 election, underscoring a deepening workforce crisis driven largely by stress, threats, and burnout — not electoral defeat or term limits. “This isn’t just normal turnover,” the report’s authors wrote in…
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence obtained voting machines from Puerto Rico and probed them for security vulnerabilities, the office said in a statement to CNN Wednesday. The extraordinary move comes amid Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s broader search for voter fraud at the behest of President Donald Trump, who has falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged despite numerous court rulings and audits debunking the claim. Gabbard was present as FBI agents executed a search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia, last week related to the 2020 election. The ODNI claimed in its statement to have found “extremely concerning” cybersecurity and operational deployment practices with the voting machines in Puerto Rico but did not provide detailed evidence. The US attorney in Puerto Rico, Homeland Security Investigations agents and an FBI supervisory special agent “facilitated the voluntary turnover of electronic voting hardware and software to ODNI for analysis,” an ODNI spokesperson said. It’s unclear exactly when the agency received and studied the voting machines. Read Article
President Trump’s declaration that he wants to “nationalize” voting in the United States arrives at a perilous moment for the relationship between the federal government and top election officials across the country. While the executive branch has no explicit authority over elections, generations of secretaries of state have relied on the intelligence gathering and cybersecurity defenses, among other assistance, that only the federal government can provide. But as Mr. Trump has escalated efforts to involve the administration in election and voting matters while also eliminating programs designed to fortify these systems against attacks, secretaries of state and other top state election officials, including some Republican ones, have begun to sound alarms. Some see what was once a crucial partnership as frayed beyond repair. They point to Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, his continued false claims that the contest was rigged, the presence of election deniers in influential government positions and his administration’s attempts to dig up evidence of widespread voter fraud that year, even though none has ever been found. Read Article
In the wake of an extraordinary FBI raid on a Fulton County elections office, Georgia Republican lawmakers are moving to rework how the state conducts its elections in advance of a crucial midterm election. Under a draft House proposal obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgians would have two in-person voting options for casting their ballot. Election Day voters would use hand-marked paper ballots, which would be tabulated by machines. Georgians voting early would be able to choose to fill out a ballot by hand or select their candidates using the current touchscreen system, which prints out a paper ballot receipt. Touchscreen votes would be hand-counted. The proposal was expected to be considered in the House Governmental Affairs Committee on Monday, but the meeting was called off after the proposal’s language immediately sparked controversy among local election officials and Democrats. Read Article
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s false claims about voter fraud in the state as Trump targeted Philadelphia in his push to nationalize elections. The state’s top election official said Trump’s proposal would violate the Constitution, which he noted clearly gives states exclusive authority to administer elections. “Pennsylvania elections have never been more safe and secure,” said Schmidt, who served as Philadelphia’s Republican city commissioner in 2020, when the city was at the center of Trump’s conspiracy theories. “Thousands of election officials — Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike — across the Commonwealth’s 67 counties will continue to ensure we have free, fair, safe, and secure elections for the people of Pennsylvania,” he said in a statement. Read Article