National

In a midterm election season where many Republicans are running for Congress on the false premise that the last presidential election was stolen, voters in eight states still vote on machines that don’t keep a hack-proof record of who they voted for — and progress on replacing those machines has been slow. After the extremely close 2000 election, which showed the pitfalls of relying on paper punchcard ballots, many jurisdictions turned to paperless electronic voting machines. But cybersecurity experts objected, warning that paperless machines undermined election security by making it impossible to reliably audit the results. Russia’s interference in the 2016 election galvanized a move back to paper records, albeit with new electronic machines that print out ballots. Since then, seven states have replaced paperless machines with devices that security experts consider safer.

Full Article: States struggle to add paper trails to voting machines

National: Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes | Farnoush Amiri/Associated Press

Rioters who smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, succeeded — at least temporarily — in delaying the certification of Joe Biden’s election to the White House. Hours before, Rep. Jim Jordan had been trying to achieve the same thing. Texting with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, a close ally and friend, at nearly midnight on Jan. 5, Jordan offered a legal rationale for what President Donald Trump was publicly demanding — that Vice President Mike Pence, in his ceremonial role presiding over the electoral count, somehow assert the authority to reject electors from Biden-won states. Pence “should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all,” Jordan wrote. “I have pushed for this,” Meadows replied. “Not sure it is going to happen.” The text exchange, in an April 22 court filing from the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot, is in a batch of startling evidence that shows the deep involvement of some House Republicans in Trump’s desperate attempt to stay in power. A review of the evidence finds new details about how, long before the attack on the Capitol unfolded, several GOP lawmakers were participating directly in Trump’s campaign to reverse the results of a free and fair election.

Full Article: Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes | AP News

National: Republican election-deniers elevate races for secretary of state | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

Add one more group of contests to the white-hot races for Congress and governor that will dominate this year’s midterm elections: secretaries of state. Former President Donald Trump’s attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election and his subsequent endorsements of candidates for state election offices who are sympathetic to his view have elevated those races to top-tier status. At stake, say Democrats and others concerned about fair elections, is nothing less than American democracy. “If they win the general election, we’ve got real problems on our hands,” said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who has pushed back against the false claims made by Trump and his allies about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. “This is an effort to replace the people who oversee these races – to change the rules to make the results come out the way they want them to.” The primary season begins in force in the coming week with elections in Ohio and Indiana. Ohio voters will decide which candidate will emerge from the Republican primary for secretary of state, with the winner favored to eventually win the office in the GOP-dominated state.

Full Article: Republican election-deniers elevate races for secretary of state

National: DHS watchdog says Trump’s agency appears to have altered report on Russian interference in 2020 election in part because of politics | Priscilla Alvarez and Zachary Cohen/CNN

Full Article: DHS watchdog says Trump's agency appears to have altered report on Russian interference in 2020 election in part because of politics - CNNPolitics

Former President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security delayed and altered an intelligence report related to Russian interference in the 2020 election, making changes that "appear to be based in part on political considerations," according to a newly released watchdog report. The April 26 Homeland Security inspector general's assessment provides a damning look at the way DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis dealt with intelligence related to Russia's efforts to interfere in the US, stating the department had deviated from its standard procedures in modifying assessments related to Moscow's targeting of the 2020 presidential election. The conclusion that Trump's appointee appeared to have tried to downplay Russian meddling in a key intelligence report is the latest example of how his aides managed his aversion to any information about how Russia might be helping his election prospects. According to special counsel Robert Mueller's report, Trump officials tried to avoid the topic during meetings and at hearings, because he would become enraged and upset when Russian meddling came up. The US intelligence community announced during the 2020 campaign that Russia was actively meddling in the election to weaken then-candidate Joe Biden. At the time, Trump downplayed those findings and promoted false claims about Biden that aligned with Russia's disinformation efforts. The IG report addresses past suspicions that Trump appointees distorted some intelligence reports to foster a more Trump-friendly narrative.

National: NSA, Cyber Command tap new election security leaders | Martin Matishak/The Record

U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency have named the newest leaders of a joint election security task force that will play a central role in keeping the 2022 midterm elections free of foreign interference. The task force, originally dubbed the Russia Small Group, was established in 2018 by Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, who helms both Cyber Command and the NSA, to protect the 2018 midterms from meddling by Moscow. It was rechristened the Election Security Group (ESG) ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and its mandate was tweaked to include threats from countries including China, North Korea, and Iran, as well as non-state actors. “The band is already back together,” Nakasone said Wednesday at Vanderbilt University’s Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, noting the group’s scope had been changed because “we have broader issues than just one nation.” “We’re less than 200 days before our nation goes to vote for our midterm elections,” Nakasone added. “And I assure you that we are ready, we will be ready, going forward.” Full Article: NSA, Cyber Command tap new election security leaders - The Record by Recorded Future

National: Democrats urge Biden to use presidential powers, ‘whatever means necessary’ to protect voters | Deborah Barfield Berry USA Today

With federal voting rights legislation stalled in Congress, Democratic lawmakers and civil rights activists are calling on the Biden administration to issue a new executive order aimed at better protecting voters against restrictive state election laws. Democrats and activists are increasingly disappointed with the lack of progress on passing sweeping voter protection legislation. And with high-stakes midterms elections looming, there's also growing concern about ballot access for voters of color — historically a key voting bloc for Democrats. Rep. Joyce Beatty, , an Ohio Democrat and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the Biden administration should "do whatever is necessary, whether that's an executive order, whether that is us figuring out a legislative approach that we can get through." White House officials said they haven’t ruled out any avenues. "Everything's on the table,’’ Cedric Richmond, senior advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement told USA TODAY. He added: “Where there's constitutional things we can do you can look for us to do them.”

Full Article: Voting rights: Biden urged to consider executive order to protect voters

Trump allies breach U.S. voting systems in search of ‘evidence’ | Alexander Ulmer and Nathan Layne/Reuters

Eighteen months after Donald Trump lost the White House, loyal supporters continue to falsely assert that compromised balloting machines across America robbed him of the 2020 election. To stand up that bogus claim, some Trump die-hards are taking the law into their own hands – by attempting, with some success, to compromise the voting systems themselves. Previously unreported surveillance video captured one such effort in August in the rural Colorado town of Kiowa. Footage obtained by Reuters through a public-records request shows Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder, the county’s top election official, fiddling with cables and typing on his phone as he copied computer drives containing sensitive voting information. Schroeder, a Republican, later testified that he was receiving instructions on how to copy the system’s data from a retired Air Force colonel and political activist bent on proving Trump lost because of fraud. That day, Aug. 26, Schroeder made a “forensic image of everything on the election server,” according to his testimony, and later gave the cloned hard drives to two lawyers. Schroeder is now under investigation for possible violation of election laws by the Colorado secretary of state, which has also sued him seeking the return of the data. Schroeder is defying that state demand and has refused to identify one of the lawyers who took possession of the hard drives. The other is a private attorney who works with an activist backed by Mike Lindell, the pillow mogul and election conspiracy theorist.

Full Article: Trump allies breach U.S. voting systems in search of 'evidence'

National: Talk of martial law, Insurrection Act draws notice of Jan. 6 committee | Jacqueline Alemany, Josh Dawsey and Tom Hamburger/The Washington Post

Three days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She told him that some Republican members of Congress believed the only path for President Donald Trump to change the outcome of the 2020 election and stay in power was for him to declare martial law. The text from Greene (R-Ga.), revealed this week, brought to the fore the chorus of Republicans who were publicly and privately advocating for Trump to try to use the military and defense apparatus of the U.S. government to strong-arm his way past an electoral defeat. Now, discussions involving the Trump White House about using emergency powers have become an important — but little-known — part of the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation of the 2021 attack on the Capitol. In subpoenas, document requests and court filings, the panel has demanded information about any Trump administration plans to use presidential emergency powers to invoke martial law or take other steps to overturn the 2020 election. Interviews with committee members and a review of the panel’s information requests reveals a focus on emergency powers that were being considered by Trump and his allies in several categories: invoking the Insurrection Act, declaring martial law, using presidential powers to justify seizing assets of voting-machine companies, and using the military to require a rerun of the election. “Trump’s invocation of these emergency powers would have been unprecedented in all of American history,” said J. Michael Luttig, a conservative lawyer and former appeals court judge.

Full Article: Talk of martial law, Insurrection Act draws notice of Jan. 6 committee - The Washington Post

National: Trump’s lies helped prompt one critical election reform | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Indiana are all belatedly making moves to require paper records for all votes cast in their states — a vital shift to ensure votes weren’t manipulated by hackers or altered by digital glitches. But there's a catch. The moves were spurred in large part by former president Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud and manipulation in the 2020 election and his baseless crusade against voting machine companies — rather than by legitimate concerns spurred by Russian interference in the 2016 contest. It may be the only security-enhancing effect of Trump’s wild and baseless claims that his election loss was illegitimate — and election security advocates are celebrating it even as they’re dubious about the impetus. “I don’t condone bizarre claims about past elections or fearmongering about how we operate elections, but if people have to resort to misguided beliefs to come to true beliefs, things could be worse,” Mark Lindeman, director of the group Verified Voting, told me. “It’s really valuable to have paper ballots, and we don’t care how people come to that conclusion,” Lindeman said.

Full Article: Trump's lies helped prompt one critical election reform - The Washington Post

National: GAO: EAC Can Decide on State Funding for Election Officials’ Security | Lisbeth Perez/MeriTalk

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has been given full discretion to decide if states can allocate funds from the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to provide security services for state or local election officials, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In December 2021, the EAC reached out to GAO to determine whether states may use certain grant funds made available to them under HAVA to provide “physical security services and social media threat monitoring” in connection with election activities. HAVA authorizes the use of grant funds for states to improve the administration of elections for Federal office. However, the law does not explicitly authorize nor prohibit the use of funds for security services. GAO stated in its decision that “if not otherwise specified in the law, an expense is authorized where it bears a reasonable, logical relationship to the purpose of the appropriation to be charged.” “Here, a decision to allow the use of grant funds for the physical security services and social media threat monitoring would be within EAC’s legitimate range of discretion,” the report says. “Congress vested in EAC the authority to administer the HAVA grants [but] also vested in EAC the authority to determine whether a particular grant expenditure helps ‘improv[e] the administration of elections for Federal office.’” Full Article: GAO: EAC Can Decide on State Funding for Election Officials’ Security – MeriTalk

National: Digital Response launches new election program | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

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

, 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. (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