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

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

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

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

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

Full Article: Colorado clerks say Election Day went smoothly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Full Article: Mississippi Secretary of State website victim of cyberattack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

National: Election officials fear counting delays will help fuel claims of fraud | om Hamburger , Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Patrick Marley/The Washington Post

Officials in a handful of closely contested states are warning that the winners of tight races may not be known on election night, raising the possibility of a delay that former president Donald Trump and his allies could exploit to cast doubt on the integrity of Tuesday’s midterm vote. In Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, officials have in recent days preemptively called for patience, acknowledging that some of the factors that bogged down the process in 2020 remain unresolved two years later. In some cases, partisan disagreements blocked fixes, and Trump’s own advice to voters on how to cast ballots may contribute to a longer wait. Although the reasons for the delays vary from state to state, officials have been united in urging the public not to draw conclusions just because the count appears to be proceeding slowly. “It’s going to take a few days,” acting Pennsylvania secretary of state Leigh M. Chapman said at a recent news conference. She added: “It doesn’t mean anything nefarious is happening.”

Full Article: Election officials fear counting delays will help fuel claims of fraud – The Washington Post

Special Report: Voting-system firms battle right-wing rage against the machines | elen Coster/Reuters

Donald Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods have thrust America’s voting machine suppliers into a national struggle to protect their businesses. Industry leaders Dominion Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software are waging a political and public relations ground war to beat back threats to their state and local government contracts, rooted in bogus conspiracy theories about vote manipulation. Dominion has also turned to the courts, filing eight defamation lawsuits against Trump allies and media outlets including Fox News. The efforts to fight misinformation have so far blocked any significant loss of business, in part because many counties and states are locked into long-term contracts for voting systems. But the companies are nonetheless taking the election-denial movement seriously as the belief in voter-fraud fictions continues to gain mainstream acceptance on the right. About two-thirds of U.S. Republicans say they believe the election was stolen from Trump, Reuters polls show. Whenever companies “face a tsunami of suspicion and distrust of their products, that poses an existential threat to their livelihood and survival,” said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a U.S. nonprofit that promotes the use of secure voting technology. … The systems are “far from perfect,” said Lindeman, of Verified Voting, but the torrent of pro-Trump vote-manipulation claims “make no sense whatsoever.”

Full Article: Special Report: Voting-system firms battle right-wing rage against the machines | Reuters

National: Will Election Deniers Again Try to Access Voting Systems? | Sue Halpern/The New Yorker

On January 7, 2021, the day after the attempted coup, a team of computer forensic experts entered the elections office in Coffee County, Georgia, welcomed by the local elections supervisor. The team, who worked for an Atlanta-based company called SullivanStrickler, had been hired by Sidney Powell, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers. They were accompanied by an Atlanta bail bondsman named Scott Hall, who is reportedly a brother-in-law of David Bossie, a Trump campaign adviser. The then chair of the Coffee County G.O.P., Cathy Latham, who has been subpoenaed in connection with her role as one of sixteen fake electors in the state who signed an “unofficial electoral certificate” after the 2020 election, joined them as well. During the course of the day, the forensic experts copied election-machine software and 2020 voting data. In March, 2021, during a recorded phone conversation with Marilyn Marks, the executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance—a nonprofit that works on election transparency and security—a man identified in court papers as Hall said, “We went in there and imaged every hard drive of every piece of equipment.” He added, “We basically had the entire elections committee there, and they said, ‘We give you permission. Go for it.’ ” (According to Marks, “The elections board was not there—only one member was there, and we believe that only one member was aware of the breach.”) The files were then copied for others to examine on a password-protected site. Because all Georgia counties use the same Dominion Voting Systems equipment, anyone with access to the Coffee County software had access to the election-management system of all voting machines in the state. At least a dozen states use the same Dominion system.

Full Article: Will Election Deniers Again Try to Access Voting Systems? | The New Yorker

National: An Uber Millionaire Wants You To Vote On The Internet – Despite The Inherent Vulnerabilities | Spenser Mestel/The Intercept

In the fall of 2010, the District of Columbia was preparing to do something bold: allow overseas voters to cast their ballots online. A few weeks ahead of the November general election, it conducted a mock internet election and invited the public to try and hack the system. Within a few days, computer scientists at the University of Michigan had gained near complete control of the election server. The team took control of webcams mounted inside the server room that housed the pilot, used login information to match specific ballots to specific voters, and changed not just votes that had been cast, but also ones that would be. “There is little hope for protecting future ballots from this level of compromise, since the code that processes the ballots is itself suspect,” the team wrote in a follow-up paper. Afterward, D.C. officials confirmed that they had failed to see the attacks in their intrusion detection system logs, didn’t detect their presence in the network equipment, and only realized what had happened after seeing the group’s calling card: the University of Michigan fight song playing on the “Thank You” page that appeared after voting. Technology has improved significantly since 2010, but internet voting presents a unique challenge. With paper, voters can verify that their ballot is correct before they mail it or insert it into a scanner. Once that ballot is tabulated, there’s no way to connect it back to the voter. It is irretrievable. When you cast a vote electronically, how do you ensure that the ballot the election office receives is the same ballot that you submitted — while also maintaining anonymity, producing an independent paper trail, allowing for some way to audit the results, providing publicly verifiable evidence if errors are detected, and ensuring that candidates can contest the results?

Full Article: Uber Millionaire Pushes Voting via Internet, Despite Vulnerabilities

National: Conspiracies Fuel Hand-counting Push In US Midterms | Anuj Chopra/AFP

Conspiracy-endorsing US politicians have amped up their rhetoric against voting machines as two swing state counties moved to allow hand counting ahead of next week’s midterm election — at the risk of stoking doubt about polling accuracy. The contentious Republican push for hand counting — which US experts consider often less accurate than machine counting and prone to delays — has gained traction since Donald Trump falsely asserted that voter fraud led to his 2020 election defeat. The rhetoric got a fresh boost last week when officials in rural Cochise County in the battleground state of Arizona voted in favor of counting ballots by hand, ignoring warnings of logistical challenges and threats of lawsuits. The move came after officials in Nye County in Nevada, another swing state, approved hand counting, citing deep mistrust among local residents in tabulation machines. “Best practices in hand counting take time and care to implement,” Pamela Smith, president of the nonpartisan nonprofit Verified Voting, told AFP. “These last-minute changes in Nevada and Arizona introduce chaotic conditions that invite errors and undermine confidence, not least because they are hard for the public to observe.”

Full Article: Conspiracies Fuel Hand-counting Push In US Midterms | Barron’s

National: Election Day tests voters, voting systems amid election lies | Christina A. Cassidy and Geoff Mulvihill/Associated Press

Final voting began Tuesday in a midterm election where voting itself has been in the spotlight after two years of false claims and conspiracy theories about how ballots are cast and counted. Voters lined up at polls before dawn in several East Coast states, including New York and Virginia. Since the last nationwide election two years ago, former President Donald Trump and his allies have succeeded in sowing wide distrust about voting by promoting false claims of widespread fraud. The effort has eroded public confidence in elections and democracy, led to restrictions on mail voting and new ID requirements in some GOP-led states and prompted death threats against election officials. Election Day this year is marked by concerns about further harassment and the potential for disruptions at polling places and at election offices where ballots will be tallied. Election officials say they are prepared to handle any issues that arise, urging voters not to be deterred. “This bipartisan, transparent process administered by election professionals across the country will be secure, it will be accurate and it will have integrity,” said Matt Masterson, a former top election security official in the Trump administration, at a briefing organized by The Aspen Institute. “The best response for all of us is to get out and participate in it.”

Full Article: Election Day tests voters, voting systems amid election lies | AP News

Arizona county’s plan to hand-count ballots blocked by judge | Bob Christie/Associated Press

A judge on Monday blocked a rural Arizona county’s plan to conduct a full hand-count of ballots from the current election — a measure requested by Republican officials who expressed unfounded concerns that vote-counting machines are untrustworthy. The ruling from Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey F. McGinley came after a full-day hearing on Friday during which opponents presented their case and called witnesses. An appeal of the judge’s decision is likely. Election Day is Tuesday. McGinley said the county board of supervisors overstepped its legal authority by ordering the county recorder to count all the ballots cast in the election that concludes on Tuesday rather than the small sample required by state law. The opponents who sued to stop the proposed hand-count — a group called the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans — argued that state law only allows a small hand-count of early ballots to ensure the counting machines are accurate. Group members argued that a last-minute change would create chaos and potentially delay certification of the election results. Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra also opposed the plan for the expanded count and testified about how it could delay results and imperil ballot security.

Full Article: Arizona county’s plan to hand-count ballots blocked by judge | AP News

Colorado man arrested on suspicion of tampering with voting machine | James Anderson/Associated Press

A Colorado man who is a registered Democratic voter has been arrested on suspicion of tampering with voting equipment by allegedly inserting a USB thumb drive into a voting machine at a polling station during the primary election in June, authorities said. No elections data were accessed, and the June 28 incident didn’t cause any major disruption to voting, authorities said. But it heightened concerns among election officials and security experts that conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election could inspire some voters to meddle with — or even attempt to sabotage — election equipment. Experts say even unsuccessful breaches could become major problems in the days leading up to and on Tuesday’s midterm election, causing delays at polling places or sowing the seeds of misinformation campaigns. Richard Patton, 31, of Pueblo was arrested on Thursday by members of the Pueblo Police Department High-Tech Crime Unit for investigation of tampering with voting equipment, a felony, and cybercrime-unauthorized access, a misdemeanor, the department said in a statement. Court records indicate Patton was being held without bond at the Pueblo County Judicial Center pending an advisement hearing later Friday in which he will hear the pending charges against him. Patton was being represented by an attorney from the public defender’s office, which does not comment on pending cases.

Full Article: Man arrested on suspicion of tampering with voting machine | AP News

Florida: Black voters express fear, confusion as DeSantis election laws kick in | Lori Rozsa/The Washington Post

Geraldine Harriel usually helps her elderly parents vote by taking their mail-in ballots to the elections office for them. But new voting laws in Florida and Gov. Ron DeSantis’s elections police force had her questioning that this year. So on a recent Sunday, she drove them to an early-voting site — gingerly guiding her 80-year-old mother, who walks with a cane, to the entryway and then pushing her 84-year-old father in a wheelchair along the same path. “Nobody wants to take the chance of being picked up,” Harriel, 65, said, referring to the voting police unit, which made its first arrests in August. Tuesday will mark the first major election in Florida since the legislature pushed through changes affecting voting in the Sunshine State. Voter advocates say the laws disproportionately affect Black voters — making it harder for many to vote — and have created an environment of confusion and fear. Voters can deliver ballots for immediate family members — but there are new forms to fill out, and some, like Harriel, worry that even a small mistake could result in a fine or an arrest. It is now illegal to turn in more than two ballots that don’t belong to a close relative. There are new restrictions for organizations that help register voters. And shortly after its inception, DeSantis’s Office of Election Crimes and Security announced deputies had made 20 arrests — 15 of them involving Black voters accused of voting illegally.

Full Article: Black voters in Florida express fear, confusion as DeSantis election laws kick in – The Washington Post

Georgia ballot rules mean voters are falling between cracks, advocates say | Carlisa N Johnson/The Guardian

Just six days before the midterm election, Madison Cook, an eager first-time Georgia voter and a college student at school in Mississippi, awaited the arrival of her requested absentee ballot. She continued to follow up with her county election officials. But nearly one month after her application was processed, it appeared to be lost in the mail. “Here’s a great example of a voter who is falling through the cracks,” said Vasu Abhiraman, deputy policy and advocacy director at ACLU of Georgia, who received an email seeking help for Cook. “If she doesn’t get her ballot, she has almost no hope of voting.” Here in Georgia, early in-person voting was projected to reach 2.4m by the end of Friday – the last day of early voting – marking the highest voter turnout of a midterm election in the state’s history. But voting rights organizers say that this year’s high in-person voter turnout is reflective of the impact Georgia’s new restrictive voting law has had on other forms of voting, such as casting an absentee ballot by mail or on election day. In this year’s midterm elections, about 200,000 of the nearly 300,000 requested absentee ballots had been returned as of Friday. That’s proportionally far less than the 2020 presidential election, when voters cast more than 1.3m absentee ballots throughout the state. “The hurdles are up in front of Georgia voters, and some are having difficulty jumping those hurdles on the way to the ballot box,” said Abhiraman. “Voters in Georgia are not feeling as confident when they cast their ballots this time around.”

Full Article: Georgia ballot rules mean voters are falling between cracks, advocates say | US midterm elections 2022 | The Guardian

Michigan: 2020 election upheaval continues to strain Antrim County | Mardi Link/Traverse City Record-Eagle

A federal magistrate judge recommended dismissing a civil lawsuit filed against the Jan. 6 Committee by a Washington, D.C., lobbyist, who in November 2020 visited Antrim County by private jet as part of a team of political operatives seeking local election data. The phone records of Katherine Friess, of Arlington, Va., and Vail, Colo., were previously subpoenaed by the U.S. House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, court records show. Friess, listed in 13th Circuit Court documents as an expert witness in a since-dismissed civil suit accusing Antrim County of voter fraud, sued the Select Committee, referencing her work as a staff attorney for former President Donald Trump. The Select Committee sought Friess’ phone, text, private message and other communication records, sent or received between Nov. 1, 2020 and Jan. 31, 2021, a timeframe which includes dates Friess traveled to Antrim County. Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix on Oct. 26 recommended a dismissal motion filed July 11 by attorneys representing the Select Committee be granted, which could clear the way for the committee to access Friess’ phone records.

Full Article: 2020 election upheaval continues to strain Antrim County | Local News | record-eagle.com

Nevada again rejects Nye County vote hand-counting plan | Colton Lochhead/Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Nevada secretary of state’s office refused to approve a revised proposal from the interim Nye County clerk that is seeking to hand count ballots before Election Day, citing “significant risks” and “concerns relating to the integrity of the election.” In a letter sent Friday to interim Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf, the secretary of state’s office laid out three key concerns that it said need to be addressed to bring it in compliance with a state Supreme Court directive before they would approve the plan. The letter, written by Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Mark Wlaschin, said that Kampf’s plan for three talliers to work in silence instead of reading the ballot aloud and to tally each side of the ballot individually would be problematic because those talliers might not notice if the other workers mark one of the ballots, either purposefully on by accident. An extra mark on a ballot may be deemed an “over-vote,” which would lead to that vote not being counted. Wlaschin also said in the letter that the plan had no requirements to use medical-style gloves to mitigate the risk of cheating or accidental markings and that there needed to be more detail on the county’s plan to deal with discrepancies that may pop up between the machine and hand counts. “These significant risks must be addressed prior to the approval of your plan,” Wlaschin wrote.

Full Article: Nevada again rejects Nye County vote hand-counting plan | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevada: Rural county won’t hand-count until polls close | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

Officials in a rural Nevada county say they will not proceed with hand counting early mail-in votes before polls close on Election Day. Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske ordered Nye County in late October to halt its hand-counting of ballots until after polls close on Nov. 8. Her order came after the Nevada Supreme Court issued an opinion siding with the American Civil Liberties Union’s objections to the reading of individual votes out loud. Still, Nye County submitted a revised plan for a silent hand-count last week in hopes of remedying the court’s concerns and being able to continue the count. Cegavske said Friday that the plan needed more details for it to be approved and declined to lift the hand-count ban, leading to Nye County’s announcement on Sunday that it would wait until Election Day. The county received 10,583 mail ballots as of Friday. For Election Day, which is Tuesday, polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m., though those in line at 7 p.m. will be able to cast their ballot. Nye County is one of the first jurisdictions nationwide to act on election conspiracies related to mistrust in voting machines, though other counties across Nevada have considered using hand-counts in the future.

Full Article: Rural Nevada county won’t hand-count until polls close | AP News

A New Mexico County Went To War With Voting Machines. It May Gain a Powerful Ally in November. | aul McLeod/Bolts

The lawyer was clear: what the commissioners of Otero County, New Mexico were thinking of doing this fall was against the law. If they followed through they could be removed from office and could face criminal charges. But Commissioner Couy Griffin was adamant. As the founder of Cowboys For Trump, he was steeped in election conspiracy theories that sprung up after Trump’s loss in 2020. At an August 11 meeting Griffin pushed for their county to eliminate election ballot drop boxes and voting machines, which he argued could be tools for voter fraud. He also wanted to sue Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who months earlier had gone to court to force them to certify primary election results that Griffin didn’t trust. The other two commissioners, also Republicans, weren’t buying it. As their county lawyer RB Nichols made clear, the use of voting machines and drop boxes is dictated by state law. “It won’t matter what we vote, we have no authority to do anything,” said Gerald Matherly. Fellow Commissioner Vickie Marquardt agreed, saying “this is out of our purview.” Hours later, after a raucous community meeting that included shouting, allegations of fraud, and calls for resignations, Griffin prevailed. The commission voted 2-1 to do away with drop boxes and voting machines, as well as to sue the secretary of state.

Full Article: A New Mexico County Went To War With Voting Machines. It May Gain a Powerful Ally in November. | Bolts

Pennsylvania Supreme Court clarifies order on mail ballots as another lawsuit filed | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

The scramble to figure out which Pennsylvania mail ballots to count and reject based on handwritten dates continued Saturday. A state Supreme Court order Tuesday — that many had earlier hoped would settle the matter for this election — directed counties to reject mail ballots missing those dates as well as those where the voter put a wrong date on their ballot. But the decision has since stirred uncertainty among elections administrators over what exactly constitutes an incorrect date and drawn new litigation from advocates who say rejecting ballots over what amounts to a mistake threatens to potentially disenfranchise thousands of legal voters. On Saturday, the state Supreme Court unexpectedly issued an additional order clarifying its definition: Mail-in ballots are to be rejected in this election if the handwritten dates fall before Sept. 19, 2022, or after Nov. 8 (Election Day), and absentee ballots are to be rejected if they are dated before Aug. 30, 2022, or after Nov. 8. Absentee and mail-in ballots are essentially the same, but under state law “absentee ballots” are for voters who are unable to make it to their polling places on Election Day, while “mail-in ballots” are for anyone else who chooses to vote by mail. Sept. 19 is the start of the state’s 50-day mail voting window, when counties can begin to print and send mail-in and absentee ballots. Counties treat absentee and mail-in ballots the same way and send them out at the same time.

Full Article: Pa. Supreme Court clarifies order on mail ballots as another lawsuit filed

Tennessee: Multiple counties report issues with ballots | Adam Friedman Nashville Tennessean

Multiple counties across Tennessee have reported ballot issues leading to some early votes cast in the wrong races. Election officials in Benton, Davidson and Shelby counties have all reported ballots issues largely related to congressional districts that were redrawn earlier this year. Jeff Roberts, the Davidson County administrator of elections, said 438 voters in Nashville cast votes in the wrong races. Roberts said it’s an increase from the 212 initially reported late last week because the previous amount did not factor in the final days of early voting, which ended on Nov. 3. Davidson has precincts split across the 5th, 6th and 7th Congressional districts. Meanwhile, Shelby County election officials reported 50 incorrect ballots were cast for voters in a precinct split between the 8th and 9th Congressional districts. A Benton County election official told the Associated Press some voters, likely fewer than 10, had been assigned to the wrong congressional districts, but they had fixed it before any votes were cast. Benton has precincts split between the 7th and 8th Congressional districts.

Full Article: Tennessee election 2022: Multiple counties report issues with ballots