Michigan: Tiny township pays for imposter 2020 election auditors’ damage | Mardi Link/Meadville Tribune

A tiny township in the remote woods of Michigan stands as a victim of 2020 vote auditing imposters who broke voting machines and have so far been uncharged and unaccountable, leaving Cross Village with a $5,000 bill even insurance won’t pay. Township Clerk Diana Keller tries to keep calm and carry on and was busy on a recent morning calling the National Weather Service in Gaylord, to report the lakeside community’s temperature and precipitation, a task she’s been doing for years. “On days like this I’m not sure why I do it,” she says, laughing off the challenges of being a volunteer weather-spotter in such a remote place. Fewer than 300 people live in this township year-round, residents are surrounded by forests and remote beaches, where the nearest large grocery store is a half-hour away — and that’s when the roads are clear.

Full Article: Tiny township in Michigan pays for imposter 2020 election auditors’ damage | News | meadvilletribune.com

Minnesota election bill would make it illegal to knowingly spread false information that impedes voting | Deena Winter/Minnesota Reformer

Despite a dozen hearings in the Minnesota House and Senate, lawmakers have scarcely mentioned a key provision of a major elections bill that would make it a crime to spread election misinformation to try to stop people from voting. The Democracy for the People Act, (HF3), includes a provision that would make it a gross misdemeanor — punishable by up to a year in jail and a $3,000 fine — to knowingly spread materially false information with the intent to impede or prevent people from voting. It would apply before 60 days an election. It would be illegal to spread false information about the “time, place or manner of holding an election,” qualifications for or restrictions on voter eligibility, and threats to physical safety associated with voting.

Full Article: Election bill would make it illegal to knowingly spread false information that impedes voting – Minnesota Reformer

Nevada elections head pushes training, manual amid turnover | Gabe Stern/Associated Press

Amid widespread turnover among county election officials in Nevada as the 2022 midterms approached, the clerks and registrars thrust into new roles often had a dual approach: running elections while learning how they operate. Democratic secretary of state Cisco Aguilar vowed to address the loss of institutional election knowledge to a state Senate committee Thursday, perpetrated in part by election denialism and hostility toward election officials, along with adapting to changing election laws and a host of other duties that some clerks and clerk-treasurers are tasked with. This includes managing decades of public documents and safeguarding millions in public funds. The fallout has been stark: 10 of the state’s 17 counties have changed top election officials since 2020. Several left in the months leading up to the pivotal 2022 midterms. The departures included large portions of county election staffs and the secretary of state’s elections office, where eight of the department’s 11 positions experienced turnover between the 2020 election and October 2022. Aguilar, who took office in January, presented a bill that would mandate his office to prepare biennial training courses and an elections procedures manual for county and city clerks, which would be at the ready for sudden departures and new staff heads leading up to the 2024 election and beyond. Several county clerks and voting rights groups testified in support of the bill.

Full Article: Nevada elections head pushes training, manual amid turnover | AP News

Ohio: Trump ‘White House in waiting’ helped develop voting bill touted as model for states | Zachary Roth/Ohio Capital Journal

A new bill announced by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to standardize and modernize state voting records is being welcomed by election administrators and some voter advocates, who say it could increase transparency and confidence in elections. But the first-of-its-kind legislation was developed with help from a think tank that is leading the charge nationally for more restrictive voting rules and has been called a “White House in waiting” for a second Trump administration. The bill also is winning praise from conservative activists who have spread fear about illegal voting as part of an effort to pressure election officials to more aggressively purge voter rolls. The measure, known as the Data Analysis Transparency Archive (DATA) Act, could offer a glimpse of a future conservative agenda on voting issues. At a Feb. 22 press conference announcing the bill, LaRose, a Republican, thanked the America First Policy Institute for “helping with the development” of the legislation. AFPI reportedly aims to create a policy platform for former President Donald Trump.  A spokesman for LaRose did not respond to an inquiry about AFPI’s role in developing the bill. But Hilton Beckham, AFPI’s director of communications, said via email that the group did not write the bill. Beckham said it came out of an AFPI report released last year, which found that many local election offices are failing to retain election data as required by law, and that in many counties, the total number of ballots cast doesn’t match up with the total number of registered voters who cast ballots.

Full Article: Trump ‘White House in waiting’ helped develop Ohio voting bill touted as model for states – Ohio Capital Journal

Pennsylvania: Luzerne County voters may be using paper ballots at polls on May 16 | Jennifer Learn-Andes/Times Leader

Luzerne County voters may be selecting their candidates on paper ballots instead of electronic ballot marking devices at polling places in the May 16 primary election, officials said Monday. Election Director Eryn Harvey presented the plan to the county’s five-citizen Election Board, saying paper ballots were successfully used during a Jan. 31 state senate special election impacting 18 municipalities. The election bureau received a significant level of positive feedback from both voters and poll workers, she said. After marking their candidate choice, special election voters had to feed their paper ballot into a tabulator/scanner for the vote to be cast. With the ballot marking devices, voters pick their candidates on a computer screen and then print out the resulting ballot, which they must review and feed into the tabulator/scanner. While each of the 186 precincts must still have a ballot marking device available for those with disabilities in the primary, Harvey said the plan she is proposing would reduce the county’s expense for Dominion Voting Systems Inc. to bring a team of 10 or so representatives here for two weeks to program and test all of the approximately 700 ballot marking devices.

Full Article: Luzerne County voters may be using paper ballots at polls on May 16 | The Sunday Dispatch

Texas Lawmakers Seek to Replace ‘Elections Administrators’ with Elected Officials in Large Counties | Holly Hansen/The Texan

In the past few years, election missteps in Harris County have repeatedly drawn national media attention, lawsuits, election contests, and a criminal investigation. This year, state lawmakers are considering a slew of legislative fixes to improve large county management of elections. In the latest proposal, Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) and Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) are demanding that counties with a population of more than one million return elections management to elected officials they say will be more accountable to the public. “Voters should have confidence in their elections, and when they see Harris County Elections Administrators botch election after election in 2022 that confidence is shaken,” said Bettencourt, who previously served as the Harris County tax assessor-collector & voter registrar. Among large Texas counties, Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, and Collin have appointed election administrators to manage elections. About half Texas’ 254 counties employ elections administrators, while the others give responsibility to elected officials such as the county clerk.

Full Article: Texas Lawmakers Seek to Replace ‘Elections Administrators’ with Elected Officials in Large Counties | The Texan

Texas: Conspiracy theory whirlwind threatens to blow state out of national program that keeps voter rolls updated | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

In virtual meetings taking place over a year, right-wing activists and Republican legislators have stoked concern over a multistate coalition that Texas and more than 30 other states use to help clean voter rolls. The majority of their grievances — that it is run by left-wing voter registration activists and funded by billionaire George Soros, among other things — were pulled straight from a far-right conspiracy website and are baseless. Now, lawmakers who regularly attend those meetings have introduced legislation written by the group that would end Texas’s participation in the coalition: the Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC. The bills were introduced despite the efforts of Texas’ elections director, who attended a meeting and offered factual information related to their concerns last April, apparently without success. Keith Ingram, the elections director for the secretary of state’s office, told the group that the program was the only option available to ensure voters aren’t registered or voting in more than one state at the same time. Nonetheless, the activists moved forward with an effort that experts say is set to undermine one of the best election integrity tools available to Texas and other states to prevent election fraud.

Full Article: Right-wing activists want Texas to quit ERIC, a program that updates voter rolls | The Texas Tribune

Utah lawmakers adopt election reforms suggested by recent audit | Bridger Beal-Cvetko/Deseret News

The Utah Legislature took recommendations from a recent election audit to heart last week, passing a bill to implement several suggestions to improve election security and transparency. Although a legislative audit of Utah’s election system found no instances of widespread voter fraud, it noted small discrepancies in the number of ballots cast and the number of votes recorded in some counties. As a result, the auditors recommended the state adopt a public reconciliation of ballots, which is one of the things HB448 would accomplish.

Full Article: What Utah election reforms were suggested by recent audit? – Deseret News

National: Failing at polls, election deniers focus on state GOP posts | Nicholas Riccardi and Joey Cappelletti/Associated Press

In a basement event space in the Denver suburb of Parker, Tina Peters surveyed a crowd of Colorado Republicans last week and made an unusual pitch for why she should become chair of their beleaguered party: “There’s no way a jury of 12 people is going to put me in prison.” Peters was referring to her upcoming trial on seven felony charges related to her role in allegedly accessing confidential voting machine data while she was clerk in western Colorado’s Mesa County. The incident made her a hero to election conspiracy theorists but unpopular with all but her party’s hardest-core voters. Peters, who condemns the charges as politically motivated, finished second in last year’s GOP primary for secretary of state, Colorado’s top elections position. Now Peters has become part of a wave of election deniers who, unable to succeed at the polls, have targeted the one post — state party chair — that depends entirely on those hardest-core Republicans. Embracing election conspiracy theories was a political albatross for Republicans in states that weren’t completely red last year, with deniers losing every statewide bid in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But the movement has focused on GOP state party chairs — positions that usually are selected by only dedicated activists and have the power to influence the party’s presidential nominating contest and some aspects of election operations, such as recruiting poll watchers.

Full Article: Failing at polls, election deniers focus on state GOP posts | AP News

California: Shasta County cuts ties with Dominion amid unfounded voting fraud claims | Jessica Garrison/Los Angeles Times

Swept up in unproven voter fraud claims, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors has upended the county’s election process, canceling its contract with Dominion Voting Systems and opting this week to pursue, among other options, the possibility of counting votes by hand. Supervisor Kevin Crye, part of a newly empowered hard-right majority on the board, also announced at Tuesday’s board meeting that he had been in touch with MyPillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell, a prominent pro-Donald Trump election conspiracy theorist, about supporting a pilot voting system in the rural Northern California county. On the same day, in another Republican-controlled county 400 miles south, Kern County supervisors narrowly voted to keep Dominion as the county’s voting system, but not before listening to hours of testimony from residents who were convinced the system was rigged.

Full Article: Shasta cuts ties with Dominion amid unfounded voting fraud claims – Los Angeles Times

National: DHS to require election security spending in homeland security grants | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

States that receive funding this year from the Department of Homeland Security’s main grant programming will be required to spend at least 3% of their awards on safeguarding elections, according to documents published Monday. A notice of funding opportunity for the fiscal 2023 iteration of the Homeland Security Grant Program stipulates that states and localities must now commit at least that much toward a slew of election-security concerns, including cybersecurity, physical protections for voting equipment and polling locations and prevention of harassment and threats against election workers. Cybersecurity continues to be a primary area of concern for many statewide and local election officials and federal cybersecurity authorities. At a recent gathering of the National Association of Secretaries of State, Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said that while last year’s election cycle was again free of any compromise by foreign malicious actors, officials remain wary of potential threats, particularly “more significant Chinese cyber activity against your states in the coming year.” And as hacking worries have lingered, election administrators have also in recent years grappled with a rise of insider threats — often motivated by baseless conspiracy theories about voting technology — and risks of physical violence and targeted harassment.

Full Article: DHS to require election security spending in homeland security grants | StateScoop

National: Supreme Court requests more briefs in case over independent state legislature theory | Melissa Quinn/CBS

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered North Carolina Republican leaders, the Biden administration and voting rights groups to file additional briefs in a closely watched elections case it heard in December, at the center of which is a theory that would grant state legislatures near-exclusive power to set rules for federal elections. In a brief order, the court called for the parties involved in the dispute and the Justice Department to file “supplemental letter briefs” addressing the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over the case, given that the North Carolina Supreme Court has agreed to rehear the redistricting dispute at its center. On the one side of the legal fight are North Carolina Republican legislative leaders, and on the other side are voting rights groups, North Carolina voters and state elections officials. The Justice Department backed voting rights groups in the case. The court set a deadline of March 20 for the additional filings to be submitted.

Full Article: Supreme Court requests more briefs in case over independent state legislature theory – CBS News

National: Murdoch Acknowledges Fox News Hosts Endorsed Election Fraud Falsehoods | Jeremy W. Peters and Katie Robertson/The New York Times

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump, and that he could have stopped them but didn’t, court documents released on Monday showed. “They endorsed,” Mr. Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, according to a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” he added, while also disclosing that he was always dubious of Mr. Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud. Asked whether he doubted Mr. Trump, Mr. Murdoch responded: “Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up.” At the same time, he rejected the accusation that Fox News as a whole had endorsed the stolen election narrative. “Not Fox,” he said. “No. Not Fox.” Mr. Murdoch’s remarks, which he made last month as part of Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, added to the evidence that Dominion has accumulated as it tries to prove its central allegation: The people running the country’s most popular news network knew Mr. Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election were false but broadcast them anyway in a reckless pursuit of ratings and profit.

Full Article: Murdoch Acknowledges Fox News Hosts Endorsed Election Fraud Falsehoods – The New York Times

National: The Fight Against Election Lies Never Ends for Local Officials | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

State and local election officials across the country have begun pursuing strategies to combat election lies ahead of the 2024 presidential election: They’re meeting with community organizations, posting social media videos and even inviting skeptics to visit election offices in efforts to “pre-bunk” falsehoods they know are coming. The threat, officials said, has not gone away since former President Donald Trump and his allies falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was rigged and tainted by widespread voter fraud. The next presidential election is more than a year away, but it’s never too early to invest in spreading the truth about elections, officials said. Election officials are still facing harassment and violent threats, as some candidates who lost in the midterms continue to make false claims, and election conspiracies involving ballot drop boxes and election equipment saturate social media. Some state lawmakers, wanting to capitalize on this misinformation, are attempting to strengthen their power to potentially overturn the outcomes of future elections.

Full Article: The Fight Against Election Lies Never Ends for Local Officials

Arizona county that challenged 2022 election gives near full control to election skeptic recorder | Jen Fifield/Votebeat Arizona

Elections in Cochise County will now be run almost entirely by Recorder David Stevens, an election skeptic who has said he does not fully trust all of his county’s election procedures and believes the county can and should move to hand-counting ballots. The Board of Supervisors for the southern Arizona county voted 2-1 on Tuesday afternoon to transfer the board’s election oversight to Stevens, giving up their statutorily-prescribed control over the appointment of the county’s elections director, Election Day procedures, ballot counting and presentation of election results. Republicans Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd voted yes, and Democrat Chairwoman Ann English voted no. The supervisors moved forward despite a warning from the attorney general’s office they received on Monday night, in which the solicitor general wrote that he had serious concerns about the legality of the drafted agreement. “If you are aware of legal authority for the draft Agreement, please promptly provide it to us,” Solicitor General Joshua Bendor wrote.

Full Article: Arizona county that challenged 2022 election gives near full control to election skeptic recorder – Votebeat Arizona – Nonpartisan local reporting on elections and voting

Arkansas Senate committee OKs bill to regulate paper ballots and hand counts | Hunter Field/KUAR

A group of state senators on Thursday voted to require Arkansas counties that opt to hand count election returns to first run ballots through vote-counting machines. Senate Bill 250 sponsor Rep. Kim Hammer (R-Benton) and state election officials said the legislation would ensure that preliminary, unofficial election results are reported quickly. Counties would still have the flexibility to conduct official counts by hand. The bill would also require that so-called “paper-ballot counties” cover the expenses of printing paper ballots and ensuring their compatibility with the state’s voting machines. Counties would also have to declare preliminary, unofficial results within 24 hours of the polls closing. The bill comes after Cleburne County last month voted to use hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots for elections. (Federal law will still require accessible voting equipment for people with disabilities.)

Full Article: Arkansas Senate committee OKs bill to regulate paper ballots and hand counts

California: Kern County renews contract with Dominion as dozens lash out during meeting | Maddie Gannon/KGET

After weeks of uncertainty and multiple delays, on Tuesday, the Kern County Board of Supervisors decided to renew its contract with Dominion voting machines in a three-to-two vote. The new contract is for three years and will last through 2025. District 1 Supervisor Phillip Peters and District 4 Supervisor David Couch voted against the renewal while district 3 Supervisor Jeff Flores, District 2 Supervisor Zack Scrivner and District 5 Supervisor Leticia Perez voted in favor of it. The vote came after about five hours of discussion during a heated Board meeting on Tuesday. “I’m telling your Board that to replace our current voting system based on accusations that have yet to be proven, despite being made more than two and a half years ago, is a waste of taxpayer dollars,” Kern County Auditor-Controller-County Clerk-Registrar of Voters Aimee Espinoza said to a fiery reaction from the crowd. Dominion voting machines have been the source of speculation and controversy around the nation since the 2020 election, including in Kern. For weeks, a group of residents have taken the floor at board meetings asking the county not to renew its contract. Tuesday was no exception with over two dozen residents asking to delay the decision.

Full Article: Kern renews contract with Dominion as dozens lash out during meeting

Colorado GOP ‘election integrity’ bill backed by conspiracy theorists defeated by Democrats | Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline

Lawmakers in the Colorado House of Representatives on Monday defeated a Republican proposal for a sweeping overhaul of state election laws backed by conspiracy theorists who baselessly allege that recent election results are illegitimate. House Bill 23-1170, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Ken DeGraaf of Colorado Springs, would have required elections officials in Colorado’s 64 counties to count votes using a “distributed ledger,” a decentralized verification system similar to blockchain technology. DeGraaf said the bill would allow any voter to verify that their vote was counted for their chosen candidate. … But Caleb Thornton, a legal, policy and rulemaking manager for the Colorado secretary of state’s office, said the “unvetted and untested components” proposed by the bill were both impractical and unnecessary. “The department has been unable to find any technology currently in existence that could be deployed for use in the way required by this bill,” Thornton said. “Colorado’s election system operates with several layers of safeguards and protective measures that already achieve what this bill seeks to do.”

Full Article: GOP ‘election integrity’ bill backed by conspiracy theorists defeated by Colorado Democrats – Colorado Newsline

Georgia Republicans want to make it easier to challenge voters’ eligibility | Jane C. Timm/NBC

Georgia Republicans introduced legislation Tuesday to make it easier to kick voters off the rolls through mass challenges, according to a copy of the bill sent to lawmakers and shared with NBC News by an aide to two of the bill’s sponsors. Changes to the challenge rules were proposed to Senate Bill 221 on Tuesday night, part of a committee substitute replacing a previous version of the bill. A draft of proposed legislation was released hours after NBC News exclusively revealed that at least 92,000 voter registrations were challenged in Georgia last year. Amateur fraud hunters largely used voter rolls, public records (including change-of-address data from the U.S. Postal Service) and some door-to-door canvassing in their claims that voters were ineligible. Most of the challenges were rejected, and some counties said broadly that having mail forwarded was not enough evidence to conclude a voter had moved. Some people spend time at other addresses without abandoning residency in the state, advocates and election administrators said.

Full Article: Georgia voter eligibility challenges would be easier in new bill

Michigan House elections committee considers election security bills | Colin Jackson/Michigan Radio

Michigan legislation to ban guns from coming within 100 feet of polling locations and ballot counting centers got a hearing Tuesday before the state House Elections Committee.Representative Stephanie Young (D-Detroit) sponsors a bill in the package. She said her bill is for election workers who felt threatened during recent election cycles.“I believe that it is our job as legislators to do something about making certain people are safe and feel safe,” Young said during Tuesday’s meeting.It’s a sentiment some who spoke in opposition to the bill shared as well.That included Brady Schickinger of the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners. He said the bills should make an exception for licensed concealed carry.“We agree with the general intent of the bill. Everyone should feel safe while voting, but we can protect polling sites without a conflict with responsible gun ownership.” Schickinger said.Another pair of bills in the legislation would make it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison to intimidate or keep an election official from doing their job.

Source: House elections committee considers election security bills

Minnesota Secretary of State recounts harassment of election workers; promotes protections in bill | Deena Winter/Minnesota Reformer

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said election officials were harassed, intimidated and threatened in Minnesota during the 2022 election, and the state needs a law protecting election workers. Simon supports a bill dubbed the Election Worker Protection Act (HF635) that would ban intimidation of election officials, interference with their work and tampering with election equipment. The bill also makes it a misdemeanor to tamper with or gain unauthorized entry into election equipment, the state voter registration system, ballot boxes or drop boxes; tamper with voter registration lists and polling place rosters; divulge personal information about election officials; or block access to polling places. Minnesota has had a “noticeable uptick” in abusive behavior toward election administrators, Simon said during a Tuesday hearing before a House elections committee. In order to keep recruiting some 30,000 people to serve as election judges every election, they need to be assured “it’s a safe and secure environment,” Simon said.

Full Article: Secretary of state recounts harassment of election workers; promotes protections in bill   – Minnesota Reformer

Montana: Tabulator ban, closed primaries voted down as election bills pile up | Sam Wilson/Helena Independet Record

Three controversial proposals backed by right-wing “election integrity” groups were summarily tabled by Montana lawmakers following committee hearings that stretched through Saturday. The bills, all sponsored by Sen. Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton, would have banned machine-counting of ballots, required votes be counted at the county precincts they were cast in and moved Montana to closed primary elections. As a crucial legislative deadline nears, the bills to drastically change the way elections are conducted in Montana surfaced in the midst of a procedural bottleneck. The approaching transmittal deadline prompted the Senate State Administration Committee to hold an unusual Saturday meeting to consider them alongside a half-dozen other bills. The committee chair, Sen. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, acknowledged the time crunch, caused in part by a bill-drafting process that has stretched longer into the session than it typically does.

Full Article: Tabulator ban, closed primaries voted down as election bills pile up

Nevada Secretary of State seeks $30M to create state-run voter registration database | Casey Harrison/Las Vegas Sun

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar is asking state lawmakers for approximately $30 million to help aid in establishing a statewide voter registration database that would modernize the way elections are administered. Signed into law during the 81st legislative session in 2021 — before Aguilar took office — Assembly Bill 422, had sought to create a centralized statewide database of registered voters known as the Voter Registration and Election Management Solution, or VREMS. According to Aguilar, that’s different from the current system where such information is kept on a county-by-county basis, putting workers in his office in frequent contact with county clerks. In a final assessment issued by former Secretary of State Barbra Cegavske last year, she advised the VREMS system not be fully implemented until 2026 to ensure the project “not be rushed,” while remaining a top priority. The problem with that, Aguilar told the Sun, is that much of the technology being used for the database, such as source coding, could be obsolete by the time it’s ready for use and thus costing the state more in the long run by continually playing catch-up.

Full Article: Secretary of state seeks $30M to create state-run voter registration database – Las Vegas Sun Newspaper

Pennsylvania court offers conflicting opinions on requirements for fraud evidence in recount petitions | Carter Walker/Votebeat Pennsylvania

Two Pennsylvania appellate judges have offered conflicting rulings on whether evidence of fraud is needed to request a recount. Such recount petitions have become an increasingly common tool for those seeking to question election results, leading to delays in certification and fresh doubts about the integrity of the elections. In the past month, one Commonwealth Court judge ruled that petitioners must either provide evidence of election malfeasance or file recount requests in every precinct where an election occurred, while another judge ruled in a separate case that recount petitioners do not need evidence. The confusion stems from two seemingly contradictory sections of the state law. Election officials and petitioners hope that the state Supreme Court will take up the issue to provide clarity.

Full Article: Pennsylvania court has conflicting opinions on fraud evidence in recount petitions – Votebeat Pennsylvania – Nonpartisan local reporting on elections and voting

Texas bill would allow the state to replace local elections administrators | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

House and Senate bills filed by Republican lawmakers in response to Harris County’s mismanagement of its recent elections could give the Texas secretary of state the authority to step in, suspend county election administrators when a complaint is filed and appoint a replacement administrator. Election administration experts told Votebeat the legislation was an overreaction to the desire to hold Harris County accountable for years of election mismanagement, and would disrupt the state’s ability to help county election offices improve and address systemic problems. If passed, the secretary of state’s office would change from being a guide and resource for election workers to being an auditor that can investigate and fire them. Some election officials are concerned this change could prevent local election workers from asking questions or seeking help from the office for fear of being reprimanded. “Currently we work hand-in-hand. [The secretary of state’s staff] are our No. 1 resource, and that benefits all voters,” said Jennifer Doinoff, Hays County elections administrator. “Putting them in the position of oversight would definitely change the dynamic.”

Full Article: Texas bill would allow the state to replace local elections administrators | The Texas Tribune

West Virginia Adds to Election Deniers’ Ongoing Takeover of State Politics | Alex Burness/Bolts

In January 2021, days after rallying outside the U.S. Capitol against legitimate presidential election results, West Virginia state Senator Mike Azinger said he hoped for an encore. “(T)here’s a time where we all have to make a little bit of sacrifice. Our president called us to D.C.,” he told local news at the time. “It was inspiring to be there and I hope he calls us back.” His loyalty to election denialism has not appeared to harm his political career; he was re-elected last fall after a tight Republican primary and a blowout general election, and, earlier this year, he was named chair of the Senate panel tasked with reviewing election policy. Azinger is now one of several election deniers leading legislative committees on election law, including in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Arizona. Others have been elected to lead state Republican parties in recent weeks.

Full Article: West Virginia Adds to Election Deniers’ Ongoing Takeover of State Politics  | Bolts

National: Top Cybersecurity Leaders Warn Local Election Officials to Boost Security Ahead of 2024 | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

Some of the nation’s top cybersecurity leaders are warning state and local election officials of ongoing foreign and domestic national security threats to election systems, urging them to upgrade their defenses ahead of next year’s presidential election. At separate conferences this month, federal officials warned gatherings of the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors that they must be vigilant in securing their state’s elections systems and building resilience to prevent attacks. Many election officials, overworked and frightened by personal threats, left the field following President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. In light of that turnover, national security officials wanted to emphasize that local election officials can use federal resources to build defenses and educate front-line staff. Although foreign cyberattacks did not disrupt November’s midterm elections, China, Iran, North Korea and Russia remain threats to U.S. election systems, said Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division.

Full Article: Feds Push Local Election Officials to Boost Security Ahead of 2024 | The Pew Charitable Trusts

National: Are Open Source Elections More Secure? | Jule Pattison-Gordon/Government Technology

The 2024 elections are coming, and jurisdictions need to ensure their election administration and voting system technology stays ahead of the latest cyber threats and mis- and disinformation. But they also need to ensure residents have convenient, accessible voting experiences. Some researchers and election officials believe open source tools are the solution. Federal security officials determined that the last election was secure, but cyber threats continue to evolve and election doubters have seized upon even simple equipment glitches and operational hiccups — like a printer mishap — to question results. Open source software projects publish their source code under licenses that allow anyone to review and use it. Typically, volunteers develop and propose code modifications, like bug fixes and new features, to be considered for incorporation into the software. This transparency into the code could dispel rumors, by showing doubters exactly how the processes work, according to Greg Miller, co-founder and chief operating officer of OSET Institute, an open source election technology research and development nonprofit. “Generally, in an open source project, more people have access to view the code, which can lead to the discovery of vulnerabilities in the code sooner,” San Francisco stated in a 2018 assessment on the feasibility of the city creating its own open source voting system.

Full Article: Are Open Source Elections More Secure? (Part 1)

National: Five election deniers who are controlling state voting systems | Zachary Roth/News From The States

Americans concerned about the health of democracy breathed a sigh of relief when a pack of election deniers in 2022 lost their attempts to control voting in key battleground states — making it unlikely that a rogue state election official could subvert the 2024 presidential election. Candidates for secretary of state who denied the result of the 2020 presidential race were defeated in all three swing states where they were on the ballot — Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the chief election official, an election-denier gubernatorial candidate also lost. But while battleground states may have dodged a bullet in their secretary of state races, Alabama, Indiana, South Dakota, and Wyoming all elected deniers — defined as officials who refused to publicly acknowledge the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory or backed court cases that could overturn the election. And the governor of Florida, the nation’s third-largest state, appointed a secretary of state who has refused, when asked, to say Biden won the election.

Full Article: Five election deniers who are controlling state voting systems | News From The States

National: They defeated election deniers, but these secretaries of state still fear ‘losing our democracy’ | Jacob Fulton/The Boston Globe

Secretaries of state, who have increasingly found themselves on the front lines in the fight for democracy, met last week in Washington to discuss how to keep election integrity top of mind as the next presidential election begins to gear up. Several of the officials gathered at the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State had beaten back challenges last year from election deniers in contests that in some places attracted as much national attention as a competitive Senate race. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who defeated Republican Mark Finchem, a former Arizona state representative who routinely spread election disinformation, said races like his provided “good perspective” on “how close we still are to losing our democracy.” “A lot more people are going to be a lot more realistic when they see that democracy is something that needs to be nurtured,” Fontes said. According to the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to fair and secure elections, 22 of the 27 secretary of state races in 2022 included at least one candidate with a platform that incorporated election denial. Just three of those candidates ended up winning in the general election.

Full Article: They defeated election deniers, but these secretaries of state still fear ‘losing our democracy’ – The Boston Globe