Wisconsin conservatives again lose in court as they challenge election grants to municipalities funded by Mark Zuckerberg | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Conservatives are continuing their losing streak in legal challenges over nonprofit grants that helped city clerks run the 2020 election in Wisconsin. The Center of Tech and Civic Life provided more than $10 million to more than 200 Wisconsin communities to help conduct the election during the COVID-19 pandemic. The center, which is funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, directed most of the money in Wisconsin to the state’s five largest cities, where Democratic voters are concentrated. Conservatives have brought a series of legal challenges. Each time, they’ve lost. Their latest setback came Wednesday when Dane County Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke ruled there was nothing illegal about the grants. "Certainly nothing in (state law) prohibits clerks from using private grant money or working with outside consultants in the performance of their duties. ... The bottom line is that the (Wisconsin Elections) Commission correctly concluded that there was no probable cause to believe any Wisconsin law has been violated," Ehlke ruled from the bench. His decision is in line with other courts. A federal judge in Green Bay threw out one lawsuit about the grants before the 2020 election. Just after the election, the state Supreme Court declined to take another case over the grants and other issues. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., dismissed a third case over the grants in 2021 and referred the lawyer who brought the case to an ethics panel that is considering sanctioning him.

Full Article: Conservatives again lose in court as they challenge election grants

Wyoming: Park County revisits hand counting ballots discussion | Lucy Jane Crimm Powell/Wyoming Tribune Eagle

Boone Tidwell and Park County locals urged county commissioners May 17 to allow him and a group of volunteers to count election ballots by hand. A month ago every seat was filled at the Park County commissioner’s meeting room, as Tidwell advocated for hand counting election ballots after the machines had processed the votes. Commissioners decided they needed to consult the county prosecuting attorney about whether or not they had any authority to grant Tidwell’s request. If so, what steps should they take? “What is [being] proposed right now for counting ballots to me, and I would check with your county attorney, we do not have that authorization under current law,” Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan said. “If that is something that we want to see as a policy — and I’ve told people this in meetings — if you wanted to go all the way back to paper ballots altogether or introduce ways of counting those post election, that is a policy decision that we should take up with the Legislature and get the statutory authority to do that.” After consulting the county prosecuting attorney, the commissioners invited Tidwell and the supporters back on May 17, where they read the report from the county attorney. After researching the legality surrounding the proposal for a hand count of ballots within Park County during the election process, the county attorney stated that “at present throughout Wyoming, all ballots are designed to be counted by machine, thereby invoking this statute. The statute defines the law and the law simply cannot be ignored by local officials. Voting procedures in the state of Wyoming are set by the Wyoming Legislature, not local officials.”
Full Article: County revisits hand counting ballots discussion | | wyomingnews.com

American Democracy Isn’t Ready for Online Voting | Spenser Mestel/The Atlantic

This weekend, Australians will vote in the country’s federal elections. The process will likely be seamless, transparent, and punctuated by countless civic-minded barbecues affectionately known as sausage sizzles. This is how elections generally go in Australia, but for those in New South Wales, that wasn’t the case late last year. The state had encouraged a significant number of voters to move to an internet-voting system called iVote. In December, it melted down so badly that the New South Wales Electoral Commission not only discontinued its use but also asked a court to nullify the results of three city-council elections. It was an embarrassing failure for e-voting. More than 650,000 online votes were cast—probably a world record, says Vanessa Teague, an election-security expert and a professor at the Australian National University. Teague has been warning governments about vulnerabilities in e-voting for years, as have cybersecurity researchers in the U.S., where systems like iVote are being expanded in at least nine states. Letting people vote from home with the click of a button is an appealing idea, especially in the U.S., where turnout is abysmal. The problem, the American Association for the Advancement of Science says, is that there’s no “evidence that any internet voting technology is safe or can be made so in the foreseeable future … All research to date demonstrates the opposite.”

Full Article: American Democracy Isn't Ready for Online Voting - The Atlantic

Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary heads to a recount as Oz and McCormick scrap over ballots in court | Jonathan Lai, Jeremy Roebuck, and Julia Terruso/Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s official: The razor’s edge primary contest between GOP Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and David McCormick is headed to a recount, state elections officials announced Wednesday, ensuring that the victor in the closely watched race won’t be officially declared for at least two weeks. The announcement came even as counties continued to tally lingering batches of ballots and the gap between the two candidates dwindled to fewer than 1,000 votes. Speaking at a news conference in Harrisburg, acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman said that Oz led McCormick by just 902 votes, or less than 0.08% of the more than 1.3 million ballots cast in their race. By Wednesday evening the margin had shrunk even further. That put their contest well within the 0.5% margin of victory that triggers an automatic recount under state law. And as Pennsylvania’s 67 counties prepared to begin the retallying process as early as Friday, Chapman vowed the recount would take place “transparently, as dictated by law.” “I know Pennsylvanians and, indeed, people throughout the country have been following this race attentively and are eagerly awaiting the results,” she said. “I thank everyone for their patience as we count every vote.”

Full Article: Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary heads to a recount as Oz and McCormick scrap over ballots in court

National: A PDF File Is Not Paper, So PDF Ballots Cannot Be Verified | Andrew Appel/Freedom to Tinker

A new paper by Henry Herrington, a computer science undergraduate at Princeton University, demonstrates that a hacked PDF ballot can display one set of votes to the voter, but different votes after it’s emailed – or uploaded – to election officials doing the counting. For overseas voters or voters with disabilities, many states provide “Remote Accessible Vote By Mail,” or RAVBM, a system that allows voters the ability to download and print an absentee ballot, fill it out by hand on paper, and physically mail it back.  Some states use commercial products, while others have developed their own solutions.  In general, this form of RAVBM can be made adequately secure, mainly because the voters make their own marks on the paper. In some forms of RAVBM, the voter can fill out the ballot using an app on their computer before printing and mailing it.  This is less secure: if malware on the voter’s computer has “hacked” the voting app, what’s printed out may differ from what the voter indicated on the screen, and voters are not very good at reviewing the printouts and noticing such changes. The most dangerous form of RAVBM is one that allows electronic ballot return, in which the voter uploads or emails a PDF file. Thirty states allow overseas voters to do electronic ballot return, either by email, fax, or web-portal upload, as shown in Table 5 (pages 34-35) of Herrington’s longer paper, Ballot Acrobatics: Altering Electronic Ballots using Internal PDF Scripting. Full Article: A PDF File Is Not Paper, So PDF Ballots Cannot Be Verified

National: Security chiefs scramble to prevent Russian interference in midterms | Tom Rees/The Telegraph

US security chiefs are scrambling to prevent Russian interference in the midterm elections as they are "very concerned" about the Kremlin using cyber warfare and online disinformation. Jen Easterly, US director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the US has been forced to beef up its election cybersecurity after the Kremlin was accused of influencing the 2016 vote to help Donald Trump win. Joe Biden and the Democrats are heading into a difficult midterms and a recent Ipsos MORI poll found that more than half of Americans are concerned about Russia spreading misinformation online in this year’s election. Ms Easterly said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that US officials are “very concerned” but have “raised the bar” on election infrastructure cybersecurity. “I'm projecting myself into November because obviously we are very concerned about foreign [influence],” Ms Easterly said. “I frankly, don't think that Russia needs to do anything to create chaos in our elections.” Ms Easterly said she is “much more concerned about physical threats to election officials and disinformation threats to the American people's confidence.” Full Article: US security chiefs scramble to prevent Russian interference in midterms

National: How Trump’s 2020 Election Lies Have Gripped State Legislatures | Nick Corasaniti, Karen Yourish and Keith Collins/The New York Times

At least 357 sitting Republican legislators in closely contested battleground states have used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to a review of legislative votes, records and official statements by The New York Times. The tally accounts for 44 percent of the Republican legislators in the nine states where the presidential race was most narrowly decided. In each of those states, the election was conducted without any evidence of widespread fraud, leaving election officials from both parties in agreement on the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Times’s analysis exposes how deeply rooted lies and misinformation about former President Donald J. Trump’s defeat have become in state legislatures, which play an integral role in U.S. democracy. In some, the false view that the election was stolen — either by fraud or as a result of pandemic-related changes to the process — is now widely accepted as fact among Republican lawmakers, turning statehouses into hotbeds of conspiratorial thinking and specious legal theories.

Full Article: How Trump’s 2020 Election Lies Have Gripped State Legislatures - The New York Times

National: This nonprofit will use big data to fight voter suppression in the midterm elections | Adele Peters/Fast Company

After the presidential election in 2020, when Georgia launched runoff elections for the state’s two Senate seats, officials in Cobb County on the outskirts of Atlanta announced that they were going to shut down several early voting sites in diverse neighborhoods. But a recently launched nonprofit stepped in, using anonymized cell phone data to show the impact that the change would have on voters. “We were able to use the data we had already collected to show how shutting down those specific polling locations would disproportionately impact voters of color,” says Daniel Wein, cofounder and head of partnerships at the nonprofit, called the Center for New Data. “And in two days, that information was published and was circulated in the community. Stacey Abrams tweeted about it. And Cobb County reversed several of the poll closures.” The nonprofit, part of the current cohort at the impact tech accelerator Fast Forward, makes use of the type of data typically used by advertisers—location data from smartphones—to understand how long voters have to wait in line; in 2020, the nonprofit said it would receive voter wait time data from the November 3 election, collected by location-data mining companies X-Mode Social and Veraset, as soon as November 4. The methodology for using this data to analyze disparities at polling places came from a study, published in 2019, that analyzed anonymous location data from 10 million smartphones at 93,000 polling places to create a detailed picture of wait times. In Black neighborhoods, voters waited 29% longer to vote than those in white neighborhoods, per that study. They were also 74% more likely to end up waiting more than half an hour.
Full Article: This nonprofit will use big data to fight voter suppression in the 202

Editorial: America’s billionaire class is funding anti-democratic forces | Robert Reich/The Guardian

Decades ago, America’s monied interests bankrolled a Republican establishment that believed in fiscal conservatism, anti-communism and constitutional democracy. Today’s billionaire class is pushing a radically anti-democratic agenda for America – backing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, calling for restrictions on voting and even questioning the value of democracy. Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech financier who is among those leading the charge, once wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Thiel is using his fortune to squelch democracy. He donated $15m to the successful Republican Ohio senatorial primary campaign of JD Vance, who alleges that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy has meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country.” Thiel has donated at least $10m to the Arizona Republican primary race of Blake Masters, who also claims Trump won the 2020 election and admires Lee Kuan Yew, the authoritarian founder of modern Singapore. The former generation of wealthy conservatives backed candidates like Barry Goldwater, who wanted to conserve American institutions. Thiel and his fellow billionaires in the anti-democracy movement don’t want to conserve much of anything – at least not anything that occurred after the 1920s, which includes Social Security, civil rights, and even women’s right to vote.

Full Article: America’s billionaire class is funding anti-democratic forces | Robert Reich | The Guardian

As Arizona Republicans revive lawsuit to stop early voting, Attorney General won’t defend the state | Mary Jo Pitzl/Arizona Republic

The Republican Party has restarted its lawsuit to end early voting in Arizona, but the state won't have a key official defending the practice: Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has dropped out of the case. The decision not to defend the early voting system came from a mutual agreement between the Republican Party of Arizona, which filed the complaint, and the Attorney General's Office, court records show. It is not clear who initiated the move to leave the lawsuit. "I'll let the AG's office comment on that," said attorney Alexander Kolodin, who is representing the state party. Brnovich's office did not reply to a query about why he agreed to the move. But in a filing to the Mohave County Superior Court, state Solicitor General Brunn W. Roysden III stated the Attorney General's Office agrees to be bound by the outcome of the lawsuit, including any appeals. The state GOP moved their lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of early voting to Mohave County after the state Supreme Court last month declined to take up the matter, saying it needed to start in a lower court. A hearing is scheduled for June 3.

Full Article: Attorney General Mark Brnovich won't defend early voting in GOP case

Colorado’s June 28 primary will test just how much Republicans embrace 2020 election conspiracies | Jesse Paul/The Colorado Sun

Eli Bremer thinks that his refusal to embrace unfounded claims that former President Donald Trump really won the 2020 election cost him a spot on the Republican U.S. Senate primary ballot this year. “Absolutely,” said Bremer, a former Olympic athlete who in April fell well short of the support he needed from Colorado GOP state assembly delegates to advance to the June 28 contest. But he doesn’t think the assembly electorate, made up of about 3,500 party insiders, is reflective of the broader Republican primary electorate. “I think that the election-was-stolen group is a very small, but very agitated group right now,” he said. “I don’t see a broad movement.” In a month we’ll find out whether he is right. In virtually every major Republican primary race in Colorado this year, from the U.S. Senate contest to the battle over who will be the GOP nominee in the highly competitive new 8th Congressional District, voters will have a choice between a candidate or candidates who baselessly believe the outcome of the last presidential election was fraudulent and those who don’t.

Full Article: How much do Colorado Republicans embrace election conspiracies?

Georgia election board sidesteps calls for paper ballots while possible server breach under investigation | Doug Richards/11alive.com

A possible election security compromise in south Georgia apparently won’t lead to any changes in the way the state conducts this month’s primary or subsequent runoff. The state election board chairman says the incident is under investigation but there’s no evidence yet to take emergency action. The issue is whether a possible election security breach in south Georgia compromises the state’s new voting system statewide. The state’s voting system runs on computer software shared by voting machines in every Georgia county. Now, election officials say they are looking into a possible security breach in Coffee County, where a backer of former President Donald Trump allegedly got access to an election server and made images, or copies, of the code that runs it. "This is a single point of failure that is a nightmare for cybersecurity experts," said one of Georgia's foremost cybersecurity experts.  Dr. Rich DeMillo, head of Georgia Tech's cybersecurity program, says it potentially threatens voting systems statewide. "Someone who wants to install malware on a server normally has to do this at arms length. You’ve given now (potential hackers) the ability to directly access the machine and do it," DeMillo told 11Alive News.
Full Article: Paper ballots unlikely after election server breach allegation | 11alive.com

Kansas Secretary of State weary of fact-averse out-of-staters who insult Kansas election system | Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

Secretary of State Scott Schwab believes election security requires vigilance due to evolution of cyber threats, but the voice of Kansas’ top election official revealed a touch of exasperation when conversation pivoted to uninformed people dedicated to shaking public confidence in voting systems. Schwab said Kansas had conducted 300 post-election audits without uncovering a single failure. Still, he said, people were pushing theories of voter misconduct that fell short when it came to leaping from suspicion to fact. “Folks from out of state have come in and insulted the Kansas election system,” Schwab said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. “And, they haven’t read our laws. They’ve never been here on Election Day. They’d never watched the tabulation process. They’ve never been a poll worker.” ... The Kansas Legislature adopted a collection of new election policies during the 2022 session, and Schwab said he had no objection to the Legislature’s efforts to make certain every legal vote was counted. In the background, however, was a national movement stoked by election skeptics who declared — without evidence — the United States was awash in fraud. Full Article: Secretary of state weary of fact-averse out-of-staters who insult Kansas election system - Kansas Reflector

Michigan lawmaker entangled in voting tabulator probe | Craig Mauger and Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News

Michigan state Rep. Daire Rendon, a Republican who has previously claimed to have evidence of election fraud from information technology "experts," has quietly become entangled in a probe into unauthorized access to voting tabulators. The Michigan State Police and Attorney General Dana Nessel's office have been investigating voting machine access in multiple counties in the battleground state for months. Their work started in Roscommon County, a northern Michigan area represented by Rendon, a Republican from Lake City. Carol Asher, the longtime clerk in Denton Township, told The Detroit News on Friday that Rendon had contacted her in the weeks after the November 2020 election with a request that baffled her. “She wanted to get access to our tabulator, and I said no," recalled Asher, who added that she believed Rendon had contacted other clerks as well. "She called me on my cellphone on a Saturday," Asher added. The Attorney General's Office had been in contact with Asher, the clerk said, and she provided a statement about Rendon's request on March 10, 2022, according to a document reviewed by The News. The subject line of the statement was "statement regarding phone call received about tabulator access."

Full Article: Michigan lawmaker entangled in voting tabulator probe

Montana election officials report threats ahead of primary | Sam Wilson/Helena Independent Record

Escalating rhetoric related to voter-fraud conspiracy theories is crossing the line into what election officials say are threats against their physical safety, with less than two weeks left before Montana’s primary election. Addressing the state Legislature’s oversight committee for election processes, Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan said Wednesday he’s been working with other organizations to encourage local election administrators and law enforcement to develop plans "for the safety of their staff, polling locations and equipment.” “Election misinformation, disinformation, the stuff that’s happening across the state, is harming and putting at risk our election officials, our election judges, our election volunteers and poll-watchers in the coming elections,” he said, adding, "someone needs to stand up and say Montanans need to be proud and feel good about the election practices we have in place and can feel confident about their vote.” Mangan cited potential threats directed at election officials in Carbon and Cascade counties, and asked the State Administration and Veterans Affairs Interim Committee to consider legislation that would enhance protections for election officials and judges against safety threats.
Full Article: Montana election officials report threats ahead of primary | 406 Politics | helenair.com

Montana: GOP lawmakers, activists go local with push for hand-counted ballots | Sam Wilson/Helena Independent Record

A self-described cyber security expert implicated in an alleged breach of a Colorado election system is touring Montana counties this week, the latest push by some Republican lawmakers to return the state to the days of hand-counting all its ballots. The local drive is part of a national effort spawned by unfounded voter fraud theories, but experts warn that eliminating ballot-processing machines could return elections to the days of widespread disenfranchisement and fraud that prompted the switch to machine-counting more than a century ago. Despite no documented instances of the machines being manipulated or hacked during any election, they’ve become top targets of right-wing activists who believe the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. Lawmakers in at least six other states have introduced legislation to prohibit the use of machines during elections, and at least one such bill draft has been requested for Montana’s 2023 legislative session. Seated in a gray polo shirt and a white Maserati baseball cap, Mark Cook on Monday spent well over two hours telling the Ravalli County Commissioners that their election system is in jeopardy. Cook said his expertise entails helping software companies uncover vulnerabilities in their systems. Following the contention over the results of the 2020 election, he said he began looking at the infrastructure of election systems across the country, and was “absolutely shocked” when he quickly discovered major security flaws.
Full Article: GOP lawmakers, activists go local with push for hand-counted ballots | 406 Politics | helenair.com

New Jersey bill to allow for early mail ballot counting fails in Senate | Matt Friedman/Politico

A bill that would allow elections officials to count votes ahead of Election Day failed in the state Senate on Thursday. After a relatively lengthy debate during which a bipartisan group of senators raised concerns about the legislation, Senate President Nick Scutari pulled the measure from the board after its total hung at 20 yes votes to 16 no votes — one vote short of passage. The bill, NJ S856 (22R), would allow county boards of elections to open and count mail-in ballots beginning 10 days before Election Day and for county clerks to tally in-person early votes 24 hours after that voting period ends. Vote counting was slow in some counties in last year’s election. Because of that, high-profile politicians like Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli and Senate President Steve Sweeney took more than a week to concede their races. The bill is similar to a measure that was put in place for only the 2020 election, which was conducted almost entirely by mail-in ballot because of the pandemic. But while there were no reported problems with that law, several senators — including one Democrat — raised concerns about results leaking out and giving certain candidates advantages, even though doing so would be a third-degree crime.

Full Article: Bill to allow for early vote counting fails in New Jersey Senate - POLITICO

Pennsylvania: National GOP intervenes in Senate race vote-counting lawsuit | arc Levy/Associated Press

The national and state Republican parties are taking the same side as celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s neck-and-neck GOP primary contest for U.S. Senate and opposing a lawsuit that could help former hedge fund CEO David McCormick close the gap in votes. McCormick’s lawsuit was filed late Monday, less than 24 hours before Tuesday’s deadline for counties to report their unofficial results to the state. In it, McCormick asks the state Commonwealth Court to require counties to obey a brand-new federal appeals court decision and promptly count mail-in ballots that lack a required handwritten date on the return envelope. Oz, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has pressed counties not to count the ballots and the Republican National Committee and state GOP said they would go to court to oppose McCormick. In a statement, the RNC’s chief counsel, Matt Raymer, said “election laws are meant to be followed, and changing the rules when ballots are already being counted harms the integrity of our elections.” Meanwhile, Tuesday, Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration issued guidance to counties saying that any ballots without dates must be counted, citing the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision from Friday.

Full Article: GOP intervenes in Pa. Senate race vote-counting lawsuit | AP News

Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Dean Knudson abruptly resigns, citing ‘deep desire’ from Republicans that he not chair of the panel | Shawn Johnson/Wisconsin Public Radio

The Wisconsin Elections Commission has delayed a vote to pick a new chair after Republican Commissioner Dean Knudson abruptly announced his resignation from the six-member panel, saying it had been made clear to him "from the highest levels of the Republican Party" that they didn't want him to lead the body. Knudson, a former Republican state lawmaker who was appointed to the WEC by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, made the announcement Wednesday, just moments before commissioners were scheduled to vote on a new chair. Knudson said he would put his conservative record up against anyone in Wisconsin, but said he'd been branded a "RINO" for his work on the commission, referencing the acronym that stands for "Republican In Name Only." Knudson said that was partly because of the way he values personal integrity. "And to me that integrity demands acknowledging the truth, even when the truth is painful," Knudson told commissioners. "In this case, the painful truth is that President (Donald) Trump lost the election in 2020, lost the election in Wisconsin in 2020, and the loss was not due to election fraud." Full Article: Elections Commissioner Dean Knudson abruptly resigns, citing 'deep desire' from Republicans that he not chair of the panel | Wisconsin

Wyoming: Park County denies ballot hand-count proposal | Maggie Mullen/Casper Star Tribune

The Park County Commissioners will not approve a proposal by Park County Republican Men’s Club to hand-count ballots in the 2022 elections, but the proposal remains in play. The commission followed the counsel of Park County and Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Skoric, who advised against the proposal, citing several apparent conflicts with Wyoming election statutes as well as federal law. The commission will now consider whether to approve a request to hand-count ballots from the previous election instead, pending an opinion from the Wyoming Attorney General. Wyoming uses paper ballots and tallies them with electronic counting machines. The Park County Republican Men’s Club proposed counting those ballots by hand, characterizing it as a way to reassure voters of the accuracy of the machines. Since then, Park County has become a focal point in a statewide conversation about election integrity. While maintaining that Wyoming’s elections are fair, efficient and free from tampering, election officials agree that voter confidence in the process needs a boost. Hand-counting ballots, however, is not a legal solution, according to the county attorney.
Full Article: Park County denies ballot hand-count proposal | 307 Politics | trib.com

Georgia: Miscount in DeKalb County race caused by voting computer programming errors | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A programming mistake caused an inaccurate vote count in a DeKalb County Commission race, election officials said Thursday night. A recount will begin Saturday morning, when county election workers will re-scan all paper ballots from that commission district’s 40 precincts. The error resulted in zero election day votes for Michelle Long Spears in all but seven precincts. Spears is currently in third place, outside of a runoff, but the recount could change the outcome. No other races were affected. The problem arose from programming changes to voting equipment to remove a candidate from the ballot after he withdrew from the race for DeKalb Commission District 2, according to the secretary of state’s office. Paper ballots printed from Georgia’s voting touchscreens will ensure accurate results, state Elections Director Blake Evans said. “Georgia’s election system works and is secure,” Evans said. “DeKalb’s elections team is setting an example for the rest of the state of how to properly audit and review results before certification.”

Full Article: Botched vote count in DeKalb race caused by Georgia programming mistake

Pennsylvania: U.S. Supreme Court stay on undated mail ballots injects uncertainty into Senate vote count | Jeremy Roebuck, Jonathan Lai, and Sean Collins Walsh/Philadelphia Inquirer

The U.S. Supreme Court injected fresh uncertainty Tuesday into the ongoing Republican primary recount for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race by temporarily blocking a lower court order on the counting of undated mail ballots, which have become a flash point in the close contest between Mehmet Oz and David McCormick. The two-sentence order — issued by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who oversees emergency matters arising from Pennsylvania for the court — threw a new variable into the high-stakes contest by blocking undated ballots from being counted in an unrelated election from Lehigh County last November. It came just hours after McCormick — who has pushed for undated ballots to be counted — appeared to make progress convincing the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court to side with his view. The new cloud of uncertainty came as more counties began recounting votes in the race. Initial results show McCormick trailing Oz by fewer than 1,000 votes out of more than 1.3 million cast. The narrow margin has triggered an automatic recount to verify the winner, who will face Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in November. McCormick on Tuesday opened a new front in the court battles over which votes should count with a lawsuit seeking a hand recount of all ballots in 150 precincts in 12 Pennsylvania counties. The immediate impact of Alito’s order on the Senate race remains to be seen. It focused solely on the counting of votes in a contested 2021 judicial race in Lehigh County. But much like the lower court ruling that prompted Alito’s intervention Tuesday, its repercussions could reverberate widely.

Full Article: Pa. Republican Senate primary: U.S. Supreme Court issues stay on undated mail ballot issue

Misinformation, violence and a paper shortage threaten midterm elections, officials say | Jacob Fischler/Idaho Capital Sun

Members of a U.S. Senate panel and election administrators raised a bevy of concerns Thursday about the challenges elections officials will face this fall, saying problems ranging from a lack of paper to coordinated misinformation campaigns could affect confidence in U.S. democracy. A bipartisan panel of current and former elections officials and experts told the Senate Rules and Administration Committee that state officials face threats of physical violence, while dealing with misinformation, supply chain challenges and funding shortfalls — making the administration of this year’s midterm elections more difficult. Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, listed those developments at the start of the hearing. She highlighted threats that have led Colorado officials to receive active shooter training and obtain bullet-proof vests, with morale among elections administrators nationwide worryingly low. “In light of these challenges, we must support the election officials working on the front lines of our democracy,” Klobuchar said. In addition to relatively new concerns related to holding elections in a pandemic, ranking Republican Roy Blunt of Missouri noted foreign and domestic adversaries persist in targeting election infrastructure and spreading online misinformation. Full Article: Misinformation, violence and a paper shortage threaten midterm elections, officials say - Idaho Capital Sun

Effort to recruit poll workers relaunches amid fears of shortage | Zach Montellaro/Politico

Power the Polls, an effort backed by major civic groups and businesses that recruited hundreds of thousands of people to serve as poll workers in 2020, is relaunching its efforts ahead of the midterms. The program relaunch, shared first with POLITICO, comes amid some early signs that some jurisdictions are struggling to recruit enough poll workers to staff primaries and the general election. “We’re seeing already in the early primaries that there have been places that polling locations have been closed due to poll worker shortages, or there’s been the threat of closing polling locations,” said Jane Slusser, the effort’s program manager, in an interview. Recruiting poll workers was one of the biggest challenges for election officials during the 2020 election. And a rise in conspiracy theory-fueled threats to election workers, from secretaries of state on down, have worried some in the field, who say the environment makes it more difficult to recruit and retain enough workers this election cycle. Slusser said Power the Polls would look to reengage the 700,000 people who signed up to be potential poll workers in 2020, encouraging them to get in touch with their local election offices to work again. She said Power the Polls would place a particular emphasis on recruiting workers who have specialized skill sets, like knowing multiple languages, that local officials need to run elections smoothly.

Full Article: Effort to recruit poll workers relaunches amid fears of shortage - POLITICO

National: Midterm Stakes Grow Clearer: Election Deniers Will Be on Many Ballots | Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

Republican voters in this week’s primary races demonstrated a willingness to nominate candidates who parrot Donald J. Trump’s election lies and who appear intent on exerting extraordinary political control over voting systems. The results make clear that the November midterms may well affect the fate of free and fair elections in the country. In Pennsylvania, Republican voters united behind a nominee for governor, Doug Mastriano, who helped lead the brazen effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election and chartered buses to the rally before the Capitol riot, and who has since promoted a constitutionally impossible effort to decertify President Biden’s victory in his state. In North Carolina, voters chose a G.O.P. Senate nominee, Representative Ted Budd, who voted in Congress against certifying the 2020 results and who continues to refuse to say that Mr. Biden was legitimately elected. And in Idaho, which Mr. Trump won overwhelmingly in 2020, 57 percent of voters backed two Republican candidates for secretary of state who pushed election falsehoods, though they lost a three-way race to a rival who accepts Mr. Biden as president. The strong showings on Tuesday by election deniers, who have counterparts running competitively in primaries across the country over the coming months, were an early signal of the threat posed by the Trump-inspired movement. “It’s a big problem,” said former Representative Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican, who added that the G.O.P. needs “to show an alternative vision for the party. I don’t think we’re seeing enough of that right now.”

Full Article: Midterm Stakes Grow Clearer: Election Deniers Will Be on Many Ballots - The New York Times

National: Election Officials Steel Themselves for Threats as Midterm Season Gears Up | Alexa Corse/Wall Street Journal

Forrest Lehman, the elections director in Pennsylvania’s Lycoming County, was brought up short earlier this year by a poll worker’s question: What should I do if I get a death threat? “I never would have had a question like that before 2020,” said Mr. Lehman, expressing relief that he knew of no such threats in his largely rural county. “I don’t expect that to happen,” he added, “but it’s illustrative that it’s on their mind now.” Long accustomed to working out of the spotlight, a number of election administrators say threats and harassment have become a constant undertone to their work since the contentious aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, when then-President Donald Trump, a Republican, and his allies began spreading unsupported claims of widespread fraud after his defeat. Offices in some jurisdictions have implemented new security measures as they prepare for the 2022 midterms, the biggest test of the country’s voting system since then and a crucial proving ground for what could be sharp challenges surrounding the 2024 presidential vote. Primary contests are already in full swing, including high-profile races in Pennsylvania and North Carolina on Tuesday. Full Article: Election Officials Steel Themselves for Threats as Midterm Season Gears Up - WSJ

National: A pro-Trump film suggests its data are so accurate, it solved a murder. That’s false | Tom Dreisbach/ NPR

A conservative "election integrity" group called True The Vote has made multiple misleading or false claims about its work, NPR has found, including the suggestion that they helped solve the murder of an eight-year-old girl in Atlanta. The claims appear in a new pro-Trump film called "2,000 Mules," which purports to have "smoking gun" evidence of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election in the form of digital device location tracking data. Former president Donald Trump has embraced the film, which has gained popularity on the political right, along with the claim about the murder case. Trump's official spokesperson, Liz Harrington, said True The Vote "solved a murder of a young little girl in Atlanta. I mean, they are heroes." Fans of the film have echoed that message on social media. That claim is false. Authorities in Georgia arrested and secured indictments against two suspects in the murder of Secoriea Turner in August 2021. In response to NPR's inquiries, True The Vote acknowledged it had contacted law enforcement more than two months later, meaning it played no role in those arrests or indictments. It's not the only false or misleading claim that True The Vote and Dinesh D'Souza, the director behind "2,000 Mules," have made, NPR found. Fact-checkers from the Associated Press and PolitiFact have examined the central voter fraud allegations in "2,000 Mules" and found that the film makes many dubious claims. A Washington Post analysis summarized the film's allegations as a leap of faith - "we're just asked to trust that True the Vote found what it says it found." Full Article: Dinesh D'Souza film '2000 Mules' Falsely Implies Data Solved A Murder : NPR

National: In key battlegrounds, races for secretary of state take on new weight | Simon Montlake/CSMonitor

Most voters can’t name the secretary of state where they live. Traditionally a low-profile office, it doesn’t often merit much in the way of media coverage or fundraising when on the ballot, as it is in 27 states this fall. In Georgia, however, GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has become a household name. His now-famous refusal to “find” 11,780 more votes for former President Donald Trump – and his insistence on the accuracy of the 2020 results in his state – made him both a hero to Democrats and a villain to many Trump supporters. “There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated,” President Trump told Mr. Raffensperger in a recorded phone call that was later made public, after he’d recertified Joe Biden’s victory. Now Mr. Raffensperger is facing a tough four-way GOP primary on May 24, in a contest that will test Republican voters’ concerns about “election integrity” and the salience of Mr. Trump’s disproven claims of widespread fraud. Whoever wins the primary, which polls suggest could go to a runoff, will face a Democratic opponent in November’s midterms. Candidates hewing to Mr. Trump’s “election fraud” narrative are running for secretary of state in 17 of the 27 states where the office will be on the ballot in the fall, according to a nonpartisan watchdog group, the States United Democracy Center. And Trump-endorsed candidates are running in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, all states where Mr. Trump contested the 2020 results. Full Article: In key battlegrounds, races for secretary of state take on new weight - CSMonitor.com

National: Klobuchar, Warren introduce bill to provide $20 billion for election administration | The Hill

Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday introduced a bill to provide $20 billion in federal funding to help states and localities to administer elections, train poll workers and eliminate barriers to voting. The legislation, which is co-sponsored by nine other Senate Democrats, would secure election infrastructure by upgrading voting equipment and registration systems, help recruit and train nonpartisan election officials and poll workers, protect election officials from threats and increase ballot access for minorities, voters with disabilities and those who live overseas or on Indian lands. “Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, but in recent years we have seen a barrage of threats seeking to undermine our elections,” said Klobuchar. “It is critical that we respond to these threats head-on by ensuring that state and local governments have the resources needed to strengthen the administration of our elections, protect election officials on the frontlines, and provide all eligible voters with the opportunity to make their voices heard,” she said. Klobuchar called on the Biden administration to prioritize election security funding in his 2023 budget proposal, something the administration later did. Full Article: Klobuchar, Warren introduce bill to provide $20 billion for election administration | The Hill

Arizona would likely see recounts after every election under popular bill | Jen Fifield/AZ Mirror

Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, would likely be required to recount all ballots cast in every election moving forward if a proposed change to state law passes. The bill, awaiting a final vote as early as today in the Arizona Legislature after garnering bipartisan support, would vastly widen the margin of votes between candidates that triggers an automatic recount in primary and general elections, for almost every type of race. The change would prompt more frequent recounts in large and small counties alike. In the 2020 general election, it would have triggered two statewide recounts and two countywide recounts in Maricopa County, including the presidential race which Joe Biden won narrowly in the state. The stated goal is to build voter confidence in election outcomes in a battleground state where margins are often tight and recounts are currently rarely allowed. State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, who introduced Senate Bill 1008, says it would still only require recounts on races that are very close. “Here is an opportunity to help reinforce the process,” Ugenti-Rita said. “To give the voters confidence that, when races are razor tight, we make sure they were counted accurately.” Full Article: Arizona would likely see recounts after every election under popular bill