National: Putin likely directed 2020 U.S. election meddling, U.S. intelligence finds | Christopher Bing, Joseph Menn and Raphael Satter/Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin likely directed efforts to try to swing the 2020 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump, according to an American intelligence report released on Tuesday that sources said would likely trigger U.S. sanctions on Moscow. The 15-page report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, added heft to longstanding allegations that some of Trump’s top lieutenants were playing into Moscow’s hands by amplifying claims made against then-candidate Joe Biden by Russian-linked Ukrainian figures in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election. It also added new findings that Putin either oversaw or at least approved of the election meddling to benefit Trump. Washington is expected to impose sanctions on Moscow as soon as next week because of the allegations, three sources said on condition of anonymity. The findings about Putin’s role are likely to receive particular attention given the report’s conclusions that Russia-backed figures such as Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach enlisted unnamed U.S. political figures in their campaign to smear Biden and his son Hunter. The report named Derkach, who met Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani in 2019, as someone whose movements were tracked, if not directed, by Putin. “Putin had purview over the activities of Andriy Derkach,” the report said. “Other senior officials also participated in Russia’s election influence efforts – including senior national security and intelligence officials who we assess would not act without receiving at least Putin’s tacit approval.”

Full Article: Putin likely directed 2020 U.S. election meddling, U.S. intelligence finds | Reuters

Full Article: Putin likely directed 2020 U.S. election meddling, U.S. intelligence finds | Reuters

Ohio: Stark County Board of Elections to sue over Dominion voting machine purchase | Robert Wang/The Canton Repository

The Stark County Board of Elections voted unanimously Monday to initiate a lawsuit against the county commissioners to compel them to fund the purchase of Dominion voting machines. The board met twice in executive session before announcing its decision. After the first executive session, which lasted about 20 minutes, board members said they would not consider the commissioners’ apparent suggestion that they consider an updated price quote by Dominion’s competitor, Election Systems and Software. Commissioner Bill Smith had invited ES&S to submit a new quote, which ended up being about $143,000 less than Dominion’s over a 10-year period, according to resolution language released by the commissioners last week. “I think it’s unfair to consider ES&S. We have no inclination to revisit the decision and recommendation that we made previously,” said Samuel Ferruccio, chairman of the Stark County Board of Elections and chairman of the Stark County Democratic Party. “When presented to our board, Dominion Voting Systems’ bid was lower than ES&S. The commissioners took it upon themselves to contact the company (ES&S) our board did not select and accepted a revised bid. That decision was ill advised and detrimental to the integrity of the process.” Board member William Cline, a Republican, agreed, saying “it was manifestly unfair to other bidders to allow a losing bidder to come in and take another bite at the apple. I think at best, unfair, and arguably not ethical either to solicit the bid or to make.” Board member Curt Braden, a Republican, said: “They’re (ES&S is) looking to sell us some used equipment, and we’re looking to buy new equipment.” Braden referred to the fact ES&S’s revised bid included two refurbished ballot scanners with warranties where Dominion was offering to sell the county new ballot scanners.

Full Are: Stark Board of Elections to sue over Dominion voting machine purchase

National: Russian Interference in 2020 Included Influencing Trump Associates, Report Says | Julian E. Barnes/The New York Times

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia authorized extensive efforts to hurt the candidacy of Joseph R. Biden Jr. during the election last year, including by mounting covert operations to influence people close to President Donald J. Trump, according to a declassified intelligence report released on Tuesday. The report did not name those people but seemed to refer to the work of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who relentlessly pushed accusations of corruption about Mr. Biden and his family involving Ukraine. “Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect U.S. public perceptions,” the report said. The declassified report represented the most comprehensive intelligence assessment of foreign efforts to influence the 2020 vote. Besides Russia, Iran and other countries also sought to sway the election, the report said. China considered its own efforts but ultimately concluded that they would fail and most likely backfire, intelligence officials concluded. A companion report by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments also rejected false accusations promoted by Mr. Trump’s allies in the weeks after the vote that Venezuela or other countries had defrauded the election.

Full Article: Putin Authorized Russian Interference in 2020 Election, Report Says – The New York Times

National: Foreign Meddling Flooded the 2020 Election—but Not by Hackers | Andy Greenberg/WIRED

After the pro-Trump hack-and-leak operations and disinformation campaigns that roiled the 2016 US election, the country braced for a second round of no-holds-barred foreign interference last year. But US intelligence agencies have now confirmed that didn’t entirely come to pass. The 2020 election was hit with meddling, trolling, and disinformation operations like those of 2016—but not the outright efforts to hack election infrastructure or political campaigns themselves. On Tuesday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report that outlines findings from US intelligence agencies including the CIA, NSA, FBI, and DHS on the overall picture of election interference by foreign actors in 2020. Those agencies agree that while more foreign powers than ever before attempted to influence the outcome of the election—using everything from disinformation to voter intimidation emails to social media campaigns—none actually seems to have used hackers to attempt to disrupt the election or access election infrastructure as they did in 2016. “In 2020, the IC tracked a broader array of foreign actors taking steps to influence US elections than in past election cycles,” the report reads, naming Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and even Lebanon’s Hizbollah Islamic extremist group as actors that sought to influence the election’s outcome. Russia in particular sought to support Trump’s reelection bid with everything from troll-farm social media postings to active smear operations that provided information directly to “Trump administration-linked persons.” Iran, meanwhile, worked against Trump’s reelection with social media campaigns and even fake, threatening emails designed to frame the Trump-supporting white nationalist group the Proud Boys—while not directly supporting Biden or any of Trump’s other political opponents.

Source: Foreign Meddling Flooded the 2020 Election—but Not by Hackers | WIRED

National: Spy Agencies Reject Trump Claim of China Election Meddling | Chris Strohm and Alyza Sebenius/Bloomberg

The U.S. intelligence community concluded with “high confidence” that China didn’t attempt to change the outcome of the 2020 election, an assessment that contradicts repeated assertions by former President Donald Trump and his allies. “We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. Presidential Election,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote in an unclassified report released on Tuesday. “China sought stability in its relationship with the United States” and “did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk getting caught meddling.” The agencies also found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered influence operations to hurt President Joe Biden’s candidacy, favoring Trump just as the intelligence community says he did in 2016 against then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the U.S.,” the report found. Russia has long denied meddling in U.S. elections.

Full Article: Spy Agencies Reject Trump Claim of China Election Meddling – Bloomberg

National: After Trump’s loss and false fraud claims, GOP eyes voter restrictions across nation | Nolan D. McCaskill/Politico

Former President Donald Trump’s debunked claims of widespread voter fraud and a stolen election galvanized his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January. Now, his rhetoric is turning into policies that are moving through GOP-dominated state legislatures: a rollback of voting access. In statehouses around the country — most notably, in Georgia — lawmakers are rolling out legislation that would make it a lot harder to vote. They’re considering dozens of restrictive bills to purge voters from rolls, limit early and absentee voting, add voter ID requirements and eliminate automatic and same-day voter registration. In short, bills are being introduced to prevent something that didn’t happen in 2020 — widespread voter fraud — from recurring in 2022, 2024 and beyond. “They’re all predicated on the ‘big lie,’ the idea that Trump won the election, that there was widespread voter fraud,” said Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project. “The ‘big lie’ is the engine or the fuel that powered in a lot of ways the Jan. 6 insurrection. It’s also the fuel that’s powering these anti-voting bills that we are seeing across the country.” If passed, critics warn, the policies would disproportionately affect Democratic constituencies such as young voters, poor voters and voters of color, erecting barriers to the ballot box after a historic turnout last fall. “There’s absolutely no coincidence in terms of the people who are gonna be impacted and the timing of this,” said Nancy Abudu, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, an arm of the SPLC, which prioritizes impact litigation on issues such as voting rights and criminal justice reform.

Full Article: After Trump’s loss and false fraud claims, GOP eyes voter restrictions across nation – POLITICO

National: The Misinformation Campaign Was Distinctly One-Sided | Renée DiResta/The Atlantic

On the morning of September 21, 2020, three trays of United States mail were discovered in a ditch in Greenville, Wisconsin. The local sheriff’s office reported that the mail dump included several absentee ballots. When a U.S. Postal Service spokesperson made a similar assertion two days later, a local Fox affiliate, WLUK, reported the statement on its website. And then a national network of conservative commentators and influencers did something that happened again and again last fall: They picked up a bare-bones news story and made it sound nefarious. Within hours, Jim Hoft, the combative founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, a conservative media outlet, came across the story. A consortium of researchers working together on an effort called the Election Integrity Partnership (which included my team at the Stanford Internet Observatory) had by this point begun to track false and misleading voting-related information, particularly claims about ballot and mail fraud, as it moved across the social-media ecosystem. Our partnership began 100 days before the election and continued for a few weeks following Election Day. In that time, The Gateway Pundit would become a primary driver in dozens of instances in which false information or misleading narratives went viral. “We report the truth,” a banner on the site noted, as its pages regaled readers with stories of malfunctioning voting machines in Michigan, ballot boxes stuffed into cars, and “miraculous” fake ballots marked for Joe Biden. In our data set tracking the spread of misleading claims, The Gateway Pundit’s stories racked up more than 800,000 retweets on Twitter and at least 4 million views on YouTube over a four-month period. The process of producing viral misinformation hits followed a familiar pattern throughout the 2020 campaign: Prominent pro–Donald Trump influencers or hyper-partisan conservative outlets would pick up a real-world event—in many cases an isolated incident that bubbled into the national conversation via social media—and shoehorn it into a far broader narrative. Many of the narratives involved hints of conspiracy. 

Full Article: Right-Wing Propagandists Were Doing Something Unique – The Atlantic

Arizona GOP must pay $18K in groundless election suit | Jacques Billeaud/Associated Press

The Arizona Republican Party and its lawyers must pay $18,000 in attorneys’ fees that taxpayers were forced to pick up late last year to defend government officials against one of the party’s failed lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden’s victory in the state, a judge has ruled. In a decision Friday, Judge John Hannah concluded the state GOP brought a groundless legal claim to court, filed its case for political reasons while claiming it was trying to protect election integrity, and failed to acknowledge it sued the wrong government officials. The financial award was made under a law that requires judges to assess attorney fees against lawyers or legal parties who bring claims to court without substantial justification or to delay or harass. The judge wrote the GOP had in effect acknowledged it brought the lawsuit for an improper purpose when it said the suit was motivated by public mistrust after the election. “‘Public mistrust’ is a political issue, not a legal or factual basis for litigation,” the judge wrote. Hannah said the party didn’t make a serious effort before filing the lawsuit to determine whether its claims were valid and never named Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs as the official responsible for carrying out the law at issue in the case and instead sued Maricopa County officials. Jack Wilenchik, one of the attorneys representing the Arizona GOP, issued a statement saying the decision would be appealed and that the judge’s conclusion that public mistrust in an election is an improper reason for a political party to bring to court is “sorely disrespectful to the views of the many Americans whom I am proud to represent.” Wilenchik said the order “encourages public distrust in the government for being openly hostile to them.”

Full Article: Judge: Arizona GOP must pay $18K in groundless election suit

Arizona ‘Everybody shouldn’t be voting’: Republican defends voter restrictions as GOP pushes ‘fraud’ claims | Alex Woodward/The Independent

A Republican lawmaker in Arizona has defended GOP-sponsored legislation to restrict ballot access as a means to protect “the quality of votes” and arguing that “everybody shouldn’t be voting” as Republicans in at least 43 states introduce dozens of bills to curb voting rights, compelled by spurious fraud claims and election conspiracy theories in the wake of 2020 elections and disproportionately impacting Black voters. Arizona state Rep John Kavanagh, who chairs the state legislature’s Government and Elections Committee, told CNN that Democrats are “willing to risk fraud” by expanding voter access, and that “Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don’t mind putting security measures in that won’t let everybody vote – but everybody shouldn’t be voting.” Mr Kavanagh was referencing a measure that could purge thousands of people from a list of voters who automatically receive popular mail-in ballots during elections. Arizona lawmakers are considering roughly two dozen other bills. Mr Kavanagh also suggested that Democrats’ voter registration and ballot collection drives can “greatly influence the outcome of the election” by targeting “uninformed” voters. “Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they’re totally uninformed on the issues,” he told CNN. “Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.” “Elected Republicans think they get to pick who is allowed to vote,” said US Rep Bill Pascrell of New Jersey. “This is the new Jim Crow.”

Full Article: john kavanaugh arizona voting laws | The Independent

Florida: ‘Suppression’ or ‘security’? Uproar over GOP’s ‘rollback of voting rights’ | Dara Kam/Orlando Sentinel

Four months ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis bragged that other states should emulate voting procedures in Florida, where former President Donald Trump’s solid Election Day victory over President Joe Biden was done and dusted long before midnight. But the Republican governor, who will be on the ballot next year, and GOP legislative leaders are pushing changes to the state’s election process that Democrats are branding as “voter suppression,” county election officials “vehemently” oppose and experts say will “disproportionately” harm Black and Hispanic voters. “I have heard of no supervisors who are in support of this bill,” Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley told a Senate committee last week, before the Republican-controlled panel approved a measure that would make wide-ranging changes to voting by mail. State GOP leaders’ push to amend the elections process mimics efforts underway in other Republican-led states following Trump’s re-election defeat in November. Trump and his followers have repeatedly alleged that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen,” a claim without merit.

Full Article: ‘Suppression’ or ‘security’? Uproar over Florida GOP’s ‘rollback of voting rights’ – Orlando Sentinel

Georgia official clarifies earlier report on Trump call to a Georgia investigator | Greg Bluestein/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia elections officials said their description of a much-scrutinized phone call between Donald Trump and a top investigator wasn’t meant to be presented as a “word-for-word transcript” after a recording of the call revealed the former president was misquoted. Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday that the office’s initial report about the conversation between Trump and Frances Watson, the chief investigator, relied on Watson’s recollection. A recording of the conversation, located on a trash folder in Watson’s email account during an open records request, was released last week. It revealed that Trump told Watson she would find “dishonesty” if she scrutinized absentee ballots in Fulton County and that she had the “most important job in the country right now.” “When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Trump told Watson. Earlier reporting by the AJC and other news organizations misquoted the exact words that Trump used to urge Watson to act based on Fuchs’ account of the conversation. The former president did not urge Watson to “find the fraud” and did not promise she would become a “national hero.” “After hearing the tape, it’s clear that her recollection accurately portrayed the president’s assertions that there was fraud to uncover and that she would receive praise for doing so,” Fuchs said.

Full Article: Georgia official clarifies earlier report on Trump call to a Georgia investigator

Indiana: Evansville lawmaker named new secretary of state | Tom Davies/Associated Press

A legislator from Evansville who is the second-ranking officer in the state Republican Party was sworn in Tuesday as Indiana’s new secretary of state, taking over an office that oversees election issues statewide. Gov. Eric Holcomb announced his selection of Republican state Rep. Holli Sullivan for the position. Sullivan replaced outgoing Secretary of State Connie Lawson, who said last month she was resigning with nearly two years left to her elected term. Sullivan was first elected to the Indiana House in 2014 and won a new term in last November’s election. She has also been the state Republican Party’s vice chair since 2019. Lawson worked with Holcomb and other Republican leaders in allowing no-excuse mail-in voting for last year’s spring primary early in the coronavirus pandemic. But Lawson joined them in blocking a push by Democrats and voting rights groups to lift the mail-in ballot limits for the November election. Sullivan showed no divergence from that stance Tuesday, saying her top priority would be “free, fair, and secure elections, ensuring that all Hoosiers know that their vote counts.” Sullivan didn’t give any specifics when asked what steps should be taken to improve Indiana’s consistently low voter turnout, which was 65% of registered voters last fall.

Full Article: Evansville lawmaker named new Indiana secretary of state

Kentucky lawmakers advance bipartisan election reform bill | Bruce Schreiner/Associated Press

 In sharp contrast to bitter partisan battles being waged elsewhere over election laws, Republicans and Democrats in Kentucky moved closer Tuesday toward loosening the state’s voting access laws to make limited early voting a fixture. A measure overwhelmingly approved Tuesday in the state Senate would give Kentucky voters three days of no-excuse, early in-person voting — including a Saturday — before Election Day. But it backed off from the temporary, pandemic-related accommodations made last year that allowed widespread mail-in absentee balloting. The bill also seeks to strengthen election security protections. The legislation passed the Senate by a 33-3 margin, sending it back to the House to consider changes made to it. Republicans dominate both chambers, but Senate Democrats joined in voting for the bill. However, the measure didn’t come up for a potential final vote before the House adjourned shortly before midnight. That means supporters will have to wait until lawmakers reconvene for a two-day wrap-up session in late March to take up the measure. If it clears the legislature, it would be sent to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. “If it passes and becomes law, not only will it transform the way in which Kentucky elects its public officials, but also ensure that we have one of the best voter integrity laws in the country,” Republican Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer said. Kentucky is accustomed to bare-knuckled partisan fights, but its top elections official noted the mild tone in the state, especially compared to the bitter debates on election law changes in other states. It echoed the tone set before last year’s primaries, when Beshear and Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams hashed out emergency voting measures during the pandemic that helped Kentucky largely avoid the long lines and other problems encountered elsewhere.

Full Article: Kentucky lawmakers advance bipartisan election reform bill

Michigan: Court invalidates rule on how to verify absentee ballot application signatures | Gus Burns/MLive.com

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson last year said local clerks should start with a presumption of validity when verifying signatures on absentee ballot applications, but a court ruling says that rule wasn’t properly established. A Michigan Court of Claims judge last week ruled that clerks no longer need to follow those instructions for determining whether to send an absentee ballot to applicants. According to the March 9 opinion and order issued by Judge Christopher M. Murray, Benson issued instructions that constituted “rules” without following the process for creating a formal rule under state and federal law. Murray wrote that “the guidance issued by the Secretary of State on October 6, 2020, with respect to signature-matching standards was issued in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.” The Michigan Republican Party and Allegan County Clerk Robert Genetski, who jointly filed their complaint prior to the Nov. 3 election, claimed the signature standards allowed for “invalid” ballots to be counted. Murray noted in his opinion that Genetski, however, never claimed the “guidance caused him to accept a signature that he believed was invalid.”

Full Article: Court invalidates Michigan rule on how to verify absentee ballot application signatures – mlive.com

Nevada finds far fewer election complaints than GOP claimed | Rory Appleton/Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Nevada secretary of state’s office announced Tuesday it had sorted through several boxes allegedly containing about 123,000 unique voter complaints, collected by the Nevada Republican Party after the 2020 general election, but found fewer than 4,000 actual alleged election integrity violations. “While initial reports claimed that there were 122,918 unique voter complaints contained within the four boxes, a detailed review concluded that there was a total of 3,963 Elections Integrity Violation Reports, all filed by the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party — a number of which are already under investigation by law enforcement,” the office said in a news release. The office said it spent more than 40 hours labeling and evaluating the documents provided by state Republicans “to ensure a systematic assessment of the election complaints contained within.” “During the coming weeks, the staff will conduct a detailed examination of these reports,” the office said. Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, the state’s lone Republican executive, was a frequent target of Republicans as they sought to reverse various 2020 election results up and down the ballot. She has maintained there was no evidence of widespread fraud in Nevada’s most recent election.

Full Article: Nevada finds far fewer election complaints than GOP claimed | Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Texas GOP is still furious about Harris County’s drive-thru voting | Abigail Rosenthal/Houston Chronicle

Texas Republicans aren’t going to let drive-thru voting go anytime soon, it seems. Several legislators have filed bills targeting drive-thru voting during this legislative session. The heftiest of the GOP’s “election security” bills, Senate Bill 7, bars tents, parking garages, parking lots or any “similar facility designed primarily for motor vehicles” for voting—venues many Harris County residents used to vote from their cars during the 2020 presidential, state and local elections. The bill also completely bans voting from cars unless the voter is “physically unable to enter the polling place” and only allows the voter and someone assisting the voter in the car. The assistant must also sign forms confirming the voter is unable to enter the polling place and explaining his or her relationship with the voter, why assistance was necessary, and what specific assistance was provided to the voter. Harris County implemented drive-thru voting during the 2020 election to expand voter participation during the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of residents were able to vote from their cars.

Full Article: The Texas GOP is still furious about Harris County’s drive-thru voting

What Utah officials told Pennsylvania about holding elections by mail | Dennis Romboy/Deseret News

Pennsylvania found itself at the center of controversy during the 2020 election. An onslaught of mail-in ballots prompted by a new law being tested for the first time amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the state’s election officials, who were prohibited from counting the ballots before Election Day. President Donald Trump took direct aim at the Keystone State as his lead eroded and Joe Biden ultimately emerged as the winner by 81,000 votes, or about 1%. Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud led to lawsuits that Pennsylvania courts and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected. As a result, the Pennsylvania Senate created the bipartisan Special Committee on Election Integrity and Reform. The nine-member panel is anticipated to make recommendations to lawmakers on how to improve the state’s election process. “I don’t think it’s any secret that the issues of the 2020 election have dominated the headlines, and this committee was formed to examine how we can do better,” said Pennsylvania state Sen. Wayne Langerholc Jr., a Republican who heads the committee.

Full Article: What Utah officials told Pennsylvania about holding elections by mail – Deseret News

Wisconsin: Republican election commissioner to stay on case over vote | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Republican election commissioner is declining to step aside from deciding whether Democratic Gov. Tony Evers properly affirmed last year’s presidential election. Commissioner Bob Spindell’s decision to remain on the case raises the possibility that the other members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission will consider forcing him off of it. It’s the latest development in an escalating fight over how Wisconsin officials confirmed Joe Biden had narrowly defeated Donald Trump in the state last year. The case can’t alter the state’s results, but it could change how state officials handle future presidential elections. Evers’ attorney this month asked Spindell to also step aside from the complaint involving the governor because Spindell joined a group of Republicans in December who claimed to be the state’s rightful members of the Electoral College even though Biden had narrowly won the state. Spindell’s participation in that meeting showed he had already concluded Evers had not properly named the state’s slate of electors, prejudicing him against the governor, according to Evers’ attorney, Jeffrey Mandell. (The meeting of Republican would-be electors is the subject of a separate complaint — filed with Mandell’s assistance — before the Elections Commission.) The complaints over how the election results were finalized are being handled by DeWitt, a law firm in Madison. Attorneys there will make recommendations to the commission in the coming weeks on whether to uphold or dismiss Knudson’s complaints.

Full Article: Republican election commissioner to stay on case over Wisconsin vote

China suspected of cyber attack on Western Australia’s Parliament during state election | Andrew Greene/ABC

Western Australia’s parliamentary email network was hit by suspected Chinese hackers earlier this month as part of a massive global cyber-attack involving Microsoft software. The ABC has confirmed the online strike, which was detected on March 4 in the middle of the state election campaign, prompted intervention from Australia’s cyber security watchdog in Canberra. “Please be advised that the Parliament mail server has been hit with a cyber-attack,” WA politicians were warned at the time. “Consequently, the mail server will be down until further notice,” a text message sent by the Department of Parliamentary Services advised. An investigation by Western Australia’s Parliamentary Services Department has since concluded no sensitive data was stolen in the attack. “As soon as we became aware of the attack, we immediately disconnected the email server,” WA’s Executive Manager of Parliamentary Services Rob Hunter told the ABC.

Full Article: China suspected of cyber attack on Western Australia’s Parliament during state election – ABC News

Venezuela: DOJ officially concludes dictator who died in 2013 did not rig election against Trump | Emily Singer/The American Independent

The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday released a report officially debunking the lie that foreign governments rigged voting machines to ensure Donald Trump lost — lies spread by Donald Trump, lawyers connected to his campaign, other Trump allies. “We — the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and Department of Homeland Security, including CISA — have no evidence that any foreign government-affiliated actor prevented voting, changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes or to transmit election results in a timely manner; altered any technical aspect of the voting process; or otherwise compromised the integrity of voter registration information of any ballots cast during 2020 federal elections,” the report says. The report appears to be referring to the wild conspiracy theory spread by former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell. Powell falsely said at a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters that Dominion voting machines were rigged against Trump by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who has been dead since 2013. Trump later pushed the same lie about the Dominion voting machines, as did other Trump campaign lawyers such as Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. Dominion has now sued Powell and Giuliani for $1.3 billion, each.

Full Article: DOJ officially concludes dictator who died in 2013 did not rig election against Trump

National: Senators introduce bill to fund election official cybersecurity training | Maggie Miller/The Hill

ArticlSenate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Wednesday reintroduced legislation to designate funding to provide cybersecurity training to election officials. The Invest in Our Democracy Act would establish a $1 million grant program to cover up to 75 percent of the costs of tuition for cybersecurity or election administration training for state and local election officials, along with their employees. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) would oversee the grant program, with EAC employees also eligible to receive funding for training. The bill was originally introduced in 2019 by Klobuchar and Collins but did not advance in the Senate. Klobuchar has been a key senator involved in spearheading election security legislation over the past several years, and before becoming chairwoman she served as the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal elections and other related issues. “Our intelligence officials have made clear that our election systems continue to be a target for foreign adversaries,” Klobuchar said in a statement on Wednesday. “While federal and state officials have agreed that the 2020 election was ‘the most secure in American history,’ we must continue to do everything in our power to protect our democracy from the ongoing threat of foreign interference.”

e: Senators introduce bill to fund election official cybersecurity training | TheHill

Ohio County Rejects Dominion Voting Systems After Trump Supporters Balk | Jaclyn Diaz/NPR

The three person Board of Stark County Commissioners in Ohio rejected the purchase of more than 1,400 new Dominion voting machines. The county’s Board of Elections had recommended the purchase, but the three members voted to withhold the money for the purchase following pressure from supporters of former President Trump, who falsely accused the machines of manipulating vote tallies in President Biden’s favor. For months, local Trump supporters in Stark County, home to Canton, voiced their complaints and beliefs about Dominion voting machines. County Commissioner Bill Smith said in February that the response from local residents on whether to purchase new voting machines “far exceeded the response any of us have received on any topic to come before our board.” Commissioners Smith, Janet Weir Creighton, and Richard Regula voted against the Board of Elections recommendations to buy the machines on Wednesday, saying they had to weigh the long-term viability of the purchase. The commissioners’ resolution said, “Whenever there exists a potential cloud…or public perception or concern regarding a vendor’s long-term viability, regardless of the cause or reason, the County must take a vendor’s long-term viability into account” when spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Trump and many of his inner circle helped to create that cloud. His camp continued to spread the falsehood that Dominion machines changed votes even after multiple audits and recounts in several states and counties that used the company’s equipment showed there were no issues with the machines. Now it’s clear that disinformation campaign has had a direct impact on the company’s business. Officials in at least one other state, Louisiana, have backed off plans to purchase Dominion voting machines following pressure campaigns from residents, according to The Advocate.

Full Article: Stark County Commissioners Reject Dominion Voting Machine Buy : NPR

National: As GOP makes it harder to vote, few Republicans dissent | Steve Peoples, Jonathan J. Cooper and Ben Nadler/Associated Press

In Arizona, a Republican state senator worried aloud that his party’s proposed voter identification requirements might be too “cumbersome.” But he voted for the bill anyway. In Iowa, the state’s Republican elections chief put out a carefully worded statement that didn’t say whether he backs his own party’s legislation making it more difficult to vote early. And in Georgia, Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan left the room as Senate Republicans approved a bill to block early voting for all but the GOP’s most reliable voting bloc. Duncan instead watched Monday’s proceedings from a television in his office to protest. This is what amounts to dissent as Republican lawmakers push a wave of legislation through statehouses across the nation to make voting more difficult. The bills are fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud and many are sponsored by his most loyal allies. But support for the effort is much broader than just Trump’s hard-right base, and objections from GOP policymakers are so quiet they can be easy to miss. “It’s appalling what’s happening,” said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, who condemned the silence of the GOP’s elected officials. “There have been no provable, obvious, systemwide failures or fraud that would require the kind of ‘legislative remedies’ that Republican legislatures are embarking on. What the hell are you so afraid of? Black people voting?” Experts note that most changes up for debate would disproportionately affect voters of color, younger people and the poor — all groups that historically vote for Democrats. But Republicans are also pushing restrictions with the potential to place new burdens on GOP-leaning groups.

Source: As GOP makes it harder to vote, few Republicans dissent

National: Democrats rethink the U.S. voting system. What’s in the massive HR 1. | Jane C. Timm/NBC

House Democrats’ top legislative priority — the H.R. 1 For the People Act of 2021 — is 791 pages of big election changes. The legislation — a wish list of policies voting rights advocates have urged lawmakers to adopt for years — rethinks the entire voting process: how people register to vote, how ballots are cast and how states conduct elections. The goal is to improve access, particularly for voters of color. The bill would also create public financing systems for campaigns and ethics rules for candidates. “This is the next great civil rights bill,” said Elizabeth Hira, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, who helped craft the bill in her previous job with the House of Representatives. Voting rights advocates say the legislation could help prevent gerrymandering and restrictive voting laws. Wendy Weiser, vice president of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center, said H.R. 1 would “thwart” nearly all of the more than 200 restrictive voting proposals her group has identified in 43 states.

Full Article: Democrats rethink the U.S. voting system. What’s in the massive H.R. 1.

National: The Latest Strategy Against Viral Election Misinformation: The Courtroom | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Voting technology companies, like Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, are using billion-dollar defamation lawsuits to try to repair damage to their brands and bottom lines from conspiracy theories that alleged they were involved in stealing the 2020 election for President Joe Biden. Some see these legal fights as another way to take on viral misinformation, one that’s already starting to show some results. “This goes beyond hoping to stop the disinformation,” said attorney Steve Skarnulis. “The goal that we have is to hold people accountable.” Skarnulis represents Dominion employee Eric Coomer, who remains in hiding after being threatened and falsely accused of manipulating election results. Coomer filed the first defamation lawsuit related to the 2020 election. Skarnulis hopes that in addition to helping Coomer clear his name and return to a normal life, the suits will also serve as a warning. “I hope that it will shock media and other personalities who have the platforms they do, enough that they will be much more cautious about spreading disinformation.”

Full Article: The Latest Strategy Against Viral Election Misinformation: The Courtroom | Colorado Public Radio

National: How GOP-backed voting measures could create hurdles for tens of millions of voters | Amy Gardner, Kate Rabinowitz and Harry Stevens/Washington Post

The GOP’s national push to enact hundreds of new election restrictions could strain every available method of voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially amounting to the most sweeping contraction of ballot access in the United States since the end of Reconstruction, when Southern states curtailed the voting rights of formerly enslaved Black men, a Washington Post analysis has found. In 43 states across the country, Republican lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with such constraints as stricter ID requirements, limited hours or narrower eligibility to vote absentee, according to data compiled as of Feb. 19 by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Even more proposals have been introduced since then. Proponents say the provisions are necessary to shore up public confidence in the integrity of elections after the 2020 presidential contest, when then-President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud convinced millions of his supporters that the results were rigged against him. But in most cases, Republicans are proposing solutions in states where elections ran smoothly, including in many with results that Trump and his allies did not contest or allege to be tainted by fraud. The measures are likely to disproportionately affect those in cities and Black voters in particular, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic — laying bare, critics say, the GOP’s true intent: gaining electoral advantage.

Full Article: Voting laws proposed by Republicans in 43 states would limit voter access – Washington Post

National: Postal Service Delivered Vast Majority Of Mail Ballots On Time, Report Finds | Brian Naylor/NPR

As Americans continue to complain of late-arriving bills, birthday cards and other deliveries, there has been one bright spot in the U.S. Postal Service’s performance in recent months: the 2020 election. The vast majority of mail-in ballots sent during the election arrived on time, according to a report by the Postal Service’s inspector general. The report says the Postal Service processed almost 134 million pieces of election mail — ballots and voter registration materials — sent to and by voters from Sept. 1 through Nov. 3. Of that, 93.8% was delivered on time to meet the agency’s service standard for first class mail of two to five days. That’s an increase of 11% from the 2018 midterm elections. It’s also, the inspector general noted, 5.6% better than on-time delivery rates for all first class mail, a standard the Postal Service has not met for five years. The Post Office’s goal for on-time delivery of first class mail is 96%. Mail advertisements for candidates and issues fared slightly worse, being delivered on time 91.9% of the time, a decrease of 3% from 2018.

Full Article: Majority Of Mail Ballots Delivered On Time By Postal Service : NPR

Arizona House Republican says party thinks ‘everybody shouldn’t be voting’ | Justine Coleman/The Hill

An Arizona House Republican said on Thursday that the state’s GOP is worried about sending ballots out automatically due to election security concerns, noting that “everybody shouldn’t be voting.” Arizona House Rep. John Kavanagh (R) told CNN that Republican lawmakers are concerned ballots sent without being requested to people who have died or moved could contribute to voter fraud, while accusing Democrats of being “willing to risk fraud” to get more votes. “There’s a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they’re willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don’t mind putting security measures in that won’t let everybody vote — but everybody shouldn’t be voting.” “Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they’re totally uninformed on the issues,” he said. “Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.” He also called out Democratic efforts to register voters and get those who haven’t turned in their ballots to do so, saying “you can greatly influence the outcome of the election if one side pays people to actively and aggressively go out and retrieve those ballots.”

Full Article: Arizona House Republican says party thinks ‘everybody shouldn’t be voting’ | TheHill

Arizona Senate working to set up Maricopa election audit | Bob Christie/Associated Press

Arizona’s Republican Senate president said Wednesday she has narrowed the search for a firm to do a full audit of the 2020 election results in the state’s most populous county and plans to invite Democrats to participate in the process. Still, nearly two weeks after a judge sided with the Senate in a fight over access to ballots and elections equipment from Maricopa County’s election, Senate President Karen Fann said there are many details to be worked out. They include just who the Senate will hire to do the audit, what exactly it will entail, how much it will cost taxpayers and where it will be conducted. “We’ve got to work out logistics based on who we select,” Fann said. “They need to give us guidelines for how much space they need, for how many people, how much time, so I can go back to the board of supervisors … and say this is what we need to do the audit.” A judge ruled Feb. 26 that the Senate was entitled to receive all 2.1 million voted ballots and access to vote tabulation machines and other equipment used in the election that saw Democratic President Joe Biden beat former President Donald Trump in the county and statewide. The Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors had fought the Senate subpoenas for more than two months, arguing the ballots were by law secret, the vote machines would be compromised by unauthorized access, and that multiple audits, hand-count checks and other tests showed no issues with the vote tabulations. The judge ruled the Senate had the absolute right to oversee elections and could access the materials.

Full Article: Arizona Senate working to set up Maricopa election audit