National

A federal appeals court on Friday blocked Kansas, Georgia and Alabama from requiring residents to prove they are U.S. citizens when registering to vote using a national form. The 2-1 ruling is a victory for voting rights groups who said a U.S. election official illegally changed proof-of-citizenship requirements on the federal registration form at the behest of the three states. People registering to vote in other states are only required to swear that that they are citizens, not show documentary proof. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia acted swiftly in the case, issuing a two-page, unsigned ruling just a day after hearing oral arguments. A federal judge in July had refused to block the requirement while the case is considered on the merits.

National: Paperless voting could fuel ‘rigged’ election claims | Politico

Voters in four competitive states will cast ballots in November on electronic machines that leave no paper trail — a lapse that threatens to sow distrust about a presidential election in which supporters of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have raised fears about hackers tampering with the outcome. The most glaring potential trouble spots include Pennsylvania, where the vast majority of counties still use ATM-style touchscreen voting machines without the paper backups that critics around the country began demanding more than a decade ago. It’s also a state where Trump and his supporters have warned that Democrats might “rig” the election to put Clinton in the White House, a claim they could use to attack her legitimacy if she wins. Similar paperless machines are used heavily in Georgia, where the presidential race appears unusually close, and to a much smaller extent in Virginia and Florida, both of which are phasing them out. Florida has almost entirely abandoned the electronic machines following a number of elections that raised red flags, including a close 2006 congressional race in which Democrats charged that as many as 16,000 votes went missing.

National: U.S. appeals court to hear challenge to proof-of-citizenship voting requirement | The Washington Post

U.S. appeals court to hear challenge to proof-of-citizenship voting requirement | The Washington Post

National: Appeals court sympathetic to challenge over voter rules | Associated Press

A federal appeals court on Thursday seemed likely to side with voting rights groups seeking to block Kansas, Georgia and Alabama from requiring residents to prove they are U.S. citizens when registering to vote using a national form. Judges hearing arguments in the case considered whether to overturn a decision by a U.S. election official who changed the form’s proof-of-citizenship requirements at the behest of the three states, without public notice. The dispute is part of a slew of challenges this year that civil rights groups have brought against various state voting laws they claim are designed to dampen turnout among minority groups that tend to favor Democrats. Those challengers have already succeeded in stopping voter ID requirements in North Carolina and Texas and restrictions elsewhere. In the citizenship case, a coalition including the League of Women Voters and civil rights groups say the requirement to show proof undermines efforts to register new voters and deprives eligible voters of the right to vote in federal elections.

National: U.S. officials investigating hacking into more state election systems | CBS News

U.S. officials are expanding their investigation into the hacking of state election systems as officials believe more states beyond just Arizona and Illinois were affected, a government official has confirmed to CBS News. Law enforcement officials were summoned to Capitol Hill to brief House and Senate leaders on the investigation into the cyberattack on election systems, CBS News’ Jeff Pegues reports. Sources tell CBS News that the Department of Homeland Security will soon send out an alert to election officials across the country about the intrusions. The alert is expected to offer states specific assistance and detail preventative measures they can take to make their systems more secure. Officials declined to offer specifics, and called the investigation “highly confidential.” While U.S. officials are looking into whether Russia is tampering with the election process, FBI Director James Comey predicted Thursday that the cyberattacks won’t change the outcome of the election race.

National: Hack the vote: Experts say the risk is real | CSO Online

You should be worried about the November election. Not so much that the candidates you support won’t win, but about the risk that the “winners” may not really be the winners, due to hackers tampering with the results. Or, that even if the winners really are the winners, there will be enough doubt about it to create political chaos. This is not tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. The warnings are coming from some of the most credible security experts in the industry. Richard Clarke, former senior cybersecurity policy adviser to presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, wrote recently in a post for ABC News that not only are US election systems vulnerable to hacking, but that it would not be difficult to do so. “The ways to hack the election are straightforward and are only slight variants of computer system attacks that we see every day in the private sector and on government networks in the US and elsewhere around the world,” he wrote, adding that, “in America’s often close elections, a little manipulation could go a long way.”

National: DHS fights election hacking fears as experts warn of vulnerabilities | KUTV

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has offered assistance to state officials attempting to prevent hacking of voting systems, but experts say the equipment remains highly vulnerable to manipulation with two months until Election Day. Amid reports of hackers accessing voting data in Arizona and Illinois, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson held a conference call with secretaries of state from across the country last month. DHS is considering whether to declare election systems “critical infrastructure,” a move that would give the government the same level of oversight of elections that it has over the financial system and power grids. … “Hacking elections is easy,” a new report from the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) states bluntly. “Electronic voting machines are black-box, unsecured endpoints that feature vulnerabilities that would be scandalous in any other sectors,” said James Scott, senior fellow at ICIT and co-author of the report, “such as a lack of native security applications, open networked connections, a non-verifiable chain of custody, a reliance on personnel who are not trained to practice even basic cyber-hygiene, and other critical vulnerabilities.” The ICIT report lays out a number of potential threats, most related to voting machines being antiquated and poorly-secured devices that lack some of the basic safeguards home PCs now have.

National: U.S. Voting System So ‘Clunky’ It Is Insulated From Hacking, FBI Director Says | Wall Street Journal

The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation sought to calm fears that Russians or others could electronically sabotage the nation’s election in November, saying the 50-state voting system is so dispersed and “clunky” it would be difficult for hackers to affect the outcome. Appearing at a panel with other senior US intelligence officials on Thursday, FBI Director James Comey was asked about the concerns that hackers acting on behalf of the Russian government might try to manipulate the presidential election. Such concerns have grown in recent weeks, after the FBI issued an alert to state officials about the possibility of hackers penetrating state election computer systems. In Arizona, a hacker obtained one of two credentials needed to access the state’s voter-registration system.

National: Could Russia Really Tamper With the U.S. Election? | Observer

On Monday, the Washington Post reported that some election officials and intelligence officials have doubts about the ability of systems in the USA’s states and provinces to defend themselves against a sustained attack by a state-level actor. “America doesn’t have its act together,” Ion Sancho, a Florida election supervisor, fretted to the paper. “We need a plan.” Despite the warnings, it would be incredibly difficult for a foreign power to directly tamper with a U.S. state’s election results. Still, voter rolls themselves could be vulnerable in a number of states. Under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, each state must have one centralized, digital database of voters. One way that a malicious actor could impact an election (presidential or otherwise) would be to tamper with the registrations of a demographic group associated with the opponent of a candidate favored by the adversary.

National: Clinton Campaign Says There Is a “Direct Link” Between Trump and Russian Hackers | Mother Jones

A Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman says a new article in the New York Observer establishes a “direct link” between the Donald Trump campaign and the hacker or hackers who have recently penetrated the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and other high-profile Democratic officials. On Tuesday, the Observer published a piece maintaining that the DCCC had coordinated—presumably improperly—with the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2015. The story, written by a freelance contributor named Michael Sainato, cited “an internal DCCC memo” leaked to the Observer from Guccifer 2.0—the handle of the hacker or hackers who have successfully targeted these Democratic committees. The Observer is owned by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been a top adviser to the Republican presidential nominee. … In an email to Mother Jones, Fallon elaborated on his tweet: “Guccifer 2.0 is known to be the Russians. And now that they are leaking materials obtained from their hacking to Trump adviser Jared Kushner’s newspaper, that’s a pretty direct link between Trump and the Russians behind this hack.”

National: US Lawmakers Wary of Russian Cyberattacks as Elections Near | VoA News

U.S. lawmakers of both political parties told VOA they have no reason to doubt that Russian hackers are targeting America’s voting infrastructure with the possible intent of disrupting or undermining confidence in the November elections. “I don’t think it’s a stretch because Russia’s been engaged in cyberattacks against the United States,” said Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas. “These are well known to our national security experts. So no, it does not surprise me.” “We know Russia has been very active in cyberattacks in the United States, and we know that they mine for information all the time,” said Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat. “Nothing surprises me about Russia.”

National: Defense Secretary Warns Russia to Stay Out of U.S. Elections | The New York Times

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter lashed out at Russia on Wednesday, accusing the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of demonstrating a “clear ambition to erode” international order and warning Russia to stay out of the American elections. Speaking on Wednesday at Oxford University in England, Mr. Carter used language that evoked a time before the fall of the Berlin War, when leaders in Washington and Moscow were entrenched global adversaries. “The United States does not seek a cold, let alone a hot, war with Russia,” Mr. Carter said. “But make no mistake, we will defend our allies, the principled international order, and the positive future it affords all of us.” He also warned Moscow that Washington “will not ignore attempts to interfere with our democratic processes.” The F.B.I. is investigating whether Russia hacked into computer systems of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Carter accused Russia of “undercutting the work and contributions of others rather than creating or making any positive contributions on its own,” and said that Moscow was sowing “instability rather than cultivating stability.”

National: Top spy: ‘Russians hack our systems all the time’ | The Hill

Russian hackers are constantly targeting U.S. computer networks, the nation’s top intelligence official said Wednesday, in an apparent tip of his hand toward blaming Moscow for recent attacks on Democratic Party institutions. “The Russians hack our systems all the time,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said at the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington. “Not just government but also corporate and personal systems.” “So do the Chinese and others, including non-state actors,” he added. Clapper declined to specifically address the hacks of Democratic groups, which have been traced to hackers with suspected Russian ties. But he referred to comments previously made by President Obama that “experts have attributed this to the Russians.”

National: Fear and hacking on the campaign trail: Will votes be secure? | McClatchy

Is it time to panic about Election Day? Not about the choices for president, but about whether the votes that millions of Americans will cast Nov. 8 will be secure. “My level of concern is pretty high,” said Thomas Hicks, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, an independent, bipartisan group created to develop guidelines after the disputed 2000 presidential election. Experts are warning that in a year of unending political drama, still more might be in store, from Russian hackers to obsolete voting machines prone to breakdowns, all with the potential for causing considerable political chaos. … Nervousness over the apparatus by which the next president will be chosen seemed inevitable. Computer-security experts have long expressed concerns about the vulnerabilities of state voter-registration rolls and the frailties of older voting machines.

National: Voting machines are still too easy to hack | InfoWorld

People have trouble prioritizing risk. For example, you often hear about the threat of voter fraud, when all evidence suggests that the risks of such fraud are inconsequential. In truth, hacked voting machines are much more likely to affect an election’s outcome. Why would an election fraudster try to herd a flock of criminal participants to the polls when one mildly talented hacker could cause far more trouble? On a state-by-state level, most presidential elections are decided by many thousands of votes. For example, in 2012, Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney by more than 166,000 votes in the swing state of Ohio. Even in the 2000 election, the closest presidential contest ever, what sort of Houdini could have marshaled the miscreants necessary to cast a few hundred fake votes to tip the balance without getting caught? A hack of a single voting machine could accomplish the same objective.

National: 8 million Americans living abroad may tip a close election | USA Today

Although Champaign, Ill., native Judith Maltby has lived in Great Britain for 30 years, she returns to the United States regularly and follows U.S. presidential races. This year’s election is of particular concern to Maltby, a chaplain at England’s Oxford University who hopes “the U.S. remains a serious partner with democratic Europe and continues to be outward looking.” She said she is backing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton because Republican “Donald Trump’s campaign is about isolationism of the most destructive kind.” Maltby is one of approximately 8 million Americans living abroad, a group large enough to tip elections in close presidential and state contests. They could not vote until 1975, when the Overseas Citizens Voting Rights Act became law. Since then, non-partisan organizations, including Vote From Abroad and Overseas Vote Foundation, have offered help, such as how to register from abroad.

National: OSCE to deploy more international observers to follow US election | Deutsche Welle

Following an official invitation to observe the US general election in November and an in-country assessment in May, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) plans to deploy 100 long-term and 400 short-term observers to the US this fall. The mission will also include a media monitoring element and will be complimented by a core team of analysts. While the long-term observers are slated to follow the election process across the country already before election day, the short-term observers are tasked with monitoring the polls on election day only. Election observers are usually seconded for the mission by OSCE participating states. Four years ago the OSCE deployed 44 short-term observers across the country as well as a core team of 13 experts to monitor the 2012 US election. No short-term contingent was sent for what was considered a “limited mission.”

National: What if: Hacks, email leaks could sway election weeks away | Associated Press

Brace for a stream of digital leaks and shenanigans by Election Day. Whether it’s newly disclosed Democratic Party emails or someone tampering with voting machines, this year’s presidential election could come with hacking intrigue like none before it. Consider messages stolen from the Democrats by suspected Russian-linked hackers and posted online in the summer by the self-described…

National: Can cybersecurity save the November elections? | CSO Online

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s disclosure earlier this month that foreign hackers had infiltrated voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona came as no surprise to some cybersecurity experts. “Given where cybercrime has gone, it’s not too surprising to think about how information risks might manifest themselves during the election season to cause some level of either potential disruption, change in voting, or even just political fodder to add the hype cycle,” says Malcolm Harkins, chief security and trust officer at network security firm Cylance. Growing concern that hackers sponsored by Russia or other countries may be attempting to disrupt the presidential election is certainly not far-fetched, given the recent data breach at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. In fact, hacking an election is shockingly easy, according to a report by the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, a cybersecurity think tank. In most cases, electronic voting systems “are nothing but bare-bone, decade old computer systems that lack even rudimentary endpoint security,” according to the report. Security vulnerabilities are discussed every four years, but little attention is given to the problem. “It’s time for a complete overhaul in the electoral process’ cyber, technical and physical security,” the report concludes.

National: National Association of Secretaries of State names members of election security group | FCW