National

The U.S. Digital Response, the nonprofit civic-tech group that sprung up during the COVID-19 pandemic to assist local governments with online service delivery, is adding a new program focused on developing tools to help election officials. The effort will see the organization’s engineers and managers work with county- and local-level election administrators on using open-source technologies to build products like poll-location search tools, election information websites and applications that help officials manage poll workers. “What we specialize in is simple tools that make an impact that are quick,” Priya Garg, one of the heads of the organization’s new elections program, told StateScoop. U.S. Digital Response has offered its assistance to election administrators since its founding in 2020, when it developed poll-locator tools for tribal voters in Arizona and built an app for Harris County, Texas, to recruit and organize poll workers in the country’s third-biggest voting jurisdiction. The beefed-up elections program is the product of a major grant USDR recently received from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit group of election-minded technologists that received $350 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, in 2020. U.S. Digital Response leaders declined to disclose the value of the grant, only saying that it was a “multi-million-dollar” award capable of sustaining the group’s work for several years.

Full Article: U.S. Digital Response launches new election program

National: Cyber agency director says election security a top priority ahead of midterms | The Hill

Jen Easterly, the head of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), told lawmakers on Thursday that election security is a top priority for her agency, as it anticipates Russian interference in the upcoming midterm elections. Easterly, who was testifying before the House Committee on Appropriations on the agency’s budget request, said midterm election security “is obviously one of our top priorities,” adding CISA was focused on guiding states and localities to combat disinformation campaigns — a tactic the Russians are expected to deploy. “We are here to help and make sure that all state and local election directors have the resources that they need to ensure the integrity of their election security,” Easterly said. Easterly was responding to a question from Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), who asked how the agency plans to defend the integrity of the election given previous attempts from Russians to penetrate voter registration databases and steal personal data.

Full Article: Cyber agency director says election security a top priority ahead of midterms | The Hill

National: Mark Meadows’ 2,319 text messages reveal Trump’s inner circle communications before and after January 6 | Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb and Elizabeth Stuart/CNN

CNN has obtained 2,319 text messages that former President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent and received between Election Day 2020 and President Joe Biden’s January 20, 2021 inauguration. The vast trove of texts offers the most revealing picture to date of how Trump’s inner circle, supporters and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes to try to overturn the election results and then reacted to the violence that effort unleashed at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The logs, which Meadows selectively provided to the House committee investigating the January 6 attack, show how the former chief of staff was at the nexus of sprawling conspiracy theories baselessly claiming the election had been stolen. They also demonstrate how he played a key role in the attempts to stop Biden’s certification on January 6. The never-before-seen texts include messages from Trump’s family — daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and son Donald Trump Jr. — as well as White House and campaign officials, Cabinet members, Republican Party leaders, January 6 rally organizers, Rudy Giuliani, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, Sean Hannity and other Fox hosts. There are also text exchanges with more than 40 current and former Republican members of Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Full Article: Mark Meadows’ 2,319 text messages reveal Trump’s inner circle communications before and after January 6 – CNNPolitics

National: GOP lawmakers were deeply involved in Trump plans to overturn election, new evidence suggests | Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu/Politico

Republican members of Congress were heavily involved in calls and meetings with former President Donald Trump and his top aides as they devised a strategy to overturn the election in December 2020, according to new evidence filed in federal court late Friday. Deposition excerpts filed by the Jan 6. select committee — part of an effort to force former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to appear for an interview — suggest that some of Trump’s top allies in Congress were frequently present in meetings where a handful of strategies to prevent then-President-elect Joe Biden from taking office were discussed, including efforts to replace the leadership of the Justice Department with figures who would sow doubts about the legitimacy of the election. Lawmakers who attended meetings, in person or by phone, included Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and numerous members of the House Freedom Caucus, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows who provided key testimony about the conversations and meetings Meadows had in December 2020.

Full Article: GOP lawmakers were deeply involved in Trump plans to overturn election, new evidence suggests – POLITICO

National: New Details Underscore House G.O.P. Role in Jan. 6 Planning | Luke Broadwater and Alan Feuer/The New York Times

It was less than two weeks before President Donald J. Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress would have what they saw as their last chance to overturn the 2020 election, and Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, was growing anxious. “Time continues to count down,” he wrote in a text message to Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, adding: “11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!” It has been clear for more than a year that ultraconservative members of Congress were deeply involved in attempts to keep Mr. Trump in power: They joined baseless lawsuits, spread the lie of widespread election fraud and were among the 147 Republicans who voted on Jan. 6, 2021, against certifying President Biden’s victory in at least one state. But in a court filing and in text messages obtained by CNN, new pieces of evidence have emerged in recent days fleshing out the degree of their involvement with the Trump White House in strategy sessions, at least one of which included discussions about encouraging Mr. Trump’s supporters to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, despite warnings of potential violence. Some continued to push to try to keep Mr. Trump in office even after a mob of his supporters attacked the complex. “In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, wrote to Mr. Meadows on Jan. 17, 2021, misspelling the word “martial.”

Full Article: New Details Underscore House G.O.P. Role in Jan. 6 Planning – The New York Times

National: In election misinformation fight, ‘2020 changed everything’ | Amanda Seitz/Associated Press

Beth Bowers grew up in the 1960s and 1970s with parents who marched in protests, wrote letters to members of Congress and voted in elections big and small. Her father, a World War II veteran, and her mother, an educational counselor, did not use social media sites in their lifetimes. But Bowers is sure they would be disheartened to see how easily falsehoods about the U.S. elections are disseminated online to millions and millions of people. That’s why the Evanston, Illinois, mom spends a few hours each week scouring Facebook groups for conspiracy theories or lies as part of a nationwide volunteer effort to debunk misinformation about voting. “The good thing about this work is, it’d be so easy to become incredibly cynical and hopeless, but I think we feel like this is something we can do and make a difference,” Bowers, 59, said in a phone interview. As voters ready for hundreds of elections of local and national importance this year, officials and voting rights advocates are bracing for a repeat of the misinformation that overwhelmed the 2020 presidential race and seeded distrust about the legitimacy of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. It culminated in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 by angry supporters of then-President Donald Trump who believed his lies that the election was stolen from him.

Full Article: In election misinformation fight, ‘2020 changed everything’ | AP News

Russian Cyberattack Could Capitalize on Election Doubts | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

As the war in Ukraine continues, the United States is warning that Russia and aligned criminal groups may launch cyberattacks against critical American infrastructure, potentially including election systems ahead of November’s midterms. Election officials and cybersecurity experts worry that a disruption from Russia or other foreign actors may capitalize on plummeting confidence in election integrity among American voters, fueled by myths and disinformation that have saturated the country. Even with new protections, heightened awareness and information-sharing across all levels of government, widespread skepticism about election integrity makes a potential Russian cyberattack more concerning, said Noah Praetz, cofounder of the Elections Group, which consults with state and local election officials. An attack on a key jurisdiction, such as a county in a swing state, could put enough doubt in voters’ minds that the results can’t be trusted, even if votes weren’t changed in the attack, he said. The consequences of a cyber event, even if backup plans work, are probably worse than they were four years ago because confidence in elections is down,” said Praetz, who previously ran elections in Cook County, Illinois. “It’s a pretty precarious situation for our country right now.”

Full Article: Russian Cyberattack Could Capitalize on Election Doubts | The Pew Charitable Trusts

National: Democrats ask officials in Florida, Arizona, Texas and Ohio details about election disinformation | Jacqueline Alemany/The Washington Post

House Democrats are seeking information from officials in key battleground states about their efforts to combat “lies and conspiracy theories” that could damage the integrity of federal elections as part of a broader investigation into the “weaponization of misinformation and disinformation” in the electoral process. The leaders of the House Oversight and Reform and House Administration committees sent letters on Wednesday to election officials in Florida, Arizona, Texas and Ohio — all Republican-led states — requesting the information while noting their concern about new laws affecting election administration. “The Committees are seeking to understand the scope and scale of election misinformation in your state, the impact that this flood of false information has had on election administration, the risks it poses for upcoming federal elections, and the steps that your organization and local election administrators have taken in response,” Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and House Administration Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) wrote to state election officials in the letters obtained by The Washington Post. “Our investigation also aims to identify steps that federal, state, and local governments can take to counter misinformation and prevent these lies from being used to undermine the legitimate vote count in future elections.”

Full Article: Democrats ask officials in Florida, Arizona, Texas and Ohio details about election disinformation – The Washington Post

National: Trump Allies Continue Legal Drive to Erase His Loss, Stoking Election Doubts | Maggie Haberman, Alexandra Berzon and Michael S. Schmidt/The New York Times

A group of President Donald J. Trump’s allies and associates spent months trying to overturn the 2020 election based on his lie that he was the true winner. Now, some of the same confidants who tried and failed to invalidate the results based on a set of bogus legal theories are pushing an even wilder sequel: that by “decertifying” the 2020 vote in key states, the outcome can still be reversed. In statehouses and courtrooms across the country, as well as on right-wing news outlets, allies of Mr. Trump — including the lawyer John Eastman — are pressing for states to pass resolutions rescinding Electoral College votes for President Biden and to bring lawsuits that seek to prove baseless claims of large-scale voter fraud. Some of those allies are casting their work as a precursor to reinstating the former president. The efforts have failed to change any statewide outcomes or uncover mass election fraud. Legal experts dismiss them as preposterous, noting that there is no plausible scenario under the Constitution for returning Mr. Trump to office.

Full Article: Trump Allies Are Still Feeding the False 2020 Election Narrative – The New York Times

National: Trump-Aligned Sheriffs Target Election Officials | Jessica Pishko/Bolts

Christopher Schmaling, the sheriff of Racine County, Wisconsin, told the reporters gathered in his office on October 28, 2021 that he’d called a press conference “so that our citizens can better understand how the election law was broken.” Standing at a podium with large screens behind him blaring “ELECTION INTEGRITY”, Schmaling warned that the allegations might be difficult to follow at first. “This isn’t your typical criminal investigation, it’s complex—to be quite frank, it’s a bit challenging to understand at first,” he told the room full of reporters. But Schmaling promised that by the end of his office’s presentation, the public would “see firsthand that the election statute was in fact not just broken, but shattered by the members of the W.E.C., the Wisconsin Elections Commission.” Schmaling and Michael Luell, a sergeant in the sheriff’s office who had investigated a complaint about election malfeasance, spent more than an hour running reporters through a PowerPoint presentation, outlining what they claimed was devastating proof that state election commissioners had committed a crime. At first, the press event, which the sheriff’s office streamed live on its Facebook page, sounded more like a civics lesson than a criminal case, as Schmaling explained the makeup of the state’s election commission—six commissioners serving staggered five year terms, appointed by either legislative leaders or the governor.

Full Article: Trump-Aligned Sheriffs Target Election Officials | Bolts

National: Election Officials Face Their Biggest Threat Yet — Jail Time | Ryan Teague Beckwith/Bloomberg

Over the last two years, local elections officials across the U.S. have faced a deadly pandemic, shortages of funding and workers, false claims of election fraud and even death threats. Now they could face prison, too. Under a spate of laws proposed or passed in at least 10 states, elections administrators could see criminal charges and penalties that include thousands of dollars in fines or even prison time for technical infractions of election statutes. In Arizona, a new law makes it a felony, punishable by up to 2 1/2 years in prison, followed by loss of voting rights or gun ownership, for an elections official to send a mail-in ballot to any voter who has not requested one. It’s now a felony in Kentucky, with a possible five-year prison term, for an official to accept a donation or “anything of value” to assist with an election. In Florida, elections officials could face up to $25,000 in fines if they leave a ballot drop box unsupervised. Broad new laws in Iowa and Texas make it a felony, with prison terms of up to five years in Iowa and up to two years in Texas, for elections officials who fail to follow a number of election procedures, while similar bills are pending in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Full Article: Republican Voter Laws Threaten U.S. Election Officials With Jail Time – Bloomberg

National: Voting rights for disabled people under attack from new election laws | Deborah Barfield Berry and Rick Rouan/USA Today

Teri Saltzman said she took her time to look over her ballot at home in Pflugerville, Texas, during the state’s recent primary, using specialized glasses that magnified the small print. But Saltzman, who is legally blind, still missed the lines on the envelope flap that required her to fill in identification numbers needed for election officials to count her vote. “To this day, I am unsure that my vote was counted,” said Saltzman, 59. The addition of the lines was among the election changes lawmakers approved last year in Texas – one of several states where advocates say new laws could have an outsized impact on voters with disabilities. They worry that stricter identification requirements, restrictions on voting by mail, reducing the number of drop boxes and other changes could hurt access for people with disabilities in local and midterm elections. “We’re not usually the target of voter suppression. Often people with disabilities just get caught in the crosshairs,’’ said Michelle Bishop, voter access and engagement manager for the National Disability Rights Network. Concerns about the fallout from those new laws come after turnout among voters with disabilities surged in the 2020 election. As election officials took steps to make the election safer during the pandemic, they also made it easier for people with disabilities to vote.

Full Article: Voting rights for disabled people under attack from new election laws

Amid false 2020 claims, GOP states eye voting system upgrade | Jonathan Matisse and Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

For years, Tennessee Democratic Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro’s call to require the state’s voting infrastructure to include a paper record of each ballot cast has been batted down in the Republican-dominated Legislature. But as false claims still swirl around the 2020 presidential election — and some GOP voters remain distrustful of voting machines — Tennessee Republican lawmakers who have held off are coming around on a paper-backed mandate. A similar scenario is playing out in some of the five other states — four of which are Republican-led — that do not currently have a voting system with a paper record. The Tennessee GOP bill that is gaining traction would set a 2024 deadline for Tennessee to join the vast majority of states that already have voting systems that include a paper record of every ballot cast, so any disputed results can be verified. Yarbro said he’ll take the change, even if he doesn’t love the impetus for it. “I’m disappointed that it’s taken this long, and somewhat concerned over the rationale,” the Nashville lawmaker said. “But at the end of the day, this is good public policy.”

Full Article: Amid false 2020 claims, GOP states eye voting system upgrade | AP News

National: ‘Defend democracy’: Democrats launch massive recruiting push for local election officers | Elena Schneider/Politico

A Democratic candidate recruiting group is pitching donors on an ambitious three-year program to find, train and support 5,000 candidates for local offices in charge of election administration, a sprawling national effort intended to fight subversion of future election results. The program would recruit candidates in 35 states for everything from county probate judges in Alabama to county clerks in Kansas and county election board members in Pennsylvania — all offices that handle elections and will be on voters’ ballots between now and 2024. Spearheading the effort is Run for Something, a Democratic group that launched soon after Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory to recruit candidates for local elections. Now, the group plans to raise $80 million over the next three years for this push, which would include at least a hundred staffers to support those candidates in-state, according to details and donor memos first shared with POLITICO. Amanda Litman and Ross Morales Rocketto, Run for Something’s co-founders, call the project “Clerk Work” — a way-down-the-ballot effort of the type that Democratic donors and national groups have traditionally struggled to focus on. But as Trump continues to promulgate election conspiracy theories, the role of little-known election administrators — charged with planning, implementing and certifying election results in a hyper-localized system — has suddenly emerged as a key part of safeguarding American democracy. The move is part of a broader Democratic Party shift toward increasingly prioritizing state-based races, a shift from the massive attention and financing that go toward federal campaigns. “Election subversion in 2024 is not going to be a mob storming the Capitol, it’s going to be a county clerk in Michigan or a supervisor of elections in Florida who decides to fuck the whole thing up,” Litman said. “The only way to make long-term democracy protection is by electing people who will defend democracy.”

Full Article: ‘Defend democracy’: Dems launch massive recruiting push for local election officers – POLITICO

National: Lawmakers worry 2020 will provide a blueprint for stealing a future election | Peter Nicholas/NBC

Both a federal judge and the top Republican on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot have now reached the same stark conclusion: There is evidence to suggest Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election could be a crime. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said last weekend that her panel had compiled enough facts to refer Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, while U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote last month that Trump and others undertook “a coup in search of a legal theory.” Neither has the power to bring charges against the former president. That’s up to Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose focus to date has largely been on the people who stormed the Capitol in a violent effort to keep Trump in power. Trump denies any wrongdoing, and his allies contend that Cheney has lost credibility as any sort of fair broker. Pointing to Cheney’s persistent criticism of Trump, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, told NBC News: “I couldn’t see the point in it other than that she was angry and bitter.”

Full Article: Lawmakers worry 2020 will provide a blueprint for stealing a future election

National: What Can Happen When An Election Official Believes The Big Lie | Kaleigh Rogers/FiveThirtyEight

Nine months after the 2020 election, the call came in. The Colorado secretary of state’s office was on the phone and wanted to know why the passwords for Mesa County’s election equipment were on the internet for anyone to see. But the powers that be in Mesa County didn’t even know the passwords had leaked. “We’re saying, ‘What are you talking about?’” recalled Mesa County Commissioner Scott McInnis. Images of screens displaying the passwords had been shared a few days earlier on the chat app Telegram by a QAnon leader. The Colorado secretary of state launched an investigation and issued an order for Tina Peters, the county clerk, to let them inspect the equipment and try to get to the bottom of what happened. But there was a problem. Peters wasn’t in Mesa County. She was on her way to South Dakota for a “Cyber Symposium” hosted by Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and one of the most prominent peddlers of the Big Lie. Data from Mesa County election equipment hard drives were later displayed at the symposium. The man talking about them was that same QAnon leader — Ron Watkins — the former administrator of the message board where Q, the shadowy figure behind the QAnon conspiracy movement, posted the bulk of their posts. Watkins is so deeply entangled with QAnon that many experts believe he may have been Q himself.

Full Article: What Can Happen When An Election Official Believes The Big Lie | FiveThirtyEight

National: 3 Existential Threats to Our Elections | Amisa Ratliff and Michael Beckel/Issue One

America’s elections face three existential threats in the coming years: An exodus of election officials, the potential of election manipulation, and inadequate funding of our critical election infrastructure. Congress and the states can help reduce these threats if they act now. In the wake of a massive and coordinated disinformation effort during the 2020 elections, election officials and election workers — who do the behind-the-scenes work of running our elections and ensuring their safety and accuracy — have faced threats of violence and harassment, which has led to an exodus of good people from these positions. At the same time, we’re seeing a wave of anti-democracy, conspiracy-minded candidates running for positions as election officials, and statehouses across the country are considering or passing bills that would place election administration under greater partisan control for their own political gain.

Full Article: 3 Existential Threats to Our Elections – Issue One

National: Midterms raise fears of Russian cyberattacks | Ines Kagubare/The Hill

Russia is likely to deploy a range of cyber weapons on the United States and its election systems during this year’s midterm election cycle, as tensions continue to escalate amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. Moscow has so far shown cyber restraint against the U.S. despite escalating sanctions that have damaged Russia’s economy, but experts predict the Kremlin will unleash a range of cyber weapons in an attempt to interfere in the 2022 midterms — from disinformation campaigns to efforts to hack into the election system. “I do think that the chances are higher that we see a ramp up in cyber activity by the Russians as the conflict drags on; it’s less of what I would have expected at this point, but the elections are certainly in play,” said Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University. Russia’s overarching goal is to pit Americans against each other and micro-target specific voters, especially those living in swing states, with information that aligns with their preconceived beliefs. “The Russians’ goal is to create internal discord in the United States,” Jaffer said.

Full Article: Midterms raise fears of Russian cyberattacks | The Hill

‘We control them all’: Donald Trump Jr. texted Meadows detailed plan for overturning 2020 election before it was called | Ryan Nobles, Zachary Cohen and Annie Grayer/CNN

Full Article: CNN Exclusive: ‘We control them all’: Donald Trump Jr. texted Meadows detailed plan for overturning 2020 election before it was called – CNNPolitics

Two days after the 2020 presidential election, as votes were still being tallied, Donald Trump’s eldest son texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that “we have operational control” to ensure his father would get a second term, with Republican majorities in the US Senate and swing state legislatures, CNN has learned. In the text, which has not been previously reported, Donald Trump Jr. lays out ideas for keeping his father in power by subverting the Electoral College process, according to the message reviewed by CNN. The text is among records obtained by the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021. “It’s very simple,” Trump Jr. texted to Meadows on November 5, adding later in the same missive: “We have multiple paths We control them all.” … Immediately before his text to Meadows describing multiple paths for challenging the election, Trump Jr. texted Meadows the following: “This is what we need to do please read it and please get it to everyone that needs to see it because I’m not sure we’re doing it.”

National: Why hand-counting ballots is such a bad idea | Amber Phillips/The Washington Post

There’s a small but forceful push in right-wing circles to have ballots in upcoming elections entirely counted by hand. Lawmakers in at least six states have proposed switching to hand-counted paper ballots, The Washington Post’s Rosalind Helderman, Amy Gardner and Emma Brown report. The idea is derived from accusations, made out of whole cloth, that the 2020 election was stolen — and that voting machines are easily hacked and can’t be trusted. That’s false. Voting machines have been proved safe and accurate, especially when combined with audits to check their accuracy. And tallying results without machines could open up future elections to more chaos, even fraud. Here’s how our ballots are counted now, and why going back to voting and counting entirely by hand is such a bad idea. Most jurisdictions use voting machines to tabulate results. Voters either fill out a paper ballot and then feed it into a machine, or they make their choices on a touch screen that prints a paper ballot. (States spent a lot of money after the 2000 presidential election to revamp voting machines to ensure none would leave “hanging chads” — the center of the dispute about whether Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore won Florida.) But the voting process does not entirely rely on machines. The machines create a paper copy of a ballot for officials to keep. After elections, officials review a statistically significant portion of those ballots by hand to make sure that their results mirror what the machines got. The process has been in place for decades, and it works.

Full Article: Why hand-counting ballots is such a bad idea – The Washington Post

National: ‘Smoking rifle’: Trump Jr texted Meadows strategies to overturn election – report | Martin Pengelly/The Guardian

Two days after the 2020 election, Donald Trump Jr texted the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, with strategies for overturning the result, CNN reported. “This is what we need to do please read it and please get it to everyone that needs to see it because I’m not sure we’re doing it,” Trump Jr reportedly wrote, adding: “It’s very simple … We have multiple paths[.] We control them all.” One leading legal authority called the text “a smoking rifle”. CNN said the text was sent on 5 November 2020, two days before Joe Biden was declared the winner of the election and the next president. Two months after 5 November, on 6 January 2021, supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” in his cause attacked the US Capitol. A bipartisan Senate report connected seven deaths to the riot. According to CNN, in his texts to Meadows, Trump Jr laid out strategies the Trump team went on to pursue as they disseminated lies about election fraud and pressured state and federal officials. Such tactics included lawsuits in swing states, the overwhelming majority of which were rejected, and “having a handful of Republican state houses put forward slates of fake ‘Trump electors’”.

Full Article: ‘Smoking rifle’: Trump Jr texted Meadows strategies to overturn election – report | Donald Trump Jr | The Guardian

National: Jan. 6 Panel Has Evidence for Criminal Referral of Trump, but Splits on Sending | Michael S. Schmidt and Luke Broadwater/The New York Times

The leaders of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack have grown divided over whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department of former President Donald J. Trump, even though they have concluded that they have enough evidence to do so, people involved in the discussions said. The debate centers on whether making a referral — a largely symbolic act — would backfire by politically tainting the Justice Department’s expanding investigation into the Jan. 6 assault and what led up to it. Since last summer, a team of former federal prosecutors working for the committee has focused on documenting the attack and the preceding efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election. The panel plans to issue a detailed report on its findings, but in recent months it has regularly signaled that it was also weighing a criminal referral that would pressure Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to open a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump. Despite concluding that they have enough evidence to refer Mr. Trump for obstructing a congressional proceeding and conspiring to defraud the American people, some on the committee are questioning whether there is any need to make a referral. The Justice Department appears to be ramping up a wide-ranging investigation, and making a referral could saddle a criminal case with further partisan baggage at a time when Mr. Trump is openly flirting with running again in 2024. The committee’s vice chairwoman, Representative Liz Cheney, said on CNN on Sunday that the committee had not reached a final decision about making referrals and downplayed any divisions on the committee, but acknowledged there was significant evidence of criminality.

Full Article: Jan. 6 Panel Has Evidence for Criminal Referral of Trump, but Splits on Sending – The New York Times

National: Senators push for details on protecting election officials amid threat concerns | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, are pressing a federal agency for details on how it is working to support election workers facing a growing number of threats following the 2020 election. Klobuchar and Blunt sent a letter this week to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) that was first obtained by The Hill saying they had “heard about a number of challenges” election workers are facing in the lead up to the midterm elections. “The EAC plays a critical role in ensuring that election officials have the necessary information and resources to administer secure and successful elections, and it is important for the EAC to be prepared to support election officials as they work to address these obstacles,” they wrote in the letter. The two senators pointed to myriad potential hurdles that election workers face, including cybersecurity, misinformation, increased threats and the ability to recruit election workers.

Full Article: Senators push for details on protecting election officials amid threat concerns | The Hill

National: Intel: Putin may cite Ukraine war to meddle in US politics | Nomaan Merchant/Associated Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin may use the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine as a pretext to order a new campaign to interfere in American politics, U.S. intelligence officials have assessed. Intelligence agencies have so far not found any evidence that Putin has authorized measures like the ones Russia is believed to have undertaken in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in support of former President Donald Trump, according to several people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive findings. But given Putin’s antipathy toward the West and his repeated denunciations of Ukraine, officials believe he may see the U.S. backing of Ukraine’s resistance as a direct affront to him, giving him further incentive to target another U.S. election, the people said. It is not yet clear which candidates Russia might try to promote or what methods it might use. The assessment comes with the U.S. electoral system already under pressure. The American public remains sharply divided over the last presidential election and the insurrection that followed at the U.S. Capitol, when supporters of Trump tried to stop the certification of his loss to President Joe Biden. Trump has repeatedly assailed intelligence officials and claimed investigations of Russian influence on his campaigns to be political vendettas.

Full Article: Intel: Putin may cite Ukraine war to meddle in US politics | AP News

How Trump allies are pushing to hand-count ballots around the U.S. | Rosalind S. Helderman, Amy Gardner and Emma Brown/The Washington Post

Some of the key architects and amplifiers of the false claim that voting machines were rigged to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump traveled to the Nevada desert last month with a new pitch. Speaking at a commissioners meeting in deeply conservative, mostly rural Nye County, they argued the county should ditch all its voting machines. “The electronic voting machines are so vulnerable and so uncertifiable, I don’t see how we can trust them,” Jim Marchant, a Trump-supporting Nevada secretary of state candidate, told Nye County commissioners. Instead, they insisted, the county should adopt an old-fashioned and largely obsolete method: tallying the results by hand. … “It’s a recipe for some chaos,” said Pam Smith, president of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that promotes secure election practices such as post-election audits. “And I do think that’s potentially very damaging to public trust in the process.”

Full Article: Trump allies push hand-counted paper ballots in multiple states – The Washington Post

Biden budget calls for $10 billion over a decade to improve elections | Mary Ellen McIntire/Roll Call

The Biden administration called for spending $10 billion over the next decade to beef up the country’s elections infrastructure as part of the fiscal 2023 budget proposal released Monday. Along with providing “a predictable funding stream for critical capital investments and increased staffing and services,” the budget proposes to expand the Postal Service’s capacity in “underserved areas” and to increase vote-by-mail initiatives — including making ballots postage-free. Since they took full control of Congress and the White House at the beginning of last year, Democrats have tried several times to pass bills to expand voting rights and overhaul elections, but the efforts stalled in the Senate. The $10 billion proposal is less than the $20 billion the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life urged Congress to provide last spring. Tiana Epps-Johnson, the group’s executive director, said costs for paper ballots, staffing and mail have surged since then. “Our recent polling shows bipartisan support for federal funding for local election officials. President Biden is showing leadership and making the case that we must invest in state and local election departments. He’s right and Congress should follow suit,” Epps-Johnson said in a statement. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who last month led a group of 32 other Democrats calling on Biden to include $5 billion in election security grants for the next fiscal year, said it was “critical” to invest in elections.

Full Article: Biden budget calls for $10 billion over a decade to improve elections

National: Trump backers push election change that would make counting slower, costlier and less accurate | Zach Montellaro/Politico

Trump supporters are pushing to prohibit machine counting of ballots in future elections around the country, which election officials say could make vote-counting slower, more expensive and — most importantly — less accurate. Legislators in at least six states this year have introduced proposals to prohibit the use of ballot tabulating machines. Local jurisdictions in Nevada, New Hampshire and elsewhere have also been considering similar measures. The proposals stem from baseless conspiracy theories stoked by former President Donald Trump since the 2020 election, in which he and others contended that election machines around the country were hacked and votes were flipped. The push has gained some traction in the last month. In Arizona, a bill that would require hand counts of ballots for all elections passed out of a legislative committee. And in Nevada, a deep-red county’s board of commissioners — spurred on by a Trump-aligned candidate to be the state’s top election officer — formally urged its election clerk to abandon machine counting. … More than 90 percent of registered voters live in jurisdictions where in-person voters use a paper ballot of some form, but hand counting of ballots is extremely rare. A bit more than 800 jurisdictions nationwide — covering 0.6 percent of registered voters — primarily count either in-person or mail ballots by hand, according to Warren Stewart, a data analyst at the Verified Voting Foundation, which advocates for election security measures.

Full Article: Trump backers push election change that would make counting slower, costlier and less accurate – POLITICO

National: Midterm mess: States grapple with poll worker and paper shortages | Fredreka Schouten and Kelly Mena/CNN

For the first time in its history, Alaska will conduct a statewide election primarily by mail because officials worry they lack the time to gather the people and paper needed to conduct an in-person election in June. In Michigan, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum says she fears increased animosity toward election officials is contributing to the shortage of poll workers needed for local elections in May. And around the country, election officials are racing to place advance orders for ballot paper, registration cards and mail-in ballot envelopes. The supply chain and staffing shortages that have plagued the rest of the US economy have come to elections, putting a spotlight on the behind-the-scenes logistics of keeping democracy functioning. And experts warn the problem could grow worse as more elections crowd the calendar. “In November, everybody is going to need everything on essentially the same timeframe,” Amy Cohen, who runs the National Association of State Election Directors, said during a recent congressional roundtable discussion on the supply-chain problems.

Full Article: Midterm mess: States grapple with poll worker and paper shortages – CNNPolitics

National: New Right-Wing Conspiracies Threaten to Further Starve Local Election Systems | Spenser Mestel/Bolts

Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin supreme court justice who said state election officials “stole our votes” days after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential race, was granted wide latitude by Republicans to investigate voter fraud last year: a budget of $676,000, subpoena power, and months to pursue leads. But the report on the 2020 election that he presented to state lawmakers earlier this month was the usual hodgepodge of Trumpian recommendations, including decertifying the presidential results and outright eliminating the state’s election commission. Buried in the report was one proposal that has gone largely unnoticed, but is rapidly gaining steam as a new conservative cause celebre. Gableman called on Wisconsin to exit the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which is a national organization that assists states in maintaining accurate voter rolls. Thirty states and the District of Columbia are part of ERIC, from Democratic Illinois to Republican Texas, but this bipartisan organization exploded on the radar for “Stop-the-Steal” activists after the far-right website Gateway Pundit published stories attacking it in January. The website falsely tied ERIC to George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who supports an array of progressive causes, calling it a “left wing voter registration drive disguised as voter roll clean up,” even though ERIC is governed and financially supported by its member states.

Full Article: New Right-Wing Conspiracies Threaten to Further Starve Local Election Systems | Bolts

National: Election skeptics roil GOP contests for secretary of state | Christina A. Cassidy and Julie Carr Smyth/Associated Press