National: ‘Smoking rifle’: Trump Jr texted Meadows strategies to overturn election – report | Martin Pengelly/The Guardian

Two days after the 2020 election, Donald Trump Jr texted the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, with strategies for overturning the result, CNN reported. “This is what we need to do please read it and please get it to everyone that needs to see it because I’m not sure we’re doing it,” Trump Jr reportedly wrote, adding: “It’s very simple … We have multiple paths[.] We control them all.” One leading legal authority called the text “a smoking rifle”. CNN said the text was sent on 5 November 2020, two days before Joe Biden was declared the winner of the election and the next president. Two months after 5 November, on 6 January 2021, supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” in his cause attacked the US Capitol. A bipartisan Senate report connected seven deaths to the riot. According to CNN, in his texts to Meadows, Trump Jr laid out strategies the Trump team went on to pursue as they disseminated lies about election fraud and pressured state and federal officials. Such tactics included lawsuits in swing states, the overwhelming majority of which were rejected, and “having a handful of Republican state houses put forward slates of fake ‘Trump electors’”.

Full Article: ‘Smoking rifle’: Trump Jr texted Meadows strategies to overturn election – report | Donald Trump Jr | The Guardian

National: Jan. 6 Panel Has Evidence for Criminal Referral of Trump, but Splits on Sending | Michael S. Schmidt and Luke Broadwater/The New York Times

The leaders of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack have grown divided over whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department of former President Donald J. Trump, even though they have concluded that they have enough evidence to do so, people involved in the discussions said. The debate centers on whether making a referral — a largely symbolic act — would backfire by politically tainting the Justice Department’s expanding investigation into the Jan. 6 assault and what led up to it. Since last summer, a team of former federal prosecutors working for the committee has focused on documenting the attack and the preceding efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election. The panel plans to issue a detailed report on its findings, but in recent months it has regularly signaled that it was also weighing a criminal referral that would pressure Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to open a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump. Despite concluding that they have enough evidence to refer Mr. Trump for obstructing a congressional proceeding and conspiring to defraud the American people, some on the committee are questioning whether there is any need to make a referral. The Justice Department appears to be ramping up a wide-ranging investigation, and making a referral could saddle a criminal case with further partisan baggage at a time when Mr. Trump is openly flirting with running again in 2024. The committee’s vice chairwoman, Representative Liz Cheney, said on CNN on Sunday that the committee had not reached a final decision about making referrals and downplayed any divisions on the committee, but acknowledged there was significant evidence of criminality.

Full Article: Jan. 6 Panel Has Evidence for Criminal Referral of Trump, but Splits on Sending – The New York Times

National: Senators push for details on protecting election officials amid threat concerns | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, are pressing a federal agency for details on how it is working to support election workers facing a growing number of threats following the 2020 election.  Klobuchar and Blunt sent a letter this week to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) that was first obtained by The Hill saying they had “heard about a number of challenges” election workers are facing in the lead up to the midterm elections. “The EAC plays a critical role in ensuring that election officials have the necessary information and resources to administer secure and successful elections, and it is important for the EAC to be prepared to support election officials as they work to address these obstacles,” they wrote in the letter.  The two senators pointed to myriad potential hurdles that election workers face, including cybersecurity, misinformation, increased threats and the ability to recruit election workers.

Full Article: Senators push for details on protecting election officials amid threat concerns | The Hill

National: Intel: Putin may cite Ukraine war to meddle in US politics | Nomaan Merchant/Associated Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin may use the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine as a pretext to order a new campaign to interfere in American politics, U.S. intelligence officials have assessed. Intelligence agencies have so far not found any evidence that Putin has authorized measures like the ones Russia is believed to have undertaken in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in support of former President Donald Trump, according to several people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive findings. But given Putin’s antipathy toward the West and his repeated denunciations of Ukraine, officials believe he may see the U.S. backing of Ukraine’s resistance as a direct affront to him, giving him further incentive to target another U.S. election, the people said. It is not yet clear which candidates Russia might try to promote or what methods it might use. The assessment comes with the U.S. electoral system already under pressure. The American public remains sharply divided over the last presidential election and the insurrection that followed at the U.S. Capitol, when supporters of Trump tried to stop the certification of his loss to President Joe Biden. Trump has repeatedly assailed intelligence officials and claimed investigations of Russian influence on his campaigns to be political vendettas.

Full Article: Intel: Putin may cite Ukraine war to meddle in US politics | AP News

Arizona Attorney General report finds no evidence of mass fraud in Maricopa County 2020 election results | Vaughn Hillyard and Zoë Richards/NBC

A report issued Wednesday by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich found no evidence of widespread voter fraud or irregularities associated with the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County while raising concerns about some voting procedures. The interim report, six months into an investigation, was detailed in a 12-page letter to Senate President Karen Fann. Brnovich, a Republican, said his office “has left no stone unturned in the aftermath of the 2020 election.” Former President Donald Trump is pursuing a persistent pressure campaign to uncover any illegal activity that would support his false claims that he defeated President Joe Biden in Arizona 17 months ago. Trump lost Arizona by less than 10,500 votes, and a GOP-commissioned review in Maricopa County confirmed Biden’s victory.

Full Article: Arizona AG report finds no evidence of mass fraud in Maricopa County 2020 election results

Colorado lawmakers advance bill to protect elections workers | James Anderson/Associated Press

A Colorado legislative panel advanced a bill Thursday to add protections for elections workers after hearing disturbing testimony about escalating threats that have prompted many to quit or take security training so they feel safe in their public-service work. State and local elections officials told the House State, Civic, Military, & Veterans Affairs Committee that their workers, from municipal front-office staff to county clerks to the state’s highest-ranking elections officials, have experienced an escalation of threats since the 2020 presidential election. The threats — delivered by email, phone, or by the posting on social media of home addresses of workers and their family members — have left some local authorities confronting staff shortages ahead of Colorado’s June primaries and the November midterms. The threats have also prompted some workers to wear bulletproof vests to and from work around elections time and add active-shooter training to routine elections training in several counties, said the bill’s sponsors and several county clerks. Colorado’s elections workers “have truly faced unprecedented threats, especially over the past two years, simply for doing their jobs,” said Democratic Rep. Emily Sirota, a bill sponsor.

Full Article: Colorado lawmakers advance bill to protect elections workers | AP News

Connecticut Governor signs bill aimed at widening mail-in voting opportunities | Ken Dixon/CTInsider

Gov. Ned Lamont on Friday signed legislation to allow more mail-in balloting, while state election officials prepare for a permanent change to the state Constitution that they hope to ask statewide voters in 2024. But Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, who used federal pandemic relief funding to mail absentee ballot applications to every registered voter in 2020, said that her office still needs a legal opinion on who will actually be eligible for mail-in voting this year. During a virtual news conference from the Governor’s Residence in Hartford, Lamont, who is quarantining himself after testing positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, said the new voting law had bipartisan support in the General Assembly and will give busy state residents, especially commuters, the ability to mail their ballots rather than be limited by the narrow list of reasons, including personal illness, in the state Constitution. “I want people voting,” Lamont said. “I want people to know that their vote matters. I want people to have a stake in the election and a stake in the outcome. I do believe that the more people who vote, vote with integrity, vote with safety, is the right thing to do for this state.”

Full Article: Lamont signs bill aimed at widening mail-in voting opportunities

Georgia: Many harried election officials are eyeing the exit. But new workers are stepping up | Stephen Fowler/NPR

When Dorothy Glisson, president of Georgia’s association of election officials, scanned the room at a conference last month to highlight years of service in voting, there were only a few grizzled veterans with decades of experience under their belts. In fact, the bustling convention center near the campus of the University of Georgia was teeming with relatively fresh faces from across the state. “I would say that we’ve probably got as many first-time attendees as we do all of the others put together, so that tells us something,” Glisson said to a crowd of about 500. The event brought together local board members, election supervisors and staff for three days of training — on everything from conducting post-election audits to verifying absentee ballots under newly passed rules — before frenzied preparations for the state’s May 24 primary election begin in earnest. And the new faces in the crowd underscored that while many election workers are eyeing the exits amid a contentious national environment, a new crop of public servants is stepping in to fill the void.

Full Article: Meet some of the new people stepping up to run elections : NPR

Michigan: Removal of cellular modems to transfer vote totals to slow results | Patti Brandt Burgess/Traverse City Record-Eagle

Election results will take a little longer this year and going forward as vote tallies must now be physically brought to the county clerk’s office. Cellular modems in voting machines that were previously used to transfer unofficial results from the voting precincts to the county clerk have been turned off and will be removed from the machines sometime this summer, said Sam Gedman, chief deputy clerk for Grand Traverse County. A tally of the results, which is printed out on a paper tape after all ballots are counted, will now be placed on a flash drive, sealed in an envelope by a Republican and a Democrat together and brought to the county clerk. After the seal is checked to make sure it has not been tampered with, the results are read into a central computer not connected to the internet. “The idea is it’s an extra means of security,” said Gedman, who presented the process to county commissioners at their meeting Wednesday. “It’s better to just use a process that leads to less speculation and people can be more confident in the results.” It also means results will not be readily available. The change came about after a recommendation by the Election Security Commission after the 2020 election to no longer certify any system that uses the modems. The Michigan Bureau of Elections followed the recommendations, with the seven counties that use Election Systems and Software, including Grand Traverse, and the 65 that use Dominion Systems turning off the modems. Another 11 counties have Hart Voting Systems that are still in use, but Gedman said they will likely eventually have to comply with the new process.

Full Article: New vote-counting process to slow results | News | record-eagle.com

Montana: District court blocks GOP’s new voting laws | Alex Sakariassen/Missoula Current

A district court judge in Yellowstone County on Wednesday temporarily blocked four new election administration laws passed by the 2021 Montana Legislature that have been challenged by the Montana Democratic Party and a coalition of Indigenous and voter advocacy organizations. In his order granting the injunction, Judge Michael Moses said the plaintiffs made a convincing case they would suffer “irreparable injury” by “the loss of constitutional rights” if the laws were not blocked for the remainder of the legal proceedings. The Montana Democratic Party, which has submitted hundreds of pages of declarations and expert testimony to support its position, hailed the order as a “win for voting rights.” “These four GOP bills were a blatant and cynical attack on Montanans’ constitutional right to vote, specifically impacting young voters, Native voters, elderly and disabled voters, and voters who have trouble getting to the polls,” said Sheila Hogan, the party’s executive director, in an emailed statement. “You cannot pick and choose who can vote in a democracy.” Helena attorney Rylee Sommers-Flanagan, who represents Montana Youth Action and several other youth-oriented voter nonprofits in the case, similarly referred to the injunction as a “victory for young voters and for all Montanans.” Ronnie Jo Horse, executive director for plaintiff Western Native Voice, said in a statement that her group will “continue to hold our elected officials accountable especially when it comes to voting rights for our Native communities.”

Full Article: District court blocks Montana GOP’s new voting laws – Missoula Current

Nevada election officials say they’re prepared as shortages stoke paper ballot worries | Jessica Hill/Las Vegas Sun News

Christy McCormick, vice chair of U.S. Election Assistance Commission, is hearing a similar message from officials who run elections nationwide: Supply shortages could bring delays as they order the paper and envelopes needed for upcoming primary and midterm elections. The dilemma is the result of the global supply chain issues coupled with an increase in demand for paper brought on by the pandemic, leaving ballot vendors worried about not getting their supply in time for the elections. “We are very concerned about this issue,” McCormick last month said during a U.S. House Administration Committee roundtable discussion with paper companies and election clerks to discuss how the paper shortage could affect elections. Lawmakers in Nevada, which has more than 1.7 million registered voters, passed a law last year directing election officials to send every registered voter a mail-in ballot, unless they choose to opt out. Some counties, such as Nye, are also pushing for 100% paper ballot elections. Both processes will require election officials to increase their paper supply to print ballots. The Nevada secretary of state’s office has known about the shortage for months and has reached out to county officials to make sure they were aware of the issue and recommended that they confirm with their ballot suppliers that they will get their supply in time.

Full Article: Nevada election officials say they’re prepared as shortages stoke paper ballot worries – Las Vegas Sun News

New York Agrees to Expand Voting Access for People With Disabilities | Ashley Wong/The New York Times

Voting in New York will become easier for blind and disabled residents following the settlement of a lawsuit against the New York State Board of Elections this week. Under the new terms, the state board has until June 1 to create an electronic voting method that will allow voters with disabilities that make reading or writing text difficult, such as blindness or paralysis, to print out ballots online and mail them back. “Through this agreement, the New York State Board of Elections has made it easier for people with print disabilities to vote with greater privacy and independence,” said Timothy A. Clune, executive director of Disability Rights New York, in a statement. The original complaint filed in May 2020 said voters with disabilities who did not want to vote in person out of fear of contracting Covid-19 were being excluded from absentee voting because they were unable to independently fill out paper ballots. Once the new system is in place, voters with disabilities will be able to request ballots from their local election boards up to 15 days before any election. These ballots will come with postage-paid return envelopes and “oath envelopes” that will feature raised markers indicating where voters with visual impairments can sign their names, though the board will accept signatures written anywhere on the envelopes.

Full Article: New York Agrees to Expand Voting Access for People With Disabilities – The New York Times

Rhode Island communities awarded grants for election security | Ryan Belmore/What’s Up Newp

Secretary of State Nellie M. Gorbea today announced the allocation of grant money to 18 Rhode Island cities and towns to strengthen the cybersecurity of voting systems and improve election processes. These grants total $544,653 and are awarded as part of Rhode Island’s share of $3 million from Congress under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Secretary Gorbea serves as the state’s Chief Elections Official under HAVA, according to Gorbea’s office. “Election security starts at the local level,” said Secretary Gorbea in a statement. “There is no finish line when it comes to cybersecurity. Threats are always evolving, so we must constantly assess our systems and processes at both the state and local levels and make improvements to mitigate risk. These grants will help these communities do just that. I would like to thank our Congressional delegation for their leadership and advocacy at the federal level that has led to us receiving these funds to strengthen the cybersecurity of our election systems.”

Full Article: 18 Rhode Island communities awarded grants for election security – What’s Up Newp

Texas: 12.38% of mail ballots were rejected in March primary | Ashley Lopez/NPR

A total of 24,636 mail-in ballots were rejected throughout Texas in the March 1 primary election, the Texas secretary of state’s office said Wednesday. That’s a 12.38% rejection rate — far higher than in previous contests. Local election officials, as well as voting rights advocates, have said many voters were tripped up by a GOP-backed law that went into effect late last year. James Slattery, a senior state attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, says these final figures show Texas’ new voting law, known as Senate Bill 1, was “catastrophic for democracy” in the state. “The rejection rate went up by a factor of 12 since the last election,” he said. “The only reason that the rejection rate soared this high is that Senate Bill 1 imposed this new ID requirement and it is disenfranchising eligible voters.” Under SB 1, voters have to provide a partial Social Security number or driver’s license number on their mail ballot application — as well as on the return envelope. The ID number they provide has to match what’s on their voter registration record. Many voters either completely missed the new ID portion of the return envelope or had mismatched IDs, local officials said.

Full Article: 12.38% of Texas mail ballots were rejected in March primary : NPR

Wisconsin: How election conspiracy theories turned local politics ‘toxic’ in Green Bay | Elena Schneider/Politico

For the second time since Election Day 2020, uniformed police officers will be on duty when ballot counting begins in Green Bay’s local elections. It’s the result of tension building for over a year in the city, which has become ground zero for election conspiracy theories in a battleground state still consumed by the last presidential race. Furor that started over the use of private funds to help a cash-strapped local government run the 2020 election soon morphed into something darker than normal political disagreement, including a report of a “suspicious person” who improperly accessed the clerk’s office on Election Day 2020, according to city government emails obtained by POLITICO. Now, Green Bay’s nonpartisan city council races — traditionally quiet affairs that focus on taxes and roads — feature ads from a GOP super PAC questioning whether the city’s elections are legitimate and a Democratic super PAC urging voters to “keep Wisconsin elections fair, secure and accessible.” Threats to local officials increased, and some poll workers have dropped out of the election, citing safety concerns. Officials installed cameras on every floor of city hall and formulated evacuation plans, after the November 2020 incident in the clerk’s office and the gathering of protesters outside city hall on Jan. 6., 2021. A mayoral recall effort is underway.

Full Article: How election conspiracy theories turned local politics ‘toxic’ in one Wisconsin city – POLITICO

Wyoming: Group pushes to hand count Park County’s election results | CJ Baker/Pinedale Roundup

Distrustful of the voting machines used across Wyoming and other parts of the country, a group of Park County residents is making a push to review the results of this year’s primary election by hand. On Tuesday, a roomful of proponents asked Park County commissioners to allow them and other volunteers to effectively audit August’s election by hand counting the votes after the ballots are processed by the machines. South Fork resident Boone Tidwell, one of the group’s leaders, framed the request as a matter of constitutional rights and predicted some people won’t vote unless ballots are counted by hand. “Whatever decision you make today, folks, we think will have consequences. Not only here in Park County, but on a state level, and possibly a national level,” Tidwell told commissioners. “There’s a lot of attention on this particular issue right here and what we’re doing here in front of you guys. So we’re asking you to please choose wisely.” Commissioners postponed a decision to a later meeting, citing a need to get legal advice from Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric. “We have to get some answers from the county attorney,” said Commission Chairman Dossie Overfield. 

Full Article: Pinedale Roundup | Group pushes to hand count Park County’s election results

How Trump allies are pushing to hand-count ballots around the U.S. | Rosalind S. Helderman, Amy Gardner and Emma Brown/The Washington Post

Some of the key architects and amplifiers of the false claim that voting machines were rigged to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump traveled to the Nevada desert last month with a new pitch. Speaking at a commissioners meeting in deeply conservative, mostly rural Nye County, they argued the county should ditch all its voting machines. “The electronic voting machines are so vulnerable and so uncertifiable, I don’t see how we can trust them,” Jim Marchant, a Trump-supporting Nevada secretary of state candidate, told Nye County commissioners. Instead, they insisted, the county should adopt an old-fashioned and largely obsolete method: tallying the results by hand. … “It’s a recipe for some chaos,” said Pam Smith, president of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that promotes secure election practices such as post-election audits. “And I do think that’s potentially very damaging to public trust in the process.”

Full Article: Trump allies push hand-counted paper ballots in multiple states – The Washington Post

Biden budget calls for $10 billion over a decade to improve elections | Mary Ellen McIntire/Roll Call

The Biden administration called for spending $10 billion over the next decade to beef up the country’s elections infrastructure as part of the fiscal 2023 budget proposal released Monday. Along with providing “a predictable funding stream for critical capital investments and increased staffing and services,” the budget proposes to expand the Postal Service’s capacity in “underserved areas” and to increase vote-by-mail initiatives — including making ballots postage-free. Since they took full control of Congress and the White House at the beginning of last year, Democrats have tried several times to pass bills to expand voting rights and overhaul elections, but the efforts stalled in the Senate. The $10 billion proposal is less than the $20 billion the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life urged Congress to provide last spring. Tiana Epps-Johnson, the group’s executive director, said costs for paper ballots, staffing and mail have surged since then. “Our recent polling shows bipartisan support for federal funding for local election officials. President Biden is showing leadership and making the case that we must invest in state and local election departments. He’s right and Congress should follow suit,” Epps-Johnson said in a statement. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who last month led a group of 32 other Democrats calling on Biden to include $5 billion in election security grants for the next fiscal year, said it was “critical” to invest in elections.

Full Article: Biden budget calls for $10 billion over a decade to improve elections

National: Trump backers push election change that would make counting slower, costlier and less accurate | Zach Montellaro/Politico

Trump supporters are pushing to prohibit machine counting of ballots in future elections around the country, which election officials say could make vote-counting slower, more expensive and — most importantly — less accurate. Legislators in at least six states this year have introduced proposals to prohibit the use of ballot tabulating machines. Local jurisdictions in Nevada, New Hampshire and elsewhere have also been considering similar measures. The proposals stem from baseless conspiracy theories stoked by former President Donald Trump since the 2020 election, in which he and others contended that election machines around the country were hacked and votes were flipped. The push has gained some traction in the last month. In Arizona, a bill that would require hand counts of ballots for all elections passed out of a legislative committee. And in Nevada, a deep-red county’s board of commissioners — spurred on by a Trump-aligned candidate to be the state’s top election officer — formally urged its election clerk to abandon machine counting. … More than 90 percent of registered voters live in jurisdictions where in-person voters use a paper ballot of some form, but hand counting of ballots is extremely rare. A bit more than 800 jurisdictions nationwide — covering 0.6 percent of registered voters — primarily count either in-person or mail ballots by hand, according to Warren Stewart, a data analyst at the Verified Voting Foundation, which advocates for election security measures.

Full Article: Trump backers push election change that would make counting slower, costlier and less accurate – POLITICO

National: Midterm mess: States grapple with poll worker and paper shortages | Fredreka Schouten and Kelly Mena/CNN

For the first time in its history, Alaska will conduct a statewide election primarily by mail because officials worry they lack the time to gather the people and paper needed to conduct an in-person election in June. In Michigan, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum says she fears increased animosity toward election officials is contributing to the shortage of poll workers needed for local elections in May. And around the country, election officials are racing to place advance orders for ballot paper, registration cards and mail-in ballot envelopes. The supply chain and staffing shortages that have plagued the rest of the US economy have come to elections, putting a spotlight on the behind-the-scenes logistics of keeping democracy functioning. And experts warn the problem could grow worse as more elections crowd the calendar. “In November, everybody is going to need everything on essentially the same timeframe,” Amy Cohen, who runs the National Association of State Election Directors, said during a recent congressional roundtable discussion on the supply-chain problems.

Full Article: Midterm mess: States grapple with poll worker and paper shortages – CNNPolitics

National: New Right-Wing Conspiracies Threaten to Further Starve Local Election Systems | Spenser Mestel/Bolts

Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin supreme court justice who said state election officials “stole our votes” days after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential race, was granted wide latitude by Republicans to investigate voter fraud last year: a budget of $676,000, subpoena power, and months to pursue leads. But the report on the 2020 election that he presented to state lawmakers earlier this month was the usual hodgepodge of Trumpian recommendations, including decertifying the presidential results and outright eliminating the state’s election commission. Buried in the report was one proposal that has gone largely unnoticed, but is rapidly gaining steam as a new conservative cause celebre. Gableman called on Wisconsin to exit the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which is a national organization that assists states in maintaining accurate voter rolls. Thirty states and the District of Columbia are part of ERIC, from Democratic Illinois to Republican Texas, but this bipartisan organization exploded on the radar for “Stop-the-Steal” activists after the far-right website Gateway Pundit published stories attacking it in January. The website falsely tied ERIC to George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who supports an array of progressive causes, calling it a “left wing voter registration drive disguised as voter roll clean up,” even though ERIC is governed and financially supported by its member states.

Full Article: New Right-Wing Conspiracies Threaten to Further Starve Local Election Systems | Bolts

National: Election skeptics roil GOP contests for secretary of state | Christina A. Cassidy and Julie Carr Smyth/Associated Press

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose was clear in the months after the 2020 presidential election. “Elections are run better and more honestly than really I think they ever have been,” he said in response to conspiracy theories being floated about the election. Months later, he said in an interview what has proved true in state after state – that voter fraud is rare. Fast forward to 2022, when Republican secretaries of state face a delicate test with voters: Touting their work running clean elections while somehow not alienating GOP voters who believe the false claims of fraud fueled by former President Donald Trump and his allies. LaRose has shifted his tone on Twitter, recently saying the “mainstream media is trying to minimize voter fraud to suit their narrative” and “President Donald Trump is right to say that voter fraud is a serious problem.” That tweet came a day after LaRose learned he had drawn not one but two primary challengers, both of whom have said they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. All but one of the eight incumbent Republican secretaries of state seeking to continue as their state’s elections chief have drawn at least one GOP challenger who either outright denies Democrat Joe Biden won the presidency or makes unsubstantiated claims that elections are not secure.

Full Article: Election skeptics roil GOP contests for secretary of state – The Washington Post

National: Coordinated phishing campaign targeted election officials in nine states, according to FBI | AJ Vicens/CyberScoop

An invoice-themed phishing campaign targeted elections officials in at least nine states in October 2021, according to a warning the FBI issued Tuesday. The attackers sought to steal login credentials and could have had “sustained, undetected” access to election administrators’ systems, the notice said. The emails — sent in batches on at least three separate days — “shared similar attachment files, used compromised email addresses, and were sent close in time, suggesting a concerted effort to target US election officials,” the notice reads. It’s unclear whether any of the phishing attacks were successful. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “The FBI judges cyber actors will likely continue or increase their targeting of US election officials with phishing campaigns in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections,” the notice reads. Phishing campaigns targeting election administrators through vendors, businesses, or other means was part of the Russian election interference campaign during the 2016 elections. In that case, emails purporting to be from Florida-based elections equipment vendor VR Systems was sent to 122 email addresses “associated with named local government organizations,” according to a National Security Agency assessment of the campaign. According to the new FBI warning, on Oct. 5, 2021, “unidentified cyber actors” sent emails originating from at least two email addresses to unidentified officials in nine unnamed states and to representatives of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS). The emails contained the same attachment titled “INVOICE INQUIRY.PDF,” which would redirect targets to a credential-harvesting website.

Full Article: Coordinated phishing campaign targeted election officials in nine states, according to FBI

National: Some states take steps to protect election workers as threats increase | Barbara Rodriguez/The 19th News

The people kept showing up at the small Northern California office where Natalie Adona and her co-workers help run elections. Three days in a row, they came to try to push a petition for recall elections, refusing to wear masks despite a mandate and physically pushing their way into the office, according to legal documents. Adona and her colleagues asked for a restraining order against the three people, worried about the trio who they say kept showing up to harass them at their jobs. A judge granted it, then later extended it for one of the people, finding “clear and convincing evidence” that the same person “engaged in unlawful violence or made a credible threat of violence.” An attorney for the trio has denied wrongdoing. The elections office briefly shut down walk-ins. Adona, who is an assistant clerk-recorder for the Nevada County Elections Office, said she has experienced several panic attacks. She still worries about her colleagues. “It was a really unfortunate incident that led to me and my staff feeling pretty afraid,” Adona told The 19th. “Certainly, I think that having a restraining order is an extreme way to settle a problem that I would have liked to have sort of settled by other means. But the circumstances and our county counsel felt it appropriate to go in that direction.”

Full Article: Some states take steps to protect election workers as threats increase

National: Jan. 6 White House logs given to House show 7-hour gap in Trump calls | Bob Woodward and Robert Costa/The Washington Post

Internal White House records from the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol that were turned over to the House select committee show a gap in President Donald Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being violently assaulted, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News. The lack of an official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump for 457 minutes on Jan. 6, 2021 – from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. – means the committee has no record of his phone conversations as his supporters descended on the Capitol, battled overwhelmed police and forcibly entered the building, prompting lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to flee for safety. The 11 pages of records, which consist of the president’s official daily diary and the White House switchboard call logs, were turned over by the National Archives earlier this year to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

Full Article: Jan. 6 White House logs given to House show 7-hour gap in Trump calls – The Washington Post

National: New Focus on How a Trump Tweet Incited Far-Right Groups Before Jan. 6 | Alan Feuer, Michael S. Schmidt and Luke Broadwater/The New York Times

Federal prosecutors and congressional investigators have gathered growing evidence of how a tweet by President Donald J. Trump less than three weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, served as a crucial call to action for extremist groups that played a central role in storming the Capitol. Mr. Trump’s Twitter post in the early hours of Dec. 19, 2020, was the first time he publicly urged supporters to come to Washington on the day Congress was scheduled to certify the Electoral College results showing Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner of the presidential vote. His message — which concluded with, “Be there, will be wild!” — has long been seen as instrumental in drawing the crowds that attended a pro-Trump rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6 and then marched to the Capitol. But the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of the riot and the parallel inquiry by the House select committee have increasingly shown how Mr. Trump’s post was a powerful catalyst, particularly for far-right militants who believed he was facing his final chance to reverse defeat and whose role in fomenting the violence has come under intense scrutiny. Extremist groups almost immediately celebrated Mr. Trump’s Twitter message, which they widely interpreted as an invitation to descend on the city in force. Responding to the president’s words, the groups sprang into action, court filings and interviews by the House committee show: Extremists began to set up encrypted communications channels, acquire protective gear and, in one case, prepare heavily armed “quick reaction forces” to be staged outside Washington.

Full Article: New Focus on How a Trump Tweet Incited Far-Right Groups Before Jan. 6 – The New York Times

Editorial: Merrick Garland Has More Than Enough to Investigate Trump | Timothy L. O’Brien/Bloomberg

A federal judge thinks that former President Donald Trump likely committed fraud — and probably knew it — when he and one of his lawyers, John Eastman, plotted to block Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election so Trump could hold on to power. So how much longer will it take Attorney General Merrick Garland to draw the same conclusion about that attempted coup? Perhaps Garland has already gone down that path. But there are no outward signs that he is investigating Trump with an eye toward a possible criminal prosecution. He has every reason to be circumspect, of course, but he has no reason to ignore the mounting evidence of Trump’s crimes. The latest reminder of what’s at stake came in Monday’s ruling from David Carter, a U.S. District Court judge in California. “Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” Judge Carter noted in his Monday ruling. “The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process.” While ordering Eastman to turn over relevant email correspondence with Trump to the bipartisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Carter was also clear-eyed about the scope of his and the committee’s powers.

Full Article: Merrick Garland Has More Than Enough to Investigate Trump – Bloomberg

Colorado County Clerks Association vow to defend democracy against election deniers | Ella Cobb/Daily Camera

Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Molly Fitzpatrick wants Colorado voters to know that thousands of dead people did not vote in the 2020 election. This rumor was one of several that Fitzpatrick and other Colorado county clerks refuted during a news conference hosted by the Colorado County Clerks association on Sunday outside the Denver Elections Division in Denver, where Republican, Democratic and unaffiliated clerks gathered to address allegations of election fraud put forth by election deniers and conspiracy theorists. In the past two years, election conspiracists have targeted Colorado clerks, citing fraud and security issues within Colorado’s election systems. Some of these false claims have ranged from accusations that China hacked Colorado’s voter registration database to reports claiming that Colorado’s voting systems are not properly certified. Fitzpatrick sought to set the record straight. “Unfortunately, over the last several months, there have been claims from election deniers that purport to prove fraudulent elections in Colorado,” Fitzpatrick said. “These claims are often lengthy, and they’re often full of jargon, and they do not provide proof or data. They consistently demonstrate a lack of understanding of our process.

Full Article: Colorado County Clerks Association vow to defend democracy against election deniers

Georgia senators vote to strip controversial parts of elections bill | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Georgia Senate committee voted unanimously Tuesday to remove every contentious proposal from a broad elections bill, discarding plans for GBI fraud investigations, paper ballot inspections and funding limitations. The decision to advance a stripped-down bill sets up a showdown in the final days of this year’s legislative session, when lawmakers will attempt to negotiate a final version. The Senate Ethics Committee scrapped much of the bill after hearing testimony Monday from several county election officials who opposed strict ballot handling rules and restrictions on outside donations from nonprofit organizations. One elections supervisor called its requirements little more than “security theater.” Senators shrank the 39-page bill to a two-page measure Tuesday, leaving only a requirement that businesses give workers up to two hours off to vote either on election day or during three weeks of early voting. Under current law, workers are only entitled to time off to vote on election day.

Full Article: Georgia senators vote to strip controversial parts of elections bill

Indiana: Cost to add paper trail for voting machines will be more than $1 million in some counties | Margaret Menge/The Center Square

Two counties in Indiana now using paperless voting machines will each require an estimated $1.2 million worth of additional equipment to add a paper audit trail before the next presidential election. A bill signed earlier this month by Gov. Eric Holcomb requires paper backups for all voting machines in the state by July 1, 2024. Specifically, it requires the 59 counties that use MicroVote voting machines, which are all-electronic and don’t involve a paper ballot, to have “voter verifiable paper audit trail” – or vvpat –printers to retrofit all machines by July 1 of 2024. The printers attach to the MicroVote Infinity voting machines with a cord, and contain a roll of paper tape, similar to cash register tape, that voters can view behind a glass window to verify their selections are correct before casting their vote. In Allen County, the Director of Elections Amy Scrogham says it will cost about $1.2 million to buy vvpats for all of their MicroVote machines. The county has 715 machines, but only 160 vvpats. “We haven’t used them yet,” she says of the vvpats, explaining she decided not to start using them for the first time during the 2020 election, fearing it would overburden election workers who were already dealing with pandemic-related issues. In Hamilton County, Elections Administrator Beth Sheller said the last estimate from MicroVote was a cost of $2,230 for each vvpat printer and a case to carry it in. Hamilton County, she says, has 693 MicroVote voting machines and now has 150 vvpats.

Full Article: Cost to add paper trail for voting machines will be more than $1 million in some Indiana counties | Indiana | thecentersquare.com