National: Ransomware top of mind for DHS cyber chief | Derek B. Johnson/FCW

The Department of Homeland Security’s cyber chief said his organization is trying to do more to address ransomware and other digital threats that directly touch the lives of citizens. Speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs said his agency has stepped up efforts to proactively reach out to federal agencies, local governments, businesses and critical infrastructure managers about how to prepare and what to do if their data is encrypted and held ransom by criminals or state-aligned hacking groups. “For years and years and years, particularly in the federal government, we’ve been focused on the nation-state adversary, the highly capable, the big four: Russia, China, Iran [and] North Korea,” he said. “I think we’ve been a little bit late to the game on ransomware,” he said, adding, it’s what average Americans see “in their schools, their hospitals and their municipal agencies.” Krebs described CISA’s role as that of a middleman uniquely positioned to canvass all the major stakeholders in the cybersecurity ecosystem and “facilitate a knowledge transfer from the haves to the have-nots.” CISA can leverage the collective financial and human capital resources of the big fish — like major banks — and push that knowledge and awareness down the chain to the broader cybersecurity ecosystem.

National: Americans should not be confident about security of 2020 election, experts say | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Americans should not be confident about the security of the 2020 election, according to a slim majority of experts surveyed by The Cybersecurity 202. The assessment from 57 percent of The Network, a panel of more than 100 cybersecurity experts who participate in our ongoing informal survey, puts a serious damper on the years-long push by federal, state and local government officials and political parties to bolster election security since a Russian hacking and influence operation upended the 2016 contest. “There are no signs that any part of our institutions are capable of providing an election that is reasonably secure from tampering and manipulation,” said Dave Aitel, a former NSA computer scientist who is now CEO of the cybersecurity company Immunity. “Every part of the voting process is vulnerable. This includes the voter registration process, the voting itself, the vote tabulation, and the results-reporting system,” said Bruce Schneier, fellow and lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called for “more serious security measures for voting, from registration through to reporting the results back to the central voting authority.”

National: Defending against multifaceted election attacks | Lavi Lazarovitz/GCN

Much has been made of the vulnerabilities inherent in voting infrastructure over the past few years. DEFCON hacking villages have repeatedly found flaws in voting machines, and researchers across the country have outlined the ways attackers could infiltrate voting systems and influence an election. While these headlines generate attention, they tend to overshadow the myriad of other ways attackers could impact elections without touching a single vote. While many of the attacks in 2016 took the form disinformation campaigns, there are many other opportunities — direct and indirect — for attackers to have an impact. So while it is incredibly important to continue hardening the security of the physical voting machines, we must guard against other ways attackers could influence an election outcome without ever compromising a machine. From a security perspective, vulnerabilities have been the main talking point when it comes to elections. But while changing a vote is one thing, preventing voters from getting to the polls altogether could prove more effective.

National: The Coronavirus Outbreak Is Raising Questions About Voting In The 2020 Presidential Primaries | Zahra Hirji/Buzzfeed

US citizens living in China have been told they won’t be able to cast their vote in person for the Democratic primary next month and will instead need to vote online, according to Democrats Abroad, the group in charge of overseeing voting overseas. And as the coronavirus outbreak has spread to 38 countries, triggering concerns about a global pandemic, CDC officials warned on Tuesday that they expect the virus to spread to the US — and told US businesses and schools to prepare. The news raises questions about whether the coronavirus outbreak could interrupt the lead-up to the biggest national event of the year: the 2020 election.

Editorials: In order to prevent another voting debacle, turn to paper balloting | Lee C. Bollinger and Michael A. McRobbie/The Boston Globe

The Nevada caucuses may have skirted the chaos of Iowa and overcome last-minute fears that the use of new technology would lead to another voting fiasco. As such, we can all let out a collective sigh. But it would be a big mistake to double down on the fortunate outcome in Nevada and believe that what happened in Iowa will stay in Iowa. Iowa saw voting tallies delayed for days, in part, because of technological failure, specifically a not-ready-for-prime-time app. Helped by what seems a more decisive outcome, Nevada quickly declared a winner, but not before scrambling to bring in extra manpower and other resources to run its own complex caucus. Though Iowa-like errors and inconsistencies may yet be found in the Nevada count, there appears to be no evidence of malicious cyber activity in either state. Still, the nation’s first two caucuses heavily underscored the continued challenges and vulnerability of our election systems. They also suggested we may still not properly recognize the urgency of protecting this critical component of American democracy. More than three years after members of Congress and the American public learned about widespread Russian intrusion into our election infrastructure, our nation’s elections are still at major risk of being compromised. And, as Iowa clearly demonstrated, new technologies do not yet pose the answer.

Editorials: Coronavirus May Disrupt the 2020 Election. We Need a Plan | Jon Stokes/WIRED

Imagine it’s Election Day 2020, but with a dark twist: As millions leave their homes and stand in long lines at crowded polling stations, officials urge them to don protective masks and gloves, and to bring their own ballot-marking pencils to the polls so they don’t have to share writing utensils with strangers. And as the polls close at night, reports emerge that turnout has reached historic lows, from a mix of voter apathy and fears of catching the deadly new virus that’s been spreading silently and closing schools and houses of worship in major cities across the country. This scene isn’t a prediction of what might happen in some dystopian future. It’s what just unfolded in Iran, where elections proceeded on Friday in the face of a growing Covid-19 outbreak that the country is struggling to contain. Some reports put turnout in Tehran at 40 percent, down from over 60 percent four years ago. Many voters headed to the polls wearing face masks. The Iranian elections should serve as a warning to Americans of what could happen here in November, should the coronavirus gain a foothold on our soil. Unfortunately, an American outbreak looks more likely by the day.

Arkansas: Voting machines’ ability in doubt; 11 Arkansas counties using old equipment | Dale Ellis/Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

As early voting enters its second week and the March 3 primary election looms, 11 of Arkansas’ 75 counties, including Jefferson County, will be recording votes on aging equipment that is sometimes balky, cranky, and prone to glitches that can turn the process of counting ballots into an endurance contest. Sixty-four counties have acquired voting equipment that is either new this year or purchased in the past several years. Jefferson County Election Commissioner Stuart “Stu” Soffer said the county’s 160 iVotronics machines, manufactured by Election Systems & Software, have been in service since 2006 and are showing their age, making the closing of polling sites and counting votes more laborious with each election cycle. The county purchased 175 iVotronics machines in 2005, all of which were damaged by flooding in the Election Commission offices in early 2018. The county is now using surplus machines that were donated by Grant and Craighead counties when they upgraded to the new Election Systems & Software system. “The machines are falling apart,” Soffer said. “I put 12 machines over there (at the Jefferson County Courthouse) for early voting, and one of them dropped dead the first day.”

California: Presidential primary hinges on Los Angeles voting rules | John Myers and Matt Stiles/Los Angeles Times

When Los Angeles County set out to build a new voting system from scratch more than a decade ago, election officials knew the challenges in serving an electorate larger than those found in any of 39 states. But what they didn’t know was that their efforts were on a collision course with a series of statewide election changes and the most consequential presidential primary in modern California history. Should Angelenos not understand what to do or where to go, the effects could be felt both statewide and — in terms of the Democratic presidential race — across the country. “There’s a lot riding on this,” said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UC Irvine. “Any time you’re making so many changes at once, people can lose confidence in the system.” The list of changes is long: L.A. ballots have been fully redesigned; thousands of neighborhood polling places are gone, replaced by fewer regional voting centers; and once there, millions of Angelenos will use new touch-screen devices approved by state officials just weeks ago. Voters across the county had their first experiences with the new process over the weekend. In some cases, it was not what they had hoped for — sporadic reports about miscues that election officials promised would be resolved as election day approaches.

Georgia: Lawsuit filed over voter privacy on touchscreens | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A lawsuit filed Monday alleges that Georgia’s new voting computers fail to protect voters’ right to a secret ballot, exposing their choices on brightly lit screens. The lawsuit asks a Sumter County judge to require paper ballots filled out by hand instead of the 21.5-inch touchscreens during next week’s runoff election for a state Senate seat. Georgia election officials said the lawsuit is frivolous and that concerns about voter privacy can be addressed by repositioning touchscreens so they face walls instead of voters. The complaint opens a new front in the ongoing legal fight over Georgia’s $104 million voting system, which combines touchscreens, printers and ballot scanners. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit say only hand-marked paper ballots can protect election security and voter secrecy.

Illinois: Calls for audits, paper trails emerge during listening session on Illinois automatic voter registration program | Greg Bishop/The Center Square

A problem with Illinois’ automatic voter registration program that led to hundreds of people who said they weren’t U.S. citizens being registered to vote took center stage at a listening session hosted by a central Illinois congressman in Springfield on Monday. The automatic voter registration law was enacted in Illinois with bipartisan support in 2018 and required certain state agencies such as the Illinois Secretary of State to automatically forward the information of a person anytime they interact with a state agency to the Illinois State Board of Elections and then to local elections authorities for voter registration. Illinois elections are handled on a county level, or in some instances by local election commissions, not by the state, meaning it is decentralized. Voter records are maintained by those local officials. The automatic voter registration system pushes voter information from the state to local officials.

Pennsylvania: Thousands expected to choose new mail-in ballots, which could cause long delays in Pennsylvania election returns | Tom Shortell/The Morning Call

Amy Cozze was skeptical when the state estimated that as many as 41,500 Northampton County residents could cast their vote in the presidential election through the new mail-in ballot option. As the county’s newly appointed chief registrar, Cozze knew county voters cast about 1,500 absentee ballots in 2019 and reasoned that mail-in ballots might triple in a heated 2020 presidential election. Then the county received about 1,000 mail-in ballot requests just days after the application period started this month, prompting Cozze to up her projections “a little bit.” Across Pennsylvania, election officials are bracing for a flood of mail-in ballots. State officials believe the percentage of voters going to the polls won’t change much, but as a precaution, they are advising counties to prepare for as much as 20% of registered voters mailing in their ballots. “In an abundance of caution and based on other states’ experience, especially considering the immediate popularity of Pennsylvania’s convenient online ballot request form, we have recommended that counties base their planning for mail-in ballots on what we consider to be a high estimate,” said Wanda Murren, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State.

Virginia: Mobile Voting Proposal Has Lawmakers Worried | Danny Bradbury/Infosecurity Magazine

Mobile voting is coming to the US, but is that wise? A proposed Senate bill in West Virginia will introduce electronic voting for people with disabilities, enabling them to cast their vote in the 2020 US election even when they can’t get to a voting station. According to local media, local officials are likely to use an existing mobile tool called Voatz, which allows people to place electronic votes using their smartphones. It’s an app that officials in Virginia already use to register votes for overseas military personnel. However, the use of any Internet-based voting tool goes directly against the advice of the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine. In September 2018, it published a report that said: “At the present time, the Internet (or any network connected to the Internet) should not be used for the return of marked ballots. Further, Internet voting should not be used in the future until and unless very robust guarantees of security and verifiability are developed and in place, as no known technology guarantees the secrecy, security, and verifiability of a marked ballot transmitted over the internet.”

Israel: Voter Data of Every Israeli Citizen Leaked by Election Management Site | Scott Ikeda/CPO Magazine

While most of the attention of international media was on the voting snafus in the Iowa Democratic caucus earlier this month, a much more serious incident was developing in Israel. The registration data of all of Israel’s 6.5 million voters was leaked thanks to a faulty download site for the Likud party’s election management app. The breach included full names, addresses and identity card numbers for all users. The culprit in this breach was not a faulty app, but the public-facing website that directed interested parties to the app downloads. An app called Elector was used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party to deliver election-related news to supporters. However, in Israel each party is given access to the government’s database of basic contact information for all registered Israeli voters regardless of their party affiliation. The app’s official website leaked the administrative username and password via an unprotected API endpoint listed in the homepage source code. This did not require any hacking acumen to access; anyone who cared to view the source code for the page would see the admin login credentials listed in plaintext by simply clicking through the “get-admin-users” link.

National: Reliability of pricey new ballot marking devices questioned | Frank Bajak/Associated Press

In the rush to replace insecure, unreliable electronic voting machines after Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, state and local officials have scrambled to acquire more trustworthy equipment for this year’s election, when U.S. intelligence agencies fear even worse problems. But instead of choosing simple, hand-marked paper ballots that are most resistant to tampering because paper cannot be hacked, many are opting for pricier technology that computer security experts consider almost as risky as earlier discredited electronic systems. Called ballot-marking devices, the machines have touchscreens for registering voter choice. Unlike touchscreen-only machines, they print out paper records that are scanned by optical readers. South Carolina voters will use them in Saturday’s primary. The most pricey solution available, they are at least twice as expensive as the hand-marked paper ballot option. They have been vigorously promoted by the three voting equipment vendors that control 88 percent of the U.S. market.

National: With 2020 general election approaching, voting security under growing scrutiny | Maya Rodriguez/Scripps Media

It’s the foundation of American democracy: voting. Depending on where you are in the U.S., though, your election experience could look very different from that in your neighboring state or even just your neighbor. “It really does depend on where you are in the country,” said Marian Schneider, who heads up Verified Voting, a non-profit, non-partisan group that advocates for better election security. In particular, the group takes a closer look at when it comes to the use of computers in elections. “We use computers in every aspect of election administration in this country,” Schneider said. “We have also historically underfunded our elections and not put the money into them that we need in order to run a computerized operation.”

National: Russia trying to help Bernie Sanders’s campaign, according to briefing from U.S. officials | Shane Harris, Ellen Nakashima, Michael Scherer and Sean Sullivan/The Washington Post

U.S. officials have told Sen. Bernie Sanders that Russia is attempting to help his presidential campaign as part of an effort to interfere with the Democratic contest, according to people familiar with the matter. President Trump and lawmakers on Capitol Hill also have been informed about the Russian assistance to the Vermont senator, those people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken. U.S. prosecutors found a Russian effort in 2016 to use social media to boost Sanders’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, part of a broader effort to hurt Clinton, sow dissension in the American electorate and ultimately help elect Donald Trump. “I don’t care, frankly, who [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wants to be president,” Sanders said in a statement. “My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do. “In 2016, Russia used Internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020. Some of the ugly stuff on the Internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters.”

National: Sanders blasts Russia for reportedly trying to boost his presidential campaign | Susan Heavey and Simon Lewis/Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Friday warned Russia to stay out of U.S. elections after American officials had told him Moscow was trying to aid his campaign. “The intelligence community is telling us they are interfering in this campaign, right now, in 2020. And what I say to Mr. Putin, if elected president, trust me you are not going to be interfering in American elections,” Sanders told reporters in Bakersfield, California. Sanders, 78, a democratic socialist from Vermont, is considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination and is favored to win the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. The Washington Post on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter, said U.S. officials had told Sanders about the Russian effort and had also informed Republican President Donald Trump and U.S. lawmakers. It was not clear what form the Russian assistance took, the paper said. A congressional source confirmed intelligence officials have told lawmakers Russia appears to be engaging in disinformation and propaganda campaigns to boost the 2020 campaigns of both Sanders and Trump. The source, however, cautioned that the findings are very tentative.

National: Congress to get election security briefing next month amid Intel drama | Jordain Carney/The Hill

The administration is gearing up to brief lawmakers on election security as the country wades deeper into the 2020 primaries. Both the House and Senate will be briefed, separately, on March 10, according to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and a Senate aide. The briefings will come a week after Super Tuesday, when primary voters in more than a dozen states will head to the polls. On March 10, voters in six more states will cast ballots. The announcement of the briefings come as President Trump’s shake up of top intelligence community positions has sparked fierce criticism from Democrats and some national security professionals, and after reports that intelligence leaders have told lawmakers that Russia is again seeking to aid Trump’s campaign efforts. “American voters should decide American elections — not Vladimir Putin. All Members of Congress should condemn the President’s reported efforts to dismiss threats to the integrity of our democracy & to politicize our intel community,” Pelosi said in a tweet on Thursday.

National: DHS Publishes 2020 Strategic Plan for Election Security | Lucas Ropek/Government Technology

With a contentious race for the American presidency underway and fears of foreign influence in electoral politics growing, state governments are looking for ways to bolster their position before voters hit the polls. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently published its 2020 election security strategic plan to help meet that mission, outlining how it hopes to assist states before this year’s presidential contest unfolds. That assistance will come in a number of forms: engaging the nation’s some 8,000 election jurisdictions with planning and response capabilities; facilitating coordination between various state, local and private stakeholders; and deploying personnel to offer assessment and testing of voting infrastructure, including cyberhygiene and penetration tests. At the same time, CISA is also offering assistance to political campaigns and infrastructure, giving security assessments and information sharing services to them, while also highlighting the work of other important intelligence organizations like the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center and the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The CISA report also shines a spotlight on a number of states that are currently role models for election security practices.

Editorials: Calm down, America. If election results aren’t instant, it doesn’t mean they’re ‘rigged.’ | Joshua A. Douglas/USA Today

The contrast between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary offers two lessons for the media and the public, especially for the next two contests in Nevada and South Carolina: Put your trust in professional election administrators, and don’t expect an immediate announcement of the winner. The Iowa Democratic Party, not election professionals, ran the caucuses. The party made mistakes at several turns. It transmitted and tabulated results using a new app that turned out to be unreliable. It then compounded those errors by rushing to report results, which appeared incomplete and potentially inaccurate, over the ensuing days. By contrast, New Hampshire election officials administered the primary. They did it without any hiccups and, importantly, there seemed to be less of a rush to announce the winner. The Nevada Democratic Party is running Saturday’s caucuses, while state election officials are in charge of the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29. Nevada Democrats are trying to learn from the experience of their Iowa counterparts, but the bottom line is unavoidable: The practice of nonprofessionals administering caucuses adds another reason to question the entire caucus system, which is generally undemocratic and unrepresentative to begin with.

California: Man Arrested For Election Cyber Attacks | Christianne McCormick/Canyon News

Federal officers arrested a Santa Monica man Friday morning, February 21 for charges related to a series of cyberattacks on a website for a candidate who was campaigning for a Congressional seat back in 2018. Arthur Dam, 32, was charged with one count of intentionally damaging and attempting to damage a protected computer. Officials accuse him of coordinating cyberattacks on Rep. Katie Hill’s Democratic Rival Rep. Bryan Caforio. Allegedly, Dam staged four cyberattacks in April and May of 2018 that resulted in Caforio’s website to be down for a total of 21 hours. The website first crashed on April 20, 2018 then again on the 21st, 28th and May 29th. The attack that transpired on April 28 was the day of the debate between Hill and Caforio. The attack that transpired on May 29, 2018 was just days before Hill beat Caforio in the June 5 primary.

Florida: Cyber experts: Public should have known about 2016 Palm Beach County elections ransomware | Hannah Morse/The Palm Beach Post

In the wake of the dispute over the cyber intrusion at the county elections office, The Palm Beach Post asked a series of security professionals to weigh in on the revelation of the Zepto virus exposure in September 2016. Is three years too long to learn that a ransomware attack happened at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office? Yes, say cybersecurity and IT experts. In the wake of the dispute over the cyber intrusion at the county elections office, The Palm Beach Post asked a series of security professionals to weigh in on the revelation of the Zepto virus exposure in September 2016. “Not only should they report this, they should understand that just because everything seems normal it might not necessarily be,” said Silka Gonzalez, founder of ERMProtect in Coral Gables. “Even if a hacker is already inside your network and passively stealing your information everything in your workplace is going to look normal and ‘business as usual.’ These things don’t come with sirens and red lights.” The scrutiny over Zepto and its purported encroachment by an unknown entity through an elections office computer in the weeks before the 2016 presidential vote has been a source of controversy. This month, current Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link revealed the previously unknown cyber attack via a Zepto virus. The severity of the episode, however, has been disputed by her predecessor, Susan Bucher.

Illinois: ‘Wake-up call’ led to focus on election security | Bernard Schoenburg/The State Journal-Register

As the March 17 Illinois primary approaches, state and local election officials say they are continually working to keep election records, information and vote totals safe from outside meddling. “What I always say is we’re confident that we’re doing everything we can to stay a step ahead of any cyber attacker,” said Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections. “But all you can ever hope, when you’re dealing with cyber security, is to stay ahead of the next hacker.” Sangamon County Clerk Don Gray, whose office oversees elections in the county, said every election authority has been “working hard … protecting and defending our election apparatus. It is absolutely imperative today that we are proactive and being out in front of cybercriminals.”

Kansas: Counties’ websites may lack security against hackers | Associated Press

Many Kansas counties’websites may be at risk as they lack basic protocols that make it easier for hackers to impersonate websites in order to install malware or trick individuals into giving out their personal information. Out of 105 counties, only eight of them have websites ending in .gov, a domain extension only government officials can control, and 60 counties’ URLs start with “http” rather than the more secure “https.” Experts say it could be a serious concern for smaller governments during a time of increasing cyberattacks, KCUR-FM reported. Local governments have in recent years become frequent targets of ransomware attacks, where hackers hold data hostage in exchange for money.

Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh forum will look at threats to democracy in the internet age | Abigail Mihaly/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Leading expert in cybersecurity David Hickton is warning us that the internet could dismantle democracy. Mr. Hickton, founding Director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security and former United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, will discuss the issue in a lecture this week at the University of Pittsburgh. The “Can Democracy Survive the Internet?” lecture, hosted by the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy at Pitt, will ask the question: Is the internet a force for freedom or for oppression? When his children began instant messaging online, Mr. Hickton realized the internet was an open environment, without sufficient rules or security. “[The cyber world] is designed to make our lives better,” said Mr. Hickton. “But … it’s not coincidental that in some places around the world, digital space is being used to make people less free.”

Editorials: As Washington State’s chief elections officer, I don’t think electronic voting is worth the risk | Kim Wyman/The Seattle Times

The integrity of our elections and our democracy is under attack. Bad actors — both foreign and domestic — seek to damage election infrastructure, manipulate results and sow discourse. Washington has made critical strides in shoring up security for upcoming elections and beyond, but safeguarding our elections is a race without a finish line. With cybersecurity experts warning of the severe vulnerabilities with online or mobile voting, including electronic ballot return methods, I am recommending the Legislature act on a bill I requested to protect Washington voters from cyber intrusion. Currently, Washington allows military and civilian overseas voters to return their ballots by email or fax. Cybersecurity experts, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are imploring states to eliminate these glaring vulnerabilities. Heeding their warnings, I partnered with a bipartisan group of legislators to eliminate email and fax ballot return options for voters serving or living overseas.

Canada: Nova Scotia could see limited internet voting for military with proposed changes | Keith Doucette/The Canadian Press

Limited internet voting for the military and financial reimbursement for candidate expenses related to family care feature in a series of proposed changes to Nova Scotia’s Elections Act tabled Friday. Justice Minister Mark Furey said the changes would reduce barriers to running in elections and make voting easier for members of the military who are serving elsewhere in Canada or overseas. Under the changes, candidates would be reimbursed for extra expenses such as child and spousal care, elder care or care for a person with a disability. “Public service is foundational to our democracy, and my hope is that these changes will reduce barriers to running, especially for women who are primary care givers in so many elements of their family,” Furey said.

Dominican Republic: Government officials ask OAS to investigate e-vote failure | Martín José Adames Alcántara/Associated Press

Officials in the Dominican Republic announced Friday that they have asked the Organization of American States to investigate the failure of an electronic voting system some believe was tampered with in an incident that sparked protests and delayed municipal elections. Government officials said they also requested that the local Justice Department suspend its investigation to allow international organizations to take over. “We must find a way to lend credibility to any investigation that is carried out to determine what happened and if there was any malicious action,” said Flavio Darío Espinal, the president’s legal adviser. The software glitch had forced the Dominican Republic to suspend municipal elections on Sunday, with voting halted after three hours when 50% of polling places using electronic ballot machines reported problems.

National: Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump | Adam Goldman, Julian E. Barnes, Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Fandos/The New York Times

Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him. The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, the president berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump cited the presence in the briefing of Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who led the impeachment proceedings against him, as a particular irritant. During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that he had been tough on Russia and strengthened European security. Some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying that had the official who delivered the conclusion spoken less pointedly or left it out, they would have avoided angering the Republicans. Though intelligence officials have previously told lawmakers that Russia’s interference campaign was continuing, last week’s briefing did contain what appeared to be new information, including that Russia intended to interfere with the 2020 Democratic primaries as well as the general election.

National: Trump sacks intelligence director after congress is warned Russia wants to see him re-elected | Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey and Anne Gearan/The Washington Post

A senior US intelligence official told lawmakers last week that Russia wants to see president Donald Trump re-elected, viewing his administration as more favourable to the Kremlin’s interests, according to people who were briefed on the comments. After learning of that analysis, which was provided to House of Representatives lawmakers in a classified hearing, Mr Trump erupted at his acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, in the Oval Office, perceiving him and his staff as disloyal for speaking to congress about Russia’s perceived preference. The intelligence official’s analysis and Mr Trump’s furious response ruined Mr Maguire’s chances of becoming the permanent intelligence chief, according to people familiar with the matter, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. It was not clear what specific steps, if any, US intelligence officials think Russia may have taken to help Mr Trump, according to the individuals. Mr Trump announced on Wednesday that he was replacing Mr Maguire with a vocal loyalist, Richard Grenell, who is the US ambassador to Germany. The shake-up at the top of the intelligence community is the latest in a post-impeachment purge. Mr Trump has instructed aides to identify and remove officials across the government who aren’t defending his interests, and he wants them replaced with loyalists.