National: Renewed urgency surrounds statewide campaigns as candidates cast doubts on elections | Alisa Wiersema and Meg Cunningham/ABC

More than a year after Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine election results were rebuffed at the state and national levels, a wave of Republican candidates across battleground states have made election administration and “integrity” central campaign messages – with more than a dozen still voicing doubt about the results of last year’s general election. An ABC News analysis of 12 high-profile battleground states reveals a trend: Republican candidates for state offices are either questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election or casting significant doubt on how elections are conducted and votes are counted in their home states. The states examined include Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Florida. Across these states – five of which Trump won, and seven of which Joe Biden won – at least 15 Republican candidates running for statewide offices – governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general – have refused to acknowledge Biden’s win or made other comments directly challenging the validity of the 2020 election, according to an ABC News review of public statements, interviews and campaign websites. At least 18 GOP candidates in those politically critical states have alleged broader fraud related to 2020 election results. Across these states, at least 12 are using “election integrity” as a campaign issue, and in some cases, these candidates are also casting doubt on the administration of last year’s election. Furthermore, at least two candidates are attempting to align the concept of “election integrity” with election-related conspiracy theories.

 

Source: Renewed urgency surrounds statewide campaigns as candidates cast doubts on elections – ABC News

National: No, Constitutional Scholars Are Not “50/50” in Agreement With Donald Trump About Jan. 6 | Matthew A. Seligman/Slate

Donald J. Trump, constitutional scholar, has entered the chat. In a remarkable interview with Jon Karl published by Axios on Friday, Trump defended the Jan. 6 rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence” on the grounds that “it’s common sense” that Pence should have overturned the Electoral College count.* Beneath the horrifying justification of political violence—the attempted assassination of the sitting vice president—there is a rotten foundation of truly terrible legal analysis. As I’ve explained in Slate and in scholarship, the vice president has no constitutional authority to reject electoral votes he doesn’t like. In the interview, Trump claimed that “50/50, it’s right down the middle for the top constitutional scholars when I speak to them” on the vice president’s authority to unilaterally throw out election results. He’s wrong—at least if “constitutional scholars” means people who have read and understand the Constitution. Donald J. Trump, constitutional scholar, has entered the chat. In a remarkable interview with Jon Karl published by Axios on Friday, Trump defended the Jan. 6 rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence” on the grounds that “it’s common sense” that Pence should have overturned the Electoral College count.* Beneath the horrifying justification of political violence—the attempted assassination of the sitting vice president—there is a rotten foundation of truly terrible legal analysis. As I’ve explained in Slate and in scholarship, the vice president has no constitutional authority to reject electoral votes he doesn’t like. In the interview, Trump claimed that “50/50, it’s right down the middle for the top constitutional scholars when I speak to them” on the vice president’s authority to unilaterally throw out election results. He’s wrong—at least if “constitutional scholars” means people who have read and understand the Constitution. Who are these “constitutional scholars” feeding Trump this radical view? Johnny McEntee, a 31-year-old former college football player with no legal training, sent a “memo” by text message to Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, claiming that “Jefferson Used His Position as VP to Win” the presidency by manipulating the electoral count and so Pence could as well.* (As I’ve explained, Jefferson did no such thing.) Rudy Giuliani, whose law license has been suspended to “protect the public,” falsely told Trump that there “is no question, none at all, that the VP can do this. That’s a fact. The Constitution gives him the authority not to certify. It goes back to the state legislatures.” And of course John Eastman, whose memo baldly asserted that “the fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter.”

Full Article: Constitutional scholars are not “50/50” in agreement with Donald Trump about Jan. 6.

California: Legal Experts Reignite Call for John Eastman Ethics Investigation | Erin Snodgrass/Business Insider

A nonpartisan election security nonprofit urged the California Bar Association to investigate John Eastman, a conservative attorney who counseled President Donald Trump. In a letter addressed to the Office of Chief Trial Counsel earlier this week, legal experts with the States United Democracy Center called for the probe into Eastman, who penned a memo arguing how then-Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the 2020 election results during the January 6 election certification process. Six weeks after filing an initial complaint in October, the States United Democracy Center followed up on Eastman’s “potential legal ethics violations” with a new letter on Tuesday citing “a great deal” of new evidence that “strongly confirms the allegations of ethical conduct” in its initial complaint. A two-page memo first published by CNN in September and obtained by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa for their book “Peril,” detailed Eastman’s proposed argument for how the Trump administration could maintain the White House despite losing the 2020 presidential election.  Insider later acquired a six-page version of Eastman’s memo, which suggested Pence toss out the results from seven states and then redirect the election to the House of Representatives. The memo prompted scrutiny surrounding Eastman, a former clerk for Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, for his advisory to Trump during the final year of his presidency.

Full Article: Legal Experts Reignite Call for John Eastman Ethics Investigation

National: Conspiracy theories are an election security threat, new report says | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Conspiracy theories and phony fraud claims are one of the biggest threats to secure elections whose results are accepted by the American people, a report out this morning argues. The report from the Aspen Institute think tank’s Commission on Information Disorder urges a surge in federal funding to combat the sort of conspiracy theories promoted by former president Donald Trump and his allies. Given the new attacks on democracy, election officials need to be given more resources and more communication capabilities, Chris Krebs, one of the co-chairs of the commission, told me. “Even if elections are 100 percent bulletproof, there’s still plenty of opportunity for the bad guys to stoke fear and doubt,” Krebs said. During the 2020 election, Krebs led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which was the lead government agency working on election security. Trump fired him by tweet partly for disputing baseless claims that the election was rigged. Other co-chairs of the commission are longtime TV journalist Katie Couric and Rashad Robinson, president of the advocacy group Color of Change. The election security recommendations are part of a broad report that covers disinformation related to public health, climate change and a slew of other topics.

Full Article: Conspiracy theories are an election security threat, new report says – The Washington Post

Colorado: FBI Raids Home of Election Official Accused of QAnon Leak | Tom Porter/Business Insider

The FBI on Tuesday raided the home of a Colorado elections official accused of leaking election machine data that later appeared on a site linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement. Federal, state, and local law enforcement officials were involved in searching the home of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County Clerk, as well as the homes of three of her associates, the Mesa County District Attorney’s office told local media. “We executed four federally court-authorized operations today to gather evidence in connection with the investigation into the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s Office,” District Attorney Dan Rubinstein told Colorado Politics. “We did so with assistance from the DA’s office from the 21st Judicial District, the Attorney General’s Office and the FBI.” When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Denver field office told Insider that its agents had conducted “authorized law enforcement actions’ on Tuesday in relation to an ongoing investigation. A judge last month banned Peters from overseeing elections in the state after Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, accused her in a lawsuit of involvement in leaking sensitive elections data, Colorado’s CPR News outlet reported. According to Griswold’s lawsuit, the data was taken when Peters invited an unauthorized person to attend a meeting between representatives from the election machine company and county election officials last year.

Full Article: FBI Raids Home of Colorado Election Official Accused of QAnon Leak

National: Bipartisan commission urges US take immediate steps to curb online misinformation | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A report from a bipartisan commission published Monday recommends that U.S. government and social media platform leaders take a series of immediate steps to curb the “crisis of trust and truth” stemming from online disinformation and misinformation. The report, put out by the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder, puts forward recommendations that can be taken to address issues including election security and COVID-19 disinformation and misinformation online, painting a picture of an urgent moment to take action. “This crisis demands urgent attention and a dedicated response from all parts of society,” the commissioners wrote in the report. “Every type and level of leader must think seriously about this crisis and their role in it. Each can and should enter this conversation, genuinely listening to the problems and taking real ownership of solutions.” The report outlines dozens of recommendations to address the crisis, including creating a “national response strategy” to establish roles and responsibilities for fighting misinformation across the executive branch, investing in local journalism, diversifying social media platform workforces and investing in civic education. “At the time of this writing, the Federal Government lacks any clear leadership and strategy to the disinformation problem, despite its own acknowledgment of the impact on public health, elections, businesses, technology, and continued campaigns on communities of color, including immigrants and refugees,” the report reads. “This lack of leadership, ownership, or strategy is hampering efforts, slowing response times, and duplicating efforts.”

Full Article: Bipartisan commission urges US take immediate steps to curb online misinformation | TheHill

Louisiana lawmakers restart process to purchase voting machines | Rachel ipro/Louisiana Illuminator

Louisiana started up a new process again for purchasing voting machines Wednesday, when it convened a new commission that will seek public input and vet the vendors applying for the state’s voting machine contract that could be worth $100 million. But Louisiana’s attempts to replace its outdated election machines hasn’t gone smoothly over the last few years. Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s two attempts to replace machines failed due to public concern about voter fraud and Republican backlash. Lawmakers on the Voting System Commission stressed bipartisan support and transparency, saying the public would be informed at every step of selecting the state’s new voting systems. In 2018, a contract with the state’s current vendor Dominion Voting Systems, was voided due to an alleged mishandling of the bidding process. In March of this year, Ardoin reopened the bidding process, only to cancel again after he was accused of favoring Dominion. He was also criticized for not allowing more public discussion of the new system, according to the Associated Press. Ardoin has also had to navigate multiple conspiracy theories surrounding Dominion Voting Systems, which supplied the state’s current machines. But Ardoin said the newly-formed commission on voting system selection was making a fresh start. “This commission is not about the past but about our future, a future that provides Louisiana citizens with confidence that their vote will be accurately counted,” Ardoin said. “This is not a commission for political bias whether we are Republicans, Democrats or independents. This is a commission of elected leaders, election officials, community activists and professionals.”

Full Article: Louisiana lawmakers restart process to purchase voting machines – Louisiana Illuminator

National: Memo from Trump attorney Jenna Ellis outlined how Pence could overturn election, says new book | Libby Cathey/ABC News

In a memo not made public until now, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows emailed to Vice President Mike Pence’s top aide, on New Year’s Eve, a detailed plan for undoing President Joe Biden’s election victory, ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reports. The memo, written by former President Donald Trump’s campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, is reported for the first time in Karl’s upcoming book, “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show” — demonstrating how Pence was under even more pressure than previously known to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Ellis, in the memo, outlined a multi-step strategy: On Jan. 6, the day Congress was to certify the 2020 election results, Pence was to send back the electoral votes from six battleground states that Trump falsely claimed he had won. The memo said that Pence would give the states a deadline of “7pm eastern standard time on January 15th” to send back a new set of votes, according to Karl.

Full Article: Memo from Trump attorney outlined how Pence could overturn election, says new book – ABC News

Voting Blogs: The Growing Election Sabotage Movement | Michael Waldman/Brennan Center for Justice

No doubt, Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election had absurd elements. (The Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference? The Kraken?) It culminated, of course, in the deadly chaos of the Capitol insurrection. Now, the more we learn, the more we realize there was a concerted plan to steal the election and upend the results. Next time it won’t be so amateurish. In fact, Trump’s allies are systematically removing obstacles to stealing elections in states across the country. The Brennan Center published a report this week documenting the campaign. Two state legislatures have bestowed upon themselves the power to remove and replace local election officials with partisan operatives. Six states have passed laws threatening election officials with new or heightened criminal penalties. Three states have robbed election officials of the power to properly regulate partisan poll monitors in the polling place. Five states launched phony partisan reviews of last year’s election results led by biased actors who employed inadequate safeguards. To the longstanding problem of vote suppression, add election sabotage. Some state legislators are trying to go even further. How much further? In 2021, lawmakers in seven states — Arizona, Nevada, Missouri, Michigan, Texas, Idaho, and Oklahoma — introduced bills to give elected officials the power to overturn an election. Thankfully, none of those bills passed this time around, but their widespread consideration is itself alarming. The Arizona bill, which is among the most shocking to democratic sensibilities, reads: “The legislature may vote to reject or confirm the preliminary results of the election.” It garnered seven sponsors. Just five years ago, the idea that politicians should have the power to overturn an election would have been unthinkable. Indeed, what is the point of voting if the politicians in power can simply wave away the result?

Full Article: The Growing Election Sabotage Movement | Brennan Center for Justice

Alaska: Cyber review finds government websites ‘critically vulnerable’ to hackers | Linda F. Hersey/Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

The state of Alaska is not keeping up with best practices for protecting its computer systems, according to an independent cyber review that found problems with patching software, maintaining certificates and securing web pages. Burke Stephenson, a consultant with Cybersec Innovation Partners, recently submitted the 28-page review to the joint Senate State of Affairs and Judiciary committees. The state government’s web infrastructure is in “a critically vulnerable position,” according to the findings. The report pointed to problems on public web pages available to anyone with a computer and internet access. Stephenson’s testimony before the joint Senate committee prompted lawmakers togo into executive session. They cited concerns about conveying sensitive information to cybercriminals for the decision to gointo the private meeting. But Stephenson said in public testimony the risks are readily known to hackers, as they are vulnerabilities that persist on state government public websites. He described the problems, which involve system maintenance and upkeep, as prevalent not just to the state of Alaska but across governments and the private sector.

Full Article: Cyber review finds government websites ‘critically vulnerable’ to hackers | Alaska News | newsminer.com

Arizona Election Audit Reinforced Doubt About 2020 Election Results | Erin Snodgrass/Business Insider

When organizers of the troubled GOP-led election audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, finally released results from the months-long, oft-delayed recount in September, the findings confirmed that President Joe Biden beat former President Donald Trump fairly in the largest county in the once-solidly red state. But despite the additional proof of Biden’s success, the controversial “audit” actually played a role in increasing the level of doubt surrounding the historic presidential election, according to a new Monmouth University poll. Earlier this year, the state’s GOP-controlled Senate chose Cyber Ninjas, a private firm, to carry out another count of the 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County, where Biden beat Trump by more than 45,000 votes. Billed by Senate Republicans as a mechanism to instill faith in US elections, the controversial audit was funded by right-wing donors and widely criticized, even by other local Republicans in the state. Maricopa County’s GOP-led Board of Supervisors said the recount’s draft reports were “littered with errors and faulty conclusions.” Even still, the effort found that Biden did beat Trump, resulting in an additional 99 votes for Biden and a loss of 261 votes for Trump. In a Monmouth University poll of 811 adults in the US by telephone from November 4 to 8 of this year, the majority of Americans, 36% said the review proved that Biden won the county fairly and another 21% said they aren’t sure about the report but guess that it probably showed Biden’s legitimate victory.

Full Article: Arizona Election Audit Reinforced Doubt About 2020 Election Results

Pennsylvania House Republicans threaten to remove Lehigh County elections board unless it rescinds acceptance of undated ballots | Ford Turner/The Morning Call

Top Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Wednesday threatened to remove members of the Lehigh County Board of Elections unless they rescind a decision to allow counting of mail-in ballots without dates that were submitted in the municipal election this month. The Republicans, who included House Speaker Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County, said in a letter to board members dated Wednesday that failure to take action promptly would lead House members to “seek your removal from office using the authority vested to the House of Representatives” for impeachment proceedings. Republicans hold the majority in the House and hence control its committees and their actions. The Lehigh board is composed of Chair Dan McCarthy, Doris Glaessmann and Jane Ervin, who are volunteers. On Monday, they voted unanimously to count 260 mail-in ballots that were submitted without dates on the outer envelopes as required, according to Tim Benyo, chief clerk to the board. Following that decision, two candidates for a Lehigh County judge seat — Republican David Ritter and Democrat Zachary Cohen — said they would go to court with unsettled questions about the state’s vote-by-mail law. Ritter has a 74-vote lead over Cohen, according to unofficial totals.

Full Article: Pennsylvania House Republicans threaten to remove Lehigh County elections board unless it rescinds acceptance of undated ballots – The Morning Call

California: How one company came to control San Francisco’s elections | Jeff Elder/The San Francisco Examiner

For the past 13 years, San Francisco Elections Director John Arntz has cultivated a close relationship with a voting machine company that has become the sole bidder on The City’s business, while doubling its rates. During that time period, Dominion Voting Systems has won more than $20 million in city contracts while Arntz’s department has become dependent on the company to hold elections. At the same time, the Elections Department has failed to make progress on a possible solution – “open source” voting technology that would provide long-term “cost savings, increased election security, and public ownership over the critical infrastructure of democracy,” according to a civil grand jury convened by The City. Correspondence obtained by The Examiner through an open records request shows Arntz, over the course of his business relationship with Dominion, sent or forwarded more than 400 emails to a salesman at the firm, conferring with him on technology projects that could threaten the firm’s business and going as far as forwarding a competitor’s query about The City’s voting machines needs. Arntz, a 19-year City Hall veteran who makes $260,000 a year and controls a budget of $31 million, has relied heavily on Dominion Voting Systems and one particular sales executive named Steven Bennett, documents show. Arntz disputes that. “I don’t deal with him often,” Arntz told The Examiner about Bennett, who has handled Dominion’s San Francisco account for the past 13 years. Arntz also told The Examiner he wasn’t aware Dominion listed him as a reference when the voting machine firm was trying to land new clients. Documents show Arntz was listed as the salesman’s reference on bids sent to state governments, and that San Francisco’s elections director gave enthusiastic testimonials to prospective customers on behalf of Dominion.

Full Article: How one company came to control San Francisco’s elections – The San Francisco Examiner

Pennsylvania Senate GOP identifies vendor that will ‘conduct a thorough and impartial election investigation’ | Jan Murphy/PennLive

The GOP-led Senate committee has identified the private contractor it will hire to assist in its taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 presidential election. A document shared with Republican senators Thursday evening obtained by PennLive identifies the firm as Dubuque, Iowa-based Envoy Sage LLC. The firm bills itself on its website as “delivering ground truth” and identifies itself as specializing in research, investigation, program management and communications. The document states the firm “meets all the key needs to conduct a thorough and impartial election investigation.” It also states the firm has no political association with candidates who appeared on the 2020 or 2021 ballots in Pennsylvania. Among other qualifications it lists, Envoy Sage has worked with the Department of Defense under Republican and Democratic administrations and has decades of experience in handling sensitive and classified information. Senate Republican spokesman Jason Thompson declined comment about the document. It doesn’t indicate how much the firm will be paid although the costs will come out of the GOP caucus’ accounts.

Full Article: Senate GOP identifies vendor that will ‘conduct a thorough and impartial election investigation’ – pennlive.com

Colorado: Legal battle, ethics complaint against embattled Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters persist | Saja Hindi/The Denver Post

The 2021 election in Mesa County, and subsequently the question of who would oversee it, may have ended, but the controversy surrounding Republican County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters has not. The case involving Peters’ counterclaims in response to Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s lawsuit is ongoing, with new filings due on Wednesday. The secretary of state’s lawsuit had resulted in a Mesa County District Court judge barring Peters and Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley from administering the Nov. 2 election. A joint federal and state investigation into possible criminal charges against Peters over an alleged election equipment security breach is continuing, according to the district attorney’s office on Friday. A Mesa County activist’s complaint against Peters with the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission is pending. And the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office is suing the clerk again, this time for alleged violations of campaign finance law. The saga with Peters, who was elected to her office in 2018, began when she allegedly allowed an unauthorized man access to a secure area in the county elections office in May — with the help of Knisley and one of the county’s election managers, Sandra Brown, according to the lawsuit — and passwords from the voting systems were posted online in August. Knisley was suspended in August for an unrelated workplace conduct investigation and later charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor cyber crime related to allegedly returning to the office, despite the suspension, and using county equipment.

Full Article: Legal battle, ethics complaint against embattled Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters persist

Michigan: Adams Township residents have mixed feelings on clerk issues | Corey Murray/Hillsdale Daily News

Adams Township residents expressed mixed feelings on the ongoing saga between Township Clerk Stephanie Scott and Michigan’s Secretary of State during their regularly scheduled business meeting Nov. 7.  The meeting was well attended and the first held since issues between the S.O.S. and Scott intensified throughout October culminating in a search warrant being executed by the Michigan State Police to recover a missing piece of election equipment days before the Nov. 2 special election where a school renewal operating millage was voted on.  Adams Township Supervisor introduced the topic almost an hour into the meeting and said Scott herself may or may not answer questions as she is currently consulting with an attorney she has hired to represent her in the matters. Scott was stripped of her official election duties in late October after expressing concerns with voting integrity Oct. 11 and calling into question the accuracy of voting equipment. The S.O.S. in a news release alleged that Scott failed to agree to comply with scheduling a public accuracy test prior to the Nov. 2 election. Nichols explained the timeline of events to over 30 members of the community in attendance, with about half living in Adams Township and others from Hillsdale County concerned with election integrity.

Full Article: Adams Township residents have mixed feelings on clerk issues

South Carolina: Voting machine issues reported in Richland County on morning of election runoff | Noah Feit/The State

As Columbians went the polls Tuesday in the runoff elections for mayor and a city council seat, reports surfaced of voting machines not working at multiple precincts. Initially, issues were reported in 12 of 70-plus voting precincts in Richland County. But the problem could be more widespread and might have affected all voting locations, Alexandria Stephens, Richland County’s Director of Voter Registration and Elections, told The State. Stephens said information on the specific polling places that reported problems was not available. “We’ve had some issues with electronic poll books,” Stephens said. “There is no issue with voting. People can still vote.” The electronic poll books are used to check in voters, Stephens said. The problem meant the bar code used to select a a specific style of ballot was not working, South Carolina Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire told The State. This did not prevent the ability to vote, it just created some extra work for poll managers, according to Whitmire. Because the ballots were not being activated by the bar code, poll managers had to take voters to the machines and call up the ballots, Whitmire said.

Full Article: Columbia, SC runoff election for mayor has problem at polls | The State

Ohio Republican says Trump may try to ‘steal’ 2024 election if he loses | Mychael Schnell/The Hill

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) on Sunday said former President Trump may try to “steal” the presidential election in 2024 if he ultimately decides to enter the race but ends up losing. Gonzalez, during a pretaped interview with co-host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said Trump has evaluated what went wrong on Jan. 6 — when Congress certified the Electoral College vote despite the former president’s requests for the ballots to be rejected — and is now installing loyal personnel at levels of the government to do “exactly what he wants them to do.” “I think any objective observer would come to this conclusion that he [Trump] has evaluated what went wrong on Jan. 6, why is it that he wasn’t able to steal the election? Who stood in his way? Every single American institution is just run by people. And you need the right people to make the right decision in the most difficult times,” Gonzalez said. “He’s going systematically through the country and trying to remove those people and install people who are going to do exactly what he wants them to do, who believe the big lie, who go along with anything he says,” he added. The Ohio Republican, who is not seeking reelection, said he believes Trump’s actions now are “pushing towards one of two outcomes. He either wins legitimately, which he may do, or if he loses again, he’ll just try to steal it, but he’ll try to steal it with his people in those positions.”

Full Article: Ohio Republican says Trump may try to ‘steal’ 2024 election if he loses | TheHill

Pennsylvania’s Desperate Scramble to Stop an Insider Election Threat | Russell Berman/The Atlantic

The people who fear the most for the future of American democracy weren’t watching the election returns in Virginia and New Jersey earlier this month for clues about next year’s midterms. These voting-rights advocates didn’t pay much attention to who won mayoral or school-board races. Instead, they’ve spent the past two weeks trying to discern how many Donald Trump loyalists captured control of elections in a pivotal 2024 swing state: Pennsylvania. Voters across the Keystone State decided who will run their polling places in the next two elections, but you could forgive them if they didn’t realize it. Buried near the bottom of their ballots on November 2 were a pair of posts: judge of elections and inspector of elections, bureaucratic titles that most people have never heard of. In many counties, the contests didn’t even make the first page of local races, falling far beneath those for supreme-court justice, county executive, and the school board—even tax collector and constable merited higher placement. Yet the people who hold these election positions will play an important—if often overlooked—role in determining whether elections in Pennsylvania go off smoothly. Grassroots Republican supporters of Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat targeted these posts throughout the state, and many of them won their race last week. “There hasn’t been a sophisticated, concerted effort to sabotage elections like the one we’re facing now,” Scott Seeborg, the Pennsylvania state director for the nonpartisan group All Voting Is Local, told me. For the next four years, judges and inspectors of elections will supervise polling places and ensure that votes are properly tabulated. Individually, they preside over a single precinct covering, at most, a few thousand ballots. But in the aggregate, the decisions made at such a hyperlocal level could tip close statewide or congressional elections, says Victoria Bassetti, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center. “It could add up, precinct after precinct after precinct,” Bassetti told me. Biased judges or inspectors might, directly or indirectly, skew a vote or two per precinct. “If people who are biased are elected to serve in these local positions anywhere in the country,” she said, “it ultimately could have a huge impact on how our democracy functions.”

Full Article: Pennsylvania Hopes to Stop an Insider Election Threat – The Atlantic

Virginia lawmaker who called for ‘martial law’ to steal election will run for Congress | Nick Vachon/The American Independent

On Wednesday morning, Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase announced her campaign for the state’s 7th Congressional District. The district is currently represented by Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who beat incumbent Republican Dave Brat in 2018 to become the first Democrat elected to represent the district in more than 40 years. Chase, who once called herself “Trump in heels,” told the Washington Post Wednesday that her campaign will mirror that of Republican Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin, with a focus on the idea that “critical race theory” is being taught in Virginia schools and on ending vaccine and mask mandates. Chase has denied the existence of racism — except for “reverse racism” — because she had personally “never seen systemic racism or any of that.” Earlier this year, Chase earned bipartisan condemnation for supporting rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an insurrection that left five people dead and hundreds injured. Chase has promoted former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him. She once said Trump should impose “martial law” to prevent President Joe Biden from assuming office. Chase herself spoke at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally that directly preceded the storming of the Capitol building. She also used campaign funds to attend the rally, and later called the insurrectionists “patriots who love their country.”

Full Article: VA lawmaker who called for ‘martial law’ to steal election will run for Congress

Wisconsin: Republican candidate sues state elections commissioners as Robin Vos says they ‘probably’ should face felonies | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Republican running for governor sued Wisconsin election commissioners Monday just as the Assembly speaker argued five of them — including one he appointed — should be charged with felonies. Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who served in former Gov. Scott Walker’s administration when the agency was created and is running for governor in 2022, asked the state Supreme Court on Monday to declare illegal the commission’s guidance allowing ballot drop boxes, nursing home poll workers and consolidated polling places. The lawsuit was filed a day after Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said members of the state elections commission “probably” should be charged with felonies over the guidance they adopted last year to ensure nursing home residents received absentee ballots by telling clerks not to follow a state law requiring poll workers to first attempt to visit the residents before sending out ballots. Kleefisch in a statement said her lawsuit would force the commission “to clean up their act prior to administering the 2022 election.” A spokesman did not respond to a request for an interview. The Wisconsin Elections Commission is facing fire from the people who created the bipartisan agency six years ago after a recent Racine County investigation determined one resident of a Mount Pleasant nursing home voted absentee in the 2020 election despite being ruled incompetent by a judge.

Full Article: Rebecca Kleefisch sues Wisconsin elections commissioners

Michigan GOP’s latest vote-crushing scheme could eliminate 20% of polling sites | Igor Derysh/Salon

A controversial scheme by Michigan Republicans to circumvent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s veto of their proposed voting restrictions could eliminate one in every five polling sites in the state, according to a new study. The head of the Michigan Republican Party is funding the “Secure MI Vote” petition, which includes a ban on in-kind contributions to local election clerks. Organizers have acknowledged that this provision would in fact end the use of donated polling sites, such as churches. Some cities and townships could lose half their polling sites — or in some cases all of them — under the new restrictions, according to a new report from the liberal advocacy group Progress Michigan. “I hope people are able to see the danger and the impact of this proposal,” Mary Clark, president of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks and Delta Township clerk, said in a statement. “This is the type of policy that causes me to lay awake at night because it will cause so much confusion amongst voters and put clerks in impossible situations. This would absolutely negatively impact legally registered voters in my jurisdiction and every jurisdiction in this state.” Michigan Republicans, who introduced a 39-bill package to change the state’s voting laws in the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat, in September launched an effort to pull an end-around on Whitmer’s veto of their proposed voting laws by introducing a ballot petition — one that voters will never get to see. An unusual quirk in the state’s constitution allows the Republican-dominated state legislature to adopt the initiative rather than put it on the ballot if they collect just 340,047 signatures, or 8% of the number of voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election. Whitmer has no power to veto such an initiative if it is passed by the legislature.

Full Article: Michigan GOP’s latest vote-crushing scheme could eliminate 20% of polling sites | Salon.com

National: Former top officials warn democracy in ‘jeopardy’ without Congressional action on election security | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A bipartisan group of almost 100 former national security officials is urging Congress to take steps to secure elections ahead of next year, warning that without action, the nation’s democratic institutions are in “severe jeopardy.” “We write to express our alarm at ongoing efforts to destabilize and subvert our elections, both through active disinformation campaigns and the related efforts to inject partisan interference into our professionally administered election process,” the officials wrote in an open letter published Tuesday. “We believe these efforts are profoundly damaging to our national security, including by making our elections more vulnerable to foreign interference and possible manipulation.” “We call on Congress to confront these threats and safeguard our democratic process as we look ahead to the 2022 elections and beyond,” they wrote. Signatories of the letter included former officials who worked for administrations on both sides of the aisle, including former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, former Defense Secretary William Cohen and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. They also included former ambassadors, top officials at the CIA and former top cybersecurity officials, including former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs and Michael Daniel, the former White House cybersecurity coordinator under President Obama.

Full Article: Former top officials warn democracy in ‘jeopardy’ without Congressional action on election security | TheHill

Reuters unmasks Trump supporters terrifying U.S. election officials Linda So and Jason Szep/Reuters

In Arizona, a stay-at-home dad and part-time Lyft driver told the state’s chief election officer she would hang for treason. In Utah, a youth treatment center staffer warned Colorado’s election chief that he knew where she lived and watched her as she slept. In Vermont, a man who says he works in construction told workers at the state election office and at Dominion Voting Systems that they were about to die. “This might be a good time to put a f‑‑‑‑‑‑ pistol in your f‑‑‑‑‑‑ mouth and pull the trigger,” the man shouted at Vermont officials in a thick New England accent last December. “Your days are f‑‑‑‑‑‑ numbered.” The three had much in common. All described themselves as patriots fighting a conspiracy that robbed Donald Trump of the 2020 election. They are regular consumers of far-right websites that embrace Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods. And none have been charged with a crime by the law enforcement agencies alerted to their threats. They were among nine people who told Reuters in interviews that they made threats or left other hostile messages to election workers. In all, they are responsible for nearly two dozen harassing communications to six election officials in four states. Seven made threats explicit enough to put a reasonable person in fear of bodily harm or death, the U.S. federal standard for criminal prosecution, according to four legal experts who reviewed their messages at Reuters’ request.

Full Article: Reuters unmasks Trump supporters terrifying U.S. election officials

National: 2022 races will put election integrity to the test | Kate Ackley/Roll Call

The 2022 midterm elections, one year from now, won’t just decide control of the House and Senate but will also provide the first major test of Americans’ confidence in the integrity of their electoral system since the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. People who study campaigns, from academics to operatives, have sounded the alarm about voters’ faith in future U.S. elections given that former President Donald Trump has carried on with his false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent, long after a “Stop the Steal” rally in support of him turned deadly. Last week’s elections pointed to potential political upheaval in the midterms, but they may also have offered small solace to those worried about faith in democracy because losing candidates mostly conceded swiftly. And even in New Jersey, where the Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli has not admitted defeat, he has discouraged supporters from believing internet conspiracies and pledged that after all votes were counted, the result would be “legal and fair.” Still, some of the ensuing political rhetoric offers cause for concern. Many GOP congressional candidates and incumbents have sided with Trump over his 2020 election charge, even as he lost repeated legal challenges. Senate and House Democrats, meanwhile, have intensified their messaging that the political system is rigged and that new state laws passed by Republican-controlled legislatures are designed to suppress voters.

Full Article: 2022 races will put election integrity to the test – Roll Call

National: Cyber agency beefing up disinformation, misinformation team | Maggie Miller/The Hill

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is beefing up its disinformation and misinformation team in the wake of a divisive presidential election that saw a proliferation of misleading information online. “I am actually going to grow and strengthen my misinformation and disinformation team,” CISA Director Jen Easterly said during virtual remarks at the RE:WIRED conference on Wednesday. Easterly noted that earlier this week she had a meeting with “six of the nation’s experts” in the disinformation and misinformation space. She stressed her concerns around this being a top threat for CISA, which is charged with securing critical infrastructure, to confront. “One could argue we’re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important,” Easterly said. “We are going to work with our partners in the private sector and throughout the rest of the government and at the department to continue to ensure that the American people have the facts that they need to help protect our critical infrastructure,” she added. Easterly’s comments came a year after CISA came under fire by President Trump for its efforts to push back against election misinformation and disinformation, primarily through setting up a “rumor control” website. Trump fired former CISA Director Chris Krebs, and several other top CISA officials were forced to resign in the weeks following the 2020 presidential election, largely as a result of this effort.

Full Article: Cyber agency beefing up disinformation, misinformation team | TheHill

National: Trump cannot shield White House records from Jan. 6 committee, judge rules | Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein/Politico

A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s effort to block Jan. 6 investigators from accessing White House records related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, determining that he has no authority to overrule President Joe Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege and release the materials to Congress. “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in her ruling. Trump immediately appealed the decision. The National Archives, which houses the White House records, has indicated it plans to hand over the sensitive documents by Friday afternoon unless a court intervenes. The decision is a crucial victory for the Jan. 6 committee in the House, albeit one that may ring hollow if an appeals court — or, potentially, the U.S. Supreme Court — steps in to slow the process down. The documents Trump is seeking to block from investigators include files drawn from former chief of staff Mark Meadows, adviser Stephen Miller and White House deputy counsel Patrick Philbin, as well as call and visitor logs.

Full Article: Trump cannot shield White House records from Jan. 6 committee, judge rules – POLITICO

National: No ballot boxes for 100 miles: How a bill aims to make voting easier for Native Americans | Vanessa Misciagna/The Denver Channel

Beneath Window Rock in Navajo Nation, a memorial is dedicated to the “code talkers” of World War II, a group of Navajo soldiers who used their native tongue to create a secret code. “If it wasn’t for the Navajo code talkers, we would have not won World War II,” said President of Navajo Nation, Jonathan Nez. Nez is proud of everything his people have contributed to the United States, despite everything that’s been taken away. That is why he believes it’s only right to make sure the voices of the Navajo and the other 574 Native tribes are heard. “We need the federal government, once again, to fulfill their obligation and to protect the rights of indigenous people in this country and that includes voting. It should be easier,” he said. Located in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, Navajo Nation is more than 27,000 square miles and is the largest Native American reservation in the country. Getting around, in general, can be difficult but navigating to a ballot box for many is nearly impossible.

Full Article: A bill aims to make voting easier for Native Americans

National: Election Officials Have Another Year to Fight Disinformation | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

After a year of election-related lies and disinformation, voters in 32 states went to the polls this month with few major technical errors, lines or delays in results. But election officials and voting rights advocates caution there is still considerable work to do ahead of next year’s midterms to boost lagging confidence in the democratic process, especially among the three-quarters of Republicans who believe former President Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was rigged. “Despite all of the threats, despite distractions, despite harassment, despite frivolous subpoenas, despite the pandemic and a continued lack of resources, election officials once again did what we have seen them do repeatedly: They facilitated democracy,” said David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a D.C.-based nonpartisan nonprofit. “But we are not out of the woods. I am more concerned today than I was a year ago.” While the election went well, Becker said, Congress still has not acted on threats to voting access, and the lies of the 2020 election have not receded. In Virginia, where a record number of voters elected Republican Glenn Youngkin as governor, county election officials were able to stave off major delays in reporting results because of the state’s reliance on paper ballots, said Chris Piper, commissioner of the state Department of Elections.

Full Article: Election Officials Have Another Year to Fight Disinformation | The Pew Charitable Trusts

National: Jan. 6 Panel Subpoenas Flynn and Eastman, Scrutinizing Election Plot | Luke Broadwater/The New York Times

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued new subpoenas on Monday for a half-dozen allies of former President Donald J. Trump, including his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, as it moved its focus to an orchestrated effort to overturn the 2020 election. The subpoenas reflect an effort to go beyond the events of the Capitol riot and delve deeper into what committee investigators believe gave rise to it: a concerted campaign by Mr. Trump and his network of advisers to promote false claims of voter fraud as a way to keep him in power. One of the people summoned on Monday was John Eastman, a lawyer who drafted a memo laying out how Mr. Trump could use the vice president and Congress to try to invalidate the election results. In demanding records and testimony from the six Trump allies, the House panel is widening its scrutiny of the mob attack to encompass the former president’s attempt to enlist his own government, state legislators around the country and Congress in his push to overturn the election. Mr. Flynn discussed seizing voting machines and invoking certain national security emergency powers after the election. Mr. Eastman wrote a memo to Mr. Trump suggesting that Vice President Mike Pence could reject electors from certain states during Congress’s count of Electoral College votes to deny Joseph R. Biden Jr. a majority. And Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who was also subpoenaed, participated in a planning meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington on Jan. 5 after backing baseless litigation and “Stop the Steal” efforts around the country to push the lie of a stolen election. “In the days before the Jan. 6 attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee chairman, said in a statement. “The select committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot and who paid for it all.”

Full Article: Jan. 6 Panel Subpoenas Flynn and Eastman, Scrutinizing Election Plot – The New York Times