Georgia and Voting Rights: Deep Distrust Over a Plan to Close Polling Places | Richard Fausset/The New York Times

The showdown over voting rights in the U.S. Senate may be over for now. But the issue is still smoldering in a stretch of Northeast Georgia countryside where local officials recently introduced a plan to close seven polling sites and consolidate them into one. The proposal in Lincoln County has attracted the attention and ire of major voting rights groups and suspicion among some Black residents who say the effort is just the latest example of voter suppression in a state where Republicans recently passed a restrictive new law. Hundreds of upset residents have filed protest petitions that could cause local officials to scale it back. But local officials say the current polling spots are in need of modernization — and that in a county where about two-thirds of the 7,700 residents are white, the plan is simply an effort to make it easier to manage elections. The remaining site would be located close to the polling place that currently serves the county’s one majority-Black precinct. “They seem to think that I’m trying to stop Black people from voting,” said the elections director, an African American woman named Lilvender Bolton. She would administer the plan that was under consideration last week by a mostly Republican-appointed board of two Black members and three white ones. In Georgia, a state where razor-thin voting margins have helped swing the White House and control of the Senate, any effort to change the process of voting has become fiercely contested. And after recent efforts by Republicans in Georgia and around the country to restrict voting, suspicions are high.

Full Article: Georgia and Voting Rights: Deep Distrust Over a Plan to Close Polling Places – The New York Times

Indiana House restores 2024 deadline for counties to install paper backups on voting machines | Brandon Smith/IPB

The Indiana House has reversed course, restoring language in a bill that will move up the deadline for counties to install a vital election security measure. Current law requires counties to have paper backup systems for their electronic voting machines by 2030. A bill this session, HB 1116, would move that date up to July 2024. But the House Ways and Means committee eliminated that change because it costs money – about $12 million. Then, on the House floor Thursday, Ways and Means Chair Tim Brown (R-Crawfordsville) put the July 2024 deadline back into the bill.

Full Article: House restores 2024 deadline for counties to install paper backups on voting machines

Michigan: New GOP canvassers who embrace election myths raise prospect of chaotic certification | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

In counties across Michigan, the GOP is filling election canvassing boards responsible for tallying the vote count with people who have embraced falsehoods and misinformation about fraud in the 2020 election. The bipartisan boards have the routine task of double checking the vote totals submitted by municipalities and signing off on the county-level results before turning them over to the state board to certify statewide contests, as well as those that cross county lines. But the appointment of several GOP canvassers who still question Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in 2020 raises the risk that these boards could become a partisan bottleneck in the effort to certify the results of future elections. In Wayne County, home to the largest number of Michigan voters, the GOP nominated Robert Boyd to the canvassing board. Boyd has called the results of the 2020 presidential election “inaccurate” and has said he would not have approved the county results. In Antrim County, the site of a brief tallying error on election night that fed fanciful conspiracy theories about vote manipulation, Marvin Rubingh is now on the board as GOP canvasser. Rubingh has called former President Donald Trump’s false and widely debunked claims that the election was stolen “a credible accusation.”

Full Article: PolitiFact | New GOP canvassers in Michigan who embrace election myths raise prospect of chaotic certification

Nevada: Election official departures rising amid burnout, angry voters, new requirements | Sean Golonka/The Nevada Independent

More Nevadans than ever made their voices heard in the 2020 election, spurred by intense interest in the presidential race and helped by law changes that vastly expanded paths to register and multiplied voting options that led hundreds of thousands of Nevadans to vote by mail, while many more opted to vote in person. But the changes — and burdens — for the backend infrastructure and workforce that runs Nevada’s elections was far greater. Election clerks, registrars and the secretary of state’s office were forced to simultaneously run in-person and mail-in elections, while facing pushback from a vocal contingent of voters frustrated by public health precautions and widespread misinformation. For years, state and local election officials largely went about their business out of the spotlight, but in the weeks and months following the 2020 election — as lies and conspiracies proliferated — they faced increasing hostility and attempts to undermine their work. The rise in violent threats has sparked a national exodus of election workers. Dozens of local election officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have left their positions in the past 14 months. In Nevada, similar changes are happening. By the 2024 election, new faces will make up more than a third of Nevada’s 17 top county election officials.

Full Article: Election official departures rising amid burnout, angry voters, new requirements – The Nevada Independent

Texas man charged with threatening election, government officials in Georgia | Matt Zapotosky/The Washington Post

A Texas man was arrested Friday and charged with threatening election and other government officials in Georgia, in the first case brought by a Justice Department task force formed to combat such threats, authorities said. In an indictment, federal prosecutors alleged that Chad Christopher Stark, 54, posted a message on Craigslist on Jan. 5, 2021, saying it was “time to kill” an official, whose name is not included in the court documents. “Georgia Patriots it’s time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors. It’s time to invoke our Second Amendment right it’s time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges,” Stark wrote, according to the indictment. Georgia officials, in particular, were targeted by hostile messages after they refused to back President Donald Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud. Trump called Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) the “enemy of the people” after the election went against him, and he urged Raffensperger in a phone call to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat.

Full Article: Chad Christopher Stark charged with threatening Georgia election officials – The Washington Post

Wisconsin: Election Systems & Software won’t comply with Republican subpoena | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

A Nebraska-based voting machine company told the Republican-hired attorney leading an investigation into the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin that it will not comply with subpoenas issued seeking a broad array of information. Attorneys for Election Systems & Software told former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in a letter dated Jan. 21 that it would not comply, calling the subpoenas issued last month a “quintessential fishing expedition.” The letter was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press after it was first reported on by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Gableman has subpoenaed the mayors of Wisconsin’s five largest cities, the state’s top elections official, an immigrant rights group, ES&S and Dominion Voting Systems as part of his ongoing probe ordered after President Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in the battleground state. Subpoenas to the elections commission, Voces de la Frontera and mayors of Green Bay and Madison are being fought in court. ES&S made clear it will not comply, telling Gableman in the letter that the company “is under no obligation to respond to any of the subpoenas.” The letter was signed by attorneys Michael Cox, Daniel Fischer and Michael Maistelman.

Full Article: Voting machine company won’t comply with Wisconsin subpoena | AP News

Judge weighs release of report alleging flaw in Georgia voting system | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge held off Monday on releasing more information from a sealed report alleging that someone who gained access to Georgia’s voting computers could flip votes. Before deciding whether to make portions of the report public, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg asked for proposals from Georgia election officials and plaintiffs suing over election security. “I want people to understand the general concerns … without giving anyone a road map to hacking or intruding on the system or manipulating it,” Totenberg said during a court hearing. There’s no indication that Georgia’s election computers manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems were hacked in the 2020 election, but the lawsuit alleges that the touchscreens are a risk in future elections. Totenberg said she hoped to move quickly to share information without undermining election security. She asked attorneys to submit proposals by Wednesday. One option discussed in court would allow disclosure of the report to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that wrote a letter to the judge Jan. 21 informing her that potential vulnerabilities could be disclosed and mitigated. Meanwhile, a version of the report could also be prepared for public consumption. Both Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and election security advocates called last week for the report to be released following an article about it by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Full Article: Judge weighs release of report alleging flaw in Georgia voting system

New Hampshire considers bills to audit 2020 election results | Holly Ramer/Associated Press

The 2022 campaign cycle is well underway in New Hampshire, but some voters are still pushing for reviews of the last election. Secretary of State David Scanlan on Wednesday defended the integrity of the state’s election procedures after angry activists demanded full or partial audits of the 2020 election. He said New Hampshire’s strength lies in its decentralized elections system, though he acknowledged the need to increase both training for local officials and transparency. “The system is not perfect. There are mistakes that are made, and when they are, people are held accountable,” he told the House Election Law Committee. “But that failure at an individual level does not translate into some type of major conspiracy or collusion to do something different with the actual election results. I have complete confidence in the way New Hampshire runs its elections.” Scanlan, who was promoted this month after the retirement of longtime Secretary of State Bill Gardner, spoke at a public hearing on a bill that would require a statewide audit of the 2020 election. The committee also heard testimony on a similar bill that would require an audit of Merrimack County results. Rep. Tim Baxter, R-Seabrook, sponsor of the statewide audit bill, asserted that a majority of the state believes either the 2016 or 2020 elections were stolen. According to a UNH Survey Center poll, however, nearly two-thirds of New Hampshire voters believe Joe Biden won the last presidential election.

Full Article: ‘Give us back our state and give us back our sanity’ – NH considers bills to audit 2020 election results

National: Manchin, Sinema join with GOP in rejecting attempt to change filibuster rules, effectively killing Democratic voting bill | Mike DeBonis/The Washington Post

The year-long Democratic push for federal voting rights legislation died in the Senate on Wednesday night, after Republicans blocked an elections bill for the fifth time in six months and Democrats failed to unite their caucus behind a plan to rewrite the Senate’s rules and pass it anyway. The final clash, which has been brewing since Democrats won congressional majorities a year ago as Republican legislatures in 19 states embarked on a campaign to roll back election access, began with an evening vote to close debate on a sprawling voting rights bill. That vote, at the Senate’s traditional 60-vote margin for legislation, failed on party lines. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) then moved to reconsider the legislation to propose a rules change allowing for the bill’s advancement with a simple majority of 51 votes. The Senate rejected that maneuver 52 to 48, with two Democrats, Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), joining all 50 Republicans in opposition.

Full Article: Manchin, Sinema join with GOP in rejecting attempt to change filibuster rules, effectively killing Democratic voting bill – The Washington Post

National: A New Digital Army Is Counting Votes to Prove Trump’s Big Lie | David Gilbert/Vice

Once you had to sit in an empty auditorium for weeks counting millions of paper ballots to take part in a sham “audit” of the 2020 election. Now, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection. That’s all thanks to a new digital platform recruiting volunteers to act as judge and jury over the validity of votes cast in the 2020 election. The platform is called Polaris Recount, and anyone can now simply sign up to become a “citizen adjudicator” and look at digital images of votes cast in the election and decide if minor smudges, errant fold lines, or slightly askew ballots are evidence of some enormous sinister plot to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Digital ballot images are routinely reviewed as part of the official election audit process, typically done by automated software looking to corroborate the results of a specific race. But in the case of Polaris, the process is being conducted on a nationwide scale, with hundreds of amateur sleuths trying to prove a conspiracy theory about widespread election fraud. Launched in late November, the platform has seen signups “gaining exponentially” in recent weeks, according to the man behind the system, who told VICE News that around 1,000 volunteers—who come from all corners of the U.S. and some even from overseas—are now spending their days looking at digital images of ballots cast in Lea County, New Mexico, which is the race currently being assessed on the platform.

Full Article: A New Digital Army Is Counting Votes to Prove Trump’s Big Lie

National: Bipartisan U.S. Senate group discusses scaled-back elections bill | David Morgan/Reuters

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is discussing a scaled-back law focused on safeguarding election results and protecting election officials from harassment following Democrats’ twin defeats on a voting-rights bill. Lawmakers led by Republican Senator Susan Collins and including conservative Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are due to meet virtually on Friday to discuss reform of the 1887 Electoral Count Act, sometimes called the ECA, which allows members of Congress to dispute presidential election results. The ECA provided the basis for an effort by former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies to overturn the presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and interrupted the certification of election results. Collins, who said her group includes six Democrats, told reporters that the aim is “an election reform bill that is truly bipartisan, that would address many of the problems that arose on Jan. 6 and that would help restore confidence in our elections.”

Full Article: Bipartisan U.S. Senate group discusses scaled-back elections bill | Reuters

National: House subcommittee questions election security, voting rights | Michael Korsh/UPI

With the 2022 midterm elections 10 months away, members of a House homeland security subcommittee on Thursday questioned the security of the 2020 presidential election and the upcoming midterms. During the hearing of the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Innovation Subcommittee, Chairwoman Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y, cited two statistics that she said point to a precarious election landscape for 2022: One in three voters questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election according to a recent University of Massachusetts-Amherst survey, and one in three election officials feel unsafe in their job from a June survey by the Brennan Center for Justice. Clarke said she defines election security as “making sure that every eligible voter who wants to cast a vote is able to cast it and making sure that vote is counted as it was cast.” She said she plans to introduce legislation that would authorize the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to further monitor and respond to misinformation and disinformation threats through efforts like the agency’s Rumor Control website.

Full Article: House subcommittee questions election security, voting rights – UPI.com

National: As Giuliani coordinated plan for Trump electoral votes in states Biden won, some electors balked | Beth Reinhard, Amy Gardner, Josh Dawsey, Emma Brown and Rosalind S. Helderman/The Washington Post

On Dec. 14, 2020, the day of the electoral college vote, Republican electors convened in the capitals of five states that Joe Biden had won. They declared themselves “duly elected and qualified” and sent signed certificates to Washington purporting to affirm Donald Trump as the actual victor. At the time, the gatherings in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin — all states that had officially approved Biden electors — were widely derided as political stunts intended to bolster Trump’s baseless allegations of fraud. Understanding the origins of the rival slates has now become a focus of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to people familiar with the panel’s activities. Two Democratic attorneys general have asked federal prosecutors in recent days to investigate whether crimes were committed in assembling or submitting the Trump slates. The Trump electors gathered in plain sight, assisted by campaign officials and Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said publicly that the rival slates were necessary and appropriate. Internally, Giuliani oversaw the effort, according to former campaign officials and party leaders who, like some others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. One of the people familiar with the plan said Giuliani was assisted at times by an anchor from the right-wing network One America News.

Full Article: As Giuliani coordinated plan for Trump electoral votes in states Biden won, some electors balked – The Washington Post

National: Rise of right-wing apps seen worsening midterm disinformation | Gopal Ratnam/Roll Call

A growing constellation of right-wing social media apps and sites are seeing their user bases grow, creating an echo chamber that experts fear will promote disinformation and outright lies about the midterm elections. A major concern: increased calls for violence. What began in the past few years as fringe and sparsely populated alternatives to established social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has become a torrent. While apps like Parler and Gab have been around for about four years, positioning themselves as conservative alternatives to Twitter, more sites and apps have launched in the last year — since President Donald Trump left office while fanning the political flames with his false claims of a “stolen” election. Rumble, which went public through a special purpose acquisition company, positions itself as an alternative to YouTube. Gettr, launched by Trump’s post-presidency aide Jason Miller, who was an informal adviser to the 45th president, is a Twitter-like platform. And Trump himself has announced plans to launch a new social media platform called Truth Social.

Full Article: Rise of right-wing apps seen worsening midterm disinformation – Roll Call

Arizona Senate asks Cyber Ninjas if audit files stored in data center | Robert Anglen/Arizona Republic

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann is asking contractors who led the largely discredited audit of Maricopa County’s election results if public records are being stored at a data center. In a two-sentence letter Thursday, sent to lead contractor Cyber Ninjas and three other companies that worked on the audit, Fann said Senate lawyers learned the company might have leased a data center. “We recently learned that a data center, possibly leased to Cyber Ninjas, Inc, or StratTech Solutions, may be housing records concerning the Arizona State Senate’s audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County,” Fann wrote. “Please confirm as soon as possible whether this information is correct and, if so, when and on what terms the Senate may access the facility or its resources.” Fann said Thursday she has little information about the data center. She said it’s unknown where it is located, why it might have been leased or what records could be stored there. “There’s not a lot I can say,” she said. “I received info that possible records were stored in a data center.” Fann’s inquiry comes as the Senate defends itself from two lawsuits, now combined, over access to records in the partisan election review. The Arizona Republic and a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group called American Oversight both sued the Senate to make the records public. The Republic also sued Cyber Ninjas.

Full Article: Arizona Senate asks Cyber Ninjas if audit files stored in data center

Colorado secretary of state files lawsuit to block Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from overseeing the 2022 election | Jesse Paul/Colorado Sun

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to block Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from having any oversight role in the 2022 election. The lawsuit comes after Peters, a Republican, refused last week to comply with a list of election security terms from Griswold, a Democrat, ahead of the November contest. The terms included that Peters be accompanied when near any of her county’s voting equipment and that she retract statements in which she “indicated a willingness to compromise Mesa County’s voting system equipment.” “Every eligible Coloradan – Republican, Democrat, and Independent alike – has the right to make their voice heard in safe and secure elections,” Griswold said in a written statement Tuesday. “As Clerk Peters is unwilling to commit to following election security protocols, I am taking action to ensure that Mesa County voters have the elections they deserve.”

Source: Jena Griswold sues to block Tina Peters from 2022 election oversight role

Florida governor proposes special police agency to monitor elections | Lori Rozsa and Beth Reinhard/The Washington Post

A plan by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would establish a special police force to oversee state elections — the first of its kind in the nation — and while his fellow Republicans have reacted tepidly, voting rights advocates fear that it will become law and be used to intimidate voters. The proposed Office of Election Crimes and Security would be part of the Department of State, which answers to the governor. DeSantis is asking the GOP-controlled legislature to allocate nearly $6 million to hire 52 people to “investigate, detect, apprehend, and arrest anyone for an alleged violation” of election laws. They would be stationed at unspecified “field offices throughout the state” and act on tips from “government officials or any other person.” DeSantis highlighted his plan as legislators opened their annual 60-day session last week. … Voting rights experts say that no state has such an agency, one dedicated to patrolling elections and empowered to arrest suspected violators. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) announced the formation of a “2021 Texas Election Integrity Unit” in October, but that office is more limited in scope, has fewer than 10 employees and isn’t under the governor’s authority.

Full Article: Florida governor pushes new election police agency – The Washington Post

Georgia: Fulton County DA requests special grand jury for Trump election probe | Tamar Hallerman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is requesting a special grand jury to aid in her investigation of former President Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. In a Thursday letter to Christopher S. Brasher, chief judge of Fulton County’s Superior Court, Willis said the move was needed because a “significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.” She cited comments Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger made during an October 2021 interview with NBC News, in which he said “if (Willis) wants to interview me, there’s a process for that.” So-called special purpose grand juries are rarely used in Georgia. But they could be a valuable tool for Willis as she takes the extraordinary step of investigating the conduct of a president while he was in office, legal experts say. “I think it makes sense,” said Melissa Redmon, a former Fulton County deputy DA who’s now an assistant clinical professor at the University of Georgia’s law school. “Having a jury that’s already familiar with the investigation just saves everyone a lot of time.”

Full Article: Fulton DA in Georgia requests special grand jury for Trump election probe

Georgia buys new voter registration system after long lines in 2020 | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia is replacing a laggy statewide voter registration system that caused colossal lines during early voting in the 2020 election. The new technology could prevent similar waits in this year’s races for governor and the U.S. Senate. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday that the state will partner with Salesforce, a San Francisco-based software company, to build a system that will store registration records for Georgia’s 7.7 million voters, check in early voters and process absentee ballot information. The new system, nicknamed GaRVIS for the Georgia Registered Voter Information System, will take the place of the state’s ElectioNet technology that buckled under the weight of high turnout and unprecedented absentee ballot adoption in October 2020. Wait times exceeded eight hours at the start of early voting before election officials and the state’s prior vendor, Louisiana-based Civix, added capacity to the system so it could handle the load. Election Day went more smoothly, with wait times averaging less than three minutes.

Full Article: Georgia installs voter registration system to prevent long lines

Idaho could see more election audits to ‘enhance transparency and confidence’ in results | Kristen McPeek/KBOI

Governor Little’s recommended budget allocates half a million dollars to go to integrity audits in the state. The purpose is to enhance transparency and confidence in election results. Election integrity is a growing conversation across the country, and state and local officials here in Idaho say it’s important to invest in our elections as more questions are raised. “Various people thought there were inaccuracies in the election results for president,” said Deputy Secretary of State, Jason Hancock. And while questions are being raised, Hancock says that there haven’t been any inaccuracies reported in the state of Idaho. “I have a lot of confidence in our voting systems here,” Hancock said. As concerns and conversations around election integrity develop across the country, Hancock says Idaho needs to invest in elections for accuracy and confidence to voters.

Full Article: Idaho could see more election audits to ‘enhance transparency and confidence’ in results | KBOI

Louisiana’s Voting System Commission weighs paper ballot option | We Muller/Louisiana Illuminator

Louisiana’s Voting System Commission met Wednesday to learn about new certification standards for voting machines, part of its assigned task to upgrade the state’s outdated equipment. A group of residents that has closely followed the commission — while peddling false information about the 2020 presidential election — continued to pressure the commission to reject voting machines in favor of hand-marked paper ballots. The commission, which first convened in November, is a 13-member panel of state officials, legislators and citizens tasked with recommending a new voting system. Sen. Sharon Hewitt (R-Slidell) introduced the legislation that formed the commission last year after a group of angry residents descended on a committee meeting and, citing claims detailed in a YouTube video, repeated Donald Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. Hewitt said the legislation was simply an effort to insert transparency into the procurement process for any new machines. The new law requires, among other things, that Louisiana use a voting system that creates some kind of paper trail. That could include either a traditional hand-marked paper ballot system in which voters use a pencil to fill in a bubble next to a candidate’s name or a system of electronic machines that produce a paper receipt that voters can verify before casting their ballots. The commission heard Wednesday from two members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission who explained the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines 2.0, a new set of certification standards that ensures voting machines meet updated cybersecurity and usability requirements. During the public comment portion of the meeting, several speakers urged the commissioners to ignore the federal guidelines.  The law that created the commission requires that “any voting system or system component procured or used in the state” be certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Lenar Whitney, a former one-term state representative from Houma, urged commissioners to remove machines from Louisiana’s elections entirely and instead adopt a hand-marked paper ballot system.

Full Article: Louisiana’s Voting System Commission weighs paper ballot option – Louisiana Illuminator

New Hampshire: Spurred by election misinformation and skepticism, crowd urges lawmakers to outlaw ballot-counting machines | Casey McDermott/New Hampshire Public Radio

An effort to outlaw ballot-counting machines in New Hampshire elections drew dozens of supporters to the State House for a public hearing on Thursday, but the same proposal drew hesitation from election officials who said it was neither necessary nor practical. Those urging lawmakers to get rid of the state’s voting machines expressed deep skepticism about New Hampshire’s election systems and state institutions at large. Many said their doubts were reinforced by errors in the town of Windham’s 2020 machine count that were quickly corrected and later thoroughly investigated. At the same time, many also cited distorted statistics and other falsehoods to justify their claims that voting machines can’t be trusted to produce accurate results. For decades, only one model of vote-counting machine has been approved for use in New Hampshire elections. That device, the AccuVote OS, doesn’t connect to the internet and “predates modern network technologies,” according to an overview compiled by an outside expert. And right now, the state doesn’t mandate that cities or towns use any machines — it’s up to individual communities to decide. “The machines we use are the most basic of devices,” said Milford Town Clerk Joan Dargie, testifying on behalf of the New Hampshire City and Town Clerks Association. “They are only reading the marks on the ballot.” Dargie said forcing communities to go back to hand-counting would add too much extra labor for local poll workers who are already putting in 16 to 17 hours of work on Election Day. With machines in use, Dargie said her town, Milford, usually has about 200 volunteers working at the polls, and recruiting those volunteers is a persistent challenge for many communities; if they had to hand count, she estimates they’d need to find an additional 150 people.

Full Article: Crowd urges N.H. lawmakers to outlaw ballot-counting machines | New Hampshire Public Radio

New Hampshire: Rochester latest community to see effort to remove vote-counting machines | Karen Dandurant/Fosters Daily Democrat

City officials received a petition to place a warrant article intended to eliminate the use of vote-counting machines in elections and to return to hand counts. However, City Manager Blaine Cox said the petition has no basis in law for the city. Cox said this is because Rochester does not use the town meeting form of government. It appears the proposal submitted in Rochester is similar to those submitted in some towns around the state, including Greenland, where the town’s voters overwhelmingly rejected the bid to eliminate voting machines. “The request to insert by petition a warrant article does not pertain to Rochester’s city form of government,” Cox said. However, state Sen. Jim Gray, R-Rochester, who is also a city councilor, said there is a way the question could be brought forward. He said Mayor Paul Callaghan could place the question on a city council agenda for a vote.

Full Article: Rochester NH community petitions to eliminate vote-counting machines

New Mexico: Otero County Commission Approves 50K For Election Audit Contract | Tierna Unruh-Enos/The Paper.

At the Jan. 13 Otero County Commission meeting, all three commissioners–Gerald Matherly, Vickie Marquardt and Cowboys for Trump leader Couy Griffin–voted unanimously to approve an election audit contract of $49,750 with EchoMail Inc. Former New Mexico State University law professor David Clements will lead the audit. Clements was fired from the university in 2021 for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine and for ignoring the mask mandate instituted by the New Mexico Department of Health. The EchoMail software has been used in other election audits such as the ones in Maricopa County, AZ, led by the Cyber Ninjas. Election officials in Maricopa disputed nearly every claim found in the audit. During Clement’s presentation to the commissioners Griffin said, “I don’t think there’s a more appropriate way to spend taxpayer dollars than to ensure our elections aren’t compromised.” According to the Las Cruces Sun-News, while on leave from NMSU pending his termination, Clements traveled to several states alleging election fraud over the 2020 presidential contest as well as opposing public health mandates related to COVID-19. An online fundraiser set up by a political ally had raised more than $280,000 in donations for Clements. He has also has been a guest on numerous podcasts and cable news programs including “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News.

Full Article: Otero County Commission Approves 50K For Election Audit Contract – The Paper.

Pennsylvania: Court puts hold on GOP inspection of county voting machines | Marc Levy and Mark Scolforo/Associated Press

 An inspection of voting machines in a heavily Republican county in Pennsylvania as part of a GOP “investigation” into the 2020 presidential election was moments away from starting Friday until the state Supreme Court put it on hold. The high court decision came hours after a state judge rejected attempts by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration to block the inspection — inspired by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about fraud in the 2020 election he lost — without an agreements over procedure in place. The undertaking comes after Republicans carried out a partisan and widely discredited “audit” in Arizona’s most heavily populated county and Trump and his allies have pressured allies in battleground states he lost to seek out fraud to validate their conspiracy theories. The justices overruled the lower court by granting an emergency request by the governor’s lawyers to stop it for now. The equipment in question — computers, electronic pollbooks, ballot scanners and possibly more — was about to be wheeled in to a special meeting of the Fulton County commissioners just after it started Friday when a lawyer for the county, Tom Breth, said it had to be postponed because the state Supreme Court’s filing office had just notified him the temporary stay was granted.

Full Article: Court puts hold on GOP inspection of county voting machines | AP News

Wisconsin Senate candidate files lawsuits in Wisconsin over ballots and voting machines | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Democrat running for U.S. Senate filed a pair of lawsuits Tuesday alleging Wisconsin election officials aren’t keeping ballots secret in some cases and are not properly vetting voting machines. In one case, Peter Peckarsky asked a Milwaukee County judge to order the state Elections Commission to bar Milwaukee and other cities from marking absentee ballots with numbers that could reveal how individual voters cast their ballots. In the other case, Peckarsky is seeking to force the commission to more thoroughly scrutinize voting machine software. Most communities in Wisconsin count their absentee ballots at polling places, but Milwaukee and about three dozen other municipalities count theirs in one location. State law requires those that count them in one spot to write the poll list numbers of absentee voters on the back of their ballots. Both the ballots and poll list numbers are available under the state’s open records law. That could lead to members of the public figuring out how individual voters cast their ballots, violating the state’s guarantee of secret ballots, Peckarsky argues in one of his lawsuits. Whether that could actually happen is not clear.

Full Article: Senate candidate files lawsuits in Wisconsin over ballots and voting machines

National: How an ‘Ethical’ Hacker Convention Is Fueling Trump’s Big Lie | Spenser Mestel/Vice

Nineteen tables are spread across a ballroom the size of an Olympic swimming pool, each with its own set of voting machines. Hackers crowd around them, tinkering, unscrewing, and more or less destroying anything with a power button. This is the Voting Village at DEFCON, the annual “ethical hacker” conference in Las Vegas and one of the few places where pretty much anyone has permission to do whatever they please to equipment that would otherwise be locked away.  At the last in-person DEFCON, in 2019, well before “Stop the Steal,” the “audit” in Maricopa County, and the conspiracy theory that Nancy Pelosi’s husband owns one of the country’s largest voting machine manufacturers, attendees packed the village. Now, two years later, the issue has become even more of a national obsession.  DEFCON is a meeting place for the different stakeholders in the world of cybersecurity: grungy hackers, nerdy academics, security researchers, election officials, voting machine manufacturers, and representatives from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the federal agency whose security guidelines nearly every state relies on to some extent. For a few days, DEFCON enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists gather together and race to see who can prove voting machines are insecure. With its made-to-be-shared antics, the village regularly produces viral tweets and national headlines. It also has quick impact: Following demonstrations at the convention in 2017, Virginia’s Department of Elections recommended decertifying some of its machines effective immediately. “Multiple types of DREs, some of which are currently in use in Virginia, were hacked, according to public reports from DefCon,” the agency wrote.

Full Article: How an ‘Ethical’ Hacker Convention Is Fueling Trump’s Big Lie

Pennsylvania county’s voting machine review has its roots in 2020 election fraud lies | Sam Dunklau/WITF

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court temporarily blocked a data security company hired by state Senate Republicans from examining Fulton County’s voting machines last week. But a legal team representing the county is fighting to get the probe back on track. The standoff has put the focus on those leading that effort, and on questions about the process that remain unanswered. Those who have instigated and supported looking at Fulton County’s machines have ties to organizations and lawmakers who have backed false claims about the last presidential election. The probe is part of a push by a Republican-led state Senate committee, chaired by Sen. Cris Dush (R-Cameron), to investigate Pennsylvania’s last several elections, despite audits confirming results and a previous Senate election review that yielded suggestions about how to make Election Day run more smoothly in Pennsylvania. Dush and others haven’t been clear about why they want to probe Fulton County’s voting machines. But lawyer Thomas Breth of western Pennsylvania firm Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham, who is representing the county, said it doesn’t matter. “We’re not going to second-guess a request coming from the chairman of a committee within the Pennsylvania Senate. As a governmental entity ourselves, we have a constitutional obligation to cooperate with other governmental entities,” Breth said before the Supreme Court court decision Friday.

Full Article: A Pennsylvania county’s voting machine review has its roots in 2020 election fraud lies | WITF

National: Senate Democrats Press Ahead With Debate on Voting Rights Bill | Catie Edmondson/The New York Times

Senate Democrats plan to press ahead this week with an effort to push new voting rights protections through Congress, in an all but doomed attempt to enact a key piece of President Biden’s agenda that has been undercut by members of his own party. The Senate on Tuesday will begin to debate legislation that combines two separate bills already passed by the House — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — and folds them into an unrelated measure. The move would allow the Senate to bring the bill directly to the floor, avoiding an initial filibuster. But that strategy would still allow Republicans to block it from coming to a final vote, and Democrats lack the unanimous support needed in their party to change Senate rules to muscle through the legislation themselves. Still, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said late last week that Democrats would forge ahead anyway, forcing Republicans to publicly declare their opposition to the bill. “We all have to be recorded at this moment in time about where are we in protecting the right to vote,” Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Right now, it doesn’t look like it has the votes to pass, but we’re going to cancel our Martin Luther King Day recess and be there this week because we think it’s so important for the country.”

Full Article: Senate Democrats Press Ahead With Debate on Voting Rights Bill – The New York Times

Editorial: Biden’s biggest worry: Can democracy prove it is worth saving? | Karen Tumulty/The Washington Post

There was a new tone in President Biden’s speech on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot in which a violent mob of Trump supporters sought to overturn the results of a legitimate presidential election. More forcefully than he had before, the current president took to task the man he had defeated for inciting cultlike followers to trash the U.S. Capitol, with deadly consequences. Donald Trump and those he stoked with his “web of lies” that the 2020 election was stolen from him “held a dagger at the throat of America — at American democracy,” Biden said. His 25-minute address was the muscular pushback that so many Democrats have been waiting to hear from Biden, who has generally — and wisely, in my view — preferred to ignore the predecessor he refers to as “the former guy.” What really preoccupies the president, however, was summed up in a quieter passage that came near the end of the speech, one that didn’t get as much notice. If there is a sweeping premise that defines what Biden views as the greatest challenge of his presidency, it is that the United States must disprove a growing cynicism about democracy itself — not just in this country, but around the world. Amid deep political polarization and an undermining of norms, the processes have become so messy and fraught that people are losing faith that democratic systems are still capable of functioning and of delivering results. “Look, folks, now it’s up to all of us — to ‘We the People’ — to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy, to keep the promise of America alive. That promise is at risk, targeted by the forces that value brute strength over the sanctity of democracy, fear over hope, personal gain over public good. Make no mistake about it: We’re living at an inflection point in history,” Biden said.

Full Article: Opinion | Biden’s biggest worry: Can democracy prove it is worth saving? – The Washington Post