West Virginia: Secretary of State opts for different voting application for electronic absentee ballots | Chris Lawrence/WV MetroNews

The Secretary of State’s office will go with a different vendor as they work to expanded electronic absentee voting in West Virginia during the 2020 election cycle. Secretary of State Mac Warner has announced that for the upcoming primary election, West Virginia will use the Democracy Live electronic voting system after testing the Voatz app in the last election cycle. “They’ve been around for a decade. They’ve participated in elections throughout the United States since 2010 and they have a fully compliant A-D-A functionality in their system which allows a voter who is blind or visually impaired to mark their ballot without assistance,” Deak Kersey, general counsel for the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office said. West Virginia was part of a pilot program in 2018 and allowed members of the military stationed overseas to vote via the Voatz App.The Voatz App was on a mobile phone whereas Democracy Live is on a fixed server. According to Kersey, only 144 voters used the App in West Virginia’s 2018 general election and only 13 during the primary. It was a pilot project and a test.

National: Here are the serious tech glitches that frustrated voters on Super Tuesday | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

The scenario election officials feared – Russians hacking the vote – did not come to be on Super Tuesday. But the mega-primary day was bedeviled by a slew of serious technical glitches that frustrated voters. Voting machines shut down in Los Angeles. Network problems also forced California officials to hand out provisional ballots. In Minnesota and Texas, tools voters use to look up their polling locations were not functioning due to heavy web traffic. And there were robocalls spreading disinformation in Texas, which were reported for federal investigation. The problems underscored how such issues can sow as much distrust and chaos as a hacking campaign — especially if rumors are left to swirl. The government’s top cybersecurity officials spent much of the day assuring the public that technology was the culprit, not Russia. “To the extent we can put more information in the hands of voters to be more informed, resilient voters, we’ll have better outcomes,” a top official at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said during a 9 p.m. call. “We’ll be able to get ahead of these more salacious claims that something might be happening and put appropriate information in the hands of the public.” The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly with reporters, praised election officials for getting information about the tech problems rapidly to voters. “We’ll continue to shout that message up to November and afterward.”

National: There Is Shockingly Little Oversight of Private Companies That Create Voting Technologies | Alan Beard and Lawrence Norden/Slate

The Iowa caucuses debacle was a reminder of some of the most important principles in election security, among them that transparency in elections is important, paper ballot backups are crucial to ensuring an accurate count, voting should not take place on smartphone apps, and running elections should be left to professionals. But missing from the round-the-clock media coverage was another valuable lesson from Iowa: Private tech companies are central to our elections, and our failure to engage in real oversight of their practices leaves our elections vulnerable to breakdown and attack. The reporting in the aftermath of Iowa identified a 6-month-old private tech company called Shadow as the supplier of the failed app at the root of the mess. In an attempt to help precinct captains report out three separate sets of results, the Iowa Democratic Party had paid Shadow $60,000 to develop an app to convey the vote totals. Precincts would take and upload pictures of results, which would go to party headquarters. But on caucus day, the app failed, as did backup phone lines. This prompted many to ask how something as important as reporting vote totals in a presidential election could be left in the hands of a shoestring tech company. The follow-up question should have been: What are the controls on private vendors that sell the equipment and technology that run our elections?

National: Tornado, Virus Fears and Malfunctioning Machines Disrupt Super Tuesday Voting in Some States | Christina A. Cassidy and Adrian Sainz/Associated Press

Deadly tornadoes knocked out polling places in Tennessee, fears over the coronavirus left some precincts in California and Texas short of election workers, and overwhelmed voting systems led to long lines in Los Angeles as Super Tuesday sent voters surging to the polls in 14 states. Scattered reports of polling places opening late, machines malfunctioning or voter rolls being down temporarily disrupted voting in some of the states voting Tuesday, but there were no widespread reports of voters being unable to cast a ballot or security breaches. Just hours before polls were set to open in Tennessee, tornadoes tore through parts of the state, destroying at least 140 buildings and killing at least 22. With more than a dozen polling sites in Nashville’s Davidson County damaged, voters were sent to other locations, where some of them encountered long lines. The Tennessee Democratic Party and the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren successfully sued Davidson County election officials and the secretary of state’s office to extend voting for three hours beyond the scheduled 7 p.m. closing time. In Texas, voting got off to a slow start in Travis County, home to Austin, because many election workers did not show up, with some citing fears of contracting the coronavirus, according to the county clerk’s office. The election office said it began implementing emergency procedures, with elections staff and other employees filling in as poll workers.

National: Bipartisan commission to make 75 recommendations to defend against cyberattacks | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A new report by a bipartisan commission will include at least 75 recommendations for Congress and the executive branch on how to defend the nation against cyberattacks, including bipartisan recommendations for defending elections. Members of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, which includes lawmakers, federal officials and industry leaders, highlighted the group’s focus on election security during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday, previewing some of the recommendations that will be among those released March 11. Commission member former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Penn.) said the report — which marks a major effort to create a blueprint for federal action on cybersecurity going forward — was “biased towards action,” and was meant to spur change. “It’s not some report that is going to be in the Library of Congress that no one is going to look at again,” Murphy said. “There is going to be some legislative action, there are going to be some executive actions.” The report’s recommendations around election security will mark a rare bipartisan effort to address the issue following years of contention on Capitol Hill after Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

National: Top DHS official says no ‘malicious cyber activity’ seen on Super Tuesday | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A senior official at the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) cyber agency said Tuesday night that they had not seen any “malicious cyber activity” aimed at disrupting elections during primary voting in 14 states. “We don’t have any reports of any malicious cyber activity across the states today,” the senior official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) told reporters. The official noted that while there were some “sporadic” information technology (IT) issues, all the election systems were able to get “back up and running” with no issues due to targeting by hackers. One IT incident the official pointed to was in California, where the secretary of state’s website was briefly brought down by what the office tweeted was “higher than normal traffic” and not hacking activity.

Arkansas: ES&S iVotronic voting machines linked to problems, count delay in Jefferson County | Dale Ellis, Cynthia Howell, Emily Walkenhorst/Northwest Arkansas Online

Voting machine problems in Jefferson County delayed the vote count in both city and county races Tuesday night after poll workers in several locations were unable to close out the machines because of electronic failures. Technicians from the election commission had to manually close the machine at each affected location. The iVotronic touch-screen voting machines have been in service for about 15 years. Michael Adam, chairman of the Jefferson County Election Commission, announced shortly before 9 p.m. that final results would be delayed. The results were announced after 10:30 p.m. The primary got off to a rocky start during early voting when a ballot error in the Democratic Primary affecting four precincts that had the wrong state Senate race on the ballot was discovered over a week into early voting and after 152 voters had cast ballots in the wrong race. The four precincts, located in the city of Pine Bluff, were programmed with the Senate District 25 race between incumbent Sen. Stephanie Flowers of Pine Bluff and Efrem Elliott of White Hall, but should have been programmed with the Senate District 27 race between Keidra Burrell of Pine Bluff and former Rep. Garry Smith of Camden.

California: Los Angeles County’s new voting machines hailed for accessibility, dogged by security concerns | Neena Satija and Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

For the past decade, Los Angeles County has been promising to develop a new voting system that was to be a model for the nation, accessible to voters with disabilities and to a population that speaks more than a dozen languages. As the first publicly owned voting system in the United States, it would also ease the grip that a handful of private companies have long held on how Americans vote, supporters of the effort said. After the 2016 election, amid fears of foreign interference, the promise of Los Angeles’s grand experiment was even more enticing as states and counties scrambled to replace their aging election infrastructure with more secure options. More than $280 million later, on the eve of the California primary, Los Angeles County’s Voting Solutions for All People system — a combination of mail-in ballots and new custom-made electronic voting machines — is being celebrated as a major step forward for voting accessibility. At the same time, though, it has been dogged by security concerns and allegations of a flawed ballot design, according to a government contracting firm that examined the system, advocates for election security and some local candidates. A December report commissioned by the California Secretary of State’s office said the system did not meet several of the state’s cybersecurity and accessibility standards, which were to be “woven directly into the DNA” of the new system, according to the development contract. As early voting began last week, more than two dozen polling locations opened hours or a full day late because of missing equipment and problems coordinating election workers.

California: Los Angeles County voters encounter hours-long waits and glitches with brand-new system | Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles voters who showed up to cast ballots in person on Tuesday reported long wait times and operational errors at a number of the county’s newly designed vote centers, experiences that suggested an inauspicious beginning for L.A.’s first fully redesigned election system in more than half a century. While some Angelenos gave high marks to the new voting machines and applauded the extended hours of operation, a number of the in-person locations were overwhelmed by the throngs of voters looking to participate in the most talked-about California presidential primary in at least a generation. The flow of voters had hardly ebbed by the official end of voting at 8 p.m. Those in line at that time were allowed to stay there until they had a chance to vote. “This is absurd,” said Jefferson Stewart, a software designer who left the vote center at the Westchester Family YMCA frustrated after waiting 90 minutes to cast his ballot. “If the idea is to make this simpler, it’s gotten much worse.” Brentwood resident Myles Berkowitz found himself in a state of perpetual motion. He stopped by UCLA’s Hammer Museum around 4 p.m. but left after being told that it would be a three-hour wait. Three more locations, three more long lines. He ended up at the Felicia Mahood Multipurpose Center in West L.A. “They’re telling me, after waiting here for another hour and a half, that it’s another two hours,” Berkowitz said Tuesday evening as he stood in line. “This is like gridlock on the 405,” he said.

California: Voters say Los Angeles County’s fancy new voting machines aren’t working | Rebecca Heilweil/Vox

New voting machines making their debut on Super Tuesday in Los Angeles County are already raising concerns about unreliable technology. While the system is meant to modernize voting and make democracy more accessible, some voters are complaining about technical glitches and usability. That’s not great news, since LA represents a massive election district in the state with the most delegates up for grabs in the Democratic primary. Today, the Los Angeles Times reported that election officials were having issues with their systems linking up with California’s voter database, which meant that the registration system wasn’t tracking who had already voted or incorporating new registration information. This is a big problem, since California passed a law last year that allows for voter registration on election day in an effort to enfranchise more voters. Meanwhile, many voters have complained on Twitter that their voting machines weren’t working, with some reaching out to election officials on the platform for help. There were also complaints that the machines were not taking voters’ paper ballots, which need to be inserted back into the machine. Several people also said that the e-poll books weren’t working.

Georgia: Clarke County says no to Georgia’s new voting machines | Doug Richards/11alive.com

The Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections voted Tuesday night to reject the state’s new voting machine system. The board voted 3-2 to use hand-marked paper ballots instead for the duration of the presidential preference primary. Georgia rolled out its new computerized ballot-marking devices for the first time statewide when early voting in the primary began Monday.  Voters in Clarke County used them Monday and Tuesday. But the board “found it impracticable to … protect absolute ballot secrecy while allowing sufficient monitoring” of the computerized voting system in Athens’ early voting site, according to a statement issued by elections board chairman Jesse Evans. 11Alive News heard similar complaints during a visit to a south Georgia special election in February.  Voters said the large, bright and upright computer touchpads were visible to other people and poll workers inside precincts. Election officials told us the devices were difficult to position inside polling places in such a way that also assured that poll workers could monitor voter activity according to state law. That’s required in order to deter tampering with the machines.

Georgia: Investigators find no evidence to Kemp’s hacking claim | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia investigators found no evidence to support Gov. Brian Kemp’s allegation just before Election Day in 2018 that the Democratic Party tried to hack election information, according to a report released Tuesday by the attorney general’s office. The attorney general’s office closed the case that Kemp had opened when he was secretary of state, overseeing the same election he was running for. Kemp made the hacking accusation two days before the election.Kemp, a Republican, defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams by about 55,000 votes.No election information was damaged, stolen or lost, according to the attorney general’s report. Nor were any crimes committed by the person who reported vulnerabilities with Georgia’s election registration websites to the Democratic Party and an attorney who is suing the state.Democratic Party of Georgia Chairwoman Nikema Williams said Kemp made “outright lies” to attack his political opponents and help his election.“More than a year after the sitting secretary of state leveraged baseless accusations against his political opponents, we’re finally receiving closure on an ‘investigation’ that has been a sham from the start,” said Williams, a state senator from Atlanta. “As we have since well before these outright lies came to light in the first place, Georgia Democrats will continue to do everything in our power to fight back against voter suppression. A spokeswoman for Kemp said his office did the right thing by asking law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and GBI, to investigate.

Michigan: Swing state status could put Michigan at risk for Russian election interference | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

With the March 10 primary one week away and Michigan seen as a battleground state in November, voters and election officials should be on guard for Russian and other foreign interference, experts say. Threats range, they say, from false information posted online about when and how to vote, to “fake news” Facebook posts intended to increase division and reduce voter turnout, to actual attacks on voter databases and other election-related infrastructure. But they say, residents should be mindful that one of our greatest vulnerabilities is ourselves. Ben Nimmo, an international internet sleuth whose work helped Facebook and other social media platforms ban thousands of accounts that spread disinformation during the 2016 election campaign, said it is the hyperpolarized nature of the U.S. political scene that makes the country more vulnerable to disinformation campaigns, which are increasingly difficult to detect. “Disinformation operations tend to target anger and fear,” said Nimmo, who is based in Scotland as director of investigations for the social network analysis firm Graphika. “If you see a post on social media that makes you angry or afraid, take a step back and ask, ‘Why is someone trying to manipulate me?’ “

Texas: ‘The worst voting experience’: Long lines drag Super Tuesday deep into the night for some voters | Mike Morris, Samantha Ketterer, and Nicole Hensley/Houston Chronicle

Dozens of Democratic voters were still waiting to cast ballots at midnight in Houston, turning Super Tuesday into a painful slog for some citizens amid questions about how the County Clerk’s office had allocated its voting machines across the county. Janet Gonzalez left work early and at 5:30 p.m. checked a website the clerk’s office runs to show wait times at polling places. It seemed Texas Southern University had a short wait, but when she arrived she found a massive line. She waited an hour outside and three more inside before she finally cast her ballot. Officials with the clerk’s office acknowledged the accuracy of the wait-times website is reliant on election workers manually updating the status of their polling places. Some people in line gave up and walked away, Gonzalez said. Others briefly sought refuge on a scattering of chairs before giving them up to others as the line inched forward. Polls closed at 7 p.m., but voters still can cast ballots as long as they stay in line. “It was a challenge,” Gonzalez said. “You have to look around at the elderly people and overcome your own pain.”

West Virginia: State will NOT use controversial voting app Voatz during primary elections | Internewscast

West Virginia has announced it will not be using the voting app Voatz app after researchers found it is ‘riddled with vulnerabilities’. The US state employed the technology in 2018 to troops overseas and was also set to implement it in the upcoming primary elections for residents with disabilities  However, the flaws, uncovered earlier this month by MIT engineers, give hackers the ability to alter, stop or expose how an individual users has voted. Secretary of State Mac Warner said on Friday that disabled and overseas voters will now use a service by Democracy Live which lets them log in to fill out a ballot online or print an unmarked ballot and mail it in. West Virginia has announced it will not be using the voting app Voatz app after researchers found it is ‘riddled with vulnerabilities’. The US state employed the technology in 2018 to troops oversease and was also set to implement it in the upcoming primary elections for residents with disabilities  The US state was set to employ Voatz following a new bill that requires counties to provide certain individuals with a type of online ballot-marking device that can be used with a smartphone.

National: Super Tuesday brings a supersized election security challenge | Eric Geller/Politico

Millions of voters across the country will cast ballots during Super Tuesday on old, insecure election equipment — even after nearly four years of handwringing and warnings about Russian election interference. The jurisdictions at risk include three of Tennessee’s biggest counties — Shelby, Knox and Rutherford — where the paperless voting machines at the polls will include devices with security flaws so alarming that voters tried suing to have the equipment removed from precincts. Dozens of small counties in Texas are also sticking with risky touchscreen machines that have no paper trail to help detect tampering or malfunctions. And in California, Los Angeles County is debuting new voting machines that have drawn scrutiny for security weaknesses, as well as their developer’s past alleged ties to the Venezuelan government. The news is better in other parts of the Super Tuesday map, as some counties and states have successfully replaced their old paperless voting equipment with more secure paper-based machines. But even some of this new technology presents vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit to tamper with the primaries. Other states holding primaries on Tuesday, including Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont, predominantly use the technology that most experts consider the most secure: paper ballots that voters fill out by hand.

National: Coronavirus And Super Tuesday Voting: It’s Touchy | Pam Fessler/NPR

Elections can be very tactile. Touchscreen voting machines, paper ballots, large crowds. With concern growing about the spread of the coronavirus, officials in a number of Super Tuesday states are taking extra precautions to assure voters that it’s safe to go to the polls. Millions of people are expected to cast ballots tomorrow in 14 states, including some where cases of the disease have already emerged. John Gardner, the assistant registrar of voters in Solano County, Calif. — where two health care workers tested positive for COVID-19 — says they’ve added an extra curbside location where people can drop off their completed ballots, “so voters don’t have to get out of their cars if they don’t want to.” Gardner says they have also sent out additional supplies of disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer and gloves to every polling site in the county. Still, he’s seen no indication that the virus is discouraging either voters or pollworkers.

National: Some states encourage mail-in ballots as coronavirus worries grow | Alice Miranda Ollstein/Politico

Officials in some states with upcoming primaries are encouraging more people to avoid in-person polling sites amid heightened worries about the spread of coronavirus in the United States. Some are even increasing the opportunity for drive-by voting on Super Tuesday. California’s Solano County, the site of the country’s first identified case of the virus’ spread within the community, added new curbside sites where people can drop off their ballots without having to leave their cars. “If you can stay in your car to get service, lots of people want to take advantage of that even in a normal situation, but especially when they might be concerned about congregating in close proximity to a lot of other people,” said county election official John Gardner. Meanwhile, some election experts are urging states to relax their absentee voter policies in light of the new public health threat, though some state officials dismissed the idea of hastily rewriting election policies.

National: Officials fear coronavirus could be next front in election interference | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

U.S. officials fear adversaries might weaponize public fears about coronavirus ahead of Super Tuesday to spread disinformation, amplify rumors and tamp down voter turnout. The concern comes as people test positive for the virus in numerous states, including California, Texas and Alabama – which are among the 14 states that will hold their Democratic primaries Tuesday. The virus, which has killed nearly 3,000 people worldwide, could offer a near-perfect test case for how operatives from Russia or elsewhere seeking to undermine confidence in the election could boost public fears to stop people from heading to the polls – maybe enough to swing a tight race or at least raise doubts in the results. It’s “one of a number of scenarios” of potential interference federal officials are monitoring, the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division chief Chris Krebs told Kevin Collier at NBC News. Krebs’s office declined to comment this weekend when I asked for more information about the possible response. “This is a new and obviously very scary virus, and misinformation can leverage off of that,” Peter Singer, a fellow at the New America think tank who has written extensively about information warfare, told me. “I would almost be surprised if we don’t see it.”

National: The most pervasive ballot design flaw you don’t notice | Lily Smith/Fast Company

Many will remember the infamously confusing Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, which led to 26,000 misvotes, a recount, and ultimately handed George W. Bush the presidency in 2000. Twenty years later, we have new ballot design problems to deal with—and there’s one you’ve probably never heard of. Most of the ballot design flaws detailed in a recent resource from the Brennan Center for Justice seem rather innocuous. But there’s one in that, if fixed, could reduce margin of error and thereby make the voting system overall more reflective of voters’ intent: ballot design that splits one contest into two columns on a bubble-style page. There are a few other permutations of this layout, and they all share one key flaw: They split up information that should be categorized together. The first contest on a ballot might fall below the ballot instructions in the first column, causing voters to miss it. A contest might be split into two columns because there’s a large number of candidates to consider—or, on an electronic voting system, there might be two contests on the same page.

Editorials: Enough finger-pointing on Russian interference. Here’s how to prepare for 2020. | Suzanne Spaulding/The Washington Post

The November election is just around the corner, and it’s clear the Russian government continues to wage an assault on our electoral process. But this time, it has had four years to practice and enhance its tactics. Finger-pointing about which candidate Vladimir Putin prefers doesn’t help; instead, we should try to better anticipate and understand how Russian information operations are intended to work against democracy. Inauthentic online activity never stopped after Russia deployed its troll farms, hackers and advertising campaigns on social media in 2016. But the Russians have grown more adept at amplifying domestic voices and exploiting weaknesses of our own making. This maximizes the reach and perceived authenticity of divisive rhetoric. Moreover, the Russians no longer need to post during the Russian workday. They intersperse human activity with bot networks that infiltrate online conversations and distort legitimate online dialogues. The Russian government may no longer pay for online ads in rubles, but the lack of legal requirements for transparency — some of which could have been addressed with the stalled Honest Ads Act — means that there are still loopholes whereby bad actors can push dark money into politics. ​Russia uses its state-sponsored media outlets such as RT and Sputnik to push one-sided narratives, conspiracy theories and half-truths to its audiences. These reinforce and are fed by social media accounts that create pipelines for disinformation. Local media, often trusted alternatives to mainstream media, are also vulnerable, as they often don’t have large fact-checking departments. And because local media is more trusted, the Russian information operations include creating fake “local” news outlets.

California: State has pushed to beef up election security, but ultimately the fate rests with local officials | Sam Metz/Palm Springs Desert Sun

The California Secretary of State’s office sent Riverside County scrambling in February 2019 when it decertified the voting systems the county registrar of voters intended to use in the March 2020 primary election. “I knew the Secretary of State had security concerns with the old, antiquated voting system, but for it to be completely decertified within a year of the election was definitely a surprise,” Riverside County Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer said. The 2016 election sparked nationwide conversations about election security and foreign interference and raised new questions about whether the United States was taking adequate measures to safeguard against tampering. In response, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson designated election equipment as “critical infrastructure” in January 2017, to increase oversight and open new funding streams for state and local governments to update voting machines. With 20.7 million registered voters, California has a larger electorate than any state in the nation. And the responsibility to secure the vote falls on the state’s 58 counties and their Registrars of Voters, including Spencer.

California: Why is there a long wait for California election results? | Arit John/Los Angeles Times

Last month, the delayed results of the Iowa caucuses caused a crisis within the political world. Fundraising boosts were lost. Momentum was not enjoyed. It did not seem like democracy’s best week. If the measure of a successful election were only how quickly the results are released, then California would be a disaster. But that’s not how election officials in the state see it as they prepare for the primary election on Tuesday, or Super Tuesday, when California and 13 other states vote. They’re focused on accuracy over speed. “We prioritize the right to vote and election security over rushing the vote count,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a Feb. 27 statement. “In California, we’d rather get it right than get it fast.” In other words, don’t stay up for California results on Tuesday. How long a wait are we talking about? County election officials have 30 days to count all ballots and audit the tally. Padilla will then certify the results by April 10. By the end of this week, elections officials in California’s 58 counties will release their first report of how many ballots remain uncounted. After the 2016 primary, the first report showed some 2.4 million ballots left to be verified and counted.

Illinois: Ransomware attack hundreds of LaSalle County government computers | WEEK

The LaSalle County government is seeing a big interruption to its services this week. The LaSalle County government is seeing a big interruption to its services this week. The county is dealing with a ransomware attack on its computers discovered by the Sheriff’s Office last Sunday around 3:30 a.m. Ransomware is a type of virus which locks up all the files on a computer, as hackers demand a ransom, usually money or Bitcoin, to release them. The county’s IT Director, John Haag, said this virus is locking up about 200 computers and about 40 servers in the county government. He said the two areas not affected are the county courts and circuit clerk’s office. About a week later, county employees still do not have access to their emails.

Indiana: Commissioners won’t vote on Madison County vote center proposal | Ken de la Bastide/The Herald Bulletin

A lack of a quorum at a called special meeting of the Madison County Commissioners has stopped the attempt to implement vote centers in the county. Commissioner John Richwine called the special meeting for Monday evening to discuss vote centers, but late in the day County Attorney Jonathan Hughes sent out an email stating because of prior commitments there would not be a quorum. Richwine said he was going to attend the meeting and allow anyone to speak on becoming a vote center county. Commissioners Kelly Gaskill and Mike Phipps notified Hughes they would not be in attendance. Both were at the Madison County Government Center, but didn’t attend an Election Board meeting earlier Monday.

Voting Blogs: Counties in North Carolina Gamble on New Voting Machines | Margaret Lowry/State of Elections

Super Tuesday is tomorrow and voters in North Carolina might use new voting machines. Since the 2018 election, several counties in North Carolina have had to make a critical decision for their voters–what voting machines should they purchase? A shortened timetable and heightened concern about election security have made for a contentious process. A 2013 bill required all voting systems in the state to produce a paper ballot, and set a schedule to decertify existing machines that did not meet the requirement. Originally, the bill set the decertification date as January 1, 2018, but subsequent legislation in 2015 and 2018 pushed the deadline to December 1, 2019. About one-third of the counties in North Carolina have Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting systems that will need to be replaced by the decertification date. DREs are paperless. Voters use a touchscreen to select their choice, and the machine then stores and tabulates that choice electronically.

South Carolina: Election leaders call for extra time to count absentee ballots | Caroline Balchunas/WCIV

There were no major hiccups during Saturday’s primary election, but there’s some who say it could be a much different story in November’s general election. South Carolina’s new voting machines may work efficiently, but election officials say counting absentee ballots may be an issue. The State Election Commission noted a sharp increase in absentee voting ahead of Saturday’s Democratic primary. “What’s different about this new system is we would have to open up each ballot, not just the mail ballots. So, if you come and cast a ballot in person, we now have to open up those ballots,” said Isaac Cramer, Project Manager for the Charleston County Board of Elections. “That took a lot more time than we had anticipated, and we believe this might be a problem for future elections when we have more absentee ballots cast. In presidential election years, we have a huge turnout of absentee.” Cramer said in-person absentee ballots must now be printed, sealed in an envelope and placed in a ballot box. Under current law, absentee ballots cannot be opened and counted until 9 a.m. on Election Day. He said they had roughly 60,000 absentee ballots in the 2016 general election and they’re expected upwards of 80,000 this time around.

West Virginia: After damaging report, West Virginia moves away from Voatz internet voting app | Anthony Izaguerre/Associated Press

West Virginia is opting not to use a widely criticized voting app in the state’s coming primary elections after a blistering report found potential security flaws in the platform. Donald Kersey, general counsel in the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office, said Monday that an MIT analysis of the Voatz app “gave us enough pause” to instead use a different system for the May elections. The decision came as state officials had to choose an online voting system to comply with a new law requiring electronic ballots for people with physical disabilities. Last month, an MIT study found that Voatz, which has mostly been used for absentee ballots from overseas military personnel, has vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to change a person’s vote without detection. The researchers said they were forced to reverse engineer an Android version of the app because the company hasn’t allowed transparent third-party testing of the system. The Voatz app was used to tally fewer than 200 ballots in West Virginia’s 2018 elections and didn’t have any problems, state officials said. The app has also been used in pilots in Denver, Oregon and Utah.

Israel: Over 70% of ‘coronavirus voters’ cast their ballots in special stations | Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman/The Jerusalem Post

More than 70% of the 5,600 citizens who were placed under quarantine due to fear of possible exposure to the coronavirus turned out to vote on Monday at special polling stations set up to allow them to safely cast their ballots. Sixteen special booths were originally set up across the country and were scheduled to be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. But long lines and frustrated voters led the Central Elections Committee (CEC) to open additional booths in Kfar Saba and Tel Aviv and to extend voting time until 7 p.m. Israelis in quarantine were asked to come to the stations in private vehicles and not to stop on the way. When they completed voting, they were asked to return straight home. The voters were met by trained paramedics dressed in full head-to-toe protective gear, including gloves and masks. Votes were collected in a specially lined ballot box and were to be counted by election officials also dressed in protective gear. “MDA volunteers enlisted for the mission, operating at the special polling stations, and will be protected at the highest level, with dedicated anti-infection kits,” said MDA director-general Eli Bin. “Magen David Adom works in full cooperation and coordination with the Health Ministry, the Central Elections Committee and other parties, and will continue to do everything possible to assist in the national effort of preventing the spread of the coronavirus in Israel.”