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.
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 properlyNational: Supply Chain Issues, Poll Worker Shortages Worry States Ahead of Elections | Andrea Noble/Route Fifty
Poll worker shortages and supply chain issues are among the problems state and local elections officials are contending with as they prepare for the upcoming Nov. 2 elections. Ohio recruited and trained a record number of poll workers ahead of last year’s presidential election, despite concern that the coronavirus pandemic had made it harder to find people for the job. But recruiting enough people to staff voting sites across the state has proven more difficult this year. Ohio is short about 17,000 workers from its 42,000-person goal, according to Secretary of State Frank LaRose. “As this year’s important November election approaches, we’re still a long way away from ensuring a full complement of poll workers to staff our thousands of polling locations across the state,” LaRose said in a public service announcement released this month to drum up support. “If you volunteered to serve as a poll worker last year or have ever wondered what it’s like to serve your community and perform an important patriotic duty in a time of need, Ohio voters need you.” Ohio took several steps last year to increase recruitment, including implementation of a rule change that allows attorneys to earn continuing education credits by working the polls. The state also created an online poll tracker that shows the number of vacancies in each county that need to be staffed. Poll worker recruitment has also been a challenge in states, including New Jersey. To help, Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order boosting poll worker pay from $200 to $300 on Election Day. Lawmakers approved $400-a-day payments for poll workers to staff the primary election earlier this year.
Source: Supply Chain Issues, Poll Worker Shortages Worry States Ahead of Elections – Route Fifty
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 expertsNational: 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 | TheHillNational: Biden: Fight for voting rights ‘far from over,’ a day after third bill fails in the Senate | Rebecca Morin/USA Today
“At the end of the day, if we don’t make this happen, it’s going to rest at the feet of not only the president but members of the Senate,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in an interview with USA TODAY. “Democrats need to stand up and protect our democracy, and anything less is a failure.” Senate Republicans this week blocked advancement and debate of the Freedom to Vote Act , which would have created federal rules to protect mail-in voting, expand early voting, ensure same-day voting registration and make Election Day a federal holiday. The bill failed by a 49-51 vote.It was the third time this year Republicans voted unanimously to block voting-rights legislation. “They’re afraid to even just debate the bills in the U.S. Senate, as they did again yesterday, even on a bill that includes provisions as they’ve traditionally supported,” Biden said Thursday. “It’s unfair. It’s unconscionable. It’s un-American.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said this week that Democrats will have to determine an “alternative path forward” after the defeat of the latest legislation, but did not offer any details as to what the path could be.
Full Article: Biden highlights voting rights during Martin Luther King ceremony
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 TechnicaMichigan Republicans Replace Officials Who Certify Vote Totals | Matt Shuham/TPM
Like lots of other rank-and-file Republicans, Robert Boyd has his doubts about the integrity of the last election, particularly in his home state of Michigan — and particularly in Detroit’s TCF Center, where the city’s votes were counted last year despite a concerted effort from local Republicans to disrupt the counting process. “People saw ballots come in the back door, so, you know, there were cameras in there that people weren’t aware of, that were there,” Boyd told TPM over the phone Tuesday. “They had a bunch hiding under the table. It was not a very pleasant thing to see.” But there’s a big difference between Boyd and others who may share his view: The 73-year-old Rockwood, Michigan resident is the newest member of the four-person Wayne County Board of Canvassers, the body responsible for certifying vote totals for Detroit and the surrounding area. He’s one of several new members of such boards around the state, chosen by local Republican leaders, who are replacing incumbents who voted to certify the last election under immense, nationwide pressure from their party. The Detroit News first reported on the wave of replacements last week, including incumbents who wanted to be renominated but weren’t.
Full Article: Michigan Republicans Replace Officials Who Certify Vote Totals
Ohio: Stark County elections workers have tested 1,400 new Dominion voting machines | Robert WangThe Canton Repository
Staffers at the Stark County Board of Elections have completed testing on the final batch of new touchscreen Dominion Voting Systems machines that will be used on Election Day on Nov. 2. Full-time and seasonal election workers did what is referred to as logic and accuracy testing, required by the state. They ensure the machines work, their batteries are charged, the touchscreen functions and the machines count votes accurately, said Travis Secrest, one of the board’s two administrative assistants. Logic and accuracy testing “is where from start to finish, our staff will go through every Election Day component to make sure that the machine is functioning correctly. That it is receiving the votes correctly. That it is tabulating correctly,” he said. Board staff tested a total of 1,408 Dominion machines. Stark County is using eight machines for in-person early voting at the Board office on Regent Avenue NE in Canton. The rest will be used on Nov. 2. And the board will have 42 backup machines. Secrest said it takes about 15 minutes for one staffer to test a machine.
Full Article: Stark elections workers have tested 1,400 new Dominion voting machines
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.
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 of the 2020 presidential election results. This was on the back end of Ludes’ extensive presentation on Russia-based efforts to undermine the U.S. election system. “I think we have to talk about the elephant in the room,” Ludes said to 150 elections officials and information-technology professionals. Trump’s allegations of election fraud and cheating have “intertwined with and reinforced” narratives advanced by foreigners to the point that it’s “difficult to determine who the first mover is,” Ludes said. He told the crowd he is terrified by an alignment between narratives propagated by foreigners and those amplified by “domestic sources.” “Sincerely, it terrifies me,” he said. “The former president of the United States continues to push a big lie in rallies across the country and in statements that America’s election was corrupt and that he was cheated out of victory in 2020. We have to have confidence in our electoral outcomes. It’s one of the reasons the work that you do is frankly sacred.”
Full Article: Trump’s rejection of 2020 election raised at RI cybersecurity summit
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 TribuneUtah legislators attack vote by mail, want statewide audit and return to paper ballots | Mark Shenefelt/Standard-Examiner
Two legislators are leading an effort to virtually eliminate vote by mail and mandate an independent audit of the 2020 Utah election, while state and county officials are pushing back and instead proposing tweaks to the existing system. Republican Reps. Steve Christiansen of West Jordan and Phil Lyman of Blanding outlined for the Legislature’s Judiciary Interim Committee on Wednesday their proposal for a return to paper ballots; independent election audits on an ongoing basis; photo ID required at the polls; and no private funds allowed for “registration or other election activities.” Christiansen referred to questions about election integrity being raised in a few counties but gave no specifics. But he said citizen concerns are evidence that the state should fund an independent audit of last year’s election, similar to the audit of Arizona’s results conducted after President Joe Biden’s narrow win there last November. “We should allow mail-in ballots only for those traveling or immobilized,” Christiansen said, and voting machines should be scrapped and all ballots be counted at the precinct level. “There are enough concerns with those machines that we need to get back to the way we used to do it,” he said. Lyman, who received a pardon from then-President Donald Trump last year for his conviction in a federal lands protest, said the legislation also would bar “outside sources funding election integrity” programs. “That’s a huge red flag,” he said.
Full Article: Legislators attack vote by mail, want statewide audit and return to paper ballots | News, Sports, Jobs – Standard-Examiner
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 wants the judge to issue an order barring Gableman from enforcing the subpoenas or penalizing those who do not comply. Kaul argued the subpoenas are improper because Gableman wants to interview Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe privately, rather than in public in front of a legislative committee. “The Special Counsel and his staff, however, have been charged with assisting the Committee, but they are not themselves a house of the Legislature or a legislative committee. The Subpoenas also command the witnesses to appear not in the state capitol or any other location in which a legislative committee would ordinarily meet, but rather in a non-public office ‘at 200 South Executive Drive, Suite 101, Brookfield, WI 53005,'” Kaul wrote.
Full Article: Josh Kaul seeks to block subpoenas in Gableman election review
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.
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 ballotsTexas: 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 TribuneNational: ‘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.
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 - BloombergArizona: 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 - WSJColorado: Hearing Set To Begin In Defamation Lawsuit Filed By Former Dominion Voting Employee Against Trump Campaign | Rick Sallinger/CBS Denver
With its U.S. base in Denver, Dominion Voting has been the target of claims that it was involved in election fraud, which it has denied and challenged in lawsuits. In particular, the vitriol has been directed at now-former Denver employee Eric Coomer quoted as saying, “Don’t worry Trump’s not going to win. I made f…ing sure about it.” That quote comes from Joe Oltmann of Parker who says he overheard it on a left-wing group’s call. He told CBS4’s Rick Sallinger, “I’m not afraid of this lawsuit. I never lied about anything. I lied about nothing.” The former president’s son, Eric Trump, republished the quote on social media. Other media picked it up including the Gateway Pundit represented in the suit by attorney Randy Corporan. Full Article: Hearing Set To Begin In Defamation Lawsuit Filed By Former Dominion Voting Employee Against Trump Campaign – CBS DenverFlorida: DeSantis says state won’t review 2020 election | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Florida does not plan to review the 2020 election, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday during an appearance in St. Pete Beach. “What we do in Florida is, there’s a pre- and post-election audit that happens automatically,” DeSantis said. “So, that has happened. It passed with flying colors in terms of how that’s going.” DeSantis was asked about an audit because a growing number of Republicans have pushed for a recount of the election that former President Donald Trump won relatively comfortably in Florida — though he lost nationally. DeSantis noted that Florida took steps to secure the election process after races in 2018, including his own, were closely contested. And he said the state took further actions with a contentious elections bill that the Republican-dominated Legislature passed in April. “Going forward, we did a great election package,” DeSantis said. “And I think some of the things that we did in there to make sure that there’s a voter ID, for not only in-person, but also when you’re doing absentee voting, also making sure there’s no ballot harvesting — that is totally toxic and that really undermines confidence.”