National: GOP support for mail voting is growing, despite Trump | Eliza Newlin Carney/The Fulcrum

President Trump’s increasingly hyperbolic attacks on voting by mail, amplified by Attorney General William Barr and the Republican National Committee, have triggered alarms that the country is heading toward another contested election. Trump appears to be gearing up to cast doubt on an outcome that doesn’t go his way. Primaries marred by hours-long lines, voting machine malfunctions and controversies over absentee ballots have many bracing for a meltdown starting Election Day. A much bigger surge of mailed-in votes in November virtually guarantees the results won’t be known for days, setting the stage for a crisis in voter confidence if the results are close enough to be challenged, as happened in 2000. Yet for all that, voting rights advocates mobilizing to secure the election and neutralize Trump’s divisive voting rhetoric have surprising and influential allies in their corner: many leading Republicans. GOP governors, Republican election officials and prominent conservatives are increasingly pushing to expand voting by mail. They’re also forcefully rejecting Trump’s baseless claims the practice is “corrupt” because it invites fraud and foreign tampering — and helps Democrats, to boot.

National: DHS Looks to Expand Tracking of Election Interference Through Social Media | Brandi Vincent/Nextgov

The Homeland Security Department intends to tap into custom-created algorithms, analytics and commercially-offered services to trace and capture deliberate efforts by foreign state and non-state actors to sway Americans’ views via social media leading up to the 2020 election. Four months before voters head to the polls, the agency—through its Office of Intelligence and Analysis Cyber Mission Center—released a solicitation asking contractors to speedily weigh in on services they can provide to collect and analyze potential foreign influence using online posts, and ultimately produce social media-centered intelligence products to enhance election security. “Currently, there is a significant amount of foreign influence activity targeting U.S. 2020 elections on social media platforms, and the [intelligence community’s] lack of capability and resources in this area result in this activity being left largely untracked. Agencies with the requisite expertise and tradecraft to do this work are building the capability but those efforts will not be operational in time to help defend the 2020 general election,” officials wrote in a request for quotations published Tuesday evening. “An urgent and compelling need exists to build the capacity to detect and mitigate foreign influence operations conducted against the U.S. using social media in time for the 2020 U.S. elections.”

National: Barbara Simons honored as leading voice in technology policy arena | James M. Patterson/Tunis Daily News

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today named Barbara Simons the recipient of the 2019 ACM Policy Award for long-standing, high-impact leadership as ACM President and founding Chair of ACM’s US Public Policy Committee (USACM), while making influential contributions to improve the reliability of and public confidence in election technology. Over several decades, Simons has advanced technology policy by founding and leading organizations, authoring influential publications, and effecting change through lobbying and public education. Twenty-six years ago, Barbara Simons founded USACM to address emerging public policy issues around technology, and led the committee for nine years. She worked to build ACM’s policy activities and pioneered bridging the technical expertise of computer scientists with the policymaking of the US government. Simons recruited an interdisciplinary team for USACM, the forerunner of today’s US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC), ranging from computer scientists and industry leaders to lawyers and experts in public policy. Now part of ACM’s Technology Policy Council (TPC), which serves global regions, the TPC groups have continued Simons’ original vision for ACM: to provide cogent advice and analysis to legislators and policymakers about a wide range of issues including cryptography, computer security, privacy, and intellectual property.

Editorials: How to Prevent an Electoral Crisis | William A. Galston(Wall Street Journal

With crises accumulating, the last thing America needs is a divisive debate about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. But unless we’re skillful and lucky, this is what we’ll get. A recent survey by the bipartisan Voter Study Group found that 57% of Democrats “say it would be appropriate for a Democrat to call for a do-over election because of interference by a foreign government,” and 38% of Democrats would find such a call “appropriate if a Democrat won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College.” As for Republicans, 29% “say it would be appropriate for President Trump to refuse to leave office based on claims of illegal voting in the 2020 election.” Joe Biden has charged that “this president is going to try to steal this election.” President Trump has gone much further. Last week, he tweeted that “because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history.” Though there is scant evidence to support this allegation, the president’s tweet draws attention to election integrity. The recent upsurge of Covid-19 infections has made it clear that the pandemic will still be with us in the fall. Many citizens will be reluctant to stand in long lines for the privilege of voting in enclosed spaces. A much higher share of the vote will be cast by mail than ever before. Inevitably, votes will be counted more slowly than usual. The results in closely contested states may not be known for days. In the interim, the president and his supporters may renew the charge his tweets have foreshadowed, propelling us into a political conflict more serious than the disputed 2000 election.

Colorado: Voters set state primary record for turnout, with more than 99% using mail ballot | Blair Miller/The Denver Channel

Colorado voters produced the largest turnout in a state primary in history during Tuesday’s 2020 primary election, with more than 99% of votes cast on mail-in ballots, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said Wednesday. As of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, 1,577,347 ballots had been returned – meaning that turnout was about 45% of current active voters – the highest ever in a non-presidential primary in Colorado and easily topping the 2018 state primary turnout of 37.6%, in which 1,171,088 ballots were cast. That year was the first in which unaffiliated voters could participate in primary elections in the state. While ballots are still being processed and military and overseas ballots are still coming in, Griswold said that 99.3% of ballots so far were either mailed back or returned via drop boxes. She again lauded Colorado’s system. “In midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Colorado just set a record turnout for a state primary. A total of 99.3% of voters cast a mail ballot, and there were not lengthy lines or wait times reported at in-person voting centers,” Griswold said in a statement. “Despite misleading attacks, disinformation, and attempts to make vote-by-mail a partisan issue, Colorado’s election proves that mail ballots are the key to accessible voting during this health crisis.”

Connecticut: Republicans sue to block Lamont emergency COVID order permitting all-absentee ballot primary election | Edmund H. Mahony/Hartford CourantHartford Courant

Four Republican candidates for Congress are trying to block the state from implementing an emergency pandemic order by Gov. Ned Lamont that could dramatically increase the use of absentee ballots for the state’s delayed Aug. 11 primary by distributing them to any voter who claims to be worried about contracting the coronavirus at the polls. The candidates are part of a group called Fight Voter Fraud and their suit targets Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, the state’s chief election officer. The suit contends Merrill has interpreted the emergency order so broadly that the absentee ballot applications prepared by her office encourage absentee voting by everyone, putting the integrity of primary elections at risk. “Today Fight Voter Fraud Inc. filed a lawsuit with the Connecticut Supreme Court on behalf of candidates on the August 11, 2020 ballot who wish to have a fair, honest, and constitutional election.,” the candidates said in a statement. “The lawsuit asks the Court to order (Secretary of the State) Denise Merrill to stop sending voters applications that misinform about the true legal requirements for voting by absentee ballot.”

Georgia: Georgia election board extends rules for absentee voting | David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The State Election Board on Wednesday extended two temporary rules that will make it easier to process large numbers of absentee ballots for November’s general election. The first rule will allow local election officials to continue to provide drop boxes for absentee ballots — instead of requiring voters to mail the ballots or deliver them to election offices by hand. The second will allow election officials to process — but not tally — those ballots before election day. The board adopted both rules on a temporary basis leading up to the June 9 primary election. Wednesday’s vote extended the emergency measures for an additional six months, and the board is expected to make them permanent before November. The move is a sign that absentee ballots are likely to play a substantial role in Georgia elections moving forward — at least during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also the latest sign the state is trying to salvage what lessons it can from the June 9 election fiasco that drew national condemnation. “We want to let Georgians know that we are all going to work together to make the elections in August, November and January a success,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told the election board.

Iowa: Lawmakers approve special election changes, turn down Democratic absentee ballot request | Stephen Gruber-Miller/Des Moines Register

A group of top Iowa lawmakers Wednesday approved the first request made by the Iowa Secretary of State’s office to make emergency changes to the state’s election procedures since a new law went into effect last month. But the panel also turned down a Democratic request to allow the state office to send absentee ballot request forms to all registered Iowa voters. Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, signed a law last week restricting Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, and any future secretary of state from making emergency changes to election procedures without first getting approval from the 24-member Legislative Council. The group is made up of Democratic and Republican lawmakers and controlled by Republicans. In the first test of the new law, the council met by phone Wednesday and granted Pate’s request to allow military personnel and overseas citizens the option to submit their ballots electronically to their county auditor when voting in seven July 7 special elections for vacant city council and county supervisor seats.

Michigan: State issues more than 1 million absentee ballots, sees surge in voter registration | Todd Spangler/Detroit Free Press

Amid ongoing uncertainties about coronavirus and with the Aug. 4 primary approaching, Michigan is seeing a surge in new voter registrations and requests for absentee ballots. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office provided data Wednesday showing that local clerks across Michigan have received a total of more than 1.3 million requests for absentee ballots. The data shared with the Free Press also indicated more than a million absentee ballots have already been sent out. That’s about 3½ times the number of applications received and ballots issued ahead of the August primary in the last presidential election cycle in 2016. In May, Benson announced that because of fears that crowded polling places could lead to the spread of coronavirus, she would work with local clerks to ensure that all of Michigan’s 7.7 million registered voters received absentee ballot applications.

Ohio: Cybersecurity experts already see threats to voters in November elections | Larry Seward/WCPO

Ohio cybersecurity experts believe voters are vulnerable to threats as they prepare to cast their ballots in the November election. The Ohio Cyber Range Institute, based at the University of Cincinnati, is working on fighting those threats and protecting critical election infrastructure. As November approaches, Ohio Cyber Range researchers said they see two types of threats on the horizon: Voter manipulation through social media and efforts to fuel doubt in election results. “What we see behind the scenes are actors who are making certain things viral,” said Richard Harknett, the institute’s co-director and head of UC’s political science department. “They use ‘bot nets’ to drive likes and dislikes to get things in front of us that, really, the majority of people are not clicking on.” Harknett said he also believes Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are trying to leverage the coronavirus pandemic to create skepticism of election results by exploiting changes in vote-by-mail processes and delays. He said there is already evidence of this as results came in during May primaries.

Pennsylvania: Legislature will take up election law changes starting next week | Emily Previti/PA Post

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is suing Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and all 67 county election boards, as we reported earlier this week. The federal lawsuit makes several claims, including that counties violated Pa.’s election code by offering ballot dropoff in secure boxes at libraries, shopping centers and other places that aren’t polling places or county election offices. The election code portions cited in the complaint require voters to mail their ballots or deliver them in person to their county board of election. We wondered: How strong is the case the Trump campaign is making about the legality of ballot dropboxes used during the primary? Now that this issue is the subject of litigation, the Department of State, most county officials and the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania aren’t commenting. At least not yet. So, we asked Chris Deluzio, policy director for the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security. “The statute doesn’t say you have to hand it to a person, or drop it at an office, in a box, a lobby, a building, etc.,” says Deluzio, who thinks counties should expand ballot dropoff options for the Nov. 3 general election. “County boards [also] weren’t treating these locations as polling sites, they were treating them as the functional equivalent of personal delivery to the boards of elections.”

Brazil: Municipal Elections Delayed Amid Coronavirus Pandemic | Murilo Fagundes and Samy Adghirni/Bloomberg

Brazil delayed this year’s municipal elections by about a month as the country struggles to control the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s lower house of congress approved on Wednesday a constitutional amendment to postpone the first round of the election, initially scheduled to October, to Nov. 15. Run-off votes will take place on November 29th. The proposal, which had already been approved by the senate, is ready to be signed into law by the president of congress, Davi Alcolumbre, on Thursday. The extension gives Brazil some extra time to prepare for an event that will be logistically challenging in a country hit hard by the pandemic. The number of confirmed cases stands at 1.4 million, the largest in the world after the U.S., according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. Fatalities already surpassed 60,000 people.

Russia: The Theatrical Method in Putin’s Vote Madness | Andrew Higgins/The New York Times

Russia’s seven-day national plebiscite, intended to keep President Vladimir V. Putin in power until at least 2036, delivered the expected verdict on Wednesday: Early results showed that three-quarters of voters had given their endorsement. Less clear, however, was why Mr. Putin even needed voters to approve a raft of constitutional amendments that, already ratified by the national parliament in Moscow and regional legislatures across the country, entered into law months ago. “From a juridical point of view, this whole exercise is insane,” said Greg B. Yudin, a sociologist and political theorist at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. But, he added, “it is not at all a meaningless procedure,” because Russia’s system under Mr. Putin depends on the appearance of popular support to confer legitimacy on decisions he has already made. “It is theater, but very important and well-played theater. The system needs to stage displays of public support even when it doesn’t have it,” Mr. Yudin said. “This vote is putting Putin’s theatrical techniques to the test.”

National: America is woefully unprepared for mail-in voting. The result will be messy and divisive. | Michael Fraiman/Macleans

Allen Straith has never voted by mail before. But when the 32-year-old customer service agent learned his wife was pregnant with their third child and realized COVID-19 would mean unsanitary voting booths and massive queues, Straith decided it would be better to play it safe, avoid the crowds and register for an absentee ballot. It wasn’t easy. He searched online for the application, but couldn’t find it. He shrugged it off for a few weeks, until he noticed a Facebook post by the chair of a neighbouring county’s Democratic group. The post warned that the deadline to register for an absentee ballot in Tennessee’s congressional election was fast approaching. Straith downloaded the application, assuming it was the same for November’s general election. It wasn’t—different application, different deadline. Now, even with the right paperwork, Straith is still worried. Not about fraud, or whether his ballot will arrive on time, or even whether his vote will count—Jefferson County, where he lives, is so deep-red, they haven’t elected a Democrat since the Civil War era. Instead, Straith believes this year’s election will further divide the nation.

Georgia: Election Board OKs Continued Use Of Absentee Drop Boxes, Early Processing Of Ballots | Stephen Fowler/Georgia Public Broadcasting

The Georgia State Election Board Wednesday voted to extend a pair of emergency rules that make it easier for some voters to cast absentee ballots and for counties to process them. One emergency rule passed mid-April allowed Georgia counties to set up secure 24/7 drop boxes for voters to return absentee ballots without relying on the mail system or needing to vote in person for the June 9 primary. Several counties opted to purchase and use drop boxes as part of an overall shift to more absentee-by-mail voting in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The amendment passed Wednesday removes language limiting drop boxes to the June primary election and added additional requirements for opening and closing the drop boxes and when county officials had to empty them out. A second amendment allows counties to continue to begin processing absentee ballots before Election Day, as a record 1.1 million people voted absentee for the primary and twice that is expected in November. The State Election Board also voted to require counties to post the dates and times they will be processing absentee ballots more prominently on the secretary of state’s website and on the local county’s site.

National: Red states advancing bills to curb mail-in voting | Gabby Birenbaum/The Hill

GOP legislators in states across the country are advancing bills that would prevent elections officials from sending out absentee ballot applications ahead of November’s election, even in states where those top officials are fellow Republicans. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, secretaries of state in places like Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming encouraged residents to cast ballots from home by sending out absentee ballot request forms. Those forms led to increased participation during the primaries, with many states seeing record turnout. But now, Republican state legislatures are pushing back on those secretaries of states’ efforts by authoring bills to thwart their ability to send out ballot applications for the general election. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) last week signed a bill that requires the secretary of state to receive approval from a bipartisan legislative council before authorizing the mailing of absentee ballot request forms, after Secretary of State Paul Pate (R) sent applications to active voters. Eighty percent of the 524,000 votes cast in Iowa’s June primary were absentee ballots. In Ohio, legislators proposed a measure to bar Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) from sending out request forms en masse, even though the secretary of state’s office has done so for years. The bill was later amended to stop the state from paying for postage on the return envelope after LaRose lobbied legislators.

National: Language to boost election security removed from Senate intelligence legislation | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A measure that would require presidential campaigns to report attempts by foreign nationals to interfere in elections was removed from the Senate’s bipartisan Intelligence Authorization Act, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said Tuesday. The clause was based on Warner’s Foreign Influence Reporting in Elections (FIRE) Act, which requires presidential campaigns to report all contacts with foreign nationals seeking to interfere in the election process to both the FBI and the Federal Election Commission. The Intelligence Authorization Act will be included in the Senate version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but according to Warner, the FIRE Act clause was taken out as part of a “backroom deal” in order to get the intelligence legislation included in the must-pass defense funding bill. Warner announced he was proposing the legislation as a separate amendment to the NDAA in order to force members of the Senate to vote on the record about where they stood on election security. The Senate this week is debating its version of the 2021 NDAA. Warner criticized President Trump and Republicans for removing the clause, noting that the Senate had not voted on any standalone election security legislation since Russian agents interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

National: Can’t Request an Absentee Ballot Online? This Group Wants to Help | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

As state after state has held primary elections in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, interest in voting from home using mail-in absentee ballots has soared. Yet many voters face a barrier when trying to request their ballots online from the safety of their own homes. Though 41 states allow people to register to vote online, only 18 states allow voters to request absentee ballots online, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which works to expand voting access. (In other states, voters need to send in absentee ballot applications by mail or complete them at election offices, a more cumbersome process.) There is, however, a bit of a loophole that exists in 13 of the states that don’t offer an online absentee ballot request: If voters can download, print and sign a ballot request form at home, they can either scan it or fax it back to the election office. Yes, fax it. That relatively archaic technology gave Debra Cleaver, the founder of VoteAmerica, a voting rights group, an idea: Her organization could establish an online portal for voters in those 13 states, and do the faxing, or scanning and emailing, for them.

National: Democrats, voting rights groups pressure Senate to approve mail-in voting resources | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A group of Senate Democrats and multiple voting rights advocacy groups stepped up efforts on Tuesday to pressure Senate Republicans to support and pass legislation that would provide states with election resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), along with five other Senate Democrats, came to the Senate floor in an attempt to pass the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act that would expand mail-in and early voting. “If we are defending our elections, then we must protect our democracy, and if our elections are not safe, then our democracy is not secure,” Klobuchar said of election efforts during the pandemic. The bill was blocked by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who said he was worried the bill could be part of a “federal takeover of elections,” while noting that he may support sending states funding to boost election preparations during the pandemic. This was the second time in less than a week that Klobuchar brought the bill to the Senate floor for a vote and was blocked by Blunt. The two senators lead the Senate Rules Committee, with Blunt saying the committee would hold an elections-focused hearing sometime next month that would include local and state officials as witnesses.

National: The Republicans Telling Their Voters to Ignore Trump | Russell Berman/The Atlantic

There’s a major complication in President Donald Trump’s recent crusade against voting by mail, which he has called “a scam” that will lead to “the greatest Rigged Election” in history: In states that Trump desperately needs to win this fall, Republicans love it. Take Arizona, where polls show Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden after he carried the state narrowly in 2016. Republicans pioneered Arizona’s mail-in balloting system, which now accounts for about 80 percent of the state’s vote. “It’s been remarkably successful,” Chuck Coughlin, a longtime GOP operative and a onetime aide to the late Senator John McCain, told me. “There’s been minimal to no fraud for a long period of time.” Republicans say the same in Florida, the quadrennial swing state where voting by mail has become more and more popular in recent years, especially with older GOP voters. (One of the older GOP voters who uses the system is Trump himself.) “Yes, Florida Republicans over the last two decades have dominated absentees,” Joe Gruters, the state’s party chairman, told me. Trump’s unrelenting attacks on the integrity of mail-in voting are puzzling for a variety of reasons, not least because they are unfounded. But they’re particularly awkward for Republican leaders—especially those allied with the president—who need their voters to continue using a system Trump is trying to discredit. The president has, for example, gone after Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, for mailing absentee-ballot applications to every voter in the state as part of an effort to avoid depressed turnout due to the coronavirus pandemic. But GOP leaders in several other states have done the same thing.

Alabama: State asks U.S. Supreme Court to block curbside voting ruling | Mike Cason/AL.com

Alabama has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block a federal judge’s order that the state cannot prohibit counties from offering curbside voting during the July 14 runoff. Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state argued that counties should be able to offer curbside voting to accommodate voters who are concerned about exposure to COVID-19. The state argues that if federal courts order the state to allow curbside voting they are effectively changing state law for an election that’s just two weeks away. Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour of the state attorney general’s office filed the emergency application for stay on Monday with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. LaCour asked the Supreme Court to block a lower court ruling in favor of four voters and three organizations who claimed that certain Alabama laws violated the rights of some voters who are at serious risk of illness from the virus.

Arkansas: In filing, state GOP chief, legislator urge dismissal of absentee-voting suit | John Lynch/Arkansas Democrat Gazette

A lawsuit over absentee voting in Arkansas during the covid-19 pandemic should be dismissed because the litigation is unnecessary, the head of the state Republican Party and a GOP state House of Representatives member argue in pleadings filed Monday. Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb and state Rep. Doug House, R-North Little Rock, have responded to the week-old lawsuit before the only defendant, Secretary of State John Thurston, has answered the suit. The lawsuit seeks to ensure that voters who fear exposure to covid-19 do not have to vote at the polls where large crowds carry the risk of infection, but can cast absentee ballots without having to justify their reasons to authorities. Absentee votes can be cast either by mail or by dropping off a ballot before Election Day. Arkansas law requires voters to explain, under penalty of perjury, why they need to vote absentee before being allowed to do so.

Georgia: Secretary of State: Audit confirms presidential primary results | Adrianne Murchison/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Following widespread criticism of the voting process in Fulton County, an audit has confirmed the outcomes of the presidential preference primaries. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said a secure paper-ballot system was used Monday to verify Fulton’s results in the June 9 primary. According to the statement, Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections…

Georgia: DeKalb Commissioner Cochran-Johnson sponsors bill to expand to online voting | Roz Edward/Atlanta Daily World

As voting irregularities ranging from technical issues to poorly trained staff emerge across Georgia following the June primary elections, Commissioner Lorraine Cochran-Johnson has presented a resolution requesting the Georgia General Assembly research and expand voting options to include online capabilities. The resolution presented by the Governing Authority of DeKalb County requests the General Assembly to establish online voting to create a more secure, convenient and accessible opportunity for citizens to exercise a fundamental principle of American democracy. Through the establishment of online voting, the State of Georgia, counties and local municipalities will be able to reduce the financial burden associated with staffing various elections.

Iowa: Governor signs bill limiting use of voter database | David Pitt/Associated Press

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill Tuesday that will deny county officials the ability to use a voter database to confirm missing or incorrect information on absentee ballot requests. The measure was inserted by Republicans into a massive budget bill on the final day of the legislative session. Reynolds signed the measure into law, opting not to kill the rule change with a line-item veto. Republican Rep. Gary Mohr defended the measure in floor debate as an election security measure that would help “ensure a person who applies for an absentee ballot is the one who casts the absentee ballot.”

Maryland: Partisan divide over voter fraud fears keeps Maryland officials from reaching consensus on Nov. 3 election method | Talia Richman/ Baltimore Sun

A partisan divide over whether voter fraud is a legitimate concern in mostly mail-in elections kept Maryland officials from reaching a consensus on how they believe the state should conduct voting in the upcoming presidential election. The five-member state elections board is tasked with presenting Gov. Larry Hogan a recommendation for how to hold the Nov. 3 election. It’s ultimately up to the Republican governor to make the decision — a choice complicated by great unknowns regarding how the coronavirus pandemic might be affecting society come fall. Because the board didn’t reach a consensus, it will issue a report to the governor later this week that makes no recommendation, but rather summarizes the opinions of both sides. The governor will review the report before making any decisions on next steps, spokesman Mike Ricci said. During its virtual meeting Tuesday, the board debated three options: a traditional election with mostly in-person voting, a hybrid model in which voters are all sent applications for mail-in ballots, or a mostly mail-in election similar to the June primary.

Massachusetts: Deal reached on voting by mail | Matt Murphy and Chris Van Buskirk/The Boston Globe

The House and Senate are poised this week to approve compromise early voting and vote-by-mail legislation that should pave the way for a major expansion of options ahead of the 2020 election to encourage participation during the COVID-19 pandemic. All six lawmakers appointed to find a compromise on the bill signed onto a report Monday. Representative John Lawn, the lead House negotiator on the bill, said he anticipates a vote of the full House on the final bill Tuesday while the Senate plans to take it up Thursday, according to a spokesperson for the Senate president’s office. The House and Senate versions of the bill instruct the secretary of state’s office to mail every voter an application to request a mail-in ballot for the primaries on Sept. 1 and the general election on Nov. 3. The goal, lawmakers have said, is to continue in-person voting but to allow voters to cast their votes early if they wish or to avoid the polls altogether if they feel unsafe because of virus transmission risks. The bill also for the first time in Massachusetts creates an early voting window before the statewide primary, and expands early voting before the general election. The state’s in-person early voting period for the general election runs Oct. 17-30 and Aug. 22-28 for the primaries. The mail-in early voting period will begin as soon as local clerks receive all the necessary materials.

Mississippi: Jones County election commissioner’s social media comment about Black voters causes uproar | Lici Beveridge/Mississippi Clarion Ledger

A social media comment with racial undertones made by a Mississippi election commissioner sparked outrage across the state on the same weekend state legislators voted to retire the flag and its Confederate emblem. “I’m concerned about voter registration in Mississippi,” the commissioner wrote. “The blacks are having lots (of) events for voter registration. People in Mississippi have to get involved, too.” Gail Welch’s comment caused an uproar Sunday, as screen shots of the comment spread quickly on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Welch said she has received calls and messages from all over the country about the post. On Facebook, dozens of people shared their thoughts on the Welch’s words. One Mississippi lawmaker said he doesn’t know if Welch meant what she said, but her words give an impression of racism. “It’s those kind of things that people say until somebody brings it to their attention and then it’s not what they said or it’s not what they meant,” said Sen. Juan Barnett, whose district includes part of Jones County.