Power the Polls, an effort backed by major civic groups and businesses that recruited hundreds of thousands of people to serve as poll workers in 2020, is relaunching its efforts ahead of the midterms. The program relaunch, shared first with POLITICO, comes amid some early signs that some jurisdictions are struggling to recruit enough poll workers to staff primaries and the general election. “We’re seeing already in the early primaries that there have been places that polling locations have been closed due to poll worker shortages, or there’s been the threat of closing polling locations,” said Jane Slusser, the effort’s program manager, in an interview. Recruiting poll workers was one of the biggest challenges for election officials during the 2020 election. And a rise in conspiracy theory-fueled threats to election workers, from secretaries of state on down, have worried some in the field, who say the environment makes it more difficult to recruit and retain enough workers this election cycle. Slusser said Power the Polls would look to reengage the 700,000 people who signed up to be potential poll workers in 2020, encouraging them to get in touch with their local election offices to work again. She said Power the Polls would place a particular emphasis on recruiting workers who have specialized skill sets, like knowing multiple languages, that local officials need to run elections smoothly.
National: Security chiefs scramble to prevent Russian interference in midterms | Tom Rees/The Telegraph
US security chiefs are scrambling to prevent Russian interference in the midterm elections as they are “very concerned” about the Kremlin using cyber warfare and online disinformation. Jen Easterly, US director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the US has been forced to beef up its election cybersecurity after the Kremlin was accused of influencing the 2016 vote to help Donald Trump win. Joe Biden and the Democrats are heading into a difficult midterms and a recent Ipsos MORI poll found that more than half of Americans are concerned about Russia spreading misinformation online in this year’s election. Ms Easterly said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that US officials are “very concerned” but have “raised the bar” on election infrastructure cybersecurity. “I’m projecting myself into November because obviously we are very concerned about foreign [influence],” Ms Easterly said. “I frankly, don’t think that Russia needs to do anything to create chaos in our elections.” Ms Easterly said she is “much more concerned about physical threats to election officials and disinformation threats to the American people’s confidence.”
Full Article: US security chiefs scramble to prevent Russian interference in midterms