National: Why do election experts oppose hand-counting ballots? | Karina Phan and Ali Swenson/Associated Press

Why do election experts oppose hand-counting ballots? It takes longer than counting with machines, it’s less reliable, and it’s a logistical nightmare for U.S. elections. A growing number of Republican lawmakers have pushed for switching to hand-counts, an argument rooted in false conspiracy theories that voting systems were manipulated to steal the 2020 election. Though there is no evidence of widespread fraud or tampering of machines in 2020, some jurisdictions have voted to scrap machines and pursue hand-counts instead this year. Numerous studies — in voting and other fields such as banking and retail — have shown that people make far more errors counting than do machines, especially when reaching larger and larger numbers. They’re also vastly slower. “Machine counting is generally twice as accurate as hand-counting and a much simpler and faster process,” said Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard University who has conducted research on hand-counts. In one study in New Hampshire, he found poll workers who counted ballots by hand were off by 8%. The error rate for machine counting runs about 0.5%, Ansolabehere said. Just how long can hand-counting delay results? Depending on jurisdiction and staffing, it could be days, weeks or even months.

Full Article: Why do election experts oppose hand-counting ballots? | AP News

National: ‘Stolen election’ conspiracies already spreading ahead of US midterm | Mark Scott/Politico

With less than a week before the U.S. midterm elections on November 8, scores of local groups in key battleground states like Arizona, Michigan and Georgia are spreading conspiracy theories about alleged election fraud and calling on voters to take in-person action, based on POLITICO’s review of social media activity over the last three months. The falsehoods, which appear on mainstream networks like Facebook and Twitter as well as fringe platforms, include accusations that ballots will be tampered with and right-wing voters will be disenfranchised, as well as threats of real-world violence. Some of these allegations are fueled by high-profile figures, including former U.S. President Donald Trump. In many ways, the activity mirrors the so-called Stop the Steal movement in 2020. For months before that movement erupted in November protests across the country and on the National Mall on January 6, right-wing activists were peddling unsubstantiated claims on social media that accused Joe Biden and other Democratic politicians of rigging and plotting to steal the presidential election.

Full Article: ‘Stolen election’ conspiracies already spreading ahead of US midterm – POLITICO

National: Justice Department mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024 | Evan Perez, Katelyn Polantz and Jeremy Herb/CNN

As Donald Trump inches closer to launching another presidential run after the midterm election, Justice Department officials have discussed whether a Trump candidacy would create the need for a special counsel to oversee two sprawling federal investigations related to the former president, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. The Justice Department is also staffing up its investigations with experienced prosecutors so it’s ready for any decisions after the midterms, including the potential unprecedented move of indicting a former president. In the weeks leading up to the election, the Justice Department has observed the traditional quiet period of not making any overt moves that may have political consequences. But behind the scenes, investigators have remained busy, using aggressive grand jury subpoenas and secret court battles to compel testimony from witnesses in both the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of national security documents kept at his Palm Beach home. Now federal investigators are planning for a burst of post-election activity in Trump-related investigations. That includes the prospect of indictments of Trump’s associates – moves that could be made more complicated if Trump declares a run for the presidency. “They can crank up charges on almost anybody if they wanted to,” said one defense attorney working on January 6-related matters, who added defense lawyers have “have no idea” who ultimately will be charged. “This is the scary thing,” the attorney said. Trump and his associates also face legal exposure in Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State and expects to wrap her probe by the end of the year.

Full Article: Exclusive: DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024 | CNN Politics

National: Election security has improved since 2016 | Tim Starks/The Washington Post

The vast majority of experts in our Network Survey told us they’re not more worried about cyberthreats in this election compared with the 2020 election. And there’s good reason for that. Ever since an election security push that began after the 2016 election, election systems have fortified with $880 million in federal funding and more states have moved toward hand-marked paper ballots. Election fraud was already a rare occurance, as our Post colleague Glenn Kessler noted in a fact-check this week. The new developments in election security lessen the risks even more – but that’s unlikely to deter some Trump-supporting Republican voters and activists from claiming election fraud in races where their candidate doesn’t prevail next week. “In physical and technical terms, we’ve made enormous progress since 2004, even 2016. In political terms, we seem very much in danger,” said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting. “And that gap between technical reality and political reality is a haunting one.” In 2016, more than 22 percent of voters lived in jurisdictions using a kind of electronic voting machine with no paper backup, which many experts say make them more of a security risk. Now, according to Verified Voting, a nonprofit that tracks election technology, less than 5 percent do. States including New Jersey and Louisiana have had issues switching off electronic voting machines with no paper backup. But even the supposed laggards have made significant improvements, Lindeman observed. In 2020, 36 percent of Texas voters lived in counties with that kind of paperless machine, known as direct-recording electronic. In 2022, that number has shrunk to 6 percent.

Full Article: Election security has improved since 2016 – The Washington Post

National: Trump fans have a plan to trick nonexistent vote hackers: Vote late | Philip Bump/The Washington Post

The news conference President Donald Trump’s lawyers held at the Republican Party’s national headquarters soon after the 2020 election is remembered mostly for former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s odd tonsorial drooling. But it must also be remembered as one of the first iterations of the clumsy effort to tie together seemingly contradictory strains of election-fraud theorizing: that the election was stolen on election night by manipulated electronic voting machines — but also later by illegal or fake mail-in ballots. Trump attorney Sidney Powell attempted to square this circle. The voting machines “probably” were used all over the country to flip Trump votes to ones for Joe Biden, something that “we might never have uncovered had the votes for President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm that had been plugged into the system, and that’s what caused them to have to shut down in the states they shut down in.” Only after the flood of votes “broke the algorithm” — you can perhaps hear the sound of computer engineers slapping their foreheads — did the fraudsters come “in the back door with all the mail-in ballots.” Obviously this is all nonsense, every part of it, as months and years of analysis have proved repeatedly. But there’s something about Powell’s formulation that seems to linger as the 2022 midterms approach. Republicans who say they are worried about the upcoming elections being stolen have come up with a way to beat the system: Vote only at the very last minute to potentially stymie those devious hackers/fraudsters/Democrats.

Full Article: Trump fans have a plan to trick nonexistent vote hackers: Vote late – The Washington Post

National: Amid election conspiracy theories, CISA says there’s no credible threat to voting equipment | Christian Vasquez/CyberScoop

A week before the midterm elections, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly said the Biden administration has done “everything we can” to protect election infrastructure and cautioned against overreactions to any voting mishaps on Election Day. “There are going to be errors, there are going to be glitches. That happens in every election,” Easterly said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington on Tuesday. “Somebody will forget the key to the polling place. A water pipe will burst. These are normal things they are not nefarious.” Her reassurances about the election process come as political tensions mount ahead of the Nov. 8 vote. Disinformation related to the election is flooding on social media, poll workers are facing threats of violence and experts are warning about foreign interference. And against this backdrop, mishaps that happen in the ordinary course of an election can be seized upon by political partisans to undermine the perceived legitimacy of the election process. At this time, Easterly said, CISA has “no information credible or specific about efforts to disrupt or compromise” election infrastructure. “We have done everything we can to make election infrastructure as secure and as resilient as possible.” She did point to the increase in physical threats and acts of intimidation against election officials, saying that “it’s a really difficult physical security environment.”

Full Article: Amid election conspiracy theories, CISA says there’s no credible threat to voting equipment

Editorial: The Courts Are the Only Thing Holding Back Total Election Subversion | Richard L. Hasen/The Atlantic

The United States has failed its first important test for democracy since the 2020 election season: Election denialism has taken hold among a significant segment of Republican voters, and election deniers are poised to win elections next week. They will go on to oversee or certify some elections in 2024. The question that matters now is whether the next line of defense for American democracy—our system of state and federal courts—is strong enough for the task ahead. Things were bad enough at the end of 2020 and into early 2021. Donald Trump’s relentless invocation of the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him through phantom fraud and technical irregularities led to frivolous lawsuits, protests and threats against election workers, and the violence of the January 6 insurrection. When Trump left the White House on January 20, courageous and focused Republican leadership could have quashed Trumpian antidemocratic forces, especially if Democratic leadership had had an earlier singular focus on preventing election subversion.

Full Article: The Courts Are the Only Thing Holding Back Total Election Subversion – The Atlantic

Arizona: Pinal County rejects ballot hand count sought by supervisor | Robert Anglen/Arizona Republic

Pinal County will not conduct an expanded hand count of ballots cast in the Nov. 8 election. The Pinal County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday unanimously rejected a plan to increase the percentage of ballots counted by hand in order to ensure voting machines are accurate. Republican Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh, who sought the expanded hand count as a more reliable test of voting machines, ultimately voted against his own proposal after a barrage of community opposition. “This is what good government should look like,” he said, praising the nearly two-hour meeting as an important hearing on individual concerns. Cavanaugh’s comments contrasted with his opening remarks, when he raised the issue of “dismantling” voting machines before checking himself and saying he wasn’t going to talk about that. He shifted instead to voting machine accuracy. “There has been concern and commentary from both sides of the aisle, the most notable, of course, President Trump … saying elections are stolen,” he said. “I’m not getting into the issue of whether there’s code in the machines that change the vote.”

Full Article: Pinal County rejects ballot hand count sought by supervisor

Georgia’s Battle Over the Ballot | Darryl Pinckney/The New York Review of Books

Democracy can get a good person up in the middle of the night to read the newspapers online. When the news is bad, I fit a definition of literacy in the nineteenth century: someone has to tell me what is in the papers. Not long ago I was asking, How could Herschel Walker be one point ahead of Raphael Warnock in the race for the Georgia Senate seat? The world loves an ignorant, truculent Negro, Margo Jefferson said, especially the athletic kind. How could Brian Kemp be tied with Stacey Abrams in the contest for governor of Georgia? Some white people (and a few black men) resent a black woman whom they cannot patronize, no one had to tell me. The history of my family in Georgia is one of trying to get out of the state. When my parents were growing up there in the 1930s and 1940s, colored people couldn’t vote in the primaries; elections were just exercises in rubber-stamping. In 1946 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld in King v. Chapman a 1945 district court ruling that the segregated Georgia primaries were unconstitutional. Henry A. Wallace got 1,636 votes in Georgia when he ran for president on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. His tally was missing two votes, because my parents were no longer residents. A cousin in the NAACP had been assaulted trying to register black people. Strom Thurmond on the racist Dixiecrat ticket came in a distant second to Harry Truman, the Democrat. My parents remembered the name of Isaiah Nixon, murdered for trying to vote in Georgia in that election.

Source: Georgia’s Battle Over the Ballot | Darryl Pinckney | The New York Review of Books

Why do Georgia’s voting stickers now say, “I secured my vote”? | Sam Worsley/Atlanta Magazine

In 2020, the stickers handed out at polling places across Georgia began showing signs of anxiety—relatable, for sure. Previously a cheery illustration of a peach beneath the phrase “I’m a Georgia voter,” the item acquired another sentence, in shoutier lettering: I SECURED MY VOTE! The update was introduced by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger following a period of heightened attention to how Americans vote: In the past dozen years, a number of states have enacted measures making it more difficult, such as stricter voter-identification requirements. Many restrictions disproportionately affect people of color—in an effort to treat problems, experts say, that don’t meaningfully exist. The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks such restrictions, has calculated that onerous ID requirements, for instance, “address a sort of voter fraud more rare than death by lightning.” The origins of the “I voted” sticker are hazy, but they’ve become ubiquitous, allowing voters to sport their civic achievement while broadcasting a bit of peer pressure; in 1984, Vice President George H.W. Bush wore one that said, “I voted today—have you?” The introduction of the secret ballot in the 19th century made voting a lonelier and more somber affair than it had been previously, and may have contributed to falling turnout rates. The original “I voted” stickers offered a little good cheer and fellow feeling. In the emotional sense, then, the new ones are a departure, hinting at some darker possibility. Semantically, the message isn’t immediately clear: Is “voting” the same thing as “securing one’s vote”? What was I securing it against? “It’s bringing it up,” said Morehouse College political science professor Adrienne Jones. “Someone is leaving the polls like, Yeah, I secured my vote. They’re in that conversation about the idea that the vote is not secure.”

Full Article: Why do Georgia’s voting stickers now say, “I secured my vote”? – Atlanta Magazine

Illinois: Federal lawsuit threatens validity of potentially tens of thousands of mail-in, military ballots | Rick Pearson/Chicago Tribune

A pending federal lawsuit, brought by a downstate Republican congressman and two GOP officials, could invalidate potentially tens of thousands of mailed general election ballots that are cast by Illinois voters, including military members serving overseas, and postmarked on or before this coming Election Day but received by election authorities afterward. The lawsuit, led by four-term U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro echoes some of the rejected court challenges filed by former President Donald Trump in other states in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election that he falsely contends was stolen. Bost is being assisted in the suit by a nonprofit conservative advocacy organization that has backed a number of Trump’s efforts. At issue is a 2015 state law that allows vote-by-mail ballots to be counted if they are received within 14 days after Election Day if they were postmarked on or before the final day of voting. If the ballots lack a postmark or if it is illegible, ballots can be counted if the voter dated and signed the ballot on or before Election Day. Election Day is Nov. 8 and the 14-day time period, in which provisional votes also are considered, ends Nov. 22. The suit seeks to have no vote-by-mail ballots counted that are received after Nov. 8.

Full Article: Lawsuit in Illinois could invalidate thousands of mail-in ballots

Michigan Supreme Court suspends order on poll challengers | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

The Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday suspended a Michigan Court of Claims order — celebrated by Republicans — that required revisions to the instructions for election observers that monitor polling locations and absentee ballot counting rooms. The Michigan Supreme Court’s order leaves in place for the general election the same poll challenger guidelines used in the recent August primary. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and election officials raised concerns that the last-minute revisions ordered by the lower court would cause confusion and chaos at the polls and counting rooms. Former Michigan elections director Chris Thomas worried it would potentially pave the way for intimidation against election workers. Republicans had heralded the earlier lower court order as a legal victory in response to a pair of lawsuits challenging the legality of the poll challenger manual: one from the Michigan GOP and Republican National Committee and another from GOP candidates and challengers representing organizations that deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Full Article: Michigan Supreme Court suspends order on poll challengers

Nevada ACLU asks for probe into ‘partisan’ hand count of mail-in ballots | Zach Schonfewld/The Hill

The ACLU of Nevada says it filed a complaint with the state’s secretary of state on Wednesday alleging “coordinated partisan election administration” during a hand count of ballots in Nye County. The rural county had begun hand counting early ballots late last month in response to conspiracy theories about voting machines there, but the ACLU and other groups have challenged the move in court, and Nevada’s secretary of state told the county last week it must temporarily stop the hand count. The ACLU of Nevada alleged in its new complaint that one of its observers watching the then-active hand count was removed from an observation room by an armed individual initially thought to be a county employee. The group alleged it has since discovered the individual was Laura Larsen, the vice chair of the county GOP’s central committee, who also demanded the ACLU observer turn over her notes. “Nye County’s actions during this election, including the disastrous failure that was its attempt at hand counting paper ballots, exceed the bounds of normalcy and decency,” ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah said in a statement.

Full Article: Nevada ACLU asks for probe into ‘partisan’ hand count of mail-in ballots | The Hill

Pennsylvania has seen unSusual threat levels against poll workers: FBI | Siafa Lewis/CBS

As Election Day nears, officials in Philadelphia are reminding everyone that voter intimidation and harassment is illegal. Pennsylvania is one of seven states the FBI has identified as having seen unusual threat levels against poll workers. That has led to a shortage of poll workers and resulted in Philadelphia increasing pay for poll workers. Additionally, there are concerns about voter intimidation at polling places and officials are trying to get ahead of it all. “Sometimes with extremists, it’s necessary to knock on their foreheads early, and that’s what we’re doing now,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said. “We’re making sure you have the information you need so you do not get yourself into a pair of handcuffs, because believe me, if you try to interfere with or erase the votes of Philadelphians, that’s exactly where you’re going to be.” Krasner also warned that they have handcuffs, jail cells and Philadelphia juries ready for anyone who breaks the law. “Rest assured Philadelphians, it will be safe for you to vote the same as it’s always been,” City commissioner Omar Sabir said.

Full Article: Pa. has seen unusual threat levels against poll workers: FBI – CBS Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Supreme Court says undated mail ballots should be segregated, not counted | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania counties must segregate and not count mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates, the state Supreme Court said Tuesday in a ruling that could affect thousands of votes in November’s midterm elections. The order came as the result of a 3-3 deadlock on the court over whether rejecting such ballots — which have been at the center of an ongoing political and legal fight between Democrats and Republicans — violates federal civil rights law. Three of the justices said throwing out the ballots of otherwise qualified voters over a missing or incorrect date would improperly exclude legal votes. Three others disagreed. The seventh spot on the court remains vacant after the death of former Chief Justice Max Baer. “We hereby direct that the Pennsylvania county boards of elections segregate and preserve any ballots contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes,” the court said in its brief order, which was not immediately accompanied by any opinions explaining the justices’ reasoning. The order said only that opinions would be released later.

Full Article: Pa. Supreme Court says undated mail ballots should be segregated, not counted

South Dakota: Tripp County to hand count election ballots | Eric Mayer and Rae Yost/KELO

Tripp County Commissioner Joyce Kartak made the motion and Dan Forgey seconded the motion to hand count the ballots. The motion came after an hour and 45 minute discussion was held on the concerns of the elections and the machine used to count the ballots, according to minutes from the Tripp County Commission. “It actually surprised me,” DeSarsa said of being able to find enough volunteers to help hand count the votes. “It wasn’t terrible.” The votes will counted by hand at the precinct sites, she said. “I thought that was the best way,” DeSarsa said. Roughly 80% of the site workers said they stay to help count votes, while others can’t stay to count, DeSarsa said. Given that, she needed eight to 10 additional volunteers. … Tripp County will also be using the voting tabulation machine that night. “We were asked to do the machine count (too),” DeSersa said. The hand count will be the official count.

Full Article: Tripp County to hand count election ballots

Texas GOP push to monitor voting in Harris County spurs outcry | Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

With a week to go before Election Day, a showdown is emerging between state and local leaders here over how to protect the security of the vote without intimidating voters and election workers. The clash is playing out in Harris County, Texas’s largest jurisdiction and home to Houston, where state and local Republicans are deploying monitors to oversee the handling of ballots in the Democratic enclave. Local Democratic officials have said the move is an effort to intimidate voters — and asked the Justice Department to send federal observers in response. The result could be a partisan showdown, in which two different sets of monitors face off on Election Day in this giant metro region. That’s not including the thousands of partisan poll watchers who are expected to fan out at voting locations across Texas. GOP officials and conservative poll watchers say heightened scrutiny is necessary to prevent election fraud and mismanagement. Voting-rights advocates and local leaders, meanwhile, say the GOP is scaring voters and election workers alike — and undermining faith in the results for a county that Republicans are pushing hard to win control of on Nov. 8.

Full Article: GOP push to monitor Texas voting in Harris County spurs outcry – The Washington Post

Wisconsin: Republican says party ‘will never lose another election’ if he wins | Martin Pengelly/The Guardian

The Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin told supporters at a campaign event that if he is elected his party “will never lose another election” in the state. Tim Michels’ opponent next Tuesday, the incumbent Democrat Tony Evers, said the comment, which was released by a left-leaning group, showed the Republican was “a danger to our democracy”. Michels, a construction company owner, is endorsed by Donald Trump. He has repeated the former president’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 was the result of electoral fraud, and refused to say if he would certify results in a presidential election if he was governor and a Democrat won Wisconsin. In a debate with Evers last month, Michels did not say he would accept the result of his own election. He later said he would. Republican candidates in other swing states have cast doubt on whether they will accept results next week. Fred Wertheimer, president of the non-partisan group Democracy 21, told the Guardian this week: “There’s great danger that the Trump ‘big lie’ is going to spread to states all over the country. “If election deniers lose their elections by narrow margins we can expect that they will reject the results and refuse to accept them.”

Full Article: Republican says party ‘will never lose another election’ in Wisconsin if he wins | Wisconsin | The Guardian

National: ‘We are a tinderbox’: Political violence is ramping up, experts warn | Melanie Mason and David Lauter/Los Angeles Times

In San Francisco’s tony Pacific Heights neighborhood, an intruder broke into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and violently attacked her husband. In a New York courtroom, a man pleaded guilty to threatening to kill California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. In Washington, federal law enforcement warned that violent domestic extremism posed an elevated threat in the approaching midterm election. All on the same day. The targeting of the home of Speaker Pelosi, a Democrat who is second in line for the presidency, stood out on Friday for its brutality and sinister intent. But for many Americans, shock was tinged with a weary sense of inevitability. Far from a freak occurrence, the attack felt of a piece with the other threats and warnings publicized that day — the latest additions to the country’s growing sense of political menace, especially from the far right. “Unfortunately, this is a continuation of at least a 2½-year-long established pattern of violence against elected officials and local officials, including poll workers, that has been steadily ramping up,” said Erica Chenoweth, a Harvard Kennedy School professor who studies political violence. Politically motivated violence has ebbed and flowed throughout U.S. history. Currently, America is going through an upsurge in right-wing violence, according to researchers who track attacks and other incidents. They say today’s climate is comparable to that in the mid-1990s, when a similar wave of right-wing violence culminated in the 1995 bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people.

Full Article: Extremist political violence is increasing, experts warn – Los Angeles Times

Georgia: How one small-town lawyer faced down the plans of election skeptics | Stephanie McCrummen/The Washington Post

Word of the hearing had been spreading for weeks, and on a bright fall Friday, election skeptics from around northwest Georgia filed into the normally quiet Pickens County Courthouse, expecting that a victory for their movement was imminent. “Down the hall,” a security guard said to a man in an American flag golf shirt, a woman holding fliers for a possible victory rally, and others wearing stickers that read, “The machines must go,” and soon every seat was taken in Courtroom A. Of all the counties in Georgia, this was the one where the activists believed they would succeed. Pickens County is small, rural, overwhelmingly White and Republican, an under-the-radar place where election disinformation had flourished and the people who believed it had easily overtaken the establishment GOP. What they wanted now was a version of what people like them were going for at the grass-roots level all over the country: a way to question the results of a decided election. In their case, they wanted a hand recount of paper ballots cast in the May GOP primary. They wanted to make those sealed paper ballots public records. And they wanted a judge to grant their county election board broad powers to conduct elections in whatever manner it deemed necessary to assuage the doubts of people like them, a ruling that could be applied across all of Georgia’s 159 counties ahead of the midterm elections and beyond.

Full Article: How Pickens County, Ga. election skeptics lost fight to make ballots open records – The Washington Post

National: Federal officials warn that domestic violent extremists pose heightened threat to midterm elections | Geneva Sands and Sean Lyngaas/CNN

Federal officials on Friday warned that domestic violent extremists pose a heightened threat to the 2022 midterm elections, in a joint intelligence assessment sent to state and local officials and obtained by CNN.The bulletin, released by the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, US Capitol Police and National Counterterrorism Center, says that perceptions of election fraud will likely result in heightened threats of violence. The bulletin did not list any specific credible threats. “Following the 2022 midterm election, perceptions of election-related fraud and dissatisfaction with electoral outcomes likely will result in heightened threats of violence against a broad range of targets―such as ideological opponents and election workers,” it states. Enduring perceptions of election fraud related to the 2020 general election continue to contribute to the radicalization of some violent extremists, and likely would “increase their sensitivity to any new claims perceived as reaffirming their belief that US elections are corrupt,” according to the assessment. The joint federal assessment comes as election workers are increasingly concerned about physical threats to themselves and election infrastructure, and foreign actors seek to widen divisions in the United States. “We assess that election-related perceptions of fraud and [domestic violent extremist] reactions to divisive topics will likely drive sporadic [domestic violent extremist] plotting of violence and broader efforts to justify violence in the lead up to and following the 2022 midterm election cycle,” the bulletin states.

Full Article: Feds warn that domestic violent extremists pose heightened threat to midterm elections | CNN Politics

National: In 5 key battlegrounds, most GOP state legislative nominees are election deniers, report finds | Adam Edelman/NBC

Nearly 6 in 10 Republican state legislature nominees in five key battleground states deny the results of the 2020 election, according to an analysis by a group tracking the races. Of those 450 Republican nominees — including incumbents running for re-election and nonincumbents — in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Minnesota, 58% of them have echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, according to research shared exclusively with NBC News by The States Project, a left-leaning group that tracked state legislative races in battleground states. Experts warn that if enough of these election-denying nominees are elected, Republican majorities in the state houses of these crucial battlegrounds could have the power to rewrite election laws and affect future elections, including in 2024 when Trump might run again. “When election deniers are in control, they will do whatever they can to undermine free and fair elections,” said Daniel Squadron, The States Project’s executive director. “We know that the rules for elections and determining the winners are set through the legislative process, so what these folks do would have enormous impact” on “everything from who can register and who can vote to how the results are counted,” Squadron added.

Full Article: In 5 key battlegrounds, most GOP state legislative nominees are election deniers, report finds

National: Inside the secretive effort by Trump allies to access voting machines | Emma Brown and Jon Swaine/The Washington Post

A week after the 2020 election, as Donald Trump raged over what he claimed was rampant fraud, officials in a rural county in southern Georgia received a disturbing report from the employee who ran their elections. New voting machines in use across the state could “very easily” be manipulated to flip votes from one candidate to another, she claimed at a meeting of the county elections board, and ballots could be scanned and counted more than once. She stressed that she had correctly tallied the results in their county, where Trump won in a landslide. But she said not everyone in positions like hers could be trusted to do the same. “Yes there are several check points for the honest person, but the honest person is not in every county,” Coffee County elections supervisor Misty Hampton told the board, according to minutes of the Nov. 10 meeting. One board member declared that the new equipment, made by Dominion Voting Systems, “SICKENS HIM.” Alerted by Hampton, Trump’s team quickly took interest. “I would like to obtain as much information as possible,” a campaign staffer emailed Hampton that same day.

Full Article: Inside the secretive effort by Trump allies to access voting machines – The Washington Post

National: ‘Complex threat environment’ ahead of midterm elections, top cybersecurity official says | Tyler Clifford/Reuters

Election officials in the United States have been alerted to safe-proof their voting systems and be vigilant about political violence amid a “very complex threat environment,” top U.S. cybersecurity official Jen Easterly said on Sunday in the wake of an attack on the husband of a leading Democratic lawmaker last week. Easterly, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in an appearance on CBS “Face the Nation” said the agency is concerned about a range of threats, including cyber, insider, physical and disinformation even as it sees no “specific or credible” threats. CISA is distributing information about disinformation campaigns and tactics that seek to undermine confidence in U.S. elections, she said. “We are putting out information … to make sure that state and local election officials have the information that they need to protect their voting systems and their election infrastructure.”

Full Article: ‘Complex threat environment’ ahead of midterm elections, top cybersecurity official says | Reuters

Arizona’s Republican Attorney General gives county OK for full ballot hand counts | Bob Christie/Associated Press

Arizona’s Republican attorney general has issued an opinion saying county officials can hand-count all ballots in at least five races from the Nov. 8 election, a move that gives a green light to GOP officials in at least two counties who have been clamoring for hand counts. The efforts to hand-count ballots are driven by unfounded concerns among some Republicans that problems with vote-counting machines or voter fraud led to former President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat. The new attorney general opinion led the two Republicans on the three-member Cochise County board of supervisors to boost their plan to hand-count some races in both early and Election Day ballots. They had pledged to pare back the effort on Wednesday. Under state law, the local leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties would have to provide hundreds of volunteers to do the counts. At a fiery meeting Friday, Democratic Supervisor Ann English said she’ll do everything she can to stop the county Democratic Party chair from providing those workers. “It would be my fondest hope, that if I have any authority, any way that I can convince the chair of the Democratic party in Cochise County not to provide people for this fiasco that will be my intent,” English said. “Because I think that every day that we’re discussing this, then people are wondering ‘what’s wrong with our elections.’ ” … The hand count would take place along with the machine count, and the machine count will be used for the legal results.

Full Article: Arizona AG gives county OK for full ballot hand counts | AP News

Arizona: Justice Department says ‘vigilante ballot security efforts’ are likely illegal | Marshall Cohen/CNN

The allegations “raise serious concerns of voter intimidation,” the Justice Department wrote, adding that “vigilante ballot security efforts” and “private campaigns to video record voters” likely violate the federal Voting Rights Act. “Citizen-led election monitoring activities are more likely to put voters in reasonable fear of harassment, intimidation, coercion, or interference with their voting rights,” DOJ added. The department did not take a formal position on what the judge should do. The lawsuit pits the League of Women Voters against several right-wing groups that have promoted false claims about voter fraud and the 2020 election. The group accused the groups of sending vigilante poll watchers, including some with guns and wearing tactical gear, to videotape and intimidate voters at drop boxes.

Full Article: DOJ weighs in on ballot drop box intimidation lawsuit

Georgia: What happened with the voting equipment  in Coffee County? | Emma Brown and Jon Swaine/The Washington Post

After the 2020 election, allies of President Donald Trump mounted a multistate effort to access voting machines in a quest to find purported evidence that the results had been rigged. Parts of that effort played out in public as Trump allies sought to access machines with court orders or subpoenas. But other aspects were secret and did not involve court orders, giving rise to multiple criminal investigations. In rural Coffee County, Ga., forensics experts paid by a nonprofit run by pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell copied virtually every component of the voting system. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is now investigating. On Jan. 7, 2021 — the day after Trump supporters mounted a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol — forensics experts visited the elections office in Coffee County. Trump had won the south Georgia county in a landslide in the 2020 election, yet suspicions persisted among some county leaders that fraud was to blame for Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the state and nationwide. The forensics experts were employees of an Atlanta-based firm called SullivanStrickler. They were welcomed by the county elections supervisor, a member of the county elections board and the chair of the county GOP, who suspected that the 2020 election results had been rigged.

Full Article: What happened in Coffee County, Georgia, with voting equipment? – The Washington Post

Michigan election workers navigate increasing controversy, scrutiny | Jared Weber/Lansing State Journal

For about 15 years, Janet Glisson has served as a precinct worker in Lansing, helping thousands of people vote on Election Day. In 2020, she coordinated the Cumberland Elementary School precinctwith her granddaughter, Abigail Wiefreich. This year, at Wiefreich’s urging, she moved behind the scenes to work with the city’s absentee ballot counting board because of concerns about safety. “Because of the (2020) election — the presidential election was so volatile — she didn’t want me to work in the precinct,” Glisson said as she compiled instruction manuals for this year’s precinct workers. “She said, ‘Seniors don’t need to be here.'” Election day is less than two weeks away, and election administrators and inspectors have been preparing: navigating several turbulent years, changing processes, fight a lack of election infrastructure, a pandemic and a right-wing movement casting doubt on election security. Officials say some Republican election deniers, continuing to push former President Donald Trump’s debunked claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, have sought to mobilize party members as election challengers and poll watchers. Some have even encouraged supporters to become election workers so they can search for evidence of what they perceive to be wrongdoing.

Full Article: Michigan election workers navigate increasing controversy, scrutiny

Minnesota lawsuit against county expands to challenge modems transmitting vote results | Kristine Goddrich/Faribault Daily News

A lawsuit over election records data requests in Rice County has expanded into a challenge of the use of modems in voting equipment. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office has gotten involved and is joining the county in asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuit. Judge Carol Hanks indicated during a hearing this week she is unlikely to issue any ruling before Election Day. The lawsuit was filed in August in Rice County District Court against Denise Anderson, Rice County’s elections director. It was filed by Kathleen Hagen, who is a Lonsdale resident and a former election judge, and Matt Benda, an attorney from Albert Lea who was a Republican candidate for Congress. The lawsuit initially sought to force the county to release more documents about its elections equipment. The plaintiffs later expanded the scope of the lawsuit, asking Hanks to issue an order prohibiting the county from using modems to transmit election results to the Secretary of State. The modems are a threat to election integrity, Benda argues.

Full Article: Lawsuit against county expands to challenge modems transmitting vote results | News | southernminn.com