Author Archives: Warren Stewart

Here’s what Congress can do to keep the next Trump from stealing an election | Richard L. Hasen/The Washington Post

Full Article: Here’s what Congress can do to keep the next Trump from stealing an election – The Washington Post

National: Election Security Problems Still Must Be Addressed | Susan Greenhalgh and J. Alex Halderman

Since last November, Donald Trump and his allies have attempted to undermine our democratic framework with a relentless barrage of lies, fantasies and falsehoods about imaginary vote-rigging schemes. They have enabled supporters of the former president to grasp onto the most arrant nonsense and farcical theories to convince themselves that Trump did not lose to President Joe Biden by 7 million votes nationwide and 74 Electoral College votes. It shouldn’t need saying, but the lies are not true. As the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and Republican and Democratic election officials have affirmed, there is no evidence whatsoever of large-scale electoral fraud. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. Period. But the fact that the presidential outcome was correct this time does not mean that our elections are well enough secured. Plenty has been written about how the Big Lie is corroding public trust and tearing at the fabric of our democracy. But in addition to these obvious harms, Trump’ insidious disinformation is also inhibiting legitimate and necessary election security reforms. Well before the 2020 election, bipartisan investigations from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee documented significant weaknesses in U.S. voting equipment. These findings only confirmed what previous studies from state election officials and academic researchers revealed—voting machines are computers with inherent vulnerabilities and weak security protocols.

Full Article: Election Security Problems Still Must Be Addressed | Opinion

National: As Trump hints at 2024 comeback, democracy advocates fear a ‘worst-case scenario’ for the country | Ashley Parker/The Washington Post

Full Article: As Trump hints at 2024 comeback, democracy advocates fear a ‘worst-case scenario’ for the country – The Washington Post

National: The Push For Internet Voting Continues, Mostly Thanks To One Guy | Miles Parks/NPR

By 2028, Bradley Tusk wants every American to be able to vote on their phones. It’s a lofty goal, and one that most cybersecurity experts scoff at. But it’s a quest that the venture capitalist and former political insider continues to chip away at. His nonprofit, Tusk Philanthropies, announced a $10 million grant program Thursday to fund the development of a new internet-based voting system that he says will aim to win over security skeptics, who have long been wary of votes being cast via digital networks rather than through the paper ballots or ATM-type machines that most Americans currently use. NPR is the first to report on the announcement. “My goal is to make it possible for every single person in this country to vote in every single election on their phone,” Tusk said in an interview with NPR. Tusk was Uber’s first political adviser, and he is also a former staffer for Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He has already bankrolled a number of small-scale mobile-phone voting pilot projects across the U.S. over the past few years, in which voters with disabilities and Americans living abroad from a select few districts have been able to return their ballots digitally. However, the vendors that conducted those pilots have faced heavy scrutiny for security flaws in their systems as well as for a general lack of transparency around their software, as the source code for the underlying technology has remained private.

Full Article: Despite Security Concerns, Online Voting Gets $10 Million Push : NPR

Arizona audit debunks Trump’s false claims, but the poison of misinformation still threatens the electoral process | Dan Balz/The Washington Post

Source: Arizona audit debunks Trump’s false claims, but the poison of misinformation still threatens the electoral process – The Washington Post

National: Special Report: Backers of Trump’s false fraud claims seek to control next elections | Tim Reid, Nathan Layne and Jason Lange/Reuters

One leading candidate seeking to become Georgia’s chief elections official, Republican Jody Hice, is a Congressman who voted to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win in the hours after the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol. Hice had posted on social media earlier that day: “This is our 1776 moment,” referencing the American Revolution. In Arizona, the contenders for the elections-chief office, secretary of state, include Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem, who attended the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally before the deadly insurrection and spoke at a similar gathering the previous day. In Nevada, one strong Republican candidate for elections chief is Jim Marchant, who unsuccessfully sued to have his own defeat in a 2020 congressional race reversed based on unfounded voter-fraud claims. The three candidates are part of a wider group of Republican secretary-of-state contenders in America’s swing states who have embraced former President Donald Trump’s false claims that he lost a “rigged” election. Their candidacies have alarmed Democrats and voting-rights groups, who fear that the politicians who tried hardest to undermine Americans’ faith in elections last year may soon be the ones running them – or deciding them, in future contested votes. Jena Griswold, chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State and Colorado’s top elections official, said the secretary-of-state races reflect a much broader exploitation of phony voter-fraud claims by Republicans seeking all levels of elected office. “That is ‘code red’ for democracy,” she said in an interview.

Full Article: Special Report: Backers of Trump’s false fraud claims seek to control next elections | Reuters

National: Trump Campaign Knew Lawyers’ Dominion Claims Were Baseless, Memo Shows | Alan Feuer/The New York Times

Full Article: Trump Campaign Knew Lawyers’ Dominion Claims Were Baseless, Memo Shows – The New York Times

National: Disinformation May Be the New Normal, Election Officials Fear | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

As voting wound down last week during the California recall election, Natalie Adona, the assistant registrar of voters in Nevada County, got an irate phone call. A voter, driven by disinformation that Republican politicians had pushed for weeks, berated Adona over the state’s lack of a photo ID law, saying election officials exposed the voting system to fraud. Adona explained that election officials follow state law and verify signatures on mail-in ballots. After a tense back-and-forth, the voter called her a Nazi. Election officials across the country say such attacks have become commonplace. “It’s escalated to an unhealthy and dangerous level,” Adona said in an interview. “We are trying to talk over others who have a further reach, more money, more power and basically are more interested in winning elections than American democracy, even though they know what they’re saying is not true.” The lies about election fraud, which range from false claims about the winner of the 2020 presidential race to accusations about this month’s California recall process, have state and local election officials worried about the future. As gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia approach this fall, and next year’s national midterms near, election officials are struggling to combat disinformation and assure voters their ballots are secure.

Full Article: Disinformation May Be the New Normal, Election Officials Fear | The Pew Charitable Trusts