Warren Stewart – Page 77 – The Voting News

Annie Risku thought she had a lot to celebrate on election night, back in 2020. She had just taken over as Wayne County’s director of elections that July. And despite a pandemic, the state experienced historic voter turnout. In Wayne County, Risku’s office successfully processed more than 10 times the typical number of absentee-by-mail ballots. “We were so focused on COVID, preparing for the pandemic, keeping the voters safe, keeping their hands clean, keeping them from breathing on one another,” Risku said with a wry laugh during a recent interview in her downtown Goldsboro office. Then came the wave of intense skepticism about the elections process, including from voters in this county that Donald Trump carried. She says it caught her a little off-guard. “We had, after 2020, a lot of individuals who didn’t trust that we had actually counted all the votes,” Risku explained. One woman demanded to enter her office to watch Risku count ballots, even though no such thing was happening or ever happens. Ballot counting is conducted according to state law in a prescribed manner and in public view. For example, county boards begin processing mail-in ballots at weekly meetings starting five weeks before Primary and General Election Day. And county boards hold public meetings to process ballots during the 10-day canvas period after Election Day, which culminates in the certification of official results.

Full Article: Partisan attacks are undermining the efforts of North Carolina’s election workers | WUNC

Oregon: Two-thirds of Clackamas County ballots will need to be duplicated by hand due to printing error | Jamie Goldberg/The Oregonian

The vast majority of ballots that Clackamas County election officials sent to voters have defective barcodes making them unreadable by voting counting machines, an error that will cost the county extra money and delay election results. County Clerk Sherry Hall said Wednesday that about two-thirds of the ballots that have been returned to the county so far are marred by the error and require that the voter’s choice in each race be duplicated by hand. The county is preparing for a similar percentage of ballots returned in the coming days to have the same issue, she said. Election officials didn’t notice the error before ballots were sent out. Hall said those ballots will still be counted, but the process of tallying those votes will take extra time and money. At least two election workers registered with different political parties will participate in the copying of votes to new ballots, Hall said. Secretary of State Shemia Fagan incorrectly assured reporters multiple times Wednesday that the county would be able to use a machine to transfer the votes onto new ballots and wouldn’t have to do the job by hand. Her office issued a correction Thursday.

Full Article: Two-thirds of Clackamas County ballots will need to be duplicated by hand due to printing error – oregonlive.com

South Carolina: Early voting coming after lawmakers reach deal on election board oversight | Zak Koeske/The State

True early voting in South Carolina appears likely to become a reality this year. Both the House and Senate on Wednesday approved elections bills that add two weeks of early in-person voting, establish a set number of early voting sites in each county and authorize election officials to begin examining and tabulating absentee votes prior to Election Day. The popular legislation had appeared dead just a few weeks ago due to the Senate’s insistence on including a provision giving the body say-so over the governor’s appointments to the state elections board, which the House and Gov. Henry McMaster would not entertain. Senators late Wednesday dropped that demand, settling instead for confirmation of the state election director and a process for removing the elections board or its executive director if they fail to enforce and defend or publicly discredit state elections laws. “In a way, what we have here is better than advice and consent on the board,” said Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, the amended election bill’s sponsor. Campsen explained that while senators may not be able to deny board nominees up front, they now have a process for removing them once they’re seated, if need be.

Full Article: No-excuse early SC voting could be in place by 2022 primaries | The State

Texas: Crystal Mason’s illegal voting conviction must be reconsidered, court says | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has told a lower appeals court to take another look at the controversial illegal voting conviction of Crystal Mason, who was given a five-year prison sentence for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election while she was on supervised release for a federal conviction. The state’s court of last resort for criminal matters on Wednesday ruled a lower appeals court had wrongly upheld Mason’s conviction by concluding that it was “irrelevant” to Mason’s prosecution that she did not know she was ineligible to cast a ballot. The ruling opens the door for Mason’s conviction to ultimately be overturned. Mason’s lawyers turned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after the Tarrant County-based Second Court of Appeals found that her knowledge that she was on supervised release, and therefore ineligible to vote, was sufficient for an illegal voting conviction. Mason has said she did not know she was ineligible to vote and wouldn’t have knowingly risked her freedom. On Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the lower court had “erred by failing to require proof that [Mason] had actual knowledge that it was a crime for her to vote while on supervised release.” They sent the case back down with instructions for the lower court to “evaluate the sufficiency” of the evidence against Mason. “I am pleased that the court acknowledged issues with my conviction, and am ready to defend myself against these cruel charges,” Mason said in a statement released Wednesday. “My life has been upended for what was, at worst, an innocent misunderstanding of casting a provisional ballot that was never even counted. I have been called to this fight for voting rights and will continue to serve my community.”

Full Article: Crystal Mason’s illegal voting conviction must be reconsidered, court says | The Texas Tribune

Wisconsin: Michael Gableman’s vendetta over Wisconsin’s 2020 election must end | Barry C. Burden and Trey Grayson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Last fall, we warned about the risks of a so-called investigation into the settled 2020 election led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman — a costly, bad-faith endeavor with no credibility or transparency. Remarkably, Gableman’s sham review and his partisan antics are still going on, with no end in sight. Just a few days ago, Gableman was campaigning at a rally with hyper-partisan actors in Wisconsin, including conspiracy theorists and candidates running on disinformation and lies. As a majority of Wisconsin voters know, the 2020 election was free, fair, and accurate —and occurred more than 18 months ago. But the bill to Wisconsin taxpayers for Gableman’s “investigation” of that election will be at least $676,000. This review is more than a waste of money. It’s dangerous. As the nearly 2,000 clerks in Wisconsin prepare for the mid-term elections, a more pernicious risk of the sham election review is emerging: that Gableman’s charade erodes confidence in our elections and the officials who make them run smoothly. It’s time for the so-called investigation to end, before Gableman does even more long-term damage in Wisconsin.

Full Article: Michael Gableman’s vendetta over Wisconsin’s 2020 election must end

DeSantis taps Cord Byrd, self-described ‘Florida gun lawyer,’ to oversee elections | Steve Contorno/CNN

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has put in charge of the state’s election systems a deeply conservative state lawmaker who has championed legislation to ban so-called sanctuary cities and calls himself the “Florida gun lawyer.” DeSantis announced on Friday the appointment of state Rep. Cord Byrd as the next secretary of state, a day after the current officeholder, Laurel Lee, announced she was resigning. Byrd takes over the Florida Department of State at a critical juncture in the agency’s history: For the first time, the office will oversee a new election security force with unprecedented authority to hunt for election and voting violations in the state. The new election force was a top priority for DeSantis, who signed a law to create the Office of Election Crimes and Security earlier this year. “Under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, Florida has led the way on election security and preserving freedom for its residents,” Byrd said in a statement. “As Secretary of State, I will make sure Florida continues to have secure elections and that we protect the freedom of our citizens in the face of big-tech censorship and ever-growing cybersecurity threats.” The change in leadership comes amid a busy midterm election cycle where DeSantis will be on the ballot, and with the Department of State embroiled in multiple lawsuits over Florida’s new congressional map and a 2021 law that put new restrictions on mail-in voting and other election measures. On Thursday, a state judge called the new DeSantis-backed congressional boundaries unconstitutional because they diminish the power of Black voters in northern Florida, but an appellate court on Friday stayed the lower court’s ruling.

Full Article: DeSantis taps Cord Byrd, self-described ‘Florida gun lawyer,’ to oversee elections – CNNPolitics

States struggle to add paper trails to voting machines | Eric Geller/Politico

In a midterm election season where many Republicans are running for Congress on the false premise that the last presidential election was stolen, voters in eight states still vote on machines that don’t keep a hack-proof record of who they voted for — and progress on replacing those machines has been slow. After the extremely close 2000 election, which showed the pitfalls of relying on paper punchcard ballots, many jurisdictions turned to paperless electronic voting machines. But cybersecurity experts objected, warning that paperless machines undermined election security by making it impossible to reliably audit the results. Russia’s interference in the 2016 election galvanized a move back to paper records, albeit with new electronic machines that print out ballots. Since then, seven states have replaced paperless machines with devices that security experts consider safer.

Full Article: States struggle to add paper trails to voting machines

National: Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes | Farnoush Amiri/Associated Press

Rioters who smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, succeeded — at least temporarily — in delaying the certification of Joe Biden’s election to the White House. Hours before, Rep. Jim Jordan had been trying to achieve the same thing. Texting with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, a close ally and friend, at nearly midnight on Jan. 5, Jordan offered a legal rationale for what President Donald Trump was publicly demanding — that Vice President Mike Pence, in his ceremonial role presiding over the electoral count, somehow assert the authority to reject electors from Biden-won states. Pence “should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all,” Jordan wrote. “I have pushed for this,” Meadows replied. “Not sure it is going to happen.” The text exchange, in an April 22 court filing from the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot, is in a batch of startling evidence that shows the deep involvement of some House Republicans in Trump’s desperate attempt to stay in power. A review of the evidence finds new details about how, long before the attack on the Capitol unfolded, several GOP lawmakers were participating directly in Trump’s campaign to reverse the results of a free and fair election.

Full Article: Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes | AP News

National: Republican election-deniers elevate races for secretary of state | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

Add one more group of contests to the white-hot races for Congress and governor that will dominate this year’s midterm elections: secretaries of state. Former President Donald Trump’s attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election and his subsequent endorsements of candidates for state election offices who are sympathetic to his view have elevated those races to top-tier status. At stake, say Democrats and others concerned about fair elections, is nothing less than American democracy. “If they win the general election, we’ve got real problems on our hands,” said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who has pushed back against the false claims made by Trump and his allies about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. “This is an effort to replace the people who oversee these races – to change the rules to make the results come out the way they want them to.” The primary season begins in force in the coming week with elections in Ohio and Indiana. Ohio voters will decide which candidate will emerge from the Republican primary for secretary of state, with the winner favored to eventually win the office in the GOP-dominated state.

Full Article: Republican election-deniers elevate races for secretary of state

National: DHS watchdog says Trump’s agency appears to have altered report on Russian interference in 2020 election in part because of politics | Priscilla Alvarez and Zachary Cohen/CNN

Full Article: DHS watchdog says Trump’s agency appears to have altered report on Russian interference in 2020 election in part because of politics – CNNPolitics

Former President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security delayed and altered an intelligence report related to Russian interference in the 2020 election, making changes that “appear to be based in part on political considerations,” according to a newly released watchdog report. The April 26 Homeland Security inspector general’s assessment provides a damning look at the way DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis dealt with intelligence related to Russia’s efforts to interfere in the US, stating the department had deviated from its standard procedures in modifying assessments related to Moscow’s targeting of the 2020 presidential election. The conclusion that Trump’s appointee appeared to have tried to downplay Russian meddling in a key intelligence report is the latest example of how his aides managed his aversion to any information about how Russia might be helping his election prospects. According to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, Trump officials tried to avoid the topic during meetings and at hearings, because he would become enraged and upset when Russian meddling came up. The US intelligence community announced during the 2020 campaign that Russia was actively meddling in the election to weaken then-candidate Joe Biden. At the time, Trump downplayed those findings and promoted false claims about Biden that aligned with Russia’s disinformation efforts. The IG report addresses past suspicions that Trump appointees distorted some intelligence reports to foster a more Trump-friendly narrative.

National: NSA, Cyber Command tap new election security leaders | Martin Matishak/The Record

U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency have named the newest leaders of a joint election security task force that will play a central role in keeping the 2022 midterm elections free of foreign interference. The task force, originally dubbed the Russia Small Group, was established in 2018 by Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, who helms both Cyber Command and the NSA, to protect the 2018 midterms from meddling by Moscow. It was rechristened the Election Security Group (ESG) ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and its mandate was tweaked to include threats from countries including China, North Korea, and Iran, as well as non-state actors. “The band is already back together,” Nakasone said Wednesday at Vanderbilt University’s Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, noting the group’s scope had been changed because “we have broader issues than just one nation.” “We’re less than 200 days before our nation goes to vote for our midterm elections,” Nakasone added. “And I assure you that we are ready, we will be ready, going forward.”

Full Article: NSA, Cyber Command tap new election security leaders – The Record by Recorded Future

National: Democrats urge Biden to use presidential powers, ‘whatever means necessary’ to protect voters | Deborah Barfield Berry USA Today

With federal voting rights legislation stalled in Congress, Democratic lawmakers and civil rights activists are calling on the Biden administration to issue a new executive order aimed at better protecting voters against restrictive state election laws. Democrats and activists are increasingly disappointed with the lack of progress on passing sweeping voter protection legislation. And with high-stakes midterms elections looming, there’s also growing concern about ballot access for voters of color — historically a key voting bloc for Democrats. Rep. Joyce Beatty, , an Ohio Democrat and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the Biden administration should “do whatever is necessary, whether that’s an executive order, whether that is us figuring out a legislative approach that we can get through.” White House officials said they haven’t ruled out any avenues. “Everything’s on the table,’’ Cedric Richmond, senior advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement told USA TODAY. He added: “Where there’s constitutional things we can do you can look for us to do them.”

Full Article: Voting rights: Biden urged to consider executive order to protect voters

Arizona: Maricopa County officials want record ‘corrected’ after election fraud report by Attorney General | Michael McDaniel/Courthouse News Service

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors asked Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich on Wednesday to correct the record after publishing controversial interim findings on the integrity of the 2020 election. Brnovich’s interim findings, sent to the state Senate on April 6, cited concerns over signature verification, chain-of-custody procedures and the use of private money in the election. The bipartisan board’s letter to Brnovich comes after an executive session Wednesday during which the board and the county recorder unanimously decided to refute his findings with correspondence. “It’s disappointing that we have to write this in response to an office that saw fit to take no action for all of 2021 until the politics changed,” said Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, at the executive meeting Wednesday. “I have been so disappointed on so many levels with Republican electeds, Republican colleagues, Republican friends.” Richer told the board Brnovich’s report caused his staff trouble and threats. “But I’ve never been more disappointed than when somebody omits information, misstates information and besmirches the good name of the hard-working people in my office and reopens vitriol, hate and threats that they shouldn’t have to deal with,” Richer said. Later, the board questioned whether Brnovich released his report after pressure from his party and from former President Donald Trump.

Full Article: County officials want record ‘corrected’ after election fraud report by Arizona AG | Courthouse News Service

Colorado judge orders Elbert County Clerk to turn over copies of voting hard drives | Coleen Sleven/Associated Press

A judge has ordered a county clerk who copied his voting system’s hard drives to turn over his copies to Colorado’s secretary of state by the end of the day Wednesday. Secretary of State Jena Griswold sued to force Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder to turn over the external hard drives containing the copies and Judge Gary M. Kramer ruled late Friday that Schroeder must follow her lawful orders. Kramer also ordered Schroeder to answer Griswold’s questions about who has had access to the copies in filings. It’s one of a handful of cases across the United States in which authorities are investigating whether local officials directed or aided in suspected security breaches at their own election offices. Some of them have expressed doubt about the results of the 2020 presidential election. Schroeder’s lawyer, John Case, declined to comment on the order Monday. Schroeder has said he copied the hard drives because he wanted to preserve the results of the 2020 election. He first made a copy of the hard drives of the election server, the image cast central computers and the adjudication computer before the state updated voting software. He then made a copy of that set of copies.

Full Article: Judge orders clerk to turn over copies of voting hard drives | AP News

Georgia early voting check-in system restored after outage | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia’s voter check-in system was restored Thursday morning after a statewide outage had caused problems with early voting in the primary election, according to the secretary of state’s office. Voters were still able to cast ballots during the outage, but poll workers had to use backup procedures to verify their registration information before they were allowed to vote. The problem was caused by a “glitch” after primary and backup servers automatically restarted Wednesday night, said a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office. Restarting the servers Thursday morning appeared to fix the issue, The disruption affected Georgia’s voter registration system, called ElectioNet, which is used to check in voters at early voting locations during the primary. The secretary of state’s office announced plans to replace the ElectioNet system earlier this year, but the new computer system wasn’t ready in time for the primary.

Full Article: Georgia early voting check-in system restored after outage

Idaho Governor’s Cybersecurity Task Force Releases Recommendations | Betsy Z. Russell/Big Country News

After eight months of work, Gov. Brad Little’s Cybersecurity Task Force released its final report Wednesday at the Idaho National Laboratory, laying out 18 recommendations to improve Idaho’s resistance to cyber-attacks. They range from increasing K-12 computer science and math literacy to outreach to rural communities on how to combat threats to establishing a “Cyber Fusion Center” to communicate threats and lead response for everyone from government, utilities and universities to private companies. “We all know that cybersecurity intrusions, corruption and fraud are global threats,” Little said. “They challenge the security of all citizens, businesses and governments at every level.” Led by the INL and the Idaho Department of Commerce, the 19-member task force started meeting last August, focusing on critical infrastructure, workforce development and education, election security and cybersecurity awareness. “Active public engagement is vital,” said Tom Kealey, director of the Idaho Department of Commerce, who co-chaired the task force with INL Associate Lab Director Zach Tudor. “With nearly every Idaho citizen, business and organization connected to the internet and other networks, cybersecurity becomes everyone’s responsibility.”

Full Article: Idaho Governor’s Cybersecurity Task Force Releases Recommendations | Idaho | bigcountrynewsconnection.com

Michigan State Police seizes voting machine as it expands investigation into potential breaches tied to 2020 election | Annie Grayer and Zachary Cohen/CNN

The Michigan State Police has expanded its investigation into whether third parties gained unauthorized access to voting machine data after the 2020 election, and is now examining potential breaches in at least one new county, CNN has learned. In a raid last Friday, state police seized one voting machine tabulator in Irving Township, Barry County Clerk Pamela Palmer told CNN on Thursday. Palmer told CNN that she was not aware of any issues until police notified her of the voting machine seizure. Michigan State Police first opened its investigation into potential voting machine breaches in February after the Secretary of State’s Office notified it that an unnamed third party was allowed to access vote tabulator components and technology in Roscommon County. Michigan State Police Lt. Derrick Carroll told CNN on Wednesday that the department’s investigation has expanded to more counties where they were notified of breaches of election systems, but would not confirm the seizure in Irving Township specifically. It’s unclear if the investigation includes localities beyond Roscommon County and Irving Township but a source familiar with the investigation told CNN that state police are aware of a third potential breach.

Full Article: Michigan State Police seizes voting machine as it expands investigation into potential breaches tied to 2020 election – CNNPolitics

Mississippi: So long, paperless voting machines | Press Register

It is richly ironic that it took a fake election scandal to finally convince lawmakers and election officials in Mississippi of the real potential for a rigged or botched election. Thanks to Donald Trump’s false claims that Joe Biden and the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election, Mississippi Republicans decided to finally act and pass a law this year that will require all counties in Mississippi by 2024 to have a system in place that provides a paper backup to electronically tabulated vote totals. Mississippi is one of just six states where a significant number of voters still only have access to paperless machines. For those Mississippi voters, approximately 1 out of 3, the only record of their choices is what’s recorded on the electronic memory card inside the voting machines themselves. That includes Leflore and Carroll counties. The percentage, though, is a marked improvement from just a few years ago, when Mississippi counties — with the misguided consent of both the U.S. Justice Department and the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office — began removing en masse the balky external printers with which the touchscreen machines were initially equipped. Verified Voting is a nonpartisan organization that maintains a database on the election equipment used in every U.S. county. According to its records, 75% of Mississippi voters in 2016 lived in counties where the balloting was done on touchscreen machines without a voter-verified paper trail. By 2020, that figure was down to 56%. It’s projected to drop to 34% by this year’s November elections. The new law should bring the figure down to zero in a couple more years.

Full Article: So long, paperless voting machines | Press Register

Ohio: Scanning problems at Cuyahoga County polling locations temporarily caused voting delays on Election Day; but ‘integrity’ remained intact, officials say | Kaitlin Durbin/Cleveland Plain Dealer

Full Article: Scanning problems at Cuyahoga County polling locations temporarily caused voting delays on Election Day; but ‘integrity’ remained intact, officials say – cleveland.com

Technical issues Tuesday morning temporarily caused delays in voting across Cuyahoga County. Although some voters left without casting a ballot, officials say residents were never turned away, and voters can have confidence their ballots will be counted. The scanning issues did not affect the ability to vote; it only affected how voters were checked in, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections spokesman Mike West said, and everything was resolved shortly after 8 a.m. The problem occurred with the electronic poll books, which are the online rosters of eligible voters in the district or precinct. When a voter checks in at the polls, the machines are supposed to verify the person is in the correct location and scan and record the stub number for that person’s ballot. But machines were “not automatically recording,” West said. Instead, poll workers were having to look up voters in paper poll books and enter the stub numbers manually. None of the problems prevented a person from voting, he said. He didn’t know how many ballots had been submitted in the roughly 90 minutes that the electronic scanners weren’t working, but he said by 9 a.m. more than 12,000 people had already voted.

Oregon: Printing error affecting many Clackamas County ballots will require copying votes by hand, raising county costs and delaying election results | Jamie Goldberg/The Oregonian

Full Article: Printing error affecting many Clackamas County ballots will require copying votes by hand, raising county costs and delaying election results – oregonlive.com

Clackamas County election officials sent ballots with defective barcodes to an unknown number of voters for the May 17 primary, an error that will cost the county extra money and will likely delay election results. County Clerk Sherry Hall announced Wednesday that a printing error had caused the barcodes on many ballots to be blurred, making them unreadable by the county’s ballot processing equipment. Election officials didn’t notice the error before the ballots were sent to voters. It’s one of at least four errors or misdeeds, one of them criminal, that have marred Clackamas County elections since 2010 and one of two significant mistakes the county elections office made this year. Hall said the defective ballots will still be counted, but the process of tallying those votes will take more time because election workers will have to fill out new ballots by hand for voters whose barcodes were defective. At least two election workers registered with different political parties will participate in the transferring of votes to the new ballots to ensure mistakes are avoided, Hall said. Election observers will witness the process and the county will keep the damaged ballots on file.

Pennsylvania elections chief concerned about voter intimidation, says primary results might be delayed | Teresa Boeckel/York Daily Record

Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Leigh Chapman voiced concerns about voter intimidation in one Pennsylvania county where a district attorney plans to have detectives watch a drop box. Her remarks came Thursday as she addressed questions from the news media about the May 17 primary. Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin plans to have detectives monitor drop boxes, and anyone who drops off more than one ballot could face a fine or jail time, media outlets have reported. Voters are only allowed to return their own ballot unless they have a disability and a designated agent to submit it. Martin has told news media an investigation showed “hundreds” of voters turned in more than one ballot during the 2021 election. Chapman said no evidence exists of widespread voter fraud through ballot drop boxes.

Full Article: Voter intimidation, delayed primary results possible, PA official says

Tennessee: Divide over voting equipment in Shelby County | Joyce Peterson/WMC

The clock is ticking for Shelby County to order new voting equipment, but the two groups tasked with getting it done still don’t see eye to eye on which kind of voting machines to buy. Mark Luttrell, the former sheriff and mayor of Shelby County, now heads the Shelby County Election Commission. Job one, he told Action News 5, is to get this done. “We are woefully, woefully inadequate when it comes to this,” he said, “If there’s been any voter suppression in Shelby County, it’s because we don’t have up-to-date equipment. It’s just not efficient.” Even with a short ballot and low voter turnout, final results in Tuesday’s primary took several hours to tabulate. “It’s taking longer,” said Shelby County Administrator of Elections Linda Phillips, “because our equipment is old. With every election, it gets a little slower. It gets a little harder.”

Full Article: Divide over voting equipment in Shelby County

Wisconsin: I’m frankly amazed’: Another judge orders Republicans to prevent destruction of records in Gableman election review | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A second judge Wednesday ordered Wisconsin Republicans to prevent the destruction of public records as they review the 2020 election at taxpayer expense. Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn said she was compelled to issue the order but was astonished she had to do it because the review is being overseen by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. “I’m frankly amazed that I have to say don’t destroy records that are subject to an open records request or order that to occur. I think all of us know what the law is,” Bailey-Rihn said at the end of a 30-minute hearing. She said as a former justice Gableman should know what the records law requires and has an ethical obligation to follow it. Gableman has contended he is exempt from retaining records because the lawmakers who hired him are not required to hold onto records under state law. Bailey-Rihn issued her order two weeks after Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington issued a similar order in another open records lawsuit. Those two lawsuits and a third one were brought by American Oversight, a liberal group that has been tracking the Assembly review of the presidential election. A month ago, Bailey-Rihn found Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester in contempt of court for failing to release records about the election review. She will determine later whether Vos has now met his obligations and whether he should be fined.

Full Article: Judge orders Wisconsin Republicans to retain election review records

Trump allies breach U.S. voting systems in search of ‘evidence’ | Alexander Ulmer and Nathan Layne/Reuters

Eighteen months after Donald Trump lost the White House, loyal supporters continue to falsely assert that compromised balloting machines across America robbed him of the 2020 election. To stand up that bogus claim, some Trump die-hards are taking the law into their own hands – by attempting, with some success, to compromise the voting systems themselves. Previously unreported surveillance video captured one such effort in August in the rural Colorado town of Kiowa. Footage obtained by Reuters through a public-records request shows Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder, the county’s top election official, fiddling with cables and typing on his phone as he copied computer drives containing sensitive voting information. Schroeder, a Republican, later testified that he was receiving instructions on how to copy the system’s data from a retired Air Force colonel and political activist bent on proving Trump lost because of fraud. That day, Aug. 26, Schroeder made a “forensic image of everything on the election server,” according to his testimony, and later gave the cloned hard drives to two lawyers. Schroeder is now under investigation for possible violation of election laws by the Colorado secretary of state, which has also sued him seeking the return of the data. Schroeder is defying that state demand and has refused to identify one of the lawyers who took possession of the hard drives. The other is a private attorney who works with an activist backed by Mike Lindell, the pillow mogul and election conspiracy theorist.

Full Article: Trump allies breach U.S. voting systems in search of ‘evidence’

National: Talk of martial law, Insurrection Act draws notice of Jan. 6 committee | Jacqueline Alemany, Josh Dawsey and Tom Hamburger/The Washington Post

Three days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She told him that some Republican members of Congress believed the only path for President Donald Trump to change the outcome of the 2020 election and stay in power was for him to declare martial law. The text from Greene (R-Ga.), revealed this week, brought to the fore the chorus of Republicans who were publicly and privately advocating for Trump to try to use the military and defense apparatus of the U.S. government to strong-arm his way past an electoral defeat. Now, discussions involving the Trump White House about using emergency powers have become an important — but little-known — part of the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation of the 2021 attack on the Capitol. In subpoenas, document requests and court filings, the panel has demanded information about any Trump administration plans to use presidential emergency powers to invoke martial law or take other steps to overturn the 2020 election. Interviews with committee members and a review of the panel’s information requests reveals a focus on emergency powers that were being considered by Trump and his allies in several categories: invoking the Insurrection Act, declaring martial law, using presidential powers to justify seizing assets of voting-machine companies, and using the military to require a rerun of the election. “Trump’s invocation of these emergency powers would have been unprecedented in all of American history,” said J. Michael Luttig, a conservative lawyer and former appeals court judge.

Full Article: Talk of martial law, Insurrection Act draws notice of Jan. 6 committee – The Washington Post

National: Trump’s lies helped prompt one critical election reform | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Indiana are all belatedly making moves to require paper records for all votes cast in their states — a vital shift to ensure votes weren’t manipulated by hackers or altered by digital glitches. But there’s a catch. The moves were spurred in large part by former president Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud and manipulation in the 2020 election and his baseless crusade against voting machine companies — rather than by legitimate concerns spurred by Russian interference in the 2016 contest. It may be the only security-enhancing effect of Trump’s wild and baseless claims that his election loss was illegitimate — and election security advocates are celebrating it even as they’re dubious about the impetus. “I don’t condone bizarre claims about past elections or fearmongering about how we operate elections, but if people have to resort to misguided beliefs to come to true beliefs, things could be worse,” Mark Lindeman, director of the group Verified Voting, told me. “It’s really valuable to have paper ballots, and we don’t care how people come to that conclusion,” Lindeman said.

Full Article: Trump’s lies helped prompt one critical election reform – The Washington Post

National: GAO: EAC Can Decide on State Funding for Election Officials’ Security | Lisbeth Perez/MeriTalk

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has been given full discretion to decide if states can allocate funds from the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to provide security services for state or local election officials, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In December 2021, the EAC reached out to GAO to determine whether states may use certain grant funds made available to them under HAVA to provide “physical security services and social media threat monitoring” in connection with election activities. HAVA authorizes the use of grant funds for states to improve the administration of elections for Federal office. However, the law does not explicitly authorize nor prohibit the use of funds for security services. GAO stated in its decision that “if not otherwise specified in the law, an expense is authorized where it bears a reasonable, logical relationship to the purpose of the appropriation to be charged.” “Here, a decision to allow the use of grant funds for the physical security services and social media threat monitoring would be within EAC’s legitimate range of discretion,” the report says. “Congress vested in EAC the authority to administer the HAVA grants [but] also vested in EAC the authority to determine whether a particular grant expenditure helps ‘improv[e] the administration of elections for Federal office.’”

Full Article: GAO: EAC Can Decide on State Funding for Election Officials’ Security – MeriTalk

National: Digital Response launches new election program | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

The U.S. Digital Response, the nonprofit civic-tech group that sprung up during the COVID-19 pandemic to assist local governments with online service delivery, is adding a new program focused on developing tools to help election officials. The effort will see the organization’s engineers and managers work with county- and local-level election administrators on using open-source technologies to build products like poll-location search tools, election information websites and applications that help officials manage poll workers. “What we specialize in is simple tools that make an impact that are quick,” Priya Garg, one of the heads of the organization’s new elections program, told StateScoop. U.S. Digital Response has offered its assistance to election administrators since its founding in 2020, when it developed poll-locator tools for tribal voters in Arizona and built an app for Harris County, Texas, to recruit and organize poll workers in the country’s third-biggest voting jurisdiction. The beefed-up elections program is the product of a major grant USDR recently received from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit group of election-minded technologists that received $350 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, in 2020. U.S. Digital Response leaders declined to disclose the value of the grant, only saying that it was a “multi-million-dollar” award capable of sustaining the group’s work for several years.

Full Article: U.S. Digital Response launches new election program

National: Cyber agency director says election security a top priority ahead of midterms | The Hill

Jen Easterly, the head of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), told lawmakers on Thursday that election security is a top priority for her agency, as it anticipates Russian interference in the upcoming midterm elections. Easterly, who was testifying before the House Committee on Appropriations on the agency’s budget request, said midterm election security “is obviously one of our top priorities,” adding CISA was focused on guiding states and localities to combat disinformation campaigns — a tactic the Russians are expected to deploy. “We are here to help and make sure that all state and local election directors have the resources that they need to ensure the integrity of their election security,” Easterly said. Easterly was responding to a question from Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), who asked how the agency plans to defend the integrity of the election given previous attempts from Russians to penetrate voter registration databases and steal personal data.

Full Article: Cyber agency director says election security a top priority ahead of midterms | The Hill

National: Mark Meadows’ 2,319 text messages reveal Trump’s inner circle communications before and after January 6 | Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb and Elizabeth Stuart/CNN