Warren Stewart – Page 6 – The Voting News

The race for the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania is officially heading to a recount. On Wednesday, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt ordered Pennsylvania’s 67 counties to conduct a recount under a provision of the state election code that requires one when the margin of a statewide race is within 0.5%. With Republican Dave McCormick receiving 3,380,310 votes to incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey’s 3,350,972 votes as of noon Wednesday, the two candidates were separated by just 0.43%. Read Article

Pennsylvania: Small ballot errors, security procedures led to Election Day mishap in Cambria County | David Hurst/The Tribune-Democrat

Set between blocks of computer “timing” code, seven tiny numbers line the left-hand margin of the Election Day ballots that Cambria County eventually started scanning to add up results Nov. 5. They were identical to the precinct “test ballots” the county tested in early October, Cambria County Solicitor Ron Repak Jr. said. The ones that failed to scan Election Day morning were missing those numbers. Cambria County officials acknowledged their own security procedure likely prevented the issue from being flagged sooner. After running their test ballots through the scanning machines in early October, election officials sealed up the electronic scanning devices to prevent anyone from tampering with the machines. The official Election Day ballots that arrived afterward – believed to be identical – sat untested in the weeks prior to Nov. 5, Repak and Cambria County President Commissioner Scott Hunt said. Read Article

Virginia: Waynesboro Board of Elections certifies 2024 general election | Lyra Bordelon/Staunton News Leader

The board met Tuesday in Waynesboro City Council chambers, a small audience ready to watch them certify the results of the 2024 general election. It was the first time the board has met in council chambers, as election results are typically certified at a poorly attended meeting in the registrar’s office down the street. “This is the first time we’re doing this in a public setting,” said Waynesboro Board of Elections Chair Curtis Lilly. The crowd could have been much larger if not for a recent court ruling. Waynesboro Circuit Court Judge Paul Dryer, after a hearing on the legal battles over certification, ruled Lilly and Vice Chair Scott Mares must certify the election. Read Article

Wisconsin Supreme Court case could decide fate of state’s top election official | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

A lawsuit that could determine whether Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe can keep her job is coming before the state Supreme Court on Monday. The case focuses on the legality of appointees staying on after their terms expire, rather than any matter of her performance as the state’s top election official. Republicans began targeting Wolfe, a nonpartisan appointee, after Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in the 2020 election. Since then, she has endured criticism from Trump supporters for several decisions that the election commission made, as well as for some memos she sent to clerks who run local elections. As Wolfe’s term expired in the summer 2023, the election commission deadlocked on her reappointment. Shortly after, the Republican-controlled state Senate voted to fire her in a move that it later said was only symbolic, but that triggered a protracted fight. Read Article

Wyoming: Canvassing Board Certifies Election Despite Weston County Miscount | Leo Wolfson/Cowboy State Daily

Although there were few surprises in the results of Wyoming’s general election last week, Secretary of State Chuck Gray claimed at the Wyoming State Canvassing Board meeting on Wednesday that “a number of issues” popped up on election night. The most significant occurred in Weston County, where incorrect ballots were inadvertently used in an election machine, leading to a 1,236-vote disparity in the House District 1 race where state Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, was running unopposed. A few Weston County residents like Newcastle Mayor Pam Gualtieri requested that the state Canvassing Board delay certifying the results of the general election because of what happened in the miscount. Gualtieri said she’s talked to a few local residents that were elected but aren’t sure if they should take office because of what happened. Read Article

National: After a bruising 4 years, a hope for normalcy in American elections | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

America’s voting system was under siege for four years. Former President Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud in the 2020 election exposed the people who operate our elections to threats and harassment in the run-up to this one. They fortified their offices against potential violence, adjusted to last-minute, politically driven changes in election laws, and fought a relentless stream of lies and disinformation. Going into Election Day, officials and pro-democracy advocates braced for the worst. What a difference a day — and a result — makes. Aside from a few hiccups, the U.S. voting process went smoothly this year. The winner of the presidential election was declared early the next morning, few people claimed widespread voter fraud, and the losing candidate conceded defeat. Read Article

National: How Russia Openly Escalated Its Election Interference Efforts | Steven Lee Myers and Julian E. Barnes/The New York Times

In the final days before Tuesday’s vote, Russia abandoned any pretense that it was not trying to interfere in the American presidential election. The Kremlin’s information warriors not only produced a late wave of fabricated videos that targeted the electoral process and the Democratic presidential ticket but also no longer bothered to hide their role in producing them. What impact Russia’s information campaign had on the outcome of this year’s race, if any, remains uncertain. There is no doubt, though, that it reflected an increasingly brazen effort by the Kremlin, one that has left the American government with little to do to except to rebut the falsehoods as they gain popularity. Read Article

National: Election day ends with reports of vote counting tech challenges, text scams in several states | Sophia Fox-Sowell and Keely Quinlan/StateScoop

As the 2024 Election Day winds down, several states have reported challenges such as issues with the tech powering absentee ballot counting, text message-based disinformation campaigns, printer issues and more physical security threats. During the Election Protection Coalition’s second online media briefing Tuesday, representatives from the nonpartisan voting rights organization told reporters that states in the Midwest were facing technical difficulties and legal impairments in counting absentee ballots. Read Article

National: This Time, Few Complaints If Any Around Election Management | Carl Smith/Governing

Tuesday’s elections saw near-record turnout. Nonetheless, despite the controversies that surround voting and election administration in this era, the voting process was smooth for millions of people across the country. This outcome was the result of years of work, a multifaceted response to distrust and harassment of election officials that reached unprecedented levels during the 2020 election and have been kept alive since then by repeated claims that the contest had been “stolen.” “This election was stress tested like never before,” says Cara Ong Whaley, director of election protection at Issue One, a bipartisan group that promotes sound election management. “It held strong because of the dedication, professionalism and resilience of election officials and their staff, and that is worth celebrating.” Read Article

National: Voting tech isn’t perfect, but so far it’s holding up | Cath Virginia/The Verge

The technology that powers Election Day has hit some expected hiccups, but as of early afternoon on Tuesday, nonpartisan groups say that the voting system is mostly holding up. Where it has faltered, they stress, there are robust backup plans that will ensure voters can still cast their ballots and that their votes will be counted. “Like any type of technology, equipment can sometimes fail, but what’s important are the resilience processes in place to keep voters voting in real time,” says Pamela Smith, president and CEO of the nonprofit Verified Voting. Smith says there have been some reports of polling places where voting machines were down and voters were told to come back later. She says voters should not need to make a second trip to the polls in this sort of situation — they’re entitled to request a paper emergency ballot (distinct from a provisional ballot) to fill out and cast their vote. Read Article

National: Trump reverted to familiar playbook, sowing doubts about the voting until results showed him winning | Ali Swenson/Associated Press

President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican allies had spent months seeding doubt in the integrity of American voting systems and priming supporters to expect a 2024 election riddled with massive and inevitable fraud. The former president continued laying that groundwork even during a mostly smooth day of voting Tuesday, making unsubstantiated claims related to Philadelphia and Detroit and highlighting concerns about election operations in Milwaukee. Yet Trump’s grim warnings abruptly ended in the later hours of the evening as early returns began tipping in his favor. During his election night speech, the president-elect touted a “magnificent victory” as he claimed ownership for the favorable results and expressed love for the same states he’d questioned hours earlier. Read Article

National: Republican election denial claims take a hiatus with Trump’s victory | Amy Gardner , Colby Itkowitz , Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Patrick Marley/The Washington Post

A remarkable thing happened Tuesday night on an “election integrity” discussion page on the social media platform X, as it became clear that former president Donald Trump was headed to a decisive victory against Vice President Kamala Harris. It got quiet. Created by X owner Elon Musk’s America PAC, the page had provided a platform viewed by millions of users for rapid-fire updates about power outages causing poll closures, Russia-linked bomb threats and unsubstantiated accusations that run-of-the mill voting problems were the work of devious Democrats trying to steal the election. Around midnight, however, interest in the forum plummeted. With Trump winning back the White House, the urgency to investigate wrongdoing subsided. In its place came a spike of self-congratulation as those who believe Joe Biden’s 2020 victory was riddled with fraud took credit for preventing similar corruption this year. Read Article

National: Bomb threats sully otherwise uneventful voting across the country on Election Day | Carrie Levine andJessica Huseman/Votebeat

Election Day was relatively tame around the country, though it was marred by a string of bomb threats against polling places in swing states that law enforcement officials linked to Russia. The threats forced some temporary evacuations and extensions of polling place hours. Election officials, braced for disruptions and, forewarned by intelligence officials that foreign adversaries would attempt to create problems, responded quickly to reassure voters and minimize interruptions to voting. In Georgia, Secretary Brad Raffensperger said “noncredible” bomb threats targeted polling places in the Democratic strongholds of Fulton, Gwinnett, and DeKalb counties, forcing an extension of hours at multiple voting sites. In Arizona, a threat forced the evacuation of the election office in La Paz County and targeted polling places in Navajo County. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said voters were safe. “No one is under threat as we know it right now,” Fontes said at a press conference. There were also bomb threats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Read Article

Arizona: Pinal County takes 24 hours to release Election Day results | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

In the early morning hours after Election Day, shortly after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had claimed victory, thousands of ballots from polling places were still piled up high in this town’s elections building, waiting to be tallied. This was the moment, Pinal County Recorder Dana Lewis later recalled, that she realized her staff needed to start taking breaks. She began to tell some of the workers who were feeding paper ballots into tabulation machines to find a spot in the building to take a short nap, or to go get some food. She realized, in other words, that it was going to be a while until they were done counting Election Day ballots, and they weren’t going home until they did. Pinal County, the fast-growing neighbor of Maricopa County, ultimately took more than 24 hours to count all the ballots cast at polling places. Read Article

Arkansas: Independence County voters approve paper ballot ordinance in Independence County | Antoinette Grajeda/Arkansas Advocate

Independence County voters Tuesday night approved an ordinance that will require elections be conducted with hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots. According to complete but unofficial results, 8,309 county residents voted for the ordinance and 5,184 voted against it. Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative (AVII) CEO Conrad Reynolds has long supported a shift from using electronic voting machines to only using paper ballots, and said Tuesday’s results showed voters “have spoken loud and clear” on the matter. Reynolds called on state leaders “to heed the will of the people” in a press release. Read Article

Colorado voters reject sweeping elections overhaul backed by wealthy donors | Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline

Colorado voters on Tuesday rejected a sweeping plan to overhaul the state’s elections system hatched by some of the state’s wealthiest and most influential political donors. The measure proposed to abolish party primaries for most state and federal offices, replacing them with “all-candidate” primaries for each race, and established ranked choice voting for general elections. The Colorado measure was one of six on the ballot in 2024 bankrolled by the nonprofit Unite America, which backed a successful effort to establish such a system in Alaska in 2020. The group is co-chaired by Kent Thiry, former CEO of Denver-based dialysis services company DaVita, who previously sponsored successful efforts to open Colorado’s primaries and create independent redistricting commissions. Read Article

Georgia: Fulton County has smooth election night after previous troubles | Katherine Landergan/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Fulton County’s election operations were under the microscope this year after a heavily scrutinized performance in 2020, and by all measures, the county passed the test. Robb Pitts, chair of Fulton’s Board of Commissioners, gave his county a grade of “A,” and he said “the results of today’s election prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Fulton County was ready for the 2024 election.” County officials weathered dozens of false bomb threats on Election Day, but they avoided any major controversies that haunted them in 2020. The Democratic bastion came under fire that election cycle, when then-President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, made untrue allegations that Fulton election workers were counting fraudulent ballots. Read Article

Massachusetts: Secretary of State launches probe of Boston after ballot shortage | Matt Stout and Niki Griswold/Boston Globe

Secretary of State William F. Galvin said Wednesday that he’s launching an investigation into the city of Boston’s Elections Commission after several polling locations in the city didn’t receive enough ballots during Tuesday’s election, causing “unreasonable and unnecessary delays” for voters. Galvin said the ballot shortage was just one of a number of “significant problems” that hampered voting in Massachusetts’ biggest city. The Brighton Democrat wrote in a letter to Eneida Tavares, chair of the Elections Commission, that workers in precincts that ran short on ballots ultimately contacted his office to report the shortage because “they were unable to contact” the commission itself. “This indicates that the City did not originally deliver an appropriate supply of ballots to precincts in Boston, did not have adequate communication channels with the polling places, and had no plan to deliver additional ballots as needed, and in a timely manner,” Galvin wrote. Read Article

Michigan: She fought to restore trust in an election system Trump attacked. Then he won. | David Maraniss/The Washington Post

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, had just concluded an election night news conference at Ford Field extolling the virtues of the vote when she learned that Donald Trump might be on his way to reclaiming the presidency. She had worked relentlessly all year, and all of that long final day and night, trying to ensure that citizens in her state experienced a calm, safe and accessible election, only to see it lead to the restoration of a man and a movement that seemed the opposite of almost everything she believes in. Although Benson is a Democrat who supported Kamala Harris in a state crucial to the vice president’s chances, she was also the overseer of a nonpartisan election system. As disappointed as she might have been by the national result, her faith in democracy compelled her to accept it. Read Article

Pennsylvania counties counted mail ballots faster this year than in 2020 | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Mail ballots in Pennsylvania were counted much faster in this year’s election than in 2020. By 3 a.m. Wednesday, 54 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties had counted 90% or more of their mail ballots, according to data released by the state. By roughly 5 p.m., 97% of the state’s mail ballots had been counted. In 2020, mail ballot counting went on for several days, preventing media organizations from declaring a winner in the state until the Saturday after the election. That year, the state had roughly 700,000 mail ballots or 35% more than this year. In the years since 2020, counties have grown more experienced with handling large volumes of mail ballots, and have purchased better, faster equipment, which in combination has enabled counties to process ballots more efficiently. That combination “has a big impact,” said Al Schmidt, Secretary of the Commonwealth. “It’s still a big lift, and I think that’s something that’s not considered when people shrug off the idea of more ballot pre-canvassing.” Read Article

Texas sees no major disruptions to voting on Election Day | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

After months of anticipation and partisan fights over election administration, voting in Texas went relatively smoothly on Election Day, with election officials reporting no major disruptions. More than 9 million Texans cast ballots early in person or by mail, roughly half of the state’s 18.6 million registered voters. Two million moreo Texans cast ballots on Election Day, according to unofficial totals. The figure doesn’t yet surpass the 11.3 million voters who cast ballots in 2020. As in every election, there were scattered problems or glitches. Early Tuesday, vandals used spray paint to inscribe pro-Palestinian messages on a polling location in Tarrant County, but the incident didn’t affect the county’s ability to use the location for voting. In Dallas and Bexar counties, technical problems with equipment were reported and resolved early in the day. Across the state, voters with disabilities struggled to find signs directing them to curbside voting, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit voter advocacy group that ran an election protection hotline. Other voters said some poll workers weren’t familiar with a new law allowing voters with disabilities to move to the front of the line. Read Article

Wisconsin: Milwaukee mistake stands out in otherwise smooth election | Alexander Shur |/Votebeat

Polls closed across Wisconsin after an Election Day marked most notably by a human error in Milwaukee that prompted city election officials to count 31,000 absentee ballots all over again, potentially delaying the state’s unofficial results for hours. In other areas around the state, problems appeared minimal despite long lines and rain. Some election officials said they had unprecedented turnout but managed it. Madison received bomb threats, likely originating from Russia, directed at several current and former polling places, but city police didn’t deem the threats credible and didn’t interrupt voting because of them. By 9 p.m., election officials had already tabulated around 1.4 million absentee and in-person ballots across the state. Read Article

Wyoming: Holding an election in remote Wyoming requires extraordinary measures. Just look at Bairoil. | Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile

Audra Thornton knew every person who visited town hall on Tuesday to cast their vote in the election. But she still turned some folks away, instructing them to return with their IDs. After all, rules are rules — even in Bairoil, a tiny and shrinking Sweetwater County community that only about 60 people call home. “It doesn’t matter if we know them or not,” Thornton said. “We still have to see their identification. We just have to abide by the law.” Following state and federal laws is of course a necessary part of administering any election in Wyoming. Poll workers and county staff, however, go to extraordinary lengths to pull off an election in the most rural reaches of the least populated state in the nation. Read Article

National: The election system is secure. But human nature is a vulnerability | David Klepper and Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

Hacking a local election system in the United States wouldn’t be easy, and secretly altering votes on a scale massive enough to change the outcome of the presidential race would be impossible, election officials have said, thanks to decentralized systems, paper records for nearly all ballots, exhaustive reviews, legal due process and decades of work by American election officials, volunteers and citizens. But foreign actors and domestic extremist groups looking to meddle in next week’s election can target a much weaker link: voters’ perceptions and emotions. Those intent on undermining confidence in U.S. democracy don’t have to change any votes if they can convince enough Americans not to trust the outcome. It’s a possible scenario particularly concerning to intelligence analysts and officials tasked with protecting America’s election: An adversary tries to hack a state or local election system and then releases a document — perhaps a fake one or even material that is publicly available — and suggests it’s evidence of vote rigging. Read Article

National: Monitors, Once Meant to Prevent Election Fraud, Now Seek to Prove It | Alexandra Berzon and Michael Wines/The New York Times

The civics-textbook description of a poll monitor’s job is straightforward enough: to be a watchdog of the vote, so candidates, political parties and the public can have confidence that elections are both honest and transparent. But the work has changed in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential race, when Donald J. Trump and his allies used information gathered by Republican monitors as part of their attempts to overturn the election results. This year, the party and its allies have recruited an expanded group of monitors — volunteers chosen to observe voting firsthand inside polling places. They include many who believe the 2020 election was stolen and have been trained to be aggressive in the search for fraud. Read Article

National: Extremists inspired by conspiracy theories pose major threat to 2024 elections, U.S. intelligence warns | Brandy Zadrozny/NBC

U.S. intelligence agencies have identified domestic extremists with grievances rooted in election-related conspiracy theories, including beliefs in widespread voter fraud and animosity toward perceived political opponents, as the most likely threat of violence in the coming election. In a Joint Intelligence Bulletin that was not distributed publicly but was reviewed by NBC News, agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warn state and local law enforcement agencies that domestic violent extremists seeking to terrorize and disrupt the vote are a threat to the election and throughout Inauguration Day. Read Article

National: Election Skeptics Target Voting Officials With Ads in Swing States | Phoebe Petrovic and Doug Bock Clark/ProPublica

Earlier this month, subscribers to the Wisconsin Law Journal received an email with an urgent subject: “Upholding Election Integrity — A Call to Action for Attorneys.” The letter began by talking about fairness and following the law in elections. But it then suggested that election officials do something that courts have found to be illegal for over a century: treat the certification of election results as an option, not an obligation. The large logo at the top of the email gave the impression that it was an official correspondence from the respected legal newspaper, though smaller print said it was sent on behalf of a public relations company. The missive was an advertisement from a new group with deep ties to activists who have challenged the legitimacy of recent American elections. Read Article

National: A baseless voting claim is being amplified by a network of social media accounts | Huo Jingnan/NPR

A network of accounts on the social media site X is claiming to be foreign nationals who have illegally voted in the U.S. presidential election, according to new research from the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The accounts have multiple signatures that suggest they are coordinated, drawing the attention of researchers in the final stretch of election. Some of the accounts have shared images of ballots alongside passports, including from countries that no longer exist, including the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Prussia, the disinformation and extremism research organization reported. The accounts are reinforcing baseless narratives about voter fraud promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies. The most popular post, sporting an image of a French passport, has racked up more than 12 million views on X, formerly Twitter. Read Article

National: As Election Day nears, emergency officials prep for possible violence | Sarah D. Wire/USA Today

The bushes in front of city hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, have been removed. On election night, the street out front will be blocked off. These “hardening” measures were suggested by the city police chief to protect the ballots being counted inside, said Celestine Jeffreys, Green Bay’s city clerk. As threats against election workers have grown more violent, election officials across the country have spent months coordinating to protect voters, ballots and poll workers at an unprecedented level with emergency management agencies. Amid that coordination, the centralized locations where ballots are counted on election night have emerged as a key place needing protection. More than a dozen county and city election officials spoke with USA TODAY about what they are doing to make sure they can count ballots at central ballot counting locations once polls close, no matter what happens outside. Read Article

National: Ballot drop boxes, long a target of misinformation, face physical threats | Layla Ferris/CBS News