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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Full Article: Michigan election workers navigate increasing controversy, scrutiny

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

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

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

Montana elections officials claim harassment from election deniers: ‘They’re making our lives miserable’ | David Murray and Traci Rosenbaum/Great Falls Tribune

It is not an exaggeration to say that the United States is embroiled in one of the most contentious political periods in its history. A recent NBC poll found that 81% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans said they believe “the political opposition poses a threat that if not stopped will destroy America as we know it.” Montana has largely managed to avoid the most fractious of these disputes – due in large part to the overwhelming control Republicans currently enjoy in state politics. In 2020, Montana Republicans won every statewide race and gained a veto-proof 67 to 33 advantage in the House. Yet for more than a year there have been rising voices of concern over the integrity of elections, both in Cascade County and across Montana, by groups still pointing to the false claims regarding 2020’s presidential election. Much of the criticism in Cascade County centers around the county’s elections office and the Cascade County Commissioners. Since at least June 2021, members involved in several conservative groups have made repeated allegations of voting irregularities across Cascade County, and have demanded that the paper ballots from the 2020 general election be preserved for a possible future investigation.

Source: Montana elections officials claim harassment from election deniers

Nevada: Hand vote count stops, but Nye county vows to try again | Ken Ritter/Associated Press

A rural Nevada county roiled by voting machine conspiracy theories stopped its unprecedented effort Friday to hand count ballots cast in advance of Election Day. But Nye County officials vowed to reshape their plan and seek another go-ahead from the Nevada Supreme Court, after justices ruled late Thursday that counting methods used this week violated rules they set to prevent the county from allowing early disclosure of election results. “Yesterday’s Supreme Court order requires us to make some changes to our hand count process,” Nye County officials said in a statement issued Friday that promised to “resume as soon as our plan is in compliance with the court’s order and approved by the secretary of state.” No counting had been scheduled Saturday or Sunday, county spokesman Arnold Knightly said. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada said Friday they stood ready to challenge any effort to restart the hand tallies next week. They don’t believe there’s any hand-counting scenario that would pass legal muster. “Our position has always been that a general election is not an appropriate avenue for conducting experiments with election processes and it has become increasingly clear that there is no path forward for this hand counting process under the law,” said Sadmira Ramic, ACLU of Nevada’s voting rights attorney.

Full Article: Hand vote count stops, but Nevada county vows to try again | AP News

North Carolina: A County Elections Director Stood Up to Locals Who Believe the Voting System Is Rigged. They Pushed Back Harder. | Doug Bock Clark/ProPublica

On a Saturday in late March, the woman who runs elections in the rural hills of Surry County, North Carolina, was pulling another weekend shift preparing for the upcoming primary, when she began to hear on the other side of her wall the thunder of impassioned speeches. She was dismayed that the voices were questioning the election she’d overseen in 2020 and implying that corrupted voting machines had helped steal it. She also believed it was no coincidence that the Surry County GOP convention — the highlight of which was a lecture from a nationally prominent proponent of the stolen-election myth — was taking place in a public meeting room right next to her office.The elections director, 47-year-old Michella Huff, who’d lived in the county since high school and knew many voters by name, considered it ludicrous that anyone could think the election had been rigged in Surry County. Donald Trump had received upward of 70% of the roughly 36,000 votes cast. Huff, a registered Republican for most of her adult life, had personally certified the vote. Yet people had begun approaching Huff in church recently, saying things like, “I know you didn’t do anything, but that election was stolen.” In February, a longtime acquaintance of Huff’s cornered her in a bluegrass music store and berated her with complaints rooted in conspiracy theories. Huff started limiting her trips to town, even doing her grocery order online. “I didn’t want to have to deal with that,” she said of the election backlash. But it was hard to live in partial hiding. “I’m not that kind of person. I’m a people person.”

Full Article: Elections Officials Facing Unprecedented Challenges — ProPublica

Oregon: 18-year-old helps uncover software glitch that failed to register 8,000 voters | Dianne Lugo/Salem Statesman Journal

An error in place for the past six years failed to pre-register nearly 8,000 Oregonians to vote, according to a release from the Oregon Secretary of State’s office. The error has since been fixed and ballots are expected to be mailed later this week to ensure the 7,767 eligible voters affected are able to participate in the November General Election. Discovery of the error was prompted by a call from a young voter, according to Ben Morris from the Oregon Secretary of State’s office. The voter had not received their ballot as they had expected after visiting the DMV when they were 16 years old. Any Oregonian with a qualifying interaction with their DMV usually has voting information automatically sent to the Oregon Secretary of State’s office to register or update voter registration information. After looking into their records, the office discovered Friday that a software error had not triggered the process correctly for the 18-year-old as it should have, Morris said. “In reviewing the software, that’s when they discovered the error in how it was written,” Morris added. More specifically, the software at the Secretary of State’s office that handles the transfer was incorrectly written and failed to pre-register 16- and 17-year-olds whose birthdays fall within one month of their DMV interaction. Leadership of the Elections and Information Systems Division at the Oregon Secretary of State’s office met Friday afternoon to determine the number of affected voters, the release said.

Full Article: Teen helps Oregon uncover registration error affecting 8K

Tennessee: Shelby County voters need choice between hand-marked, machine ballot, advocates say | Katherine Burgess/Memphis Commercial Appeal

Voting rights advocates said Friday they have received multiple reports of voters not being offered a choice between hand-marked paper ballots and voting by machine, something required by a compromise between the Shelby County Election Commission and the Shelby County Commission. “We need a uniform approach where voters are uniformly, every time offered a paper ballot option and then are not in any way discouraged,” said Steve Mulroy, who was recently elected as Shelby County District Attorney General but said he was not speaking in that capacity. “There should not be any steering towards the machines just because the poll workers are more used to the machines.” The Nov. 8 federal, state general and municipal elections is the first in which the county is using new voting machines that allow for a ballot to be cast either way. The Shelby County Commission only approved the purchase of the machines on the condition of a compromise where voters are offered both methods of voting. Early voting in the Nov. 8 election began Oct. 19 and runs through Nov. 3. Not only are some voters not being offered a paper ballot at all, but some who are offered the choice are being steered toward the machine by poll workers who say machines are easier and faster, Mulroy said.

Full Article: Voters need choice between hand-marked, machine ballot, advocates say

No, Texas voting machines aren’t switching your votes | Maria Mendez/The Texas Tribune

Warnings to double-check early-voting ballots began spreading across social media this week as some Texas voters claimed that electronic voting machines had switched their votes from Democratic to Republican. But this isn’t a case of grand conspiracy, malfeasance or rigged machines. Instead, election officials, security experts and voting rights advocates say some of the touch-sensitive screens on voting machines can be tricky to use, much like miscues while trying to use a smartphone. Midland County Election Administrator Carolyn Graves likened the experience to texting with a small keypad. “If you don’t hit it just exactly right, you’re gonna hit one of the letters around it,” Graves said. “It’s essentially the same thing. If you don’t hit it with the tip of your finger or turn your finger to the side, then you could hit the other [choice].” … Midland County uses ExpressVote ballot-marking machines from the company Election Systems & Software, according to Verified Voting, a nonprofit advocacy group that tracks voting equipment across the United States. Election Systems & Software spokesperson Katina Granger said that “there is no evidence of any so-called vote switching by equipment.” “Please note that voters are always able to check their printed paper ballots for accuracy before casting,” Granger said in an email.

Full Article: Texas voting machines aren’t switching votes | The Texas Tribune

Wisconsin clerks face challenges as voter skepticism becomes new reality | Jacob Resneck/WUWM

Oconto County Clerk Kim Pytleski has a series of colorful, hand-drawn posters in her office for the barrage of questions she fields from election skeptics, including one that reads, “Perception has become Reality!” “People are throwing skepticism and these comments out there, but they’re not doing the homework on what this really entails,” she said gesturing to a chart that lays out the chain of custody for ballots from the city, village and town polling places to her county’s vote counting center. With political polarization reaching a fever pitch, front line election workers are reporting novel challenges such as aggressive questioning of longstanding practices. And although violent threats have been rare, some clerks are offering crisis training — and stocking trauma kits — actions that years ago would have been unimaginable. “I have an ‘R’ after my name,” said Pytleski, a Republican, referring to her party affiliation for county clerk, a partisan office in Wisconsin. “That might protect me a little bit from some of the backlash that we are seeing. But … they know that the process is what I’m protecting and that I will defend it vigorously.”

Full Article: Wisconsin clerks face challenges as voter skepticism becomes new reality | WUWM 89.7 FM – Milwaukee’s NPR

‘A madness has taken hold’ ahead of US midterms: local election officials fear for safety | Dani Anguiano/The Guardian

Inside the office of the Shasta county clerk and registrar of voters, which runs elections for about 111,000 people in this part of far northern California, Cathy Darling Allen can see all the security improvements she would make if she had the budget. “We have plexi on the counter downstairs for Covid but that won’t stop a person. It’s literally just clamped to the counters,” the county clerk and registrar said. For about $50,000, the office could secure the front, limiting access to upstairs offices, she estimated. Another county put bulletproof glass in their lobby years earlier, she knew, something officials there at one point considered removing, though not any more. Elections offices didn’t used to think about security in this way, Allen said. Now they can’t afford not to. Following Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Allen says the once low-profile job of non-partisan local election official has transformed in counties like hers. A culture of misinformation has sown doubt in the US election system and subjected officials from Nevada to Michigan to harassment and threats. The FBI has received more than 1,000 reports of threats against election workers in the past year alone.

Source: ‘A madness has taken hold’ ahead of US midterms: local election officials fear for safety | US news | The Guardian

Nevada hand vote count on hold after high court says illegal | Gabe Stern, Ken Ritter and Scott Sonner/Associated Press

An unprecedented hand-count of mail-in ballots in a rural Nevada county is on hold and may not resume after the Nevada Supreme Court said in an after-hours ruling the current process is illegal and the Republican secretary of state directed the county clerk to “cease immediately.” Volunteers in rural Nye County had wrapped up a second day of hand-counting the ballots on Thursday by the time the Supreme Court issued a three-page opinion siding with objections raised by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, who is in charge of elections and has been been one of the GOP’s most vocal critics of the sort of voter-fraud conspiracy theories that fueled the hand tallying of ballots, said the “hand-counting process must cease immediately.” She requested in a letter to Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf that he confirm to her office Thursday night that the hand count process “had been stopped.” Cegavske’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests from The Associated Press for an update. But the ACLU said in a statement that Nye County’s attorneys had informed the organization’s legal staff that “its hand-count process has been shut down.”

Full Article: Hand vote count on hold after Nevada high court says illegal | AP News

Georgia: Mark Meadows ordered to testify before grand jury in election probe | harlie Gile and Summer Concepcion/NBC

A South Carolina judge ruled Wednesday that Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify before a special grand jury in Georgia investigating possible interference in the 2020 presidential election. At a hearing Wednesday morning, South Carolina Circuit Judge Edward Miller ruled that Meadows must comply with a petition seeking his testimony before the grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, the clerk of court for Pickens County, South Carolina, told NBC News. Meadows, who lives in South Carolina, has tried to avoid testifying before the grand jury probe into possible election interference by then-President Donald Trump and his allies. An attorney for Meadows did not immediately reply to messages seeking comment. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has sought Meadows’ testimony, saying he was in communication with Trump, his campaign “and other known and unknown individuals involved in the multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney agreed to her request and ordered Meadows to appear last month.

Full Article: Mark Meadows ordered to testify before grand jury in Georgia election probe

National: ‘Our security here is a joke’: Election workers lament lack of federal spending on security ahead of crucial midterms | Sean Lyngaas/CNN

Millions in federal dollars could have gone to protect election workers and improve the physical security of their offices, but in a classic tale of bureaucratic red tape, most of it remains untapped less than two weeks before the midterm elections. The botched funding opportunity comes as election officials across the country have faced an unprecedented wave of violent threats stemming from conspiracy theories about the voting process. Now, things like additional lighting or security guards for some election offices may not be in place for Election Day on November 8. “Our security here is a joke,” said Scott McDonell, the Democratic clerk for Dane County, Wisconsin’s second largest. His office is a block from the state capitol building in Madison, where thousands of people have previously gathered to protest the 2020 election results. McDonell worries that people “could walk right in” to confront him. In April, the Department of Homeland Security reviewed the security of McDonell’s office and found glaring shortcomings, including doors within the facility that visitors could pass through unchecked, according to the DHS assessment obtained by CNN. Yet, until CNN told him about it, McDonell said he was unaware of a DHS grant program that has in recent years made millions of dollars available to state and local government offices for various security and counterterrorism projects to bolster their physical security. Instead, Dane County plans to spend $12 million in county money to move to a more secure facility next year. “Everyone agrees that something has to be done,” McDonell told CNN. “A lot of it is the employees. They have to feel safe on the job.”

Full Article: ‘Our security here is a joke’: Election workers lament lack of federal spending on security ahead of crucial midterms | CNN Politics

National: New Republican effort to feed “distrust of elections”: They want to hand-count all ballots | Areeba Shah/Salon

In what election experts call the latest effort to stoke widespread doubt about election security and the accuracy of vote-counting, Republicans in many rural counties are pushing to hand-count ballots in the upcoming midterms, despite no evidence of widespread fraud or voting machine irregularities. Hand-counting is far less accurate than machine counting, experts say, and is likely to create errors and delay results by hours, days or even weeks. In at least six states, Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation this year that would require hand-counting of all ballots instead of electronic tabulation. None of those bills have passed so far, but similar proposals have gained traction in some county and local governments. … Mark Lindeman, the policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for the responsible use of technology in elections, said that these efforts are part of a broader effort to discourage voters from trusting any part of the election process. American elections “objectively are more trustworthy now than they have been in decades, but the fear-mongers are broadcasting the exact opposite,” Lindeman said. Attacks on voting technology are “creating an environment in which some really dedicated public servants are leaving the profession because they’re demoralized and in many cases afraid. That is a tragedy that injures all of us.”

Full Article: New Republican effort to feed “distrust of elections”: They want to hand-count all ballots | Salon.com

National: How Disinformation Splintered and Became More Intractable | Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel/The New York Times

On the morning of July 8, former President Donald J. Trump took to Truth Social, a social media platform he founded with people close to him, to claim that he had in fact won the 2020 presidential vote in Wisconsin, despite all evidence to the contrary. Barely 8,000 people shared that missive on Truth Social, a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of responses his posts on Facebook and Twitter had regularly generated before those services suspended his megaphones after the deadly riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021. And yet Mr. Trump’s baseless claim pulsed through the public consciousness anyway. It jumped from his app to other social media platforms — not to mention podcasts, talk radio or television. Within 48 hours of Mr. Trump’s post, more than one million people saw his claim on at least dozen other sites. It appeared on Facebook and Twitter, from which he has been banished, but also YouTube, Gab, Parler and Telegram, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Full Article: Ahead of Midterms, Disinformation Is Even More Intractable – The New York Times

National: A Scientist’s Quest for an Accessible, Unhackable Voting Machine | Spencer Mestel/Undark

In late 2020, a large box arrived at Juan Gilbert’s office at the University of Florida. The computer science professor had been looking for this kind of product for months. Previous orders had yielded poor results. This time, though, he was optimistic. Gilbert drove the package home. Inside was a transparent box, built by a French company and equipped with a 27-inch touchscreen. Almost immediately, Gilbert began modifying it. He put a printer inside and connected the device to Prime III, the voting system he has been building since the first term of the George W. Bush administration. After 19 years of building, tinkering, and testing, he told Undark this spring, he had finally invented “the most secure voting technology ever created.” Gilbert didn’t just want to publish a paper outlining his findings. He wanted the election security community to recognize what he’d accomplished — to acknowledge that this was, in fact, a breakthrough. In the spring of 2022, he emailed several of the most respected and vocal critics of voting technology, including Andrew Appel, a computer scientist at Princeton University. He issued a simple challenge: Hack my machine. Their access would be unfettered — no tamper-evident seals to avoid, chain of custody procedures to subvert, or mock poll workers to dupe — and they’d have to agree to only one condition: Flip every vote to the same candidate. By this point, Gilbert had published a video of his ballot-marking device, or BMD, in action, but he was unsure how the hacking community would respond. “There’s a part of that community that’s very confident in what they do,” he said. “And if they hear how it works, they may run away from it.”

Full Article: A Scientist’s Quest for an Accessible, Unhackable Voting Machine

National: Pro-Trump Republicans court election volunteers to ‘challenge any vote’ | Patrick Marley, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger/The Washington Post

The Republican National Committee and its allies say they have staged thousands of training sessions around the country on how to monitor voting and lodge complaints about next month’s midterm elections. In Pennsylvania, party officials have boasted about swelling the ranks of poll watchers to six times the total from 2020. In Michigan, a right-wing group announced it had launched “Operation Overwatch” to hunt down election-related malfeasance, issuing a press release that repeated the warning “We are watching” 10 times. Supporters of former president Donald Trump who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen have summoned a swarm of poll watchers and workers in battleground states to spot potential fraud this year. It is a call to action that could subject voting results around the country to an unprecedented level of suspicion and unfounded doubt. “We’re going to be there and enforce those rules, and we’ll challenge any vote, any ballot, and you’re going to have to live with it, OK?” one-time Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon said on a recent episode of his podcast. “We don’t care if you don’t like it. We don’t care if you’re going to run around and light your hair on fire. That’s the way this is going to roll.”

Full Article: Trump supporters say they’re training poll watchers to spot fraud – The Washington Post

National: In a Climate of Threats, Election Offices Focus on Security | Carl Smith/Governing

Early voting for midterm elections is well underway in many states, and so far has proceeded without major incident. But a new Reuters/Ipos poll finds that four in 10 of American voters are worried they will encounter intimidation or threats of violence at polling places. (Two out of three fear actual violence from extremists if they are displeased with election outcomes.) In a paradoxical crusade for transparency, armed “observers” stationed themselves near Arizona ballot boxes with their faces and license plates masked, taking photos of voters and their vehicle tags. A group of retired and Latino voters filed a lawsuit against the organization the watchers claim to represent. Responding to news of such activity, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that the Justice Department “will not permit voters to be intimidated” during midterms. Last year, the DOJ established a task force to address threats against those involved in administering elections and an 800 number and online complaint form for reporting threats to the FBI. The prospects for disruption vary within the more than 170,000 electoral precincts in the country, but physical and cybersecurity are priorities for all. Moreover, vigilantes can create uncertainty by menacing officials across state and local borders.

Full Article: In a Climate of Threats, Election Offices Focus on Security

National: Election Day is Nov. 8, but legal challenges already begin | Colleen Long/Associated Press

Election Day is 12 days away. But in courtrooms across the country, efforts to sow doubt over the outcome have already begun. More than 100 lawsuits have been filed this year around the Nov. 8 elections. The legal challenges, largely by Republicans, target rules for mail-in voting, early voting, voter access, voting machines, voting registration, the counting of mismarked absentee ballots and access for partisan poll watchers. The cases likely preview a potentially contentious post-election period and the strategy stems partly from the failure of Donald Trump and his allies to prevail in overturning the free and fair results of the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden. That was an ad hoc response fronted by a collection of increasingly ill-prepared lawyers that included Rudy Giuliani. The current effort, however, is more formalized, well-funded and well-organized and is run by the Republican National Committee and other legal allies with strong credentials. Party officials say they are preparing for recounts, contested elections and more litigation. Thousands of volunteers are ready to challenge ballots and search for evidence of malfeasance. “We’re now at the point where charges of fraud and suppression are baked into the turnout models for each party,” said Benjamin Ginsberg, co-chair of the Election Official Legal Defense Network and former counsel to the George W. Bush campaign and other Republican candidates. “Republicans charge fraud. Democrats charge suppression. Each side amplifies its position with massive and costly amounts of litigation and messaging.”

Full Article: Election Day is Nov. 8, but legal challenges already begin | AP News

Arizona’s Bulwark Against Trumpism Was Just a Mirage | David Siders/Politico

On a stage backed up to a rodeo ring between a barbecue restaurant and a petting zoo, dusk fell over the Arizona desert and several thousand Kari Lake supporters fell into prayer for Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, for “the army of patriots that you are raising up in this hour” and, ultimately, for a “divine turnaround” in Arizona. The event was a rally for Lake, and following the supporter who said the prayer, Austin Smith, a Republican state House candidate, told rallygoers they were “chosen” — a state of “pioneers, ranchers, working-class families” in conflict with forces of a “global world order.” “We want to make sure that Arizona is the Wild West, right?” he asked. With their Lake flags and buckets of beer, the crowd erupted. The opening lines of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blared and Lake strode on stage. Two years ago, the current occupant of the office Lake is seeking, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, had certified Joe Biden’s victory, the first for a Democratic presidential candidate in the state since 1996, infuriating then-President Donald Trump and his supporters. The Republican state House speaker, Rusty Bowers, also resisted Trump’s pressure campaign, then testified before the Jan. 6 committee about it. Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state and, now, Lake’s opponent in the gubernatorial race, had overseen the election.

Full Article: Arizona’s Bulwark Against Trumpism Was Just a Mirage – POLITICO

Arizona: Cochise County supervisors approve hand count of election ballots | Sarah Lapidus/Arizona Republic

The Cochise County Board of Supervisors voted Monday to require a full hand recount of ballots for the Nov. 8 election, despite dire warnings from attorneys and others that the move was unlawful and would result in a lawsuit and a potential loss of state funding. During a four-hour meeting and public testimony, Republican supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd voted for the measure put forth by Crosby. Supervisor Ann English, a Democrat, voted against it. “It’s about the people, its about our right to vote and how our votes are counted and feel confident in the election process,” Judd said during the meeting. State Elections Services Director Kori Lorick called into the meeting on behalf of the Secretary of State’s Office and said the board would face a lawsuit if the hand-count proposal passed. A state lawmaker also warned the board that he would request that the attorney general investigate the board’s move, which could result in the withholding of state funds to Cochise County. Lorick also said it would be “impossible to complete an accurate hand count of an election with dozens of races on the ballot without redirecting critical resources needed to run the election.” With just two weeks until the election, she warned the proposal would cause voter confusion.

Full Article: Cochise County supervisors approve hand count of election ballots

California: In MAGA-Led Shasta County, Election Apprehension Reigns | Shawn Hubler/The New York Times

The countdown to a November vote usually feels momentous. This year, apprehension reigns. Since the violent aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, secretaries of state, county clerks and poll workers have been besieged with intimidating threats and bogus claims of misconduct. A federal task force established last year to deal with election threats has fielded more than 1,000 reports and prosecuted about a half-dozen cases. California, Vermont, Oregon and other states have passed laws to protect election workers. California election officials have generally not had to endure the frightening tactics seen in swing states such as Colorado, where the top election official was threatened last summer on her personal Instagram page, or Arizona, where the Maricopa County recorder received a death threat on his cellphone. But officials here are worried just the same. Shasta County, in the state’s rural far north, has been among California’s most intense election-denial hot spots since former President Donald J. Trump spread the lie that voter fraud cost him the White House. The county voted 2 to 1 for Trump in the 2020 election. Electoral distrust has been nurtured by far-right activists and a pro-Trump majority on the Board of Supervisors who took control from mainstream Republicans early this year.

Full Article: Shasta County Elections Chief Describes November Concerns – The New York Times

Florida elections officials grapple with misinformation, myths | Tampa Bay Times

First came a contagion of disbelief in election results. Then, a surge of public-records requests seeking details such as voting-system security processes. Now, fears of being arrested for voting. Elections supervisors in Florida have grappled with these and other issues as they oversaw the state’s August primary elections and prepared for the Nov. 8 general election. The challenges have come amid supervisors’ yearslong battle to convince voters that election processes aren’t rigged, an issue that took root and spread after former President Donald Trump and his supporters insisted — and continue to maintain — that Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory was fraudulent. Trump defeated Biden in Florida by more than three percentage points but, even in the Sunshine State, skepticism about how elections are operated continues to swirl. And the arrests in August of 20 people for alleged illegal voting haven’t helped, according to experts. County supervisors of elections are combating a steady drumbeat of myths about election fraud from an increasingly wary public.

Full Article: Florida elections officials grapple with misinformation, myths

Michigan Election conspiracists have checklist for poll challengers: What’s on it | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

Set up hidden cameras to capture license plate numbers. If you go at night, show up armed. These aren’t battlefield directions. They’re instructions laid out as part of a strategic operation spearheaded by prominent election conspiracists seeking to keep close tabs on Michigan’s upcoming midterm election. Michigan is one of several states targeted by the America Project, an organization led by allies of former President Donald Trump to recruit citizen election monitors in ways election experts worry blurs the lines between lawful oversight and vigilantism. In a promotional video touting the America Project’s launch, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn calls the 2020 presidential election “an assault on our sacred election process.” The America Project’s website lists former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne as part of the “fearless, battle-tested team.” Byrne and Flynn participated in failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election that included an attempt to persuade Trump to order the military to seize voting machines. Two leaders from the Michigan GOP — ethnic vice chair Bernadette Smith and grassroots vice chair Marian Sheridan — appeared on panels supported by the America Project.

Full Article: Election conspiracists have checklist for Michigan poll challengers

Nevada’s Republican election deniers prepare to sabotage the midterms | Dana Milbank/The Washington Post

If the midterm elections degenerate into chaos in a couple of weeks — a very real possibility — then Nevada is poised to lead the way. Indeed, the chaos here has already begun. The election supervisors in 10 of the state’s 17 counties have already quit, been forced out or announced their departures. Lower-level election workers have quit in the face of consistent abuse. The state’s elections staff has lost eight of its 12 employees. The (Republican) secretary of state, who vigorously defends the integrity of the 2020 election, is term-limited, and the GOP nominee to replace her, Jim Marchant, leads a national group of election deniers running for office. Marchant is on record saying that if he and his fellow candidates are elected, “we’re going to fix the whole country, and President Trump is going to be president again.” In Reno’s Washoe County, the state’s second largest, an antisemitic conspiracy theorist led a harassment campaign against the registrar of voters, accusing her of treason and addiction, and she quit in fear for her family’s safety. In her absence, the county recently mailed a sample ballot to voters laced with errors: a missing contest, a missing candidate, a contest that didn’t belong on the ballot and a misspelling.

Full Article: Opinion | Nevada’s Republican election deniers prepare to sabotage the midterms – The Washington Post