California: State Certifies Los Angeles County’s New Open-Source Vote Tally System | MyNewsLA

Los Angeles County’s open-source vote tally system was certified by the secretary of state Tuesday, clearing the way for redesigned vote-by-mail ballots to be used in the November election. “With security on the minds of elections officials and the public, open-source technology has the potential to further modernize election administration, security and transparency,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla said. “Los Angeles County’s VSAP vote tally system is now California’s first certified election system to use open-source technology. This publicly-owned technology represents a significant step in the future of elections in California and across the country.”

California: FBI probing cyber attack on congressional campaign in California – sources | Reuters

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating a cyber attack on the congressional campaign of a Democratic candidate in California, according to three people close to the campaign. The hackers successfully infiltrated the election campaign computer of David Min, a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives who was later defeated in the June primary for California’s 45th Congressional district. The incident, which has not been previously reported, follows an article in Rolling Stone earlier this week that the FBI has also been investigating a cyber attack against Hans Keirstead, a California Democrat. He was defeated in a primary in the 48th Congressional district, neighboring Min’s. Paige Hutchinson, Min’s former campaign manager, declined to comment. An FBI spokeswoman said the bureau cannot confirm or deny an investigation.

California: Documents Reveal Successful Cyberattack in California Congressional Race | Rolling Stone

FBI agents in California and Washington, D.C., have investigated a series of cyberattacks over the past year that targeted a Democratic opponent of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Rohrabacher is a 15-term incumbent who is widely seen as the most pro-Russia and pro-Putin member of Congress and is a staunch supporter of President Trump. The hacking attempts and the FBI’s involvement are described in dozens of emails and forensic records obtained by Rolling Stone. The target of these attacks, Dr. Hans Keirstead, a stem-cell scientist and the CEO of a biomedical research company, finished third in California’s nonpartisan “top-two” primary on June 5th, falling 125 votes short of advancing to the general election in one of the narrowest margins of any congressional primary this year. He has since endorsed Harley Rouda, the Democrat who finished in second place and will face Rohrabacher in the November election.

California: Legislature approves new Office of Elections Cybersecurity to repel attacks and combat disinformation | StateScoop

California is poised to officially create an Office of Elections Cybersecurity, a new bureau dedicated to combating cyberattacks directed at the state's voting systems and correcting disinformation directed at voters. The new agency, which will be housed under the secretary of state's office, was approved this week by both houses of the state legislature. The Office of Elections Cybersecurity will be responsible for disseminating information on cyberthreats against voting systems to county- and city-level elections officials. It is also designed to be a point of contact for federal officials to coordinate responses and to oversee cybersecurity training for local boards of elections, which are often less equipped than larger government agencies to fend off threats from foreign intelligence agencies. Federal officials have said that Russian hackers attempted to penetrate voter registration systems in at least 21 states — including California — during the 2016 presidential race, and have said this year that Kremlin-backed actors continue to target U.S. election infrastructure.

California: Voting Machines Aren’t the Only Vectors for Attack, California Election Officials Say | Government Technology

California election officials are guarding their voting machines and registration lists against Russian hackers — although no one has spotted any. “I operate under the assumption that hacking is actually happening and California is a target,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla says. “This year, there’s a big focus on several congressional races that could determine the House majority. The stakes in California have national implications.” But would the Russians actually try to change election outcomes? “I have no doubt that if they could, they would,” says Padilla, a Democrat who’s heavily favored to win reelection in November. Hacking into California’s voting system and altering votes, however, is considered by most experts to be practically impossible. That’s because voting machines aren’t hooked up to the internet. State law forbids it. A hacker might attack one machine but couldn’t reach into the entire vote-collecting system.

California: Software incompatibilities cited in review of missing Los Angeles County voter names | Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles County’s election software was unable to process a formatting change in state voter data, contributing to 118,500 names being omitted from eligible-voter rosters on election day in June, according to an executive summary of an independent review released Wednesday. There was no evidence of a security breach, the summary said. The county paid IBM Security Services $230,000 to investigate the foul-up, which officials said affected roughly 2.3% of registered voters across the county and 35% of voting locations. L.A. County elections chief Dean Logan said in June that the problem had no impact on voter eligibility and that poll workers were instructed on election day to give provisional ballots to people whose names did not appear on rosters. But the omissions prompted elected officials and civil rights groups to demand that the county review its election process.

California: Code, Software, Servers Bedeviled Marin County Election Website | Techwire

Old code, software problems and server configuration in Marin County, combined with heavy traffic, caused the blooper that made it impossible for the public to view results on election night June 5, county officials said this week. “We determined that it was a combination of three things,” said Liza Lowery Massey, director of Marin County’s Department of Information Services and Technology. The Registrar of Voters website, which had been redesigned to feature more graphs and other visual elements to make the data more accessible to the general public, remained inaccessible most of the night. Specifically, Massey said there was some antiquated legacy software code in some of the county’s Web pages.

California: A Fight Over Voter Rights in California | Wall Street Journal

Santa Monica, Calif., with a “well-being index” to gauge the happiness of its residents and a fleet of city buses powered by natural gas, often lives up to its reputation as a wealthy, liberal enclave on California’s coast. But this month, a trial in a Los Angeles courtroom has put the seaside city on the same side as a conservative legal activist who is challenging the state’s voting-rights law. The fight revolves around the city’s at-large election system for its seven City Council seats. Instead of winning office by capturing the majority in any particular district, council members are elected citywide.

California: Marin County officials detail glitches behind election-night web foulup | Marin Independent Journal

Old code, software problems and server configuration combined with heavy traffic caused the blooper that made it impossible for the public to view results on election night June 5, county officials said this week. “We determined that it was a combination of three things,” said Liza Lowery Massey, director of Marin County’s Department of Information Services and Technology. The Registrar of Voters’ website, which had been redesigned to feature more graphs and other visual elements to make the data more accessible to the general public, remained inaccessible most of the night.

California: Prepare to Vote on Android Tablets | San Francisco Weekly

A potential new voting system may not guarantee San Franciscans night-of election results, but agonizing, eight-day waits for a new mayor are likely behind us. That scenario unfolded in June, mostly thanks to the sheer amount of mail-in ballots that streamed in days after the polls had closed. But this past week, voters and the San Francisco Department of Elections had the chance to engineer a smoother, less tedious process on several fronts. For future elections, Dominion Voting Systems has an alternative that will allow voters to select their choices on a huge Android tablet complete with ADA-friendly accessibility options, a language bar, a review page, and companion printer to track their choices on paper. To extend the ranked-choice voting confusion, voters can rank up to 10 candidates on the screen. “This system is much more versatile than the existing system,” says Larry Korb, a sales engineer for Dominion.

California: Incompatible file formats led Los Angeles County to drop 118,000 voters in California primary | StateScoop

Multiple factors contributed to Los Angeles County eliminating more than 118,000 registered voters from the rolls during the June 5 California primary election, according to a report published Wednesday. The document, prepared by IBM Security Services, explains that software incompatibilities and clashing file formats between the state's official voter list and the county's system led to the voters being dropped from the roster. At the time, county officials attributed the cut names to a printing error. The affected voters accounted for about 2.3 percent of the county's registered voters, and were spread across about one-third of the sprawling county's precincts. The most populous in the United States, the county spans from the city of Los Angeles to the edge of the Mojave Desert, and boasts more than 5.1 million registered voters, more than one-quarter of California's statewide total. People who showed up to vote but were told their names were not on the rolls were still allowed to cast provisional ballots.

California: San Francisco Tests New Election Voting System | NBC

A pilot program in San Francisco aims to make the voting process easier both on casting a vote and how that vote is counted. San Francisco residents have until Tuesday to test the pilot program out, which includes electronic voting on large tablets. "It's absolutely amazing," voter Charles Esler said of trying out the pilot. "It's a lot more user friendly." San Francisco's Department of Elections is hoping voters will offer plenty of opinions after they come test them out. The machines being used in the new voting process are built by Dominion Voting Systems.

California: Elections business serving San Luis Obispo County has legal issues | The Tribune

A business that for years provided key election services to San Luis Obispo County is barred from doing business in California and has a federal tax lien of $270,000, records show. Now, San Luis Obispo County and five other California counties have contracted for the same election services with what business executives assert is a new company. But there’s evidence the two are related — if not the same business. The new business, Integrated Voting Systems, shares a working name, address and other details with the original business: Integrated Voting Solutions. And for nearly two years, Integrated Voting Systems has done business as Integrated Voting Solutions. In June, that company caused a critical ballot error that required a recount in a Colorado county, leading to news stories that linked the company to the one in “hot water” in California.

California: Could Russia hack California’s elections? It would be hard, but not impossible | San Francisco Chronicle

Although California has received an “all-clear” from government agencies looking into Russian attempts to hack into voting data for states across the nation, safe today doesn’t mean safe tomorrow, a leading computer security expert warned. “The bottom line is, be nervous,” said Matt Bishop, a UC Davis computer science professor who specializes in computer security. California has been pushing hard to make its voting systems more secure and more efficient since Florida’s famous “hanging chad” election of 2000. …  San Francisco’s system is typical, said John Arntz, the city’s elections chief. There’s an “air gap” in the electronic voting machines and the equipment that tallies the votes, he said.

California: State Supreme Court Squashes Bid To Split State Into Three | NPR

California will be staying in one piece, at least for now, after the state's supreme court ruled that a proposal to divide California into three cannot be placed on the ballot in November. Tim Draper, a wealthy venture capitalist, has spent years arguing that the Golden State would be better off as several smaller states. He says California is too large to be governed effectively and that splitting up would result in "better decision making and real solutions closer to home." This year, he got enough signatures to put it before voters — although experts said that even if the proposal passed, it would face a range of daunting legal and political hurdles. Then the Planning and Conservation League (PCL), a nonprofit environmental group in California, filed a lawsuit to block the measure from getting to a vote.

California: New law requires voter data breach reporting | Associated Press

Journalists, researchers and political campaigns that receive voter data must tell California officials if it may have been stolen under a new law Gov. Jerry Brown announced he signed Monday. It requires people and organizations that have California voter registration data to report security breaches affecting the storage of that information, which can include names, birth dates and addresses. Counties and the secretary of state’s office provide voter registration information to people and organizations who agree to use the data only for journalistic, scholarly, political or government purposes. The new law directs the secretary of state to develop guidelines for how such information should be securely stored. Additionally, it makes intentionally misinforming a voter about voting locations, eligibility or times a misdemeanor.

California: Fresno ballot vendor has trouble in Colorado, warned by state of California | The Fresno Bee

The company that has a multimillion-dollar contract to provide voting services to Fresno County and others across at least two states is in hot water for printing outdated ballots in Colorado, triggering a manual recount. The company, Integrated Voting Systems, also shares a working name, address and other details with a corporation that owes more than $270,000 in back taxes and is barred from doing business in California. These companies are linked to still more printing companies which have had millions of dollars worth of liens and civil judgments levied against them. For nearly two years, Integrated Voting Systems has done business as Integrated Voting Solutions, both based in Fresno and Dinuba. Although leadership for the former vehemently denies any association with the latter, it’s clear the two companies are related – if not the same business.

California: With Russian meddling in mind, California invests $134 million to safeguard election systems | The Sacramento Bee

Alex Padilla says California's voting system wasn't compromised by Russia's attempt to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election. But the issue is in the back of his mind as he looks to safeguard the integrity of the vote. With increased attention to cybersecurity lately, California is making a sizable investment in its election infrastructure. This year's state budget provides $134 million for counties to modernize voting systems. It also provides $3 million for the creation of the Office of Elections Cybersecurity and the Office of Enterprise Risk Management. Because the budget was signed so recently, there hasn’t been enough time for counties to request funding and have contracts generated. Even so, the budget allows counties that recently bought new systems to request reimbursement.

California: The November election just got a lot less confusing for California voters | Los Angeles Times

Californians won’t vote on the nation’s toughest privacy protections after all — because the Legislature did its job and handled the matter. That’s one less confusing ballot proposition and hundreds fewer annoying TV ads that voters will be pestered with in November. Same with a complex local tax measure. The soft drink industry was scared of local governments slapping taxes on sugary soda. So soda makers qualified a ballot initiative making it harder to increase local taxes period. But they withdrew the measure last week after the Legislature passed a bill to ban new soda taxes for 12 years. There also won’t be a squirrely ballot measure sponsored by paint manufacturers asking taxpayers to subsidize their lead paint cleanup. Outraged legislators responded to the initiative by introducing bills to penalize the companies. In the end, everyone holstered their weapons and agreed to negotiate.

California: Some Kings County votes counted twice in state assembly primary, recount lifts Salas | KBAK

Some votes cast in Kings County during California's June 6 primary were counted twice by mistake, Kings County officials say. An ensuing recount resulted in a slight shakeup in the state assembly race for District 32, where incumbent Rudy Salas moved ahead of his conservative challenger, Justin Mendes, after first appearing to have lost. Both men would have appeared on the ballot in November anyway. Neither candidate seemed shaken by the correction. Each say they continue to trust the process.

California: Los Angeles County Selects IBM Security Services to Review Voter Roster Error | SCVNews

Los Angeles County has engaged information technology leader IBM Security Services to conduct an independent review and evaluation of the systems and procedures used in the production and printing of voter rosters for the June 5 Statewide Direct Primary Election. IBM will work with the county’s Chief Information Officer and Auditor-Controller to determine the root cause of the printing error and make recommendations for corrective action. “Our priority is ensuring a thorough and impartial review that is conducted to the highest professional standards,” said Chief Executive Officer Sachi A. Hamai. “Working with IBM Security Services, we are confident we will get the critical information needed to prevent this from happening again.”

California: Los Angeles County Invests $300 Million in New Voting System | MyNewsLA

Los Angeles County officials voted Tuesday to spend roughly $300 million on a major redesign of its voting system in anticipation of the 2020 presidential election, even as an independent consultant investigates a glitch in the existing process that led to nearly 120,000 voters being left off polling place rosters last week. The new system, which has an electronic interface at the polling place but generates a paper ballot for record keeping, is part of a broader update that includes allowing voters to cast a ballot over an 11-day period prior to and including Election Day. The county will also do away with assigning traditional polling places and instead allow voters to drop in at any vote center convenient to them.

California: Los Angeles County officials say entire city blocks were left off voter rolls | LA Daily News

County workers are expediting the count of what is likely to be thousands of provisional ballots Wednesday due to a printing glitch that left nearly 120,000 voters off of Los Angeles Country rolls. A spokesman for the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office said an estimate of the total provisional ballots was expected to be released late this afternoon and the root cause of the error was still being investigated. In the wake of the problem, members of the Board of Supervisors summoned Dean Logan, the county’s registrar-recorder/county clerk, to answer questions during a weekly public hearing. Logan first offered his “regret and apologies that we fell short … I understand the gravity of it,” before assuring the board that there was no issue related to individual voters’ eligibility to vote.

California: 118,522 voters accidentally left off Los Angeles County polling place rosters | Los Angeles Times

If you are a registered voter in Los Angeles County and poll workers say they can’t find your name on the roster at the polling place when you go to vote, don’t worry — you can still cast a provisional ballot. Some Angelenos needed a bit of reassurance that their votes would be counted in Tuesday’s primary election after 118,522 voters’ names were accidentally left off rosters due to a printing error, according to L.A. County Registrar Dean C. Logan. About 2.3% of L.A. County’s 5.1 million registered voters and 35% of the county’s 4,357 precincts were affected by the error, according to figures provided by the registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office, which was still trying to determine the reason for the printing error. Voters whose names are missing are being encouraged to file provisional ballots, which are verified by vote counters later. 

California: Facebook Tried to Rein In Fake Ads. It Fell Short in a California Race. | The New York Times

Regina Bateson had just finished an Easter egg hunt with her children on April 1 when her phone started buzzing. Take a look at Facebook, messages from her friends and colleagues urged. Ms. Bateson, a Democrat running for Congress in the California primary on Tuesday, quickly opened up the social network. There, she saw what appeared to be a news article that painted her as underhandedly trying to torpedo the campaign of a rival Democratic candidate. When Ms. Bateson clicked through the article, she was directed to a Facebook page run by Sierra Nevada Revolution, a local progressive group she had clashed with in the past. The article was not a news story, she found, but a political ad paid for by Sierra Nevada Revolution. And while Facebook rolled out new rules on April 6 mandating that campaign ads be clearly labeled and say who had purchased them, Sierra Nevada Revolution’s ad about Ms. Bateson continued to be targeted to local voters throughout that month without any of those disclosures.

California: Election Officials Enlist Data Scientists in Election Monitoring Bid | Bloomberg

Southern California officials are turning to data scientists for help spotting suspicious trends as voters head to the polls in primaries on Tuesday and cyber experts warn that Russia will seek to meddle in this year’s midterm elections. As part of a pilot project, the Orange County Registrar of Voters is shipping some of its data to researchers at the California Institute of Technology through a secure pipeline. They’re developing analytic tools that could help election officials review voting data for irregularities. California is one of eight states holding primaries Tuesday and Orange County alone has nearly 1.5 million registered voters. The aim of the California project is to help local officials pinpoint any “anomalies” in their data, providing “metric-based evaluations” on the integrity of elections, according to Michael Alvarez, a Caltech political science professor. The Caltech team will post its data analysis on an online dashboard.

California: In a handful of California counties, polling places are giving way to a sweeping new election system | Los Angeles Times

The neighborhood polling place, a staple of American elections, has disappeared as election day arrives in five California counties — the first sites to transition to a sweeping new system dependent on absentee ballots and a limited number of all-purpose voting centers. It is a major change, far beyond the tinkering in years past. And when it spreads to California’s most populous cities and communities in 2020, the new system probably will lead to a rethinking of what it means to conduct an election. “Forget everything you know about the voting process and create an all-new one,” said Alice Jarboe, Sacramento County’s interim registrar of voters.

California: California is making it easier to vote — even if you forgot to register | The Tribune

Thinking about voting in the June 5 election but forgot to register? Or maybe you moved and forgot to update your address. Don't worry. For the first time in a California general election, voters who missed the registration deadline can still vote for sheriff or a favorite candidate for governor — thanks to a new conditional voter registration process. That's because of state legislation that went into effect in 2017. It's part of what Secretary of State Alex Padilla called, "a simple way we're continuing to expand voting rights and opportunities in California." All would-be voters need to do is fill out a same-day registration card and cast their ballots on or before Election Day.

California: Fate of Judge Persky, symbol within #MeToo movement, heads to voters | San Francisco Chronicle

No California judge has been recalled from office since 1932, when Los Angeles voters removed three Superior Court judges accused of taking kickbacks. None has been recalled because of an unpopular ruling since 1913, when San Franciscans ousted a judge who had set a low bail for a man charged with sexual assault. But history may not provide much shelter for Aaron Persky, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge who faces a June 5 recall vote primarily because of a single decision: the six-month sentence he issued two years ago to former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, convicted of attempted rape and two other felonies for sexually penetrating a drunk and unconscious woman outside a fraternity party in January 2015. Furor over the sentencing spread nationwide, fueled by a heart-wrenching courtroom statement from Turner’s victim and the widespread view that Persky, swayed by his own background as a former Stanford athlete, had let Turner off far too lightly.

California: More Santa Clara County voters discovering by surprise they are not registered | The San Jose Mercury News

Since Santa Clara County elections officials last week admitted accidentally deleting a voter’s registration, several other residents have reported that they too were quietly dropped from the voter rolls without their knowledge. Santa Clara County elections officials could not say Tuesday what happened in those other cases, but they and officials in other counties urged voters who haven’t received a mail-in ballot or voter guide to not despair. Even though the deadline to register for the June 5 primary was Monday, elections officials said voters may still be able to vote provisionally if their registration was canceled by mistake. “Our office is here to assist voters so we ask those with questions to please contact us,” said Eric Kurhi, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters.