National

Hacking a local election system in the United States wouldn’t be easy, and secretly altering votes on a scale massive enough to change the outcome of the presidential race would be impossible, election officials have said, thanks to decentralized systems, paper records for nearly all ballots, exhaustive reviews, legal due process and decades of work by American election officials, volunteers and citizens. But foreign actors and domestic extremist groups looking to meddle in next week’s election can target a much weaker link: voters’ perceptions and emotions. Those intent on undermining confidence in U.S. democracy don’t have to change any votes if they can convince enough Americans not to trust the outcome. It’s a possible scenario particularly concerning to intelligence analysts and officials tasked with protecting America’s election: An adversary tries to hack a state or local election system and then releases a document — perhaps a fake one or even material that is publicly available — and suggests it’s evidence of vote rigging. Read Article

National: Monitors, Once Meant to Prevent Election Fraud, Now Seek to Prove It | Alexandra Berzon and Michael Wines/The New York Times

The civics-textbook description of a poll monitor’s job is straightforward enough: to be a watchdog of the vote, so candidates, political parties and the public can have confidence that elections are both honest and transparent. But the work has changed in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential race, when Donald J. Trump and his allies used information gathered by Republican monitors as part of their attempts to overturn the election results. This year, the party and its allies have recruited an expanded group of monitors — volunteers chosen to observe voting firsthand inside polling places. They include many who believe the 2020 election was stolen and have been trained to be aggressive in the search for fraud. Read Article

National: Extremists inspired by conspiracy theories pose major threat to 2024 elections, U.S. intelligence warns | Brandy Zadrozny/NBC

U.S. intelligence agencies have identified domestic extremists with grievances rooted in election-related conspiracy theories, including beliefs in widespread voter fraud and animosity toward perceived political opponents, as the most likely threat of violence in the coming election. In a Joint Intelligence Bulletin that was not distributed publicly but was reviewed by NBC News, agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warn state and local law enforcement agencies that domestic violent extremists seeking to terrorize and disrupt the vote are a threat to the election and throughout Inauguration Day. Read Article

National: Election Skeptics Target Voting Officials With Ads in Swing States | Phoebe Petrovic and Doug Bock Clark/ProPublica

Earlier this month, subscribers to the Wisconsin Law Journal received an email with an urgent subject: “Upholding Election Integrity — A Call to Action for Attorneys.” The letter began by talking about fairness and following the law in elections. But it then suggested that election officials do something that courts have found to be illegal for over a century: treat the certification of election results as an option, not an obligation. The large logo at the top of the email gave the impression that it was an official correspondence from the respected legal newspaper, though smaller print said it was sent on behalf of a public relations company. The missive was an advertisement from a new group with deep ties to activists who have challenged the legitimacy of recent American elections. Read Article

National: A baseless voting claim is being amplified by a network of social media accounts | Huo Jingnan/NPR

A network of accounts on the social media site X is claiming to be foreign nationals who have illegally voted in the U.S. presidential election, according to new research from the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The accounts have multiple signatures that suggest they are coordinated, drawing the attention of researchers in the final stretch of election. Some of the accounts have shared images of ballots alongside passports, including from countries that no longer exist, including the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Prussia, the disinformation and extremism research organization reported. The accounts are reinforcing baseless narratives about voter fraud promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies. The most popular post, sporting an image of a French passport, has racked up more than 12 million views on X, formerly Twitter. Read Article

National: As Election Day nears, emergency officials prep for possible violence | Sarah D. Wire/USA Today

The bushes in front of city hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, have been removed. On election night, the street out front will be blocked off. These “hardening” measures were suggested by the city police chief to protect the ballots being counted inside, said Celestine Jeffreys, Green Bay’s city clerk. As threats against election workers have grown more violent, election officials across the country have spent months coordinating to protect voters, ballots and poll workers at an unprecedented level with emergency management agencies. Amid that coordination, the centralized locations where ballots are counted on election night have emerged as a key place needing protection. More than a dozen county and city election officials spoke with USA TODAY about what they are doing to make sure they can count ballots at central ballot counting locations once polls close, no matter what happens outside. Read Article

National: Ballot drop boxes, long a target of misinformation, face physical threats | Layla Ferris/CBS News

With Election Day nearing, authorities in Oregon and Washington have opened investigations and stepped up security measures after two ballot drop boxes were set ablaze on Monday. Three ballots were damaged after an incendiary device was found inside a ballot box in Portland, Oregon, on Monday. And on the same day, officials feared hundreds of ballots were damaged by a fire in a ballot box in nearby Vancouver, Washington. Police said a “suspicious device” was found next to the box. Ballot drop boxes have historically been targets of misinformation, according to experts, who say the false claims surged in 2020 when then-President Donald Trump raised doubts about the security of mail-in ballots. Drop boxes are now facing growing physical threats, according to election officials and internal U.S. government warnings. Read Article

National: Republican lawsuits over overseas and military voting hit setbacks in 3 swing states | Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

Three Republican legal challenges to the legitimacy of ballots cast by U.S. citizens living abroad, including U.S. military members, have hit setbacks this month.On Tuesday, a federal judge tossed one of three lawsuits that GOP groups filed in swing states in recent weeks. That case was brought by six Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. A Michigan state judge dismissed a similar case last week, when a North Carolina judge also rejected the Republican National Committee’s request for the court to order that returned ballots of some overseas voters be set aside and not counted until the voters’ eligibility can be confirmed. Read Article

National: ‘Firehose’ of election conspiracy theories floods final days of the campaign | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

In the final days of the presidential election, lies about noncitizens voting, the vulnerability of mail-in ballots and the security of voting machines are spreading widely over social media. Fanned by former President Donald Trump and notable allies such as tech tycoon Elon Musk, election disinformation is warping voters’ faith in the integrity of the democratic process, polls show, and setting the stage once again for potential public unrest if the Republican nominee fails to win the presidency. At the same time, federal officials are investigating ongoing Russian interference through social media and shadow disinformation campaigns. The “firehose” of disinformation is working as intended, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that advocates for responsible use of technology in elections. “This issue is designed to sow general distrust,” she said. “Your best trusted source is not your friend’s cousin’s uncle that you saw on Twitter. It’s your local election official. Don’t repeat it. Check it instead.” Read Article

National: Bulletproof vests, snipers and drones: Election officials beef up security at the polls | Jane C. Timm/NBC

Election officials across the country are ramping up their security measures at polling places with voting underway in the presidential race, from beefing up law enforcement presence to donning bulletproof vests to deploying drones for surveillance amid an increasingly hostile environment. The once-routine business of running elections in America has become much more fraught with risk in the wake of the 2020 campaign, with poll workers facing harassment, violent threats and chaotic protests. It’s a dynamic that has forced many election officials out of the industry, while those who remain have taken in some cases dramatic steps to protect poll workers and voters ahead of Election Day. Read Article

National: Trump’s Allies Revive Debunked Voting Machine Theories | Danny HakimNick Corasaniti and Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

It has been nearly four years since a parade of judges dismissed wild claims from Donald J. Trump and his associates about hacked election machines and a year and a half since a leading machine company obtained a $787.5 million settlement from Fox News over the debunked conspiracy theories. But Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and his closest allies are again trotting out the theories as part of a late-campaign strategy to assert that this year’s election is rigged — although this time Mr. Trump’s campaign appears to be largely acting behind the scenes. The theories are rampant on social media and widely embraced by activists. Read Article

National: What to Know About the Looming Election Certification Crisis | Jim Rutenberg/The New York Times

The false narrative of a stolen election that inspired hundreds of Americans to storm the U.S. Capitol in 2021 is now fueling a far more sophisticated movement, one that involves local and state election boards across the country. What was once the Stop the Steal movement is now the “voter integrity” movement. Its aim is to persuade the people who are responsible for certifying local elections of the false notions that widespread fraud is a threat to democracy and that they have the authority and legal duty to do something about it: Deny certification of their local elections. Read Article

National: Election officials fight a tsunami of voting conspiracy theories | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

Voting machines reversing votes. More voters registered than people eligible. Large numbers of noncitizens voting. With less than two weeks before Election Day, a resurgence in conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting is forcing state and local election officials to spend their time debunking rumors and explaining how elections are run at the same time they’re overseeing early voting and preparing for Nov. 5. “Truth is boring, facts are boring, and outrage is really interesting,” says Utah’s Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees elections in her state. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole with truth. But what we try to do is just get as much information out there as possible.” Read Article

National: Intelligence officials warn foreign disinformation from Russia may flood post-election period | Derek B. Johnson/CyberScoop

The U.S. intelligence community is anticipating a potentially tumultuous post-election period this year, where foreign governments will seek to amplify domestic unrest to cast doubt about the legitimacy of the winner while undermining confidence in democracy. Officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence singled out Russia, using some of their strongest language to date to warn that leaders in Moscow are preparing a full-court press in the final weeks of the election and beyond. “The intelligence community is increasingly confident that Russian actors are considering — and in some cases implementing — a broad range of influence efforts timed to the election,” an ODNI official told reporters Tuesday. Read Article

National: American creating deep fakes targeting Harris works with Russian intel, documents show | /Catherine BeltonThe Washington Post

A former deputy Palm Beach County sheriff who fled to Moscow and became one of the Kremlin’s most prolific propagandists is working directly with Russian military intelligence to pump out deepfakes and circulate misinformation that targets Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, according to Russian documents obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post. The documents show that John Mark Dougan, who also served in the U.S. Marines and has long claimed to be working independently of the Russian government, was provided funding by an officer from the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service. Some of the payments were made after fake news sites he created began to have difficulty accessing Western artificial intelligence systems this spring and he needed an AI generator — a tool that can be prompted to create text, photos and video. Read Article

National: Election experts worry about Republican poll watchers in swing states | Helen Coster, Alexandra Ulmer and Tim Reid/Reuters

Be aggressive,” Jim Womack, a local Republican Party chair in North Carolina, told the grid of faces who joined the Zoom training session for volunteers to monitor voting on Nov. 5. “The more assertive and aggressive you are in watching and reporting, the better the quality of the election.” During the two-hour session, conducted from a Republican Party office featuring a placard of an AR-15 rifle and photos of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Womack, 69, an army veteran and a retired information systems engineer, instructed 40 volunteers on how to spot “nefarious activity.” He mentioned a local clergyman who accompanied dozens of Latino parishioners to a voting site “like a shepherd leading a sheep.” Voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the United States – despite Trump’s false claim, supported by a majority of Republicans in Congress, that the 2020 election was stolen. US election experts worry about Republican poll watchers in swing statRead Article

‘People are scared’: Election workers brace for threats | Mike Wendling/BBC

A survey earlier this year by the Brennan Center found 38% of local election officials had experienced threats, harassment or abuse. More than half were concerned about the safety of their colleagues or staff, a level of anxiety that has remained more or less constant since the 2022 midterm elections. “People are scared,” says Melissa Kono, the elected town clerk in Burnside, Wisconsin. Ms Kono travels around Wisconsin delivering state-mandated election training to volunteer poll workers. She says the kinds of scenarios she’s being asked about have changed dramatically over the last five years, to the point where she’s increasingly included material in her sessions about dealing with threats. “I’m concerned for the clerks and the election workers,” she said. Read Article

National: What Trump keeps getting wrong about ‘paper ballots’ | Marshall Cohen/CNN

Trump’s insistence that the US switch to “paper ballots” is nonsensical. More than 98% of voters live in jurisdictions that produce fully auditable paper trails, according to data from Verified Voting, which tracks election equipment in every county. Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group, has spent the past two decades urging counties to move away from paperless voting in favor of in-person polling sites. (Vote-by-mail obviously incorporates a paper trail.) The people who run the group say they have accomplished their goal – despite claims from Trump and others that the US still needs paper ballots. “It’s really weird and I don’t understand it,” said Mark Lindeman, the group’s director for policy and strategy. “Almost everybody votes on paper ballots. Anyone who is convinced that we need paper ballots is very likely voting on paper ballots themselves.” Read Article

National: Republicans face backlash for lawsuits targeting overseas and military voting | Amy Gardner, Jacqueline Alemany and Dan Lamothe/The Washington Post

Republican lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina challenging the legitimacy of overseas ballots have prompted a backlash among military personnel, their spouses, veterans and elected officials. Scores of veterans and active-duty members of the armed forces have posted online or contacted their elected representatives out of concern that their votes might not be counted. Military and elected leaders, along with voting rights advocates, have decried the lawsuits as well, calling them a betrayal of the men and women serving the country overseas. “Literally, these are the people who are putting it all on the line for what we have in America,” said Allison Jaslow, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and now is chief executive of the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “And we’re going to compromise their ability to have a say in how they vote for who sends them to war? It’s just beyond the pale.” Read Article

National: Trump Escalates Threats to Political Opponents He Deems the ‘Enemy’ | Lisa Lerer and Michael Gold/The New York Times

With three weeks left before Election Day, former President Donald J. Trump is pushing to the forefront of his campaign a menacing political threat: that he would use the power of the presidency to crush those who disagree with him. In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Mr. Trump framed Democrats as a pernicious “enemy from within” that would cause chaos on Election Day that he speculated the National Guard might need to handle. A day later, he closed his remarks to a crowd at what was billed as a town hall in Pennsylvania with a stark message about his political opponents. “They are so bad and frankly, they’re evil,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re evil. What they’ve done, they’ve weaponized, they’ve weaponized our elections. They’ve done things that nobody thought was even possible.” Read Article

National: Dominion voting systems is still a GOP bogeyman ahead of the election | Chris Stokel-Walker/Fast Company

The election is nearly here, and Dominion Voting Systems is once again on Republicans’ minds. The voting machine-maker became the subject of conspiracy theories following the 2020 election, which Donald Trump falsely claims was rigged against him. The smear campaigns against Dominion led to death threats and, eventually, lawsuits: In 2023, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion nearly $800 million to avoid a trial in a case that could have shown how the network promoted lies related to the 2020 election. But the GOP is back at it, with Republicans in Georgia filing last month a lawsuit in state court, claiming without evidence that Dominion’s voting systems are not secure. That case was quickly thrown out by a judge who said any such claims were “purely hypothetical”: Not a single vote in the 2024 presidential election had been counted at the time the lawsuit was filed. Apparently even the idea that Dominion might be involved in counting and tabulating ballots was too much for some in the GOP to bear. Read Article

National: At least 30 election deniers and 2020 fake electors serving as Trump electors this year | Marshall Cohen, Danya Gainor, Alison Main, Majlie de Puy Kamp, Casey Tolan and Bob Ortega/CNN

More than a dozen Republicans who were “fake electors” in 2020, including several facing criminal charges, are serving as former President Donald Trump’s official electors in battleground states this year, according to a CNN survey. Another 16 GOP electors from these states are election deniers who say President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was fraudulent. Combined, these election deniers and 2020 fake electors represent more than a third of the 82 electors picked this year to support Trump in the seven states where he attempted to overturn the results in 2020. The involvement of these Republican activists in the Electoral College process this year, especially in critical battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Michigan, could lead to post-election chaos if Trump is defeated and they try again to subvert the will of the voters. Read Article

National: Election officials in southern states are grappling with fallout from dual hurricanes | Curt Devine, Devan Cole and Janat Batra/CNN

Powerful hurricanes that wreaked havoc on wide swaths of the southeast have election officials facing the dim reality that some ballots may be lost in the mail. While in many cases there are remedies to solve the problem, it’s part of the complicated preparations for the upcoming general election, especially in hard-hit North Carolina, a battleground state where communications and power remain spotty in some counties. Hurricane Helene, which hit the US late last month, caused hundreds of deaths across half a dozen states and upended carefully laid election plans as polling centers were crippled and regular communication channels were shattered. Read Article

National: Not everything will run perfectly on Election Day but US elections are remarkably reliable | Gary Fields/Associated Press

On Election Day, some voting lines will likely be long and some precincts may run out of ballots. An election office website could go down temporarily and ballot-counting machines will jam. Or people who help run elections might just act like the humans they are, forgetting their key to a local polling place so it has to open later than scheduled. These kinds of glitches have occurred throughout the history of U.S. elections. Yet election workers across America have consistently pulled off presidential elections and accurately tallied the results — and there’s no reason to believe this year will be any different. Elections are a foundation of democracy. They also are human exercises that, despite all the laws and rules governing how they should run, can sometimes appear to be messy. They’re conducted by election officials and volunteers in thousands of jurisdictions across the United States, from tiny townships to sprawling urban counties with more voters than some states have people. Read Article

National: New wave of GOP lawsuits targets overseas ballots in key swing states | Adam Edelman/NBC

Republicans have filed lawsuits over the past week in three pivotal battleground states seeking to challenge the legitimacy of some ballots cast by U.S. citizens living abroad, including military members, arguing that some votes are particularly prone to fraud. Election officials in those states — Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — and nonpartisan voting experts strongly defended the previously uncontroversial overseas voting rules, arguing that the suits amounted to efforts to further lay the groundwork to question the veracity of the election results next month. The Republican National Committee last week sued election officials in North Carolina and Michigan in state courts, alleging they had on their books unlawful rules that extended overseas voting eligibility to people whose residency in those states had not been verified. Read Article

National: Voting Wars Open a New Front: Which Mail Ballots Should Count? | Michael Wines/The New York Times

As Pennsylvania voters begin casting perhaps two million-plus mail ballots, Democrats and Republicans are in furious legal combat over a once-overlooked aspect of voting remotely: which ballots are counted, which are rejected as defective and which ones voters are allowed to correct. Simple math explains why. In the 2020 presidential contest, Pennsylvania election officials rejected more than 34,000 mail ballots. In a tight 2024 election in the most coveted swing state, even a fraction of that many rejections could spell the difference between victory and defeat — not just in the presidential race, but also in any number of others. What’s true in Pennsylvania is true, to varying degrees, in other battleground states. Michigan rejected more than 20,000 mail ballots in 2020 and even more in 2022; Arizona turned down 7,700; Nevada 5,600; and Wisconsin about 3,000. Read Article

National: Election conspiracy theories fueled a push to hand-count votes, but doing so is risky and slow | Christine Fernando/Associated Press

Four years of Donald Trump’s false claims about a stolen 2020 election have kindled growing suspicion of voting machines among conspiracy theorists. One of their solutions is to replace the tabulators that count every vote with people who will do that by hand. Controversies over the issue have flared periodically in pockets of the country before the 2024 presidential election even though research has shown that hand-counting is more prone to error, costlier and likely to delay results. The few counties that have attempted the massive task have found the process more time-consuming, expensive and inaccurate than expected. Read Article

National: Election officials who back Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ stir concern in swing states | Joseph Tanfani and Nathan Layne/Reuters