Author Archives: Warren Stewart

National: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections | Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

Key figures in the effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election have thrown their weight behind a slate of Republican candidates for secretary of state across the country, injecting specious theories about voting machines, foreign hacking and voter fraud into campaigns that will determine who controls elections in several battleground states. The America First slate comprises more than a dozen candidates who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. It grew out of meetings held by a conspiracy-mongering QAnon leader and a Nevada politician, and has quietly gained support from influential people in the election denier movement — including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, and Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com executive who has financed public forums that promote the candidates and theories about election vulnerabilities. Members of the slate have won party endorsements or are competitive candidates for the Republican nomination in several states, including three — Michigan, Arizona and Nevada — where a relatively small number of ballots have decided presidential victories. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the secretary of state, State Senator Doug Mastriano, who is aligned with the group, easily won his primary for governor last month. The candidates cast their races as a fight for the future of democracy, the best chance to reform a broken voting system — and to win elections.

Full Article: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections - The New York Times

National: Trump allies explored using armed workers to seize vote data | Sarah D. Wire/Los Angeles Times

Supporters on the fringes of former President Trump’s circle explored seeking sweeping authority after the 2020 election to enlist armed private contractors to seize and inspect voting machines and election data with the assistance of U.S. marshals, according to a draft letter asking the president to grant them permission. The previously undisclosed “authorizing letter” and accompanying emails were sent on Nov. 21, 2020, from a person involved in efforts to find evidence of fraud in the election that year. The documents, which were reviewed by The Times, are believed to be among those in the possession of the House Jan. 6 committee, which is scheduled to begin public hearings Thursday. The letter appears to be one of the earliest iterations of a draft executive order presented to the then-president in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, by then- Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, former national security advisor Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com Chief Executive Patrick Byrne in an effort to take control of voting machines. The email and attached draft letter were sent to Cyber Ninjas Chief Executive Doug Logan and cybersecurity expert Jim Penrose by Andrew Whitney, a British technology entrepreneur who made his way inside Trump’s circle in 2020 after he sought the president’s support for Oleandrin, a toxic botanical extract Whitney claimed was a miracle cure for COVID-19. Logan, who went on to conduct a partisan “audit” of election results in Maricopa County, Ariz., and Penrose worked for weeks after the 2020 election with a group including Powell, Flynn and Byrne that sought access to voting machines in an attempt to find proof of election fraud. Full Article: Trump allies explored using armed workers to seize vote data - Los Angeles Times

National: The Supreme Court may take territories off the map of the US | Stephen Kinzer/The Boston Globe

May the United States rule foreign territories without granting their inhabitants constitutional rights? Yes, according to landmark Supreme Court decisions in the “Insular Cases” more than a century ago. Without those decisions, our overseas territorial empire could not have existed. Suddenly that decision is under fierce attack from within the Court itself. The fate of America’s five populated colonies — Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands — may hang in the balance. In April the Supreme Court decided what seemed to be an abstruse case about federal benefits owed to Puerto Ricans. But Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion began with a startling passage. He asserted that the United States has no business deciding anything for Puerto Rico because our ownership of that island — and by extension other US colonies — is unconstitutional. “A century ago in the Insular Cases, this Court held that the federal government could rule Puerto Rico and other territories largely without regard to the Constitution,” Gorsuch wrote. “It is past time to acknowledge the gravity of this error and admit what we know to be true: the Insular Cases have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes. They deserve no place in our law. . . . And I hope the day comes soon when the Court squarely overrules them.”

Full Article: The Supreme Court may take territories off the map of the US - The Boston Globe

No evidence of exploitation of Dominion voting machine flaws, CISA finds | Ellen Nakashima and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Full Article: No evidence of exploitation of Dominion voting machine flaws, CISA finds - The Washington Post

‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections | Heidi Przybyla/Politico

Video recordings of Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts: Install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys. The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts. “Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger,” said Matthew Seifried, the RNC’s election integrity director for Michigan, stressing the importance of obtaining official designations as poll workers in a meeting with GOP activists in Wayne County last Nov. 6. It is one of a series of recordings of GOP meetings between summer of 2021 and May of this year obtained by POLITICO. Backing up those front-line workers, “it’s going to be an army,” Seifried promised at an Oct. 5 training session. “We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”

Full Article: ‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections - POLITICO

National: Cyber agency: No evidence the flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment have been exploited to alter election results | Kate Brumback/Associated Press

Electronic voting machines from a leading vendor used in at least 16 states have software vulnerabilities that leave them susceptible to hacking if unaddressed, the nation’s leading cybersecurity agency says in an advisory sent to state election officials. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, or CISA, said there is no evidence the flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment have been exploited to alter election results. The advisory is based on testing by a prominent computer scientist and expert witness in a long-running lawsuit that is unrelated to false allegations of a stolen election pushed by former President Donald Trump after his 2020 election loss. The advisory, obtained by The Associated Press in advance of its expected Friday release, details nine vulnerabilities and suggests protective measures to prevent or detect their exploitation. Amid a swirl of misinformation and disinformation about elections, CISA seems to be trying to walk a line between not alarming the public and stressing the need for election officials to take action. CISA Executive Director Brandon Wales said in a statement that “states’ standard election security procedures would detect exploitation of these vulnerabilities and in many cases would prevent attempts entirely.” Yet the advisory seems to suggest states aren’t doing enough. It urges prompt mitigation measures, including both continued and enhanced “defensive measures to reduce the risk of exploitation of these vulnerabilities.” Those measures need to be applied ahead of every election, the advisory says, and it’s clear that’s not happening in all of the states that use the machines.

Source: Cyber agency: Voting software vulnerable in some states | AP News

National: They Insisted the 2020 Election Was Tainted. Their 2022 Primary Wins? Not So Much. | Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Full Article: Republicans Accept Primary Wins Despite Election Fraud Claims in 2020 - The New York Times

National: ‘The horse and buggy era’: Attacks on voting machines set off fresh worries about election subversion | Fredreka Schouten/CNN

Fulll Article: 'The horse and buggy era': Attacks on voting machines set off fresh worries about election subversion - CNNPolitics

National: Lawyer Who Plotted to Overturn Trump Loss Recruits Election Deniers to Watch Over the Vote | Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

Full Article: Lawyer Who Plotted to Overturn Trump Loss Recruits Election Deniers to Watch Over the Vote - The New York Times