National

While President Trump is promising to launch an investigation into his belief that millions of illegal ballots were cast in 2016, the Republican-led House Administration Committee voted Tuesday to shut down the federal agency set up to help states improve their election systems. Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., chairman of the House Administration Committee, said the Election Assistance Commission has “outlived” his usefulness. … “This is the time when we should be focusing on strengthening” the EAC, said Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, the top Democrat on the committee. Brady argued the EAC helps states run fair, accurate and efficient elections. He said the agency provided key support to states in the last election.

National: New administration will uphold election system’s designation as critical infrastructure | Reuters

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Tuesday said he backed a decision in the Obama administration’s final days to designate elections systems as critical infrastructure in order to boost their cyber defenses, after the government concluded Russian hackers tried to influence the 2016 presidential race. Some conservative states, such as Georgia, had expressed concerns that the Obama administration move amounted to a federal takeover of elections traditionally run by state and local governments. The designation means voting machines, voter registration systems, polling places and other assets important to holding elections are eligible for priority cyber-security assistance from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “I believe we should help all of the states … to make sure that their systems are protected in future elections,” Kelly told the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security in response to a question from Democratic U.S. Representative Cedric Richmond. “I would argue that, yes, we should keep that in place.”

National: Federal Agency Tasked with Protecting Election Integrity is on the Cutting Block | Campaign Legal Center

The 2016 elections were dogged by questions about the integrity of our electoral system – from false claims that millions of people voted illegally – to legitimate concerns about the first election in fifty years without the protections of the Voting Rights Act. Also, there have been new worries about foreign actors interfering in our political process. During the primary season and in the general election, voters raised concerns about purged voter registration lists and long lines. In addition to the hacking of emails by Russian actors, there is also evidence that hackers attempted to penetrate state voter registration systems across the country. With plenty of challenges in election administration to address, why did a House Committee vote yesterday to eliminate the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) – an agency tasked with evaluating and improving the efficiency and security of federal elections?

National: Russian election hacks exploited legal grey zone: lawyers | AFP

Russia’s alleged computer hacking to interfere in US elections was no act of war, but exploited a legal grey zone that makes justifying retaliation hard, international lawyers specializing in cyber issues said Wednesday. Moscow’s interference in the presidential campaign last year by hacking Democratic Party computers and leaking embarrassing communications was an act of espionage — legal under international law — and at worst a slight violation of US sovereignty, the lawyers said. But it was definitely no act of war, as some American politicians have suggested, US lawyer Michael Schmitt said, adding that calling it such “is very destabilizing.” Speaking at the launch of a new manual on cyber attacks and international law, he said the reaction to the Russia-US hacking case heightens the need for accepted international standards for countries to assess and counter cyber attacks proportionately.

National: Flynn Is Said to Have Talked to Russians About Election Hacking Sanctions Before Trump Took Office | The New York Times

Weeks before President Trump’s inauguration, his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, discussed American sanctions against Russia, as well as areas of possible cooperation, with that country’s ambassador to the United States, according to current and former American officials. Throughout the discussions, the message Mr. Flynn conveyed to the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak — that the Obama administration was Moscow’s adversary and that relations with Russia would change under Mr. Trump — was unambiguous and highly inappropriate, the officials said. The accounts of the conversations raise the prospect that Mr. Flynn violated a law against private citizens’ engaging in diplomacy, and directly contradict statements made by Trump advisers. They have said that Mr. Flynn spoke to Mr. Kislyak a few days after Christmas merely to arrange a phone call between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mr. Trump after the inauguration. But current and former American officials said that conversation — which took place the day before the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia over accusations that it used cyberattacks to help sway the election in Mr. Trump’s favor — ranged far beyond the logistics of a post-inauguration phone call. And they said it was only one in a series of contacts between the two men that began before the election and also included talk of cooperating in the fight against the Islamic State, along with other issues.

National: GOP lawmakers around the US push for restrictions on voting | The Republic

As President Donald Trump hurls unfounded allegations of colossal fraud in last fall’s election, lawmakers in at least 20 mostly Republican-led states are pushing to make it harder to register or to vote. Efforts are underway in places such as Arkansas, Iowa, Maine, Nebraska and Indiana to adopt or tighten requirements that voters show photo ID at the polls. There is a move in Iowa and New Hampshire to eliminate Election Day registration. New Hampshire may also make it difficult for college students to vote. And Texas could shorten the early voting period by several days. Supporters say the measures are necessary to combat voter fraud and increase public confidence in elections. But research has shown that in-person fraud at the polls is extremely rare, and critics of these restrictions warn that they will hurt mostly poor people, minorities and students — all of whom tend to vote Democratic — as well as the elderly. They fear, too, that the U.S. Justice Department, under newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, will do little to intervene to protect voters.

National: Trump official: Election infrastructure should be protected | The Hill

President Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security indicated Tuesday that he would keep in place the Obama administration’s designation of election infrastructure as “critical.” “I believe we should help all of the states to make sure their systems are protected, so I would argue we should keep that in place,” Secretary John Kelly said during testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee in response to questioning from Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.). The Obama administration designated the U.S. election infrastructure as “critical” in January, just two weeks before Trump’s inauguration. The move extended to storage facilities, polling places and centralized vote tabulation locations supporting the election process, as well as information and communications technology such as voter registration databases and voting machines. The decision resulted in these systems being subject to federal protections.

National: New administration will keep ‘critical’ label on election systems | Cyberscoop

The new Homeland Security Secretary said Tuesday his department will not overturn the last-minute decision by previous leadership to designate the U.S. election system as “critical national infrastructure,” despite calls from some state officials to reverse the designation. “I would argue that yes, we should keep that in place,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told the House Homeland Security Committee during his first time testifying as a member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Last month, just days before leaving office, outgoing leadership at DHS blindsided state and local officials by designating the election systems as “critical national infrastructure.” At the stroke of a pen, the property of 8,000 election jurisdictions across the country was added to a special DHS list of 16 “sectors” of vital U.S. national industry, ranging from banking and telephones to water and sewage systems.

National: Study Examines Modernizing Voter Registration | WAMC

There has been plenty of talk in recent weeks, much of it emanating from the White House, about voter fraud. Now, a new study released by the Brennan Center For Justice, entitled “Election Integrity: A Pro-Voter Agenda,” confirms in-person voter fraud is a rarity. The paper argues that the integrity of elections can be strengthened without discouraging eligible voters. On January 25th, President Donald Trump Tweeted “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD…” Trump claimed millions voted illegally in the election: “You have people registered in two states. They’re registered in New York and New Jersey, they vote twice.” Without any evidence, the president has also claimed “3-5 million illegal votes” cost him a popular vote victory. This all comes after years of battles in the states over voting laws that some say make it harder for many citizens to participate in elections. Most people expect American elections are secure and free of misconduct, but some are doubtful. “I will say this. Of those votes cast, none of ’em come to me. None of ’em come to me,” moaned Trump.

National: House committee votes to eliminate Election Assistance Commission | The Guardian

A Republican-led House committee voted on Tuesday to eliminate an independent election commission charged with helping states improve their voting systems as Donald Trump erroneously claims widespread voter fraud cost him the popular vote. The party-line vote came less than two days after the US president vowed to set up a White House commission helmed by the vice-president, Mike Pence, to pursue his accusations of election fraud. … The bill was opposed by committee Democrats and voting rights groups, who argued that the federal agency played a vital role in protecting elections from hacking and other types of interference. “At a time when the vast majority of the country’s voting machines are outdated and in need of replacement, and after an election in which foreign criminals already tried to hack state voter registration systems, eliminating the EAC poses a risky and irresponsible threat to our election infrastructure,” said Wendy Weiser, the democracy program director at the Brennan Center for Justice.

National: Republicans vote to scrap Election Assistance Commission | International Business Times

In spite of President Donald Trump’s unverified claims that millions of people voted illegally in the US election, a House committee has voted to eliminate an independent election commission. The Republican-led House Administration Committee voted 6-3 along party lines to scrap the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) on Tuesday (7 February) – the only federal body aimed at ensuring voting machines cannot be hacked. Though Trump’s assertions have been widely discredited, public advocacy groups have raised serious concerns about the decision because of the body’s importance. It was created in the aftermath of the 2000 election and the Florida recount controversy which decided the race between George W Bush and Al Gore. Since then, the EAC has grown to even greater significance as many of the country’s voting machines have become outdated, with the Brennan Center for Justice saying the situation is an “impending crisis”. They were one of 38 bodies to denounce the vote to scrap the EAC, stating it puts America’s democracy at risk.

National: As Trump fears fraud, GOP votes to kill Election Assistance Commission | Associated Press

A House committee voted on Tuesday to eliminate an independent election commission charged with helping states improve their voting systems as President Donald Trump erroneously claims widespread voter fraud cost him the popular vote. The party-line vote came less than two days after Trump vowed to set up a White House commission helmed by Vice President Mike Pence to pursue his accusations of election fraud. “We’re going to look at it very, very carefully,” Trump said of voter fraud in an interview with Fox News that aired Sunday. “It has to do with the registration, and when you look at the registration and you see dead people that have voted.” Reports that Trump told congressional leaders in a meeting last month that 3 to 5 million ballots were cast illegally during the 2016 race were met with discomfort on Capitol Hill. While top Republicans have refused to disavow his charges of election fraud, they haven’t pushed for action on the issue, which remains a low priority for congressional leadership.

National: Former Democratic Senate candidate launches voting rights group | The Hill

Jason Kander, the Missouri Democrat who narrowly lost a Senate bid last year, is jumping back into national politics with a new organization aimed at protecting voting rights. The former Missouri secretary of state’s new group, “Let America Vote,” aims to win “the public debate over voter suppression” as Democrats continue to coalesce around voting rights in the wake of calls by President Trump for an investigation into his claim, presented without evidence, that millions of illegal votes were cast in 2016. “Voting in our country has never been easy, and unfortunately it’s never been guaranteed for everyone,” Kander said Tuesday in a statement pointing to the progress made by “brave civil rights leaders. Today, that progress is in danger as laws targeting low-income and minority voters continue popping up across the country. Let America Vote will make the case for voting rights by exposing the real motivations of those who favor voter suppression laws.”

National: 38 Reform Groups Oppose Efforts by House Administration Committee to Terminate Presidential Public Financing & EAC | YubaNet

February 7, 2017

In a letter sent today to members of the House Administration Committee, a group of 38 organizations and individuals with expertise in governance issues strongly opposed bills being considered tomorrow by the committee to terminate the Presidential Election Campaign Fund and the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). (See below for a full list of the signers of the letter.) The group of organizations and individuals strongly oppose HR 133, a bill to terminate the Presidential Election Campaign Fund and HR 634, a bill to terminate the EAC. In the letter, reform groups urged the committee members to reject both bills. The letter said, “At stake is the survival of the public financing system for presidential elections and a commission that plays a vitally important role in standardizing and modernizing election administration.” Reform groups oppose HR 133 because according to the letter, “It vitiates an important check on special interest money by eliminating public financing for presidential campaigns.”

National: Why Voting Rights Advocates Are Worried About a Trump Voter Fraud Probe | NBC

Following up on his false claim that at least 3 million illegal immigrants voted in November’s election, President Donald Trump was all set last Thursday to sign an executive order initiating a federal investigation into voter fraud. But the order never came. A spokesman said Trump got stuck in meetings that ran long. Since then, the White House has moved on to other issues, like banning travel from seven majority Muslim nations and threatening to defund sanctuary cities, without rescheduling the signing. An aide to Trump told NBC News on Friday that there would be no voter inquiry any time soon, although Trump seemed to contradict that in an interview that aired Sunday afternoon. “I’m going to set up a commission to be headed by Mike Pence, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Trump told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, without offering specifics.

National: Trump vows to ‘totally destroy’ restrictions on churches’ support of candidates | The Washington Post

President Trump vowed Thursday to “totally destroy” a law passed more than 60 years ago that bans tax-exempt churches from supporting political candidates, a nod to the religious right that helped sweep him into office. Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Trump said he would seek to overturn the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt nonprofits — including churches and other houses of worship — from “directly or indirectly” participating in a political candidate’s campaign. Repeal of the amendment — which is part of the tax code and would require action by Congress — has been sought primarily by conservative Christian leaders, who argue that it is used selectively to keep them for speaking out freely.

National: Trump executive order on voter fraud quietly stalled | Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s heated rush to launch what he said would be a “major investigation” into voter fraud has cooled, leaving White House staff uncertain when it will come to pass or what shape it will take. An executive action commissioning the probe is still planned but could be several weeks away, two senior administration officials said Friday. Although Trump instructed staff to jump on the project last week, he has not discussed the issue in recent days, according to two other people in close touch with the president. All demanded anonymity to discuss private conservations. Asked about the status of the effort, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said: “I do not have an update at this time.” The indefinite delay comes as some of Trump’s advisers counseled him to abandon the idea, arguing it was a distraction from more pressing issues. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in last November’s election. Trump won the Electoral College vote but lost the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

National: Trump walks back false voter fraud claim in interview with Bill O’Reilly | The Washington Post

He certainly did not admit to being wrong, but in his own way President Trump walked back his false claim that 3 million to 5 million illegal ballots were cast in the November election when he sat down with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly for an interview that aired before the Super Bowl. Asked whether it was irresponsible for the president to undermine public confidence in the integrity of the vote without data to back up his assertion, Trump said, “It doesn’t have to do with the vote.” “It has to do with the registration,” he continued. “And when you look at the registration, and you see dead people that have voted, when you see people that are registered in two states — and that voted in two states — when you see other things, when you see illegals, people that are not citizens and they are on the registration rolls. Look, Bill, we can be babies, but you take a look at the registration. You have illegals, you have dead people, you have this — it’s really a bad situation. It’s really bad.”

National: McConnell: No federal money for voter fraud probe | The Hill

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday said he doesn’t want to spend federal funds to investigate what President Trump claimed was massive voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election. While McConnell says there is voter fraud, he doesn’t believe it’s as widespread as Trump claims or requires federal intervention. He says that cleaning up voter rolls is best left to the states. “Election fraud does occur,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” But he added that “there’s no evidence that occurred in such a significant number that it would have changed the presidential election. I don’t think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that. I think the states can take a look at this issue. Many of them have tried to tighten their voter rolls, tried to purge people who are dead,” he added.

National: Senate panel to investigate Russian election interference | USA Today

President Trump may want to “move on” from Russia’s attempted interference in last fall’s presidential election, but two senators announced Thursday that they are launching a bipartisan investigation of Russia’s efforts to influence the U.S. election and democratic elections in other nations. Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, which they lead, will hold both closed-door and public discussions as they look into Russia’s meddling. “Our goal is simple — to the fullest extent possible we want to shine a light on Russian activities to undermine democracy,” the two senators said in a joint statement. “Our efforts will be guided by the belief that we have an obligation to follow the facts wherever they may lead.”

National: Still no executive order on voter fraud, as Trump moves on | CNN

A full week has passed since President Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order opening a Justice Department investigation into his unsubstantiated claim that millions of people voted illegally in November. The Oval Office signing was abruptly canceled last Thursday and never rescheduled. The White House hasn’t talked about it since. The President has moved on to other subjects. A senior administration official told CNN that the voter fraud investigation is no longer a top priority for the President, insisting it’s not off the table, but not expected anytime soon.

National: Trump Loosens Sanctions on Russian Spy Agency Linked to Election Hack | Washington Free Beacon

The Treasury Department on Thursday announced the loosening of sanctions on Russia’s spy service that were imposed by former President Obama for Moscow’s intelligence operations targeting the 2016 presidential election. A notice posted on the website of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the department’s sanctions enforcement unit, stated the sanctions on Russia’s Federal Security Service, the security and intelligence agency known as FSB, were eased. The FSB was slapped with sanctions Dec. 29 by the Obama administration following an intelligence assessment that concluded the agency, along with the Russian GRU military spy service and senior Russian leaders, engaged in cyber attacks to influence the outcome of the election.

National: Trump says its illegal to be registered to vote in two states. He’s wrong. | Chicago Tribune

February 2, 2017

It was a forceful condemnation — a vow to wipe out a serious crime. “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states,” President Trump boomed on Twitter last week. But Trump’s social media decree missed a crucial fact: It’s not illegal to be registered to vote in multiple states. It is, however, a felony to cast ballots in more than one state — yet it rarely happens. Trump’s tweet storm about voter registration — and his unfounded claim that millions of illegal votes were cast for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in November — has cast a spotlight on voting procedures nationwide. That spotlight has revealed some ironies. Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, is registered in more than one state. The same is true for some of the president’s senior officials, including his pick to lead the Treasury Department, Steven Mnuchin, along with senior advisor Stephen K. Bannon and Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Even Gregg Phillips, creator of the app VoteStand — which helps Americans report perceived voter fraud — and who Trump has boasted is a guru on the issue, appears to be registered in Alabama, Mississippi and Texas, according to the Associated Press.

National: Who believes in voter fraud? Americans who are hostile to immigrants | The Washington Post

February 2, 2017

Donald Trump has prominently promoted the idea that there are widespread conspiracies to commit voter fraud, and has recently called for a major investigation. That’s despite the fact that peer-reviewed studies have convincingly shown that voter fraud is extremely rare and difficult to prove (here, here, here and here). So who is likely to believe him? The answer: Americans who are hostile toward nonwhite immigrants. That hostility strongly influences estimates of how frequently voter fraud occurs. In a national survey of 1,000 adult Americans through the 2015 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we asked people to estimate how often voter fraud occurs. Like other researchers, we define voter fraud perceptions as how much people think that U.S. elections include noncitizen voting, voting more than once, and voting while pretending to be someone else.

National: What The Election Can Teach Us About Cybersecurity | Forbes

It is rare for a U.S. president to face a major political stand-off before his own inauguration. But that was the history-making environment we saw playing out as president-elect Donald Trump, members of the U.S. intelligence community and Congress scuffled over the degree to which a Russian influence campaign, played out through cyber activity, shaped an election for the ages. While U.S. political and diplomatic interests await reports and hearings, “election hacking” is already a global phenomenon, according to concerns out of Germany, Montenegro, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere. Despite alarming headlines, focused cyber operations against elections are in their relative infancy – meaning it’s crucial for us in the security industry as well as those affected to define what’s happened and marshal broad defenses. … The most volatile attack scenario is compromising voting machines, agencies and other polling infrastructure.

National: Trump’s Favorite Voter-Fraud Activist Hedges His Claims | The Atlantic

Did 3 million people vote illegally in the 2016 election? There’s no evidence that’s true, but President Trump certainly believes so, making news his first week in the White House by ordering an investigation into that allegation. Even if only partly substantiated, it would probably be the single largest instance of voter fraud in American history. The source for Trump’s convictions seems to be a Twitter account run by Texan businessman and former public official Gregg Phillips, the founder of VoteStand, a mobile app designed to allow users to report incidents of voter fraud. Using data from conservative nonprofit True the Vote, Phillips claimed that he identified millions of illegal votes. Those claims went viral when published, were amplified by the conspiracy-theory website InfoWars, and ultimately reached the president himself. But those data have not yet been released, and questions about the credibility of their purveyor and his methods and claims abound. Even Phillips himself is now backing off the original 3 million number that sparked the president’s demand for an investigation, explaining that he needs more time before he’s willing to provide final numbers or release his raw data. “Over a hundred million people voted. Impacting a presidential election is probably less likely than impacting anything down-ballot,” Phillips said. “I’m not gonna be goaded into going faster than I want to. I’m not a government official, I don’t have protections, and if I accuse somebody of voter fraud, we have to be sure that what we’re saying is right. While I believe I’m right, it’s in my best interest and everybody else’s best interest to make sure this is right.”

National: Trump’s voter fraud unicorn could pose grave threat to voting rights | Philadelphia Tribune

Of the many conspiracy theories presented by President Donald Trump last week, none carried as much gravity as his crusade on voter fraud. “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD,” he posted on Twitter earlier in the week, “including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and … even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” How those “voting procedures” would be strengthened remained unclear. Yet, the hint of an exhaustive federal investigation into voter fraud rattled civil rights leaders who are already bracing for a wholesale rollback of key provisions in the Voting Rights Act.

National: The tale of a Trump falsehood: How his voter fraud claim spread like a virus | The Washington Post