National

The Trump administration has begun dismantling the nation’s defenses against foreign interference in voting, a sweeping retreat that has alarmed state and local election officials. Local election officials are nervous and uncertain about the federal election security cuts, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that works with state and local election officials to keep voting systems secure. The threat landscape for elections is “extreme,” she said. And even though it’s not a major election year, quieter times are when election offices can prepare and perfect their practices, she said. “It is a retreat and it’s a really ill-advised one,” she said. “It’s a little bit like saying the bank has a slow day on Tuesday, we’re going to let our security guards go home.” Read Article

National: Dismantling of federal efforts to monitor election interference creates opening for foreign meddling | Ali Swenson and Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

When a suspicious video of ballots being ripped up in Pennsylvania gained attention on social media last October, federal agencies responded quickly and called it out as Russian disinformation. On Election Day in November, bomb threats to polling places in numerous states caused relatively few disruptions to voting. It’s one of the many scenarios covered by the nation’s cybersecurity agency in its outreach to state and local officials. The future of that assistance is now uncertain. The Trump administration’s downsizing and disbanding of federal agencies has hit efforts that improve election security and monitor foreign influence. That could create gaps for America’s enemies to exploit the next time the country holds a major election. Read Article

National: Trump Justice Department signals retreat from voting rights cases | Carrie Levine/Votebeat

The government’s approach to voting rights is changing fast under the new administration, and a complex, closely watched redistricting case out of Louisiana shows just how fast. On Jan. 16, the U.S. solicitor general, who represents the government in court, asked the Supreme Court to allow the federal government to participate in upcoming oral arguments in the Louisiana case. But on Jan. 24, four days after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, the acting solicitor general withdrew that request. Her filing said the government no longer supported its earlier argument that the district court had erred in its ruling. Read Article

National: Trump keeps cutting election security jobs. Here’s what’s at risk | Jocelyn Mintz/Fast Company

As the Trump administration continues to dismantle federal agencies, one that plays a critical role in U.S. infrastructure and election security faces an uncertain future. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), housed in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and tasked with enforcing cybersecurity and protecting American infrastructure across all levels of government, placed multiple members of its election security team on administrative leave over the last few weeks, according to reports by the Associated Press and TechCrunch. The 17 reported election security team members, part of the agency’s foreign influence and disinformation teams, were placed on administrative leave as part of an overall review of the team, with a particular focus on those two operations. A DHS spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied that number. On Friday, the Trump administration separately fired more than 130 members of CISA, the DHS confirmed. Read Article

National: Trump Dismantles Government Fight Against Foreign Influence Operations | Steven Lee Myers, Julian E. Barnes and Sheera Frenkel/The New York Times

The Trump administration is targeting government officials who had been flagging foreign interference in U.S. elections, despite ongoing concerns that adversaries are stoking political and social divisions by spreading propaganda and disinformation online, current and former government officials said. The administration has already reassigned several dozen officials working on the issue at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and forced out others at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, they said. The cuts have focused on people who were not only combating false content online but also working on broader safeguards to protect elections from cyberattacks or other attempts to disrupt voting systems. In last year’s election, the teams tracked and publicized numerous influence operations from Russia, China and Iran to blunt their impact on unsuspecting voters. Read Article

National: The Trump Administration Is Going After Our Elections Too | Lawrence Norden and Derek Tisler/Slate

In its crusade against federal agencies, the Trump administration is targeting our election system, making potentially dangerous reductions to protections that help keep elections free, fair, and secure. On Friday, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency sent a memo to all agency staff notifying them that “all election security activities” would be paused pending the results of an internal investigation. The memo also stated that the administration was cutting off all funds to the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center—a Department of Homeland Security–funded organization that helps state and local officials monitor, analyze, and respond to cyberattacks targeting the nation’s election hardware and software. Read Article

The elephant not in the room: Key cybersecurity agency is a no-show at gathering of election officials | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Secretaries of state and election officials from across the nation gathered at separate conferences this past week in Washington, where the new administration has been moving quickly to slash the federal workforce and dismantle certain agencies. One pressing question at the gatherings of the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors was how the shift in power will affect collaborations with federal agencies that help safeguard elections, including the FBI, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. So far, it’s hard to tell. Read Article

National: SAVE Act Would Undermine Voter Registration for All Americans | Wendy R. Weiser and Andrew Garber/Brennan Center for Justice

Last month, congressional Republicans pledged to fast-track the SAVE Act, a bill that would require all Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport, or one of a few other citizenship documents every time they register or re-register to vote. If enacted, it would devastate voter registration while disenfranchising tens of millions of eligible American citizens. More than 21 million American citizens don’t have these documents readily available, according to survey data. But the SAVE Act would likely adversely affect far more Americans than the data suggests. Many might not have noticed how broadly the bill could apply — its show-your-papers requirement is not just limited to new registrations but rather applies to every “application to register to vote,” which in many jurisdictions includes re-registrations and changes of address. And tens of millions of Americans register or re-register between every federal election. Read Article

National: CISA election, disinformation officials placed on administrative leave, sources say | Derek B. Johnson/CyberScoop

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency placed several members of its election security group on administrative leave last week. According to one source, the moves happened Thursday and Friday of last week and were targeted at employees focused on CISA’s mis-, dis- and malinformation teams. The moves include four employees currently working on or assigned to the team, two more that left the team in the past four years but still hold positions at the Department of Homeland Security, and another two that work on elections misinformation or disinformation at DHS. A second source confirmed that some, but not all members of CISA’s election security team, were placed on leave last week. Read Article

National: Efforts to fight foreign influence and protect elections in question under Trump | Jenna McLaughlin/NPR

The new Trump administration is moving quickly to roll back long-standing work to counter foreign influence in U.S. elections, work that began in the first Trump term after revelations about the extent and ambition of Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election. Staffers working on countering foreign mis- and disinformation as well as a team of 10 regional election security advisers at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have been put on administrative leave, according to two sources directly familiar with the matter who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. In addition to the disruption to CISA’s work, Attorney General Pam Bondi also ordered an end to an FBI task force to combat foreign influence campaigns in American politics by Russia, China and other countries. Read Article

National: Ed Martin, Advocate of Jan. 6 Rioters, Now Runs Office That Investigated Them | Eileen Sullivan, Alan Feuer and Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

Ed Martin was in the mob outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, posting on social media that the violent riot that day was marked by “faith and joy.” He has often echoed President Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, declaring on the night before the Capitol was stormed that “true Americans” should work until their “last breath” to “stop the steal.” He has spent the past four years raising money for — and in some cases defending — people charged with joining the mob. And when the House committee that investigated Jan. 6 sent him a subpoena, he never complied, risking criminal charges. Now, Mr. Martin, 54, has been tapped by Mr. Trump to oversee the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington where he has been put in charge of dismantling the office’s signature project: the sprawling investigation of Jan. 6 that he has energetically opposed. Read Article

National: GOP laws aimed at very rare noncitizen voting could hit eligible voters | Patrick Marley and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Washington Post

Republicans in Congress and state legislatures are charging forward with plans to require Americans to prove they are citizens as they say they seek to crack down on noncitizen voting — an almost nonexistent problem. Voting by noncitizens is already illegal in all state and federal elections, and requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship could make it harder for millions of legitimate voters to cast ballots. Driver’s licenses and other state IDs can be used only for people who provided proof of citizenship to get those IDs, so some people will need to track down other documents. Many people do not have ready access to birth certificates or passports, including women who changed their names when they got married, rural residents who live far from government offices where birth records are kept, and people who lost documents in fires or floods. Read Article

National: With firings and lax enforcement, Trump moving to dismantle government’s public integrity guardrails | Eric Tucker, Michelle L. Price and Zeke Miller/Associated Press

In the first three weeks of his administration, President Donald Trump has moved with brazen haste to dismantle the federal government’s public integrity guardrails that he frequently tested during his first term but now seems intent on removing entirely. In a span of hours on Monday, word came that he had forced out leaders of offices responsible for government ethics and whistleblower complaints. And in a boon to corporations, he ordered a pause to enforcement of a decades-old law that prohibits American companies from bribing foreign governments to win business. All of that came on top of the earlier late-night purge of more than a dozen inspectors general who are tasked with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse at government agencies. It’s all being done with a stop-me-if-you-dare defiance by a president who the first time around felt hemmed in by watchdogs, lawyers and judges tasked with affirming good government and fair play. Now, he seems determined to break those constraints once and for all in a historically unprecedented flex of executive power. Read Article

National: Voting Rights Claims Plunge in Wake of Supreme Court Decision | Diana Dombrowski, Alex Ebert, and Kimberly Robinson/Bloomberg Law

After the Supreme Court weakened a key piece of the Voting Rights Act, voting discrimination cases are not just harder to bring to court but dramatically so, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis and experts who examined the findings. Section 2 of the act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting practices, was nearly 60% less likely to be cited following the court’s ruling in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. The decision changed how courts consider whether a law or practice limits someone’s right to vote based on race. That finding aligns with voting rights groups and some attorneys’ concerns: Brnovich debilitated the most direct avenue to challenge voting discrimination and will have a lasting impact on voting rights. Read Article

National: State and local governments should prepare for changes to CISA, cyber experts say | Sophia Fox-Sowell/StateScoop

Cybersecurity experts told StateScoop that state and local governments should brace themselves for changes to the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency under Kristi Noem, former governor of South Dakota, who was sworn in last weekend as the 8th secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Pamela Smith, CEO of Verified Voting, an organization that studies how technology impacts the administration of U.S. elections, said the loss of verified information monitoring may impact election security, which is managed by local government agencies. “CISA has a coordinating function. Their ability to monitor for mis- and disinformation campaigns that may be coming from outside the country, is probably greater than other agencies,” Smith told StateScoop in a recent interview. “It puts more pressure on the entities that have to deal with this, the election officials themselves, to monitor and quickly provide information.” Read Article

National: Attorney General Bondi ends FBI effort to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics | Ken Dilanian/NBC

In a little-noticed directive on her first day in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered a halt to a years-old federal law enforcement effort to combat secret influence campaigns by China, Russia and other adversaries that try to curry favor and sow chaos in American politics. Buried on the fourth page of one of 14 policy memos Bondi issued Wednesday, the order disbands the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and pares back enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, despite years of warnings by U.S. intelligence agencies that foreign malign influence operations involving disinformation were a growing and dangerous threat. Read Article

National: Federal Election Commission Chair Says Trump Has Moved to Fire Her | Chris Cameron/The New York Times

Ellen L. Weintraub, the chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, said on Thursday that President Trump had moved to fire her. Ms. Weintraub, who has served as a Democratic commissioner on the bipartisan panel since 2002, posted a short letter signed by Mr. Trump on social media that said she was “hereby removed” from the commission effective immediately. She said in an interview that she did not see the president’s move as legally valid, and that she was considering her options on how to respond. “There’s a perfectly legal way for him to replace me,” Ms. Weintraub said on Thursday evening. “But just flat-out firing me, that is not it.” Read Article

National: Alarmed by Chinese hacks, Republicans mute attacks on cybersecurity agency | Joseph Menn/The Washington Post

President Donald Trump named the first director of the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in 2018 and fired him two years later, after he declared that Trump’s loss in the 2020 election wasn’t down to fraud. Ever since, Republicans have targeted the top U.S. cyberdefense agency for downgrades or deep cuts. In November, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who now leads the Senate committee overseeing CISA, even mused about killing it altogether. But with Trump back in office, the direst fates appear off the table. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, who oversees the agency, and other Republicans now say they see an essential mission in CISA protecting critical infrastructure from mounting ransomware and nation-state hacking attacks, especially those from the Chinese military and spies. Read Article

National: DOJ disbands foreign influence task force, limits scope of FARA prosecutions | Derek B. Johnson/CyberScoop

One of the first acts taken by Pam Bondi after being sworn in as attorney general was to disband an FBI task force that countered the influence of adversarial foreign governments on American politics. In a memo issued Wednesday, Bondi wrote that the Department of Justice would be shifting resources in its National Security Division, including disbanding the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, “to free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.” Bondi’s memo also states that the Department of Justice will now only refer criminal charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act if they “alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.” Read Article

National: Key Trump Cabinet members refuse to acknowledge Trump lost in 2020 | Patrick Marley and Colby Itkowitz/The Washington Post

Two of President Donald Trump’s top law enforcement nominees have been taking a new tack when talking about the 2020 presidential election: They’re not claiming Trump won that year, but they’re not saying he lost, either. Joe Biden was “duly sworn in” after the 2020 election, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, told senators at her confirmation hearing. “President Joe Biden’s election was certified, he was sworn in, and he served as the president of the United States,” Kash Patel, who has been tapped to lead the FBI, said at his confirmation hearing. Neither would say that Biden defeated Trump, despite dozens of court rulings that upheld the results. Read Article

National: CISA staffers offered deferred resignations with just hours to decide | Jenna McLaughlin/NPR

Employees at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, were initially excluded from broader government offers to take deferred resignation offers, in part due to their role in national security and defending critical infrastructure. However, on Wednesday, some CISA staffers were given the offer and just hours to decide whether to accept it, according to three sources who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity. Read Article

Voting rights groups are concerned about priorities shifting under Trump’s Justice Department | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

The Justice Department appears poised to take a very different approach to investigating voting and elections. Conservative calls to overhaul the department by removing career employees, increasing federal voter fraud cases and investigating the 2020 election are raising concerns among voting rights groups about the future of the agency under Pam Bondi, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump who will face a confirmation vote later this week. Bondi supported Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the 2020 Pennsylvania election results, has reiterated his false claims about his loss that year and during her Senate confirmation hearing refused to directly state that former President Joe Biden won, saying only that she accepted the results. She pledged to remain independent. Read Article

National: Job satisfaction among election administrators continues to sink, survey shows | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

The vast majority of America’s local election administrators would not encourage their children to do the same job, and a shrinking share of them say they would be proud to tell others about their work. The findings come from a survey conducted every federal election year by the Elections & Voting Information Center, an academic research group. While it contains small bright spots — election administrators largely find the job personally rewarding, for example — the number willing to encourage their children to follow in their footsteps has decreased by nearly half in the past two election cycles. In 2020, 41% said they would do so. In 2024, that number dropped to 22%. Read Article

National: Trump’s quick executive actions could redefine who counts in our democracy | Carrie Levine/Votebeat

The tense final days of President Joe Biden’s administration and the frenetic early hours of President Donald Trump’s second term muddied the waters on critical issues that could reshape our democracy. First, Biden. News of his final days in office centered on his use of presidential pardon power and his announcement that he considered the Equal Rights Amendment to have been ratified by the states, a legally controversial opinion that still requires more steps before it goes into effect. Then Trump came into office, and immediately raised his own set of constitutional questions. He issued sweeping pardons to people charged or convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He also rescinded a raft of Biden’s executive orders, including one related to the census, signaling that he may revisit an abortive effort from his first term to alter the scope of the decennial count. Read Article

National: Trump’s perceived enemies brace for retribution with plans, dark humor | Yvonne Wingett Sanchez , Sarah Ellison , Patrick Marley and Holly Bailey/The Washington Post

Sitting in front of a fireplace on New Year’s Eve, a battleground state official asked a relative to consider a grave question before they kicked off their celebrations. Would she be willing, the official asked, to take care of her child if authorities or allies of President Donald Trump detained her? “You can’t be serious,” the family member responded. The official wished she wasn’t. But, like others around the country who have crossed Trump, she was preparing for dire scenarios. She was meeting with a private lawyer and security officers and was visiting a shooting range so she could begin carrying a firearm should Trump’s supporters take matters into their own hands. She had already lined up rides home from school for her child. Read Article

National: No, Trump can’t cancel the 2028 election. But he could still weaken democracy. – Nathaniel Rakich/538/ABC

Political scientists who have studied the erosion of democracy in other countries emphasize that it’s a gradual, even subtle process that often leaves the trappings of democracy in place. In fact, those experts say, U.S. democracy was already eroded under Trump’s first term — and the most serious danger is that his second will see more of the same. Let’s get one thing out of the way: No, Trump cannot run for a third term or cancel the 2028 election. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution says, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” and even if Trump tries to defy that, he would almost certainly be universally rebuffed by the courts and election officials. Read Article

National: US cybersecurity agency’s future role in elections remains murky under the Trump administration | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press