National: At least 10 Republican nominees for state elections chief have disputed the legitimacy of the 2020 election | Daniel Dale/CNN

In at least 10 states, the Republican nominee for the job of overseeing future elections is someone who has questioned, rejected or tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Secretaries of state will play a critical role in managing and certifying the presidential election in 2024. The distinct possibility that some of these secretaries will be people with a history of election denial is a major challenge for American democracy — especially because former President Donald Trump, who is widely expected to run again in 2024, continues to pressure state officials to discard the will of voters. The Republican nominees for secretary of state in the November 2022 midterm elections include three swing-state candidates who have made efforts to overturn 2020 results in their states: Mark Finchem of Arizona, Kristina Karamo of Michigan and Jim Marchant of Nevada. The Republican nominee in Republican-dominated Alabama, Wes Allen, expressed support for a 2020 lawsuit that sought to get the Supreme Court to toss out Joe Biden’s victory. The Republican nominee in Republican-dominated Indiana, Diego Morales, has called the 2020 election a “scam,” the vote “tainted” and the outcome “questionable.”

Full Article: At least 10 Republican nominees for state elections chief have disputed the legitimacy of the 2020 election – CNNPolitics

National: Five States Will Decide If the 2024 Election Can Be Stolen | Ryan Teague Beckwith and Bill Allison/Bloomberg

Donald Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden failed, but his loyalists have never stopped trying to turn the US election system into one that would return him to the White House in 2024—fairly or otherwise. In the last two years, Republicans have sought to remove state officials who wouldn’t manufacture votes and falsely declare him the winner. They changed the way elections are run in response to his conspiracy theories. Most importantly, they’ve nominated people who insist Trump won as candidates for US Congress and governor, and for offices that certify the outcome. Has it worked? To answer that question, a team of Bloomberg journalists set out to find which states are most vulnerable to political election interference—and what it means for elections this fall and in 2024, when the White House will once again be at stake. We dug into laws in all 50 states and scrutinized the thousands of election-related bills proposed nationwide since 2020. We consulted election-security experts, voting rights advocates, election lawyers, academics and current and former elections administrators as well as decades of political research to zero in on how elections work.

Full Article: Five States Will Decide If the 2024 Election Can Be Stolen

National: Hunting for Voter Fraud, Conspiracy Theorists Organize ‘Stakeouts’ | Tiffany Hsu and Stuart A. Thompson/The New York Times

One night last month, on the recommendation of a man known online as Captain K, a small group gathered in an Arizona parking lot and waited in folding chairs, hoping to catch the people they believed were trying to destroy American democracy by submitting fake early voting ballots. Captain K — which is what Seth Keshel, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who espouses voting fraud conspiracy theories, calls himself — had set the plan in motion. In July, as states like Arizona were preparing for their primary elections, he posted a proposal on the messaging app Telegram: “All-night patriot tailgate parties for EVERY DROP BOX IN AMERICA.” The post received more than 70,000 views. Similar calls were galvanizing people in at least nine other states, signaling the latest outgrowth from rampant election fraud conspiracy theories coursing through the Republican Party. In the nearly two years since former President Donald J. Trump catapulted false claims of widespread voter fraud from the political fringes to the conservative mainstream, a constellation of his supporters have drifted from one theory to another in a frantic but unsuccessful search for evidence. Many are now focused on ballot drop boxes — where people can deposit their votes into secure and locked containers — under the unfounded belief that mysterious operatives, or so-called ballot mules, are stuffing them with fake ballots or otherwise tampering with them. And they are recruiting observers to monitor countless drop boxes across the country, tapping the millions of Americans who have been swayed by bogus election claims.

Full Article: Hunting for Voter Fraud, Conspiracy Theorists Organize ‘Stakeouts’ – The New York Times

Arizona county that saw election snafu to waive city costs | Bob Christie/Associated Press

An Arizona county where the Aug. 2 primary election was beset with multiple issues that led to the firing of its election director will waive the costs for running municipal elections in 11 cities and towns and plans to hire an outside election expert to review what went wrong. The five-member Pinal County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to waive more than $100,000 in costs it planned to bill the cities and towns for running the local elections. Seven cities and towns had local races left off early ballots that required the county to mail about 63,000 supplemental ballots. And County Attorney Kent Volkmer told the board that four other municipalities were affected by Election Day missteps that led to ballot shortages at about 20 of the county’s 95 polling places. “As the county manager clearly indicated, we fell below the expectations of our customers,” Volkmer told the board. “So I believe if this board is so inclined, I think there is good cause to waive for all of the various entities that we serve the municipal and town elections for.” “I think that’s a good idea due to the issues at hand,” Board Chair Jeffrey McClure. Last week, McClure had called the election issues “a major screwup” and Elections Director David Frisk was fired the next day. He had just been hired in March.

Full Article: Arizona county that saw election snafu to waive city costs | AP News

Colorado: Fact Checking Claims About Dominion Voting Systems and the Recount | Khaya Himmelman/The Dispatch

A recent article from The Gateway Pundit, which has a history of promoting false voter conspiracy theories, claims that Dominion Voting System machines failed a logic and accuracy test in El Paso County, Colorado, “for the upcoming hand recount of the 2022 Primary election.” In Colorado’s March primary, Mesa County clerk Tina Peters lost her primary bid for the secretary of state nomination by 88,224 votes and state Senate candidate Lynda Zamora Wilson lost her race by 8,710 votes. According to the article, “The recount was ordered (and paid for) by some of the candidates, including Mesa Clerk Tina Peters and El Paso senate candidate Linda [sic] Zamora Wilson, who had her election inexplicably overturned AFTER it had been called by local news without any explanation.” The article also references a viral tweet, which similarly claims that “Dominion voting machines fail logic & accuracy test in El Paso County, CO recount. Almost 60% of test ballots sent to adjudication.”

Source: Fact Checking Claims About Dominion Voting Systems and the Colorado Recount

Georgia: Courtroom showdowns ahead for Atlanta-based grand jury examining Trump and 2020 election | Bill Rankin and Tamar Hallerman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Courtroom showdowns and appearances involving high-profile figures are on deck this week as part of the ongoing Fulton County investigation into what happened in Georgia after the 2020 presidential election. Rudy Giuliani, who represented former President Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the election results in a half-dozen swing states, is scheduled to appear Tuesday before the special purpose grand jury aiding the investigation. Attorneys for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a key ally of Trump’s, will go to federal court on Wednesday to fight a grand jury subpoena. And two other lawyers connected to the Trump campaign are teeing up challenges of their own in New Mexico and Colorado. Giuliani will certainly be asked about his appearances before two state legislative panels in December 2020. During three hearings, the former New York City mayor claimed widespread fraud infected Georgia’s presidential election. Giuliani showed an edited tape of ballots being counted in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena that he said was a “powerful smoking gun.” Both state and federal investigators have said Giuliani’s claims were baseless. Yet Giuliani continued to repeat those falsehoods, his subpoena alleges.

Full Article: Courtroom showdowns ahead for Atlanta-based grand jury examining Trump and 2020 election

Michigan: Trump-backed attorney general candidate involved in voting-system breach, documents show | Nathan Layne/Nathan LayneReuters

The Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general led a team that gained unauthorized access to voting equipment while hunting for evidence to support former President Donald Trump’s false election-fraud claims, according to a Reuters analysis of court filings and public records. The analysis shows that people working with Matthew DePerno – the Trump-endorsed nominee for the state’s top law-enforcement post – examined a vote tabulator from Richfield Township, a conservative stronghold of 3,600 people in northern Michigan’s Roscommon County. The Richfield security breach is one of four similar incidents being investigated by Michigan’s current attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel. Under state law, it is a felony to seek or provide unauthorized access to voting equipment. DePerno did not respond to a request for comment. The involvement of a Republican attorney general nominee in a voting-system breach comes amid a national effort by backers of Trump’s fraud falsehoods to win state offices that could prove critical in deciding any future contested elections.

Full Article: Exclusive: Trump-backed Michigan attorney general candidate involved in voting-system breach, documents show | Reuters

Michigan Attorney General says 9 people are focus of voting machine breach investigation. Who are they? | Clara Hendrickson and Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

Michigan GOP attorney general candidate Matt DePerno is not the only one in the national spotlight after state investigators accused him of participating in a conspiracy to access voting machines in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. DePerno was part of a nine-person team now at the center of the criminal probe, according to the office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Nessel’s Office, along with Michigan State Police, are investigating a plot “to unlawfully obtain access to voting machines” used in the 2020 presidential election and recently petitioned an independent arm of the attorney general’s office to appoint a special prosecutor to determine whether criminal charges should be brought against those allegedly involved. The group includes those who seized ballot tabulators, broke into them and assisted in gaining unauthorized access to the machines, according to a petition from Nessel’s Office. The petition claims that DePerno, lawyer Stefanie Lambert Junttila and state Rep. Daire Rendon, R-Lake City, “orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators” from Roscommon County, Richfield Township, Irving Township and Lake City Township. A group of four subsequently handled the equipment to conduct its own election review, according to the petition from the attorney general’s office. That team included Ben Cotton, Jeff Lenberg, Doug Logan and James Penrose.

Full Article: Michigan voting investigation: The 9 people at the center of the probe

Nevada officials offer regulations as hand-counts gain steam | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

Hand-counting teams of four, not all from the same party. Table centers at least 10 feet apart. Ballots counted 20 at a time. Those are some of the regulations the Nevada secretary of state’s office is proposing for how counties can count paper ballots by hand amid a growing push for the method in some rural parts of the state where election misinformation including a distrust of voting machines has grown. Mark Wlaschin, deputy secretary of state for elections in Nevada, said the regulations have been in the works for nearly a year and don’t come in direct response to events in Nye County, where the county clerk responsible for administering elections resigned last month after election conspiracies led to a successful push to hand-count votes.  “It’s been kind of an ongoing discussion across the nation, really. And as election officials at the state and county level, we try to think ahead,” he said of the guidelines, which will be discussed in an online meeting Friday with the public for feedback. If approved later this month, would be in place for November’s election.

Full Article: Nevada officials offer regulations as hand-counts gain steam | AP News

Ohio elections officials being hit with requests for lots of records from the 2020 vote | Karen Kasler/Statehouse News Bureau

Despite no credible claims of problems with the November 2020 vote in Ohio, dozens of huge requests for voting records from that election are coming in to county elections officials, as they’re finishing up work on a second statewide primary and gearing up for this fall’s election. Delivering on those could mean more work and costs for those boards and obstacles for workers, who are already dealing with a challenging election year. Ohio Association of Elections Officials president Brian Sleeth directs the Warren County Board of Elections. In an interview for “The State of Ohio”, he said seven requests have come in for basically anything related to the 2020 vote, including copies of all ballots and the results tapes that voting machines recorded twice a day, which can be up to 70 feet long each. “There’d be significant cost and copying everything in our office, for example, all of our ballots. Providing two-sided copies would be a job in itself,” Sleeth said. “And then they’ve asked for voting machine tapes. And those are like just a little cash register tapes that you would get at your supermarket when you go grocery shopping. Those are about 60 to 70 feet long each twice a day in the morning and evening. And they’ve asked for copies of those tapes too.”

Full Article: Ohio elections officials being hit with requests for lots of records from the 2020 vote | The Statehouse News Bureau

Pennsylvania elections official blames spreadsheet for state’s mistake in certifying a county’s election results | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

A top elections official said Monday that “human error” in tracking the results of the May 17 primary election led Pennsylvania to inadvertently certify a county’s vote counts that the state deems to be inaccurate. The embarrassing revelation came in a filing before Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court, where the state is seeking to break a standoff with three counties — Berks, Fayette, and Lancaster — that refuse to include undated mail ballots in their official totals in defiance of guidance from the Department of State. The department, which oversees elections, sued the counties last month, asking a judge to order them to do so. But in a court filing Monday, Jonathan Marks, the deputy elections secretary, acknowledged that a fourth county, Butler, had also refused to count those ballots — and that the county had notified the department three weeks before the lawsuit was filed. Marks apologized to the court for what he described as an oversight resulting from “a manual process” — a spreadsheet — the department had used to track which counties were counting undated ballots. Butler County was misclassified in the spreadsheet, he said, and from that point forward was left out of the state’s campaign to push counties that hadn’t included them. As a result, the state didn’t include Butler County in its lawsuit. It certified the county’s election results along with 63 other counties.

Full Article: Pa. elections official blames spreadsheet for state’s mistake in certifying a county’s election results

Texas election workers saw increased threats after 2020 voter fraud claims | Eric Neugeborn/The Texas Tribune

A rise in election-related misinformation has led to increased threats and intimidation of election workers in Texas and other states, according to a report released Thursday by a U.S. House committee. A Texas elections administrator from Tarrant County told the committee there was a social media call to “hang him when convicted for fraud and let his lifeless body hang in public until maggots drip out of his mouth.” The official’s home address was leaked and he received messages threatening his children, including one that said “I think we should end your bloodline.” That official, Heider Garcia, was the target of a smear campaign by allies of former President Donald Trump and prominent right-wing media personalities, purporting a falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud. The claim of widespread voter fraud in the election has been repeatedly debunked, and several of Trump’s own aides have stated that the election was fair. “To this day, not a single person or entity has been held accountable for the impact this whole situation had on my family and myself,” Garcia wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year.

Full Article: Texas election workers saw increased threats after 2020 voter fraud claims | The Texas Tribune

In Wisconsin, G.O.P. Voters Demand the Impossible: Decertifying 2020 | Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

When she started her campaign for governor of Wisconsin, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, a Republican, acknowledged that President Biden had been legitimately elected. She soon backtracked. Eventually, she said the 2020 election had been “rigged” against former President Donald J. Trump. She sued the state’s election commission. But she will still not entertain the false notion that the election can somehow be overturned, a fantasy that has taken hold among many of the state’s Republicans, egged on by one of her opponents, Tim Ramthun. And for that, she is taking grief from voters in the closing days before Tuesday’s primary. At a campaign stop here last week, one voter, Donette Erdmann, pressed Ms. Kleefisch on her endorsement from former Vice President Mike Pence, whom many of Mr. Trump’s most devoted supporters blame for not blocking the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. “I was wondering if you’re going to resort to a RINO agenda or an awesome agenda,” Ms. Erdmann said, using a right-wing pejorative for disloyal Republicans. Ms. Kleefisch’s startled answer — “don’t make your mind up based on what somebody else is doing,” she warned, defending her “awesome agenda” — was not enough. “I’m going to go with Tim Ramthun,” Ms. Erdmann said afterward.

Full Article: In Wisconsin Primary, G.O.P. Voters Call for Decertifying 2020 Election – The New York Times

In 4 Swing States, G.O.P. Election Deniers Could Oversee Voting | Jennifer Medina, Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

With Tuesday’s primary victories in Arizona and Michigan added to those in Nevada and Pennsylvania, Republicans who have disputed the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and who could affect the outcome of the next one are on a path toward winning decisive control over how elections are run in several battleground states. Running in a year in which G.O.P. voters are energized by fierce disapproval of President Biden, these newly minted Republican nominees for secretary of state and governor have taken positions that could threaten the nation’s traditions of nonpartisan elections administration, acceptance of election results and orderly transfers of power. Each has spread falsehoods about fraud and illegitimate ballots, endorsing the failed effort to override the 2020 results and keep former President Donald J. Trump in power. Their history of anti-democratic impulses has prompted Democrats, democracy experts and even some fellow Republicans to question whether these officials would oversee fair elections and certify winners they didn’t support. There is no question that victories by these candidates in November could lead to sweeping changes to how millions of Americans vote. Several have proposed eliminating mail voting, ballot drop boxes and even the use of electronic voting machines, while empowering partisan election observers and expanding their roles. “If any one of these election deniers wins statewide office, that’s a five-alarm fire for our elections,” said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Action, a bipartisan legal and democracy watchdog organization. “It could throw our elections into chaos. It could put our democracy at risk.”

Full Article: In 4 Swing States, G.O.P. Election Deniers Could Oversee Voting – The New York Times

Election workers reported more than 1,000 ‘hostile’ contacts in past year | Shawna Mizelle/CNN

A task force launched by the Justice Department last year to investigate threats against election workers looked at more than 1,000 contacts “reported as hostile or harassing” and said about 11% of those “met the threshold for a federal criminal investigation.” The findings were presented at a briefing on Monday with US Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite and a bipartisan group of about 750 election officials and workers from across the country as they prepare for the midterm elections. The Election Threats Task Force, which was created last year to address an increasing number of election workers’ concerns over ongoing threats against them, also found that in instances where a source of reported contact was identified, “in 50% of the matters, the source contacted the victim on multiple occasions.” Aside from the 11% of the contacts that merited a federal investigation, “the remaining reported contacts did not provide a predication for a federal criminal investigation,” the Justice Department said in a news release announcing the findings on Monday. “While many of the contacts were often hostile, harassing, and abusive towards election officials, they did not include a threat of unlawful violence.”

Michigan changed how election results get reported. Expect delays in November | Craig Mauger and Kayla Ruble/The Detroit News

An effort to make Michigan elections more secure and quell fears that electronic equipment could be hacked delayed the reporting of Tuesday’s primary results, which officials said could foreshadow even lengthier waits in November. In some counties, including Wayne and Macomb, it took nearly four hours for partial initial results to be posted publicly on Tuesday after election workers had to hand-deliver memory cards from vote-counting machines instead of transmitting them using cellular modems. In November, officials warn the reporting of election results could be even slower because of a crush of absentee ballots that can’t legally be processed until Election Day, and a voter turnout that could be double the 2.1 million ballots cast in last week’s primary. “I’m not looking forward to November,” Chesterfield Township Clerk Cindy Berry said. “We really want to deliver results quickly, accurately and with confidence, and this will hinder our ability to do some of that, and the public is going to blame us.” The fallout points to the delicate balancing act facing election officials in the battleground state, where concerns about fraud and tampering have grown since the 2020 presidential election. Delays in releasing results create frustration and, potentially, opportunities for conspiracy theories to flourish.

Full Article: Michigan changed how election results get reported. Expect delays in November

National: Momentum Builds for Overhaul of Rules Governing the Electoral Count | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

Determined to prevent a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, backers of an overhaul of the federal law governing the count of presidential electoral ballots pressed lawmakers on Wednesday to repair the flaws that President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to exploit to reverse the 2020 results. “There is nothing more essential to the orderly transfer of power than clear rules for effecting it,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and one of the lead authors of a bill to update the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, said Wednesday as the Senate Rules Committee began its review of the legislation. “I urge my colleagues in the Senate and the House to seize this opportunity to enact the sensible and much-needed reforms before the end of this Congress.” Backers of the legislation, which has significant bipartisan support in the Senate, believe that a Republican takeover of the House in November and the beginning of the 2024 presidential election cycle could make it impossible to make major election law changes in the next Congress. They worry that, unless the outdated statute is changed, the shortcomings exposed by Mr. Trump’s unsuccessful effort to interfere with the counting of electoral votes could allow another effort to subvert the presidential election. “The Electoral Count Act of 1887 just turned out to be more troublesome, potentially, than anybody had thought,” said Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the senior Republican on the rules panel. “The language of 1887 is really outdated and vague in so many ways. Both sides of the aisle want to update this act.”

Full Article: Lawmakers Urge Electoral Count Changes to Fix Flaws Trump Exploited – The New York Times

National: Pro-Trump activists swamp election officials with sprawling records requests | Nathan Layne/Reuters

Pro-Trump operatives are flooding local officials with public-records requests to seek evidence for the former president’s false stolen-election claims and to gather intelligence on voting machines and voters, adding to the chaos rocking the U.S. election system. The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Arizona, an election battleground state, has fielded 498 public records requests this year – 130 more than all of last year. Officials in Washoe County, Nevada, have fielded 88 public records requests, two-thirds more than in all of 2021. And the number of requests to North Carolina’s state elections board have already nearly equaled last year’s total of 229. The surge of requests is overwhelming staffs that oversee elections in some jurisdictions, fueling baseless voter-fraud allegations and raising concerns about the inadvertent release of information that could be used to hack voting systems, according to a dozen election officials interviewed by Reuters. Republican and Democratic election officials said they consider some of the requests an abuse of freedom-of-information laws meant to ensure government transparency. Records requests facing many of the country’s 8,800 election offices have become “voluminous and daunting” since the 2020 election, said Kim Wyman, head of election security at the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Last year, when she left her job as Washington secretary of state, the state’s top election official, her office had a two-year backlog of records requests.

Full Article: Pro-Trump activists swamp election officials with sprawling records requests | Reuters

National: Research suggests one way to fight voting misinformation | Miles Parks/NPR

For election officials, falsehoods about America’s voting process can feel like a game of whack-a-mole. “There’s just so much that is incorrect that they just keep repeating and repeating and repeating,” one Colorado voting official told NPR recently. “And then as soon as I have absolutely blocked off that path with actual correct information, then they just move that goal post. And they keep just moving the goal posts.” But it’s clear this “game” has massive stakes. A Justice Department official said in a Senate hearing this week that the federal law enforcement agency had reviewed more than a thousand hostile threats against election workers over the past year. And in a separate congressional hearing, lawmakers mulled how to make the presidential election certification process less vulnerable to partisan hijacking. In what has essentially become an information war for the future of democracy, people driven by misinformation are acting on it to harass election workers and subvert the will of the voters. And election officials have struggled to find an effective message to fight back.

Full Article: Research suggests one way to fight voting misinformation : NPR

National: As Midterms Loom, Congress Fears Domestic Disinformation | Jule Pattison-Gordon/GovTech

Federal lawmakers are looking to learn more about combating mis- and disinformation as midterm elections approach. Domestic sources have emerged as the greatest perpetrators of falsehoods, said several witnesses during a July 27 House hearing. “ISD research suggests domestic disinformation targets Americans at a higher volume and frequency than foreign campaigns,” testified Jiore Craig, head of digital integrity at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank that analyzes extremism. Domestic actors can be particularly convincing. For example, some social media ads tout election falsehoods while featuring trustworthy-sounding organization names and, without permission, displaying images of trusted public figures, Craig said. “Much domestic disinformation is well-resourced, references real-world people and events, and deliberately uses social media product features like targeted advertising, recommendation systems and ‘explore’ feeds that are opt-in by default to seed disinformation,” Craig said in written testimony.

Full Article: As Midterms Loom, Congress Fears Domestic Disinformation

National: How Six States Could Overturn the 2024 Election | Barton Gellman/The Atlantic

Late last month, in one of its final acts of the term, the Supreme Court queued up another potentially precedent-wrecking decision for next year. The Court’s agreement to hear Moore v. Harper, a North Carolina redistricting case, isn’t just bad news for efforts to control gerrymandering. The Court’s right-wing supermajority is poised to let state lawmakers overturn voters’ choice in presidential elections. To understand the stakes, and the motives of Republicans who brought the case, you need only one strategic fact of political arithmetic. Six swing states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina—are trending blue in presidential elections but ruled by gerrymandered Republican state legislatures. No comparable red-trending states are locked into Democratic legislatures. Joe Biden won five of those six swing states in 2020. Donald Trump then tried and failed, lawlessly, to muscle the GOP state legislators into discarding Biden’s victory and appointing Trump electors instead. The Moore case marks the debut in the nation’s highest court of a dubious theory that could give Republicans legal cover in 2024 to do as Trump demanded in 2020. And if democracy is subverted in just a few states, it can overturn the election nationwide.

Full Article: How Six States Could Overturn the 2024 Election – The Atlantic

Arizona Attorney General Debunks Trump Supporters’ Election Fraud Claims | Maggie Astor/The New York Times

Accusations that hundreds of ballots were cast in Arizona in 2020 in the name of dead voters are unfounded, the state’s Republican attorney general said on Monday in a sharply worded letter to the president of the Arizona Senate, who has advanced false claims of voter fraud. The attorney general, Mark Brnovich, wrote in his letter to Senator Karen Fann that his office’s Election Integrity Unit had spent “hundreds of hours” investigating 282 allegations submitted by Ms. Fann, as well as more than 6,000 allegations from four other reports. Some of them “were so absurd,” he wrote, that “the names and birth dates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.” The claims in Ms. Fann’s complaint stemmed from a heavily criticized audit of the 2020 election that the company Cyber Ninjas conducted last year in Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa. That audit found no evidence for former President Donald J. Trump’s claims that the election had been stolen from him; in fact, it counted slightly fewer votes for Mr. Trump and more for Joseph R. Biden Jr. than in the official tally. A subsequent report from election experts accused Cyber Ninjas of making up its numbers altogether. Nonetheless, Ms. Fann sent the accusations of dead voters to Mr. Brnovich’s office in a September 2021 complaint. “Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased,” Mr. Brnovich wrote in his letter. His office concluded, he wrote, that “only one of the 282 individuals on the list was deceased at the time of the election.”

Full Article: Arizona Attorney General Debunks Trump Supporters’ Election Fraud Claims – The New York Times

Colorado: Tina Peters’ quarter-million-dollar recount gains her 13 votes | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Colorado has wrapped up a statewide recount of the GOP primary race for secretary of state which left the result unchanged. Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters requested the recount and accused the election of being rigged after results showed her losing by a wide margin to former Jefferson County Clerk Pamela Anderson. Peters gained 13 votes in the recount, as did Anderson. Mike O’Donnell, who narrowly got third in the race, gained 11 votes. “The recounts are complete and confirm once again that Colorado elections are safe and secure,” said Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Peters lost the June Republican primary for secretary of state by 88,579 votes, or around 14 points. Candidates can request a discretionary recount but have to foot the bill for it; state rules say candidates must pay for any recount when the margin is more than 0.5 percent.

Full Article: Tina Peters’ quarter-million-dollar recount gains her 13 votes | Colorado Public Radio

Georgia: Trump Lawyer Proposed Challenging Senate Elections in Search of Fraud | Maggie Haberman and Luke Broadwater/The New York Times

John Eastman, the conservative lawyer whose plan to block congressional certification of the 2020 election failed in spectacular fashion on Jan. 6, 2021, sent an email two weeks later arguing that pro-Trump forces should sue to keep searching for the supposed election fraud he acknowledged they had failed to find. On Jan. 20, 2021, hours after President Biden’s inauguration, Mr. Eastman emailed Rudolph W. Giuliani, former President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, proposing that they challenge the outcome of the runoff elections in Georgia for two Senate seats that had been won on Jan. 5 by Democrats. “A lot of us have now staked our reputations on the claims of election fraud, and this would be a way to gather proof,” Mr. Eastman wrote in the previously undisclosed email, which also went to others, including a top Trump campaign adviser. “If we get proof of fraud on Jan. 5, it will likely also demonstrate the fraud on Nov. 3, thereby vindicating President Trump’s claims and serving as a strong bulwark against Senate impeachment trial.” The email, which was reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who worked on the Trump campaign at the time, is the latest evidence that even some of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters knew they had not proven their baseless claims of widespread voting fraud — but wanted to continue their efforts to delegitimize the outcome even after Mr. Biden had taken office.

Full Article: John Eastman Proposed Challenging Georgia Senate Elections in Search of Fraud – The New York Times

Georgia: Probe of Coffee County’s 2020 election conduct revives Georgia voting machine lawsuit | Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder

A long-running federal lawsuit challenging the security of Georgia’s voting system is now entangled in a dispute over the handling of an investigation into allegations that 2020 election skeptics illegally breached a county’s voting system. Attorneys representing the Coalition for a Good Governance and other election security advocates will attempt to wrap up depositions in the coming weeks and obtain other evidence regarding accusations that Coffee County elections officials granted activists access to the Dominion Voting System that is a frequent target of conspiracy theories tied to Republican President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Among the dozen Coffee County-related subpoenas filed in U.S. District Court Northern District of Georgia is one last month for Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, whose firm was behind the shoddy audit of Arizona’s Maricopa County in its administration of the 2020 presidential election. Cyber Ninjas is connected to digital security executive Benjamin Cotton, who has claimed in another investigation that he forensically examined voting systems in Coffee County and several other battleground states. The state election officials removed the county’s election server shortly after a newly hired Coffee County election director notified the state that the password no longer worked and that he found Logan’s business card on an office computer in April 2021. In recent court filings, the plaintiffs’ lawyers accuse the secretary of state’s office of withholding information and allege that the state purposefully delayed investigating a breach that threatens a system the state has fiercely defended.

Full Article: Probe of Coffee County’s 2020 election conduct revives Georgia voting machine lawsuit – Georgia Recorder

Kansas: Narrow GOP primary election for  treasurer triggers audit | Bill Lukitch/The Kansas City Star

A close Republican primary for Kansas treasurer has triggered a heightened post-election audit in Johnson County, along with every other county across the state, as the two GOP candidates seeking the party’s nomination were separated by a mere 312 votes on Wednesday evening. Unofficial results from the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office showed Rep. Steven Johnson ahead of Sen. Caryn Tyson by less than 1 percentage point as of 6 p.m. Under a new Kansas law enacted during the last session, every county election office in the state must now perform a post-election audit where ballots cast in 10% of each county’s precincts will be recounted by hand. During a press call on Wednesday, Bryan Caskey, the state’s director of elections, said the GOP primary for treasurer was the only one that met the threshold for the increased post-election audit. He said every county would also be performing the additional state-required audit of a statewide, state legislative and county race in addition to the constitutional amendment question regarding the right to have an abortion in Kansas Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman said Wednesday that his workers were in a bit of a scramble to get everything done in time. Although the voters have all done their part, he said the work was only beginning for the election office. “We just got out of gates with the work we have to do,” Sherman said. Johnson County, the most populated in Kansas, has 610 precincts. By state law the hand recount for the GOP treasurer primary will include 61 precincts. Seven precincts there will be recounted by hand in the other part of the post-election audit.

Full Article: Close GOP primary election for KS treasurer triggers audit | The Kansas City Star

Michigan: GOP activist group instructs poll watchers to call 911 | Heidi Przybyla/Politico

Members of a GOP activist group coaching Michigan poll workers and watchers before Tuesday’s primary election instructed them to call 911 and contact sheriffs to involve law enforcement in election-related complaints, according to a recording of a Sunday night meeting obtained by POLITICO. The plan, outlined by Joanne Bakale, who is running a voter project for the Election Integrity Force and who led the meeting, is the latest example of how many individuals who falsely maintain there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election are seeking to involve law enforcement around elections administration. “One of the issues that we had in the 2020 election is that no one actually filed any complaints with the police,” said Bakale, advising participants to document issues around voting or voting machines by calling 911. In 2020, dozens of poll challengers were locked outside Detroit’s TCF Center, where absentee ballots were being counted, after Covid-19 safety protocols were violated. Since then, many activists and GOP officials have insisted they witnessed fraud, despite a GOP-led investigation refuting the claims, and worked to form relationships with local police.

Full Article: GOP activist group instructs Michigan poll watchers to call 911 – POLITICO

Michigan: Unofficial election results delayed after some counties changed how results are transmitted | Sophia Kalakailo/Michigan Radio

Delays in unofficial reporting of results in Michigan’s primary were caused by a change in how those results are transmitted from the local level to the county level. As of Wednesday morning, results were still coming in from large communities. At least 70 Michigan counties have stopped using modems to transmit unofficial election results electronically, according to Michigan Department of State Spokesperson Tracy Wimmer. Wayne County, Michigan’s largest, is among those that stopped using modems to transmit results. The shift comes amid a push to increase election security by critics who doubt the results of the November 2020 presidential election — despite Republican-led audits that upheld the results — and disproven claims of fraud involving voting machines connected to the internet through modems. “This is being done in accordance with guidance issued by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in order to, one, prevent any remote possibility — which is very small — of interference, but also to counter the misinformation that is circulated concerning the use of modems,” Wimmer said.

Full Article: Unofficial election results delayed after some counties changed how results are transmitted

Nevada: Nye County’s new top election official wants to hand count ballots, distrusts voting machines | Sean Golonka/The Nevada Independent

Nye County commissioners on Tuesday appointed an interim county clerk who has promoted voting machine conspiracy theories and believes Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Mark Kampf, a retired financial executive who starts as the top election official in the state’s sixth-most populous county this Friday, has also said he plans to hand count all ballots cast during this year’s general election — a change in election administration fueled by fears and conspiracy theories about the reliability of voting machines, despite a lack of evidence that significant errors exist or election fraud has occurred. Nye County has roughly 33,000 registered voters. His plans for the office fall in line with the wishes of the all-Republican Board of County Commissioners, who in March voted unanimously to ask their current clerk, Sandra Merlino, to cease use of the county’s Dominion electronic voting machines and move to all-paper, hand-counted elections for both the 2022 primary and general elections — something election experts warn has a much higher capacity for human error. Merlino, who submitted her letter of resignation less than three months later, did not heed that recommendation during the June primary election, but her exit from the clerk’s office paves the way for implementation of the new election procedures touted by Jim Marchant, the Republican secretary of state nominee and a vocal proponent of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Full Article: Nye County’s new top election official wants to hand count ballots, distrusts voting machines – The Nevada Independent

Oklahoma’s first post-election audit confirms 2022 primary results | Carmen Forman/The Oklahoman

The state Election Board originally planned to start conducting post-election audits during the 2020 election cycle, but the development of policies and procedures to guide the process was delayed during the pandemic. “Post-election audits add an additional layer of transparency and security to Oklahoma elections and election officials are thankful that the State Legislature enacted a law to allow them,” Ziriax said in a news release. “Oklahoma has one of the most accurate and secure voting systems in the entire world. These post-election audits and the three recounts that followed the June 28 Primary Elections are the latest in a long line of evidence of that.” Election integrity has been a hot topic at the state Capitol following the 2020 presidential election. Spurred by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud, several GOP state lawmakers have sought a forensic or independent audit of the 2020 election results. State law doesn’t allow for audits conducted by non-elections officials.

Full Article: Oklahoma’s first post-election audit confirms 2022 primary results