Texas GOP leader pays illegal voting ‘bounty’ to Democrat in Pennsylvania | Associated Press

The conservative Texas Republican leader who pledged bounties to those who prove fraud at the polls has paid a liberal Democratic poll watcher who reported illegal voting by a Pennsylvania Republican. Tipster Eric Frank deposited a $25,000 check from Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s campaign this week, and Patrick may be on the hook for more bounties, The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday. Frank reported Ralph Thurman, a 72-year-old registered Republican, after seeing him vote twice on Election Day, once for himself and once for his son, who was a registered Democrat. Frank told The News that he would have reported anyone he saw voting illegally, regardless of party. Having come from a family of Democratic operatives, however, he said he sees the irony of the situation. “It’s my belief that they were trying to get cases of Democrats doing voter fraud. And that just wasn’t the case,” Frank said. “This kind of blew up in their face.”

Full Article: Texas GOP leader pays illegal voting ‘bounty’ to Democrat

Editorial: No proof? No problem. The right wing is trying to dismantle Utah’s top-in-the-U. S. election system | Robert Gehrke/Salt Lake Tribune

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Rep. Steve Christiansen’s conspiracy peddling presentation to his fellow legislators Wednesday was that he did the entire thing as a space alien. Of course, I can’t PROVE he’s an extraterrestrial from outer space. But a lot of questions have been raised and some people believe so. I can’t really prove how many people believe it. There’s this poll, but you can’t see it, and it is true that this particular pollster’s reputation is abysmal. That is the standard of proof that Christiansen relies on when making his unfounded claims that Utah’s election was rife with fraud and needs a full forensic audit. “I believe there was fraud in the 2020 election. I can’t prove it, which is why we need to have an audit,” he said Wednesday. Christiansen’s tales are beyond fiction. They’re beyond fantasies. They are outright lies.

Full Article: No proof? No problem. The right wing is trying to dismantle Utah’s top-in-the-U. S. election system, Robert Gehrke writes

Virginia Democrats sue USPS over delayed delivery of election-related material | Kiely Westhoff and Veronica Stracqualursi/CNN

The Virginia Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against the US Postal Service Friday, alleging local branches failed to deliver and process election-related material ahead of its high-stakes gubernatorial race, a claim the government agency has rebutted. The Virginia Democrats said delays “threatening to disenfranchise thousands of Virginia voters” to election-related mail across Albemarle County, which includes the city of Charlottesville, James City County, which is adjacent to Williamsburg, and the area of Portsmouth near Norfolk, are “particularly egregious,” according to the lawsuit. Friday’s lawsuit was filed less than two weeks before the closely watched governor’s race between Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin. Democrats are hoping to hold onto the governor’s mansion and maintain control of the state legislature, while Youngkin seeks to be Virginia’s first Republican to win a statewide election since 2009. USPS told CNN it is not aware of any delays in the delivery and processing of election-related material across Virginia.

Full Article: Virginia Democrats sue USPS over delayed delivery of election-related material – CNNPolitics

Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman will be named to Biden administration election-security post | Jim Brunner/The Seattle Times

Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman is expected to be named to a key election-security position in the Biden administration, according to a report by CNN. Wyman, a Republican, is set to be appointed to lead the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to protect elections from foreign and domestic interference, CNN reported, citing anonymous sources. Wyman’s office did not immediately dispute the CNN report. “The Office of the Secretary of State cannot confirm the information included in the CNN article,” Wyman spokesperson Kylee Zabel said in an email. Wyman didn’t respond to interview requests, and Zabel said she would not be available on Monday. Potential appointees in presidential administrations are often told not to talk until their role is formally announced. If she does take the new position, Wyman would be charged with leading DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CNN reported, saying the appointment would not be official until White House paperwork is completed. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The reported appointment would put Wyman, a nationally regarded expert on mail-in balloting and security, in a position working with elections officials across the U.S. at a time when many of her fellow Republicans have followed former President Donald Trump in fanning baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Full Article: Report: Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman will be named to Biden administration election-security post | The Seattle Times

Wisconsin auditors find voting machines work properly, say election officials should adopt formal rules on drop boxes | Patrick Marley Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Legislative auditors released a report Friday that contended the state Elections Commission should adopt formal rules if it wants to continue to allow cities to have ballot drop boxes — a move that would clear the way for lawmakers to try to bar their use.  The report by the Legislative Audit Bureau was not meant to assess the outcome of the 2020 election, but it noted that none of the machines it reviewed counted votes incorrectly. One of the Republican lawmakers who oversees audits for the Legislature said the review showed the 2020 election was “largely safe and secure” but also revealed the need for changes to the state’s voting systems. The bureau released its findings and recommendations without first allowing the state Elections Commission to review its analysis and respond, which has been the bureau’s practice for years. The report is one of two that have been ordered by Republican lawmakers. The other is being conducted on behalf of Assembly Republicans by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who claimed without evidence last year that the election was stolen.

Full Article: Wisconsin election audit finds voting machines worked properly

National: Plan to let troops cast ballots over the internet draws opposition from security experts | Leo Shane III/Air Force Times

A group of election security experts is urging lawmakers to drop plans in the annual defense authorization bill which would allow online ballot casting for troops serving overseas, saying the security concerns outweigh the potential benefits. “There are solutions to improve military and overseas voting without expanding dangerously insecure voting technology,” the group wrote in a letter to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. “We believe that servicemembers deserve the highest standard of safe and verifiable voting. For the foreseeable future, internet voting cannot meet that standard, and places military voters’ votes — and the trustworthiness of elections themselves — at risk.” The effort, which includes groups like Protect Democracy and the U.S. Vote Foundation as well as 27 former state election officials and academics, comes as the Senate is preparing to complete its draft of the massic defense policy bill in the next few weeks.

Full Article: Plan to let troops cast ballots over the internet draws opposition from security experts

National: Senate Democrats ask for details on threats against election workers | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Senate Democrats are pushing the Department of Justice (DOJ) for details on threats against election workers and any related probes. Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and 19 other Democratic senators sent a letter to the Justice Department on Monday asking for updates from the Election Threats Task Force, which the DOJ formed earlier this year to combat threats against election workers.  “We must ensure that election workers are able to do their jobs free from threats, intimidation, or other improper influence. While Congress must pass stronger protections for election workers … we also urge the Justice Department to take additional action under existing law,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was obtained exclusively by The Hill ahead of its release. “It is for this reason that we respectfully request an update on the actions that the Department’s Task Force has taken so far and on its plans to facilitate the reporting, investigation, and prosecution of threats against election officials and election workers,” they added. The Democratic senators are asking for details on the number of threats against election workers, volunteers or their family members and how many completed or ongoing investigations those threats have spawned.

Full Article: Senate Democrats ask for details on threats against election workers | TheHill

National: Advocates worry democracy is eroding on Biden’s watch | shley Parker, Tyler Pager and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Voting rights advocates meet once every week or two with White House officials via video conference, and in almost every session, an advocate speaks up to say that President Biden must do more, that American democracy is under threat and the president is not meeting the challenge. At one such meeting earlier this year, a Biden aide responded that Democrats would simply have to “out-organize” the other side, according to multiple advocates familiar with the exchange who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. The comment infuriated advocates, who believe they are watching former president Donald Trump actively and perhaps permanently undermine faith in U.S. elections. “There’s been a lot of anger and frustration with that line from the White House, which was communicated as a response to advocates wanting the White House to do more,” said Aaron Scherb, legislative director of Common Cause, a longtime pro-democracy group. Scherb conceded that the White House’s urgency has significantly amped up in recent days, as voting rights legislation comes up for debate on Capitol Hill, and White House officials denied the activists’ account of the meeting. But the ongoing frustration is widespread among activists and many Democrats who fear Biden is missing the urgency of the moment. In the nine months since Biden took office, GOP officials throughout the country have baselessly challenged the 2020 results, conducting elaborate and clumsy audits. States have restricted voting, often in ways activists say will hurt disadvantaged communities, and have changed their procedures to allow political influence over future elections.

Full Article: Advocates worry democracy is eroding on Biden’s watch – The Washington Post

National: DOJ: ‘Lionizing’ Jan. 6 rioters fueling future political violence | Kyle Cheney/Politico

The Justice Department said Monday that people “lionizing” the Jan. 6 rioters are heightening the risk of future political violence. “Indeed, the risk of future violence is fueled by a segment of the population that seems intent on lionizing the January 6 rioters and treating them as political prisoners, heroes, or martyrs instead of what they are: criminals,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Roman wrote in a court filing, “many of whom committed extremely serious crimes of violence, and all of whom attacked the democratic values which all of us should share.” The statement came as part of a 28-page argument supporting the pretrial detention of Cody Mattice, a defendant charged with ripping down metal barricades and assaulting police during the attack on the Capitol. It’s an indirect broadside at Republicans who have sought to whitewash the violence committed by supporters of former President Donald Trump during the assault on the Capitol. Trump himself has argued alternately that his supporters were “hugging and kissing” police — rather than committing the approximately 1,000 assaults prosecutors say occurred — and has baselessly claimed that left-wing agitators caused the violence.

Full Article: DOJ: ‘Lionizing’ Jan. 6 rioters fueling future political violence – POLITICO

Editorial: John Eastman’s legal theory created for Trump is still alive. The Jan. 6 committee should kill it. | Greg Sargent/The Washington Post

As the Jan. 6 select committee kicks into high gear, one big thing it will examine is the role played by Mike Pence in the final days of Donald Trump’s effort to overturn his presidential reelection loss and remain in power illegitimately. As vice president, Pence ultimately rebuffed Trump’s pressure on him to halt the congressional count of electors and declare Trump winner. Whether he did so after seriously entertaining this scheme, and what other bad actors pressured him to execute it, are things we need to learn about. But we also need to do something else: We must kill off the dangerous legal theory that Trump and his co-conspirators hatched to justify that scheme, so it never rises again. Some new reporting on Pence’s role, combined with a new analysis of that legal theory, should give us the hook for this. It’s important, because there are new signs this legal theory remains alive, though in staggering zombie form. The theory is the one in the now-notorious Trump coup memo. Lawyer John Eastman outlined a scheme for Pence to ignore federal law and refuse to count President-elect Joe Biden’s electors, making Trump winner. Eastman discussed the theory with Trump and Pence a couple days before Jan. 6. Pence was unpersuaded. A new book by reporter David M. Drucker adds more detail to Pence’s handling of Trump’s pressure. As Drucker reports, Pence’s top advisers — counsel Greg Jacob and chief of staff Marc Short — deeply researched the theory and decided Pence should disavow it, which he did on Jan. 6.

Full Article: Opinion | John Eastman’s legal theory created for Trump is still alive. The Jan. 6 committee should kill it. – The Washington Post

Arizona: Trump now claims voter fraud in Pima County; officials say he’s wrong | Sam Kmack/Arizona Daily Star

Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Friday claiming there was voter fraud in Pima County’s 2020 election, which county officials have denied. The claim follows the nearly year-long audit in Maricopa County that found President Joe Biden had won by slightly more votes than previously thought. Trump and Arizona Republicans had said for months that the taxpayer-funded audit would flip the election results in favor of Trump. Trump’s new statement points to an influx of mail-in votes that gained the lead for Biden in Pima County, which Trump asserts were fraudulent. He’s made similar claims about other states and counties since last November. Friday’s note also claims that “publicly available data” shows two Pima voting precincts had a ballot return rate greater than 100%, and says that a new election should be called or Trump should be declared the winner in Arizona’s 2020 election. County officials have outright denied the claims of voter fraud. They point out that both Republicans and Democrats were involved in counting Pima County’s ballots multiple times and the results were certified by officials representing both parties in the state.

Full Article: Trump now claims voter fraud in Pima County; officials say he’s wrong | Local news | tucson.com

Colorado: Trumpist county clerk barred after leak of voting-system passwords to QAnon | Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica

A Colorado judge on Wednesday barred Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from supervising elections due to the leak of voting-system BIOS passwords to QAnon conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Mesa County registered elector Heidi Jeanne Hess had petitioned the court for a ruling that Peters and Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley are unable to perform the functions of the Designated Election Official for the November 2021 election. The “court determines that the petitioners have met the burden of showing that Peters and Knisley have committed a breach and neglect of duty and other wrongful acts,” Mesa County District Court Judge Valerie Robison wrote in Wednesday’s ruling. “As such, Peters and Knisley are unable or unwilling to appropriately perform the duties of the Mesa County Designated Election Official. The court further determines substantial compliance with the provisions of the code require an injunction prohibiting Peters and Knisley from performing the duties of the Designated Election Official.” In August, Watkins released photos of information on Dominion’s Election Management Systems (EMS) voting machines, including an installation manual and “BIOS passwords for a small collection of computers, including EMS server and client systems,” as we reported at the time. While Watkins, a former 8chan administrator, was trying to prove that Dominion can remotely administer the machines, the documents actually showed “a generic set of server hardware, with explicit instructions to keep it off the Internet and lock down its remote management functions.” Peters, who promoted Trump’s conspiracy theory that voting machines were manipulated to help Joe Biden win the 2020 election, “‘holed up’ in a safe house provided by pillow salesman and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell” when the FBI began investigating her, according to an August 19 Vice News article. Her location was described as a “mystery” for a while, but she appeared at an event in Grand Junction, Colorado, last month.

Full Article: Trumpist county clerk barred after leak of voting-system passwords to QAnon | Ars Technica

Pennsylvania court allows lawsuit to decertify Northampton County voting machines to move forward | Peter Hall/The Morning Call

A Pennsylvania judge ruled a lawsuit to block the use of electronic voting machines used in Northampton County and elsewhere can move forward. Commonwealth Court Judge Kevin P. Brobson on Monday rejected arguments by the state’s top election official that election security advocates and more than a dozen Pennsylvania voters lacked standing and had failed to make valid claims about the ExpressVote XL voting machines used in Northampton and Philadelphia counties. The National Election Defense Coalition and Citizens for Better Elections filed a petition in January 2020 seeking a preliminary injunction requiring the state to decertify the ExpressVote XL electronic voting system for the primary and general election. It cited information from voters about security concerns and trouble using the machines and a “no confidence” vote by the Northampton County elections board, and said there is “no way to restore voters’ trust in the machines.” Attorney Ron Fein, who represents the petitioners, said his clients look forward to reviewing documents and interviewing potential witnesses in the case. “The court rejected every one of the secretary of state’s arguments,” Fein said. “The plaintiffs look forward to conducting discovery, examining the ExpressVote XL machine and presenting evidence it never should have been certified at trial.” A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State said it had no comment on the decision. Brobson, who authored the opinion for the three-judge panel, is the Republican candidate for a seat on the state Supreme Court this November.

Full Article: Northampton County voting machine lawsuit can move forward – The Morning Call

At Rhode Island cybersecurity summit, elections officials confront ‘elephant in the room’ | Mark Reynolds/The Providence Journal

Local elections officials were reminded of a new and different challenge facing the country’s election systems on Wednesday at Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea’s virtual summit on cybersecurity. The reminder came from James Ludes. The director of Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy talked about former President Donald Trump’s rejection…

Texas Governor’s pick for top election post worked with Trump to fight 2020 results | James Barragan and Patrick Svitek/The Texas Tribune

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday appointed John Scott — a Fort Worth attorney who briefly represented former President Donald Trump in a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania — as Texas’ new secretary of state. As secretary of state, Scott would oversee election administration in Texas — a task complicated in recent years by baseless claims of election fraud from Republicans in the highest levels of government, fueled by Trump. The former president has filed a flurry of lawsuits nationwide and called for audits in Texas and elsewhere to review the results of the 2020 presidential elections. Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud nationwide, and in Texas, an official with the secretary of state’s office said the 2020 election was “smooth and secure.” On Nov. 13, Scott signed on as counsel to a lawsuit filed by Trump attempting to block the certification of Pennsylvania’s election. A few days later, on the eve of a key hearing in the case, Scott filed a motion to withdraw as an attorney for the plaintiffs. Scott’s motion also asked to withdraw Bryan Hughes, a Texas state senator from Mineola who works for Scott’s law firm, as an attorney for the case. Scott’s law firm was the second in the span of a few days to withdraw from the case. Hughes said Trump’s campaign reached out to Scott “because he’s a stellar lawyer.” “It’s not surprising,” he said.

 

Full Article: John Scott appointed Texas secretary of state by Gov. Greg Abbott | The Texas Tribune

Wisconsin Attorney General seeks to block subpoenas Gableman issued to state elections officials | Molly Beck and Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Attorney General Josh Kaul is seeking to block subpoenas former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman issued to state elections officials as part of Assembly Republicans’ review of the 2020 presidential election. Kaul is asking a Dane County judge to declare that the subpoenas are unenforceable under the state and U.S. constitutions and Wisconsin state law. He also…

Wisconsin GOP review of 2020 election beset by blunders from former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman | By Elise Viebeck/The Washington Post

The glaring errors became clear soon after a former Wisconsin judge issued subpoenas earlier this month in a Republican review of the state’s 2020 presidential election. Some of the requests referred to the wrong city. At least one was sent to an official who doesn’t oversee elections. A Latin phrase included in the demands for records and testimony was misspelled. Michael Gableman, the former judge leading the review, admitted days later that he does not have “a comprehensive understanding or even any understanding of how elections work.” He then backed off some of his subpoena demands before reversing course again, telling a local radio host that officials would still be required to testify. The latest round of reversals and blunders is intensifying calls to end the probe, one of several recent efforts around the country to revisit Joe Biden’s win in states where former president Donald Trump and his supporters have leveled baseless accusations of voter fraud. Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) this week called the subpoenas unlawful and “dramatically overbroad,” and he urged Republicans to “shut this fake investigation down.” Voting rights advocates, election policy experts and some state and local officials, meanwhile, accuse Gableman of incompetence and say his review — which could cost taxpayers $680,000 or more — will decrease public trust in Wisconsin elections. “It’s terrible for democracy in the state,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway (D) said in an interview. “It’s corrosive. It undermines confidence in our elections, and it’s deeply insulting to our municipal clerks and poll workers. … The thing that should give everybody some confidence is the fact that our elections are not being run by people like attorney Gableman.”

Full Article: Wisconsin GOP review of 2020 election beset by blunders from former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman – The Washington Post

National: Democrats Plan Another Bid to Break G.O.P. Voting Rights Filibuster | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

Senate Democrats will try again next week to advance a voting rights measure, Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, announced on Thursday, though Republicans are expected to maintain their filibuster against the legislation backed by all Democrats. In a letter laying out the coming agenda for the Senate, Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he would schedule a vote for next Wednesday to open debate on voting rights legislation that he and fellow Democrats say is needed to offset new restrictions being imposed by Republican-controlled state legislatures around the nation. “We cannot allow conservative-controlled states to double down on their regressive and subversive voting bills,” Mr. Schumer said in the letter. “The Freedom to Vote Act is the legislation that will right the ship of our democracy and establish common sense national standards to give fair access to our democracy to all Americans.” His decision intensifies pressure on Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who had initially been his party’s lone holdout on a sweeping voting rights measure passed by the House. Mr. Manchin helped draft a compromise version that he said he hoped could draw bipartisan backing, and sought time to win over Republicans to support it, but there is little evidence that any G.O.P. senators have embraced the alternative. In the 50-50 Senate, it would take 10 Republicans joining every Democrat to muster the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster of any voting rights bill and allow it to be considered.

Full Article: Democrats Plan Another Bid to Break G.O.P. Voting Rights Filibuster – The New York Times

Arizona audit review shows Cyber Ninjas didn’t count 312K ballots, double counted 23K | Robert Anglen/The Arizona Republic

The hand count in Maricopa County was off by hundreds of thousands of ballots, according to a review of newly released Arizona audit records. Election analysts say Cyber Ninjas’ count was off by about 312,000 and it also double counted almost 23,000 ballots in its months-long review of 2020 election results. The numbers represent the latest challenge to the Arizona Senate’s audit, which was led by Cyber Ninjas, involved more than a thousand volunteers and cost millions of dollars. A 695-page report, produced by former Arizona GOP chair and audit spokesperson Randy Pullen, was supposed to provide a snapshot of all the counts of the 2.1 million ballots cast in the county’s general election. The Arizona Senate released the report late Friday after The Arizona Republic filed a request under the state’s Public Records Law. But Cyber Ninjas didn’t tally as many as 167,000 Maricopa County ballots, according to analysts who reviewed the report for The Republic. The hand-count numbers in the report reflect a 15% error rate when compared with a separate machine count of ballots authorized by the Arizona Senate, they said.

Full Article: Arizona audit review shows Cyber Ninjas didn’t count 312K ballots

Texas: Trump won Hood County in a landslide. His supporters still hounded the elections administrator until she resigned. | Jeremy Schwartz/The Texas Tribune and Pro Publica

An elections administrator in North Texas submitted her resignation Friday, following a monthslong effort by residents and officials loyal to former President Donald Trump to force her out of office. Michele Carew, who had overseen scores of elections during her 14-year career, had found herself transformed into the public face of an electoral system that many in the heavily Republican Hood County had come to mistrust, which ProPublica and The Texas Tribune covered earlier this month. Her critics sought to abolish her position and give her duties to an elected county clerk who has used social media to promote baseless allegations of widespread election fraud. Carew, who was hired to run elections in Hood County two-and-a-half months before the contested presidential race, said in an interview that she worried that the forces that tried to drive her out will spread to other counties in the state. “When I started out, election administrators were appreciated and highly respected,” she said. “Now we are made out to be the bad guys.” Critics accused Carew of harboring a secret liberal agenda and of violating a decades-old elections law, despite assurances from the Texas secretary of state that she was complying with Texas election rules.

Full Article: Hood County elections administrator resigns after push from Trump loyalists | The Texas Tribune

National: ‘Cannot wait for Washington:’ Voting rights activists scramble to navigate new restrictions ahead of November elections | Fredreka Schouten, Dianne Gallagher and Wesley Bruer/CNN

When activist Tammye Pettyjohn Jones knocks on voters’ doors in her rural corner of Georgia this month, she’ll have a new tool in hand: a portable printer. A sweeping voting law Georgia enacted this year now requires voters who do not have a driver’s license or state ID to provide a copy of another form of identification with their absentee ballot application. So Pettyjohn Jones and other volunteers with Sisters in Service of Southwest Georgia plan to take photos of that identification and print them out on the spot for voters to submit along with their absentee ballot applications. “You don’t have time to hem and haw about how hard it is” to vote, said PettyJohn Jones, who is working to turn out voters ahead of November’s municipal elections in places like Americus, Georgia. “You’ve got to go into a problem-solving mode.” In states from Georgia to Montana, activists are scrambling to help voters navigate the new restrictions passed largely in Republican-controlled states after record turnout in 2020 helped elect President Joe Biden and flipped control of the US Senate to Democrats. In Florida, for example, some organizations have taken iPads into the field so voters could use the devices to register to vote on their own, said Brad Ashwell of All Voting is Local Florida.

Full Article: ‘Cannot wait for Washington:’ Voting rights activists scramble to navigate new restrictions ahead of November elections – CNNPolitics

National: Cyber Ninjas CEO spurns an oversight hearing | Aaron Schaffer/The Washington Post

Yesterday’s House hearing on the partisan election review in Maricopa County, Ariz. quickly devolved into baseless claims and partisan bickering. And the star witness didn’t even show up. Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan flouted the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s request to testify. Instead of appearing before lawmakers, Logan went on conservative podcast “Conservative Daily,” whose host has made baseless allegations that some election machines were rigged to ensure former president Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. For more than two hours, Logan defended his Florida-based firm’s handling of the controversial Arizona review, arguing the review (which ultimately found even more votes for Biden) was “beyond reproach.” Logan’s absence infuriated House Democrats. “Mr. Logan’s refusal to answer questions under oath today is just one more sign that the dark-money-fueled audit he led never should have happened in the first place,” House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) told The Cybersecurity 202 in a statement. “We are evaluating next steps, but rest assured this issue is a top priority for me.”

Full Article: Cyber Ninjas CEO spurns an oversight hearing – The Washington Post

Editorial: The 2020 Election Was Nothing Like Bush-Gore | Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg

In today’s exercise in whataboutism, it turns out that (as some pundits are keen to remind everyone) there are Democrats who have claimed that the 2000 election was stolen, which presumably is important to bring up because it somehow turns the behavior of Donald Trump and his apologists into normal politics and those who are worried about the future of democracy into partisan hypocrites. It’s worth thinking about this a bit, in part because it shows we don’t quite have the vocabulary for what’s happening now and why it’s so different and dangerous. There’s a long history of partisans complaining that an election was stolen. Many Republicans, to this day, will refer to the 1960 election as obviously stolen because of irregularities in Texas and Illinois. I’m aware of accusations about (at least) the 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 elections as well. Oh, and of course 1972, when Richard Nixon and his supporters did all sorts of illegal things to disrupt the election, although it turned out that he won by one of the largest landslides in history only in part because of the effects of this misconduct. In the others, there were accusations of everything from campaign perfidy to plots to alter vote counts to claims that a candidate was ineligible for office. To begin, I’d note that all the elections before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were stolen in the important sense that Black citizens and many others were disenfranchised. Which reminds us that not all talk of election theft is partisan. Nor is all of it based on lies. How can we talk about this stuff then? I can think of several important criteria to consider. How much evidence is there for the claims that are made? To what extent would the accusations, if true, actually affect the election results? How did the aggrieved party as a whole, and any particular member of that party, act? Did they just whine a lot, or did they take concrete actions to attempt to alter the results — and if the latter, were these actions consistent with the Constitution and the rule of law?

Full Article: The 2020 Election Was Nothing Like Bush-Gore – Bloomberg

Arizona: Judge rejects Senate claim some election audit records are private | Howard Fischer/Arizona Daily Star

A judge rejected a state Senate claim that some of its records about the 2020 election audit are not subject to public disclosure. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah said Tuesday he would not accept the arguments by Kory Langhofer, the attorney for Senate President Karen Fann, that he should just accept the Senate’s assertions the documents at issue are protected by “legislative privilege.’’ “The court finds that the Senate has not carried its burden of overcoming the legal presumption favoring disclosure,’’ the judge wrote in a 13-page order Tuesday. “The record as it stands does not establish that the documents are privileged and that the Senate is entitled to withhold them from the public on that ground.’’ But Hannah offered Langhofer and the Senate an “out’’ of sorts. The judge told them they are free to give the documents to him. And then he will decide, after reviewing them privately, whether they are public. “Otherwise the Senate must disclose the documents forthwith,’’ he said.

Full Article: Judge rejects Arizona Senate’s claim some election audit records are private | Local news | tucson.com

Editorial: Trump Loses Arizona—Again – He still cries ‘fraud’ even after the audit he demanded found none. | Wall Street Journal

Former President Trump claims Arizona’s ballot audit found “massive fraud,” yet the new recount says he actually lost the state by 360 more votes than originally reported. He is now demanding an audit of the 2020 election in . . . Texas, which he won by nearly six points. When are Republicans going to quit playing this game? Arizona’s official results say President Biden won by 10,457 votes. Mr. Trump never accepted the loss, so the GOP state Senate launched an “audit” by hiring Cyber Ninjas, a company without experience reviewing elections. After repeated delays and various pratfalls, here’s the result: A hand recount of Maricopa County’s 2.1 million ballots says that Mr. Biden won the state by 10,817 votes. There’s no reason to prefer this tally over the certified one, given the audit’s erratic process and lack of transparency. For details, see a June report co-written by Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s former GOP Secretary of State, warning that Cyber Ninjas “will not produce findings that should be trusted.” The good news is they don’t need to be trusted, since the result is the same, except with worse numbers for Mr. Trump. True to his nature, Mr. Trump is claiming vindication based on the audit’s analysis of voter files. As the biggest example, he says Arizona’s results include “23,344 mail-in ballots, despite the person no longer living at that address. Phantom voters!” No. Did he read the report? This figure comes from comparing voter records to a commercial database on change-of-address filings, but look at the caveats.

Full Article: Trump Loses Arizona—Again – WSJ