Texas House advances new voting restrictions as Democratic hopes of killing the legislation wane | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

After months of drama and political resistance, the curtain lowered Thursday on Democratic attempts to stave off a far-reaching rewrite of the state’s voting laws coveted by Republicans seeking to retain their hold on power in a changing Texas. One week after finally regaining enough members to conduct business, the Texas House slogged through a 12-hour floor debate before signing off on a slightly revised version of the Republican legislation that first prompted Democrats to stage a nearly six-week absence from the Capitol. The late night 79-37 vote on Senate Bill 1 moves the state closer to enacting new voting restrictions, including limits on early voting hours and other measures opponents say will raise new barriers for marginalized voters, especially voters of color, who tend to vote Democratic, and those with disabilities. The House is expected to give the bill final approval on Friday, leaving the House and Senate to resolve their differences before the legislation heads to Gov. Greg Abbott.

Full Article: Texas House lawmakers pass GOP-backed voting restrictions bill | The Texas Tribune

Wisconsin: Reince Priebus says subpoenas will be issued soon in review of election that will cost $680,000 or more | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin lawmakers will spend hundreds of thousands to review the presidential election and will soon issue subpoenas as part of their effort, according to Reince Priebus, the former head of the state and national arms of the Republican Party. Priebus, the first chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, made the comments Tuesday on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast. He described the plans three days after Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester met with Trump about his plans to review the election. Vos has faced pressure from both the left and right as he seeks to examine an election that courts have determined was conducted properly. Joe Biden narrowly won the state and gained a handful of votes in recounts requested by Trump in Dane and Milwaukee counties. Priebus told Bannon that Republicans who control the Legislature had agreed to “fully fund” an investigation that would cost “about $680,000, at least to start.” He did not say whether the funds would come from taxpayers, donors or a mix of the two. Vos this summer hired former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to oversee the review. Gableman in November contended the election was stolen.

Full Article: Reince Priebus says $680,000 or more will be spent on election review

National: Election officials call for audit guidelines after Trump-fueled surge | Yach Montellaro/Politico

The nation’s top election officials are calling for more stringent guidelines for post-election audits, as supporters of former President Donald Trump continue to relitigate his defeat in 2020. At the summer meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State, secretaries voted nearly unanimously on Monday to approve a series of recommendations for post-election audits on everything from a timeline, to chain of custody of election materials. The guidelines were shared first with POLITICO. During the vote, only two Republican secretaries present didn’t back it: West Virginia Secretary Mac Warner, who voted against it, and Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who abstained. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who was part of a bipartisan group of 8 secretaries who helped draft the guidelines, told POLITICO after the vote that they had been working in secret for months to come to an agreement, comparing the pact the secretaries took to not speak about their work until it was completed to the movie “Fight Club.” The vote came at the tail end of the group’s four-day conference, the first time the organization has gathered in person since before the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Full Article: Election officials call for audit guidelines after Trump-fueled surge – POLITICO

Arizona’s sham election ‘audit’ report delayed after Cyber Ninjas CEO and others test positive for Covid-19 | Eric Bradner and Stephanie Becker/CNN

The report detailing the findings of contractors who conducted Arizona’s sham “audit” of last year’s election results — which had been expected Monday — will be late because three of the five members of the auditing team have tested positive for coronavirus, the state’s Republican Senate leader says. Cyber Ninjas Chief Executive Officer Doug Logan, whose firm was hired by the Republican-led Arizona Senate to audit the 2.1 million votes cast in Maricopa County in 2020’s presidential race, and two other members of the five-person audit team tested positive “and are quite sick,” Senate President Karen Fann said in a statement. Logan and other members of his team were often seen during the recount process without masks. It is not clear whether those who tested positive had been vaccinated. CNN reached out to Cyber Ninjas requesting comment. Elections experts in both parties have said for months that results of the “audit” — pushed for by Republican lawmakers and conducted by the Florida-based company, which had no experience auditing election results and whose chief executive, Logan, has repeated wild conspiracy theories about election fraud — will not be credible.

Full Article: Arizona’s sham election ‘audit’ report delayed after Cyber Ninjas CEO and others test positive for Covid-19 – CNNPolitics

National: Election officials are pushing back against partisan audits launched by Trump allies | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

The battle lines are hardening between the vast majority of election officials who’ve spent months validating and defending the results of the 2020 election and former president Donald Trump’s supporters, who are still challenging those results without evidence and demanding new reviews. One such partisan and poorly run review started months ago in Maricopa County, Ariz., but it has not yet produced any results. Partisans are pushing other audits in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The coalition of top state election officials is pushing back by endorsing a how-to guide for post-election audits that criticizes reviews like Arizona’s that are run on a partisan basis and by private companies without ample experience in the field. Election officials fear the drumbeat of baseless allegations about election hacking and fraud from Trump allies will dampen faith in future election results and maybe in the democratic process itself. Ironically, the assault comes after a four-year election security surge that made 2020 by far the most secure against hacking in decades. “I’m terribly distressed about what this has done to the public’s perception of elections,” Ann S. Jacobs (D), chair of the state Elections Commission in Wisconsin, told me. “It erodes the faith of the electorate in their elected leaders. It justifies violence and threats of violence against election workers. America has always prided itself on its orderly transition of power and these fake accusations are undermining that.”

Full Article: The Cybersecurity 202: Election officials are pushing back against partisan audits launched by Trump allies – The Washington Post

National: Election Officials Still Face Death Threats And Conspiracies | Miles Parks/NPR

It’s been more than nine months since Election Day 2020, but as the nation’s top election officials met in Iowa over the weekend, it was clear the shadow of that race will stretch far into the future of American democracy. The conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was somehow stolen from former President Donald Trump has upended almost all aspects of election administration: Local officials who a decade ago would have gone about their bureaucratic business in relative anonymity are facing threats and intense pressure, and a large chunk of American voters have no confidence the system is fair. “This is the very unfortunate new normal,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, who had dozens of armed protesters visit her home in December after last year’s election. Elections are run in the U.S. at the state and local levels, so the top voting officials across the country are usually secretaries of state. They met this weekend in Des Moines for their first in-person gathering since January 2020.

Full Article: Election Officials Still Face Death Threats And Conspiracies : NPR

National: House Democrats Introduce John Lewis Voting Rights Legislation | Nicholas Fandos/The New York Times

Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a long-awaited linchpin of their drive to protect voting rights, introducing legislation that would make it easier for the federal government to block state election rules found to be discriminatory to nonwhite voters. House leaders expect to pass the bill, named the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act after the late civil rights icon, during a rare August session next week. They say it would restore the full force of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 after a pair of adverse Supreme Court rulings and that it would help combat a wave of restrictive new election laws in Republican-led states. “Today, old battles have become new again as we face the most pernicious assault on the right to vote in generations,” said Representative Terri Sewell, the bill’s chief author and a Democrat from Alabama’s civil rights belt, where Mr. Lewis and others staged a national campaign for voting rights in the 1960s. “It’s clear: federal oversight is urgently needed.” But like other voting rights legislation to come before Congress this year, its chances of passing the evenly divided Senate are exceedingly narrow. Only one Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is likely to support the legislation, leaving Democrats far short of the 60 votes they would need to break a Republican filibuster and send the bill to President Biden’s desk. Senate Republicans already blocked Democrats’ other marquee voting rights bill, the For the People Act, which would establish national mandates for early and mail-in voting and end gerrymandering of congressional districts. And while Democratic leaders in the Senate have vowed more votes on the matter in September, unless all 50 Democrats unite in a long-shot bid to change Senate filibuster rules, they are headed for an identical outcome.

Full Article: House Democrats Introduce John Lewis Voting Rights Legislation – The New York Times

National: As Democrats Renew Voting Rights Push, Offsetting Roberts Court Is Top of Mind | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

When Judge John G. Roberts Jr. faced the Senate for his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in September 2005, critics sounded the alarm about his longstanding skepticism toward the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which many view as crucial to the political gains of Black Americans over the last half century. “I fear that if Judge Roberts is confirmed to be chief justice of the United States, the Supreme Court would no longer hear the people’s cries for justice,” Representative John Lewis, the civil rights leader from Georgia, said in urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject the nomination. Judge Roberts was easily confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate despite pleas from Mr. Lewis and other civil rights activists. He went on to oversee the court in rulings that weakened the Voting Right Acts, compromising its decades-long role as a protector of minority access to the ballot box across much of the South. Mr. Lewis died last July, just months before Republican state legislatures enacted an onslaught of voting restrictions after the 2020 elections. But it is not only those legislatures that Democrats see as their adversaries on election issues. “We are also up against a Supreme Court that is keen on destroying our nation’s most consequential voting rights law,” Representative Terry A. Sewell, Democrat of Alabama, said this week during a Democratic call celebrating the anniversary of women’s right to vote.

Full Article: As Democrats Renew Voting Rights Push, Offsetting Roberts Court Is Top of Mind – The New York Times

National: How Eric Coomer Became the ‘Perfect Villain’ for Voting Conspiracists | Susan Dominus/The New York Times

It was already late on Nov. 9 when Eric Coomer, then the director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, left his temporary office on Daley Plaza in Chicago and headed back to the hotel where he’d been staying for the previous few weeks. Both the plaza and the hotel had the eerie post-apocalyptic feel of urban life during the pandemic, compounding the sense of disorientation and apprehension he felt as he made his way up to his room. Earlier that evening, a colleague sent him a link to a video of Coomer speaking at a conference with a menacing comment below it. “Hi Eric! We know what you did,” the commenter wrote. That link eventually led Coomer to a second video, which he watched in his hotel room. What he saw, he quickly realized, was something that was likely to wreck his life, hurt his employer and possibly erode trust in the electoral process. Over the past decade, Coomer, 51, has helped make Dominion one of the largest providers of voting machines and software in the United States. He was a gifted programmer, known to be serious about his work but informal about almost everything else — prone to profanities, with a sense of humor that could have blunt force. Coomer, who traveled around the world for competitive endurance bike races, would have blended in on the campus of Google, just one in a crowd of nonconformist tech types. In the more corporate business of elections, he stood out for the full-sleeve tattoos on his arms (one of Francis Bacon’s “Screaming Popes,” some Picasso bulls) and the half-inch holes in his ears where he once wore what are known as plugs.

Full Article: How Eric Coomer Became the ‘Perfect Villain’ for Voting Conspiracists – The New York Times

Editorial: Trump is not the problem with American democracy, we are | Tom Nichols/USA Today

I’ve written about a lot of unpleasant, even frightening, subjects. For most of my career, I have been a specialist in national security affairs, a cheerless area of study. I’ve written about war, terrorism, and even about the possibility of nuclear apocalypse, a project that required staring at maps and charts of how entire cities would be turned into ash and left for eternity as desolated mass graveyards. And yet nothing was more difficult than writing about democracy in my own country. In the past, I brought – I hope – a scholarly and dispassionate eye to unpleasant subjects. Now, I was anguished. I was no longer writing about notional future wars or the faraway Russians. Now I was writing about my own people: my fellow citizens, my friends, my neighbors, my family. And I did not like what I saw. The people I have always counted on to be patriotic, sensible, and steady – like our ancestors had been under far more trying circumstances than our own – were now sirens of drama and complaint. Everything, they said, is as bad as it’s ever been. These, they were sure, are the worst times ever. We are all victims. Someone must pay. This is not the America in which I was raised. Something was wrong, and I wanted to know why millions of the citizens of my own nation – some of them near and dear to me – were now, astonishingly, embracing illiberalism and authoritarianism.

Full Article: Trump is not the problem with American democracy, we are: Tom Nichols

Arizona elections officials rip audit ahead of Cyber Ninjas report | Jen Fifield Ryan Randazzo/Arizona Republic

Two agencies that oversee Arizona elections went on the offensive Thursday to debunk and discredit the soon-to-be released results of the Senate’s unconventional and partisan review of Maricopa County’s 2020 general election. Two reports released by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, highlighted the erroneous and insecure nature of the audit conducted by Senate contractors. They also reiterated the ways that the county and state verified the election was sound. The bipartisan effort to discredit the results from lead contractor Cyber Ninjas before they are released was not coordinated, Richer said. But both were seemingly aimed at the same purpose — getting ahead of misinformation or inaccuracies that may be in the Cyber Ninjas report. The Senate contractors are expected to deliver a final report to the Senate soon, with a spokesperson indicating that it could be as soon as Monday. Their review wrapped up last month, after starting in April. Richer said he suspected he and the Secretary of State released their reports on the same day because “we both heard over the weekend that ninjas would deliver on Friday and then figured, ‘Well shit, better hurry up,'” he said in a text message. Senate President Karen Fann did not have immediate comment on the reports. Representatives for Cyber Ninjas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Full Article: 2 Arizona elections officials rip audit ahead of Cyber Ninjas report

Arizona judge gives Senate 2 weeks to release records | Ryan Randazzo/Arizona Republic

A judge on Wednesday ordered the Arizona Senate to turn over thousands of outstanding documents related to the Maricopa County election review by Aug. 31, even as the legal battle over some records held by the private contractor running the effort lingers. The Senate’s attorney, Kory Langhofer, said the Senate is preparing about 10,000 documents, including emails about the audit, to release in an online reading room where records from the audit are posted. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp ordered their release in two weeks. A nonprofit group called American Oversight sued the Senate for records from the audit, as did The Arizona Republic. Both cases are ongoing. The Senate has said it will produce records that are in its possession, but not records held by its contractor, Cyber Ninjas. American Oversight was founded in part by former Obama administration officials to investigate the Trump administration. The group first requested, then sued for, a variety of records, including communications between the Senate and Cyber Ninjas.

Full Article: Arizona audit: County judge gives Senate 2 weeks to release records

California recall reality: Newsom could be replaced by candidate with far fewer votes | Maura Dolan/Los Angeles Times

For weeks, legal scholars have debated whether the recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom could be found unconstitutional if Newsom failed to realize a “no recall” majority of the ballots cast and was ousted by a candidate who received fewer votes than he did. Although it’s impossible to predict how courts will rule, many experts say the current recall process has long survived legal challenges, and probably would again, even if a fringe candidate won on Sept. 14 and became governor with a minority of overall votes. That view is based on court decisions on election law, especially rulings stemming from the recall election of Gov. Gray Davis, when voters removed Davis in 2003 and replaced him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a popular actor who went on to win reelection. In that case, more people voted for Schwarzenegger than Davis so the candidate with the most votes won. Even so, California’s recall scheme permits a candidate with fewer votes to prevail over an incumbent, as was demonstrated by the state’s last successful recall of an elected legislator. In 2018, voters recalled Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton). On the recall question, 41.9% voted to retain Newman. On the second ballot question, in which voters are asked to select a successor, a Republican won with only 33.8% of the vote. An incumbent who faces a recall is not permitted to be named as a successor candidate on the second part of the ballot. “Maybe I should have been reinstated,” joked Newman, after reading a recent essay by legal scholars who helped spark the current debate by arguing that California’s recall law violated the federal Constitution.

Full Article: Newsom could be replaced by recall pol with fewer votes – Los Angeles Times

Georgia investigation of Fulton elections criticized by voting groups | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Voting rights groups called an inquiry of Fulton County’s elections a “hostile takeover” that threatens democracy, saying Monday that they will fight attempts by Georgia’s government to replace the county’s elections board. The groups united near the Capitol after the State Election Board last week appointed a performance review panel to investigate problems in Fulton, the state’s most populous county and one that backed Democrat Joe Biden over Republican Donald Trump with 73% of the vote. Fulton’s elections were fraught with problems last year, such as long lines, undelivered absentee ballots and conspiracy theories, but voting organizations say the county is being scapegoated by Georgia’s Republican majority. “We’re taking action to make sure that democracy is protected and that our right to vote is protected,” said Helen Butler, executive director for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights organization. “We do not intend for our local boards of elections to be taken over in this process.” The organizations criticized the appointment of three white men — two Republicans and a Democrat — to investigate problems in a county that’s 62% nonwhite.

Full Article: Georgia investigation of Fulton elections criticized by voting groups

Michigan Bill Would Protect Election Workers from Threats | Samuel J. Robinson/MLive.com

A bill introduced by a Democratic Michigan House member aims to protect election workers from threats and intimidation. House Bill 5282, introduced by state Rep. Kara Hope, D- Holt, would make it illegal for individuals to harass election workers, punishing those who threaten or prevent workers from performing their duties with a misdemeanor charge with up to 90 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both. Hope said a chaotic scene at Detroit’s TCF Center while election workers counted absentee ballots cast during the 2020 general election last November prompted her to craft the legislation. “Since the 2020 election, poll workers have been the targets of severe harassment and intimidation,” Hope said. “Republican and Democratic election officials alike are being terrorized by conspiracy theorists insisting that the election was stolen despite all evidence to the contrary. “It seems to me like that type of behavior — being disruptive, the bullying, the intimidation — is encouraged by a certain segment of the far-right. You saw it at the TCF Center, you see it now at school board meetings.” Hope said she sees some groups continue to encourage dangerous behavior over legitimate political activity, like organizing or voting.

Full Article: Michigan Bill Would Protect Election Workers from Threats

New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission endorses Windham election audit report, says discrepancy was due to ‘unique set of circumstances’ | John DiStaso/WMUR

The state Ballot Law Commission on Monday endorsed the findings of a team of experts that conducted a forensic audit of the results of the November 2020 state representatives’ election in Windham. The BLC, a panel established by statute to address election disputes and controversies, noted that the auditors found the 300-vote discrepancy between the Election Day totals and the recount totals was caused by improperly machine-folded ballots. The panel noted that the auditors found no evidence that the AccuVote counting machines used in Windham or elsewhere in the state “showed any indication of malfunctioning during the election.” “It is apparent from testimony and the audit report that the AccuVote machines in the town and statewide appear to operate properly, are capable of performing the task for which they have been certified, and there is no specific or widespread malfunctioning of the machines,” the commission wrote in a report. “The machines appear to be capable of continuing to perform properly. “The Commission finds that the discrepancies in Windham in November, 2020 were the result of a unique set of circumstances, not the result of malfunctioning of the ballot-counting devices, and are not likely to reoccur.” The BLC’s report – along with a separate report due by the Attorney General’s Office and Secretary of State William Gardner – were mandated by the state law passed early this year that created the audit process following wide discrepancies between the Election Day tally of the state representatives’ race and a hand recount.

Full Article: Ballot Law Commission endorses Windham election audit report, says discrepancy was due to ‘unique set of circumstances’

New Jersey: Ocean County Republicans and Democrats fight over voting machines | Erik Larsen/Asbury Park Press

Ocean County will spend $2.75 million on equipment needed to meet the requirements of the state’s new in-person early voting law that goes into effect for the first time in the general election this fall. Between Oct. 23 and Halloween night, the county’s voters will be able to choose among 10 polling places throughout Ocean County — regardless of what town they live in — to cast an early vote in this year’s elections for governor, Legislature, county commission, municipal office, as well as for their local and regional school boards. Of course, voters who value tradition over convenience can still cast their ballot on Election Day itself — which falls on Nov. 2 this year — at their regular local polling place on the county’s existing voting machines, just as they always did before the COVID-19 pandemic. The county Board of Commissioners unanimously authorized a spending ordinance for the new early voting machines at its Wednesday meeting — bonding $2.6 million of the amount — with the money to be reimbursed by the state of New Jersey at a future date. The choice of voting equipment to be purchased has been the subject of some controversy, with county Democrats and Republicans divided on the matter along partisan lines at the otherwise bipartisan Ocean County Board of Elections.

Full Article: Ocean County NJ Republicans and Democrats fight over voting machines

Ohio: Dominion dismissed from Stark County voting machine lawsuit | Jake Zuckerman/Ohio Capital Journal

A Stark County judge dismissed Dominion Voter Systems on Friday as party to a lawsuit filed by a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit seeking to reverse the county’s procurement of the company’s machines. The lawsuit, filed in May by Look Ahead America LLC, steers clear of any explicit allegation that Dominion voting machines were used to defraud the 2020 presidential election. However, Look Ahead founder Matt Braynard has been touring the county in recent months offering supporting testimony, to no avail, in various forums perpetuating a lie spread by President Donald Trump and his allies that the 2020 election was somehow rigged. Look Ahead accused the Stark County Board of Elections of violating open meetings laws as it considered its eventual recommendation that the County Commission (which was also dismissed from the lawsuit Friday) buy new machines from Dominion. In a ruling on a separate lawsuit in May, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the county commission to heed the board of election’s recommendation. Look Ahead America’s lawsuit sought to block the county from purchasing the machines and stop Dominion from providing them.

Full Article: Dominion dismissed from Stark County voting machine lawsuit – Ohio Capital Journal

Pennsylvania hearings in election ‘investigation’ to begin, senator says | Marc Levy/Associated Press

The top Republican in Pennsylvania’s Senate said Monday that hearings will begin this week as he committed to carrying out a “full forensic investigation” of the state’s 2020 presidential election. Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre, said he has communicated with former President Donald Trump, whose baseless claims about election fraud have propelled loyalists to pursue audits, reviews or other examinations of ballots and voting machines in battleground states where Democrat Joe Biden defeated him. “I think he’s comfortable with where we’re heading and so we’re going to continue that work,” Corman said on the conservative Wendy Bell Radio program streamed online Monday. Amid clashes over how to conduct it and how to pay for it, Corman on Friday removed the rank-and-file state senator who had been the figurehead in the push for an Arizona-style audit of Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election. Sen. Cris Dush, tapped to replace Sen. Doug Mastriano, will begin holding hearings this week, Corman said. Dush and Mastriano both traveled to Phoenix in June to see the audit there up close.

Full Article: Hearings in election ‘investigation’ to begin, senator says

Pennsylvania county sues over decertified voting system | Associated Press

A sparsely populated county in southern Pennsylvania is suing over last month’s decertification of its voting machines, and asking a statewide court to reverse the order by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s top elections official. In the suit filed Wednesday in Commonwealth Court, Fulton County said it had complied with the guidance in force at the time for the inspection of voting machines by third-party vendors. The lawsuit also said Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid should have re-examined the machines before decertifying them and given Fulton County an administrative opportunity to appeal her July 20 decision before it took effect.

Full Article: Pennsylvania county sues over decertified voting system

Texas Fight Over Voting Rights Nears End as Democrats Return 7 J. David Goodman and David Montgomery/The New York Times

A 38-day walkout by Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives effectively ended on Thursday as three previously absent members arrived in the Capitol, clearing the way for Republicans to establish a quorum and pass restrictive voting rules. Despite efforts by Democrats to maintain a solid block even as most returned from Washington this month, the three representatives from Houston decided to return together, an apparent effort to deflect any criticism from their colleagues or liberal activists. The House adjourned until 4 p.m. Monday without any votes, but hearings were expected to take place over the weekend. The passage of sweeping voting restrictions — to undo last year’s expansion of ballot access during the coronavirus pandemic in places like Houston and empower partisan poll watchers — appeared quite likely in the coming days. “We took the fight for voting rights to Washington, D.C.,” the three Democratic legislators, Garnet Coleman, Ana Hernandez and Armando Walle, said in a joint statement, adding, “Now we continue the fight on the House floor.” The three arrived in the Capitol as a group, with Mr. Walle pushing Mr. Coleman, who has severe diabetes and underwent a lower leg amputation this spring, in a wheelchair. “It is time to move past these partisan legislative calls and to come together to help our state mitigate the effects of the current Covid-19 surge,” they said in their statement.

Full Article: Fight Over Voting Rights in Texas Nears End as Democrats Return – The New York Times

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker meets with Trump on election review two months after the former president trashed him | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he spent Saturday briefing Donald Trump on his efforts to review Wisconsin’s presidential election — two months after the former president said Vos and other Republican leaders weren’t doing enough on that front. Vos, of Rochester, said he was invited to travel by private plane with Trump to his rally in Alabama. In a statement, Vos said he provided Trump with “details about our robust efforts in Wisconsin to restore full integrity and trust in elections.” The talk with Trump comes at a politically difficult time for Vos, who faces conflicting pressures over how to review an election that both election officials and courts have determined Joe Biden narrowly won. Just before Wisconsin’s annual Republican convention in June, Trump issued a statement accusing Vos and other GOP leaders of “working hard to cover up election corruption.” “Don’t fall for their lies! These REPUBLICAN ‘leaders’ need to step up and support the people who elected them by providing them a full forensic investigation. If they don’t, I have little doubt that they will be primaried and quickly run out of office,” Trump said in his statement. Vos responded by saying Trump was misinformed. He announced at the convention he had hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman at taxpayer expense to oversee a review of the election.

Full Article: Robin Vos spends day with Trump talking Wisconsin election review

New Jersey county set to ignore advice on voting machines | Jeff Pillets/NJ Spotlight News

Against the best advice of its own technical and ballot security experts, Ocean County this week is expected to award a $2.6 million contract for new voting machines to Toronto-based Dominion Voting Systems. Public documents reviewed by New Jersey Spotlight News show that staff professionals working for the county Board of Elections raised a series of red flags during a public meeting of the board in late June, warning against the Dominion purchase. The experts, who had spent more than a year studying the purchase and evaluating competing brands of voting machines, said the Dominion models would be less secure, harder to use for most voters and more prone to mechanical breakdown. Staffers also said it would be harder to train poll workers on the Dominion system than on their major competitor’s machines. The June meeting ended with a 2-1 vote by election board members in favor of buying machines from Election Systems & Software, the Omaha-based company that has been favored by most New Jersey counties now retooling essential voting hardware.

Full Article: NJ county set to ignore advice on voting machines | NJ Spotlight News

Experts: False claims on voting machines obscure real flaws | Kate Brumback/Associated Press

The aftermath of the 2020 election put an intense spotlight on voting machines as supporters of former President Donald Trump claimed victory was stolen from him. While the theories were unproven — and many outlandish and blatantly false — election security experts say there are real concerns that need to be addressed. In Georgia, for example, election security expert J. Alex Halderman says he’s identified “multiple severe security flaws” in the state’s touchscreen voting machines, according to a sworn declaration in a court case. Halderman told The Associated Press in a phone interview that while he’s seen no evidence the vulnerabilities were exploited to change the outcome of the 2020 election, “there remain serious risks that policymakers and the public need to be aware of” that should be addressed immediately to protect future elections. Trump loyalists — pushing the slogan “Stop the Steal” — held rallies, posted on social media and filed lawsuits in key states, often with false claims about Dominion Voting Systems voting machines. Almost all of the legal challenges casting doubt on the outcome of the election have been dismissed or withdrawn and many claims of fraud debunked. State and federal election officials have said there’s no evidence of widespread fraud. And Dominion has fought back forcefully, filing defamation lawsuits against high-profile Trump allies. As an election security researcher, it’s been frustrating to watch the proliferation of misinformation, said Matt Blaze, a professor of computer science and law at Georgetown University. For years, he said, concerns raised by election security experts were dismissed as unimportant. “All of a sudden, people are going the other way, saying the existence of a flaw not only is something that should be fixed, it means the election was actually stolen,” he said. “That’s not true either.”

 

Full Article: Experts: False claims on voting machines obscure real flaws

Colorado Republican official accused after voting system passwords are leaked to right-wing site | Kim Bellware/The Washington Post

A bizarre security breach of a rural Colorado county’s voting system has in a matter of days escalated into a criminal probe of the clerk’s office, a ban on the county’s existing election equipment, and heightened partisan divides over election-fraud claims. Footage that showed passwords related to the county’s voting systems was surreptitiously recorded during a May security update and published last week on a far-right blog, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said Thursday. Griswold determined Mesa County cannot use its existing equipment for its November election. Griswold alleged Mesa County Clerk Tina M. Peters (R) allowed the breach. A spokesperson for Mesa County confirmed a criminal probe headed by the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office was underway but said it was still in the early stages. During a Thursday news conference, Griswold said Peters falsely passed off a man as a county employee and misled her office about his background check status. Days before the breach, she said Peters directed her staff to turn off the video surveillance of the voting machines, which she said has remained off until just recently.

Full Article: Colorado official Tina M. Peters accused after voting system passwords leaked to GatewayPundit – The Washington Post

‘We are in harm’s way’: Election officials fear for their personal safety amid torrent of false claims about voting | Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

In preparation for a vote on local tax assessments last week in Houghton County, Mich., county clerk Jennifer Kelly took extraordinary precautions, asking election staff in this remote northern Michigan community to record the serial numbers of voting machines, document the unbroken seals on tabulators and note in writing that no one had tampered with the equipment. In the southeastern part of the state, Michael Siegrist, clerk of Canton Township, followed similar steps, even organizing public seminars to explain how ballots are counted. Despite their efforts, they said they could not fend off an ongoing torrent of false claims and suspicions about voting procedures that have ballooned since President Donald Trump began his relentless attacks on the integrity of the 2020 election last year. “People still complained about our Dominion voting machines, about the need for more audits, and most of all they complained about the use of Sharpies,” Siegrist said, referring to the widely used pen, which has become the focus of a conspiracy theory gripping Trump supporters in Arizona and other states.

Full Article: ‘We are in harm’s way’: Election officials fear for their personal safety amid torrent of false claims about voting – The Washington Post

National: Election officials face complex challenges looking to 2022 | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

State election officials say they are confronting a myriad of challenges heading into the 2022 midterm elections, from threats of foreign interference and ransomware to changes of election laws and concerns of physical safety — all while still dealing with a wave of misinformation and disinformation surrounding last year’s presidential election. The nation’s secretaries of state have been meeting with the goal of building relationships across states, sharing best practices and hearing from experts. The long list of challenges, outlined in various panel discussions over their association’s four-day conference, might seem daunting but election officials said preparations have already begun. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican. “For us to be able to get together and talk with one another, compare notes, even commiserate on a human level a little bit about some of the drama over the last year and a half is a good experience. It’s a useful thing, and we learn a lot from each other.” Heading into the 2020 presidential election, the focus for election officials was shoring up cybersecurity around the nation’s voting systems after Russia four years earlier had probed for vulnerabilities and, in a small number of cases, breached voter registration systems. Then the pandemic happened, and state election officials had to scramble to ensure they could handle an onslaught of mail ballots from voters wary of crowded polling places while also dealing with shortages of poll workers and other staff triggered by the coronavirus.

Full Article: Election officials face complex challenges looking to 2022

National: New intel reports indicate fresh efforts by Russia to interfere in 2022 election | Katie Bo Williams, Natasha Bertrand and Alex Marquardt/CNN

The Biden administration is receiving regular intelligence reports indicating Russian efforts to interfere in US elections are evolving and ongoing, current and former officials say, and in fact, never stopped, despite President Joe Biden’s warnings to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the summer and a new round of sanctions imposed in the spring. Biden made deliberate mention of Russia’s operations two weeks ago when he revealed in public remarks to the intelligence community that that he had received fresh intelligence about “what Russia’s doing already about the 2022 election and misinformation” in his daily intelligence briefing that day. “It’s a pure violation of our sovereignty,” Biden said at the time. One of the people familiar with the matter confirmed that there have been recent intelligence reports about what the Russians are up to, particularly their efforts to sow disinformation on social media and weaponize US media outlets for propaganda purposes. There are some indications that Moscow is now attempting to capitalize on the debate raging inside the US over vaccines and masking, other sources told CNN.

Full Article: New intel reports indicate fresh efforts by Russia to interfere in 2022 election – CNNPolitics

National: Senate Democrats unveil bill to protect election officials, prevent election subversion | Celine Castronuovo/The Hill

A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) unveiled legislation Thursday aiming to combat efforts to undermine election results and install new protections for election workers, who have received a rise in violent threats since the 2020 election. The bill, titled the Protecting Election Administration from Interference Act, would extend existing prohibitions on threats to election officials to include individuals involved in ballot-counting, canvassing and certifying election results. The legislation also calls for strengthened protections for federal election records and election systems to “stop election officials or others from endangering the preservation and security of cast ballots,” and allowing the Justice Department to bring lawsuits to enforce compliance with election records requirements.

Full Article: Senate Democrats unveil bill to protect election officials, prevent election subversion | TheHill

National: It’s still practically impossible to secure your computer (or voting machine) against attackers who have 30 minutes of access | Andrew Appel/Freedom to Tinker

It has been understood for decades that it’s practically impossible to secure your computer (or computer-based device such as a voting machine) from attackers who have physical access. The basic principle is that someone with physical access doesn’t have to log in using the password, they can just unscrew your hard drive (or SSD, or other memory) and read the data, or overwrite it with modified data, modified application software, or modified operating system. This is an example of an “Evil Maid” attack, in the sense that if you leave your laptop alone in your hotel room while you’re out, the cleaning staff could, in principle, borrow your laptop for half an hour and perform such attacks. Other “Evil Maid” attacks may not require unscrewing anything, just plug into the USB port, for example. … More than twenty years ago, computer companies started implementing protections against these attacks. Full-disk encryption means that the data on the disk isn’t readable without the encryption key. (But that key must be present somewhere in your computer, so that it can access the data!) Trusted platform modules (TPM) encapsulate the encryption key, so attackers (even Evil Maids) can’t get the key. So in principle, the attacker can’t “hack” the computer by installing unauthorized software on the disk. (TPMs can serve other functions as well, such as “attestation of the boot process,” but here I’m focusing on their use in protecting whole-disk encryption keys.) So it’s worth asking, “how well do these protections work?” If you’re running a sophisticated company and you hire a well-informed and competent CIO to implement best practices, can you equip all your employees with laptops that resist evil-maid attacks? And the answer is: It’s still really hard to secure your computers against determined attackers.

Full Article: It’s still practically impossible to secure your computer (or voting machine) against attackers who have 30 minutes of access