The supervisor of a voting machine warehouse in the Philadelphia suburbs is suing Donald Trump and top political advisers in a Philadelphia-based county court, saying the former president slandered him during a months-long effort to overturn the 2020 election results. In a 60-page lawsuit, James Savage, the voting machine warehouse custodian in Delaware County, says that in the aftermath of Trump’s effort, he suffered two heart attacks and has regularly received threats. In addition to Trump, he’s suing some of Trump’s key advisers, including his former campaign attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, who has largely escaped investigators’ scrutiny so far. “Simply put, Mr. Savage’s physical safety, and his reputation, were acceptable collateral damage for the wicked intentions of the Defendants herein,” says Savage’s attorney J. Conor Corcoran, “executed during their lubricious attempt to question the legitimacy of President Joseph Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.” Savage is seeking monetary damages and a jury trial on charges of defamation and civil conspiracy. The suit against Trump, Giuliani, Ellis, local GOP officials and others was first reported by Law360.
National: ‘A roadmap for a coup’: inside Trump’s plot to steal the presidency | Ed Pilkington/The Guardian
On 4 January, the conservative lawyer John Eastman was summoned to the Oval Office to meet Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence. Within 48 hours, Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election would formally be certified by Congress, sealing Trump’s fate and removing him from the White House. The atmosphere in the room was tense. The then US president was “fired up” to make what amounted to a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results and snatch a second term in office in the most powerful job on Earth. Eastman, who had a decades-long reputation as a prominent conservative law professor, had already prepared a two-page memo in which he had outlined an incendiary scenario under which Pence, presiding over the joint session of Congress that was to be convened on 6 January, effectively overrides the votes of millions of Americans in seven states that Biden had won, then “gavels President Trump as re-elected”. The Eastman memo, first revealed by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book Peril, goes on to predict “howls” of protest from Democrats. The theory was that Pence, acting as the “ultimate arbiter” of the process, would then send the matter to the House of Representatives which, following an arcane rule that says that where no candidate has reached the necessary majority each state will have one vote, also decides to turn the world upside down and hand the election to the losing candidate, Donald Trump. Eastman’s by now notorious memo, and the surreal encounter in the Oval Office, are among the central twists in the unfolding story of Trump’s audacious bid to hang on to power. They form the basis of what critics argue was nothing less than an attempted electoral coup.
Full Article: ‘A roadmap for a coup’: inside Trump’s plot to steal the presidency | US elections 2020 | The Guardian
National: ‘It’s been a barrage every day’: US election workers face threats and harassment | Sam Levine/The Guardian
Before he leaves his house to walk his dog these days, Rick Barron’s 12-year-old-daughter reminds him that he needs to keep an eye out because she worries her dad could be the target of an attack. Barron, 55, is the director of voting and elections in Fulton county, which includes Atlanta and is the most populous county in Georgia. For the last year, he’s been subject to a barrage of voicemails and emails with threats, including some threatening violence and death, as Donald Trump and his allies have falsely claimed the election was stolen. “You will be served lead,” someone said on a voicemail left for Barron in recent months. It’s an experience being shared by state and local officials across the United States. For decades, those officials have largely been invisible, working out of the public spotlight to ensure the machinery of elections runs smoothly. But as Trump and allies target that machinery as part of an effort to insist something was amiss in 2020, those officials have been thrust into the national spotlight and subject to vicious harassment. Nearly one in three election officials feel unsafe in their job, according to an April survey commissioned by the Brennan Center for Justice. “It’s been a barrage every day,” Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, told the Guardian. She said the threats have bombarded virtually every part of her office, including services that have nothing to do with elections.
Full Article: ‘It’s been a barrage every day’: US election workers face threats and harassment | US voting rights | The GuardianArizona Attorney General questions former Maricopa County election offical | Jonathan J. Cooper/Associated Press
Former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes said Monday he was questioned by investigators from Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office about the 2020 election. The questioning of Fontes, a Democrat who oversaw mail-in balloting last year but lost his own re-election bid, suggests Brnovich is pressing ahead with his pledge to review the findings of the state Senate Republicans’ partisan review of the 2020 election. That review, led and almost entirely funded by supporters of former President Donald Trump, confirmed President Joe Biden’s victory in Maricopa County but spread falsehoods about alleged malfeasance. Brnovich is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate but could be weighed down by sharp criticism from Trump, who retains considerable sway with the GOP base. Trump repeatedly attacked Brnovich earlier this year as “lackluster,” claiming the attorney general wasn’t doing enough to advance the false claim that Trump’s loss in Arizona was the result of fraud. Fontes, who is running in a contested Democratic primary for secretary of state, said he spoke for about an hour Monday morning with two special agents from Brnovich’s office. He said the discussion was “professional and collegial,” but he said the agents did not seem to know much about election systems. “If they were trying to build an actual case, they would’ve been prepared before they asked me any questions,” Fontes told The Associated Press. “This is nothing more than political box-checking and an abuse of power by a desperate Republican Senate nominee.”
Full Article: Arizona AG questions former Maricopa County election officalColorado officials counter false election claims | Charles Ashby/Grand Junction Sentinel
Embattled Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters continuously repeats falsehoods about how Colorado elections are conducted, local and state officials say. From questioning why passwords are kept secret to barcodes that are being phased out that are used to tabulate only a fraction of all ballots while simultaneously criticizing using machines to count them, Peters is relying on voter-fraud conspiracy theories and ignoring how elections are actually conducted, the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office and others say. “Colorado is considered the nation’s leader in election security,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold said. “Clerk Peters is incorrect, and compromised the entire Mesa County election system to try to prove conspiracy theories.” As a result, local and state election officials are concerned that Peters’ false statements about how elections actually are conducted are leaving some voters to question them. They say that may partly be because Peters has yet to get the state required certification to operate elections because she hasn’t completed that training, something clerks are required to do within two years of taking office, according to Secretary of State records. Peters has been overseeing the county elections for nearly three years. To help counter Peters’ disinformation, those same officials addressed, point for point, several of her false claims, which some say border on the absurd.
Full Article: Officials counter false election claims | Western Colorado | gjsentinel.com
Colorado: Election misinformation reaches Arapahoe County clerk’s office | Ellis Arnold/Littleton Independent
In the months leading up the election that ends today, the Arapahoe County office that oversees elections received messages about dubious claims playing out at the state level about election security — lingering echoes of unproven claims about wrongdoing in the 2020 presidential election. A letter defending an embattled elections official — Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters — was sent to at least several Colorado county clerks, according to reporting by news outlet Colorado Newsline. The letter was dated Aug. 27. The typed section of the letter discusses Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold's investigation into an election-system security breach involving Peters, Colorado Newsline reported. The office of Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder Joan Lopez received a copy of that letter, addressed to Lopez, with the return address blacked out, a spokesperson for the clerk told Colorado Community Media. “We have also received several emails incorporating a similar theme — defending Tina Peters as a 'hero,' accusing Secretary of State (Jena) Griswold of overstepping her authority, alleging that voter fraud is rampant” and so on, the spokesperson, Tom Skelley, told CCM via email. “Many of those emails were obviously copied and pasted from one original source just as this letter was.” Neither Lopez nor the office's staff have received any direct threats of violence, Skelley said. “We have, however, seen references to a coming 'Civil War,' mentions of 'treason (being) punishable by Death' and demands for a 'forensic' audit of ballots,” Skelley said.
Full Article: Election misinformation reaches Arapahoe County clerk's office | Littletonindependent.net
Florida Bars State Professors From Testifying in Voting Rights Case | Michael Wines/The New York Times
Three University of Florida professors have been barred from assisting plaintiffs in a lawsuit to overturn the state’s new law restricting voting rights, lawyers said in a federal court filing on Friday. The ban is an extraordinary limit on speech that raises questions of academic freedom and First Amendment rights. University officials told the three that because the school was a state institution, participating in a lawsuit against the state “is adverse to U.F.’s interests” and could not be permitted. In their filing, the lawyers sought to question Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, on whether he was involved in the decision. Mr. DeSantis has resisted questioning, arguing that all of his communications about the law are protected from disclosure because discussions about legislation are privileged. In their filing on Friday, lawyers for the plaintiffs said the federal questions in the case — including whether the law discriminates against minority groups — override any state protections. The university’s refusal to allow the professors to testify was a marked turnabout for the University of Florida. Like schools nationwide, the university has routinely allowed academic experts to offer expert testimony in lawsuits, even when they oppose the interests of the political party in power. Leading experts on academic freedom said they knew of no similar restrictions on professors’ speech and testimony and said the action was probably unconstitutional.
Florida: Lake Elections Supervisor Alan Hays to GOP election-fraud claims: ‘PUT UP OR SHUT UP!!’ – Stephen Hudak/Orlando Sentinel
Irritated by Lake County Republican leaders who want a forensic audit of the 2020 vote and who allege the “entire election system is fraught with flaws,” Elections Supervisor Alan Hays — a long-time member of the GOP — posted a rebuttal on his official website Tuesday, demanding they “PUT UP OR SHUT UP!!” ”As an election professional, I find it disturbing that some of our citizenry continue to promote a narrative that is unsubstantiated in fact or example,” he wrote. “It begins with the unrelenting desire to believe that an election was ‘stolen,’ and that ‘the vast majority of us witnessed (this) on election night 2020.’ ” Hays, a former state legislator, defended the elections in Florida and in Lake, where he has served as supervisor since January 2017. He posted the lengthy “News Bulletin” on lakevotes.com as citizens in five Lake cities went to the polls to choose municipal leaders, including a mayor in Mount Dora. “There continues to be reliance on unproven algorithms and analysis that has been the basis of these ‘stolen’ election claims,” he wrote. The Lake County Republican Executive Committee last month passed resolutions demanding the Legislature conduct an “immediate, open, transparent and independent full forensic audit, including a hand recount” of Lake County and the entire state, though Trump won the county and Florida by almost 372,000 votes. They wanted the review to be “at least as thorough as the audit being conducted in Maricopa County, Arizona.”
Georgia Secretary of State: Trump ‘had no idea how elections work’ | Reid Wilson/The Hill
Former President Trump demonstrated virtually no knowledge of the conduct of modern elections procedures in a long and rambling phone call with Georgia’s top elections administrator as he ticked off a host of debunked and fanciful conspiracy theories he blamed for his electoral defeat. The man on the other end of that call in early January, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), details months of mistruths and disinformation perpetuated by the Trump campaign that led up to their conversation in a new book out Tuesday, “Integrity Counts.” The book includes a roughly 40-page transcript of the call itself, which shows an increasingly agitated Trump grasping at allegations that Raffensperger and his top deputy systematically refute as then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pleaded with the Georgia officials to investigate further and Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to deliver the state’s electoral votes. President Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton to carry Georgia’s electoral votes, by a margin of 11,779 votes. “Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break,” Trump told Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the general counsel to the secretary of state, according to the transcript. “This repeated request for votes showed me that President Trump really had no idea how elections work. The secretary of state’s office doesn’t allocate any votes,” Raffensperger writes in an annotation of the call.
Full Article: Georgia secretary of state: Trump 'had no idea how elections work' | TheHillMichigan: Missing Hillsdale County voting equipment found, state checking whether tampering occurred | John Tunison/MLlive.com
Authorities have recovered voting equipment that went missing after a rural township clerk in Hillsdale County was barred from administering next week’s Nov. 2 election. Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott refused to allow legally-required maintenance and accuracy testing on voting machines, leading to the ruling about the upcoming election, state officials said. Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast has said she suspected Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott was in possession of a “tablet” that contained sensitive election information. Kast said Scott did not turn over the tablet, described as the “brains” of the voting machine, and that Scott said she was “consulting her attorney” when asked to relinquish it. On social media, Scott has promoted election conspiracy theories. In a release issued late in the day Friday, Oct. 29 by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office, officials said state police recovered the missing election equipment from the Adams Township Hall earlier in the day. It wasn’t immediately clear if the equipment was at the township hall all along, or somewhere else. Tracy Wimmer, a Secretary of State spokesperson, said an investigation is ongoing as to whether the equipment shows any tampering. She sad the matter is “currently the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation” and she planned no further comment about specific details of the investigation.
Full Article: Missing Hillsdale County voting equipment found, state checking whether tampering occurred - mlive.comNew Jersey voters faced a new way to sign in. It didn’t always go smoothly for poll workers or those casting ballots. | Ted Sherman/NJ.com
As New Jersey voters waited in line on Tuesday, they were handed a disposable rubber-tipped stylus to electronically sign their names before casting their ballots. Signing the poll book is an Election Day exercise that in the past involved thick volumes of scrawled signatures tracking one’s participation in Democracy over the years — while serving to verify someone’s identify. But this year, the process was a little different. And that didn’t come without problems. Counties for the first time were using electronic poll books instead of paper ones — a change mandated by the move to early voting in the state. The electronic system, which updates the state voter database in real-time, has a record of all eligible voters for each polling location. It is meant to prevent someone from voting in multiple locations or on different days, officials explained, making possible the offering of early voting with safeguards intended to to flag those trying to vote more than once. But at a number of polling locations, election workers had issues connecting through the internet to the state database, which led to long lines in some places, and voters even being turned away from others.
Full Article: N.J. voters faced a new way to sign in. It didn’t always go smoothly for poll workers or those casting ballots. - nj.comPennsylvania: Republican lawsuit over mail-in ballots in Delaware County dismissed by judge | Rob Tornoe/Philadelphia Inquirer
A petition over 670 flawed mail-in ballots filed by a lawyer for two Republican candidates running for Delaware County Council was largely dismissed ahead of Tuesday’s election. The lawsuit, filed by longtime Republican lawyer Michael Puppio, asked for an emergency hearing over the absentee ballots that Delaware County acknowledged were mailed to the wrong addresses, as well as more than 5,000 ballots that were mailed out late by a vendor. Common Pleas Court Judge Kelly Eckel dismissed the bulk of the lawsuit Monday night, ruling that the board of election will continue to oversee Tuesday’s election after putting safeguards in place and correcting the ballot issues. The judge will allow two watchers — one from each political party — to monitor the mail-in ballots in Delaware County for any irregularities. The 670 ballots in question were mailed to addresses that did not match the voter information on the ballot inside. The county said it has taken steps to identify those ballots and send new ones to the voters who received them. Delaware County Solicitor Bill Martin criticized Republicans for attempting to wrestle control of the election out of the hands of the county board of elections over an issue he said had already been “appropriately remedied.”
Full Article: Republican lawsuit over mail-in ballots in Delaware County dismissed by judgeVirginia’s defenders of democracy ensure free, fair and secure elections | Chris Piper/Richmond Times-Dispatch
A cornerstone of our American democracy is a free, fair and secure election process. Regardless of your party affiliation, you need to be assured the process encourages eligible voters to vote and that their choices are accurately recorded and counted. Thousands of Virginians passionately defend this cornerstone. More than 133 certified registrars who follow 470 pages of Virginia election law operate year-round to ensure it. And when election season comes around, another 15,000 Virginians join the process as poll watchers, precinct captains and other roles. These are your friends and neighbors — people you see in the grocery store, or at church or while walking in your neighborhood. They are trained and retrained to be on the front lines of the election to ensure a free and fair process with an accurate outcome decided by the majority of voters. They show up and work hard to protect your vote and the collective wishes of your community. These guardians are the front line of a process that the Virginia Department of Elections has in place to ensure your elections are not susceptible to subterfuge. These are your defenders of democracy. In recent years, much misinformation and disinformation has been disseminated about our election system. Some (but not all, of course) of these efforts have been intentional and designed to whittle away at public trust. But facts still stand soundly behind your ability to trust that our elections are an accurate reflection of the voice of the people. While cybersecurity always is a concern, it’s important to know that Virginia law prohibits voting machines from being connected to the internet — and there always is a paper record of your vote.
Wisconsin elections commissioner says fellow Republicans are looking for a scapegoat after Trump’s loss | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
A Republican state elections commissioner says lawmakers calling for his resignation are looking for a scapegoat because Donald Trump lost Wisconsin. Dean Knudson made the comments Friday, a day after Racine County Sheriff Chris Schmaling accused him and other commissioners of committing felonies by telling election clerks to mail absentee ballots to nursing homes instead of visiting them in person during the COVID-19 pandemic. Knudson denied the allegation and questioned why Schmaling isn’t pursuing charges against anyone in Racine County if he believes fraud occurred. He said Republican lawmakers — some of whom he served with when he was in the Assembly — were wrong to ask him to step down. “Certain public figures in Wisconsin are under intense pressure to find someone to be the fall guy for Trump’s loss in 2020 in Wisconsin,” Knudson said. “It is the equivalent of losing the playoff football game and six months later still complaining about the bad call by the referee and insisting that they never officiate a game again. “There are a lot of individuals that are under pressure to try to find some explanation other than the obvious one.” Asked what that obvious explanation was, he said, “That (Joe) Biden got more votes in Wisconsin than Trump did.” Source: Wisconsin elections commissioner says fellow Republicans are looking for a scapegoat after Trump’s lossWisconsin elections commission administrator: GOP calls for her resignation are ‘partisan politics at its worst’ | Mitchell Schmidt/Wisconsin State Journal
State elections commission administrator Meagan Wolfe said Monday that calls for her resignation by some state Republicans following allegations brought forth last week by the Racine County sheriff are “partisan politics at its worst.” Wolfe also said she is still learning the details of Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling’s investigation related to the Ridgewood Care Center in Racine County, but added that “it sounds like there are some procedures that may not have been followed” related to absentee voting at the Mount Pleasant center. If anyone felt coerced or influenced to vote in a specific manner, as Schmaling suggested, Wolfe said local law enforcement should investigate. “The commission is not a law enforcement entity and we cannot prosecute crimes,” she said. Wolfe’s comments came after Schmaling last week accused the commission of breaking the law during last year’s election by issuing guidance directing election clerks to mail absentee ballots to nursing homes if special voting deputies, or SVDs, were unable to visit residents in person during the COVID-19 pandemic. The allegations were followed by calls for Wolfe’s resignation from close to a dozen state Republicans, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester. “I think in some ways they think I’m an easy target — I’m not,” Wolfe said during a press conference Monday. “I don’t think that the claims have any basis and I do think this is partisan politics at its worst, but at the same time I have an obligation as the state’s nonpartisan elections official to rise above it.”
Full Article: Elections chief Meagan Wolfe: GOP calls for her resignation are 'partisan politics at its worst' | Local Government | madison.com
National: Officials on alert for cyber threats ahead of election day | Maggie Miller/The Hill
Officials are on alert for threats to elections ahead of Election Day in states including Virginia on Tuesday, one year after a contentious 2020 presidential election. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) put out a statement Monday announcing that it would set up an election situational awareness room to monitor elections in over 30 states. This space will serve to coordinate election security efforts between CISA, the key agency responsible for election security, and election officials at the state and local levels, along with representatives from political organizations and other private sector groups. CISA stressed Monday that while preparations were underway to monitor for any security concerns, there is currently “no specific, credible threat to election infrastructure.” “CISA has supported state and local election officials to help secure their systems and push back against malicious actors seeking to disrupt our democratic process and interfere in our elections,” Geoff Hale, the director of CISA’s Election Security Initiative, said in a statement Monday. “We look forward to continuing this work in collaboration with our election partners to ensure the security and resilience of elections in 2021 and beyond.” The agency is also again using its “rumor control” page to help push back against election disinformation and misinformation. The page was created by the agency ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and was a key factor behind President Trump’s decision to fire former CISA Director Christopher Krebs in the days after the election, as CISA and election officials sought to stress the accuracy of the 2020 election results. Full Article: Officials on alert for cyber threats ahead of election day | TheHillPennsylvania elections officials brace for 2021 vote in toxic political climate | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer
This is supposed to be a low-key election. But there’s no such thing anymore for the people who actually run elections in Pennsylvania. Yes, voter turnout drops significantly after a presidential race, as public interest dissipates and the stakes feel lower. And officials haven’t had to scramble to respond to changing election rules the way they did last year. But after a year of Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election tearing at the country’s political fabric, anxiety is as high as ever for local elections officials before polls open Tuesday, according to interviews with about a dozen of them. They used to toil in obscurity for little pay or recognition. Now they’re targets. They continue to face anger and baseless accusations from voters and even other elected officials. The threats and harassment of last year have lessened, but they haven’t gone away. And when the small technical or human errors that have long been a benign feature of American elections pop up, they brace themselves for it to be weaponized, spun, or just amplified in a way that erodes voter trust. “It’s definitely different, and it’s not as fun as it used to be,” said Tim Benyo, the chief elections clerk for Lehigh County. “Now everyone attacks, and you’ve got to talk them off the ledge to try to get them to see how things really are.” “I catch myself mentally preparing to see what fire I have to put out,” added Benyo, who’s been running Pennsylvania elections since 2008.
Full Article: Pennsylvania elections officials brace for 2021 vote in toxic political climateNational: ‘It’s absolutely getting worse’: Secretaries of state targeted by Trump election lies live in fear for their safety and are desperate for protection | Isaac Dovere and Jeremy Herb/CNN
"I am a hunter -- and I think you should be hunted," a woman can be heard saying in a voicemail left for Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in September. "You will never be safe in Arizona again." Or there's the man who spit, "Die you bitch, die! Die you bitch, die!" repeatedly into the phone, in another of several dozen threatening and angry voicemails directed at the Democratic secretary of state and shared exclusively with CNN by her office. Officials and aides in secretary of state offices in Arizona and other states targeted by former President Donald Trump in his attack on last year's election results told CNN about living in constant terror -- nervously watching the people around them at events, checking in their rearview mirrors for cars following them home and sitting up at night wondering what might happen next. Law enforcement has never had to think much about protecting secretaries of state, let alone allocating hundreds of thousands of dollars in security, tracking and follow-up. Their jobs used to be mundane, unexciting, bureaucratic. These are small offices in a handful of states with enormous power in administering elections, from mailing ballots to overseeing voting machines to keeping track of counted votes.
National: Elections Officials Are Still Receiving Death Threats and Harassment About the 2020 Election. They’re Asking Congress For Help. | Kate Elizabeth Queram/Route Fifty
Two weeks after the 2020 presidential election, a crowd of protesters gathered outside the home of Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state. “Katie, come out and play,” they chanted. “We’re watching you.” The threats, which also targeted Hobbs’ children and husband, came from far-right voters who believed former President Donald Trump’s false assertions that the election was stolen from him in states like Arizona, Hobbs said this week at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. And they’ve reached far beyond her, she added. “What concerns me more is the near-constant harassment faced by the public servants who administer our elections,” said Hobbs, a candidate for governor in Arizona. “These are people who truly make our government work. They never ran for office or appeared in political ads. But nearly every day they are on the receiving end of abusive phone calls and emails. We’re seeing high turnover among elections staff, and I fear that many more will reach a breaking point and decide that this line of public service is no longer worth it.” The hearing, held Tuesday, gave state and local election officials the opportunity to brief lawmakers on the continued threats and harassment directed their way, most stemming from the failed legal challenges and torrent of misinformation that followed last year’s election. Their testimony urged Congress to pass a suite of voting rights legislation, including a bill that would strengthen protections for election administrators during the voting, counting and certification processes.
Full Article: Elections Officials Are Still Receiving Death Threats and Harassment About the 2020 Election. They’re Asking Congress For Help. - Route FiftyNational: Election officials don’t need to report cyber incidents to the feds. That could soon change. | AJ Vicens/CyberScoop
Security personnel charged with the challenging and high-stakes work of protecting election systems from digital threats might soon have another task on their to-do list: reporting any cyber incidents to the federal government. That’s if election technology, designated critical infrastructure in 2017, falls under proposed rules requiring critical infrastructure owners and operators to notify federal officials about cyber incidents, such as attempted hacks and ransomware attacks. The idea has surfaced again in a recent Stanford Internet Observatory paper authored by a former high ranking election security official who offered recommendations for election administration reform, ranging from increased funding to centralizing election IT infrastructure at the state level. The proposals are consistent with multiple bills under consideration in Congress, where momentum is building to require operators of critical infrastructure — pipeline owners, electrical grids, and other industries key to U.S. interests — to disclose yet-to-be defined cyber “incidents” to the Department of Homeland Security, FBI or officials who can quickly respond to cyberattacks. It remains unclear whether the federal government could mandate that the roughly 10,000 election jurisdictions — ranging from small towns to counties to states — report cyber incidents. And if it could, questions abound about who should hold that responsibility at a time when partisan politics are testing trust in the electoral system. Full Article: Election officials don't need to report cyber incidents to the feds. That could soon change.National: Trump Campaign Knew Lawyers’ Dominion Claims Were Baseless, Memo Shows | Alan Feuer/The New York Times
Two weeks after the 2020 election, a team of lawyers closely allied with Donald J. Trump held a widely watched news conference at the Republican Party’s headquarters in Washington. At the event, they laid out a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that a voting machine company had worked with an election software firm, the financier George Soros and Venezuela to steal the presidential contest from Mr. Trump. But there was a problem for the Trump team, according to court documents released on Monday evening. By the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump’s campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the separate software company, Smartmatic. The memo had determined that those allegations were untrue. The court papers, which were initially filed late last week as a motion in a defamation lawsuit brought against the campaign and others by a former Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, contain evidence that officials in the Trump campaign were aware early on that many of the claims against the companies were baseless. The documents also suggest that the campaign sat on its findings about Dominion even as Sidney Powell and other lawyers attacked the company in the conservative media and ultimately filed four federal lawsuits accusing it of a vast conspiracy to rig the election against Mr. Trump.
National: Biden administration expected to name GOP official who challenged Trump’s lies to key election security role | Sean Lyngaas/CNN
The Biden administration is expected to name Kim Wyman, a Republican secretary of state who challenged former President Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud, to lead the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to protect future elections from foreign and domestic interference, multiple people familiar with the matter tell CNN. The move would put Wyman in a prominent role working with election officials across the country at a time when many members of her party have baselessly cast doubt on the integrity of elections. Federal officials have for weeks been in talks with Wyman, who is Washington state's secretary of state, to serve as the election security lead for DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The sources said Wyman's selection would not be official until all administrative paperwork is cleared with the White House and the administration announces her appointment. As a Republican secretary of state, Wyman repeatedly refuted Trump's false assertions that mail-in ballots invite fraud. Trump's proclamations, she said, were undermining US democracy. And in a May interview with CNN's "New Day," Wyman sharply criticized the sham "audit" of 2020 election results commissioned by Arizona Republicans.
National: Election Cybersecurity: Protecting Against Election Cyber Attacks | Phil Muncaster/Government Teechnology
Election cybersecurity is one of the hottest topics in the country today. It dominated both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and most likely will continue to do so until state and local governments can demonstrate that their voting infrastructure and solutions are as secure and tamper-proof as possible. When voters go to the polls, they might not realize the complex blend of components that power today's democratic system. Secure these, and you stand a much better chance of mitigating the threat from external actors. Electronic voting is quicker, faster and more accurate than manual voting and counting by hand. But because intelligent systems can be used to gather data and communicate with other systems, they could be exposed to cyber threats. For example, potential vulnerabilities in the machines used to supply registration data might allow unauthorized individuals to manipulate voter information. Full Article: Election Cybersecurity: Protecting Against Election Cyber AttacksArizona GOP Senate President Says Cyber Ninjas in Breach of Contract Following Audit | Daniel Villareal/Newsweek
Karen Fann, the Republican leader of the Arizona state Senate, has said that Cyber Ninjas, the private company commissioned to conduct an audit of Maricopa County's election results, is now in "breach of contract" with the state for not providing audit-related documentation. In an October 26 letter to Cyber Ninjas and CEO Doug Logan, Fann said that she had previously sent Logan a September 14 letter. In that letter, Fann told the company to submit all its audit-related records to her in order to comply with a court order. Cyber Ninjas only provided 300 records, "an insubstantial percentage of all existing responsive records," Fann wrote. "Accordingly, Cyber Ninjas' inadequate response to my September 14 request places it in material breach of the (contract) as construed by the court," her letter continued. "The Senate reserves its rights to pursue any and every applicable claim or reemit to enforce the agreement's provisions." Full Article: GOP Arizona Senate President Says Cyber Ninjas in Breach of Contract Following AuditColorado: Election disinformation has clerks trying new tactics to assure voters | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio
If you want to see the kind of disinformation clerks in Colorado are up against, it is on full display in the video Republican state lawmaker Ron Hanks made to announce his run for U.S. Senate. It opens with Hanks standing next to a truck bed that holds a rifle and a large printer bearing the label 'Dominion Voting Machine.' Most counties in Colorado use Dominion’s equipment and the Denver-based company is at the heart of false claims that it somehow rigged the 2020 election against Donald Trump. “As our next Senator, I’ll fight for our conservative values, and I’ll start by targeting our broken election system,” he tells viewers. Moments later he fires a shot that causes the machine to explode. While Colorado’s U.S. Senate election isn’t until 2022, Hanks recently asked his supporters to call his team if they find anything they believe is fraud during this year’s election. “There are multiple scenarios that could be revealed, and any evidence we gather will tighten the noose,” stated Hanks in the email. The whole thing has left Fremont County Clerk Justin Grantham frustrated. “I am his county clerk and recorder. And for him to spout out election fraud and not even come hear it from the trusted source,” said Grantham, a Republican. Full Article: Election disinformation has Colorado clerks trying new tactics to assure voters | Colorado Public RadioMichigan voting machine missing after clerk stripped of election power | Jonathan Oosting/Bridge Michigan
Michigan State Police launched a criminal investigation Thursday after election equipment at the center of a voting tabulator conspiracy theory went missing this week in a rural, conservative community. Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott, a Republican whose social media has included QAnon memes, had refused to allow a vendor to conduct routine maintenance on a Hart Intercivic Inc. voting machine. Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast, a fellow Republican who the state tasked with running the local election instead of Scott, told Bridge Michigan her office attempted to retrieve the Adams Township equipment earlier this week but was unable to locate the tablet, which she described as the “brains” of the machine. "I don't know where it's at or if it's been tampered with," Kast said. Scott, the Adams Township clerk, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday from Bridge. In a rare move, the Michigan Bureau of Elections this week stripped Scott of her election administration authority, accusing the first-term clerk of refusing to fulfill her “legal responsibilities” and spreading misinformation about the tabulators used in Hillsdale County.
Mississippi: Hinds County election commissioner questions how contractor was chosen to deliver voting machines | Anthony Warren/WLBT
Correspondence obtained by WLBT shows that Hinds County hired a contractor to deliver voting machines for next week’s special election before the company submitted a bid for the work, and after a more experienced vendor’s bid had been rejected. The county recently selected Terry’s Installation to deliver voting machines, chairs, and tables to all 108 precincts for the November 2 special election. An email from District 5 Election Commissioner Shirley Varnado questions why the county chose the firm prior to it submitting a bid and prior to the company having the information needed so it could submit a bid. Meanwhile, a more experienced contractor’s bid was rejected the same day it was submitted, her email states. “It is blatantly obvious that improprieties are at play and every effort is being made to malign the work of the election commission,” she said. She and other commissioners have also questioned why a firm with no experience was chosen while the bid submitted by Kenneth Williams was turned down. In her letter, Varnado cites state statute, which requires the county to choose the “lowest and best bidder” for contracts. “The word ‘BEST’ clearly rules out Terry(’s) Installation, who voluntarily stated that they had never completed a task of this magnitude,” she wrote.
Full Article: Election commissioner questions how contractor was chosen to deliver voting machinesNew Hampshire: Hampton selectman joins effort to remove voting machines | Patrick Cronin/Portsmouth Herald
Petitions are circulating to get rid of all electronic voting tabulation machines in Hampton and in other cities and towns in New Hampshire. Those pushing the petitions say their goal is to ensure "integrity" in future elections. Selectman Regina Barnes is behind the Hampton effort, saying it is being done in conjunction with the nonprofit political citizen group Marigold Coffee Club as part of its "Remove the Machines" campaign. "This is actually a statewide effort," said Barnes, who is a team leader for the group in Hampton. "Marigold Coffee Club is doing it and in Hampton we are also doing a warrant article for Town Meeting." Barnes went before the town's Board of Selectmen last week requesting they call for a special Town Meeting to ask voters if they want to return to hand-counting paper ballots for all town, state and federal elections. The board voted 4-1 Monday against it citing they needed more information. Selectmen Chairman Rusty Bridle noted a citizen requested special Town Meeting would require a petition signed by 5% of registered voters while a regular March Town Meeting petition would require 25 resident signatures for a question to be placed on the ballot.
Full Article: Hampton selectman joins effort to remove NH voting machines