National

As with most aspects of our daily lives, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the administration of elections. Several states have already postponed primaries that were scheduled for this spring, and the few in-person elections that have taken place were marred by chaos. But with an election date of November 3 more or less set in stone, how can the general election be conducted safely if the pandemic is still raging in the fall? Many officials and voters alike think the solution is to conduct the election predominantly by mail — but that’s easier said than done. Converting to a vote-by-mail system is arduous and expensive, and most states simply aren’t set up to smoothly conduct a mail election with their present resources and laws. Currently, state laws on the use of mail voting are a patchwork quilt. Only five states regularly conduct mail elections by default: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Three more, though, do allow counties to opt into mail voting, and nine more allow certain elections to be conducted by mail — although these are typically low-turnout, local elections, a far cry from the 2020 presidential race.

National: States Expand Internet Voting Experiments Amid Pandemic, Raising Security | Miles Parks/NPR

Election officials nationwide are preparing for what may the highest election turnout in modern history in the middle of a pandemic. In response, several states will be turning to a relatively new and untested form of internet-based voting to aid the voters who may have the most trouble getting to the polls. In the latest demonstration of the technology, Delaware will allow voters with disabilities to return their ballots electronically in its primary election next month, becoming the second U.S. state to do so. The decision comes despite grave warnings from the cybersecurity community that the technology doesn’t offer sufficient safeguards to protect the integrity of an election. NPR is the first to report the development, which has yet to be announced publicly. Both the state, and the Seattle-based company administering the technology, Democracy Live, confirmed the decision, although they dispute the term “internet voting” for the cloud-based system. Earlier this year, West Virginia passed a bill to allow the use of the technology for disabled voters, after becoming the first state to allow overseas and military voters to use an app to vote in the 2018 midterms. Delaware will also allow overseas and military voters to use the technology.

National: Weighing the Risks of Remote Voting Technology | Council on Foreign Relations

The spread of COVID-19 has raised serious questions about how Americans can vote without jeopardizing their health. The controversial Wisconsin primary held in early April, in which the state’s Supreme Court ordered election officials to proceed with in-person voting over the course of a single day, was plagued with long lines and crowding. This is exactly the opposite of the social distancing measures that have been put in place across the country to control the virus. Moreover, poor and minority communities in particular appear to have been confronted with a choice between voting and risking their health, essentially disenfranchising large groups of voters. While the option of voting at polling stations during the pandemic still seems to be on the table, some have suggested allowing people to vote remotely over the internet instead of casting their ballot in person. Policymakers may want to consider some forms of remote voting, such as vote-by-mail, but remote voting technology poses formidable security risks.

National: Infrastructure interdependence a threat to upcoming elections | Nicholas Cunningham/Atlantic Council

Election season approaches and the effects of Russian information operations are once again manifesting in our government. In February 2020, the New York Times reported that both Democrats and Republicans are already suspicious that the other side of the aisle is benefitting from Russian interference. However, we have overlooked other vulnerabilities in our elections amidst the threat of information operations. The numerous sectors of our critical infrastructure, to include the elections process, are interdependent on one another and a failure in one sector could result in the failure of another. For example, a power outage would significantly degrade the ability of a small municipality to conduct an election. Recent developments indicate that Russia could exploit the interdependent nature of our critical infrastructure to disrupt our elections via well-timed cyberattacks. How prepared are we to address election interference that goes beyond information operations?

National: Absentee voting: Voters face potential life-or-death choices in states with limited measures | Abby Phillip/CNN

Elections are a sacred ritual for Jeremy Rutledge and always have been. But for the first time in his life, the 49-year old minister of a historic Circular Congregational Church in Charleston, South Carolina, says that he is being forced to make what could be a life-or-death choice because of the risk Covid-19 poses to him. Rutledge, who lives with his wife and son, says he has for nearly 12 years suffered from a chronic autoimmune disorder that has caused scarring in his lungs. His doctors have warned him that a Covid-19 infection could be a death sentence. “I’ve always voted since I was old enough to vote — in every election,” Rutledge told CNN. “I never imagined that I would have to decide whether I wanted to vote or whether I wanted to live and be healthy.” “We’ve really had serious conversations,” he said. “All of my doctors are worried that if I contract the virus, I could die from it.”

National: Partisan battle erupts over US Postal Service as some look to mail-in ballots amid pandemic | Allison Pecorin/ABC

As some lawmakers have begun to advocate for the use of mail-in ballots as a means of safeguarding voters amid the coronavirus pandemic during the upcoming 2020 elections, a partisan battle has erupted in Washington over the future of the crippled U.S. Postal Service. Lawmakers were already facing challenging decisions about how to rescue the troubled agency, which is on the brink of insolvency in the midst of the global health crisis, but the ongoing debate over mail-in ballots has added a political dimension to an already complex problem. The stakes could not be higher. Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees the U.S. Postal Service, told ABC News that if Congress does not approve more money for the agency, efforts to implement a nationwide vote-by-mail measure could be in jeopardy. “The whole point of this is to make it safe and effective, and I believe the post office is well equipped to do both,” Connolly said. “But it has to get an infusion of capital to ensure that that mission is smooth and uninterrupted.”

National: Pelosi says Democrats will push for vote by mail in next coronavirus relief package | Rebecca Shabad/NBC

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday that Democrats will push for a vote-by-mail provision in Congress’ next coronavirus relief package. In an interview on MSNBC’s LIVE with Stephanie Ruhle, Pelosi said that it’s important to protect the “life of our democracy” as the coronavirus crisis continues. “In this next bill, we will be supporting vote by mail in a very important way — we think it’s a health issue at this point,” Pelosi said. Democrats have been for weeks pushing mail-in voting before May and June primary contests— over a dozen of which have been postponed or canceled because of the coronavirus— and as they look ahead to the November election.

National: Why a Data-Security Expert Fears U.S. Voting Will Be Hacked lexandra Wolfe/Wall Street Journal

In 2005, a concerned Florida election supervisor asked the Finnish data-security expert Harri Hursti to hack into one of the state’s commonly used voting machines to test its vulnerability. The verdict wasn’t reassuring. By modifying just a few lines of code on the machine’s memory card, Mr. Hursti says, he could change the results of a mock election. That same model, he adds, will be among those used in the 2020 elections. (A spokesperson for the machine’s vendor, Dominion Voting, says that these weaknesses were fixed in 2012, but Mr. Hursti says that he has tested the new version and found the updates insufficient.) Mr. Hursti has spent the past 15 years trying to draw attention to the weaknesses in America’s voting systems. Last month, he was featured in an HBO documentary called “Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections,” about far-reaching security breaches in multiple U.S. elections that he says have gone unfixed. He warns that both the American political establishment and the public are far too complacent. “Once you understand how everything works, you understand how fragile everything is and how easy it is to lose this all,” Mr. Hursti says in the film.

National: ‘We’ve got to get going.’ States under pressure to plan for the general election amid a pandemic | Daniel Bush/PBS

The presidential election in November is still more than six months away, but states are already under pressure to start making preparations for holding a general election during a public health crisis, including expanding vote-by-mail systems in time to handle a potential spike in absentee ballots this fall. The primaries have offered a preview of possible problems in November, with court battles over voting rights and public health concerns over in-person voting underscoring the challenges of carrying out an election amid the coronavirus pandemic. Many states delayed primaries scheduled for this spring, but there is no serious discussion about seeking a change in the federal law to allow for the Nov. 3 general election to be moved to a later date. Barring a major unforeseen turn of events, the widespread assumption is that the presidential contest will go forward as planned. But while the general election is more than half a year away, states considering any changes in November need to start preparing now in order to have contingency plans ready in time for the fall, according to interviews with Democratic and Republican Party leaders, current government officials, former state officials in charge of elections, and others.

National: States rush to prepare for huge surge of mail voting | Zach Montellaro and Laura Barón-Lopez/Politico

A huge surge in voting by mail is coming whether states prepare for it or not — and without clear direction from the federal government, states are preparing to muscle through their own changes to get ready for the glut of mail ballots coming their way in November. Wisconsin’s conflict-ridden April 7 elections went off without the state government making any major policy changes to encourage absentee voting, but more than two-thirds of voters cast their votes via the mail anyway, many times higher than the 12 percent absentee voting rate in the spring 2016 election. The surge overwhelmed election officials, with some staff working 100 hour weeks to try to fill all the ballot requests and reports of the state’s system crashing under the intense workload. In the aftermath, election administrators in other states are moving quickly to avoid getting overwhelmed themselves. States that have already mastered massive vote-by-mail systems are serving as informal information clearinghouses for others, dispensing advice on everything from how to line up the best vendors for printing and distributing paper ballots to setting up drive-by or other drop-off points for voters who don’t want to rely on the U.S. Postal Service.

National: States’ election funding requests indicate numerous anticipated hurdles | Alisa Wiersema/ABC

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has already thrown the 2020 primary season into disarray, but now with just over six months until November, the aftershocks of the spread of COVID-19 threaten to rock the general election, leaving states grappling with a slew of underlying logistical hurdles embedded in the administration of the voting process. Filings submitted by states and territories to the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission as part of the CARES Act–a $2 trillion economic stimulus package President Donald Trump signed into law last month– indicate that election officials are already scrambling to address inevitable changes ahead, but given the decentralized nature of U.S. elections, each state seems to be angling at different solutions to mitigate voting amid the pandemic. The outlined tactics include a myriad of issues including tangible solutions — like using the funds to purchase cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment for poll workers — to more nuanced endeavors, like bolstering vote-by-mail efforts and absentee voting procedures. Some states even specify plans to dedicate a portion of their granted funds to run communications campaigns aimed at educating Americans about any newly-implemented changes to the voting process.

National: Joe Biden Steps Up Warnings of Possible Trump Disruption of 2020 Election | Katie Glueck/The New York Times

For months, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has argued that under pressure and political duress, President Trump may pursue increasingly extreme measures to stay in power. In November, Mr. Biden said he feared that “as the walls close in on him he becomes more erratic. And I’m genuinely concerned about what he may do in order to try to hold on to the office.” In January, Mr. Biden fretted: “He still has another nine or 10 months. God knows what can happen.” And on Thursday, he added some urgency to his warnings, suggesting that Mr. Trump might try to delay or otherwise disrupt the election. “Mark my words, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Mr. Biden said at a fund-raiser, according to a news media pool report. Mr. Trump, he suggested, is “trying to let the word out that he’s going to do all he can to make it very hard for people to vote. That’s the only way he thinks he can possibly win.” It was an extraordinary claim for the presumptive Democratic nominee to make about an opponent, especially for Mr. Biden, a former vice president and Washington veteran who prides himself on civility and respect for American institutions, including and especially the presidency.

National: Voting machine manufacturers pushed to provide ways to sanitize products | Maggie Miller/The Hill

The top U.S. voting machine manufacturers are being pushed to produce videos and information on how their products can be sanitized to enable Americans to safely vote in-person during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Six leading voting equipment manufacturers were sent a letter Thursday by nonprofit group Free Speech for People, which raised concerns that voting machines could become a “major disease vector” for spreading the coronavirus during upcoming primaries and the general election. As a result, the group asked the manufacturers to produce videos detailing how to properly clean voting equipment and post them online, along with allowing third-party groups to examine whether the steps to clean the equipment were effective and safe. “We make these requests because we are deeply concerned about the health risk that electronic voting machines pose to voters,” Free Speech for People wrote.

National: 2020 Was Already Expected to Be A Record Year for Election-Related Lawsuits—Then Coronavirus Happened | Alexandra Hutzler/Newsweek

The drive to expand vote-by-mail options amid the coronavirus pandemic has caused a major spike in lawsuits in what was already expected to be a banner year for election-related litigation. “Even before the virus hit, I was predicting that 2020 would see a record level of election-related litigation,” Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, told Newsweek. “So it is not a surprise that the virus is spurring even more litigation, both over virus-related changes to election dates and procedures and also to litigate over the meaning of existing rules in light of the pandemic,” he added. In the past two months since the COVID-19 outbreak became a global health crisis, dozens of lawsuits related to the 2020 election have popped up around the country. In the past week alone, voting rights litigation has been filed in Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

National: Did we order enough envelopes? Vote-by-mail advocates worry time is running out to prepare | Kevin Collier/NBC

Some of the most ardent supporters of voting by mail have a warning: Time is running out to prepare for the November election. Officials who want to offer far more voters the option of mailing in their ballots are running out of time to make that option a reality, experts warned Wednesday during a livestreamed hearing hosted by the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency tasked with giving states guidance on how to effectively conduct their elections. Panelists cautioned that while voting by mail can be a safe and effective option for many Americans, preparations to do so take substantial investments of time and money, made more difficult by the fact that most election officials are working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic. Scanning machines, ballots and even envelopes can become roadblocks if states do act soon enough. “I’m one of the biggest advocates for vote-by-mail and absentee voting,” said Kim Wyman, the secretary of state of Washington state, which is widely regarded as a leader in transitioning to a full vote-by-mail system.

National: EAC Commissioners urge immediate action to protect voting amid coronavirus | Mark Albert/KETV

Federal election leaders called an urgent hearing in Washington D.C. Wednesday to find out how to keep America’s elections safe from the coronavirus, and how to protect voting. At a hastily-called virtual hearing, the U.S. election assistance commission Wednesday focused on how elections in all states will be affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic sweeping…

National: ‘We can’t afford to wait’: coronavirus could shut out droves of new US voters | Sam Levine/The Guardian

In a typical election year, canvassers across the country would be beginning to fan out on street corners, college campuses, concerts and rallies to pepper Americans with a simple question: “Are you registered to vote?” This early work is critical to campaigns trying to build a support base for election day. But this year, the Covid-19 pandemic has made it nearly impossible to register new voters. Limited voter registration is most likely to affect young people, minority groups, and naturalized immigrants, groups projected to contribute to record-high turnout in November. Freezing them out is likely to benefit Republicans, who tend to see a more diverse and younger electorate as a threat. In Kentucky, where Mitch McConnell faces a closely-watched Senate re-election battle in November, just 504 people registered in March as Covid-19 restrictions went in to effect. By comparison, more than 7,200 voters registered the month before. Meanwhile, more states are turning to vote-by-mail amid the pandemic, relying on voter registration rolls to send out election materials. Those unable to register might not get their applications, or ballots, in time.

National: Senate panel backs assessment that Russia interfered in 2016 election | Mary Clare Jalonick and Eric Tucker/Associated Press

A bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday confirms the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to sow chaos. Senators warned that it could happen again this presidential election year. The heavily redacted report from the Senate Intelligence Committee is part of the panel’s more than three-year investigation into the Russian interference. The intelligence agencies concluded in January 2017 that Russians had engaged in cyber-espionage and distributed messages through Russian-controlled propaganda outlets to undermine public faith in the democratic process, hurt Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump. President Trump has repeatedly questioned the assessment, which was also confirmed by former special counsel Robert Mueller in his report last year. Mueller concluded that Russian interference was “sweeping and systematic,” but he did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign.

National: Researchers discover how far-right coronavirus protest websites are organized | Jeff Stone/CyberScoop

More evidence that a group of conservative political activists is operating a network of websites meant to inflame pandemic-related tension in the U.S. and solicit donations has been uncovered by a Seattle-based cybersecurity company. Threat intelligence firm DomainTools released research Friday indicating that pro-gun activist Aaron Dorr appears to be using widely available software to operate dozens of websites, many of which include “reopen” in the URL. DomainTools researchers have conducted a technical examination of “reopen” sites — like “ReopenMN” and “ReopenWI” — to determine just how consolidated the sites are, despite the appearance that they exist as standalone entities. The sites are registered to local gun advocacy groups and utilize One Click Politics, a digital organizing service that allows a single person to manage dozens of websites, run email promotion and collect money. The network starts with Dorr’s personal website on top, at least 13 gun rights coalition groups on the next level down, and many dozens of state “reopen” sites beneath that, according to DomainTools. “All of the [domains] in our report are tied back to Dorr,” said senior security researcher Chad Anderson.

National: Senate Russia report may inspire last push for election security changes before November | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

A bipartisan Senate report on Russia’s 2016 hacking operations may be the last major catalyst for lawmakers to make meaningful election security changes before the 2020 contest. The heavily redacted Senate Intelligence Committee report unanimously endorses the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin was instrumental in directing a wide-ranging hacking and influence effort aimed in part at helping elect President Trump. It’s a bipartisan congressional rebuke of “President Trump’s oft-stated doubts about Russia’s role in the 2016 race,” as my colleague Ellen Nakashima reports. But it came out the same day Congress passed a $484 billion stimulus bill aimed at aimed at shoring up small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic — which didn’t include any money to make elections more secure during the crisis. And it’s far from clear whether more money will come through in time to help. It’s the latest disappointment for election security advocates who say far too little has been done since 2016.

National: As coronavirus upends elections, ballot access becomes next point of concern | Meg Cunningham and Kendall Karson/ABC News

As coronavirus continues to upend the election cycle and fights over voter access to the polls weave through the courts, candidate access to ballots has become just as difficult. On Wednesday, Arkansas Voters First and the Campaign Legal Center filed a lawsuit seeking to relieve some of the petitioning requirements needed to qualify for a ballot due to coronavirus. Ballot initiatives, which only make it to the ballot if enough voters sign a petition to qualify it to do so, are often the source of legal changes in a state which do not go through the legislature. Without the ability to collect signatures or canvass in-person, the plaintiffs argue that ballot initiatives won’t make it onto the ballot for voters to decide, putting democracy at risk. The issue at play is the enactment of a non-partisan redistricting commission which would redraw the state’s districts, instead of the state legislature.

National: Coronavirus will necessitate recruitment effort unseen since World War II to staff voting booths, election official warns | Jon Ward/Yahoo News

States will face severe shortages of election workers for November’s presidential election and will need to find new ones because of the coronavirus, the top elections official in Washington state said Wednesday. “As a nation we are going to need to do the biggest recruitment effort, probably since World War II — in terms of personnel — to staff polling places and voting centers and election processing warehouses,” said Kim Wyman, Washington’s secretary of state. Wyman testified via teleconference during a meeting of the Election Assistance Commission, a federal government agency created in 2002. She told the commissioners that she expects her state and most others to lose a majority of their traditional poll workers, who tend to be older and therefore at greater risk of infection. “Most of our seasonal workers come from people who are 65 and older, and we know that out of the gate we are going to lose between half and two-thirds of our workforce and we’re going to have to rebuild that nationally,” Wyman said.

National: The vote by mail fault lines that could define November’s election | Kendall Karson/ABC

The ongoing legal wrangling over voting rights and access, an issue that has become an undercurrent of the 2020 election, foreshadows some of the expected clashes to come ahead of November’s uncertain general election. The quarrels center on expanding mail voting as states adjust to the unprecedented coronavirus crisis, particularly in key battlegrounds that could tip the scales of the upcoming presidential contest. In states such as Georgia, Texas, Nevada and Florida, among others, state and party leaders are seeking to change the way people vote to avoid a similar fate as Wisconsin, where a series of emergency orders and legal challenges earlier this month culminated in thousands of voters risking their health to stand in long lines for hours to vote. Since Wisconsin’s election, state health officials said Tuesday that 19 people who have either voted in-person or worked at a polling site on election day have so far tested positive for COVID-19 after April 9, two days after the spring election — underscoring the potential risks of forging ahead with an in-person voting during the height of the widespread and deadly public health crisis.

National: Coronavirus displaced millions of college students, who worry how they’re going to vote | Rebecca Morin/USA Today

Ashee Groce doesn’t know if she’ll be able to vote in Georgia’s primary. Groce, 21, attends Spelman College in Atlanta but is from California and staying in South Carolina with a friend after her school closed for the the semester during the coronavirus pandemic. California voted when Groce was in Atlanta. Georgia was supposed to vote March 24 but pushed back its primary until June 9, and Groce doesn’t know if she will be able to get an absentee ballot sent to South Carolina. She didn’t return to California amid the pandemic, because she has family there who are immunocompromised. “Me and a lot of my peers are afraid,” Groce said. “I just feel like a lot of people who look like me and who are in similar situations that I’m in aren’t going to be counted, and that’s just a very big disappointment.” Many young voters’ lives have been upended after universities and colleges closed campuses and moved to online classes. As a result, millions of students have left their college housing and headed home to different cities and, in some cases, different states. More than 4,000 colleges and universities have closed or been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, affecting more than 25 million students, according to Entangled Solutions, an education consultant group.

National: How Multi-factor Authentication Enhances Election Security | Phil Goldstein/StateTech Magazine

Multifactor authentication is “a layered approach to securing data and applications where a system requires a user to present a combination of two or more credentials to verify a user’s identity for login,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security notes in its election security resource library. Election security officials should use MFA because it adds another layer of defense to their systems. Even if one credential is compromised, an attacker cannot log in without the other authentication requirement “and will not be able to access the targeted physical space, computing device, network or database,” DHS notes. Multifactor authentication includes something you know, such as a password or personal identification number; something you have, including a token or cryptographic device; and something you are — a biometric identifier such as a fingerprint. Other authentication factors can include time of day (would the user normally be logging in at this hour?) and how users access information on their personal devices over time (does the user tap into her email first or check the weather?). A document on MFA published by DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency notes that election officials should adopt MFA because it makes it more difficult for adversaries to gain access to secure databases and other election infrastructure.

National: The 2020 Elections: Is America Ready to Vote by Mail? | Carl Smith/Governing

The 2020 general election was never going to be calm, but the COVID-19 pandemic has brought worst-case scenarios out of the shadows and into the forefront of planning. That means secretaries of state, election officials, legislators, lawyers, voters rights groups and other stakeholders are gathering strategies and resources to safeguard both public health and democracy. “It’s a given that the election in November will be different than ones we’ve held in the past,” said Wendy Underhill, director of the Elections and Redistricting program for the National Conference of State Legislatures. “States can scale up their existing processes, or they can adopt new processes with the expectation of more mail-in ballots and fewer in-person voters.” “We’ve got to reduce the number of people who have to show up in person to vote, and the only way to do that is vote by mail,” said Chad Dunn, director of litigation for the UCLA Voting Rights Project and a co-author of its election policy recommendations. “We’ve got to flatten the curve,” “As election officials, we shouldn’t ignore the message that voters are sending,” said Neal Kelley, the registrar of voters for Orange County, Calif., the country’s fifth-largest voting jurisdiction. “This country has been using widespread absentee voting since the Civil War.”

National: NAACP, others: in-person voting still needed during coronavirus pandemic | Joey Garrison /USA Today

As calls mount to expand vote-by-mail options for state primaries and the November election, advocacy groups have a warning: Don’t reduce or eliminate in-person voting in the process. In a joint publication released Monday, the NAACP and the liberal Center for American Progress say curbing or entirely cutting in-person options because of the coronavirus pandemic would “inadvertently disenfranchise” African American, disabled, American Indian and other voters who rely on same-day voter registration. “To prevent the disenfranchisement of American citizens, any expansion of vote by mail must include preservation of in-person voting options for people who need them,” the groups said in the report. Their message comes as several states are working to expand vote-by-mail in case citizens are still advised to avoid public places in November because of the coronavirus. Democrats, including presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former first lady Michelle Obama, have made vote-by-mail a rallying cry while President Donald Trump opposes changes.

National: How the Spanish flu nearly derailed women’s right to vote | Ellen Carol Dubois/National Geographic