Author Archives: Warren Stewart

Election lies pose physical threat to US poll workers, House report warns | Victoria Bekiempis/The Guardian

A sweeping US House oversight committee report has warned that lies and misinformation around the 2020 American presidential election present an “ongoing threat to representative democracy” and pose a grave physical danger to election officials. The 21-page report called for emergency funding to address increased security costs related to 2022 contests and warned that there was a much-heightened risk that conspiracy theorists could gain power over elections in the future. The report also detailed chilling threats against election administrators across the country. One Texas official received menacing messages targeting him and “threatening his children, saying, ‘I think we should end your bloodline.’” The messages against him came following “personal attacks on national media outlets”. Another threat included 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 committee started investigating the impact of lies surrounding election administration in early 2021. After former Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he falsely insisted that the election was stolen from him. Full Article: Election lies pose physical threat to US poll workers, House report warns | US elections 2020 | The Guardian

Barcode Voting Machines: The Most Unnecessary Gap in US Election Security | Elise Kline/WhoWhatWhy

Election technology experts are warning that barcode ballot marking devices (BMDs) are vulnerable to bad actors capable of committing the perfect crime: changing the information on a ballot and getting away with it without the voter even realizing it happened. The use of barcodes is one of these machines’ biggest downsides. When people vote with these BMDs, they fill out their ballot on a screen; a printer then produces a paper ballot marked with a barcode. To cast their ballot, users feed this paper into a third device that scans the barcode to record the vote. And that’s a problem. “Voters can’t read barcodes,” said Alex Halderman, professor of computer science and director of the Center for Computer Security and Society at the University of Michigan. “The problem is that you’re putting a potentially compromised computer in between the voter and the permanent and only record of their ballot.” Their susceptibility to these types of attacks is not the only problem; BMDs are also difficult to adequately test and audit, according to a 2022 research report from the University of California, Berkeley. The report demonstrates that even a small percentage of votes changed in a cybersecurity attack can alter the overall margin of results. It found that changing the votes on just 1 percent of ballots in a jurisdiction can alter the margin of a contest jurisdiction-wide by 2 percent, even if there are no undervotes or invalid votes. Full Article: Barcode Voting Machines: The Most Unnecessary Gap in US Election Security - WhoWhatWhy

National: After Mar-a-Lago search, users on pro-Trump forums agitate for ‘civil war’ — including a Jan. 6 rioter | Ben Collins and Ryan J. Reilly/NBC

Some users on pro-Trump internet forums told users to “lock and load,” agitated for civil war and urged protesters to head to Mar-a-Lago in the hours after news broke that the FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s Florida compound on Monday. One user posting about the “civil war” shortly after the search was Tyler Welsh Slaeker, a Washington state man awaiting sentencing for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to previous research and statements posted online. A report in December by Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative group, found that Slaeker posted to the pro-Trump internet forum TheDonald under the username “bananaguard62.” On Monday night, the username “bananaguard62” posted the top reply to the “lock and load” post. “Are we not in a cold civil war at this point?” the account asked. Another user responded, “several points ago.” Another top reply to Slaeker quoted a notorious antisemitic Nazi rallying cry. Full Article: After Mar-a-Lago search, users on pro-Trump forums agitate for ‘civil war’ — including a Jan. 6 rioter

National: Historians privately warn Biden that America’s democracy is teetering | Michael Scherer, Ashley Parker and Tyler Pager/The Washington Post

President Biden paused last week, during one of the busiest stretches of his presidency, for a nearly two-hour private history lesson from a group of academics who raised alarms about the dire condition of democracy at home and abroad. The conversation during a ferocious lightning storm on Aug. 4 unfolded as a sort of Socratic dialogue between the commander in chief and a select group of scholars, who painted the current moment as among the most perilous in modern history for democratic governance, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. Comparisons were made to the years before the 1860 election when Abraham Lincoln warned that a “house divided against itself cannot stand” and the lead-up to the 1940 election, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt battled rising domestic sympathy for European fascism and resistance to the United States joining World War II. The diversion was, for Biden, part of a regular effort to use outside experts, in private White House meetings, to help him work through his approach to multiple crises facing his presidency. Former president Bill Clinton spoke with Biden in May about how to navigate inflation and the midterm elections. A group of foreign policy experts, including former Republican advisers, came to the White House in January to brief Biden before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Full Article: Historians privately warn Biden: America’s democracy is on the brink - The Washington Post

National: CISA publishes cyber toolkit for election officials ahead of midterms | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Wednesday released a guide to digital threats facing state and local election officials and recommendations on how to mitigate them in the run-up to November. The “Cybersecurity Toolkit to Protect Elections” aims to help election administrators and their staffs protect themselves against threats including phishing, ransomware, email scams, denial-of-service attacks and other vectors that could potentially disrupt the voting process or confuse voters. The guide notes, for instance, that election officials “are often required to open email attachments, which could contain malicious payloads,” to run processes like absentee ballot applications. It also warns that a ransomware attack against an election office could scramble or leak voter registration data or the software used to publish unofficial election results. The cyber toolkit is the latest output from CISA’s Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, or JCDC — the year-old initiative borrows its name from the band AC/DC — and comes as CISA Director Jen Easterly and many election officials gather in Las Vegas for the Black Hat and DEF CON events. Easterly launched the JCDC effort in 2021 to build engagement between federal cyber authorities, the tech industry and state and local governments. Full Article: CISA publishes cyber toolkit for election officials ahead of midterms

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

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."

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