Australia: Postal survey panned as ‘insecure’ as complaints pile up | New Daily

Claims of stolen same-sex marriage ballots, weather-damaged postal survey envelopes and other anomalies have prompted a stern warning from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and calls for the entire process to be scrapped. The survey has been marred by anecdotal complaints since the ABS began mailing out ballot papers, including that some had been sent to residents’ former addresses, sparking concerns that they could be filled out illegally. At the weekend, survey envelopes at seven Canberra apartment blocks were reportedly found left out in the rain rather than delivered to individual letter boxes, while a Senate committee on Friday heard claims that some people had received postal packs without reply paid envelopes.

Germany: The Cyber Threat To Germany’s Elections Is Very Real | The Atlantic

One afternoon in early September, a small group of journalists, policy makers, and visitors in Berlin gathered for a lunch panel discussion, titled “Who’s hacking the election—how do we stop the attackers?” Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic-security agency, was the guest of honor. In his remarks, he warned of the dangers of what’s known as “white propaganda”: information illegally collected and disseminated by hackers with the intent of manipulating public opinion against the German government and disrupting its upcoming parliamentary elections. “We and our partners are of the opinion that the background [of the hack on the Democratic National Committee] in the U.S. was Russian,” he said. Russian military intelligence, his office alleged, was very likely responsible for hacking and leaking top DNC officials’ emails during the 2016 campaign season, exposing sensitive internal-party communications that drove a wedge through the party. Maassen warned that a cyber attack on the German government now, so close to the country’s vote on September 24th, remained a possibility.

New Zealand: Jet fuel ‘debacle’ disrupts election campaign | The Guardian

New Zealand’s jet fuel crisis is worsening by the day with airlines restricting ticket sales, politicians limiting travel to essential flights only on some routes in the final days of the election campaign and all but the most critical exports halted. Rationing is set to continue for another week after a digger on Thursday struck the sole jet fuel, diesel and petrol supply pipe to Auckland, the country’s biggest city and major transport hub for international visitors. Three thousand people a day are being affected by cancelled domestic and international flights. Another 6,000 people will be impacted by delays or disruptions to normal service, Air New Zealand said, and it had taken the “unusual” step of restricting ticket sales to all but essential or compassionate travel to try and manage the shortage.

Spain: Catalan government officials arrested amid referendum row | The Guardian

Spanish police officers have raided three Catalan regional government departments and arrested 12 senior officials as Madrid steps up its battle to stop an independence referendum being held in less than two weeks’ time. On Wednesday morning, a spokesman for the regional government said Guardia Civil officers were searching the Barcelona offices of the presidency and the ministries of economic affairs and foreign relations. He also confirmed that Josep Maria Jové, the secretary general of economic affairs and an aide to the Catalan vice-president, was among those detained – apparently in connection with the launch of web pages related to the referendum. Catalan ministers are due to hold an emergency meeting. Police and judicial authorities gave no details on the operation, saying a judge had placed a secrecy order on it.

Togo: Opposition boycotts constitutional reform vote | AFP

Togo’s opposition stayed away from parliament on Tuesday, blocking the passage of the government’s bill for political reform and forcing a referendum. The bill was published last week on the eve of protests calling for a revision of the constitution that developed into demands for President Faure Gnassingbe to step down. A four-fifths majority was needed for it to be approved but the opposition no-show meant it only secured 62 out of 91 votes, with one abstention. Eric Dupuy, spokesman for the main opposition National Alliance for Change (ANC) party, called the National Assembly session a “sham”.

National: Yes, U.S. election integrity could be improved. Here’s why the Pence commission probably won’t do it. | The Washington Post

In May, President Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to investigate electoral fraud in last November’s election, appointing Vice President Pence as its head. While the president has repeatedly argued that millions of unauthorized voters cast ballots, political scientists have debunked his claims. Experts do believe that the quality of elections in the United States could improve. But the Pence commission is unusual in several ways that may prevent that improvement. Here’s what the United States could learn from how other countries reduce electoral law violations, maintain accurate voter rolls, improve voter registration and ensure that voter’s choices are reliably recorded. The Pence commission’s objective is to evaluate the strengths and vulnerabilities of the voting process. Its first task, however, has been to investigate Trump’s contention that millions of illegal votes were cast last November.

National: Is Kobach a private citizen when serving on Trump commission? | The Kansas City Star

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s use of private email for a presidential commission could bring him into conflict with a 1-year-old state law meant to increase government transparency. Kobach, a candidate for Kansas governor, told ProPublica last week that he was serving on President Donald Trump’s voting fraud commission as a private citizen rather than as Kansas secretary of state and that he was using his personal gmail account for commission business rather than his official state account. Kobach, a candidate for Kansas governor and vice chair of the commission, said using his state account would be a “waste of state resources.” The ProPublica report scrutinized the use of private email by commission members and their possible violation of a federal statute that requires any federal government business conducted by private email to be forwarded to a government address within 20 days. But Kobach may also be running afoul of a state law, enacted last year, that made Kansas officials’ private emails subject to the Kansas Open Records Act, or KORA, if they pertained to public business.

Editorials: How the FEC Turned a Blind Eye to Foreign Meddling | Ann Ravel/Politico

When Facebook revealed to investigators that a Kremlin-linked troll farm paid the company $100,000 for divisive political ads during the 2016 election, many saw the news as a bombshell. But in a year of unpredictable leaks, scandals and scoops, this just might be the least surprising news. Almost everybody with a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account saw a political advertisement on the internet last year. The opportunity for a political campaign is obvious. Internet ads give candidates and interest groups the ability to microtarget potential voters more effectively than TV, for far less money. Approximately two-thirds of Americans get at least some of their news from social media, while print newspaper readership is a fraction of what it once was. And yet, policymakers for years have ignored or outright opposed the need to hold the internet advertising industry to the same standards the country has already agreed on for television and radio. Our campaign finance rules are outdated for the internet age, and rules on the books aren’t enforced. Now, with the revelation that Russia, too, sees the political value in America’s online advertising market, the chickens have come home to roost.

California: In California, open primaries took the ‘politics’ out of politics | The Hill

Last month, the California legislature did something unheard of — by Washington, D.C., standards. They came together across party lines to amend and extend sweeping cap and trade emissions legislation. Business, agriculture, labor and environmentalists all had a seat at the table. By 2030, California’s population is expected to grow by five million people, yet our greenhouse gas emissions will shrink to 40 percent below 1990 levels. In this era of cynicism and gridlock, how is this possible? The answer may surprise you. It’s not because California is a “blue” state. If that were the reason, New York would be leading the country in legislative innovation, not state house scandals and indictments. Seven years ago, Californians overhauled the political system so that voters have more choices and politicians are incentivized to cooperate and innovate, not grandstand and polemicize.

Georgia: ACLU demanding changes from Secretary of State’s office | WXIA

The ACLU of Georgia is challenging Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and the secretary of state’s office over their list maintenance procedures and compliance with federal and state law. In particular, they — along with several other organizations, including the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda — are pointing out that nearly 160,000 Georgia voters who have moved within the same county have recently been threatened with being placed on “inactive” status if they did not respond within 30 days, in violation of both federal and state law.

Kansas: Appeals court to grapple with Beth Clarkson voting-machine case in Wichita | The Wichita Eagle

Is voting rigged in Sedgwick County? Is there any way to prove it is or isn’t? Those are the fundamental questions underlying a Kansas Court of Appeals case to be argued Tuesday morning in a special court session at Friends University in Wichita. The appeals court is being asked to allow a recount of votes on audit tapes from voting machines to test the accuracy of the tallies reported by Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman. Wichita State University statistician Beth Clarkson has tried for seven years to gain access to the tapes. Her request was denied by Lehman and the denial was upheld in district court. Lehman and Sedgwick County say that there is no problem with the votes and releasing the tapes would risk compromising the secrecy of people’s ballots. Tuesday’s appeal arguments will feature two prominent Wichita attorneys.

Maine: Dunlap calls for voter fraud hardliner’s resignation | CNN

A member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is calling on a voter fraud hard-liner to resign from the panel after a controversial email he sent about the panel’s makeup became public. Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said it remains “an open question” whether the commission can continue its mission and stopped short of demanding Heritage Foundation expert Hans von Spakovsky step down — but said “certainly” he should start with an apology. At issue is an email sent by von Spakovsky to the Justice Department in February that was made public in a Freedom of Information Act request by the Campaign Legal Center last week. Von Spakovsky was named to the commission in June. In the email, which made its way to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, von Spakovsky says he had received a “very disturbing phone call” that the commission would be “bipartisan and include Democrats.”

Maryland: Election security in doubt after hearing | Capital News Service

Maryland legislators learned last week the state’s electronic balloting system may need better security measures to protect voters’ information and that the lawmakers must be the ones to add those protections. The state’s electoral board told lawmakers Sept. 6 that they are powerless to make those changes, and that any security changes must come directly from the legislative body. Last year, the state’s Board of Elections voted 4-1 to certify a new system for online ballots, even though experts in cybersecurity and computer science publicly objected. While nearly all states have a system in place for signature verification, the General Assembly did not vote last year on the topic so there was no verification system in place, leaving Maryland as the only state in the nation without one, according to a report last year by Capital News Service.

Ohio: Parties in lawsuit call Ohio purges voter suppression | Associated Press

Groups challenging Ohio’s system for removing inactive voters from rolls are disagreeing with the state elections chief’s arguments and the Trump administration’s contention that the purges are legal. The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York-based public advocacy group Demos said in their latest U.S. Supreme Court filing that targeting registered voters who fail to vote in a two-year period for eventual removal from the registration rolls, even if they haven’t moved and remain eligible, is a tool for voter suppression.

China: Young democracy activist among Macau election winners | Associated Press

Macau voters have elected a young pro-democracy activist to the Chinese casino capital’s legislature, as opposition lawmakers expanded their presence at the expense of candidates linked to the gambling industry. The results released early Monday are a surprising sign of faith in young people with progressive ideas among Macau’s notoriously apathetic electorate. Official results showed that 26-year-old Sulu Sou won a seat in Sunday’s election for the city’s semi-democratic legislature, making him the city’s youngest-ever lawmaker, according to local news reports.

Germany: Moscow Takes U.S. Meddling Tactics to German Vote | The Cipher Brief

In less than a week, on September 24th, the German public will vote in the country’s general elections – not only to determine who will sit in the country’s parliament, known as the Bundestag, but also who will become – or remain – Chancellor. As the economic and political European heavyweight, Germany has been seen as the anchor for an EU in crisis, making it a prime target for those seeking to undermine European unity and stability. Russia has shown a propensity for taking subtle, and not so subtle, measures to sow confusion and undercut political opponents in the West – most prominently in last year’s U.S. elections that may have helped bring the administration of Donald Trump into power. Russia’s cyber-enabled influence campaigns seek to exacerbate societal divisions by disseminating false narratives and leveraging hack-and-leak tactics that promise compromising and salacious material on critical voices.

Iraq: Supreme Court steps in to block Kurdish independence vote | The Guardian

Iraq’s supreme court has ordered the suspension of next week’s referendum on the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, as legal and political pressure mounted on the Kurds to call off the vote. “The supreme court has issued the order to suspend organising the referendum set for 25 September … until it examines the complaints it has received over this plebiscite being unconstitutional,” it said. Ayas al-Samouk, a court spokesman, said it had received several complaints, as a parliamentary source said at least eight lawmakers had called on the court to intervene on constitutional grounds.

Kenya: Election re-run in doubt amid technology issues and high court hearings | Deutsche Welle

Insiders at Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) say there is a possibility that the country’s presidential election do-over could be moved from October 17 to either the 26th or 27th, owing to issues with voting technology. French-supplied voting software known as the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) needs to be reconfigured before voting takes place. It is expected to be used in more than 250 parliamentary, senatorial and gubernatorial petitions filed in numerous Kenyan courts by losing candidates who wish to challenge the election’s victor. Workers at IEBC point out that the 41,883 polling stations throughout Kenya will require at least 42,000 reconfigured kits. In addition to this, there will likely be a need for extra standby kits in case technical issues occur.

Nepal: Voting peaceful in previously troubled southern Nepal | Associated Press

Tens of thousands of people voted peacefully Monday in a previously troubled southern Nepal province where ethnic violence demanding constitution changes had led to dozens of deaths in recent years. Police said there was no trouble during the voting in the No. 2 province, where security had been stepped up for the municipal and village council elections. The Madhesi ethnic group wants their provinces to have more territory than was assigned under the constitution adopted in 2015.

United Kingdom: Voters to be asked for ID in trials of system to combat electoral fraud | The Guardian

Voters in five local authorities will need to show ID before they can vote in local elections next May, in a move aimed at combating voter fraud but which Labour and the Liberal Democrats have warned could disenfranchise thousands of people. Voters in Woking, Gosport, Bromley, Watford and Slough will be asked to show ID at polling stations before being issued with a ballot paper, but the five local authorities are likely to trial a variety of systems, including showing photo ID or providing polling cards where individual barcodes could be scanned. The Cabinet Office and Electoral Commission said details were still being finalised of what photo ID would be required, as well as a system involving non-photo ID, but both would be trialled to see which was more effective and efficient.

Togo: Ruling party calls rally to drown out opposition | AFP

Togo’s ruling presidential party on Monday urged supporters to take to the streets to coincide with planned opposition demonstrations against the slow pace of political reform. Georges Kwawu Aidam, the first vice-president of the Union for the Republic (UNIR) told AFP there would be marches on Wednesday and Thursday in support of a controversial constitutional reform bill which the opposition see as not going far enough. A parliamentary panel last Friday approved the bill to revamp the constitution and introduce a presidential term limit after days of protests against the regime of Faure Gnassingbe, the scion of one of Africa’s oldest political dynasties. But the panel rejected wholesale 48 amendments proposed by opposition parties.

National: Trump’s fraud commission proves a magnet for controversy | The Washington Post

As President Trump’s voter fraud commission prepared to convene in New Hampshire this week, it already faced questions about its seriousness of purpose and whether it was a hopelessly biased endeavor. Then things got worse. An email surfaced in which the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, one of the commission’s most conservative members, lamented that Trump was appointing Democrats and “mainstream” Republicans to the bipartisan panel. Its vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), drew rebukes from voting rights advocates — and a couple of fellow commissioners — for an article he wrote for the hard-right Breitbart News website. The article asserted, without proof, that voter fraud had likely changed the result in New Hampshire’s most recent U.S. Senate race. A third Republican on the panel, J. Christian Adams of Virginia, later feuded on Twitter with a journalist, questioning whether she had lied about her academic credentials. She had not.

National: Senators propose 9/11-style commission on Russian interference | The Hill

A bipartisan pair of senators is moving to create a 9/11-style commission to examine the cyberattacks that took place during the 2016 presidential election campaign. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced legislation on Friday to establish the National Commission on Cybersecurity of U.S. Election Systems to study the election-related cyberattacks — which the intelligence community has attributed to Russia — and make recommendations on how to guard against such activity going forward. The commission would be modeled after the 9/11 Commission tasked with investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.

National: Experts Say the Use of Private Email by Trump’s Voter Fraud Commission Isn’t Legal | ProPublica

President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission came under fire earlier this month when a lawsuit and media reports revealed that the commissioners were using private emails to conduct public business. Commission co-chair Kris Kobach confirmed this week that most of them continue to do so. Experts say the commission’s email practices do not appear to comport with federal law. “The statute here is clear,” said Jason Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle and former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration. Essentially, Baron said, the commissioners have three options: 1. They can use a government email address; 2. They can use a private email address but copy every message to a government account; or 3. They can use a private email address and forward each message to a government account within 20 days. According to Baron, those are the requirements of the Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978, which the commission must comply with under its charter.

National: Facebook under fire over Russian ads in election | The Hill

Facebook is under fire after revealing that a Russian group tied to the Kremlin bought political ads on its platform during the 2016 elections. Lawmakers are demanding answers, and liberal groups, who say the company failed to crack down on fake news, are seizing on the new disclosure. Even Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, has cited the ads when discussing her loss during a book tour. “We now know that they were sewing discord during the election with phony groups on Facebook,” Clinton told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “They were running anti-immigrant, anti-me, anti-Hillary Clinton demonstrations. They were putting out the fake news and negative stories untrue to really divide people.” Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said the company needs to be more forthcoming about the full extent of the ad buys.

Editorials: So You Want Digital Voting? Hackers Want It Even More | Kathleen Fisher/Big Think

One of the reasons why computer security is so hard is because you have to get absolutely everything right in order to have a secure system. And there’s lots of different kinds of things you can get wrong. Everything from your software was buggy, your passwords were too weak, you published your passwords accidentally, your hardware was insecure, the user made a mistake and fell victim to a phishing attack and gave their credentials to a foreign agent or a bad guy. All of those things have to be done correctly in order to have a secure system. It might seem tempting to think, you know, everybody has a cell phone so you could just use your cell phone to do voting like we do for American Idol or similar TV shows. It works for American Idol because nobody cares all that much who wins or doesn’t win. 

Editorials: Trump lied about ‘voter fraud’ … now he wants to steal people’s votes | Lawrence Douglas/The Guardian

Of the hundreds of whoppers that President Trump has told since his election, an early one remains the most toxic. In days following his electoral college victory, Trump claimed that he would have also won the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Trump later refined this claim, insisting that three to five million undocumented voters threw the popular election for Clinton. By way of proof, the president waved at an outlandish story: that golfer Bernhard Langer – a German citizen, barred from voting in the in the US – had had his path to the voting booth clogged by men and women, who by skin color and accent were obviously fraudulent voters. At first, the voter fraud fantasy seemed like no more than a display of the touchiness and extravagant narcissism that led Trump, in the face of undeniable evidence to the contrary, to insist that his inaugural crowds were larger than Obama’s. In fact, the lie concealed a much more ambitious and insidious political agenda. In May, with the creation of the “Presidential Advisory Committee on Voter Integrity,” Trump bootstrapped the myth of voter fraud into an institutional reality. The goal: to use the allegation of fraud to tighten voting procedures that will suppress the votes of minorities, groups that generally vote Democratic.

Alaska: Voter Database Exposed Online | HackRead

IT security researchers at Kromtech Security Center discovered an unprotected database exposed online due to misconfiguration of CouchDB containing nearly 600,000 records belonging to Alaskan voters. “The exposed data is a larger voter file called Voterbase compiled by TargetSmart, a leader in national voting databases that contains the contact and voting information of more than 191 million voters and 58 million unregistered, voting age consumers,” said researchers. The database with 593,328 records was available to the public for anyone to download without any security or login credentials. Each record contained names, date of birth, addresses, voting preferences, marital status, income details, children’s age, gun ownership related data and points which might help decide what issue the voter might be appealed to. TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier blamed a third-party firm for the incident and told ZDNetthat “We’ve learned that Equals3, an AI software company based in Minnesota, appears to have failed to secure some of their data and some data they license from TargetSmart and that a database of approximately 593,000 Alaska voters appears to have been inadvertently exposed.”

Arizona: Agencies feuding over power to police ‘dark money’ groups | AZ Central

As next year’s statewide elections get closer, several Arizona agencies are locked in a bitter feud to determine who has the power to police so-called “dark money” groups that spend millions to influence races. The dispute is playing out in complicated legal tit-for-tats, but the heart of the fight is simple: Should the office of Secretary of State Michele Reagan or the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, a voter-created body, play the role of enforcer? And is there room for two policemen? It’s unclear how the dispute will get resolved. Ultimately, courts may have to decide.

Maryland: College Park vote on noncitizen voting rights was insufficient, city says | Baltimore Sun

It turns out that the city of College Park did not have enough votes after all to grant voting rights to noncitizens, officials said Saturday. The College Park City Council voted 4-3 with one member abstaining Tuesday night on an amendment to the city’s charter that would allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections. But charter amendments need six votes of the eight-member council, the city announced Saturday. That rule was changed in June, and the mayor and council members said they neglected to note that they needed six votes.