Warren Stewart – Page 88 – The Voting News

An extraordinary pair of orders by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled Supreme Court is highlighting how the partisan tug of war has pervaded the state’s courts and, by extension, the nation’s. On Friday, the court moved to rehear two major voting rights cases that it had previously decided, one striking down a gerrymandered map of State Senate districts and another nullifying new voter identification requirements. Such rehearings by the court are exceedingly rare. In fact, North Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered as many rehearings on Friday as it has in the past three decades. What also made the rehearings exceptional was that the cases had been decided less than two months ago — by a court that, at the time, contained four Democratic and three Republican justices. The court that voted to rehear the cases has a 5-to-2 Republican majority, courtesy of the party’s sweep of state Supreme Court races in November. And the potential beneficiary of those reviews is the Republican leadership of the state General Assembly, which had both drawn the political map and enacted the voter ID law that the court struck down in December. Lawyers for those leaders asked the court to reconsider the cases in petitions filed last month. “Quite literally the only thing that changed is the court’s composition,” Joshua Douglas, a professor and expert on state constitutions at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said in an interview. “The whole thing simply smells of partisanship.”

Full Article: On North Carolina’s Supreme Court, G.O.P. Justices Move to Reconsider Democratic Rulings – The New York Times

Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinion opens the door for a patchwork of county policies on wrongly dated ballots | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has once again waded into the protracted legal battle over whether mail ballots missing a date or with the wrong date should be thrown out. But while a series of opinions the justices issued Wednesday offered new clarity, they also opened the door to fresh confusion and the almost certain prospect of counties developing a patchwork of different policies over what exactly constitutes a correct date. The ruling follows an order the court issued last fall instruct ing counties to set aside all undated and wrongly dated ballots for last November’s midterm. It did not issue opinions explaining the decision at the time or providing guidance to counties going forward. The question of how to handle dates on mail ballots — state law requires voters to handwrite a date on the outer envelope — had been one of the most hotly contested legal and political fights in recent elections. In a tense status quo before last fall’s order, some counties had accepted undated ballots or ballots with any date, such as voters’ birth dates, saying it was unfair to disqualify ballots from legal voters simply because they had made a mistake.

Full Article: Undated Pa. mail ballots: State Supreme Court opinions open door to confusion, policy patchwork

Texas: Overlooked provision of SB 1 requires election equipment that doesn’t exist, at a cost of $116 million | Natalia Contreras/Votebeat Texas

Full Article: SB 1 provision requires the use of voting equipment that doesn’t exist – Votebeat Texas – Nonpartisan local reporting on elections and voting

When state lawmakers passed a sweeping and controversial new election law in 2021, they quietly included a provision that drew little notice or debate. But election administration experts say the measure is unprecedented, it mandates the purchase of voting technology that doesn’t currently exist — and it’s on the verge of costing taxpayers more than $100 million. Sponsors of the provision said they aimed to prevent cheating in elections by prohibiting the use of modern technology to count votes and store cast ballot data. It passed without debate on a voice vote, and goes into effect just before the November 2026 general election. … Here’s how it works now: With permission from the Texas secretary of state, election officials use media storage devices such as USB flash drives — provided by state-certified voting machine vendors — to collect data from ballot scanners used at precincts and voting centers on Election Day. Those drives are how officials easily and safely take that data on cast ballots to a central counting station, where they’re inserted into a tabulating computer to quickly gather results. The equipment involved is expensive, and elections officials reuse it each time an election is held, writing over the previous data with the new election data. But the provision — proposed by Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood) and supported by the then-bill’s primary author, Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) — prohibits the use of this exact kind of data storage device that can be reused, including the ballot scanners and the tabulating machines. Experts say that, in order to fully comply with the new law, counties would have to buy entirely new voting systems each election cycle.

Utah legislature considers requiring performance audit | Katie McKellar/Deseret News

It’s not an Arizona-style, so-called “forensic” audit that some far right Republicans were calling for in 2021, but Utah lawmakers are a step closer to requiring a “comprehensive performance” audit of Utah’s elections every other year. The Utah House on Friday voted unanimously to approve HB269, a bill that would require the Office of the Legislative Auditor General to conduct a biennial audit of elections in even-numbered years. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration. “We have a pretty good system here in Utah,” the bill’s sponsor, House Majority Leader Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said, noting the last legislative audit conducted of the 2022 election showed just that. In that audit, legislative auditors found no evidence of fraud and only small discrepancies in the number of ballots cast and the number of votes counted in some counties. “But there’s always room for improvement,” he added, “and it’s always important that we keep our eye on the ball and strive for perfection.”

Full Article: Election audit: Utah legislature considers requiring performance audit – Deseret News

Wyoming bill that would codify rules for electronic voting machines has been postponed for a final vote | Hugh Cook/Wyoming Public Media

A bill that would codify rules for electronic voting machines was postponed for its third reading in the Senate. Sponsored by the Joint Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Interim Committee, it passed the House on a 33-27-2 vote and was introduced to the Senate on Jan. 19 where it subsequently passed its first two readings. The bill aims to codify the Wyoming Secretary of State’s guidelines regarding election system security. That includes requiring proof that a vendor, or the provider of a voting system(s) meet the specified requirements outlined in the bill, the EAC [U.S. Election Assistance Commission], and the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office, which would issue a certificate indicating the vendor was in good standing with the state. The EAC is an independent, bipartisan commission that was created by Congress via the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). It’s tasked with developing guidelines to meet HAVA requirements and serve as a clearinghouse of information on election administration, among other responsibilities. “The County Clerk’s support [the bill] and would really appreciate the codification of the federal certification for our electronic voting systems,” said Mary Lankford, a representative of the Wyoming County Clerk’s Association. “We feel that the codification of this portion of the rules only strengthens the security of Wyoming’s election system and our integrity.”

Full Article: A bill that would codify rules for electronic voting machines has been postponed for a final vote | Wyoming Public Media

National: Election officials say democracy is still at risk in 2024: ‘The gun is still loaded’ | Jane C. Timm/NBC

The November midterms gave election officials and pro-democracy advocates their first sigh of relief in years: The election system they’d spent years defending and shoring up operated almost seamlessly, and most of the election deniers who threatened to disrupt it were defeated. … “The extreme rhetoric is not stopping,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who chairs the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, a group that led the charge in battleground states against election denialism. “It just led to a little girl having bullets shoot through her wall in New Mexico because someone was mad at her mom because they thought that she rigged an election, right? I really do not think we’re out of the woods.” Election experts, pro-democracy advocates and secretaries of state who defeated election deniers said in interviews that while democracy defenders have won a key battle, the existential threat to American democracy remains. “In some ways, it was just a dress rehearsal for the 2024 presidential election,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said. In November, he defeated Republican Kim Crockett, a Trump-endorsed candidate who said the 2020 election was rigged.

Full Article: Election officials say democracy is still at risk in 2024

Arizona election ‘audit’ full of infighting, deceit, messages show | yan Randazzo/Arizona Republic

Thousands of new documents The Arizona Republic obtained from Cyber Ninjas, the obscure company state Senate Republicans hired to conduct a partisan “audit” of the 2020 election, show the endeavor was fraught with conflict and confusion. The contractors confided they didn’t know Arizona election law when they were hired, struggled to pay bills and raise money, fought over what to report to the Senate, got deeply sidetracked by a film about their effort, and consistently were in touch with people who tried to concoct ways to keep former President Trump in office after his election loss. Among the most revealing details in the new documents are that the lead contractor reached out to people close to Trump to ask for money to conduct the supposedly objective “audit,” and others involved communicated with the former president as well. The Republic and a left-leaning watchdog group called American Oversight sued the Senate and Cyber Ninjas for emails, texts and other communications from the project and have received batches of documents for more than a year. Doug Logan, the CEO at now-defunct Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, which former Senate President Karen Fann chose to direct the work, has continued to fight the release of all of his communications, which a judge said were subject to disclosure. But facing a $50,000-a-day fine imposed more than a year ago, he recently turned over thousands of texts and Signal messages.

Full Article: Arizona election ‘audit’ full of infighting, deceit, messages show

National: Election officials ready themselves for the next wave of Trump followers | Zach Montellaro/Politico

Hundreds of local election officials across the country are about to confront a political challenge putting their management skills and their campaign chops to the test: Administering the 2024 presidential vote while running for reelection themselves. Donald Trump acolytes galvanized by the former president’s false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from him piled into last year’s campaigns for state election officer positions. And although Democrats and mainstream Republicans defeated all of those candidates in key battleground states like Michigan, Arizona and elsewhere, far more races for local election positions there and in other states will be up for grabs next year. The slate of below-the-radar campaigns will test how much money and attention will be available for these critical roles in the midst of a presidential race. “The concerns about being primaried is absolutely on the mind of very dedicated and very middle-of-the-road, nonpartisan-functioning” election officials in Florida, said Mark Earley, the election supervisor in Leon County, Fla., a blue-leaning county in the state’s deep-red Panhandle.

Full Article: Election officials ready themselves for the next wave of Trump followers – POLITICO

National: Elections Stayed Secure in 2022, but Trouble Could Return in 2024 | Carl Smith/Governing

Brianna Lennon, the clerk for Boone County, Mo., works in a state where harassment and threats have not escalated to the point that local election officials fear for their safety. That doesn’t mean her office doesn’t get calls from voters who are angry about election results, just that they are likely to be upset about outcomes in other states. Lennon, who co-hosts a national podcast on election administration, is hearing more and more about security worries. “It’s really dominating the conversation amongst election officials,” she says. “It used to be that we just talked about cybersecurity, but now we talk about physical safety.” Midterm elections were free of the election-related violence some had feared. In part, this may have been a consequence of federal investigations in response to events on Jan. 6, which have resulted in charges against almost 1,000 individuals, including leaders of groups promoting violence.

Full Article: Elections Stayed Secure in 2022, but Trouble Could Return in 2024

National: Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles | Marc Levy and Jonathan Cooper/Associated Press

Republican lawmakers who have spread election conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential outcome was rigged are overseeing legislative committees charged with setting election policy in two major political battleground states. Divided government in Pennsylvania and Arizona means that any voting restrictions those GOP legislators propose is likely to fail. Even so, the high-profile appointments give the lawmakers a platform to cast further doubt on the integrity of elections in states that will be pivotal in selecting the next president in 2024. Awarding such plum positions to lawmakers who have repeated conspiracies and spread misinformation cuts against more than two years of evidence showing there were no widespread problems or fraud in the last presidential election. It also would appear to run counter to the message delivered in the November midterm elections, when voters rejected election-denying candidates running for top offices in presidential battleground states. At the same time, many mainstream Republicans are trying to move past the lies told by former President Donald Trump and his allies about his loss to President Joe Biden.

Full Article: Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles | AP News

National: GOP report shows plan to ramp up focus on disproven election fraud claims | Amy Gardner and Isaac Arnsdorf/The Washington Post

A new internal report prepared by the Republican National Committee proposes creating a permanent infrastructure in every state to ramp up “election integrity” activities in response to perceptions within GOP ranks of widespread fraud and abuse in the way the country selects its leaders. The report, prepared by the RNC’s “National Election Integrity Team” and obtained by The Washington Post, reveals the degree to which Republicans continue to trade on former president Donald Trump’s false claims that Democrats and their allies rigged his defeat in 2020. The report suggests building a massive new party organization involving state-level “election integrity officers” and intensive new training models for poll workers and observers — all based on unsubstantiated claims that Democrats have implemented election procedures that allow for rigged votes. Yet the report also acknowledges that the GOP’s obsession with election fraud has cost the party, most notably in 2021, when mistrust in elections contributed to a drop in Republican turnout in two U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia, costing the party its Senate majority.

Full Article: GOP report shows plan to ramp up focus on disproven election fraud claims – The Washington Post

Arizona Republicans try again to force ‘impossible’ hand counts of elections and a return to precinct voting | Caitlin Sievers/AZ Mirror

Arizona Republicans have taken another step in their attempt to completely overhaul elections in the Grand Canyon State, with a proposed bill that would force hand counts in the state’s elections, a practice that elections experts say would be logistically impossible. The measure to ban votes from being counted with electronic tabulators — equipment used in every Arizona city and county, and in virtually every election office across the nation — stems from a demand from constituents requiring hand counts of election results because of their general mistrust of voting machines, said Rep. Cory McGarr, R-Marana. A false belief that electronic ballot tabulators are designed to change votes so Republican candidates lose has become increasingly popular since President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Believers in the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump began demanding hand counts following that election, and this isn’t the first time such a bill has been proposed in the Arizona legislature. Jen Marson, a lobbyist for the Arizona Association of Counties, had a laundry list of questions for McGarr about his House Bill 2307, since it does not include any specifics about how the hand counts would work. McGarr said he didn’t have any suggestions for how to handle the hand count but was sure that the counties could “figure that out.” “This is impossible,” Marson told the committee.

Full Article: Republicans try again to force ‘impossible’ hand counts of elections and a return to precinct voting

Colorado’s clerks hope they’ve turned a corner on election disinformation: ‘The temperature has gone down a little bit’ | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Full Article: ‘The temperature has gone down a little bit’: Colorado’s clerks hope they’ve turned a corner on election disinformation | Colorado Public Radio

The last few years have been tough ones for the officials who run Colorado’s elections; in the wake of the 2020 election they’ve endured threats and hostility, had to push back against misinformation and disinformation, and been left always wondering — what comes next? This week, with the 2022 midterm election in the rearview, county clerks met for their winter conference in Colorado Springs and many said they’re breathing a bit of a sigh of relief that election deniers lost momentum electorally and no outside disruptions impacted a smooth, fair and accurate election process. “I wasn’t feeling hopeful, but then after the election, I do feel like we’ve made progress,” said Chaffee County Clerk Lori Mitchell, a Democrat from Salida, about fighting disinformation. “I thought it would happen at some point, but maybe not this quickly. I do feel that the temperature has gone down a little bit.”

Georgia: Judge considers whether voter challenges are intimidation | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge questioned Wednesday whether sweeping challenges to the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters amounted to voter intimidation by Texas-based True the Vote, a conservative organization that has promoted unproven claims of election fraud.But an attorney for True the Vote responded that Georgia laws allow residents to cast doubt on individuals who might have moved away, and the group didn’t confront or discourage anyone from casting a ballot.U.S. District Judge Steve Jones is considering whether True the Vote’s effort to challenge 364,000 voters before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs in early 2021 went too far. He didn’t immediately rule following a court hearing in Gainesville. County election officials threw out almost all the challenges, but the lawsuit alleges that mass challenges amounted to a violation of the Voting Rights Act’s protections against voter intimidation and coercion. The case was brought by several voters and Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams. True the Vote had said it recruited former Navy SEALS to monitor polling places, and the group offered a $1 million bounty to defend fraud whistleblowers if they were sued.

Full Article: Judge considers whether Georgia voter challenges are intimidation

Indiana agrees to provide voting tool to Hoosiers with print disabilities | Dan Carden/The Times of Northwest Indiana

Hoosier adults with print disabilities no longer will be obligated to obtain assistance to cast an absentee ballot for at least the next two years. Indiana Disability Rights announced Wednesday the settlement of its lawsuit against a variety of state election officials, which enables qualifying voters to obtain a remote accessible ballot marking tool for all elections between May 2023 and May 2025. Previously, voters with print disabilities — such as people unable to independently mark a paper ballot or ballot card due to blindness, low vision or a physical disability limiting manual dexterity — generally were required to fill out their mail-in ballot in front of a “traveling board” of election judges. According to the settlement agreement, the remote accessible ballot marking tool will instead allow voters with print disabilities to sign all ballots and forms electronically without the assistance of another person, and those voters will have the option of returning their ballot via email.

Full Article: Indiana agrees to provide voting tool to Hoosiers with print disabilities

Nevada: Nye County Clerk lerk says hand count was ‘more accurate’ than voting machines | Robin Hebrock/Pahrump Valley Times

Nye County’s decision to switch to paper ballots and utilize a hand count in the 2022 election cycle captured the country’s attention, grabbing national headlines and even prompting legal action from the American Civil Liberties Union in an attempt to stop the move. Despite the pushback and a two-week delay caused by the ACLU lawsuit, Nye County Clerk Mark Kampf said the new process devised for 2022 was a successful one and his office will now be analyzing its options for the 2024 election. “Just as a reminder to those who don’t believe it, the tabulation was the primary method of determining our election results. Let me repeat that. We used the Dominion tabulators to calculate our election results, no different than we have in the past,” Kampf explained for the public at the Nye County Commission’s Jan. 18 meeting. The big difference when it came to calculating results for 2022, Kampf said, was the inclusion of a hand count. In addition to counting the ballots with electronic equipment, a force of more than 200 volunteers offered their time and energy to tally all of the votes marked on the paper ballots by hand, the results of which were then balanced against those derived from the Dominion tabulation. In the end, Kampf remarked, it appeared that the hand count was marginally more accurate.

Full Article: Nye clerk says hand count was ‘more accurate’ than voting machines | Pahrump Valley Times

New Jersey Judge orders recount in Monmouth County after some 2022 votes were double-counted | David Wildstein/New Jersey Globe

A Superior Court judge today ordered a recount of some voting machines in four Monmouth County municipalities after errors with the installation of voting machine software from Election Systems and Software (ES&S) caused some votes to be double counted in the November 2022 general election. That could change the outcome of a school board race in Ocean Township, where Steve Clayton unseated incumbent Jeff Weinstein by 20 votes and was sworn in last month; unofficial tallies now put Weinstein ahead by just one vote. Election officials said that the recount will be held on February 8. In his decision, Judge David Bauman relied on a New Jersey Supreme Court decision that election laws should be interpreted liberally as a reason for recounting and rechecking voting machines in Ocean Township, Belmar, Fair Haven, and Tinton Falls even though the deadline had passed. “The public interest in (the) finality of counting votes and election outcomes, in this instance, has not been shown to be strong enough to warrant strict enforcement of the provisions of (the statutes) … where, as here, the counting error appears to have been derived from a unique confluence of mechanical and human error, and no one on this record opposes the prayers for relief,” Bauman wrote in his ruling.

Full Article: Judge orders recount in Monmouth County after some 2022 votes were double-counted – New Jersey Globe

Pennsylvania: After years of troubleshooting, Philadelphia will use electronic poll books in this year’s primary election | Brian A. Saunders/PhillyVoice

This year, Philadelphia voters will choose a new mayor. When they head to the polls in May’s primary election, they’ll see something else new: updated technology at their polling places. After almost four years of troubleshooting, city commissioners say poll workers will begin using electronic poll books, eliminating the paper stacks of information workers have long used to check in voters. Many states have implemented electronic poll books to provide checks and balances for human error and speed up the check-in process for voters. Over 20 states currently use the software in some capacity, and six use them statewide, Pew reports. “I just think that the electronic poll books are going to revolutionize the way Philadelphians vote in person,” City Commissioner Lisa Deeley told KYW Newsradio. “It’ll streamline the process, it will be more efficient and it’ll be a much better day for the board workers.”

Full Article: Philadelphia will use electronic poll books in upcoming primary election | PhillyVoice

Texas: Dallas County Republicans question voting machines, lobby for paper ballots | Josephine Peterson/The Dallas Morning News

The Dallas County Republican Party says its top legislative priority this session is lobbying for the return of the paper ballot. Local Republicans say that the electronic voting system currently being used may have counted more votes than were actually cast in the 2022 election, despite the Dallas County Elections Department’s saying that is not the case. The GOP points to those votes that rolled in after polls closed and to 188 “phantom voter” errors the state found in the 2020 election as proof that the county’s electronic voting system can’t be trusted. “Any voting equipment or election process that is not fully transparent and trustworthy simply has to go,” the local party said in a Jan. 20 blog post laying out their position. Dallas County Republican Party Chair Jennifer Stoddard-Hajdu told The Dallas Morning News that she is concerned about voting machines in local elections that are connected to a server through Wi-Fi, pointing to a surge in tallied votes that occurred after the polls closed during the last election. She also cited a state audit that reported the “phantom voter” incidents. “I’m not saying that there was any fraud or that the election was stolen or votes were ma that she is concerned about voting machines in local elections that are connected to a server through Wi-Fi, pointing to a surge in tallied voters that occurred after the polls closed during the last election. She also cited a state audit that reported the “phantom voter” incidents. The state, county, the voting machine company, and Dallas County Democratic Party have approved or defended Dallas’ current voting system.

Full Article: Dallas County Republicans Want Switch to Paper Ballots

Utah Lawmakers want to audit elections, but not to examine whether the results are accurate | Bryan Schott/The Salt Lake Tribune

The House Government Operations Committee unanimously approved HB269 on Tuesday afternoon, which mandates a performance audit of Utah’s elections in even-numbered years. Legislative auditors are tasked to review almost every aspect of the primary and general elections, from candidate selection to counting ballots. The bill from House Majority Leader Rep. Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, springboards from a year-long probe of Utah’s elections instigated by Schultz in late 2021. He explained he was motivated not by unfounded fraud claims but by a desire to build confidence in Utah’s elections. … Absent from the bill is a mechanism for verifying the accuracy of election results. State law requires county clerks to conduct a post-election audit to determine whether vote-counting machines are operating correctly. Legislative auditors recommended a pilot program to audit a certain percentage of ballots after the election to help ensure the results are accurate.

Full Article: Lawmakers want to audit Utah’s elections, but not to examine whether the results are accurate

Wisconsin statewide audit shows no voting machine errors during 2022 election | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Voting machines counted ballots accurately during the November 2022 general election, results of a new statewide audit show. About 222,000 ballots, or 8.4% of the total number cast during the Nov. 8 election, were audited by county and municipal clerks in the weeks following the midterm election. The survey, the largest of its kind was released this week by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. It found six human-forced errors and no problems with the functioning of ballot tabulating machines. The results, part of a routine audit, come after years of baseless allegations of widespread instances of inaccurate voting machine tallies during the 2020 election launched by former President Donald Trump and his supporters. President Joe Biden beat Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020. Trump sought recounts in liberal-leaning Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed Biden’s win. Trump sued and the state Supreme Court upheld the results on a 4-3 vote on Dec. 14, 2020. Bob Spindell, a Republican commissioner, called the result “remarkable” in a commission meeting Thursday. “(The audit) should give confidence to the people of Wisconsin that the machines worked properly,” he said.

Full Article: There were no voting machine errors during 2022 election in Wisconsin

Wyoming Lawmakers Vote To Reduce Early Voting Window, Require Post-Election Audits | Leo Wolfson/Cowboy State Daily

Wyoming elections would be subject to post-election audits and early voting windows would be shortened under a bill advanced by a legislative committee Tuesday. Senate File 153, titled “Election Security,” would reduce early voting to 28 days from the current 45 for domestic applicants. Overseas applicants and military would still have 45 days to vote early or with an absentee ballot. On post-election audits, state law doesn’t require them, but there’s an outstanding directive to require them by former Secretary of State Ed Buchanan. Pressure to require audits has increased in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, which former President Donald Trump and his supporters have maintained was tainted by widespread fraud. If SF 153 passes, Wyoming would still have the 12th longest early voting period in the country. Mary Lankford, a representative from the Wyoming County Clerks Association, said the average length of early voting offered by U.S. states is 23 days. It passed unanimously out of the Senate Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee.

Full Article: Wyoming Lawmakers Vote To Reduce Early Voting Window, Require Post-Election Audits – Cowboy State Daily

National: States Push for New Voting Laws With an Eye Toward 2024 | Neil Vigdor/The New York Times

The tug of war over voting rights and rules is playing out with fresh urgency at the state level, as Republicans and Democrats fight to get new laws on the books before the 2024 presidential election. Republicans have pushed to tighten voting laws with renewed vigor since former President Donald J. Trump made baseless claims of fraud after losing the 2020 election, while Democrats coming off midterm successes are trying to channel their momentum to expand voting access and thwart efforts to undermine elections. States like Florida, Texas and Georgia, where Republicans control the levers of state government, have already passed sweeping voting restrictions that include criminal oversight initiatives, limits on drop boxes, new identification requirements and more. While President Biden and Democrats in Congress were unable to pass federal legislation last year that would protect voting access and restore elements of the landmark Voting Rights Act stripped away by the Supreme Court in 2013, not all reform efforts have floundered.

Full Article: States Push for New Voting Laws With an Eye Toward 2024 – The New York Times

With a roll of the dice, Michigan begins audit of 2022 election | Ben Orner/MLive.com

Over the next month, state and local election officials will audit Michigan’s 2022 general election, checking the accuracy of results and security of procedures. These more than 200 audits across counties, cities and townships will see Bureau of Elections staff and county clerks review ballots and election administration in randomly selected precincts and identify best practices for future elections. “It is somewhat like a recount, but it is not a recount,” said Michigan elections director Jonathan Brater. “What we’re doing is counting enough containers across the state to make sure that – within a statistical level of certainty – we’re confident that the tabulators got the proper result.” Brater watched Thursday as a handful of local election officials and bureau staff rolled a 10-sided die to determine which batches of ballots will be hand-counted to check the accuracy of Michigan’s vote tabulation machines.

Full Article: With a roll of the dice, Michigan begins audit of 2022 election – mlive.com

National: Election Assistance Commission Appoints New Director With Security-Focused Background | Edward Graham/Nextgov

The Election Assistance Commission on Tuesday announced that Steven Frid—the security director at the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid office—has been appointed as the new executive director of the agency beginning on Jan. 30. In a press release, EAC called Frid “a long-term public servant who has dedicated his career to collecting and analyzing data about risks to federal employees, facilities, information and operations within the Office of Personnel Management, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education.” “Steven Frid will be joining the EAC during a very exciting and pivotal time for the agency as we prepare for the 2024 elections,” EAC Chairman Thomas Hicks, Vice Chair Christy McCormick, and Commissioners Ben Hovland and Donald Palmer said in a joint statement. “His leadership, innovative work and expertise at a range of federal agencies will be an asset as the EAC continues to grow and work to better serve election officials, voters and other stakeholders.”

Full Article: Election Assistance Commission Appoints New Director With Security-Focused Background – Nextgov

National: GOP action on mail ballot timelines angers military families | Julie Carr Smith and Gary Fields/Los Angeles Times

Ohio’s restrictive new election law significantly shortens the window for mailed ballots to be received — despite no evidence that the extended timeline has led to fraud or any other problems — and that change is angering active-duty members of the military and their families because of its potential to disenfranchise them. The pace of ballot counting after election day has become a target of conservatives egged on by former President Trump. He has promoted a false narrative since losing the 2020 election that fluctuating results as late-arriving mail-in ballots are tallied is a sign of fraud. Republican lawmakers said during debate on the Ohio legislation that even if Trump’s claims aren’t true, the skepticism they have caused among conservatives about the accuracy of election results justifies imposing new limits. The new law reduces the number of days for county election boards to include mailed ballots in their tallies from 10 days after election day to four. Critics say that could lead to more ballots from Ohio’s military voters missing the deadline and getting tossed. This issue isn’t confined to Ohio. Three other states narrowed their post-election windows for accepting mail ballots last session, according to data from the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab. Similar moves pushed by Republican lawmakers are being proposed or discussed this year in Wisconsin, New Jersey, California and other states.

Full Article: GOP action on mail ballot timelines angers military families – Los Angeles Times

Arizona Court of Appeals rejects state GOP party effort to end early voting | Mary Jo Pitzl/Arizona Republic

Arizona’s early voting system is constitutional, the state Court of Appeals has ruled, upholding a popular voting method used widely across the state. The ruling, issued Tuesday, is the second legal defeat on the issue for the Arizona Republican Party and its chair, Kelli Ward, who last year sued to eliminate early voting before the 2022 elections. The three-judge appeals court rejected the party’s argument that mail-in voting violates the secrecy clause in the state Constitution, which requires that voters must have a way to conceal their choices on the ballot. The state’s mail-in, or early voting, process does provide secrecy, the court found, “by requiring voters to ensure that they fill out their ballot in secret and seal the ballot in an envelope that does not disclose the voters’ choices.”

Full Article: Arizona Court of Appeals: Early voting does not violate Constitution

Arkansas: Cleburne County Rejects Voting Machines and Votes to Move to Hand Counted Paper Ballots | Magnolia Banner News

The Cleburne County quorum court passed a binding resolution making them a “paper ballot” county, meaning future elections would be administered with hand marked paper ballots that are hand counted. The vote was in response to Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative, INC.(AVII) CEO Colonel Conrad Reynolds’ push for election computers to be removed from Arkansas elections. Reynolds stated, “For more than a decade there have been too many unanswered questions with these voting machines, which are essentially computers. The owners of the machine company are intentionally shielded from the public. The machines do not read the names on the ballots, instead they scan barcodes, which humans cannot read. They also utilize proprietary software that we are not allowed to examine. This all means voters cannot verify that their vote is being counted properly as mandated by state law. As a former military intelligence officer, I look at this through a national security perspective and conclude there are big problems with our current voting system.”

Full Article: Cleburne County (Arkansas) Rejects Voting Machines and Votes to Move to Hand Counted Paper Ballots

Colorado: Pueblo County election tampering case bound for competency court | Justin Reutter/The Pueblo Chieftain

A Pueblo man’s competency to stand trial in an election tampering case is still up in the air and has been bound over to competency court by District Judge William Alexander. An initial report from the Colorado Department of Human Services has been ordered to opine on the initial likelihood of restoring to competency suspect Richard Patton, 31, to stand trial. However, no findings have yet been made, according to Colorado court records. At a hearing Dec. 29, Alexander also ordered Patton to undergo outpatient mental health treatment in hopes of restoring legal competency in the case. A Jan. 18 competency court hearing has been set in front of District Judge Allison Ernst, according to Alexander. Patton was found to be incompetent to stand trial following a December evaluation by a behavioral health expert.

Full Article: Pueblo election tampering case bound for competency court

Idaho lawmakers want hand recounts during election audits | James Dawson/Boise State Public Radio