National: Voters with disabilities often overlooked in voting battles | Ayanna Alexander/Associated Press

Patti Chang walked into her polling place in Chicago earlier this year, anxious about how poll workers would treat her, especially as a voter who is blind. Even though she was accompanied by her husband, she said she was ignored until a poll worker grabbed her cane and pulled her toward a voting booth. Like many voters with disabilities, Chang faces barriers at the polls most voters never even consider — missing ramps or door knobs, for example. The lack of help or empathy from some poll workers just adds to the burden for people with disabilities. “It doesn’t help you want to be in there if you’re going to encounter those kinds of low expectations,” said Chang, 59. “So why should I go vote if I’m going to have to fight with the poll workers? I’m an adult and I should be able to vote without that.” Chang had a better experience when she cast an early ballot in March in the runoff election for Chicago mayor, a race that will be decided Tuesday, even as access to the ballot box remains a challenge across the city for voters like her. Chicago is among numerous voting jurisdictions across the United States with poor access to polling locations for disabled voters. Since 2016, the Department of Justice has entered into more than three dozen settlements or agreements to force better access in cities and counties under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Many of those places are holding elections this year.

Full Article: Voters with disabilities often overlooked in voting battles | AP News

National: How Fox Chased Its Audience Down the Rabbit Hole | Jim Rutenberg/The New York Times

On the evening of Nov. 19, 2020, Rupert Murdoch was watching TV and crawling the walls of his 18th-century mansion in the British countryside while under strict pandemic lockdown. The television hosts at Murdoch’s top cable network, Fox News, might have scoffed at such unyielding adherence to Covid protocols. But Jerry Hall, his soon-to-be fourth ex-wife and no fan of Fox or its conservative hosts, was insisting that Murdoch, approaching his 90th birthday, remain cautious. The big story that day, as it had been every day in the two weeks since the election, was election theft, and now Rudolph W. Giuliani was giving a news conference at the Republican National Committee. With Sidney Powell, the right-wing attorney and conspiracy theorist, at his side, Giuliani, sweating profusely, black hair dye dripping down the side of his face, spun a wild fantasy about Joe Biden’s stealing the election from President Donald J. Trump. Dizzying in its delusional complexity, it centered on a supposed plot by the Clinton Foundation, George Soros and associates of Hugo Chávez to convert Trump votes into Biden votes by way of software from Smartmatic and voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems.

Source: How Fox Chased Its Audience Down the Rabbit Hole – The New York Times

National: Far-right presentation using misappropriated election software alarms experts | Sarah D. Wire/Los Angeles Times

On the third day of the Conservative Political Action Conference this month, two men demonstrated experts’ biggest concerns about attempts to access election machines after the 2020 election. Using copies of election software that was improperly taken from multiple counties and that has been circulating among election deniers, they presented unfounded claims that they had discovered evidence of fraud and foreign interference. They also discussed their goals of securing jobs as election officials and building a team of computer experts to access elections systems in more than 60 counties in order to prove their theories. “This is exactly the situation that I have warned about,” Kevin Skoglund, chief technologist for Citizens for Better Elections, said of the presentation during CPAC. “Having the software out there allows people to make wild claims about it. It creates disinformation that we have to watch out for and tamp down.” Skoglund is among the election security experts concerned that bad actors are using the time between the 2020 and 2024 elections to study election systems and software in order to produce disinformation during the next presidential election, such as fake evidence of fraud or questionable results. Described as an election integrity presentation, the event wasn’t on the official conference agenda or sanctioned by CPAC, but took place in a guest room at a nearby hotel. Some CPAC sponsors plan and produce their own sessions on the conference’s sidelines.

Full Article: How improperly obtained election information is being shared – Los Angeles Times

National: Online voting provider paid for academic research in attempt to sway U.S. lawmakers  | Yael Grauer/CyberScoop

House Bill 1475 would transform how many voters in the state of Washington cast their ballots. Rather than trooping to the ballot box or mailing in absentee ballots, the bill would have allowed some voters, like those overseas or disabled, to vote and return their ballots online. Election security experts have determined time and again that any kind of online ballot processing poses significant risks to the integrity, security and privacy of votes. Nonetheless, HB 1475 — and efforts in other states and at the federal level — embraces this controversial technology. At the center of the effort to pass laws incorporating online voting is a company called Democracy Live. At a Jan. 25 hearing before the State Government and Tribal Relations Committee of  Washington’s lower house, Democracy Live CEO Bryan Finney and King County Director of Elections Julie Wise made the case for incorporating online voting. Wise, who oversees elections in Washington’s most populous county, told the committee that she would follow up by emailing a letter from the University of Washington’s Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, “where they go into great depth of reviewing what we’re talking about today.” That letter was supposed to provide a testament to the security of Democracy Live’s products but did not disclose that one of the two people who signed the letter, Michael Hamilton, was a paid consultant for Democracy Live while testifying to the security of the company’s products. It also fails to mention that Democracy Live paid University of Washington employee Ran Hinrichs to serve as a project manager for work leading up to the letter, including an unpublished study referenced in it.

Full Article: Online voting provider paid for academic research in attempt to sway U.S. lawmakers  | CyberScoop

National: How Election Deniers Are Making Voter Fraud Easier | Alan Greenblatt/Governing

In February, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose held a news conference in which he discussed ways the state was making elections more transparent and secure. One thing that’s indispensable, he suggested, was ERIC, or the Electronic Registration Information Center, a data-sharing effort among states. “It is one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have,” LaRose said. “It’s a tool that has provided great benefit for us, and we’re going to continue to use it.” Well, that was then. On March 17, LaRose announced Ohio was quitting ERIC. It’s among a half-dozen Republican-controlled states that have left this year, including five just this month. As a result, election officials are worried that one of the most effective sources of voter information available to states — and a rare bipartisan success story over the past decade — has been undermined. “It’s going to leave you in a position of not having a tool you can use to prevent voter fraud,” says John Merrill, a Republican who served as Alabama’s secretary of state until January. “It’s going to be a major concern for states that are concerned with election integrity.”

Full Article: How Election Deniers Are Making Voter Fraud Easier

National: State election officials at U.S. Senate hearing discuss threats to workers, call for funding | Ariana Figueroa/New Jersey Monitor

Election officials on Tuesday detailed to the U.S. Senate Rules Committee how their states countered threats to election workers and worked to combat misinformation and disinformation during the 2022 midterm election. With the 2024 presidential election closely approaching, Senate Rules Committee Chair Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she was concerned about threats to election workers and disinformation campaigns that aim to undermine elections. Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said it was important to hear from election officials from those states — North Carolina, South Carolina, New Mexico and Nebraska — to help prepare for the 2024 elections. “In the face of these challenges, it is important as ever that we continue to support election officials as they do their jobs to uphold our democracy,” she said. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said the “big lie” has had an effect on election workers, because many have left due to threats and harassment.

Full Article: State election officials at U.S. Senate hearing discuss threats to workers, call for funding – New Jersey Monitor

National: Bipartisan former members of Congress call for boost in funding to secure elections | Jennifer Shutt/Kansas Reflector

A bipartisan group of former U.S. lawmakers on the National Council on Election Integrity called on Congress on Friday to spend $400 million on election integrity to insulate the system from foreign interference. “The Department of Homeland Security designated our election system as critical infrastructure in 2017,” the four wrote in a letter. “However, that designation was not accompanied by regular or adequate federal funding.” “In each of the last two years, Congress appropriated just $75 million for Election Security Grants — a fraction of the funds needed to secure our elections in this dynamic threat environment,” they added. The co-chairs of the council — former Virginia Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, former Maryland Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards, former Indiana Democratic Rep. Tim Roemer and former Tennessee Republican Rep. Zach Wamp — wrote in the letter they are “deeply concerned that election officials are currently not receiving the federal support that they need to strengthen and secure federal elections in 2024 and beyond.” The National Council on Election Integrity, which began ahead of the 2020 presidential elections, includes about 40 civic and political leaders focused on “defending the legitimacy of our free and fair elections,” according to its website.

Full Article: Bipartisan former members of Congress call for boost in funding to secure elections – Kansas Reflector

National: Fox lawsuit highlights effects of conspiracies on Dominion | Christina A. Cassidy and Jonathan J. Cooper/Associated Press

In Arizona’s most populous county, elected officials are bracing for what could happen when it comes time to replace its $2 million-a-year contract for voting equipment. Officials in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, say they have no concerns about their current vendor, Dominion Voting Systems. The problem is that the company has been ensnared in a web of conspiracy theories since the 2020 presidential race that have undermined public confidence in U.S. elections among conservative voters, led to calls to ban voting machines in some places and triggered death threats against election officials across the country. “I have concerns over my own personal security if we re-enlist Dominion,” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican elected in 2020, said in a court filing. “It went from a company that nobody had heard about to a company that is maybe one of the most demonized brands in the United States or the world.” That sudden turnabout in fortunes for the Colorado-based voting machine company is at the heart of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit it has filed against Fox News, with the trial scheduled to begin in mid-April. Dominion claims Fox defamed it by repeatedly airing false claims about the company’s voting machines and software. Court records and testimony revealed that several Fox hosts and executives didn’t believe the claims pushed by former President Donald Trump and his allies since the 2020 election but continued to air them, in part because they were worried about losing viewers.

Full Article: Fox lawsuit highlights effects of conspiracies on Dominion | AP News

National: How to Protect American Democracy | Lawrence Norden and Derek Tisler/Foreign Affairs

The 2016 presidential election made clear that American democracy is vulnerable to interference by foreign adversaries. In response, officials at all levels of government moved quickly to strengthen protections for the vote. In 2020, the danger of domestic attacks came into greater focus, with the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 serving as a frightening wake-up call. The antidemocratic and violent forces unleashed that day have not faded away. Instead, the threat has metastasized. For the past two years, prominent voices have continued to spread lies about the electoral system and the results of the 2020 election. Election workers have experienced ongoing harassment and violence. There have also been instances of “insider threats,” where a small number of election workers have themselves propagated false election information and taken actions that directly threaten election integrity. The good news is that the 2022 congressional midterms stalled the momentum of those denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Election deniers running to take over election administration in battleground states mostly lost their races, and across the country, voting was remarkably peaceful.

Full Article: How to Protect American Democracy | Foreign Affairs

National: CISA: Election Security Still Under Threat at Cyber and Physical Level | Alexandra Kelley/Nextgov

Federal cyber leadership doubled down on the need to continue to fortify election security at both the local and national level as threats from foreign and domestic actors will still be a problem ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “We face continuing threats from a growing number of foreign state sponsored threat actors intent on targeting our election infrastructure and voters through cyber activity and malign foreign influence operations,” Kim Wyman, the senior advisor for election security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said during a panel discussion hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles, on Friday. Wyman said that in the wake of the tumultuous 2016 presidential election, the security of the digital election infrastructure of the U.S. has made “incredible progress” in improving voting systems’ resiliency. She also noted that while law enforcement and regulatory bodies saw “no evidence” of deleted or lost votes within the 2022 election, state-sponsored threats were documented. “We did however, see activity from sophisticated state sponsored threat actors that is cause for continued vigilance,” she said. “Our adversaries continue to see our elections as opportunities for interference and influence.”

Full Article: CISA: Election Security Still Under Threat at Cyber and Physical Level – Nextgov

National: Election conspiracy movement grinds on as 2024 approaches | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

One by one, the presenters inside the crowded hotel ballroom shared their computer screens and promised to show how easy it is to hack into voting systems across the U.S. Drawing gasps from the crowd, they highlighted theoretical vulnerabilities and problems from past elections. But instead of tailoring their efforts to improve election security, they argued that all voting machines should be eliminated — a message that was wrapped in conspiracies about elections being rigged to favor certain candidates. “We are at war. The only thing that’s not flying right now is bullets,” said Mark Finchem, a Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona last year who continues to contest his loss and was the final speaker of the daylong conference. Finchem was among a group of Republican candidates running for governor, secretary of state or state attorney who disputed the outcome of the 2020 election and who lost in a clean sweep last November in important political battleground states, including Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Yet deep distrust about U.S. elections persists among Republicans, skepticism fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims and by allies who have been traveling the country meeting with community groups and holding forums like the one recently just outside Nashville, attended by some 250 people.

Full Article: Election conspiracy movement grinds on as 2024 approaches | AP News

National: Election Officials Call for Action to Protect Democracy | Suzanne Potter/Public News Service

American democracy is in mortal danger as the 2024 election approaches, according to experts at a conference held at the University of California, Los Angeles on Friday. Millions of Americans still believe the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and the insurrection that took place on January 6th of 2021 proves that some are willing to resort to violence. UCLA Law Professor Rick Hasen organized the conference and said some groups are actively working against the will of the voters. “Elections deniers won office in non-swing states, and many are in Congress,” said Hasen. “Local election officials have shared voting machine code with conspiracy theorists, and some local election boards have tried to require the hand count of ballots or refuse to certify election results.” In December, Congress passed reforms to the Electoral Count Act of 1887 – a rare bipartisan move to make it harder to attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election, as former President Trump did in 2020. Republicans have defeated Democratic proposals to reduce the influence of money in politics and expand access to voting.

Full Article: Election Officials Call for Action to Protect Democracy / Public News Service

National: Trump-commissioned report undercut his claims of dead and double voters | Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post

When Donald Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in a now-infamous bid to overturn the 2020 election, he alleged that thousands of dead people had voted in the state. “So dead people voted, and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters,” he said, without citing his study. But a report commissioned by his own campaign dated one day prior told a different story: Researchers paid by Trump’s team had “high confidence” of only nine dead voters in Fulton County, defined as ballots that may have been cast by someone else in the name of a deceased person. They believed there was a “potential statewide exposure” of 23 such votes across the Peach State — or 4,977 fewer than the “minimum” Trump claimed. In a separate failed bid to overturn the results in Nevada, Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing that 1,506 ballots were cast in the names of dead people and 42,284 voted twice. Trump lost the Silver State by about 33,000 votes. The researchers paid by Trump’s team had “high confidence” that 12 ballots were cast in the names of deceased people in Clark County, Nev., and believed the “high end potential exposure” was 20 voters statewide — some 1,486 fewer than Trump’s lawyers said.

Full Article: Trump-commissioned report undercut his claims of dead and double voters – The Washington Post

National: Florida Election Fraud Police Spur Copycats in Republican-Led States | Ryan Teague Beckwith/Bloomberg

Four Republican-led states are working to add new police agencies specifically to target voter fraud, following the example set by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Florida’s elections cop squad has faltered in its most high-profile cases since launching in July. But that hasn’t slowed down state legislators in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and Arkansas who have proposed bills that would create new police agencies to investigate voter fraud, an exceedingly rare crime typically handled by local police and elections officials. The proposals under consideration in the legislatures follow national moves by Republican lawmakers over the last three years to criminalize elections law by imbuing prosecutors with new powers, expanding the list of election-related crimes and beefing up punishments for technical violations. In Missouri and Ohio, the bills would create election police as part of the office of the secretary of state, currently both Republicans. In Arkansas, they would report to the attorney general, a Republican. In Texas, three different bills would create a statewide network of election marshals. Virginia’s Republican attorney general created an Election Integrity Unit last fall as well without the need of legislation.

Full Article: DeSantis’s Election Fraud Police Spur Copycats in Republican-Led States – Bloomberg

National: Where Dominion v. Fox Could Lead | Amy Davidson Sorkin/The New Yorker

Contested elections can have unexpected legacies. After the recount of the 2000 Presidential election results in Palm Beach County, Florida, a Canadian electrical engineer named John Poulos was struck, like most people, by what a mess it was. These were the days of the so-called Brooks Brothers riot and a Supreme Court fight that awarded Florida’s electoral votes to George W. Bush. Poulos was unimpressed by the voting technology, which featured poorly designed punch-card ballots that yielded hanging and dimpled chads, and overcounts and undercounts. During the next couple of years, he worked on building a better voting machine. He founded a company and, looking for a name, turned to the Dominion Elections Act of 1920, which had enfranchised many Canadian women. “We thought that would be a nice homage to helping voters vote,” he told Fortune. Dominion Voting Systems is now reaching a decisive stage in a defamation lawsuit it has filed against Fox News and its parent, Fox Corporation, whose chairman is Rupert Murdoch. Dominion has asked for compensatory damages of as much as $1.6 billion—a figure that may change—saying that Fox and its on-air personalities promoted an “inherently improbable and demonstrably false preconceived narrative” that it had been involved in a grand scheme to rig the 2020 Presidential election. A Delaware Superior Court judge, Eric Davis, will hear arguments for summary judgment this week. If the case moves forward, a trial should begin in April. In many ways, it’s puzzling that Fox has allowed the case to proceed this far. The evidence that has been made public in pre-trial filings, including internal texts and e-mails, could hurt its standing with almost every imaginable constituency, including its core audience. In one text, the host Tucker Carlson said of Donald Trump, “I hate him passionately.”

Full Article: Where Dominion v. Fox Could Lead | The New Yorker

National: Supreme Court urged by DOJ and other parties to sidestep independent state legislature dispute | Ariane de Vogue/CNN

As the Supreme Court deliberates behind closed doors over a case that many believe could be one of the most consequential voting rights disputes ever to reach the high court, the Justice Department and some other parties involved are suggesting the case be dismissed due to major developments since oral arguments. If the justices were to ultimately remove the case from the docket it would sidestep a major dispute over the so-called the Independent State Legislature theory pushed by conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump after the 2020 election for now. The case has captured the nation’s attention, because Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are asking the justices to adopt a long dormant legal theory and rule that state courts and other state entities have a limited role in reviewing election rules established by state legislatures when it comes to federal elections. Critics say the Independent State Legislature theory could revolutionize electoral politics going forward if fully adopted and could lead to state legislatures having absolute authority in the area without the necessary judicial oversight.

Full Article: Supreme Court urged by DOJ and other parties to sidestep independent state legislature dispute | CNN Politics

National: Moving to Evidence-Based Elections | Barbara Simons and Poorvi Vora/National Academies

In most jurisdictions things went relatively smoothly in the November 2022 midterms, but serious issues, both technical and political, remain. As we discuss below, elections may be made more transparent and secure through the use of voter-marked paper ballots and rigorous postelection audits. The midterm elections were not as contentious as many had feared, but harassment of election officials and poll workers of both political parties has persisted. For example, on election night Bill Gates, the Republican chair of the Maricopa County (AZ) governing board, had to go into hiding because of threats. In Cobb County, GA, a suspect was arrested for interfering with poll workers and slapping a voter. Police were called in Cascade County, MT, because protesters were circling outside waiting for election officials. And an Arizona judge ordered masked and armed “observers” to keep some distance from ballot drop boxes. Safety fears have triggered election official resignations and made recruitment of poll workers more difficult. In addition, unanticipated technical problems occurred and are likely to continue to occur in every large election. Fast and accurate information is needed to explain both the problems and, where feasible, the workarounds. For example, in Maricopa County, some polling place printers produced blank ballots (for voters to mark by hand) that were too faint for the polling place scanners to read (they were readable by central scanners). Although the printing problem generated conspiracy theories among some, election officials and the press quickly informed voters that they could deposit their completed ballots in ballot boxes for later tabulation. Or they could vote at a different location if they first surrendered their marked ballot.

Full Article: Moving to Evidence-Based Elections | National Academies

National: How the backbone of American elections is being upended | Zach Montellaro/Politico

A bipartisan behind-the-scenes organization that helps states maintain their voter rolls is facing an uncertain future, after several Republican-led states left the group. The board of the Electronic Registration Information Center — or ERIC — is meeting on Friday, as the remaining members of the organization try to chart the organization’s path following the high-profile departures of Florida, West Virginia and Missouri earlier this month. Some officials fear more states are eyeing the door. The division roiling ERIC is just the latest example of a previously apolitical organization involved in fostering cooperation on the mechanics of running elections, finding life a lot more dramatic in the post-Trump world. At risk: the upending of the backbone of the nation’s electoral system. Over the last year, five states with Republican chief election officials — Louisiana, Alabama, West Virginia, Missouri and Florida — all left ERIC. Some states have used outwardly conspiratorial-minded reasons for leaving — citing a secretive plot by liberals to take control of voter rolls. Other complaints are more about the structure of the organization bubbling to the surface, which defenders of the organization say is being used as a false pretense to leave.

Full Article: How the backbone of American elections is being upended – POLITICO

National: At center of Fox News lawsuit, Sidney Powell and a ‘wackadoodle’ email | Sarah Ellison and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

A day after major news organizations declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential race, a Sunday-morning guest on Fox News was holding forth on exotic and baseless claims of election fraud — allegedly deceased voters, ballots supposedly lacking an option to vote for Donald Trump, an “affidavit” from a postal worker claiming to have postdated mail-in ballots — when host Maria Bartiromo pressed for more details. “Sidney, we talked about the Dominion software,” Bartiromo said on the Nov. 8, 2020, broadcast. “I know that there were voting irregularities. Tell me about that.” The guest was Sidney Powell, a Texas-based lawyer who would soon be ambiguously connected to the Trump legal team mustered to challenge the election results. She stared stiffly into the lights of a satellite TV studio but answered without hesitation. “That’s putting it mildly,” Powell replied. “The computer glitches could not and should not have happened at all. That’s where the fraud took place, where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist.”

Full Article: At center of Fox News lawsuit, Sidney Powell and a ‘wackadoodle’ email – The Washington Post

National: Half of 2020 GOP election deniers admit no ‘solid evidence’ for their belief | Aaron Blake/The Washington Post

Sidney Powell has tacitly conceded that she didn’t have the proof of a stolen election that she claimed. Former Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis has now explicitly acknowledged that. And it turns out the GOP base as a whole is increasingly admitting it to themselves — that its continued belief in a stolen election is largely just about vibes. A new CNN poll shows the false belief that President Biden’s 2020 win over Donald Trump was illegitimate remains strong among Republicans and GOP-leaning voters; 63 percent continue to say that, while 37 percent acknowledge Biden’s legitimate victory. But as this question has been asked over time, something notable has happened: These voters have increasingly acknowledged there is no “solid evidence” for their belief. Shortly after such beliefs led to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, 71 percent of Republican-leaning voters told CNN’s pollsters that Biden’s win was illegitimate — slightly higher than today.

Full Article: Half of 2020 GOP election deniers admit no ‘solid evidence’ for their belief – The Washington Post

National: Postal Service’s Election Mail Program Receives Top Honor | Marti Johnson/USPS

The U.S. Postal Service has received the Public Service Award for its Election Mail program from the nonpartisan Election Verification Network. The award is given every year to a public official or governmental unit for protecting and promoting election integrity and verifiable elections. “This award is further confirmation of the Postal Service’s deep commitment and great success in delivering the nation’s ballots securely and on time,” said Postmaster General and CEO Louis DeJoy. “We take pride in the role our organization plays in the election process. The American people can continue to feel confident in using the U.S. Mail to fulfill their democratic duty to vote.” The Election Verification Network is comprised of election officials, researchers and advocates focused on secure, transparent and verifiable elections. “The award is additional recognition of the Postal Service’s successful processing and delivery of Election Mail, which has grown exponentially in recent years,” said Adrienne Marshall, the Postal Service’s director of election and government mail services. “Our 635,000 employees are proud to provide this service for customers who choose to use the U.S. Mail to participate in the democratic process.”

Full Article: Postal Service’s Election Mail Program Receives Top Honor – Newsroom – About.usps.com

National: Is anyone investigating Trump allies’ multi-state effort to access election systems? | Sarah D. Wire/Los Angeles Times

As news trickled out that former President Trump’s supporters had organized to access federally protected election machines, and copied sensitive information and software, election expert Susan Greenhalgh waited for FBI or Justice Department leaders to announce an investigation. “It just seemed so stunning that we thought, well of course there’s going to be a big reaction and the government is going to investigate,” said Greenhalgh, senior advisor on election security for the nonprofit Free Speech For People. When months passed with no such announcement, Greenhalgh and over a dozen other election experts wrote a 14-page letter to Justice Department leaders in December outlining what they called a “multi-state conspiracy to copy voting software” and asking the agency to open an investigation. Greenhalgh was baffled when she received a terse, noncommittal response from the FBI a month later that seemed to indicate no action had been or would be taken at the federal level.

Full Article: Who’s probing Trump allies’ effort to access voting systems? – Los Angeles Times

National: G.O.P. States Abandon Bipartisan Voting Integrity Group, Yielding to Conspiracy Theories | Neil Vigdor/The New York Times

First to leave was Louisiana, followed by Alabama. Then, in one fell swoop, Florida, Missouri and West Virginia announced on Monday that they would drop out of a bipartisan network of about 30 states that helps maintain accurate voter rolls, one that has faced intensifying attacks from election deniers and right-wing media. Ohio may not be far behind, according to a letter sent to the group Monday from the state’s chief election official, Frank LaRose. Mr. LaRose and his counterparts in the five states that left the group are all Republicans. For more than a year, the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit organization known as ERIC, has been hit with false claims from allies of former President Donald J. Trump who say it is a voter registration vehicle for Democrats that received money from George Soros, the liberal billionaire and philanthropist, when it was created in 2012. Mr. Trump even chimed in on Monday, urging all Republican governors to sever ties with the group, baselessly claiming in a Truth Social media post that it “pumps the rolls” for Democrats. The Republicans who announced their states were leaving the group cited complaints about governance issues, chiefly that it mails newly eligible voters who have not registered ahead of federal elections. They also accused the group of opening itself up to a partisan influence.

Full Artifcle: G.O.P. States Abandon Group That Helps Fight Voter Fraud – The New York Times

National: Some Election Officials Refused to Certify Results. Few Were Held Accountable. | Doug Bock Clark/ProPublica

A week and a half after last November’s vote, members of the Board of Elections in Surry County, North Carolina, gathered in a windowless room to certify the results. It was supposed to be a routine task, marking the end of a controversial season during which election deniers harassed and retaliated against the county’s elections director. Not long into the meeting, however, a staffer distributed a letter from two board members stating that they were refusing to certify. According to the letter, the two members had decided — “with regard for the sacred blood shed of both my Redeemer and His servants” and “past Patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice”— that they “must not call these election results credible and bow to the perversion of truth.” In their view, a federal judge who’d struck down a North Carolina voter ID law for discriminating against minorities had transformed the state’s election laws into “a grotesque and perverse sham.” Tim DeHaan, one of the two board members who signed the letter, explained at the meeting, “We feel the election was held according to the law that we have, but that the law is not right.” This argument failed to win over the three Democratic board members, according to a recording of the meeting. DeHaan eventually agreed to join the three on a technicality, and the board certified the election with a 4-1 vote. Jerry Forestieri, the Republican board secretary who also signed the letter, held out.

Full Article: Some Election Officials Refused to Certify Results. Few Were Held Accountable. — ProPublica

National: Trump Lawyer Admits to Falsehoods in 2020 Fraud Claims | Alan Feuer/The New York Times

Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who represented President Donald J. Trump after his loss in the 2020 election, admitted in a sworn statement released on Wednesday that she had knowingly misrepresented the facts in several of her public claims that widespread voting fraud led to Mr. Trump’s defeat. The admissions by Ms. Ellis were part of an agreement to accept public censure and settle disciplinary measures brought against her by state bar officials in Colorado, her home state. Last year, the officials opened an investigation of Ms. Ellis after a complaint from the 65 Project, a bipartisan legal watchdog group. The group accused her of professional misconduct in her efforts to help Mr. Trump promote his claims of voting fraud and undertake “a concerted effort to overturn the legitimate 2020 presidential election results.” An earlier complaint about Ms. Ellis had been filed by a lawyer, Benjamin Woods. According to the sworn statement on Wednesday, some of Ms. Ellis’s lies about election fraud were made during appearances on Fox News, several of whose top hosts and executives were recently shown to have disparaged Mr. Trump’s fraud claims in private even though they supported them in public. The revelations about these discrepancies have emerged in a series of court filings by Dominion Voting Systems, a voting-machine company that filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox for promoting a conspiracy theory about its role in the election results.

Full Article: Trump Lawyer Admits to Falsehoods in 2020 Fraud Claims – The New York Times

National: Election conspiracies fuel dispute over voter fraud system | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

A bipartisan effort among states to combat voter fraud has found itself in the crosshairs of conspiracy theories fueled by Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election and now faces an uncertain future. One state has dropped out, a second is in the process of doing so and a handful of other Republican-led states are deciding whether to stay. The aim of the Electronic Registration Information Center, a voluntary system known as ERIC, has been to help member states maintain accurate lists of registered voters by sharing data that allows officials to identify and remove people who have died or moved to other states. Reports also help states identify and ultimately prosecute people who vote in multiple states. In Maryland, state election officials have received reports through the system identifying some 66,000 potentially deceased voters and 778,000 people who may have moved out of state since 2013. In Georgia, the system is credited with providing data to remove nearly 100,000 voters no longer eligible to vote in the state. Yet the effort to improve election integrity and thwart voter fraud has become a target of suspicion among some Republicans after a series of online posts early last year questioning its funding and purpose.

Full Article: Election conspiracies fuel dispute over voter fraud system | AP News

National: Failing at polls, election deniers focus on state GOP posts | Nicholas Riccardi and Joey Cappelletti/Associated Press

In a basement event space in the Denver suburb of Parker, Tina Peters surveyed a crowd of Colorado Republicans last week and made an unusual pitch for why she should become chair of their beleaguered party: “There’s no way a jury of 12 people is going to put me in prison.” Peters was referring to her upcoming trial on seven felony charges related to her role in allegedly accessing confidential voting machine data while she was clerk in western Colorado’s Mesa County. The incident made her a hero to election conspiracy theorists but unpopular with all but her party’s hardest-core voters. Peters, who condemns the charges as politically motivated, finished second in last year’s GOP primary for secretary of state, Colorado’s top elections position. Now Peters has become part of a wave of election deniers who, unable to succeed at the polls, have targeted the one post — state party chair — that depends entirely on those hardest-core Republicans. Embracing election conspiracy theories was a political albatross for Republicans in states that weren’t completely red last year, with deniers losing every statewide bid in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But the movement has focused on GOP state party chairs — positions that usually are selected by only dedicated activists and have the power to influence the party’s presidential nominating contest and some aspects of election operations, such as recruiting poll watchers.

Full Article: Failing at polls, election deniers focus on state GOP posts | AP News

National: DHS to require election security spending in homeland security grants | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

States that receive funding this year from the Department of Homeland Security’s main grant programming will be required to spend at least 3% of their awards on safeguarding elections, according to documents published Monday. A notice of funding opportunity for the fiscal 2023 iteration of the Homeland Security Grant Program stipulates that states and localities must now commit at least that much toward a slew of election-security concerns, including cybersecurity, physical protections for voting equipment and polling locations and prevention of harassment and threats against election workers. Cybersecurity continues to be a primary area of concern for many statewide and local election officials and federal cybersecurity authorities. At a recent gathering of the National Association of Secretaries of State, Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said that while last year’s election cycle was again free of any compromise by foreign malicious actors, officials remain wary of potential threats, particularly “more significant Chinese cyber activity against your states in the coming year.” And as hacking worries have lingered, election administrators have also in recent years grappled with a rise of insider threats — often motivated by baseless conspiracy theories about voting technology — and risks of physical violence and targeted harassment.

Full Article: DHS to require election security spending in homeland security grants | StateScoop

National: Supreme Court requests more briefs in case over independent state legislature theory | Melissa Quinn/CBS

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered North Carolina Republican leaders, the Biden administration and voting rights groups to file additional briefs in a closely watched elections case it heard in December, at the center of which is a theory that would grant state legislatures near-exclusive power to set rules for federal elections. In a brief order, the court called for the parties involved in the dispute and the Justice Department to file “supplemental letter briefs” addressing the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over the case, given that the North Carolina Supreme Court has agreed to rehear the redistricting dispute at its center. On the one side of the legal fight are North Carolina Republican legislative leaders, and on the other side are voting rights groups, North Carolina voters and state elections officials. The Justice Department backed voting rights groups in the case. The court set a deadline of March 20 for the additional filings to be submitted.

Full Article: Supreme Court requests more briefs in case over independent state legislature theory – CBS News

National: Murdoch Acknowledges Fox News Hosts Endorsed Election Fraud Falsehoods | Jeremy W. Peters and Katie Robertson/The New York Times

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump, and that he could have stopped them but didn’t, court documents released on Monday showed. “They endorsed,” Mr. Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, according to a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” he added, while also disclosing that he was always dubious of Mr. Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud. Asked whether he doubted Mr. Trump, Mr. Murdoch responded: “Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up.” At the same time, he rejected the accusation that Fox News as a whole had endorsed the stolen election narrative. “Not Fox,” he said. “No. Not Fox.” Mr. Murdoch’s remarks, which he made last month as part of Dominion’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, added to the evidence that Dominion has accumulated as it tries to prove its central allegation: The people running the country’s most popular news network knew Mr. Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election were false but broadcast them anyway in a reckless pursuit of ratings and profit.

Full Article: Murdoch Acknowledges Fox News Hosts Endorsed Election Fraud Falsehoods – The New York Times