Nevada: Nye County clerk tempers hand count expectations, calls it a ‘test’ | Brett Forrest/KSNV

One day after Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf finally began his controversial hand count plan, he appeared to step back from previous claims and said it amounted to a “test.” “In any system conversion, if you wanted to change, you wouldn’t just shut off the old system and turn on the new one,” said Kampf on Friday. “You would test both in parallel to see how they work. And that’s been our intention all along.” … “We took the volunteers we had and put them to work. Unfortunately, you get a lot of mistakes when you get people in our demographic,” he said. “In this town, 85% of the people are 56 years and older. Sometimes even I make mistakes, you know, my ripe age of 68. So we had to send back a lot of votes for ballots for recount. But again, that’s part of the quality control process is to make sure that we get the vote right.” Kampf said each volunteer works as long as they can, but he planned many would be working long hours and through the weekend. They take breaks and on Friday, Kampf had pizza delivered for lunch. After the first day, Kampf estimated there was a 25% error rate. He admitted it was “very, very high,” but remained optimistic it would improve after each day. As for the volunteers who couldn’t seem to keep up or grasp the process, Kampf said he would thank them for the support, but send them on their way.

Full Article: Nye County clerk tempers hand count expectations, calls it a ‘test’ | KSNV

New Jersey: All Election Day votes are counted in Mercer County after mishap, but questions remain | Katie Sobko/northjersey.com

All ballots cast in person on Election Day have been counted in Mercer County, officials said this week. But that doesn’t include more than 5,200 provisional, 700 emergency and an unknown number of mail-in ballots that still need to be reviewed to decide a handful of local races. “The Office of the Mercer County Superintendent of Elections will continue to work through this process to ensure that all votes cast are counted,” Nathaniel Walker, the Mercer County superintendent of elections, said in a statement. “We remain committed to ensuring the integrity of our elections.” That announcement came a week after problems scanning ballots in voting machines on Election Day prompted voters to use backup paper ballots and, two days later, election officials won a court order to open voting machines to look for potentially missing ballots. Walker did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the search. “Everything’s been accounted for, and they counted all of the Election Day ballots. They are currently counting provisional ballots and vote-by-mail ballots … and emergency ballots as well,” Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami-Covello said. “This is a report that was made to me” by Walker’s office, she added. Sollami-Covello said she wasn’t involved in the court order last week.

Full Article: NJ elections: Mercer County live ballots counted, questions remain

Pennsylvania: How ten-sided dice play into state’s post-election audit | Justin Sweitzer/City & State

On Thursday, officials at the Pennsylvania Department of State rolled the dice. Literally. To kick off the state’s post-election audit of this month’s race for governor, department staff rolled 20 ten-sided dice to create a “seed number” used to randomly select batches of ballots to audit. That seed number will then be entered into Arlo, an audit software tool used to select random batches of ballots for auditors in each county to manually review. The auditors will then conduct a hand tally of the votes cast for governor in each batch, according to Department of State officials. The department will then compile the results of the audit and determine whether the statistical criteria needed to confirm the election results has been met. The audit, known as a risk-limiting audit or RLA, involves auditing a randomly-selected batch of ballots to confirm the outcome of the election. The number of ballots audited depends on how wide the margin was in a particular race.

Full Article: How ten-sided dice play into Pennsylvania’s post-election audit – City & State Pennsylvania

South Dakota: Tabulator catches human error in Tripp County post-election audit | Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight

The case of Tripp County’s 75 “missing” ballots has been solved, County Auditor Barb Desersa said this week. The discrepancy emerged last week after a hand count of ballots in the only county in South Dakota in nearly 20 years to perform one. The mismatch does not have any impact on election results. Tripp County officials were prepared to ask for a court order to reopen a ballot box to find the answer, but the question was resolved without one. The human error explanation for the mismatch, it turned out, was right there in the records from the vote tabulator – the machine that county commissioners had ordered Desersa not to use to tally the county’s official, reportable Election Day results. A Thursday vote canvas revealed a discrepancy in a single precinct between the number of official, completed ballots recorded in the poll book and the number of audited ballots in one precinct. Several races had to be recounted by Tripp County’s volunteer counting boards – sometimes three or four times on election night. The last precinct to come in, Colome, had mismatched numbers according to the tabulator audit the next day. Desersa ran the audit to prove to her county commissioners and residents that the machine was accurate. The mismatched numbers prove the point, Desersa said Monday.

Full Article: Tabulator catches human error in Tripp County post-election audit – South Dakota Searchlight

Texas: Election Day Problems Inflame Voter Fraud Conspiracies in Houston | Michael Barajas/Bolts

Some of the most notorious election deniers in Texas rallied outside the Harris County government building in downtown Houston Tuesday, while dozens of angry people waited inside for their turn at the mic to chastise county commissioners and local election officials. Among the shouting and calls for order during the meeting, one woman issued a biblical denunciation, pulling from the Book of Ezekiel: “The rulers will be helpless and in despair, trembling in fear… I will bring on them the evil they have done to others and they will receive the punishment they so richly deserve.” Another woman was even more cryptic. “You guys have been caught, you just don’t know it,” she said without elaboration. “You have no idea what’s coming your way.” At issue were the problems that voters experienced in Texas’s largest county last week. At least one polling place opened late, and some ran out of ballot paper. It remains unclear how widespread the problems were, but the Houston Chronicle reported that roughly three percent of the county’s 782 polling places experienced ballot paper shortages last week. Those problems followed others that occurred during the March primaries and ultimately forced the resignation of Harris County’s previous elections administrator and fueled baseless conservative conspiracies about voter fraud. Last week’s Election Day glitches have further inflamed bogus claims of stolen elections while also exacerbating an ongoing feud between state GOP leaders and Texas’ largest and increasingly left-leaning county.

Source: Election Day Problems Inflame Voter Fraud Conspiracies in Houston | Bolts

Texas elections official keeps the peace with right-wing voting activists | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Aubree Campbell, 33, a poll watcher from Tarrant County, is, by now, pretty well known among Texas election administrators. The redhead and self-described “metalhead” basically has many of them on speed dial. “Are your ballots prenumbered sequentially beginning with the number one according to the Texas election code 52.062 and 52.009? You’re sitting in violation of the state and national Constitution. Do you not know the code and the law off the top of your head like I do?” she asked one official, rapid-fire, in an audio recording she posted online in April. Her social media channels are full of posts and self-recorded videos documenting these often charged interactions, carefully monitored by a small but loyal following that reacts on every post. She volunteers in elections routinely, has trained dozens of other poll watchers and considers herself a knowledgeable watchdog of Texas elections administration. There’s a single elections administrator in Texas who, she says, “makes other election administrators look like idiots” — Heider Garcia, who oversees elections in her home county. It’s an interesting choice. Garcia, in fact, has received more rancor from voter fraud activists than most of the more than 200 people running elections across this state. They’ve accused him of contributing to voter fraud in other countries. Fringe activists groups shared his home address online, along with racist messages and death threats, making him fear for his life and the safety of his wife and small children.

Full Article: Texas elections official keeps the peace with right-wing voting activists | The Texas Tribune

Wisconsin man charged with terrorism in Election Day knife incident | Lawrence Andrea/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A West Bend man who police say entered a city polling place last Tuesday with a knife and demanded staff “stop the voting” had been arrested just days prior and was free on a signature bond for reportedly posting hand-written racist and threatening political messages downtown and sending photos of those notes to Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. Prosecutors in Washington County have since charged Michael J. Miecielica, 38, with more than 12 counts, including making “terrorist threats” and using threats to discourage voting — both felonies. He is also charged with endangering safety with the use of a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct, according to court records. Most of the charges stem from an Election Day incident in which Miecielica reportedly entered the West Bend Community Memorial Library with a hunting knife in an attempt to stop voting at the polling location inside. Body camera footage from the incident published by CBS58 shows an officer pointing his gun at a man in red pants and a maroon T-shirt with a gray backpack as the officer tells the man to “drop the knife” and get on the ground near the entrance to the library. “I have box cutters in my backpack, like four,” the man told officers in the footage. He also said he had three or four beers that day and that “I probably should have a psych (evaluation).”

Full Article: Wisconsin man charged with terrorism in Election Day knife incident

Nevada: ACLU files another lawsuit to halt Nye County’s ballot hand counting | Jessica Hill/Las Vegas Review-Journal

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada announced Monday morning that it has filed another lawsuit with the Supreme Court of Nevada trying to stop Nye County from conducting a hand count of ballots. The ACLU of Nevada and its colleagues at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law argue that Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf does not have the legal authority to move forward with the hand counting. They argue that hand counting violates state law and the state constitution, which guarantees voters’ right to have “election contests resolved fairly, accurately and efficiently.” “The Nye County Clerk’s insistence on doing a hand-count of all ballots that have already been counted by machine tabulators defies best practices in the election security field,” Sadmira Ramic, voting rights attorney for the ACLU of Nevada, said in a statement. “It’s a haphazard and disorganized approach to one of the greatest responsibilities of election administration, counting every eligible vote,” she said.

Full Article: ACLU files another lawsuit to halt Nye County’s ballot hand counting

National: Election Officials Say Efforts to Bolster the Voting System Worked | Alexandra Berzon and Ken Bensinger/New York Times

For months, election officials have worried that activists convinced that the election system is corrupt and broken would cause significant problems in the midterms. But the scattered episodes during the vote did not disrupt the system. The relative calm so far had election officials breathing a sigh of relief, even as they remained concerned about specious legal challenges and misinformation that could erupt in the coming weeks. They praised tactics they believe reinforced a system that was rocked by the baseless claims of fraud and widespread distrust after Donald J. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. They pointed to better and more frequent communication by elections officials, and transparency measures such as live cams at ballot boxes and in counting rooms. Some speculated that polling and right-wing media reports promising a Republican blowout in races across the country may have discouraged some right-wing activists from provocations at polling places. “It was remarkably smooth,” said Damon Circosta, the chairman of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. “You can tell by my giddiness I was not expecting that.”

Full Article: Election Officials Say Efforts to Bolster the Voting System Worked – The New York Times

Voting Glitches, Website Attack Trigger Election Day Misinformation | Gopal Ratnam/Government Technology

A technical glitch in vote tabulation machines in Arizona and an attempted takedown of voter-facing websites in Mississippi led to a surge of misinformation about broken systems, but the setbacks largely didn’t affect voting or counting on Election Day. In Arizona’s Maricopa County — the state’s largest — dozens of vote tabulation machines malfunctioned on Tuesday, affecting about 20 percent of polling places. The machines were fixed by late afternoon, but state officials said that did not prevent voters from casting their ballots. In Mississippi, some election-related websites that provide information to voters faced an attack because of a sudden increase in volume of traffic, typically a sign of a distributed denial-of-service attack, known as DDoS. State officials said the websites were not compromised and didn’t affect any internal election processes. A Russian hacking group claimed on the messaging platform Telegram that it had targeted Mississippi, USA Today reported, citing messages it had seen on the platform. The glitches fed an online disinformation campaign by former President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters, who alleged that the machine malfunction in Arizona was an attempt to disenfranchise Republican voters.

Full Article: Voting Glitches, Website Attack Trigger Election Day Misinformation

National: Trump called a protest. No one showed. Why GOP efforts to cry foul fizzled this time. | Rosalind S. Helderman , Patrick Marley and Tom Hamburger/The Washington Post

As voters cast ballots largely without incident on Tuesday afternoon, former president Donald Trump took to social media to declare that a minor, already rectified problem with absentee balloting in Detroit was “REALLY BAD.” “Protest, protest, protest,” he wrote just before 2:30 p.m. Unlike in 2020, when similar cries from the then-president drew thousands of supporters into the streets — including to a tabulating facility in Detroit and later to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — this time, no one showed up. After two years of promises from Trump and his supporters that they would flood polls and counting stations with partisan watchers to spot alleged fraud, after unprecedented threats lodged against election workers, after calls to ditch machines in favor of hand counting and after postings on internet chat groups called for violent action to stop supposed cheating, a peaceful Election Day drew high turnout and only scattered reports of problems.

Full Article: Why the midterms saw only muted GOP claims of alleged election fraud – The Washington Post

National: Key election deniers concede defeat after disputing Trump’s 2020 loss | Emma Brown and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Voters in several battleground states have rebuked state-level candidates who echoed former president Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential race was rigged, keeping election deniers in those places from positions with power over the certification of future presidential election results. In a number of cases, the losing candidates conceded their races Wednesday, opting not to follow a precedent that Trump had set and that scholars had feared could become a troubling new norm of American democracy. But even as those candidates bowed to reality, dozens of others who denied or questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 vote were celebrating projected wins in congressional races. At least 145 Republican election deniers running for the House had won their races as of Wednesday afternoon, ticking past the 139 House Republicans who objected to the counting of electoral votes following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Full Article: Key election deniers concede defeat after disputing Trump’s 2020 loss – The Washington Post

National: How Concessions Are Making a Modest But Notable Comeback in 2022 | Glenn Thrush/The New York Times

Several bitterly contested races remain undecided, but by Wednesday it was becoming clear that the 2022 midterm campaign had spawned a modest and somewhat unexpected national political comeback — by civility. Vanquished candidates from both parties have offered dignified concessions, two years after President Donald J. Trump refused to acknowledge the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr., which emboldened some of his followers to question the legitimacy of elections, and eschew healing rituals in their aftermath. This year, many defeated Republicans — including some endorsed by the former president and many who embraced his lies about the last national election — accepted their losses with magnanimity, rejecting the Trumpian example without mentioning him by name. “This morning I called John Fetterman and congratulated him,” Mehmet Oz, who lost the Senate race in Pennsylvania, wrote in a statement on Wednesday.

Full Article: How Concessions Are Making a Modest But Notable Comeback in 2022 – The New York Times

National: Future of American democracy loomed large in voters’ minds | Gary Fields and Nuha Dolby/Associated Press

This week’s ballot had an unspoken candidate — American democracy. Two years of relentless attacks on democratic traditions by former President Donald Trump and his allies left the country’s future in doubt, and voters responded. Many of the candidates who supported the lie that Trump won the 2020 election lost races that could have put them in position to influence future elections. But the conditions that threatened democracy’s demise remain, and Americans view them from very different perspectives, depending on their politics. In New Hampshire, voters reelected Republican Gov. Chris Sununu to a fourth term but rejected three congressional candidates who were either endorsed by Trump or aligned themselves with the former president. Instead, voters sent Democratic incumbents back to Washington. Bill Greiner, a restaurant owner and community bank founder, said the Trump candidates won their Republican primaries by “owning the crazy lane” and then provided an easy playbook for Democrats in the general election. Greiner, a Republican, said in past years he has fallen in line behind GOP nominees when his preferred candidates lost primaries, but he couldn’t vote for candidates who continued to deny the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

Full Article: Future of American democracy loomed large in voters’ minds | AP News

As Arizona counts votes, Republicans seize on Election Day glitches | Yvonne Wingett Sanchez , Isaac Stanley-Becker , Jon Swaine and Aaron C. Davis/The Washington Post

Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor, seized on technical glitches at dozens of polling locations in a key county to call Thursday for a special legislative session to overhaul the state’s voting system, which she would have the power to do if elected. Lake has yet to say that the election results can’t be trusted, as she did in 2020 when Joe Biden won the state. Her assertion that the system needs immediate change came as officials continued to count votes, a process they have warned could take up to 12 days. The results released so far show Lake, a former television news anchor, locked in a close contest with her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state. Hobbs, meanwhile, wrote on Twitter: “This election will be determined by the voters, not by the volume at which an unhinged former television reporter can shout conspiracy theories.” On Tuesday, nearly a third of polling locations throughout Maricopa County — home to Phoenix and more than 60 percent of the state’s voters — had problems with the printers that produce ballots on demand for individual voters. Starting early Tuesday morning, printers at 70 of the county’s 223 polling sites produced ballots with ink that was too light to be properly read by vote-counting machines, causing the ballots to be rejected, according to county officials. These officials had previously said that a smaller number of sites had problems.

Full Article: As Arizona counts votes, Republicans seize on Election Day glitches – The Washington Post

Arizona: It all turns on Maricopa County: Takeaways from a day of glitches, conspiracies and a lawsuit | Robert Anglen, Sasha Hupka and Corina Vaenk/Arizona Republic

The likely outcome of Arizona’s statewide races hinges on what happens in Maricopa County after an Election Day that saw voting equipment glitches, ink-stained conspiracies and a lawsuit to extend polling hours. County election officials closed out the night with a promise to continue counting all ballots cast in the 2022 midterms. The tally already includes more than 880,000 ballots they had counted by midnight Tuesday. They estimated residents cast 248,000 ballots in person at polling stations on Election Day. Equipment problems that affected at least 30% of the county’s voting centers and prompted a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee will not delay results or interrupt the tabulation process, election officials said.

Full Article: Maricopa County election glitches, conspiracies and a lawsuit

California: Los Angeles County district attorney drops charges against CEO of Konnech | Juma Sei/NPR

In an abrupt reversal, Los Angeles County has dismissed charges against the chief executive of an election software company, marking the end of a case that prominent election deniers cited as evidence of foul play in American elections. Eugene Yu, CEO of the Michigan-based firm Konnech, was charged in mid October with illegally storing the personal information of poll workers on Chinese servers, a violation of its contract with LA County. Konnech has provided its PollChief software to cities and counties across the country, including a $2.9 million contract with Los Angeles County. On Wednesday, the district attorney’s office said that it had moved to dismiss the case. A judge in Los Angeles Superior Court granted the motion without prejudice. “We are concerned about both the pace of the investigation and the potential bias in the presentation and investigation of the evidence,” spokesperson Tiffiny Blacknell said in a statement. The county did indicate that it hasn’t ruled out refiling the charges after reviewing the evidence, saying it would “assemble a new team, with significant cyber security experience to determine whether any criminal activity occurred.”

Full Article: Los Angeles County DA drops charges against CEO of Konnech : NPR

Colorado clerks say Election Day went smoothly despite threats from election deniers | Saja Hindi and Conrad Swanson/Daily Record

Colorado county clerks say the surge of motivated election deniers bent on intimidating voters and election judges did not materialize during Tuesday’s election, but they did report record numbers of ballots turned in on Election Day. The election workers had expressed concern that the deniers — part of a nationwide attempt to manufacture evidence of election fraud — would swarm polling places Tuesday. To prepare, clerks ramped up training efforts to help staff de-escalate potential conflicts, tightened security measures and invited deniers into their offices to show them how Colorado’s voting system works. Executive Director Matt Crane of the Colorado County Clerks Association said for the most part, Election Day went smoothly for county clerks across the state. “We were very pleasantly surprised, not too many issues across the board,” he said. “I think there may have been a couple of ballot boxes with some aggressive watchers, but certainly nothing like we were expecting quite frankly, which is good.” Clerks across the state, including in Larimer County, echoed those sentiments. “I always tell our election judges, ‘don’t let the noise get in your head because it never materializes.’ And we’re ready if it does … but it just never materializes,” said clerk Angela Myers. “And this year was no different. We had virtually no issues whatsoever.”

Full Article: Colorado clerks say Election Day went smoothly

Indiana: Computer error causes election reporting issues in Clark County | WHAS

Officials say during the routine ballot canvassing process, they were notified that approximately 1,700 absentee ballots from Clark County were not included in the unofficial vote totals released to the public Tuesday night. The race most likely to be affected is the Indiana House District 71 race, where Republican Scott Hawkins has a 35 vote lead over Democrat Rita Fleming. County Clerk Susan Popp says the issue was caused by data not transferring from a voting machine to the election totals. She was clear that no ballots were “found” as previously reported. Popp said all seven of the county’s voting machines that counted absentee ballots were working perfectly, the issue came when staff took out the memory cards. One of the cards didn’t transfer to the computer system, she said. “I think all votes should be counted, and they will in this race, obviously,” Clark County Chairman of the Republican Party, Sheriff Jamey Noel, said. “The result may not change, but if it does, we’ll accept that new result.”

Full Article: Computer error causes election reporting issues in Clark County | whas11.com

Michigan: Despite fears, election passes without intimidation or interference | Oralandar Brand-Williams/Bridge Michigan

After fears of Election Day “violence and disruption” in Michigan, and signs that far-right activists were mobilizing as poll workers and election challengers, officials were relieved to see that those threats didn’t materialize. There were no major reports of conflicts as of late Tuesday night. Even the polling place glitches and delays voters saw in other states were rare in Michigan. Like most cities around the state, Flint prepared for the worst and instead experienced an election that appeared — under the direction of a brand-new replacement for the city clerk — to have gone off smoothly. Inside Flint’s counting room for absentee ballots on the third floor of City Hall, there was constant scrutiny from partisan poll challengers late into the night but no disruptions. The clerk and her staff worked into early Wednesday morning, past 1 a.m., to count thousands of absentee ballots as some 10 Republican challengers and two Democratic challengers watched. The GOP challengers identified themselves as members of the Michigan Republican Party, but declined to comment further. A staff member said two ACLU attorneys were also among those watching the process.

Full Article: Despite fears, Michigan election passes without intimidation or interference | Bridge Michigan

Mississippi Secretary of State website victim of cyberattack | Tami Abdollah and Josh Meyer/USA Today

Some Mississippi state websites were briefly knocked offline Tuesday after so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against them as voters turned out at polling sites across the state and the country. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials stressed that such attacks, which flood websites with computer messages, would not affect the actual vote totals. The two U.S. cybersecurity officials spoke on condition of anonymity late Tuesday to discuss ongoing operations. The two officials with the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said there was no specific or credible threat disrupting election infrastructure, or any activity that should cause voters to question the integrity of the election. Mississippi officials confirmed the “abnormally large increase in traffic volume” due to the DDoS activity, which led to some of its websites being “periodically inaccessible” Tuesday afternoon. “We want to be clear and (reassure) Mississippians our election system is secure and has not been compromised,” the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office said in a statement.

Full Article: Mississippi Secretary of State website victim of cyberattack

Nevada county hand counts ballots to double-check machine results | Jessica Hill/Las Vegas Review-Journal

Sitting at tables in groups of three, about 54 volunteers at the Nye County’s Valley Conference Center marked the results of paper ballots on a tally sheet with felt-tip pens — which make it clear if a volunteer tries to tamper with a ballot — before passing them to the next person to double-check their results the totals. The volunteers wear gloves to prevent anyone from using graphite under their fingernails to change the results on the ballots, and once they go through each race another volunteer makes sure all three reviewers counted the same number of votes. Nye County, which received national news attention for its plans to hand count the ballots, restarted that process Thursday as an “experiment” and “test for process,” Clerk Mark Kampf told the Review-Journal. The Nye County Commission voted in March to have an all-paper ballot, hand count system in the election, but it was a long process to work out with the Nevada secretary of state’s office as well as voting rights organizations that challenged the plans. After getting the OK to hand count once the polls closed, the county asked for volunteers to come and be a part of the process.

Full Article: Nevada county hand counts ballots to double-check machine results | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevada Election Results Could Take Days, Officials Say | Julie Brown/The New York Times

Overwhelmed election officials in Nevada say that they have been flooded by thousands of mail-in ballots, and that it may take several days to count the votes and upload results. Last year, the state began requiring that mail-in ballots be sent to every registered voter. While ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, they can be counted if they arrive as late as Saturday. Elections officials have emphasized the need for patience and have not offered predictions on how quickly they will be able to offer tallies. Jamie Rodriguez, the interim registrar of voters in Washoe County, said she was expecting roughly 16,000 mail-in ballots to arrive on Election Day. She said that those votes would not be counted until Thursday because poll workers were so behind. “Understand that whatever results posted tonight, if there are close races, there are definitely still a large number of votes to be counted,” Ms. Rodriguez said on Tuesday night.

Full Article: Nevada Election Results Could Take Days, Officials Say – The New York Times

New Jersey: Ballots missing in Mercer County after voting machine problems | David Wildstein/New Jersey Globe

Ballots from four voting districts in Mercer County have gone missing after paper ballots were shuttled between polling locations and the county election board following a complete failure of voting machines in Tuesday’s election. Robbinsville Mayor Dave Fried said that the Mercer County Board of Elections contacted the township at 5 PM today to report that ballots from one of Robbinsville’s nine voting districts “had gone missing.” Records also show that three districts in Princeton – all cast at the municipal building – were also not recorded as received by the election board. The missing Robbinsville ballots were cast at the Mercer County Library. “The fundamentals of democracy is that every vote would be counted,” Fried said. “Clearly, this has yet to happen in Robbinsville, as approximately 11% of our residents’ votes have yet to be safely delivered and tallied.” A race for the Robbinsville school board, where 103 votes separate Peter Oehlberg and Christopher Emigholz, could be affected by the lost ballots. So could a Princeton school board contest where 67 votes separate Deborah Bronfeld and Rita Rafalvovsky.

Full Article: Ballots missing in Mercer County after voting machine problems – New Jersey Globe

Most Pennsylvania counties blaze through ballots under Act 88’s continuous-count rule | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Despite some initial concerns with a new requirement that most Pennsylvania counties tally their mail-in ballots nonstop, election workers plowed through the job Tuesday and Wednesday while reporting no major problems. Passed by the Legislature late last summer, Act 88 offered grants to counties for election administration costs. But there was a catch: Counties that took the money could not stop counting mail ballots until every one had been tallied. All but four of the state’s 67 counties took the state up on the offer. Many counties already had some experience with nonstop counting from past elections. But the legal requirement adds new pressure and prompted counties to develop new processes to ensure they comply with it, underscoring all the ways in which election officials in the state are still adjusting to manage the relatively new mail-in voting system there. “We have done that in the past. That’s not new to us,” said Commissioner Ray D’Agostino, chair of the Lancaster County Board of Elections.

Full Article: Act 88 forced Pennsylvania counties to count ballots nonstop. Here’s how they did it. – Votebeat Pennsylvania – Nonpartisan local reporting on elections and voting

Texas avoided election violence. Advocates say more protection is needed. | Robert Downen/The Texas Tribune

After two years of fears of electoral dysfunction and violence, voting rights advocates breathed bated sighs of relief this week as Texas finished a relatively calm midterm election cycle. “It was a little bit better than I thought, but I also had very low expectations,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of the voting rights group Common Cause Texas. “We were really concerned about violence at the polls, and most of that was pretty limited.” But he’s not celebrating. Citing thousands of voter complaints received throughout the midterm cycle, Common Cause and other voter advocacy groups want the Texas Legislature to bolster voter protection and education measures and revisit recently passed laws that empowered partisan poll watchers. The complaints ranged from long lines, malfunctioning machines and delayed poll site openings to harassment, intimidation, threats and misinformation. Common Cause received at least 3,000 such complaints on its tipline, Gutierrez said, and most of the harassment, misinformation and intimidation allegations came from voters of color, sparking fears that there were targeted efforts to quell election turnout in 2022 and future contests.

Full Article: Texas avoided election violence. Advocates say more protection is needed. | The Texas Tribune

Wisconsin’s top elections official cautions against replacing the Wisconsin Election Commission | Sarah Lehr/Wisconsin Public Radio

Republican Tim Michels narrowly lost a race Tuesday to unseat Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. But some of Michels’ campaign promises could have lasting reverberations. Among them: his call to eliminate the Wisconsin Elections Commission, a bipartisan body that oversees how elections are run. But, in a post-election interview with Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Morning Show,” the state’s top elections administrator Meagan Wolfe told Wisconsinites they may want to think twice about replacing the Elections Commission. Wolfe praised the bipartisan nature of the commission, and the fact that’s its required to host public meetings. “Anytime someone contemplates changes to our structure, I think they need to consider the trade-offs that would be there,” Wolfe said in an interview that aired Thursday morning. “We do have this unique process where you can watch those decisions (get) made and those decisions are made in a bipartisan way.” During a campaign stop in Middleton days before the midterm elections, Michels told reporters he wanted to replace the Elections Commission with something called the “Wisconsin Election Integrity Group,” though he didn’t say how members would be appointed.

Full Article: Wisconsin’s top elections official cautions against replacing the Wisconsin Election Commission | Wisconsin Public Radio

National: Fears and Suspicion Hang Over Voting on Cusp of Election Day | Nick Corasaniti and Charles Homans/The New York Times

For the vast majority of the 40 million Americans who have already voted in the midterm elections, the process was smooth and unremarkable. But the broad view belies signs of strain: A court ordered armed activists to stop patrolling drop boxes in Arizona. Tens of thousands of voter registrations are being challenged in Georgia. Voting rights groups have trained volunteers in de-escalation methods. Voters have been videotaped by groups hunting for fraud as they drop off their ballots. And Republican candidates across the country, from Arizona to Pennsylvania, continue to amplify Donald J. Trump’s false claims of corrupted elections. Two years after a presidential election warped by lies and disrupted by violence, suspicion and fear have become embedded in the mechanics of American democracy. As another Election Day nears, intimidation has crept up to levels not seen for decades, while self-appointed watchdogs search for fraud and monitor the vote. And election officials say they feel increasingly on edge, ready not just for the frenzy of Election Day but the chaos of misinformation and disputes that may follow. Even Republican election officials said they were braced for a renewed onslaught, one most likely to be fueled by their own party.

Full Article: Fears and Suspicion Hang Over Voting on Cusp of Election Day – The New York Times

National: ‘Rampant disinformation’ seen undermining safe voting technology | Gopal Ratnam/Roll Call

As Americans cast votes for congressional and gubernatorial candidates Tuesday, security experts are most concerned about the spread of misinformation and disinformation that threatens to undermine the integrity of the election process. The election technology itself has receded as a concern. State and local officials have addressed cybersecurity weaknesses and threats of hacking, the key threats seen in previous election cycles going back to 2016. Experts say Congress, federal agencies and private security firms aided those efforts. “I think the biggest new challenge we’re seeing is the disinformation challenge,” said Derek Tisler, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Elections & Government Program. “While not actually threatening the security of elections, it is affecting how people view the security of elections, and many of the challenges can end up having the same effect.” Congress approved more than $1 billion in federal grants to be administered by the Election Assistance Commission since the 2016 elections to help states and local jurisdictions upgrade equipment and boost cybersecurity.

Full Article: ‘Rampant disinformation’ seen undermining safe voting technology

New Report: Coordinating Audits and Recounts to Strengthen Election Verification | Verified Voting and Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota

Download Report The 2020 presidential election was followed by an extensive period of scrutiny and challenge. Some of these activities were typical—automatic recounts, optional recounts, and routine tabulation audits—and some were highly irregular. Widespread misinformation sowed confusion and distrust. As election officials strive to promote public confidence in our elections, it is important to emphasize that recounts and tabulation audits are normal procedures, and they are vital to our elections. Recounts and audits, when properly designed and conducted, can help assure candidates and the public that there was a fair examination of the results and an accurate count of all legally cast votes. State requirements for tabulation audits have been expanding. Recounts are common and will continue to be part of the contentious post-election landscape. Elections need both audits and recounts, and they need audits and recounts to work well together. This paper describes how to dovetail audits and recounts to bolster public confidence in election results. Every state can do better, and this paper provides guidelines for how.

Source: Coordinating Audits and Recounts to Strengthen Election Verification – Verified Voting