Wisconsin: Ron Johnson’s last hearing as chair of the Senate homeland security committee unfolds in post-election acrimony | Craig Gilbert/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Ron Johnson’s final hearing as chairman of the Senate homeland security committee was a divisive and bitter one, devolving at one point Wednesday into a near shouting match between the Wisconsin Republican and the panel’s top Democrat, Gary Peters of Michigan. “This is terrible what you’re doing to this committee,” Peters exclaimed to Johnson. “It is what you have done to this committee,” Johnson answered heatedly. The subject of that angry exchange — the two accused each other of spreading falsehoods — was the role of Russian disinformation, a source of bitter partisan feuding ever since the 2016 election. It was the 2020 election that was the official subject of Wednesday’s hearing. And that provided plenty of acrimony as senators on both sides took turns airing their grievances about the presidential contest and its aftermath. Johnson, who acknowledged Tuesday that Democrat Joe Biden won the election, said Wednesday he hoped the hearing would be a noncontroversial probe into how to improve public confidence in elections. At the same time, he aired broad claims at the hearing of fraud and irregularities made by President Donald Trump’s campaign that have repeatedly failed in court. … “We’re past the point where we need to be having conversations about the outcome of the election,” said the Democrats’ chief witness, Christopher Krebs, a homeland security official that was fired by Trump after he defended the security of the election. Krebs also bemoaned the threats of violence that have been made against local election officials for certifying the outcome of the election, saying: “This is not an America I recognize. It’s got to stop. We need everyone across the leadership ranks to stand up. I would appreciate more support from my own party, the Republican Party, to call this stuff out and to end it. We’ve got to move on. We have a president-elect.”

Full Article: Senate hearing on election leads to acrimony over fraud allegations

Editorial: Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Hagedorn chose the rule of law over political pressure | Paul Higginbotham/Cap Times

A deeply divided Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed President Trump’s claims of election irregularities by Dane County and Milwaukee County in the presidential and state elections earlier this week. The outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision is a reason for serious celebration. The wishes of Wisconsin voters have been given voice to a change in our government. The Supreme Court’s decision is notable for a few reasons, but two stand out. First, conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn authored the opinion for the majority. In his first term on the Supreme Court, Justice Hagedorn has demonstrated the sort of judicial independence we hope all judges and justices would display. This decision is notable for a second, and more disturbing reason — that three of the justices, Chief Justice Patience Roggensack, Rebecca Bradley, and Annette Ziegler — thought that upending a properly administered presidential election in a pique of partisan solidarity was acceptable. The partisan hacks of the Supreme Court failed to muster enough votes to overturn Wisconsin’s election, while sending a message to their far-right colleagues that they are ready and willing to ignore the law in a display of extreme judicial activism. The conservatives often excoriate liberal judges for judicial activism when a decision fails to meet their conservative and right-wing agenda. This time, though, reasonable heads prevailed, and a majority of the Supreme Court put a halt to President Donald Trump’s assault on Wisconsin’s election results. In his lawsuit, Trump sought to have over 220,000 votes tossed out based on alleged irregularities in how Dane County and Milwaukee County administered the election — an argument that could and should have been brought before the election.

Full Article: Paul Higginbotham: Justice Hagedorn chose the rule of law over political pressure | Column | madison.com

Michigan: Paper ballots verified election results, says Dominion CEO in Senate oversight hearing | Samuel Dodge/MLive.com

Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos defended the integrity of his company’s tabulating machines Tuesday during a state Senate Oversight Committee hearing. The company has been the focus of a “disinformation campaign,” Poulos told committee members on Dec. 15, adding that he is not aware of any legal claim against his hardware or software that hasn’t been dismissed or deemed “inaccurate” in court. Even in the slim chance Dominion’s machines were compromised, he said, a hand count of the physical paper ballots would have shown disparities before the vote was certified by the Board of State Canvassers. “All the tabulator does is count the votes of the paper ballots that have been created and securely cast by the voters,” he said during his three-hour testimony. “The number reported by the machine can always be compared to a hand count of those original paper ballots. People can speculate about votes being switched or secret algorithms or glitches, but if any of that were true, the paper ballots wouldn’t match the machine count.” The state canvassing board certified the vote last month, and President Donald Trump has not requested a hand recount. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will conduct a post-election audit, while the Michigan Bureau of Elections and Antrim County officials will tally all ballots by hand there, as many allegations against Dominion center around initial disparities reported in the county on Nov. 3.

Source: Paper ballots verified election results, says Dominion CEO in Senate oversight hearing – mlive.com

Wisconsin: A pandemic. False fraud claims. A misplaced flash drive. How Milwaukee elections chief led high-pressure vote count. | Nora Eckert/Channel 3000

Election workers across the nation have been threatened with violence, accused of tampering with results of the Nov. 3 election, and some have battled a virus that’s killed nearly 300,000 people nationwide. For these people, the desire to serve their communities has come with unexpected tensions because of a bitterly contentious presidential race and the subsequent legal battles over its outcome. Claire Woodall-Vogg has weathered many such challenges in her five months as the top election official in Milwaukee — the largest city in a swing state whose results were scrutinized, criticized and the subject of allegations of “late-night ballot dumps” that favored President-elect Joe Biden. “(It’s been) extremely partisan and divided,” said Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission. “That doesn’t shock me, but the fact that people are supporting someone trying to overturn the actual results is disappointing.” Many of her colleagues laud her performance. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett told Wisconsin Watch that she’s supervised the most transparent election the city has ever seen. Common Council President Cavalier Johnson called her performance “stellar” and her predecessor, Neil Albrecht, said he “couldn’t think of anyone more dedicated to avoiding error.” Her deputy, Jonatan Zuniga, said if she “had a million and one things to do, she did them all.” Still, critics rebuke her missteps, such as mistakenly leaving behind a flash drive in a tabulator on election night, which she later retrieved.

Full Article: A pandemic. False fraud claims. A misplaced flash drive. How Milwaukee elections chief led high-pressure vote count.

National: Former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency to testify as Senate GOP pursues alleged ‘irregularities’ / Allison Pecorin/ABC

Chris Krebs, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency — fired by President Donald Trump after stating there was no evidence of election fraud — is scheduled to testify Wednesday before a GOP-controlled Senate committee claiming it needs to keep investigating unfounded claims about the 2020 election. The hearing “Examining Irregularities in the 2020 Election” was announced by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chair Ron Johnson last week and immediately drew blowback from Democrats who argued that holding a committee challenging the election results would be damaging to democracy. The hearing will come just one day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly stated for the first time that Joe Biden is the president-elect, with many Republicans falling in line behind him. Krebs, who came to public attention after Trump fired him via tweet for claiming that the November election was the “most secure in American history,” was called as a witness by the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. “I am appalled by many of my colleagues’ choice to help spread the President’s lies and false narratives about the outcome of the 2020 election,” Peters said in a statement. “This isn’t simply another partisan political issue – repeating these falsehoods erodes the public’s trust in this fair and free election, lays the groundwork to weaken the public’s trust in future elections, emboldens our adversaries, and undermines our democracy and the peaceful transition of power.”

Full Article: Fired election security official to testify as Senate GOP pursues alleged ‘irregularities’ – ABC News

National: McConnell urges GOP senators not to object to Electoral College vote | Jordain Carney and Alexander Bolton/The Hill

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is urging Republicans not to object during Congress’s count and certification of the Electoral College vote next month. McConnell’s comments were made during a caucus call on Tuesday, according to two sources familiar with the call, and come as House Republicans are eyeing a challenge to the results on Jan. 6 during a joint session of Congress. A Republican senator who participated in the call said that McConnell, Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senate Rules Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) all urged colleagues not to object to states’ electoral votes when they are received on the House floor next month. McConnell warned that any GOP senator who signed onto a House Republican objection to a state’s electoral votes would then force the Senate to debate and vote on the objection, putting fellow GOP senators in a bad position. The GOP leader said an objection “isn’t in the best interest of everybody.” No Senate Republicans indicated during the call that they are currently planning to object.

Full Article: McConnell urges GOP senators not to object to Electoral College vote | TheHill

National: Some GOP-Led States Defy Trump to Push for Expanded Voter Access | Ryan Teague Beckwith/Bloomberg

Some Republican state officials are newly open to expanded voting options after such moves proved popular and the party’s down-ballot candidates won in a high-turnout election, despite President Donald Trump railing against the changes. Republican elections officials and state lawmakers in Kentucky, Missouri and Texas are considering changes that would either make vote-by-mail more accessible or increase early in-person voting. Any such moves would be going against the current in the Republican Party, where Trump’s baseless claims of fraud have spurred GOP state lawmakers in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania to consider tightening requirements on mail-in ballots. Officials in Georgia have even filed suit to curtail the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots and add new layers of scrutiny to the signature-matching process before the Jan. 5 Senate run-off votes.

Full Article: Some GOP-Led States Defy Trump to Push for Expanded Voter Access – Bloomberg

National: The Wrong Hack – Trump has been conspicuously quiet about the SolarWinds hack. | Fred Kaplan/Slate

The attack penetrated at least five U.S. government agencies and 18,000 other users of the Orion network management system, manufactured by a privately traded company called SolarWinds. Those five agencies—the departments of State, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Treasury, and the National Institutes of Health—are the only ones so far identified as victims of the hack, though there may have been others. (Ironically, one mission of Homeland Security is to protect the nation from cyberattack. Jake Williams, principal consultant of Rendition InfoSec and a former official in the National Security Agency’s elite hacker unit, said Monday, in a YouTube video explaining the hack, that the system is used throughout the federal government, including the Defense Department, as well as many “heavy-hitter” private corporations—300,000 customers in all. “Who uses SolarWinds?” Williams asked. “A better question is ‘Who doesn’t use SolarWinds?’ ” One of the customers that the Russians hacked was FireEye, and here they went a hack too far. Analysts at FireEye, one of Silicon Valley’s leading cybersecurity firms, detected the intrusion, analyzed it, and—in an act of unusual transparency—publicized everything they could find out about it. The malware turns out to have been embedded in what appeared to be a software-update message from SolarWinds, sent through SolarWinds servers with a valid digital signature. This sort of attack—which is particularly pernicious because it makes users reluctant to download legitimate software updates—is known as a “software supply-chain attack.” This means the malware came not from any product made by SolarWinds but from a feature or component made by an outside source—a code, a digital library, or any number of other common suppliers—that the company used in making the product. Williams said software supply-chain attacks are “ridiculously hard” to detect or, once detected, to trace. Russian and Chinese intelligence have launched a few of them in recent years. “I suspect,” Williams said, “we are going to see a lot more of them.”

Full Article: Trump has been conspicuously quiet about the SolarWinds hack.

National: Trump took the nation in the wrong direction on cybersecurity, experts say | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

President Trump took the nation in the wrong direction on cybersecurity, according to a solid majority of experts polled by The Cybersecurity 202. During four years in office, Trump failed to hold adversaries including Russia accountable for hacking U.S. targets, removed experienced cyber-defenders from their posts for petty reasons and undermined much of the good work being done on cybersecurity within federal agencies, according to 71 percent of respondents to The Network, a panel of more than 100 cybersecurity experts who participate in our ongoing informal survey. The survey concluded before news broke about probably the most significant breach of the Trump administration — a hack linked to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, that infected at least five federal agencies — the Commerce, Treasury, Homeland Security and State departments as well as the National Institutes of Health — and probably several others, as well as foreign governments and companies across the globe. Yet, the respondents’ comments reflect widespread concern Trump is disinterested in the damage that hack has done to national security, unwilling to take Russia to task and preoccupied instead with his own efforts to sow baseless doubts about his election loss. “Much of the work done … [during the Trump administration] was weakened by a president who didn’t prioritize cyber-issues and who, in many cases, actively undercut any actions or messaging against our adversaries,” said Chris Painter, the State Department cyber-coordinator under President Obama who also served for several months under Trump until his post was eliminated.

Full Article: The Cybersecurity 202: Trump took the nation in the wrong direction on cybersecurity, experts say – The Washington Post

National: The U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks. The Russians outsmarted it. | Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima/The Washington Post

When Russian hackers first slipped their digital Trojan horses into federal government computer systems, probably sometime in the spring, they sat dormant for days, doing nothing but hiding. Then the malicious code sprang into action and began communicating with the outside world. At that moment — when the Russian malware began sending transmissions from federal servers to command-and-control computers operated by the hackers — an opportunity for detection arose, much as human spies behind enemy lines are particularly vulnerable when they radio home to report what they’ve found.Why then, when computer networks at the State Department and other federal agencies started signaling to Russian servers, did nobody in the U.S. government notice that something odd was afoot? Why then, when computer networks at the State Department and other federal agencies started signaling to Russian servers, did nobody in the U.S. government notice that something odd was afoot? The answer is part Russian skill, part federal government blind spot. The Russians, whose operation was discovered this month by a cybersecurity firm that they hacked, were good. After initiating the hacks by corrupting patches of widely used network monitoring software, the hackers hid well, wiped away their tracks and communicated through IP addresses in the United States rather than ones in, say, Moscow to minimize suspicions. The hackers also shrewdly used novel bits of malicious code that apparently evaded the U.S. government’s multibillion-dollar detection system, Einstein, which focuses on finding new uses of known malware and also detecting connections to parts of the Internet used in previous hacks. But Einstein, operated by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), was not equipped to find novel malware or Internet connections, despite a 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office suggesting that building such capability might be a wise investment. Some private cybersecurity firms do this type of “hunting” for suspicious communications — maybe an IP address to which a server has never before connected — but Einstein doesn’t.

Full Article: The U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks. The Russians outsmarted it. – The Washington Post

Arizona Senate Republicans subpoena Maricopa County on election | Andrew Oxford and Jen Fifield/Arizona Republic

Arizona Senate Republicans said Tuesday they sent subpoenas to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors seeking images of all mail-in ballots counted during the 2020 general election and a large pile of other records. Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, said she anticipates the county will conduct an audit of the election results but that if it does not, the Senate would proceed with its own. County election officials already conducted a routine bipartisan audit, counting a sample of ballots by hand to double-check the results. Maricopa County reported that it got a 100% match. Republican legislators have nonetheless claimed there were widespread irregularities during the election. Judges have rejected those claims in court but that has not deterred lawmakers, who have sought to rally their base by insisting fraud occurred. “The goal is to verify the machines did what they are supposed to do,” Fann said.

Full Article: Arizona Senate Republicans subpoena Maricopa County on election

Arizona judge scraps election fraud lawsuit in which plaintiff not registered voter | Maria Polletta/Arizona Republic

A Pinal County Superior Court judge on Tuesday jettisoned a lawsuit claiming widespread election fraud in Arizona, saying the plaintiff had no standing to challenge the state’s election results because she was not registered to vote. Judge Kevin White also said former Gilbert Public Schools Board President Staci Burk had waited too long to file her complaint, and allowing it to proceed would “circumvent the strong public policy supporting prompt resolution of election cases.” Burk filed the case Dec. 7, seven days after state officials certified Arizona’s Nov. 3 results. Voters have a five-day window to bring election contests. Her claims closely mirrored those in another suit that was making its way through federal court at the time: Both alleged “massive election fraud” in Arizona involving Dominion voting machines, foreign interference and illegal votes, and both named Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Gov. Doug Ducey as defendants.

Full Article: AZ election fraud suit in which plaintiff not registered voter tossed

Colorado: 8-hour, Republican-led hearing on election integrity ends without of evidence widespread fraud | Jesse Paul/The Colorado Sun

There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Colorado presented during a day-long, legislative hearing held by Republicans Tuesday on the state’s election integrity. But there was plenty of bipartisan praise for Colorado’s voting systems and processes. “We are the gold standard for voting in our country,” said El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Chuck Broerman, a Republican. “Everybody wants to be like Colorado.” The Legislative Audit Committee hearing, held at the Colorado Capitol with some lawmakers participating virtually because of the pandemic, was initiated by Republican members of the state House, namely Rep. Lori Saine, the panel’s GOP chairwoman. It happened under the backdrop of persisting, baseless claims from President Donald Trump about mass voter fraud that cost him reelection. Saine, who lives in Firestone, told The Colorado Sun before the meeting that she called for it after hearing concerns from constituents. “You’ve got certain states with election integrity issues,” she said last week. “But did it happen here in Colorado? It’s really kind of on us to help answer that question. Did it happen here? Did we have widespread fraud?” The resounding answer from county clerks, Republican former Secretary of States Scott Gessler and Wayne Williams, and even Jenna Ellis, a top attorney for Trump, was no.

Full Article: 8-hour, Republican-led hearing on Colorado’s election integrity ends without of evidence widespread fraud – The Colorado Sun

Georgia to Review Mail-in Ballot Signatures to Boost Confidence in Elections | Alexa Corse/Wall Street Journal

Georgia will audit signatures submitted by absentee voters in one county, after President Trump and his allies called for such a review as they continued to question President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who announced the review on Monday, has said the audit wouldn’t change the outcome of the presidential race in Georgia. “Now that the signature matching has been attacked again and again with no evidence, I feel we need to take steps to restore confidence in our elections,” Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, said Monday at the state Capitol. The secretary of state’s office will work with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to audit signatures in the Atlanta suburb of Cobb County, which is expected to take two weeks, Mr. Raffensperger said. The secretary of state’s office also plans to work with a university to conduct a statewide signature match audit, he said. Also in Georgia, voting is under way for the hotly contested Jan. 5 Senate runoffs, which will determine control of the U.S. Senate. More than 482,000 votes already have been cast, including roughly 314,000 absentee by-mail ballots and 168,000 early in-person votes as of Tuesday morning, the secretary of state’s office said. Election officials were already required to verify signatures before ballots were counted in Georgia. Absentee voters had to sign the outside of the envelope, not the ballot. Election officials had to compare that signature with the voter’s registration file. If the signatures were consistent, the envelopes were then separated from the ballots to protect the privacy of voter’s choices. Election officials also verified signatures on paper applications for an absentee ballot. Mr. Raffensperger has said state investigators haven’t found evidence of widespread fraud. Two recounts, one by hand and one by machine, confirmed Mr. Biden’s victory in Georgia.

Full Article: Georgia to Review Mail-in Ballot Signatures to Boost Confidence in Elections – WSJ

Hawaii: Elections Officials Want To Tweak state’s Mail-Voting Law Next Year | Blaze Lovell/Honolulu Civil Beat

Hawaii Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago plans to ask the Legislature for changes to Hawaii’s mail voting system that could make it easier for officials to open more in-person voting sites and give voters more time to fill their ballots. In a report to the state Elections Commission, Nago said the Office of Elections plans to propose several measures. Chief among them is one that would give county election officials more flexibility than currently allowed under the law to open more voter centers, an issue that came to a head on Nov. 3 when thousands of voters waited for hours in lines outside Hawaii’s eight voter centers — especially in at Kapolei and Honolulu Hale. Right now, all centers must be open at uniform times for a 10-day period before Election Day. Maui County Clerk Kathy Kaohu has previously said that hampered efforts to open another voter center in Hana, where some residents made a more than two-hour drive to cast ballots at the island’s only center in Wailuku in November. Nago said the idea is to establish more voter centers in the days leading up to and on Election Day. Other mail voting states, like Colorado, ramp up the number of in-person voting options in the days before an election. Despite calls from good government and voting rights groups, officials stuck with just eight centers all the way through Election Day, citing that state law requiring uniform times as one impediment to opening more.

Full Article: Elections Officials Want To Tweak Hawaii’s Mail-Voting Law Next Year – Honolulu Civil Beat

Michigan: Dominion’s C.E.O. defends his firm’s voting machines to Michigan lawmakers, denouncing a ‘reckless disinformation campaign.’ | Kathleen Gray/The New York Times

A day after Michigan’s 16 electoral votes formally went to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., a voting machine manufacturer told state senators that he stood by his company’s work, and shot down unfounded allegations that the results may have been manipulated. Dominion Voting Systems is the victim of “a dangerous and reckless disinformation campaign aimed at sowing doubt and confusion over the 2020 presidential election,” John Poulos, the company’s chief executive, told the State Senate Oversight Committee. The company has come under fire from supporters and lawyers for President Trump, who have claimed without evidence that the company’s voting machines switched votes from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden. Mr. Poulos assured the committee that his company had no connections to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, or George Soros, the billionaire financier who is a subject of conspiracy theories on the right. “The comments about our company being started in Venezuela with Cuban money with the intent to steal elections are beyond bizarre and are complete lies,” Mr. Poulos added. “My company started in my basement, which happened to be in Toronto.”

Source: Dominion’s C.E.O. defends his firm’s voting machines to Michigan lawmakers, denouncing a ‘reckless disinformation campaign.’ – The New York Times

Michigan: Trump wrongly claims defect with voting machines | Paul Egan and Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

In a Tuesday tweet, Trump claimed there was a “68% error rate in Michigan Voting Machines. Should be, by law, a tiny percentage of one percent.” He suggested Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson would face legal scrutiny for the alleged errors. “Did Michigan Secretary of State break the law? Stay tuned!” Trump wrote. Trump was reacting to a consultant’s report that a judge made public Monday in connection with an election lawsuit in Antrim County, in northern Michigan, where a misapplied software update initially led to incorrect unofficial results being reported on election night. But Trump’s tweet misinterprets the findings of the report, which itself presents a misleading picture. Michigan vote tabulators do not read ballots incorrectly 68% of the time. Nor is that statement true if applied only to the Antrim County tabulators in the Nov. 3 election. And the report Trump reacted to, while ambiguous and inaccurate on the subject of errors, does not make that claim. The report is signed by cybersecurity analyst Russell James Ramsland Jr. of Allied Security Operations Group, a firm whose representatives have provided analyses and affidavits for lawsuits brought by Trump allies, falsely alleging voter fraud and election irregularities. In one such analysis on voter turnout, Ramsland mistook voting jurisdictions in Minnesota for Michigan towns. In another, filed in support of a federal lawsuit in Michigan, he made inaccurate claims about voter turnout in various municipalities, misstating them as much as tenfold.

Full Article: Trump wrongly claims defect with Michigan voting machines

North Carolina state senator OK with suspending civil liberties in wake of Trump’s defeat | Travis Fain/WRAL

A North Carolina senator suggested Tuesday that the president might suspend basic liberties to overturn an election that he believes, without evidence, was stolen. Sen. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, paraphrased on his Facebook page comments that retired Gen. Thomas McInerney made earlier this month on a conservative talk show. Among other things, McInerney suggested President Donald Trump declare a national emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act and suspend habeas corpus. Steinburg told WRAL News on Tuesday evening that he wasn’t endorsing the idea, just “putting out there options that others say still remain on the table,” though he later said he’d be on board with it. In an extended harangue, Steinburg also made it clear he believes the recent presidential election was stolen and that Trump is the victim of a conspiracy to which multiple countries, the media, U.S. government agencies, officials and judges are either a part or turning a blind eye. “There’s something going on here bigger than what anybody is willing to talk about,” he said. “I’m not nuts. … I’m not a conspiracy theory person. I don’t like them. I don’t like conspiracy theories at all. But something is going on here that’s bigger than meets the eye.” Steinburg then offered, unprompted, to take a psychiatric evaluation. He said the CIA and FBI both know there’s a coup d’etat going on in the country but won’t do anything about it.

Full Article: NC senator OK with suspending civil liberties in wake of Trump’s defeat :: WRAL.com

Pennsylvania: He Wanted to Count Every Vote in Philadelphia. His Party Had Other Ideas. | James Vireni/The New York Times

Opposing crowds of protesters gathered outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia on the night of Thursday, Nov. 5. One side chanted, ‘Count every vote!’ and the other, ‘Stop the steal!’ Police officers separated the crowds. Sheriff’s deputies guarded the convention center. National Guard troops were stationed around the city. Satellite vans lined the streets, and news crews from New York, Washington, Paris and Tokyo were broadcasting. Joseph R. Biden had at least 253 electoral votes. A win for him in Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes, would decide the race. He and Donald Trump had spent more time in Pennsylvania than in any other state in the last weeks of the race and had closed out their campaigns there. The world was focused on Philadelphia and in particular on the convention center, where, two days after Election Day, the city’s mail-in ballots were still being tallied. Trump led by roughly 18,000 votes in the state. In the Friday predawn, Al Schmidt stepped from his room in the Aloft Hotel, which adjoins the convention center. His watch read 5 a.m. That meant little: Hours, and for that matter days, had lost significance for Schmidt, one of three city commissioners on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections. He had been working seven days a week since the June primary. He hadn’t slept in — he couldn’t say for sure. Three days? Maybe four. Time and the democratic process had become indistinguishable.

Full Article: He Wanted to Count Every Vote in Philadelphia. His Party Had Other Ideas. – The New York Times

Tennessee Defends In-Person Voting Rules at Sixth Circuit | Kevin Koeninger/Courthouse News Service

The state of Tennessee asked a panel of judges Tuesday to reinstate a voting law that requires first-time voters to cast ballots in person, arguing the restriction helps ensure the integrity of elections. The Volunteer State asked the Sixth Circuit in October for a decision without oral arguments so the law could be reinstated before the November election, but the Cincinnati-based appeals court refused and instead scheduled Tuesday’s hearing. U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson, an appointee of President Donald Trump, suspended the law with an injunction in September, after the Memphis A. Philip Randolph Institute and the NAACP filed suit in federal court and claimed the Covid-19 pandemic required the state to allow more of its voters to use absentee ballots. Richardson found the Tennessee Conference of the NAACP had associational standing to bring the suit based on testimony from 20-year-old college student and member Corey Sweet, who told the court he was unsure of how to vote in the 2020 election. In his brief to the appeals court, Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett argued Richardson lacked jurisdiction to issue the injunction because Sweet failed to meet absentee voting eligibility requirements that were wholly unrelated to the first-time voter law. Hargett said Richardson “overstated the burden imposed by the first-time voter requirement,” a burden he called minimal at most, and argued the ruling impacted the ability of the state to verify voters and ensure the integrity of its elections. In their brief to the appeals court, the voting rights groups argued that even if Sweet’s claim was mooted when he became ineligible to vote absentee, the NAACP’s standing is maintained because at least a portion of its more than 10,000 Tennessee members “will be similarly affected by the first-time voter restriction.”

Full Article: Tennessee Defends In-Person Voting Rules at Sixth Circuit

Wisconsin Supreme Court Was One Vote Away From Flipping the State to Trump | Ed Kilgore/New York Magazine

It didn’t get much attention because it happened the very day the Electoral College formally awarded Joe Biden the presidency, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court only narrowly rejected a bid by the Trump campaign to throw out over 200,000 absentee ballots in the state’s two most Democratic counties. The 4-3 decision by what is generally considered the most polarized and politically driven high court in the country involved one conservative justice (Brian Hagedorn) joining three liberal colleagues in rejecting the Trump petition, mostly because it addressed alleged improper local election practices that were apparent long before balloting occurred. The legal doctrine of “laches” (undue delay in asserting a legal right or privilege) was emphasized in the majority opinion. But in dissent, three conservative justices (in an opinion written by Chief Justice Patience Drake Roggensack) agreed with the Trump campaign’s claims that election officials in Dane and Milwaukee Counties violated state laws by instructing election clerks to correct small errors in the addresses listed for witnesses of absentee ballot signatures. They also objected to Dane County accepting absentee ballots at a preelection “Democracy in the Park” event in Madison, regarding it as a form of unauthorized early in-person voting. The dissenters did not address a third Trump claim that voters claiming “indefinitely confined” status due to the COVID-19 pandemic were illegally allowed to evade photo ID requirements.

Full Article: Wisconsin Supreme Court Was Close to Flipping State to Trump

Electoral College Vote Officially Affirms Biden’s Victory | Nick Corasaniti and Jim Rutenberg/The New York Times

It began at 10 a.m. in New Hampshire, where electors met in a statehouse chamber festooned with holiday decorations and gave their four votes to Joseph R. Biden Jr. By noon on Monday, the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, ground zero for many of President Trump’s fruitless lawsuits, had backed Mr. Biden too. In New York, Bill and Hillary Clinton voted for Mr. Biden along with 27 other electors. And when California cast its 55 votes for Mr. Biden around 5:30 p.m. Eastern time, it pushed him past the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, putting the official seal on his victory after weeks of efforts by Mr. Trump to use legal challenges and political pressure to overturn the results. With the Electoral College vote behind him, Mr. Biden called for unity while forcefully denouncing the president and his allies for their assault on the nation’s voting system. In an address in Wilmington, Del., on Monday night, he said the Republican efforts to get the Supreme Court to undo the result represented a “position so extreme we’ve never seen it before,” and called the attacks on election officials at the local level “unconscionable.” Mr. Biden said that “it is time to turn the page” on the election. Praising officials who stood up for the integrity of the system, he added: “It was honest, it was free and it was fair. They saw it with their own eyes. And they wouldn’t be bullied into saying anything different.” For all of the turmoil that Mr. Trump had stirred with his conspiracy theories, lawsuits and baseless claims of fraud, the Electoral College vote that sealed Mr. Biden’s victory was mostly a staid, formal affair, devoid of drama. As it always is.

Full Article: Electoral College Vote Officially Affirms Biden’s Victory – The New York Times

Amid a fusillade of baseless claims, Georgia sees a normal start to early voting in Senate runoffs | Cleve R. Wootson Jr./The Washington Post

Around 3 p.m. Monday, Tania Thompson pulled her car into the parking lot of the C.T. Martin Natatorium and Recreation Center for the second time in a day. She and her neighbor had first come to cast their ballots shortly after the early-voting location had opened, but they found a line nearly wrapped around the building. They opted to return in the afternoon, hoping for a shorter line and warmer temperatures. “I want to feel like my voice has been heard,” Thompson, 47, an immigrant originally from Jamaica, told The Washington Post. She said it was especially important at a time when her state is in the national spotlight and its voting system is under attack by President Trump. “It’s nonsense,” she said of the president’s voting fraud claims. “I don’t feel like there is any merit to what he has been saying. All he’s doing is causing division. I just feel like he’s grasping at straws.” Georgia voters streamed to early-voting locations Monday, the first day they could cast ballots in the extraordinary pair of runoffs that will culminate Jan. 5 and determine which party controls the Senate. Voters cast ballots despite — and in some cases because of — the fusillade of baseless claims Trump has directed at Georgia officials in the weeks since he lost the state to President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 general election. For the first time since Trump began to wage his failed effort to overturn the results here and in several other swing states, voting commenced once again — with many casting ballots using the same Dominion machines the president’s allies have falsely claimed were rigged to benefit Biden.

Full Article: Early voting begins in crucial Georgia Senate run-offs amid a fusillade of baseless claims – The Washington Post

National: Electoral College makes it official: Biden won, Trump lost | Mark Sherman/Associated Press

The Electoral College decisively confirmed Joe Biden on Monday as the nation’s next president, ratifying his November victory in an authoritative state-by-state repudiation of President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede he had lost. The presidential electors gave Biden a solid majority of 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, the same margin that Trump bragged was a landslide when he won the White House four years ago. Heightened security was in place in some states as electors met to cast paper ballots, with masks, social distancing and other pandemic precautions the order of the day. The results will be sent to Washington and tallied in a Jan. 6 joint session of Congress over which Vice President Mike Pence will preside. For all Trump’s unsupported claims of fraud, there was little suspense and no change as every one of the electoral votes allocated to Biden and the president in last month’s popular vote went officially to each man. On Election Day, the Democrat topped the incumbent Republican by more than 7 million in the popular vote nationwide. California’s 55 electoral votes put Biden over the top. Vermont, with 3 votes, was the first state to report. Hawaii, with 4 votes, was the last.

Full Article: Electoral College makes it official: Biden won, Trump lost

National: Electoral college affirms Biden’s victory on a relatively calm day of a chaotic election | Elise Viebeck, Dan Simmons, Amy Worden and Omar Sofradzija/The Washington Post

President-elect Joe Biden achieved formal victory over President Trump on Monday, winning his 306 votes in the electoral college and advancing one more step toward inauguration even as die-hard Trump supporters redoubled their efforts to stop the normal transfer of power. Electors gathered in every state and the District of Columbia for a day-long series of votes that delivered no surprises for either Trump or Biden. The proceedings harked back to more typical presidential elections and stood in contrast with the unprecedented — though fruitless — six weeks of legal and procedural chaos triggered by Trump’s refusal to accept his loss. There were signs Monday that some of the president’s most ardent supporters would not abandon his cause, as groups of Republicans in six key battleground states held their own unofficial electoral-college-style votes for Trump. Though major protests did not materialize, threats of harassment and violence cast a shadow over elector meetings in several states.

Full Article: Electoral college affirms Biden’s victory on a relatively calm day of a chaotic election – The Washington Post

National: Election tech company Smartmatic demands retractions from Fox, Newsmax, OAN over conspiracy theories | Kevin Breuninger/CNBC

Smartmatic, the election technology company that has become embroiled in unfounded conspiracy theories about rigged voting in the 2020 presidential race, on Monday said it is issuing legal notices to three conservative media outlets demanding retractions “for publishing false and defamatory statements.” The Florida-based company has been targeted by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who is leading the Trump campaign’s long-shot attempts to undo Joe Biden’s projected presidential victory. Smartmatic in a press release said its letters to Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network make clear that the company “is reserving all its legal rights and remedies, including its right to pursue defamation and disparagement claims.” The legal notice to Fox, shared with CNBC, accuses the news outlet of engaging “in a concerted disinformation campaign against Smartmatic.” That 20-page letter cites dozens of claims, most of which were made on Fox’s air by Giuliani and attorney Sidney Powell, who was formerly affiliated with the campaign and has filed multiple unsuccessful lawsuits alleging fraud in key swing states won by Biden. The majority of those statements were delivered in mid-November on programs hosted by Maria Bartiromo or Lou Dobbs, both of whom are also accused of making their own defamatory claims about Smartmatic. Additionally, the letter includes references to statements made on a Fox program hosted by Jeanine Pirro, along with one statement made by Fox host Jesse Watters.

Source: Smartmatic demands retractions from Fox, Newsmax, OAN

National: There is not and has not been any credible evidence of significant fraud in the 2020 election | Philip Bump/The Washington Post

One of the most striking parts of Tim Alberta’s interviews of 20 Americans who did — and didn’t — vote in this year’s presidential election is how often they based their assumptions on untrue claims. “It seems a Republican for president always has to win by a large enough margin to overcome the widespread election fraud that Democrats seem so comfortable with and prone toward. He failed to do that,” an Illinois Trump voter said to Alberta in an email. “I thought it remarkable that what I regard as credible-sounding fraud allegations are getting so little attention.” Asked about the source of this claim, the voter pointed to articles from the right-wing website American Spectator. We have evaluated this claim over and over since the election, but it persists within the public imagination quite stubbornly. Given that the results of the election have moved past any serious point of contention with the votes of the presidential electors on Monday, it’s worth delineating as robustly as possible why the assertion that the contest was marred by fraud are meritless. It’s worth, in other words, trying to explain why skepticism of the result is often based on erroneous logic and bad information. At the outset, I’ll note that I fully recognize that this article will be treated with skepticism of its own simply because it originates at The Washington Post. There has been a lengthy effort to paint this publication as untrustworthy that predates President Trump’s time in office, just as there has been an effort to suggest that electoral results are subject to rampant fraud for much longer than the past four years. I just ask that any such skepticism be set aside for the moment, so that the evidence can be considered on its own merits.

Full Article: There is not and has not been any credible evidence of significant fraud in the 2020 election – The Washington Post

National: Suspected Russian hackers spied on U.S. Treasury emails – sources | Christopher Bing/Reuters

Hackers believed to be working for Russia have been monitoring internal email traffic at the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, according to people familiar with the matter, adding they feared the hacks uncovered so far may be the tip of the iceberg. The hack is so serious it led to a National Security Council meeting at the White House on Saturday, said one of the people familiar with the matter. U.S. officials have not said much publicly beyond the Commerce Department confirming there was a breach at one of its agencies and that they asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate. National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot added that they “are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation.” The U.S. government has not publicly identified who might be behind the hacking, but three of the people familiar with the investigation said Russia is currently believed to be responsible for the attack. Two of the people said that the breaches are connected to a broad campaign that also involved the recently disclosed hack on FireEye, a major U.S. cybersecurity company with government and commercial contracts.

Full Article: Suspected Russian hackers spied on U.S. Treasury emails – sources | Reuters

National: Hack at Treasury and Commerce spurs emergency order from CISA | Justin Katz/FCW

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency late Sunday night issued an emergency directive in response to a sophisticated cyberattack mandating all federal civilian agencies stop using SolarWinds’ Orion products “immediately.” “The compromise of SolarWinds’ Orion Network Management Products poses unacceptable risks to the security of federal networks,” said CISA acting Director Brandon Wales. The “directive is intended to mitigate potential compromises within federal civilian networks, and we urge all our partners — in the public and private sectors — to assess their exposure to this compromise and to secure their networks against any exploitation.” CISA also said that federal agencies using SolarWinds products should provide a completion report to the CISA by noon Monday. SolarWinds, which provides IT management and monitoring products, boasts a long list of government customers including the Defense Department, NASA and NSA as well as “425 of the U.S. Fortune 500″ companies,” according to company’s website, The order is just the fifth binding operational directive issued by CISA in its history. Hackers – likely backed by Russia, according to analysts and government sources – breached both the Commerce and Treasury Departments’ networks, Reuters first reported Sunday afternoon. The news hit several days after FireEye announced its own network was compromised and cyber exploits used to test client networks were stolen.

Full Article: Hack at Treasury and Commerce spurs emergency order from CISA — FCW

National: Top Judiciary Democrat’s bill would criminalize threats to election officials | John Kruzel/TheHill

A top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee launched an effort Monday to beef up criminal penalties for threats against election officials, which have escalated dramatically as President Trump has pressed baseless voter fraud claims following his electoral loss. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.), who serves as vice chair of the influential panel, urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a letter to investigate serious threats against election officials and poll workers that have come amid an increasingly hostile campaign of post-election misinformation. She also introduced a bill that would build on existing election-related legal protections and broaden criminal punishment against perpetrators. “You have to think about the fact that most of our elections are run by volunteers from our communities, who are [typically] seniors,” she told The Hill in an interview. “These are our friends and neighbors who suddenly found themselves very much in a bullseye of national attention, through no fault of their own and without any basis.” Scanlon’s election security push comes as state electors gathered across the country on Monday to finalize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. That process normally occurs in relative obscurity and far away from the glare of partisan politics. But in the key battleground state of Michigan — which Biden won by more than 154,000 votes — security concerns forced legislative office buildings to close for electoral voting. State Rep. Kevin Hertel (D) tweeted on Sunday that the closure was occurring “because credible threats have been made as Michigan’s electors to the Electoral College will meet at the Capitol.”

Full Article: Top Judiciary Democrat’s bill would criminalize threats to election officials | TheHill