How will Montana police the integrity of its future elections? | Alex Sakariassen/Montana Free Press

The past three months have featured one legislative debate after another over proposed changes to how counties conduct elections and verify their results. But last week the conversation took an inevitable turn into the realm of enforcement — in other words, how Montana will police the integrity of its elections moving forward. The first pitch came last Wednesday from Rep. Neil Duram, R-Eureka, who suggested the state establish an “election security team” made up of eight appointees handpicked by statewide officials, legislative leaders and the Montana Supreme Court. Duram’s House Bill 905 would task that team with overseeing a post-election hand count of all ballots cast in every Montana precinct — numbering 663 as of the 2022 general election — and report its findings to state and county election officials.

Source: How will Montana police the integrity of its future elections?

North Dakota Senate OKs bill to ensure physical polling places | Jack Dura/The Bismarck Tribune

The North Dakota Senate on Friday, March 31, passed a bill to ensure physical polling places, similar to legislation that failed in 2021, brought in the wake of North Dakota’s all-mail June 2020 election. House Bill 1167 , by Rep. Steve Vetter, R-Grand Forks, passed in a 39-5 vote and now goes to Gov. Doug Burgum. The state House of Representatives in February passed the bill unanimously. The bill states: “The governor may not issue an executive order that suspends or amends a provision in a statute, order, or rule relating to a state or local requirement regarding minimum number of physical polling places.” Burgum in 2020 signed an executive order waiving the requirement that counties provide at least one physical polling site for the June 2020 election due to the coronavirus pandemic. The House and Senate in 2021 had passed the previous bill, but the Senate reconsidered it and it failed by a single vote.

Full Article: North Dakota Senate OKs bill to ensure physical polling places – InForum | Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo news, weather and sports

Texas GOP wants out of national program that targets voter fraud | Cayla Harris/San Antonio Express-News

State lawmakers are taking steps to pull Texas out of a multistate partnership that helps prevent voter fraud and encourages unregistered citizens to sign up to vote. Officials have hinted at the state’s impending exit from the Electronic Registration Information Center for months, and senators heard testimony on a bill last week that would clear the way for Texas to leave the program. The initiative launched in 2012 and had more than 30 member states at its peak, helping local governments identify voters who moved, died or had duplicate registrations. Texas Republicans say they want to replace ERIC with their own program, but it’s unclear how long it would take to develop and how many states would join. “Many Texans and folks across the country — but in particular, Texans — are concerned about the security of voter information flowing to this national organization, also about the high cost associated with it,” said state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, as he introduced Senate Bill 1070 last week.

Full Article: Texas GOP wants out of national program that targets voter fraud

Vermont journalist Sue Halpern on threats to democracy | David Goodman/VTDigger

Vermont journalist Sue Halpern reports on national issues for the New Yorker magazine, where she is a staff writer. Her recent reporting has included stories about the 40-year effort to ban abortion pills, the promise and peril of artificial intelligence, and threats to democracy. One topic that she has covered in depth is the effort to subvert elections. She has written about candidates for secretary of state who deny that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, attempts by election deniers to access electronic voting systems and the Republican war on voting. Halpern was recently shocked to discover that Vermont is currently considering allowing internet voting, which experts have described as “a security nightmare.” The provision, which is supported by the Office of the Vermont Secretary of State, is tucked into legislation, H.429, that was approved last month by the Vermont House and is now being considered in the Senate. Among those arguing against Vermont’s internet voting provision are the watchdog groups Common Cause, Public Citizen, Free Speech for the People and the Brennan Center for Justice.

Full Article: Vermont Conversation: Journalist Sue Halpern on threats to democracy – VTDigger

Wisconsin: Disabled voters say absentee law not followed | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

Disabled voters say local election leaders across Wisconsin are not following federal law during early voting in the high-stakes race for state Supreme Court, incorrectly telling them they can’t have another person return their absentee ballot for them. Absentee ballots, and who can return them, has been a political flashpoint in battleground Wisconsin, known for razor-thin margins in statewide races. The April 4 election will determine majority control of the state Supreme Court, with abortion access and the fate of Republican-drawn legislative maps on the line. Challenges to laws and practices in at least eight states that make it difficult or impossible for people with certain disabilities to vote have also arisen in the past two years. At the same time, there has been a push in many states to restrict rules affecting who can return absentee ballots. Wisconsin Republicans successfully sued last year to ban absentee ballot drop boxes, and the conservative-controlled state Supreme Court ruled that only the voter can return their ballot in person or place it in the mail. People with disabilities filed a federal lawsuit in response to the state court’s decision, arguing that federal law allows them to get assistance in returning their ballot. A federal court ruled in their favor in August, noting that the Voting Rights Act applies to Wisconsin voters who require assistance with mailing or delivering their absentee ballot because of a disability.

Full Article: Disabled Wisconsin voters say absentee law not followed | AP News

National: Far-right presentation using misappropriated election software alarms experts | Sarah D. Wire/Los Angeles Times

On the third day of the Conservative Political Action Conference this month, two men demonstrated experts’ biggest concerns about attempts to access election machines after the 2020 election. Using copies of election software that was improperly taken from multiple counties and that has been circulating among election deniers, they presented unfounded claims that they had discovered evidence of fraud and foreign interference. They also discussed their goals of securing jobs as election officials and building a team of computer experts to access elections systems in more than 60 counties in order to prove their theories. “This is exactly the situation that I have warned about,” Kevin Skoglund, chief technologist for Citizens for Better Elections, said of the presentation during CPAC. “Having the software out there allows people to make wild claims about it. It creates disinformation that we have to watch out for and tamp down.” Skoglund is among the election security experts concerned that bad actors are using the time between the 2020 and 2024 elections to study election systems and software in order to produce disinformation during the next presidential election, such as fake evidence of fraud or questionable results. Described as an election integrity presentation, the event wasn’t on the official conference agenda or sanctioned by CPAC, but took place in a guest room at a nearby hotel. Some CPAC sponsors plan and produce their own sessions on the conference’s sidelines.

Full Article: How improperly obtained election information is being shared – Los Angeles Times

National: Online voting provider paid for academic research in attempt to sway U.S. lawmakers  | Yael Grauer/CyberScoop

House Bill 1475 would transform how many voters in the state of Washington cast their ballots. Rather than trooping to the ballot box or mailing in absentee ballots, the bill would have allowed some voters, like those overseas or disabled, to vote and return their ballots online. Election security experts have determined time and again that any kind of online ballot processing poses significant risks to the integrity, security and privacy of votes. Nonetheless, HB 1475 — and efforts in other states and at the federal level — embraces this controversial technology. At the center of the effort to pass laws incorporating online voting is a company called Democracy Live. At a Jan. 25 hearing before the State Government and Tribal Relations Committee of  Washington’s lower house, Democracy Live CEO Bryan Finney and King County Director of Elections Julie Wise made the case for incorporating online voting. Wise, who oversees elections in Washington’s most populous county, told the committee that she would follow up by emailing a letter from the University of Washington’s Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, “where they go into great depth of reviewing what we’re talking about today.” That letter was supposed to provide a testament to the security of Democracy Live’s products but did not disclose that one of the two people who signed the letter, Michael Hamilton, was a paid consultant for Democracy Live while testifying to the security of the company’s products. It also fails to mention that Democracy Live paid University of Washington employee Ran Hinrichs to serve as a project manager for work leading up to the letter, including an unpublished study referenced in it.

Full Article: Online voting provider paid for academic research in attempt to sway U.S. lawmakers  | CyberScoop

National: How Election Deniers Are Making Voter Fraud Easier | Alan Greenblatt/Governing

In February, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose held a news conference in which he discussed ways the state was making elections more transparent and secure. One thing that’s indispensable, he suggested, was ERIC, or the Electronic Registration Information Center, a data-sharing effort among states. “It is one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have,” LaRose said. “It’s a tool that has provided great benefit for us, and we’re going to continue to use it.” Well, that was then. On March 17, LaRose announced Ohio was quitting ERIC. It’s among a half-dozen Republican-controlled states that have left this year, including five just this month. As a result, election officials are worried that one of the most effective sources of voter information available to states — and a rare bipartisan success story over the past decade — has been undermined. “It’s going to leave you in a position of not having a tool you can use to prevent voter fraud,” says John Merrill, a Republican who served as Alabama’s secretary of state until January. “It’s going to be a major concern for states that are concerned with election integrity.”

Full Article: How Election Deniers Are Making Voter Fraud Easier

National: State election officials at U.S. Senate hearing discuss threats to workers, call for funding | Ariana Figueroa/New Jersey Monitor

Election officials on Tuesday detailed to the U.S. Senate Rules Committee how their states countered threats to election workers and worked to combat misinformation and disinformation during the 2022 midterm election. With the 2024 presidential election closely approaching, Senate Rules Committee Chair Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she was concerned about threats to election workers and disinformation campaigns that aim to undermine elections. Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said it was important to hear from election officials from those states — North Carolina, South Carolina, New Mexico and Nebraska — to help prepare for the 2024 elections. “In the face of these challenges, it is important as ever that we continue to support election officials as they do their jobs to uphold our democracy,” she said. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said the “big lie” has had an effect on election workers, because many have left due to threats and harassment.

Full Article: State election officials at U.S. Senate hearing discuss threats to workers, call for funding – New Jersey Monitor

National: Bipartisan former members of Congress call for boost in funding to secure elections | Jennifer Shutt/Kansas Reflector

A bipartisan group of former U.S. lawmakers on the National Council on Election Integrity called on Congress on Friday to spend $400 million on election integrity to insulate the system from foreign interference. “The Department of Homeland Security designated our election system as critical infrastructure in 2017,” the four wrote in a letter. “However, that designation was not accompanied by regular or adequate federal funding.” “In each of the last two years, Congress appropriated just $75 million for Election Security Grants — a fraction of the funds needed to secure our elections in this dynamic threat environment,” they added. The co-chairs of the council — former Virginia Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, former Maryland Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards, former Indiana Democratic Rep. Tim Roemer and former Tennessee Republican Rep. Zach Wamp — wrote in the letter they are “deeply concerned that election officials are currently not receiving the federal support that they need to strengthen and secure federal elections in 2024 and beyond.” The National Council on Election Integrity, which began ahead of the 2020 presidential elections, includes about 40 civic and political leaders focused on “defending the legitimacy of our free and fair elections,” according to its website.

Full Article: Bipartisan former members of Congress call for boost in funding to secure elections – Kansas Reflector

National: Fox lawsuit highlights effects of conspiracies on Dominion | Christina A. Cassidy and Jonathan J. Cooper/Associated Press

In Arizona’s most populous county, elected officials are bracing for what could happen when it comes time to replace its $2 million-a-year contract for voting equipment. Officials in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, say they have no concerns about their current vendor, Dominion Voting Systems. The problem is that the company has been ensnared in a web of conspiracy theories since the 2020 presidential race that have undermined public confidence in U.S. elections among conservative voters, led to calls to ban voting machines in some places and triggered death threats against election officials across the country. “I have concerns over my own personal security if we re-enlist Dominion,” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican elected in 2020, said in a court filing. “It went from a company that nobody had heard about to a company that is maybe one of the most demonized brands in the United States or the world.” That sudden turnabout in fortunes for the Colorado-based voting machine company is at the heart of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit it has filed against Fox News, with the trial scheduled to begin in mid-April. Dominion claims Fox defamed it by repeatedly airing false claims about the company’s voting machines and software. Court records and testimony revealed that several Fox hosts and executives didn’t believe the claims pushed by former President Donald Trump and his allies since the 2020 election but continued to air them, in part because they were worried about losing viewers.

Full Article: Fox lawsuit highlights effects of conspiracies on Dominion | AP News

National: How to Protect American Democracy | Lawrence Norden and Derek Tisler/Foreign Affairs

The 2016 presidential election made clear that American democracy is vulnerable to interference by foreign adversaries. In response, officials at all levels of government moved quickly to strengthen protections for the vote. In 2020, the danger of domestic attacks came into greater focus, with the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 serving as a frightening wake-up call. The antidemocratic and violent forces unleashed that day have not faded away. Instead, the threat has metastasized. For the past two years, prominent voices have continued to spread lies about the electoral system and the results of the 2020 election. Election workers have experienced ongoing harassment and violence. There have also been instances of “insider threats,” where a small number of election workers have themselves propagated false election information and taken actions that directly threaten election integrity. The good news is that the 2022 congressional midterms stalled the momentum of those denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Election deniers running to take over election administration in battleground states mostly lost their races, and across the country, voting was remarkably peaceful.

Full Article: How to Protect American Democracy | Foreign Affairs

Arizona: Kari Lake’s election challenge delayed as court consider sanctions | Stacey Barchenger/Arizona Republic

The election challenge filed by former GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake will extend for weeks more following two court orders Saturday that set schedules to sort out the remaining issues in the case. Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court sent a single claim in Lake’s case — her allegation that Maricopa County’s practice of verifying ballot signatures didn’t follow state law — back to a county judge for reconsideration. That county judge set a schedule to examine the signature verification issue with the possibility of oral arguments this week. Now, those dates are off. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson on Saturday rescinded his order from just days before after the Supreme Court, in its own Saturday order, set a schedule to consider whether Lake should face sanctions for bringing a case that Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ legal team has dubbed frivolous.

Full Article: Kari Lake’s election challenge delayed as court consider sanctions

California: Shasta County’s quest to replace Dominion turns ‘very dark’ | Eric Ting/ SFGATE

After Shasta County ended its contract with Dominion Voting Systems over election fraud conspiracy theories, there were two options county leaders considered: 1) Enter an agreement with a different electronic voting system certified by the state of California, or 2) Attempt to count all ballots by hand  — which would come at a very steep cost and risk falling out of compliance with state law — and apparently hope that My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell pays the legal fees stemming from any possible lawsuits. Guess which option the five-person board — now led by a conservative supermajority — chose. “The whole thing is just hard to absorb and I’m in a little bit of shock,” county elections chief Cathy Darling Allen told SFGATE on Tuesday evening, after the board voted 3-2 to hand-count all ballots. The vote came at the tail end of a laborious nine-hour meeting. “It’s pretty clear the supervisors don’t quite understand what they’ve undertaken,” Allen said.

Full Article: Shasta County’s quest to replace Dominion turns ‘very dark’

California: Shasta elections official: County likely needs 1,300 workers to hand count votes; ‘even we cannot perform miracles’ | David Benda/Redding Record Searchlight

Opting to manually count ballots in an election could set Shasta County back more than $1.6 million and would require hiring 1,300 workers to help with the tally and renting a facility that’s large enough to carry out the work securely. That’s the determination from county Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen who late Monday night released a 26-page analysis on hand-counting in which she urges leaders to reject a system that has not been tested anywhere in California. The report, which is accompanied by a three-page letter addressed to the Board of Supervisors, dropped just hours before members are scheduled to decide what future elections will be like in the county. Supervisors will consider on Tuesday Chair Patrick Jones’ push for counting votes by hand as well as a voting system that also allows for at least two races to be manually counted. Darling Allen is calling on the supervisors to either reinstate the contract with Dominion Voting Systems or approve a contract for new voting machines. To do otherwise could put the county at risk of not being able to conduct elections within the mandated timelines and result in voter disenfranchisement, potential litigation and erosion of confidence in local elections, she said.

Full Article: Shasta County elections official warns against counting votes by hand

Colorado Secretary of State settles lawsuit with conservative watchdog over voter roll maintenance practices | Matt Bloom/Colorado Public Radio

A conservative watchdog group has come to terms with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office in a lawsuit over its voter registration list maintenance practice after years of litigation. The suit, brought by Judicial Watch in U.S. District Court in 2020, alleged that Sec. Jena Griswold violated the National Voter Registration Act by failing to remove ineligible voters from the state’s rolls. That discrepancy led to artificially high registration rates in many counties, the lawsuit claimed. As a part of its agreement to dismiss the case, Griswold denied all claims that Colorado violated federal laws that govern voter roll maintenance. But her office agreed to provide Judicial Watch with public data from a federal survey on an annual basis for the next five years. “We have a very rigorous list maintenance process and I do not believe that this litigation is about anything based in fact,” Griswold said. Her office settled the lawsuit to prevent “further unnecessary drain” on state resources, she said. She also characterized the lawsuit as a meritless attack on democracy. “Election disinformation continues to plague the nation and Colorado, and organizations like Judicial Watch share responsibility for the ongoing threats to democracy,” she said.

Full Article: Colorado Secretary of State settles lawsuit with conservative watchdog over voter roll maintenance practices | Colorado Public Radio

Connecticut: Voting advocates, state legislators work to put state on the “cutting edge” of voter accessibility | Yash Roy/Yale Daily News

As federal efforts to protect voting access have stalled amid Republican opposition, Connecticut advocates are pushing the state legislators to protect voting rights in the state. The Connecticut Voting Rights Act, which has been dedicated to late Civil Rights Leader John Lewis, was passed by the Government and Elections Committee on Monday and now faces a vote in the State House. The bill will expand language accessibility at polling sites, require preclearance for voting rule changes in municipalities with a history of voter intimidation and allow voters to sue municipalities for laws or actions that are intimidatory or discriminatory. Meanwhile, advocacy groups across Connecticut are working with state legislators to pass legislation to enact the state constitutional amendment allowing for early voting. The amendment was proposed in a referendum in the 2022 midterm elections where state voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of the change. Prior to the referendum that authorized the amendment, Connecticut was one of four states that did not allow early voting. Legislators and advocacy groups are currently working to decide if the early voting period will be 14 or 18 days and if cities with larger populations will have more than one early voting location.

Full Article: Voting advocates, state legislators work to put Connecticut on the “cutting edge” of voter accessibility – Yale Daily News

Georgia: Ban on outside election money passes General Assembly | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A party-line vote in the Georgia Senate gave final approval Wednesday to a bill that would make it a felony for county election offices to receive money from nonprofit organizations following Republican complaints that donations disproportionately benefited Democratic areas. The 32-21 vote on the bill, the most contentious election-related proposal at the Georgia Capitol this year, sends it to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature. Republicans pushed the bill after DeKalb County received a $2 million grant in January from the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence. The alliance includes the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which was funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who donated more than $400 million to election offices nationwide in 2020. Critics said nonprofit donations that have helped fund government election operations since 2020 overwhelmingly flowed to Democratic-run counties, but supporters of the money said it filled critical election funding shortfalls, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. “Is that fair to have this inequity of private dollars pouring into some counties to make it easy to vote and being stuck with only public dollars in other counties?” state Sen. Ed Setzler, a Republican from Acworth, asked during a debate on the measure, Senate Bill 222. “It should be fair for everybody.”

Source: Ban on outside election money passes Georgia General Assembly

Michigan Court of Appeals deals blow to lawsuit tied to 2020 election | Steve Carmody/Michigan Radio

It’s another loss in court for those trying to litigate Michigan’s 2020 presidential election. The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld a lower-court ruling dismissing a lawsuit which challenged millions of dollars given to hundreds of local clerks’ offices before the 2020 election. The money came from a foundation run by social media billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The stated intent of the donations was to help the clerks conduct the election during the COVID pandemic. But some Republican voters sued, claiming the real intent was to serve as a “Get out the Vote” effort to help Democrat Joe Biden. Biden won Michigan and the presidency. Last year, a Michigan Court of Claims judge dismissed the suit. “Meritless lawsuits undermine citizens’ well-placed faith in our elections and remain one of the weapons used in the ongoing, multifaceted and well-funded attack on American democracy,” said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Full Article: Michigan Court of Appeals deals blow to lawsuit tied to 2020 election

North Carolina board removes election officials who refused to certify | Hannah Schoenbaum/Associated Press

North Carolina’s state elections board on Tuesday removed two local election officials who had refused to certify their county’s 2022 results after officials determined they violated state law. The state board voted unanimously to dismiss Surry County elections secretary Jerry Forestieri and board member Timothy DeHaan in one of the strongest disciplinary actions taken against local officials across the U.S. who have delayed or refused to certify election results. Controversies over election certification have roiled mostly rural counties across the country as conspiracy theories about voting machines have spread widely among conservatives. Forestieri and DeHaan had questioned the legitimacy of state election law and court decisions disallowing photo ID checks and voter residency challenges. They falsely claimed in a letter that the vote was “illegal” and “very uncertain.” “These rulings have stripped the election process of the trustworthiness they were designed to protect,” they wrote. “Since then, the general welfare of the citizens of North Carolina has been damaged by a growing lack of trust in our election process.” The two circulated the letter during a canvas meeting last fall when county election officials convened to certify the accuracy of the vote count. DeHaan ultimately signed on to certify, while Forestieri did not.

Full Article: N.C. board removes election officials who refused to certify | AP News

Nevada Governor targets mail ballots, wants voter ID | Jessica Hill/Las Vegas Review-Journal

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo introduced legislation Monday that would make sweeping changes to Nevada’s election process, including repealing universal mail-in voting, requiring an ID to vote and moving up the deadline for completed mail ballots to be received. If passed, Senate Bill 405 would undo election-related legislation passed by the 2021 Legislature and signed by Lombardo’s Democratic predecessor, Steve Sisolak, that expanded voting access and led to the state receiving an “A” grade on its election report card from the Institute for Responsive Government. “Governor Lombardo submitted SB 405 as part of his ongoing promise to fight for common sense election reforms in Nevada,” said Elizabeth Ray, Lombardo’s spokeswoman. “SB 405 will help restore faith and timeliness in our election system, so that every Nevadan has confidence that our voting process is free and fair.”

Full Article: Lombardo bill would make sweeping changes to Nevada elections | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Texas may be about to scrap a voting security system it can’t replace | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

With some Texas Republicans pushing the state to abandon one its best tools for preventing voter fraud — a coalition of states that share voting roll data to weed out duplicate and suspicious registrations — the secretary of state’s office is trying to discern if it can build a replacement. But the effort could easily stall or take years, experts say. Similar efforts in other states over the past two decades have not worked, or have been shut down, because they lacked bipartisan support from multiple states and access to the kind of national data that produces accurate cross-state voter list matching — all of which the Electronic Information Registration Center, or ERIC,spent years developing. The push to have Texas become the latest state to withdraw from ERIC, a long-standing effort by nearly 30 states, is rooted in a yearlong misinformation campaign that spread through right-wing media platforms and advocacy groups.

Full Article: Texas may be about to scrap a voting security system it can’t replace | The Texas Tribune

Vermont: Election bill sparks concern about voting security | Emma Cotton/VTDigger

If we can put a person on the moon and bring them back in one piece, can we electronically send a ballot to a Vermont voter in a different country and maintain confidence in our election system? That’s the question that Bryan Finney, CEO of Democracy Live, rhetorically asked lawmakers in the Senate Government Operations Committee on Wednesday. But the question isn’t rhetorical for a number of concerned groups and citizens, and it’s at the heart of a big debate about a small section of a bill, H.429, that covers a number of miscellaneous changes to the state’s election law. Vermont currently delivers some electronic ballots through the Secretary of State’s “My Voter” webpage to, say, military personnel. But, as it stands, the law requires that all ballots be returned via snail mail or in person. That system, most stakeholders agree, has prevented some people from voting. “If you’re deployed on a submarine, or in a foxhole on the frontlines, or in Antarctica,” that makes it tough to access a printer, an envelope or mail service, said Will Senning, elections division director for the Secretary of State’s Office.

Full Article: Final Reading: Election bill sparks concern about voting security – VTDigger

Wisconsin’s disabled voters face barriers amid ‘massive confusion’ | Alice Herman/The Guardian

As Wisconsin’s 4 April supreme court election approaches, disabled voters in the state are pushing elections officials to prioritize protecting the right to vote absentee and with assistance. “I always, always vote absentee,” said Stacy Ellingen, a Wisconsin voter who has cerebral palsy and requires assistance in voting. “If absentee voting wasn’t an option, I honestly wouldn’t be able to vote in most elections.” In February 2022, the Wisconsin supreme court ruled that voters must turn in their own ballots, making no exception for people with disabilities. Although a federal judge later clarified that voters with disabilities did, in fact, reserve the right to assisted voting, the temporary ban has generated lasting confusion at polling places and, in some cases, disenfranchised voters with disabilities. “Municipal clerks are telling people that they cannot accept ballots on someone else’s behalf, which isn’t true,” said Ellingen, who works as a social media ambassador for the Wisconsin Disability Vote Coalition. “This whole thing has caused massive confusion among the disability community and has led to some people not voting.”

Full Article: Wisconsin’s disabled voters face barriers amid ‘massive confusion’ | Wisconsin | The Guardian

National: CISA: Election Security Still Under Threat at Cyber and Physical Level | Alexandra Kelley/Nextgov

Federal cyber leadership doubled down on the need to continue to fortify election security at both the local and national level as threats from foreign and domestic actors will still be a problem ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “We face continuing threats from a growing number of foreign state sponsored threat actors intent on targeting our election infrastructure and voters through cyber activity and malign foreign influence operations,” Kim Wyman, the senior advisor for election security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said during a panel discussion hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles, on Friday. Wyman said that in the wake of the tumultuous 2016 presidential election, the security of the digital election infrastructure of the U.S. has made “incredible progress” in improving voting systems’ resiliency. She also noted that while law enforcement and regulatory bodies saw “no evidence” of deleted or lost votes within the 2022 election, state-sponsored threats were documented. “We did however, see activity from sophisticated state sponsored threat actors that is cause for continued vigilance,” she said. “Our adversaries continue to see our elections as opportunities for interference and influence.”

Full Article: CISA: Election Security Still Under Threat at Cyber and Physical Level – Nextgov

National: Election conspiracy movement grinds on as 2024 approaches | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

One by one, the presenters inside the crowded hotel ballroom shared their computer screens and promised to show how easy it is to hack into voting systems across the U.S. Drawing gasps from the crowd, they highlighted theoretical vulnerabilities and problems from past elections. But instead of tailoring their efforts to improve election security, they argued that all voting machines should be eliminated — a message that was wrapped in conspiracies about elections being rigged to favor certain candidates. “We are at war. The only thing that’s not flying right now is bullets,” said Mark Finchem, a Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona last year who continues to contest his loss and was the final speaker of the daylong conference. Finchem was among a group of Republican candidates running for governor, secretary of state or state attorney who disputed the outcome of the 2020 election and who lost in a clean sweep last November in important political battleground states, including Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Yet deep distrust about U.S. elections persists among Republicans, skepticism fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims and by allies who have been traveling the country meeting with community groups and holding forums like the one recently just outside Nashville, attended by some 250 people.

Full Article: Election conspiracy movement grinds on as 2024 approaches | AP News

National: Election Officials Call for Action to Protect Democracy | Suzanne Potter/Public News Service

American democracy is in mortal danger as the 2024 election approaches, according to experts at a conference held at the University of California, Los Angeles on Friday. Millions of Americans still believe the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and the insurrection that took place on January 6th of 2021 proves that some are willing to resort to violence. UCLA Law Professor Rick Hasen organized the conference and said some groups are actively working against the will of the voters. “Elections deniers won office in non-swing states, and many are in Congress,” said Hasen. “Local election officials have shared voting machine code with conspiracy theorists, and some local election boards have tried to require the hand count of ballots or refuse to certify election results.” In December, Congress passed reforms to the Electoral Count Act of 1887 – a rare bipartisan move to make it harder to attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election, as former President Trump did in 2020. Republicans have defeated Democratic proposals to reduce the influence of money in politics and expand access to voting.

Full Article: Election Officials Call for Action to Protect Democracy / Public News Service

National: Trump-commissioned report undercut his claims of dead and double voters | Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post

When Donald Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in a now-infamous bid to overturn the 2020 election, he alleged that thousands of dead people had voted in the state. “So dead people voted, and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters,” he said, without citing his study. But a report commissioned by his own campaign dated one day prior told a different story: Researchers paid by Trump’s team had “high confidence” of only nine dead voters in Fulton County, defined as ballots that may have been cast by someone else in the name of a deceased person. They believed there was a “potential statewide exposure” of 23 such votes across the Peach State — or 4,977 fewer than the “minimum” Trump claimed. In a separate failed bid to overturn the results in Nevada, Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing that 1,506 ballots were cast in the names of dead people and 42,284 voted twice. Trump lost the Silver State by about 33,000 votes. The researchers paid by Trump’s team had “high confidence” that 12 ballots were cast in the names of deceased people in Clark County, Nev., and believed the “high end potential exposure” was 20 voters statewide — some 1,486 fewer than Trump’s lawyers said.

Full Article: Trump-commissioned report undercut his claims of dead and double voters – The Washington Post

National: Florida Election Fraud Police Spur Copycats in Republican-Led States | Ryan Teague Beckwith/Bloomberg

Four Republican-led states are working to add new police agencies specifically to target voter fraud, following the example set by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Florida’s elections cop squad has faltered in its most high-profile cases since launching in July. But that hasn’t slowed down state legislators in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and Arkansas who have proposed bills that would create new police agencies to investigate voter fraud, an exceedingly rare crime typically handled by local police and elections officials. The proposals under consideration in the legislatures follow national moves by Republican lawmakers over the last three years to criminalize elections law by imbuing prosecutors with new powers, expanding the list of election-related crimes and beefing up punishments for technical violations. In Missouri and Ohio, the bills would create election police as part of the office of the secretary of state, currently both Republicans. In Arkansas, they would report to the attorney general, a Republican. In Texas, three different bills would create a statewide network of election marshals. Virginia’s Republican attorney general created an Election Integrity Unit last fall as well without the need of legislation.

Full Article: DeSantis’s Election Fraud Police Spur Copycats in Republican-Led States – Bloomberg

National: Where Dominion v. Fox Could Lead | Amy Davidson Sorkin/The New Yorker

Contested elections can have unexpected legacies. After the recount of the 2000 Presidential election results in Palm Beach County, Florida, a Canadian electrical engineer named John Poulos was struck, like most people, by what a mess it was. These were the days of the so-called Brooks Brothers riot and a Supreme Court fight that awarded Florida’s electoral votes to George W. Bush. Poulos was unimpressed by the voting technology, which featured poorly designed punch-card ballots that yielded hanging and dimpled chads, and overcounts and undercounts. During the next couple of years, he worked on building a better voting machine. He founded a company and, looking for a name, turned to the Dominion Elections Act of 1920, which had enfranchised many Canadian women. “We thought that would be a nice homage to helping voters vote,” he told Fortune. Dominion Voting Systems is now reaching a decisive stage in a defamation lawsuit it has filed against Fox News and its parent, Fox Corporation, whose chairman is Rupert Murdoch. Dominion has asked for compensatory damages of as much as $1.6 billion—a figure that may change—saying that Fox and its on-air personalities promoted an “inherently improbable and demonstrably false preconceived narrative” that it had been involved in a grand scheme to rig the 2020 Presidential election. A Delaware Superior Court judge, Eric Davis, will hear arguments for summary judgment this week. If the case moves forward, a trial should begin in April. In many ways, it’s puzzling that Fox has allowed the case to proceed this far. The evidence that has been made public in pre-trial filings, including internal texts and e-mails, could hurt its standing with almost every imaginable constituency, including its core audience. In one text, the host Tucker Carlson said of Donald Trump, “I hate him passionately.”

Full Article: Where Dominion v. Fox Could Lead | The New Yorker