National

A task force launched by the Justice Department last year to investigate threats against election workers looked at more than 1,000 contacts “reported as hostile or harassing” and said about 11% of those “met the threshold for a federal criminal investigation.” The findings were presented at a briefing on Monday with US Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite and a bipartisan group of about 750 election officials and workers from across the country as they prepare for the midterm elections. The Election Threats Task Force, which was created last year to address an increasing number of election workers’ concerns over ongoing threats against them, also found that in instances where a source of reported contact was identified, “in 50% of the matters, the source contacted the victim on multiple occasions.” Aside from the 11% of the contacts that merited a federal investigation, “the remaining reported contacts did not provide a predication for a federal criminal investigation,” the Justice Department said in a news release announcing the findings on Monday. “While many of the contacts were often hostile, harassing, and abusive towards election officials, they did not include a threat of unlawful violence.”

National: Momentum Builds for Overhaul of Rules Governing the Electoral Count | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

Determined to prevent a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, backers of an overhaul of the federal law governing the count of presidential electoral ballots pressed lawmakers on Wednesday to repair the flaws that President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to exploit to reverse the 2020 results. “There is nothing more essential to the orderly transfer of power than clear rules for effecting it,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and one of the lead authors of a bill to update the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act, said Wednesday as the Senate Rules Committee began its review of the legislation. “I urge my colleagues in the Senate and the House to seize this opportunity to enact the sensible and much-needed reforms before the end of this Congress.” Backers of the legislation, which has significant bipartisan support in the Senate, believe that a Republican takeover of the House in November and the beginning of the 2024 presidential election cycle could make it impossible to make major election law changes in the next Congress. They worry that, unless the outdated statute is changed, the shortcomings exposed by Mr. Trump’s unsuccessful effort to interfere with the counting of electoral votes could allow another effort to subvert the presidential election. “The Electoral Count Act of 1887 just turned out to be more troublesome, potentially, than anybody had thought,” said Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the senior Republican on the rules panel. “The language of 1887 is really outdated and vague in so many ways. Both sides of the aisle want to update this act.”

Full Article: Lawmakers Urge Electoral Count Changes to Fix Flaws Trump Exploited – The New York Times

National: Pro-Trump activists swamp election officials with sprawling records requests | Nathan Layne/Reuters

Pro-Trump operatives are flooding local officials with public-records requests to seek evidence for the former president’s false stolen-election claims and to gather intelligence on voting machines and voters, adding to the chaos rocking the U.S. election system. The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Arizona, an election battleground state, has fielded 498 public records requests this year – 130 more than all of last year. Officials in Washoe County, Nevada, have fielded 88 public records requests, two-thirds more than in all of 2021. And the number of requests to North Carolina’s state elections board have already nearly equaled last year’s total of 229. The surge of requests is overwhelming staffs that oversee elections in some jurisdictions, fueling baseless voter-fraud allegations and raising concerns about the inadvertent release of information that could be used to hack voting systems, according to a dozen election officials interviewed by Reuters. Republican and Democratic election officials said they consider some of the requests an abuse of freedom-of-information laws meant to ensure government transparency. Records requests facing many of the country’s 8,800 election offices have become “voluminous and daunting” since the 2020 election, said Kim Wyman, head of election security at the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Last year, when she left her job as Washington secretary of state, the state’s top election official, her office had a two-year backlog of records requests.

Full Article: Pro-Trump activists swamp election officials with sprawling records requests | Reuters

National: Research suggests one way to fight voting misinformation | Miles Parks/NPR

For election officials, falsehoods about America’s voting process can feel like a game of whack-a-mole. “There’s just so much that is incorrect that they just keep repeating and repeating and repeating,” one Colorado voting official told NPR recently. “And then as soon as I have absolutely blocked off that path with actual correct information, then they just move that goal post. And they keep just moving the goal posts.” But it’s clear this “game” has massive stakes. A Justice Department official said in a Senate hearing this week that the federal law enforcement agency had reviewed more than a thousand hostile threats against election workers over the past year. And in a separate congressional hearing, lawmakers mulled how to make the presidential election certification process less vulnerable to partisan hijacking. In what has essentially become an information war for the future of democracy, people driven by misinformation are acting on it to harass election workers and subvert the will of the voters. And election officials have struggled to find an effective message to fight back.

Full Article: Research suggests one way to fight voting misinformation : NPR

National: As Midterms Loom, Congress Fears Domestic Disinformation | Jule Pattison-Gordon/GovTech

Federal lawmakers are looking to learn more about combating mis- and disinformation as midterm elections approach. Domestic sources have emerged as the greatest perpetrators of falsehoods, said several witnesses during a July 27 House hearing. “ISD research suggests domestic disinformation targets Americans at a higher volume and frequency than foreign campaigns,” testified Jiore Craig, head of digital integrity at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank that analyzes extremism. Domestic actors can be particularly convincing. For example, some social media ads tout election falsehoods while featuring trustworthy-sounding organization names and, without permission, displaying images of trusted public figures, Craig said. “Much domestic disinformation is well-resourced, references real-world people and events, and deliberately uses social media product features like targeted advertising, recommendation systems and ‘explore’ feeds that are opt-in by default to seed disinformation,” Craig said in written testimony.

Full Article: As Midterms Loom, Congress Fears Domestic Disinformation

National: How Six States Could Overturn the 2024 Election | Barton Gellman/The Atlantic

Late last month, in one of its final acts of the term, the Supreme Court queued up another potentially precedent-wrecking decision for next year. The Court’s agreement to hear Moore v. Harper, a North Carolina redistricting case, isn’t just bad news for efforts to control gerrymandering. The Court’s right-wing supermajority is poised to let state lawmakers overturn voters’ choice in presidential elections. To understand the stakes, and the motives of Republicans who brought the case, you need only one strategic fact of political arithmetic. Six swing states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina—are trending blue in presidential elections but ruled by gerrymandered Republican state legislatures. No comparable red-trending states are locked into Democratic legislatures. Joe Biden won five of those six swing states in 2020. Donald Trump then tried and failed, lawlessly, to muscle the GOP state legislators into discarding Biden’s victory and appointing Trump electors instead. The Moore case marks the debut in the nation’s highest court of a dubious theory that could give Republicans legal cover in 2024 to do as Trump demanded in 2020. And if democracy is subverted in just a few states, it can overturn the election nationwide.

Full Article: How Six States Could Overturn the 2024 Election – The Atlantic

Georgia: Trump Lawyer Proposed Challenging Senate Elections in Search of Fraud | Maggie Haberman and Luke Broadwater/The New York Times

John Eastman, the conservative lawyer whose plan to block congressional certification of the 2020 election failed in spectacular fashion on Jan. 6, 2021, sent an email two weeks later arguing that pro-Trump forces should sue to keep searching for the supposed election fraud he acknowledged they had failed to find. On Jan. 20, 2021, hours after President Biden’s inauguration, Mr. Eastman emailed Rudolph W. Giuliani, former President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, proposing that they challenge the outcome of the runoff elections in Georgia for two Senate seats that had been won on Jan. 5 by Democrats. “A lot of us have now staked our reputations on the claims of election fraud, and this would be a way to gather proof,” Mr. Eastman wrote in the previously undisclosed email, which also went to others, including a top Trump campaign adviser. “If we get proof of fraud on Jan. 5, it will likely also demonstrate the fraud on Nov. 3, thereby vindicating President Trump’s claims and serving as a strong bulwark against Senate impeachment trial.” The email, which was reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who worked on the Trump campaign at the time, is the latest evidence that even some of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters knew they had not proven their baseless claims of widespread voting fraud — but wanted to continue their efforts to delegitimize the outcome even after Mr. Biden had taken office.

Full Article: John Eastman Proposed Challenging Georgia Senate Elections in Search of Fraud – The New York Times

State elections officials struggle with paper shortages, harassment, insider threats | Kira Lerner/Idaho Capital Sun

Elections officials from 33 states, gathered for a conference under tight security, warned that the next few election cycles will be affected by paper shortages and the potential for threats from inside elections offices. The meeting of the National Association of State Elections Directors last week was held with stringent security precautions, given the ongoing threats and harassment faced by elections officials across the country in the years since the 2020 election. Organizers didn’t publicly share the location of the meeting and attendees were instructed to keep name badges visible inside the conference rooms, but not to wear them outside the hotel. NASED executive director Amy Cohen said the group coordinated with federal, state, and local law enforcement for the event to protect the attendees who are dealing with serious security concerns. “Not every one of our members is dealing with the same level of concern, but when you’re all together, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s the transitive property of risk.” Cohen said she worked closely with a physical security adviser for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a federal agency which also sent representatives to the conference to give a presentation for election officials on the resources they have available to help them ensure the security of their election systems.

Full Article: State elections officials struggle with paper shortages, harassment, insider threats – Idaho Capital Sun

National: The Fake Electors Scheme, Explained | Alan Feuer and Katie Benner/The New York Times

The brazen plan to create false slates of electors pledged to former President Donald J. Trump in seven swing states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. was arguably the longest-running and most expansive of the multiple efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It was also one of the most confusing, involving a sprawling cast of pro-Trump lawyers, state Republican officials and White House aides in an effort that began before some states had even finished counting their ballots. It culminated in the campaign to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use the false slates to subvert congressional certification of the outcome on Jan. 6, 2021 — and in the violent attack on the Capitol that unfolded as he refused to do so. The scheme had a vague historical precedent and was rooted, at least in theory, in a post-Reconstruction Era law designed to address how to handle disputed elections. But it was deemed illegal by Mr. Trump’s own White House Counsel’s Office. Even some of the lawyers who helped come up with the idea referred to it as fake and acknowledged that it was of dubious legality, according to a cache of email messages brought to light by The New York Times. The fake electors tactic caught the attention of state law enforcement officials around the beginning of this year, and soon became a focus of the inquiry being conducted by the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6. The plan has also figured prominently in an investigation that an Atlanta-area prosecutor is conducting into Mr. Trump’s alleged election meddling. And it is at the heart of the Justice Department’s own wide-ranging Jan. 6 inquiry.

Full Article: The Fake Electors Scheme, Explained – The New York Times

National: Garland promises ‘justice without fear or favor’ as DoJ digs into Trump’s January 6 role | Martin Pengelly/The Guardian

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said he would “pursue justice without fear or favor” in his decision on whether to charge Donald Trump with crimes related to the Capitol attack and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, as news reports indicate the justice department’s investigation is heating up. The department is conducting a criminal investigation into the events surrounding and preceding the January 6 insurrection, an effort that Garland – speaking to NBC’s Lester Holt on Tuesday – called “the most wide-ranging investigation in its history”. News reports on Tuesday suggested the inquiry is homing in on Trump’s role. The Washington Post reported – according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity – that investigators have specifically questioned witnesses about Trump’s involvement in schemes to overturn the vote, and received the phone records of Trump officials and aides, including former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. The New York Times also reported that federal investigators had directly questioned witnesses about Trump’s efforts, signaling an escalation. Responding to criticism that it is not acting quickly enough, Garland told NBC that the department was “moving urgently to learn everything we can learn about this period, and to bring to justice everybody who is criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power … which is the fundamental element of our democracy”.

Full Article: Garland promises ‘justice without fear or favor’ as DoJ digs into Trump’s January 6 role | Merrick Garland | The Guardian

National: 2020 Election Deniers Seek Out Powerful Allies: County Sheriffs | Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

An influential network of conservative activists fixated on the idea that former President Donald J. Trump won the 2020 election is working to recruit county sheriffs to investigate elections based on the false notion that voter fraud is widespread. The push, which two right-wing sheriffs’ groups have already endorsed, seeks to lend law enforcement credibility to the false claims and has alarmed voting rights advocates. They warn that it could cause chaos in future elections and further weaken trust in an American voting system already battered by attacks from Mr. Trump and his allies. One of the conservative sheriffs’ groups, Protect America Now, lists about 70 members, and the other, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, does not list its membership but says it conducted trainings on various issues for about 300 of the nation’s roughly 3,000 sheriffs in recent years. It is unclear how many sheriffs will ultimately wade into election matters. Many aligned with the groups are from small, rural counties. But at least three sheriffs involved in the effort — in Michigan, Kansas and Wisconsin — have already been carrying out their own investigations, clashing with election officials who warn that they are overstepping their authority and meddling in an area where they have little expertise.

Full Article: 2020 Election Deniers Seek Out Powerful Allies: County Sheriffs – The New York Times

National: Conspiracy-promoting sheriffs claim vast election authority | John Hanna and Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

The sheriff in Kansas’ most populous county says he took it for granted that local elections ran smoothly — until former President Donald Trump lost there in 2020. Now he’s assigned detectives to investigate what he claims is election fraud, even though there has been no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in 2020. Calvin Hayden in Johnson County, which covers suburban Kansas City, isn’t the only sheriff in the U.S. to try to carve out a bigger role for their office in investigating elections. Promoters of baseless conspiracy theories that the last presidential election was stolen from Trump are pushing a dubious theory that county sheriffs can access voting machines and intervene in how elections are run — and also have virtually unchecked power in their counties. Voting-rights advocates and election experts said any attempts by law enforcement to interfere in elections would be alarming and an extension of the threat posed by the continued circulation of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. “What we have seen time and again is that those who support the ‘Big Lie’ find conduits to groups of people who they think can help perpetuate this conspiracy theory and erode confidence in elections and potentially cast doubt on them going forward,” said David Levine, a former election official who is now a fellow with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonpartisan institute with staff in Washington and Brussels whose mission involves combatting efforts to undermine democratic institutions.

Full Article: Conspiracy-promoting sheriffs claim vast election authority | AP News

National: A Hidden New Threat to U.S. Elections | Blake Hounshell and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

It’s been more than nine weeks since the Pennsylvania primary. The election is still not certified. The reason: Three counties — Berks, Fayette and Lancaster — are refusing to process absentee ballots that were received in a timely manner and are otherwise valid, except the voter did not write a date on the declaration printed on the ballot’s return envelope. The Pennsylvania attorney general has argued in court amid a lawsuit against those three counties that the state will not certify results unless they “include every ballot lawfully cast in that election” (emphasis theirs). The standoff in Pennsylvania is the latest attempt by conservative-leaning counties to disrupt, delay or otherwise meddle with the process of statewide election certification, a normally ceremonial administrative procedure that became a target of Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 contest. It’s happened in other states, too. Earlier this year, Otero County, a rural conservative area in southern New Mexico, refused to certify its primary election, citing conspiracy theories about voting machines, though no county commissioner produced evidence to legitimize their concerns. Eventually, under threat of legal action from the state’s attorney general and an order from the State Supreme Court, the commissioners relented and certified the county’s roughly 7,300 votes. Pro-democracy groups saw Otero County’s refusal to certify the results as a warning of potentially grave future crises, and expressed worries about how a state might be able to certify a presidential election under similar circumstances.

Full Article: A Hidden New Threat to U.S. Elections – The New York Times

National: Elections officials urged to prepare for shortages, delays | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

Elections officials from across the country meeting under heightened security were urged Tuesday to prepare for supply chain issues that could lead to shortages in paper used for everything from ballots to “I voted” stickers for years to come. The summer meeting of the National Association of State Election Directors brought together nearly 200 people, including elections directors from 33 states, experts in election security, interest groups that work with elections, vendors and others. Election security experts told the directors to be prepared for possibly years of supply chain issues affecting paper, computer hardware and other things. The supply chain as it affects elections may not return to normal until 2026, said Ed Smith, a longtime election technology and administration veteran who chairs a federal government-industry coordinating council that works on election security issues. The lead time to obtain election hardware is two- to three-times longer than the norm, a delay not seen since 1999 or 2000, Smith said. Costs are also higher and elections officials should be prepared for spotty and unpredictable problems due to transportation and pandemic-related shutdowns, he said.

Full Artic le: Elections officials urged to prepare for shortages, delays | AP News

National: A Jan. 6 Mystery: Why Did It Take So Long to Deploy the National Guard? | Mark Mazzetti and Maggie Haberman/The New York Times

As the House committee investigating Jan. 6 used its prime-time hearing on Thursday to document President Donald J. Trump’s lack of forceful response to the attack on the Capitol by his supporters, it again raised one of the enduring mysteries of that day: Why did it take so long to deploy the National Guard? The hearing did not fully answer the question, but it shed light on Mr. Trump’s refusal to push for troops to assist police officers who were overrun by an angry mob determined to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The mobilization and deployment of National Guard troops from an armory just two miles away from the Capitol was hung up by confusion, communications breakdowns and concern over the wisdom of dispatching armed soldiers to quell the riot. It took more than four hours from the time the Capitol Police chief made the call for backup to when the D.C. National Guard troops arrived, a gap that remains the subject of dueling narratives and finger-pointing. The hearing featured the testimony of Matthew Pottinger, the deputy White House national security adviser, who resigned in protest on the day of the attack. On that day, Mr. Pottinger had an urgent discussion with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, about why National Guard troops had not been deployed to the Capitol.

Full Article: Why Did It Take So Long to Deploy the National Guard on Jan. 6? – The New York Times

National: New and familiar threats loom over midterms, election officials tell Congress | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

Many of the cybersecurity, disinformation and resource challenges that election administrators have long faced are as present as ever in 2022, a panel of election officials told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. Added in this year is a steady clip of insider threats posed by actors inside government, as well as a rising tide of explicit threats of violence made against officials and their families.

Cybersecurity measures, staffing challenges, financial resources and stronger relationships with law enforcement were all tossed about during the nearly three-hour hearing, with many speakers noting the strain the threat landscape has placed on election administrators nationwide.

“Election officials have found themselves victims of harassment and threats in a way we have never seen before,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., the committee’s vice chairman. “As a result, election offices across the country are struggling to retain a trained staff, exacerbating the existing challenges associated with administering the 2022 midterm elections.”

Insider threats were a major topic of conversation when the National Association of Secretaries of State gathered earlier this month in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But those concerns are often accompanied by a rise in verbal threats and harassment. Testifying remotely, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said that in the weeks since a showdown with a county commission over its refusal to certify primary election results — with commissioners citing disproven conspiracy theories about vote-counting equipment — she and her employees have received numerous threats that were referred to law enforcement.

Full Article: New and familiar threats loom over midterms, election officials tell Congress – StateScoop

National: The People Who Count Our Elections—or Can Grind the Process to a Halt | Quinn Yeargain/Bolts

The certification of President Biden’s win in Michigan was in serious doubt after the 2020 election. In Detroit’s Wayne County, the Republican members of the board of canvassers initially refused to certify the results, citing baseless allegations of “irregularities” in several local precincts. Under pressure, the local board eventually and unanimously certified the results. But the Republicans on the state’s canvassing board renewed their objections to Detroit’s vote count until one Republican’s decision to greenlight the results allowed the process to move forward. The 2020 election exposed more than any other how the mechanics of vote counting rely on a convoluted series of decisions by individual officials. Many are imbued with powers that, depending on how they wield them, can grind the machinery of democracy to a halt, as is made clear by the revelations about former President Donald Trump’s plot to convince state and local officials to deny the results of the 2020 election. Even when their tasks are ceremonial, the system may still hinge on their operating in good faith and without desire to overturn an election. Trump and his allies have only intensified their focus on this sea of decision-makers, building strength. The Republican Party in Michigan has replaced many of its members on canvassing boards with representatives who do not say whether they would have certified the 2020 election, including in Wayne County. In Wisconsin, one of the GOP members of the state’s elections commission—the body tasked with certifying results—actively participated in the efforts to overturn Biden’s win in 2020. The commission’s chair, another Republican, is silent on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Elsewhere in the country, election deniers are running for secretary of state or other critical local offices like county clerk and election judge, often with vows to intervene in upcoming elections; and local elections officials have faced persistent harassment from proponents of the Big Lie.

Full Article: The People Who Count Our Elections—or Can Grind the Process to a Halt | Bolts

National: Russia Election Threat Persists Amid War in Ukraine, Officials Say | Adam Goldman/The New York Times

Top national security officials warned on Tuesday about the continuing threat of election interference from abroad, emphasizing that Russia could still seek to meddle or promote disinformation during the 2022 midterm races even as it wages war in Ukraine. “I am quite confident the Russians can walk and chew gum,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said during a cybersecurity conference in Manhattan, where he spoke alongside Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. Iran and China also remained potent threats, mounting their own campaigns to undermine American democracy, the officials said. “The Russians are trying to get us to tear ourselves apart,” Mr. Wray said. “The Chinese are trying to manage our decline, and the Iranians are trying to get us to go away.”

Full Article: Russia Election Threat Persists Amid War in Ukraine, Officials Say – The New York Times

National: FBI director expects onslaught of digital assaults targeting midterm elections | Suzanne Smalley/CyberScoop

Federal law enforcement officials are preparing for a wave of multilayered cyberattacks and influence operations from China, Russia and Iran in the run up to November’s midterm elections, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday. Wray pointed to a multi-pronged 2020 Iranian cyber campaign to intimidate and influence American voters, saying officials expect to see more such incidents in the coming months. The risks posed to the American public by “relatively modest hacking” increase exponentially when foreign governments layer such efforts with influence operations and disinformation that “causes panic or lack of confidence in our election infrastructure,” Wray said during a cybersecurity conference at Fordham University in New York City. Officials worry about how the impact of such threats might be magnified by what Wray called “multidisciplinary” cyber operations. The FBI is working closely with U.S. Cyber Command to manage election threats and when the two agencies are in “combat tempo” their respective teams are in touch every two hours at a minimum, Wray said.

Full Article: FBI director expects onslaught of digital assaults targeting midterm elections

Alabama Attorney General says Lindy Blanchard lawsuit on electronic voting based on ‘speculation and innuendo’ | Mike Cason/al.com

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has asked a judge to toss out a lawsuit by former gubernatorial candidate Lindy Blanchard and others that claims electronic voting machines in Alabama are inaccurate and subject to manipulation. “Plaintiffs ask this Court to rewrite Alabama’s election laws based on nothing more than speculation and innuendo,” attorneys with Marshall’s office wrote in a motion to dismiss the case filed Wednesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court. Blanchard’s lawsuit asks the court to bar the use of electronic vote-counters used in all 67 Alabama counties and require a hand count of ballots in the general election in November. The lawsuit claims, in part, that the use of the electronic voting machines violates due process because the machines are capable of being connected to the internet and hacked. Lawyers with the AG’s office said the court has no jurisdiction over what they characterized as hypothetical claims. “Plaintiffs do not claim that their ballots will likely be miscounted,” the motion to dismiss says. “They allege only that someone’s ballot might be miscounted, if a voting machine is ever hooked up to the internet and if someone hacks it.”

Full Article: Alabama AG says Lindy Blanchard lawsuit on electronic voting based on ‘speculation and innuendo’ – al.com

‘Veil of misinformation’ chases election officials’ 2020 successes | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

Nearly two years after a presidential election widely hailed as the most secure and error-free in history, the officials who oversaw voting in their states continue to be hounded by misinformation and disinformation about the process, several speakers said Monday at an event in Washington. “Elections in 2020 were extremely smooth, highly secure,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said during a panel discussion hosted by the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan group that advises election administrators around the country. “Our story is one of great success. The other story is the veil of misinformation.” Baseless claims and conspiracy theories about the expansion of absentee voting during the pandemic and the equipment used to count ballots have continued to fester since the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by people seeking to overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss. The falsehoods have often morphed into threats agains election officials, highly partisan ballot reviews and even attempts by election-office insiders to tamper with equipment. That activity continues to weigh on officials preparing to oversee another election this year, said Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of the commonwealth. “One concern I continue to have is the rampant disinformation on how 2020 was administered and mail-in voting,” she said. “2020 was secure, so is 2022.”

Full Article: ‘Veil of misinformation’ chases election officials’ 2020 successes

National: Conservative group finds ‘absolutely no evidence of widespread fraud’ in 2020 election | Zach Schonfeld/The Hill

Eight prominent conservatives released a 72-page report Thursday refuting claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election in dozens of unsuccessful court cases brought forth by former President Trump and his allies. The group — which includes former federal judges, Republican senators and Republican-appointed officials — said they reviewed all 64 court cases Trump and his allies initiated challenging the election outcome, saying they had reached an “unequivocal” conclusion that the claims were unsupported by evidence. “We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case,” the group wrote. The eight conservatives repeatedly condemned the election fraud claims, but said they have not switched their allegiance to the Democratic Party and have no “ill will” toward Trump nor his supporters. The group consists of former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.); longtime Republican lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg; former federal Judge Thomas Griffith; David Hoppe, chief of staff to former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.); former federal judge J. Michael Luttig; former federal judge Michael McConnell; Theodore Olson, solicitor general under former President George W. Bush; and former Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.).

Full Article: Conservative group finds ‘absolutely no evidence of widespread fraud’ in 2020 election | The Hill

National: Criminalizing the vote: GOP-led states enacted 102 new election penalties after 2020 | Kira Lerner/News From The States

During the 2020 election, Rhonda Briggins and her sorority sisters spent days providing voters in metro Atlanta with water and snacks as they waited in long lines at polling places. The lines for early voting and on Election Day at times stretched on for hours. As the national co-chair for social action with the Delta Sigma Theta sorority for Black women, Briggins felt compelled to help, and she and her sisters unofficially adopted one DeKalb County location where many elderly Georgians cast their ballots. “When you’re a senior or someone with an infant child, line relief is very critical,” she said. “It allows someone to not have to suffer just because they want to exercise their right to vote.” But if Briggins tries to do the same in November, she could face criminal charges. In March 2021, four months after former President Donald Trump claimed that voter fraud cost him the state’s electoral votes and the presidency, Georgia’s Republican governor signed a law criminalizing people who give food or drinks to voters waiting at the polls.

Full Article: Criminalizing the vote: GOP-led states enacted 102 new el… | News From The States

Election officials fear copycat attacks as ‘insider threats’ loom | Zach Montellaro/Politico

Election officials are confronting a wave of threats and security challenges coming from a troubling source: inside the election system itself. In interviews on the sidelines of the National Association of Secretaries of State’s summer conference, a dozen chief election administrators detailed a growing number of “insider threats” leading to attempted or successful election security breaches aided by local officials. The most prominent was in Colorado, where a county clerk was indicted for her role in facilitating unauthorized access to voting machines. But there have been similar instances elsewhere, including in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. Beyond security breaches, other insider efforts to undermine elections have sprouted. In New Mexico last month, the board of commissioners in Otero County — a predominantly Republican county along the state’s southern border with Texas — refused to certify primary election results, citing unfounded claims about the security of voting machines that are rooted in conspiracy theories about hacked election equipment from the 2020 election. “What’s clear is this is a nationally coordinated effort,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat. “It’s multi-year, multi-faceted … not just pressuring election officials, but pressuring local elected officials as well.” Election officials fear the handful of publicly disclosed incidents over the last two years are only the start of a wave ahead of the 2022 and 2024 elections.

Full Article: Election officials fear copycat attacks as ‘insider threats’ loom – POLITICO

Election Officials Confront Cyber Threats, False Claims Ahead of Midterms | Alexa Corse/Wall Street Journal

Election officials on the front lines of defending voting systems say they are preparing for a range of challenges ahead of the fall midterms, as they seek to ward off cyber threats and restore voter confidence after a flood of unsubstantiated election-fraud claims. On the cybersecurity front, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea pose persistent threats along with other concerns including ransomware, said Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—the U.S. government’s top cyber unit. Federal and state officials said they aren’t only guarding against cyber threats, but also protecting physical access to voting systems. “We’re in a mode of constant vigilance,” said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, whose office in late June issued a third round of cyber- and physical-security requirements, including camera surveillance of election equipment, for the state’s county election boards. The nation’s secretaries of state, who typically oversee state election systems, met with Ms. Easterly and other federal cybersecurity officials over the past few days at a hotel in Baton Rouge, as part of their annual bipartisan summer gathering.

Full Article: Election Officials Confront Cyber Threats, False Claims Ahead of Midterms – WSJ

National: Trump’s 2020 outrage drives fear of ‘insider’ election threats | Ines Kagubare/The Hill

Former President Trump’s campaign to undermine the 2020 election is fueling concerns over midterm election security, with experts warning of “insider” threats from the very officials charged with guarding the vote. Hundreds of GOP candidates in federal and state races have embraced his false claims about the election, including at least 20 Republican candidates running for secretary of state, according to an NPR analysis. Trump’s election denial movement has raised concerns among U.S. officials and experts who fear the conspiracy theories could undermine the legitimacy of future elections. “I think that’s kind of a new element to the threat landscape of elections,” said William Adler, a senior technologist in elections and democracy at the Center for Democracy & Technology. “I think that the new risk is the risk of insider threats.” Arizona is among the states where false claims about the 2020 election are the center of this year’s campaigns.

Full Article: Trump’s 2020 outrage drives fear of ‘insider’ election threats | The Hill

National: CISA flags election system threats ahead of midterms | Susan Miller/GCN

To help state and local officials with election security ahead of the midterm elections, organizations are issuing advice for supply chain risks, insider threats and strengthening election systems’ cyber defenses. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on June 30 released information on mitigating supply chain risks to election infrastructure, including hardware, software, services and paper supplies. CISA advises election offices to deploy a robust supply chain risk management plan that identifies the security concerns with products and components they must buy. Suppliers should be identified and continually monitored to ensure they meet the latest supply chain management security policies and procedures. Election officials should also continually monitor their vendors, anticipate higher costs and longer lead times for products and be sure their budgets and processes can accommodate delays. The security agency also recently warned of insider threats to election systems. Whether by accident, through negligence or intentional, insider threats risk the confidentiality, integrity and availability of election systems and information. Electronic threats include viruses, data breaches, denial of service attacks, malware or attacks on unpatched software – as well as the spread of election-related mis-, dis- and mal-information, CISA said in a recent guide.

Source: CISA flags election system threats ahead of midterms – GCN

National: Safeguarding the Midterms: Election leaders reveal top concerns ahead of November | Mark Albert/Hearst Television