National: Election Cybersecurity: Protecting Against Election Cyber Attacks | Phil Muncaster/Government Teechnology

Election cybersecurity is one of the hottest topics in the country today. It dominated both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and most likely will continue to do so until state and local governments can demonstrate that their voting infrastructure and solutions are as secure and tamper-proof as possible. When voters go to the polls, they might not realize the complex blend of components that power today’s democratic system. Secure these, and you stand a much better chance of mitigating the threat from external actors. Electronic voting is quicker, faster and more accurate than manual voting and counting by hand. But because intelligent systems can be used to gather data and communicate with other systems, they could be exposed to cyber threats. For example, potential vulnerabilities in the machines used to supply registration data might allow unauthorized individuals to manipulate voter information.

 

Full Article: Election Cybersecurity: Protecting Against Election Cyber Attacks

National: How to Fight False Election Information and Other Problems | Jule Pattison-Gordon/Government Technology

With 2021 municipal races days away, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) director Chris Krebs discussed the challenges to retaining voter trust in the face of mis- and disinformation, during a Harvard Kennedy School event Thursday. Protecting election systems from cyber and physical attacks was only one battle within the election security war in 2020 — the other, more difficult conflict was defending mindsets against false narratives about what had taken place. “We spent three and a half years working on threat modeling, trying to figure out every possible disruption that could be launched against the election,” Krebs said. ”We were thinking through, ‘You know, it’s not the technical attacks that are keeping us up at night, because we think we’ve got a pretty resilient system with good indicators’ … It came down to the perception hack that we were most worried about.” … As fear spreads, it can quickly transform into real-world threats, with this summer’s ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline serving as a prime example, Krebs said. When the pipeline shut down, a panicked public made runs on gas supplies, accelerating shortages and exacerbating the problem.

Full Article: How to Fight False Election Information and Other Problems

National: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff | Hunter Walker/Rolling Stone

As the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack heats up, some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent. Rolling Stone separately confirmed a third person involved in the main Jan. 6 rally in D.C. has communicated with the committee. This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence. The two sources, both of whom have been granted anonymity due to the ongoing investigation, describe participating in “dozens” of planning briefings ahead of that day when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as his election loss to President Joe Biden was being certified. “I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”

Full Article: Two Jan. 6 Planners Cooperate With Committee, Name MAGA Congress Members – Rolling Stone

National: Ahead of Jan. 6, Willard hotel in downtown D.C. was a Trump team ‘command center’ for effort to deny Biden the presidency | Jacqueline Alemany, Emma Brown, Tom Hamburger and Jon Swaine/The Washington Post

They called it the “command center,” a set of rooms and suites in the posh Willard hotel a block from the White House where some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal lieutenants were working day and night with one goal in mind: overturning the results of the 2020 election. The Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse and the ensuing attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob would draw the world’s attention to the quest to physically block Congress from affirming Joe Biden’s victory. But the activities at the Willard that week add to an emerging picture of a less visible effort, mapped out in memos by a conservative pro-Trump legal scholar and pursued by a team of presidential advisers and lawyers seeking to pull off what they claim was a legal strategy to reinstate Trump for a second term. They were led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon was an occasional presence as the effort’s senior political adviser. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik was there as an investigator. Also present was John Eastman, the scholar, who outlined scenarios for denying Biden the presidency in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. They sought to make the case to Pence and ramp up pressure on him to take actions on Jan. 6 that Eastman suggested were within his powers, three people familiar with the operation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Their activities included finding and publicizing alleged evidence of fraud, urging members of state legislatures to challenge Biden’s victory and calling on the Trump-supporting public to press Republican officials in key states.

Full Article: Willard hotel was Trump team ‘command center’ for denying Biden presidency ahead of Jan. 6 – The Washington Post

National: GOP uses voters to push election reforms in unlikely states | Marc Levy/Associated Press

Republicans have succeeded this year in passing a range of voting restrictions in states they control politically, from Georgia to Iowa to Texas. They’re not stopping there. Republicans in at least four states where Democrats control the governor’s office, the legislature or both — California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania — are pursuing statewide ballot initiatives or veto-proof proposals to enact voter ID restrictions and other changes to election law. In another state, Nebraska, Republicans control the governor’s office and have a majority in the single-house legislature, but are pushing a voter ID ballot measure because they have been unable to get enough lawmakers on board. Republicans say they are pursuing the changes in the name of “election integrity,” and repeat similar slogans — “easier to vote, harder to cheat.” Democrats dismiss it as the GOP following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election. They say Republicans have tried to whip up distrust in elections for political gain and are passing restrictions designed to keep Democratic-leaning voters from registering or casting a ballot. “It’s depressing that this is the way that (the Trump) wing of the Republican Party thinks they have to win, instead of trying to win on issues or beliefs,” said Gus Bickford, the Democratic Party chairman in Massachusetts. “They just want to suppress the vote.”

Full Article: GOP uses voters to push election reforms in unlikely states

National: Democrats weigh changes in filibuster to pass voting rights legislation after GOP opposition | Matthew Brown/USA Today

After another failed vote to advance voting rights legislation last week, Democratic lawmakers are debating the merits changes in the filibuster rule that many in the party see as essential. “The most important vote right now in the Congress of the United States is the vote to respect the sanctity of the vote, the fundamental basis of our democracy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “If there were one vote that the filibuster could enable to go forward, that would be the vote,” Pelosi said. In a CNN town hall Thursday, President Joe Biden said: “I also think we’re going to have to move to the point where we fundamentally alter the filibuster. The idea, for example, my Republican friends say that we’re going to default on the national debt because they’re going to filibuster that and we need 10 Republicans to support us is the most bizarre thing I ever heard.” The shift in attitude toward the rule comes after Senate Republicans filibustered the Freedom to Vote Act, a pared-back voting rights package pushed by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who aggressively courted Republican votes for the bill. The failed vote was the third voting rights package filibustered by Republicans this year.

Full Article: Pelosi, Biden call for filibuster reform on voting rights bills

National: Plan to let troops cast ballots over the internet draws opposition from security experts | Leo Shane III/Air Force Times

A group of election security experts is urging lawmakers to drop plans in the annual defense authorization bill which would allow online ballot casting for troops serving overseas, saying the security concerns outweigh the potential benefits. “There are solutions to improve military and overseas voting without expanding dangerously insecure voting technology,” the group wrote in a letter to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. “We believe that servicemembers deserve the highest standard of safe and verifiable voting. For the foreseeable future, internet voting cannot meet that standard, and places military voters’ votes — and the trustworthiness of elections themselves — at risk.” The effort, which includes groups like Protect Democracy and the U.S. Vote Foundation as well as 27 former state election officials and academics, comes as the Senate is preparing to complete its draft of the massic defense policy bill in the next few weeks.

Full Article: Plan to let troops cast ballots over the internet draws opposition from security experts

National: Senate Democrats ask for details on threats against election workers | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Senate Democrats are pushing the Department of Justice (DOJ) for details on threats against election workers and any related probes. Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and 19 other Democratic senators sent a letter to the Justice Department on Monday asking for updates from the Election Threats Task Force, which the DOJ formed earlier this year to combat threats against election workers.  “We must ensure that election workers are able to do their jobs free from threats, intimidation, or other improper influence. While Congress must pass stronger protections for election workers … we also urge the Justice Department to take additional action under existing law,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was obtained exclusively by The Hill ahead of its release. “It is for this reason that we respectfully request an update on the actions that the Department’s Task Force has taken so far and on its plans to facilitate the reporting, investigation, and prosecution of threats against election officials and election workers,” they added. The Democratic senators are asking for details on the number of threats against election workers, volunteers or their family members and how many completed or ongoing investigations those threats have spawned.

Full Article: Senate Democrats ask for details on threats against election workers | TheHill

National: Advocates worry democracy is eroding on Biden’s watch | shley Parker, Tyler Pager and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Voting rights advocates meet once every week or two with White House officials via video conference, and in almost every session, an advocate speaks up to say that President Biden must do more, that American democracy is under threat and the president is not meeting the challenge. At one such meeting earlier this year, a Biden aide responded that Democrats would simply have to “out-organize” the other side, according to multiple advocates familiar with the exchange who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. The comment infuriated advocates, who believe they are watching former president Donald Trump actively and perhaps permanently undermine faith in U.S. elections. “There’s been a lot of anger and frustration with that line from the White House, which was communicated as a response to advocates wanting the White House to do more,” said Aaron Scherb, legislative director of Common Cause, a longtime pro-democracy group. Scherb conceded that the White House’s urgency has significantly amped up in recent days, as voting rights legislation comes up for debate on Capitol Hill, and White House officials denied the activists’ account of the meeting. But the ongoing frustration is widespread among activists and many Democrats who fear Biden is missing the urgency of the moment. In the nine months since Biden took office, GOP officials throughout the country have baselessly challenged the 2020 results, conducting elaborate and clumsy audits. States have restricted voting, often in ways activists say will hurt disadvantaged communities, and have changed their procedures to allow political influence over future elections.

Full Article: Advocates worry democracy is eroding on Biden’s watch – The Washington Post

National: DOJ: ‘Lionizing’ Jan. 6 rioters fueling future political violence | Kyle Cheney/Politico

The Justice Department said Monday that people “lionizing” the Jan. 6 rioters are heightening the risk of future political violence. “Indeed, the risk of future violence is fueled by a segment of the population that seems intent on lionizing the January 6 rioters and treating them as political prisoners, heroes, or martyrs instead of what they are: criminals,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Roman wrote in a court filing, “many of whom committed extremely serious crimes of violence, and all of whom attacked the democratic values which all of us should share.” The statement came as part of a 28-page argument supporting the pretrial detention of Cody Mattice, a defendant charged with ripping down metal barricades and assaulting police during the attack on the Capitol. It’s an indirect broadside at Republicans who have sought to whitewash the violence committed by supporters of former President Donald Trump during the assault on the Capitol. Trump himself has argued alternately that his supporters were “hugging and kissing” police — rather than committing the approximately 1,000 assaults prosecutors say occurred — and has baselessly claimed that left-wing agitators caused the violence.

Full Article: DOJ: ‘Lionizing’ Jan. 6 rioters fueling future political violence – POLITICO

National: Democrats Plan Another Bid to Break G.O.P. Voting Rights Filibuster | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

Senate Democrats will try again next week to advance a voting rights measure, Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, announced on Thursday, though Republicans are expected to maintain their filibuster against the legislation backed by all Democrats. In a letter laying out the coming agenda for the Senate, Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he would schedule a vote for next Wednesday to open debate on voting rights legislation that he and fellow Democrats say is needed to offset new restrictions being imposed by Republican-controlled state legislatures around the nation. “We cannot allow conservative-controlled states to double down on their regressive and subversive voting bills,” Mr. Schumer said in the letter. “The Freedom to Vote Act is the legislation that will right the ship of our democracy and establish common sense national standards to give fair access to our democracy to all Americans.” His decision intensifies pressure on Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who had initially been his party’s lone holdout on a sweeping voting rights measure passed by the House. Mr. Manchin helped draft a compromise version that he said he hoped could draw bipartisan backing, and sought time to win over Republicans to support it, but there is little evidence that any G.O.P. senators have embraced the alternative. In the 50-50 Senate, it would take 10 Republicans joining every Democrat to muster the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster of any voting rights bill and allow it to be considered.

Full Article: Democrats Plan Another Bid to Break G.O.P. Voting Rights Filibuster – The New York Times

Texas: Trump won Hood County in a landslide. His supporters still hounded the elections administrator until she resigned. | Jeremy Schwartz/The Texas Tribune and Pro Publica

An elections administrator in North Texas submitted her resignation Friday, following a monthslong effort by residents and officials loyal to former President Donald Trump to force her out of office. Michele Carew, who had overseen scores of elections during her 14-year career, had found herself transformed into the public face of an electoral system that many in the heavily Republican Hood County had come to mistrust, which ProPublica and The Texas Tribune covered earlier this month. Her critics sought to abolish her position and give her duties to an elected county clerk who has used social media to promote baseless allegations of widespread election fraud. Carew, who was hired to run elections in Hood County two-and-a-half months before the contested presidential race, said in an interview that she worried that the forces that tried to drive her out will spread to other counties in the state. “When I started out, election administrators were appreciated and highly respected,” she said. “Now we are made out to be the bad guys.” Critics accused Carew of harboring a secret liberal agenda and of violating a decades-old elections law, despite assurances from the Texas secretary of state that she was complying with Texas election rules.

Full Article: Hood County elections administrator resigns after push from Trump loyalists | The Texas Tribune

National: ‘Cannot wait for Washington:’ Voting rights activists scramble to navigate new restrictions ahead of November elections | Fredreka Schouten, Dianne Gallagher and Wesley Bruer/CNN

When activist Tammye Pettyjohn Jones knocks on voters’ doors in her rural corner of Georgia this month, she’ll have a new tool in hand: a portable printer. A sweeping voting law Georgia enacted this year now requires voters who do not have a driver’s license or state ID to provide a copy of another form of identification with their absentee ballot application. So Pettyjohn Jones and other volunteers with Sisters in Service of Southwest Georgia plan to take photos of that identification and print them out on the spot for voters to submit along with their absentee ballot applications. “You don’t have time to hem and haw about how hard it is” to vote, said PettyJohn Jones, who is working to turn out voters ahead of November’s municipal elections in places like Americus, Georgia. “You’ve got to go into a problem-solving mode.” In states from Georgia to Montana, activists are scrambling to help voters navigate the new restrictions passed largely in Republican-controlled states after record turnout in 2020 helped elect President Joe Biden and flipped control of the US Senate to Democrats. In Florida, for example, some organizations have taken iPads into the field so voters could use the devices to register to vote on their own, said Brad Ashwell of All Voting is Local Florida.

Full Article: ‘Cannot wait for Washington:’ Voting rights activists scramble to navigate new restrictions ahead of November elections – CNNPolitics

National: Cyber Ninjas CEO spurns an oversight hearing | Aaron Schaffer/The Washington Post

Yesterday’s House hearing on the partisan election review in Maricopa County, Ariz. quickly devolved into baseless claims and partisan bickering. And the star witness didn’t even show up. Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan flouted the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s request to testify. Instead of appearing before lawmakers, Logan went on conservative podcast “Conservative Daily,” whose host has made baseless allegations that some election machines were rigged to ensure former president Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. For more than two hours, Logan defended his Florida-based firm’s handling of the controversial Arizona review, arguing the review (which ultimately found even more votes for Biden) was “beyond reproach.” Logan’s absence infuriated House Democrats. “Mr. Logan’s refusal to answer questions under oath today is just one more sign that the dark-money-fueled audit he led never should have happened in the first place,” House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) told The Cybersecurity 202 in a statement. “We are evaluating next steps, but rest assured this issue is a top priority for me.”

Full Article: Cyber Ninjas CEO spurns an oversight hearing – The Washington Post

US election reviews have not appeased those who think the game is rigged | Sam Levine/The Guardian

Back in May, I spent some time with a small group of people who had gathered outside of Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix to express their support for the investigation into the election results in Maricopa county, the largest county in Arizona. Sitting under a tent in the desert heat, several people said the two official audits Maricopa county had authorized already weren’t sufficient. I asked the group if they would accept that Biden was the winner if that was what the audit showed. “Personally, I would, yes,” said Kelly Johnson, a 61-year-old who traveled to Phoenix from southern California. I’ve been thinking a lot about that conversation as I watched the Arizona review conclude, finding no evidence of fraud and affirming Biden’s win. And I found myself returning to that conversation as I reported this week on similar efforts to investigate election results that are unfolding in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Texas. Those supporting the reviews have offered similar assurances that an inquiry can only lead to more trust in the election results. If people have questions, what harm can come from looking under the hood to make sure everything is OK? “If there are things called into question, and there is not full confidence in the electoral process, providing audits and research and evidence that in fact these processes and procedures and the election results you can have confidence in, only supports that position where you can have confidence and here is why,” Wisconsin state senator Kathy Bernier told me last week.

Full Article: US election reviews have not appeased those who think the game is rigged | US news | The Guardian

National: Behind the Curtain of Post-Election Canvassing, Audits, and Certification | Matthew Weil and Christopher Thomas/Bipartisan Policy Center

Debates about voting policy tend to center on the parts of the process voters interact with most, such as the number of days of early voting or availability of mail voting options. It is, however, the way states approach the period that begins as polls close that can shape whether voters have confidence in election results. The canvassing and certification period is a black box for most Americans who rarely think about what goes into counting, certifying, and auditing ballots once they are cast. During an era of close contests and hyperpolarization, there is minimal room for error and ample opportunity for misinformation and misunderstanding. In 2021, the perceived need for further analysis of election results gave rise to a series of semi-private, unofficial audits.1 These audits cast doubt on the American voting process, despite being unable to find any evidence to support their claims of fraud. Perhaps the greatest threat to American elections is not any particular of election administration itself, but the decoupling of reality from perception. As the gap between the reality and perception of elections grows, we see private audits haphazardly attempt to achieve what election officials already do in the aftermath of each election: confirm the accuracy of the results. Yet unlike the official certification processes already in place, these circus-like audits are intended to usurp rather than instill voter confidence. Furthermore, many of the audits failed to uphold security best practices and threatened the integrity of voting systems – forcing some jurisdictions to invest millions in new technology, an unnecessary waste of already limited election office resources.

Full Article: Behind the Curtain of Post-Election Canvassing, Audits, and Certification | Bipartisan Policy Center

National: ‘Subverting Justice’: Senate panel details the 9 times Trump pressured Justice Department to overturn election results | Kevin Johnson/USA TODAY

On the very day that Attorney General William Barr left office in late December, then-President Donald Trump and top White House aides began a “relentless” pressure campaign aimed at interim Justice Department leaders, including acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to a new Senate committee report. The effort included “near-daily outreach” to the department, such as nine calls and meetings with Rosen and acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation found. The White House push continued right up to the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters sought to block Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s election. According to the committee, then-acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark repeatedly sought to “induce Rosen into helping Trump’s election subversion scheme” by telling Rosen that he would decline Trump’s offer that he take Rosen’s place if Rosen agreed to join. The report said Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, pressured Rosen on “multiple occasions” to launch election fraud investigations, “violating longstanding restrictions on White House intervention in DOJ law enforcement matters.” According to the report, Meadows attempted to push Rosen to meet with Trump’s outside lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was waging a parallel legal campaign in the courts, where he pressed debunked allegations of voter fraud in multiple states.

Full Article: Senate details Donald Trump’s push at DOJ to overturn 2020 election

National: Report Cites New Details of Trump Pressure on Justice Dept. Over Election | Katie Benner/The New York Times

Even by the standards of President Donald J. Trump, it was an extraordinary Oval Office showdown. On the agenda was Mr. Trump’s desire to install a loyalist as acting attorney general to carry out his demands for more aggressive investigations into his unfounded claims of election fraud. On the other side during that meeting on the evening of Jan. 3 were the top leaders of the Justice Department, who warned Mr. Trump that they and other senior officials would resign en masse if he followed through. They received immediate support from another key participant: Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel. According to others at the meeting, Mr. Cipollone indicated that he and his top deputy, Patrick F. Philbin, would also step down if Mr. Trump acted on his plan. Mr. Trump’s proposed plan, Mr. Cipollone argued, would be a “murder-suicide pact,” one participant recalled. Only near the end of the nearly three-hour meeting did Mr. Trump relent and agree to drop his threat. Mr. Cipollone’s stand that night is among the new details contained in a lengthy interim report prepared by the Senate Judiciary Committee about Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to do his bidding in the chaotic final weeks of his presidency. The report draws on documents, emails and testimony from three top Justice Department officials, including the acting attorney general for Mr. Trump’s last month in office, Jeffrey A. Rosen; the acting deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, and Byung J. Pak, who until early January was U.S. attorney in Atlanta. It provides the most complete account yet of Mr. Trump’s efforts to push the department to validate election fraud claims that had been disproved by the F.B.I. and state investigators.

Full Article: New Details of Trump Pressure on Justice Dept. Over Election – The New York Times

National: ‘The intelligence was there’: Law enforcement warnings abounded in the runup to Jan. 6 | Betsy Woodruff Swan/Politico

On Dec. 24, a private intelligence company that works with law enforcement issued a grave warning: Users of a pro-Trump internet forum were talking about turning violent on Jan. 6. “[A] supposedly violent insurrection by [Trump’s] supporters has ‘always been the plan,’” read a briefing by that company, SITE Intelligence Group. SITE sent this bulletin and others to its numerous subscribers, including U.S. federal law enforcement. That briefing is among a host of previously unreported documents that circulated among law enforcement officials in the weeks before Jan. 6 — laying out, some with jarring specificity, the threats that culminated in the attack on the Capitol. They showed just how much of a danger far-right extremists posed to federal buildings and lawmakers. And they bolster the argument that Jan. 6 was not an intelligence failure. “A potpourri of communities overtly strategized to storm the Capitol building and arrest — if not outright kill — public officials and carry out a coup,” said Rita Katz, the founder and executive director of SITE, which supplied many of the most detailed and specific warnings ahead of Jan. 6. She said Jan. 6 represented the most “profound failure to act” she has ever seen in decades of sharing intelligence with the U.S. government. “Law enforcement officials were alerting their superiors and other agencies to the threats SITE had identified—many of which ended up manifesting that day, just as they were written,” she said. “These warnings were distributed by the FBI and other agencies well before January 6.”

Full Article: ‘The intelligence was there’: Law enforcement warnings abounded in the runup to Jan. 6 – POLITICO

National: Christian Conservative Lawyer Had Secretive Role in Bid to Block Election Result | Eric Lipton and Mark Walker/The New York Times

One of the nation’s most prominent religious conservative lawyers played a critical behind-the-scenes role in the lawsuit that Republican state attorneys general filed in December in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election of President Biden, documents show. The lawyer, Michael P. Farris, is the chief executive of a group known as Alliance Defending Freedom, which is active in opposing abortion and gay rights. He circulated a detailed draft of the lawsuit that Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, ultimately filed against states including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin in an effort to help President Donald J. Trump remain in office. Mr. Paxton filed the lawsuit on Dec. 7, after making some changes but keeping large chunks of the draft circulated by Mr. Farris. An additional 17 Republican attorneys general filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting Mr. Paxton’s lawsuit. Within four days, the matter was rejected by the court. But Mr. Farris’s role highlighted how religious conservatives supported Mr. Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to retain power by blocking certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.

Full Article: How Michael P. Farris Tried to Block 2020 Election Outcome – The New York Times

National: Trump allies did little to investigate election fraud claims, court documents show | Tierney Sneed and Katelyn Polantz/CNN

Allies of former President Donald Trump testified under oath that they did little to check out some of the uncorroborated claims they made about 2020 election fraud before amplifying them on the national stage, according to newly available court records reviewed by CNN. While the bogus fraud claims have long been debunked, these latest revelations are being made in sworn depositions and highlight how little vetting was done by certain Trump allies seeking to spread doubt about the integrity of the presidential election results. The more than 2,000 pages of documents reviewed by CNN provide the most significant look yet at evidence collected in several defamation cases brought against top Trump mouthpieces. In this lawsuit, former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer alleges he was defamed by the Trump campaign, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and prominent conservatives. According to the account that Giuliani gave in the case, he spent less than an hour reviewing allegations that Coomer was part of a plot to rig the election before publicly making those claims at a November press conference.

Full Article: Donald Trump allies did little to investigate election fraud claims, court documents show – CNNPolitics

“God’s Will Is Being Thwarted.” Even in Solid Republican Counties, Hard-Liners Seek More Partisan Control of Elections. | Jeremy Schwartz/ProPublica and The Texas Tribune

Michele Carew would seem an unlikely target of Donald Trump loyalists who have fixated their fury on the notion that the 2020 election was stolen from the former president. The nonpartisan elections administrator in the staunchly Republican Hood County, just an hour southwest of Fort Worth, oversaw an election in which Trump got some 81% of the vote. It was among the former president’s larger margins of victory in Texas, which also went for him. Yet over the past 10 months, Carew’s work has come under persistent attack from hard-line Republicans. They allege disloyalty and liberal bias at the root of her actions, from the time she denied a reporter with the fervently pro-Trump network One America News entrance to a training that was not open to the public to accusations, disputed by the Texas secretary of state’s office, that she is violating state law by using electronic machines that randomly number ballots. Viewing her decisions as a litmus test of her loyalty to the Republican Party, they have demanded that Carew be fired or her position abolished and her duties transferred to an elected county clerk who has used social media to promote baseless allegations of widespread election fraud. Republican politicians and conspiracy theorists continue to cast doubt on the election process across the country, particularly in areas where President Joe Biden won. They have demanded audits in states like Arizona, where the results of a Republican-led review in Maricopa County confirmed Biden’s victory. They have also moved to restrict voting in multiple states, including Texas, which passed sweeping legislation that has already drawn lawsuits alleging the disenfranchisement of vulnerable voters. Last week, Trump issued a public letter demanding an audit in Texas. Hours later, the Texas secretary of state’s office announced that it had begun a “comprehensive forensic audit” in four of the state’s largest counties: Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin. Biden won three of the four.

Full Article: “God’s Will Is Being Thwarted.” Even in Solid Republican Counties, Hard-Liners Seek More Partisan Control of Elections. — ProPublica

National: False election claims undermine efforts to increase security | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Officials say the biggest threat facing U.S. elections isn’t Russian hacking or domestic voter fraud but disinformation and misinformation increasingly undermining the public’s perception of voting security. Since the 2016 vote, Congress has allocated millions of dollars to states in an attempt to shore up cybersecurity and replace outdated, vulnerable voting machines, but even as improvements are made, faith in the system is being eroded. “I believe that the biggest vulnerability is disinformation, that these machines are not functioning in the way that they were intended,” Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Commissioner Thomas Hicks, who was nominated by former President Obama, said Thursday during a virtual event hosted by Freedom House, the Bush Institute, Issue One and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. EAC Chairman Donald Palmer, nominated by former President Trump, agreed with Hicks, telling The Hill Friday that “our systems are secure, and they have been tested and are secure, and the misinformation about those systems, that hurts voter confidence.” Concerns over misleading claims undermining elections are nothing new, but gained widespread public attention after 2016. In the months leading up to November, Russian government hackers targeted election infrastructure in all 50 states, successfully accessing voter registration systems in two of them, though no votes were changed.

Full Article: False election claims undermine efforts to increase security | TheHill

National: New legislation seeks to expand protections for election workers | Linda So/Reuters

A U.S. senator introduced legislation on Monday to broaden protections for election workers, their family members and physical polling locations in response to a Reuters investigation into threats against election administrators. The Election Worker and Polling Place Protection Act aims to make the workers who help administer America’s elections safer — from officials to volunteers and the contractors who set up and maintain voting equipment. The protections would extend to family members of election officials and prohibit threats of damage to polling places, tabulation centers or other election infrastructure. The measure, sponsored by Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, cites two recent Reuters reports about threats of physical harm and death against election workers across the country, from senior officials to volunteer poll workers along with their families. The barrage, fueled by former President Donald Trump’s ceaseless false claims that the 2020 vote was stolen, has continued nearly a year after the November election. There have only been four known arrests in response to the threats and no convictions. “Threats of violence targeting election officials and polling places are threats against our Constitution and the right to vote,” said Ossoff, 34, elected this year. “At this moment of peril for our democracy, my bill will strengthen federal laws protecting election workers and polling places from violent threats and acts of violence.”

Full Article: New U.S. legislation seeks to expand protections for election workers | Reuters

National: Trump seeking to elevate Republicans who refuse to accept Biden victory | Sam Levine/The Guardian

Donald Trump and allies are seeding one of their most dangerous efforts to undermine US elections to date, seeking to elevate candidates who refuse to accept Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 to crucial offices where they could do significant damage in overturning the 2024 elections. The former president has endorsed several Republican candidates running to be the secretary of state, the chief election official, in their respective states. If elected, these candidates would wield enormous power over elections, and could both implement policies that would make it harder for Americans to cast a ballot and block the official certification of election results afterwards. Ten of the 15 candidates running for secretary of state in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada have either said the 2020 results were stolen or that they need to be further investigated, Reuters reported earlier this month. The endorsements from the former president underscore the enormous power that secretaries of state have over election rules and procedures, both before and after the election. One of the main reasons Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election failed in many places were election officials, including Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, who refused to go along with his effort. If those officials are voted out of office next year, it would be a serious blow to the guardrails of US democracy.

Full Article: Trump seeking to elevate Republicans who refuse to accept Biden victory | Donald Trump | The Guardian

National: Alex Jones and pro-Trump conspiracy theorists face legal consequences | Aaron Blake/The Washington Post

Misinformation has always been a problem in politics. What has changed over the last six years or so is how much one movement in particular — the one led by former president Donald Trump — has embraced it as an organizing principle. Trump and his allies have also aligned with the kind of extremist purveyors of conspiracy theories who were once given the cold shoulder in polite society. Increasingly, though, a bit of a reckoning is taking place. Trump allies spouting wild, baseless theories and otherwise taking our political discourse down misinformation rabbit holes are confronting consequences in court or otherwise facing bona fide legal penalties for their actions. The question, as ever, is whether it will change anything — whether those penalties will serve as the deterrent they are supposed to be. Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is the latest to be ordered to pay up by a court. As The Post’s Timothy Bella reported Friday, a judge ruled Jones was liable for all damages in lawsuits over his claims that the massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six others at Sandy Hook Elementary was a “false flag” and a “giant hoax.” The conspiracy theory has led to the harassment of the victims’ families.

Full Article: Alex Jones and pro-Trump conspiracy theorists face legal consequences – The Washington Post

National: There’s a Bipartisan Voting Rights Bill. Yes, Really. | Maggie Astor/The New York Times

A bipartisan elections bill is the rarest of creatures, one many Americans have never seen in the wild. Congressional Democrats are united behind sweeping voting rights legislation that won’t pass the Senate so long as the filibuster exists, because Republicans are united against it. Republican legislators in Texas, Georgia, Florida and elsewhere have passed numerous voting restrictions over united Democratic opposition. But on one sliver of voting issues, it seems lawmakers might — might! — be able to agree. The Native American Voting Rights Act, or NAVRA, was introduced in the House last month by Representatives Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, and Sharice Davids, Democrat of Kansas. Senator Ben Ray Luján, Democrat of New Mexico, introduced companion legislation in the Senate. It would let tribes determine the number and location of voter registration sites, polling places and ballot drop boxes on their reservations; bar states from closing or consolidating those sites without tribal consent; require states with voter identification laws to accept tribal ID; and create a $10 million grant program for state-level task forces to examine barriers to voting access for Native Americans. The bill — endorsed by many Native American tribes, as well as advocacy groups such as the Native American Rights Fund, the National Congress of American Indians and Four Directions — is in the earliest stages of the legislative process. It hasn’t even had a committee hearing. Congress has been rather preoccupied with matters like stopping the government from shutting down or defaulting on its debt. While the broad voting rights measures are a high priority for Democrats, NAVRA is much lower on the list. And there is no telling how many Republicans besides Mr. Cole will get on board.

Full Article: There’s a Bipartisan Voting Rights Bill. Yes, Really. – The New York Times

Here’s what Congress can do to keep the next Trump from stealing an election | Richard L. Hasen/The Washington Post

We know from the Bob Woodward and Robert Costa book “Peril” that the country came closer to a stolen presidential election than was previously reported. President Donald Trump’s lawyer John Eastman advised Vice President Mike Pence that he would be justified in single-handedly accepting some fake alternative slates of electors for states that Joe Biden won — on the grounds of supposed fraud in various states — and simply declare Trump the winner of the election. Pence would have done so on Jan. 6, when he sat in his ceremonial role as president of the Senate. Pence supposedly seriously considered the possibility, only to reject it upon getting sounder legal advice. These machinations involving Pence came on top of at least 30 direct Trump contacts with election officials, elected officials and others to cajole Republican state legislatures to send in those alternative slates of electors. (None did, but Eastman’s plan pretended that they had.) We dodged a bullet last time, and things are much worse now. Election officials have been leaving their jobs as they face threats of violence and harassment, and some of the people who will replace them have bought into the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. Those are the people who will be in charge of counting the votes in some places next election. Simply put, we face a serious risk that election results will not reflect the will of the people in 2024 or some other future American presidential election. Congress has the power to put up barriers to election theft, but the window is quickly closing. That’s because Democrats may soon lose control of one or both Houses of Congress, and Republicans, fearful of Trump or complicit in his plans, cannot be expected to take the lead on deterring election subversion.

Full Article: Here’s what Congress can do to keep the next Trump from stealing an election – The Washington Post