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Coronavirus is dealing election officials across the country a serious curveball even as they strain to keep the 2020 contests secure against another threat: Russian hacking. Officials are now forced to contemplate contingency plans to potentially overhaul their voting systems so Americans can still cast their ballots in a pandemic – and still ensure the process is secure. “Cybersecurity of elections is still a very real concern, so we have to walk and chew gum at the same time,” Lawrence Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told me. “We need to make big changes to ensure everyone can vote safely while we still have our eyes on the issue of cybersecurity.” One major option surfacing now is surging vote-by-mail programs so citizens can avoid the polls. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez called for states to shift to widespread mail-in voting “wherever practicable” on MSNBC last night. “That’s how you can solve the problem,” he said. But this route could create security problems of its own, election experts warned — especially if it’s implemented in a tight time frame. For example, officials would have to put safeguards in place to ensure mailed-in ballots are secure throughout their journey to election offices and to prevent U.S. adversaries or those seeking to tamper with the vote from sending in phony ballots to sow confusion. They’d also have to guard against misinformation related to the vote-by-mail process and figure out how to deliver ballots to people without street addresses. There’s also a heightened concern about people coercing friends and family members to vote for particular candidates with write-in ballots because the voters aren’t entering a private booth or cubicle to cast their votes.

National: Voting by Mail Is the Hot New Idea. Is There Time to Make It Work? | Nick Corasaniti and Stephanie Saul/The New York Times

In Wisconsin, Democrats sued elections officials to extend voting deadlines. In Rhode Island, the secretary of state wants all 788,000 registered voters to receive absentee ballot applications. In Maryland, a special election to replace the late Representative Elijah E. Cummings will be conducted entirely by mail. As the coronavirus outbreak upends daily life and tears at the social fabric of the country, states are rapidly searching for ways to protect the most sacred institution in a democracy: voting. With gatherings of people suddenly presenting an imminent health threat, state officials and voting rights activists have begun calling for an enormous expansion of voting by mail — for both the remaining Democratic presidential primary race and, planning for the worst-case scenario, the general election in November.

National: Senators Klobuchar and Wyden introduce bill to promote mail-in voting amid coronavirus crisis | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A group of Democratic senators led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced legislation on Wednesday to promote mail-in and early voting to decrease the spread of the coronavirus. The Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act (NDEBA) would ensure voters have 20 days of early voting in all states, require that all mail-in ballots submitted during 21 days leading to an election be counted, and ensure that all voters have the option to request absentee ballots. The legislation would also provide $3 million to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to begin implementing some of the bill’s requirements, along with reimbursing states for doing the same. Both Klobuchar and Wyden pointed to recently delayed primaries in Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia, and Maryland because of coronavirus fears in emphasizing the need to utilize mail-in ballots. In-person voting dropped in Florida, Arizona and Illinois on Tuesday, when the states held their primaries.

National: States urged to clarify election procedures during pandemic | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

As the ongoing coronavirus pandemic scrambles how states will administer long-scheduled elections for presidential primaries and local races, one election-security expert says that officials need to do a better job of clarifying who has the authority to reschedule or change the formats of upcoming votes. “Things voters deserve to have is a clear set of authorities, a clear set of guidelines,” said Chris DeLuzio of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security. Already, five states — Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio and Maryland — have delayed their primary elections from March and April until June, amid fears that drawing people out to polling places could sully efforts to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease it causes. In four of the states, governors or secretaries of state had the authority to delay elections. In Ohio, which was scheduled to hold its primary Tuesday, the vote was only called off at the last minute when the state health director ordered polling places closed, after a judge rejected a lawsuit by Gov. Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose to push the election back. “Ohio’s a cautionary tale,” DeLuzio told StateScoop. Clearly identifying who can order an election to be rescheduled, he added, “should be memorialized in the election code so there’s never a question whether something can be properly done.”

National: Coronavirus has already disrupted the election. Some states are looking to vote by mail as a solution. | Kevin Collier/NBC

As the coronavirus leaves voters fearing polling places, states that don’t already allow everyone to mail their ballot are trying to figure out how to do so. Federal law requires that states provide some sort of means for members of the military and citizens abroad to cast their votes. While a majority of states also offer “no excuse” absentee ballots, meaning anyone can request one, more than a dozen do not. In most cases, the state’s chief election official doesn’t have the power to single-handedly implement voting by mail, and even if they could, that means a new host of logistical hurdles. “We’re looking at all of our options right now,” one Texas state official, who was not authorized to comment on the matter publicly, said on the condition of anonymity. “We don’t know what exactly we’re going to end up doing. There’s the legal end of it, which you’ve got the governor’s disaster declaration that helps, and we’ve got to figure out where that ends and a court order begins.” “The realistic problem is infrastructure,” the official said. “The counties just aren’t set for big volumes of voting by mail.”

National: Nationwide drive to safeguard voting intensifies as coronavirus spreads | Isaac Stanley-Becker and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Elections officials and party leaders faced deepening dilemmas on Wednesday about how to carry out the most fundamental democratic exercise — voting — in the face of the spread of the novel coronavirus. Additional states delayed contests scheduled for the spring, while Democratic Party leaders stepped up their calls for states to adopt emergency measures to ensure access to the polls as officials pushed to limit the size of public gatherings. The Democratic National Committee and the Wisconsin Democratic Party sought a solution in federal court, suing Wisconsin elections commissioners to get an emergency judgment extending Wednesday’s deadline to register to vote electronically and by mail and lifting requirements that absentee ballots be received by Election Day. The national party is confronting vexing questions about its projected timeline for concluding the presidential nominating contest and putting forward a candidate at its July convention. While former vice president Joe Biden extended his dominant lead with wins in Tuesday’s three primary races, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) declined to bow out of the race immediately. The effort to develop voting contingencies took on new urgency as the three contests that unfolded on Tuesday showcased what experts described as unprecedented challenges involved in conducting in-person voting during a public-health emergency.

National: Elections amid coronavirus: How officials aim to keep voters safe | Alfred Ng/CNET

The coronavirus outbreak has put much of the US out of service, shutting down schools, stores and sports events for the foreseeable future. With several crucial primaries coming up in the US presidential race, election officials need to figure out how to get the vote out while handling a public health crisis. On Monday, we got a sign of just how fluid the situation is, as Ohio planned to postpone its primary, a day ahead of scheduled voting. Three other states — Arizona, Florida and Illinois — are forging ahead with their primaries Tuesday. It was just on Friday that election officials for those states issued a group statement saying they planned to keep the primaries going, despite the outbreak. Several of those states are considered battleground states for the presidency. “They voted during the Civil War. We’re going to vote,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a press conference Friday. That was two days before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday urged against gatherings of more than 50 people throughout the next eight weeks. Then on Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump advised against gatherings of more than 10 people. At around the same time, Ohio Gov.Mike DeWine announced that he planned to postpone the state’s primary to June 2.

National: These 2020 primary voters face extra hurdles in pandemic | Patricia Beall and Mark Nichols/USA Today

Terriayna Spillman, 19, has been waiting to vote for a presidential candidate since she was in elementary school. The day after Tuesday primaries, the African-American college student is still waiting. In Florida and Ohio, poll closures and other disruptions prompted by coronavirus threatened certain voting groups more than others, according to interviews and data analysis by USA Today. Among those most at risk: young voters, senior citizens, minorities and people in low income communities. In Florida, precincts inside assisted living facilities were closed by the dozens, affecting both older residents and nearby voters who cast ballots there. As the state’s colleges emptied, students registered in the county where they live nine months of the year while attending school were sent home to other counties or states without voting. “I watched my mom, my grandparents, when Obama was running and went to his rallies,” said Spillman from her family’s Lake County, Florida home. “I could not wait until it was my turn.”

National: Coronavirus Putting US Cyber Vulnerabilities in the Crosshairs | Jeff Seldin/Voice of America

The race to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the United States is placing an unprecedented burden on the country’s cyber infrastructure, potentially making it as vulnerable as it has ever been. At issue are the U.S. government agencies, thousands of businesses and millions of Americans, who suddenly have been forced to telework and rely on the security of their internet connections and good cyber hygiene, to keep businesses and services running. The result, some officials warn, is an opening for anyone who would like to strike a virtual blow. “We’re mindful that our adversaries often see opportunity in situations like these,” a U.S. official told VOA on the condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of the subject. Both the FBI and private cybersecurity firms warn the assault is already well underway. “We’re seeing a significant amount of threat in email, leveraging social engineering at scale to do a variety of attacks,” said Sherrod DeGrippo, senior director of threat research and detection at Proofpoint. Some of the emails are designed to look like they are coming from legitimate agencies such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO), using fear of the coronavirus to get a recipient to click on a malicious attachment or link.

National: Facing coronavirus pandemic, US confronts cyberattacks | ABC

The United States, already dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, is also being targeted for cyberattacks and foreign disinformation campaigns, as federal officials feared. Multiple sources confirmed to ABC News in recent days that both the efforts that slowed computer systems at the Health and Human Services Department Sunday night and the weekend rash of bogus text messages warning a national quarantine is imminent were the products of foreign actors or components of foreign governments or entities connected to them. “We are seeing multiple disinformation campaigns right now,” said one federal official briefed on the situation. The two types of cyber incidents are different, but both are aimed at sowing panic in the American population and feeding distrust in government, according to intelligence officials. Federal officials said the two most likely perpetrators are Russia and China, two nations with the sophistication, skill and desire to carry out such campaigns against the U.S. In the case of the HHS incident, officials said outsiders deployed automated users — called bots — to target the public-facing computer system. A source familiar with the investigation into the incident told ABC News that it is thought to be either a widespread campaign to scan HHS systems for vulnerabilities, or possibly a “clumsy” attempt to paralyze public online systems with a flood of visitors, something called distributed denial of service, or DDOS.

National: Poll Workers Didn’t Show Up at Some Primary Election Precincts on Tuesday Because of COVID-19 Concerns, Limiting People’s Ability to Vote | Madeleine Carlisle/Time

When Julie Snyder of Delray Beach, Fla., first tried to cast her vote Tuesday in the Democratic presidential primary, she was unable to do so because one of the election supervisors had not arrived to her polling location at the city’s Emmanuel Catholic Church. “I’m just really frustrated. I don’t know what to do,” the 59-year-old told TIME on Tuesday morning, adding that while she waited for the election worker to arrive she saw multiple other people try to vote and leave. Snyder says she had wrestled with whether to vote on Tuesday at all, after self-isolating for over a week, but decided that she had to because this election is too crucial “given what is going on in this world.” She says she was able to vote later that day once a neighbor texted her that the location had opened. Three states — Florida, Arizona and Illinois — held their presidential primaries on Tuesday amid the coronavirus pandemic; in all three, poll workers did not show up to some locations, making it difficult for many to vote. (The states had added extra precautions, such as sending cleaning supplies and gloves, to help protect the health of voters and workers.) In Ohio, which was also scheduled to hold its primary on Tuesday, officials canceled voting and declared a public health emergency mere hours before polls were meant to open.

National: Why vote-by-mail may not save our elections from the virus’ disruption | Kim Zetter/Politico

The spreading coronavirus is starting to create a difficult choice for the nation’s election supervisors: force people to keep voting in person, despite the risk of contagion, or rush into a vast expansion of voting by mail. Already, the pandemic has forced Louisiana, Georgia, Maryland, Kentucky and Ohio to postpone their presidential primaries until later in the spring, while reportedly contributing to lower than average turnout in Tuesday’s primaries in Illinois and Florida. It has also inspired some lawmakers and activists to call for much broader use of mail-in voting, a way for Americans to cast their ballots despite the lockdowns, quarantines and limitations on crowds taking hold across the country. But some election experts warn that an abrupt adoption of vote-by-mail systems in states that aren’t sufficiently prepared would introduce new risks and avenues for disruption. The results, they say, could bring widespread confusion or even disenfranchise voters. “Rolling something as complex as this out at large-scale introduces thousands of small problems — some of which are security problems, some of which are reliability problems, some of which are resource-management problems — that only become apparent when you do it,” said Matt Blaze, an election security expert and computer science professor at Georgetown Law School. “Which is why changing anything right before a high-stakes election carries risks.”

National: Illinois Stumbles as States See Light Voter Turnout, With Many Ballots in the Mail | Nick Corasaniti, Stephanie Saul, Matt Stevens and Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

Voting in major cities in Illinois was rife with confusion on Tuesday and early turnout in many areas was significantly lower than expected, leading to complaints from poll workers and clashes between Chicago officials and the statehouse. Illinois is one of three states that went ahead with their Democratic presidential primaries on Tuesday amid fears about people gathering in groups and risking exposure to the coronavirus. In Florida, relocated polling sites led to disruption and low turnout was reported in some counties, while voting in others was running smoothly. Arizona, where a vast majority of voters had cast their ballots early, was reporting no major issues. Elections officials in all three states hoped that any drop-off in turnout would be partially offset by early voting and the vote-by-mail ballots that many Democrats filed in the weeks leading up to Tuesday. Ohio also had a presidential primary scheduled, but Gov. Mike DeWine postponed it through a flurry of legal actions and declarations on Monday night, recommending that it be pushed to June 2. Voters who weren’t aware of the late-night decision by the governor and the state’s top health official were greeted Tuesday morning with closed doors and statements taped to windows saying the primary had been postponed.

National: Coronavirus wreaks havoc on Tuesday primaries | Natasha Korecki/Politico

Voters practiced social distancing with the election on Tuesday – by staying away from the polls. Early signs of low turnout in Illinois and Florida offered another sobering reminder of how the coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on the election year. In Ohio, a wild day of pronouncements from elected officials and legal challenges ended in the last-minute postponement of the state’s primary. Tensions also flared in other states as officials faced a backlash over decisions to forge ahead with their elections. In Illinois, the number of people who showed up to vote early in the day in Chicago was below even the pace of mayoral contests, which are typically low-turnout affairs, according to an election official. Statewide numbers were also expected to come in low. Turnout likewise looked skimpy in Florida, according to anecdotal reports. Steve Vancore, a spokesman for Broward County elections, said turnout so far has been light in the South Florida county that has been one of the hot spots for the virus in the state.

National: A Primary? In a Pandemic? Voting is the opposite of social distancing. But Americans in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois are still heading to the polls | Elaine Godfrey/The Atlantic

Americans are supposed to be avoiding one another right now. But they’re still convening at the polls. Hundreds of thousands—maybe even millions—of voters in Arizona, Illinois, and Florida today will grasp the same door handles, drag their fingers across the same touch-screen voting machines, and wait in long lines with dozens of other people as they participate in the next series of primary contests. All three of these states have reported multiple cases of the coronavirus, making the elections today a major health risk, says Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “When you bring people together in close proximity for extended periods of time, that is where you see explosions of disease,” she told me. “It’s tough to stay apart when you’re standing in a line” to vote. The threat of the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, is likely to compound some of the problems already plaguing America’s election systems: Coronavirus fears could lead to depressed turnout, longer lines, and general confusion for voters on Election Day, experts worry. “This is building up to a level that it could clearly cause real problems,” warns David Pepper, the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. And if states don’t start planning now, the virus could impede the general election too.

National: Facing coronavirus pandemic, US confronts cyberattacks | Ali Dukakis, James Gordon Meek, Mike Levine, Luke Barr and Josh Margolin/ABC

National: Shuttered polling places and a dearth of cleaning supplies: Voters confront pandemic-fueled confusion at the polls | Elise Viebeck, Amy Gardner and Isaac Stanley-Becker/The Washington Post

Voters in three states Tuesday confronted shuttered polling places, a lack of cleaning supplies and confused officials struggling to administer an election during a public health crisis, a chaotic situation that voting advocates said created barriers for those trying to participate in the Democratic presidential primary. In Arizona, Florida and Illinois, people seeking to vote encountered significant hurdles that appeared directly related to the coronavirus outbreak, according to interviews with voters and nonpartisan advocates. The three states chose to proceed with their contests this week while a fourth — Ohio — postponed in a controversial, eleventh-hour move on Monday night, citing a “health emergency.” In locations around Chicago, voters arrived at polling places to find no election judges to run the precinct as well as no disinfecting supplies. Some voting locations in Palm Beach County, Fla., had not opened by late morning. And around Arizona, some people were directed to vote at municipal buildings that were otherwise closed to the public, causing confusion. Even in Ohio, some voters showed up at polling sites on Tuesday morning only to learn that in-person voting was delayed until June 2. In some locations, advocates said, no signs were posted to indicate the change. “We’ve been hearing from countless voters who are unsure about the status of voting today,” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said on a conference call with reporters. Clarke said she had never see anything comparable to the situation in Ohio, where voters “went to bed” on Monday night unsure whether the elections would take place. “It’s unlike anything we have ever seen before,” she said.

National: Election Assistance Commission hires cyber-savvy adviser to support 2020 efforts | Sean Lyngaas/CyberScoop

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is hiring a senior policy adviser to bolster its cybersecurity work with election officials and voting equipment vendors ahead of the 2020 presidential vote. Maurice Turner is set to join the federal commission at the end of the month as a senior adviser to the executive director, supporting the EAC’s internal operations and programing. Externally, he says he can help the commission with an update to important guidelines for voting systems security, and in supporting states as they set up programs to find and fix software vulnerabilities. “I want election officials to expect that EAC is a place that they can go for this type of information,” Turner told CyberScoop. “Whether it’s about security standards or new methods for election administration.” Turner has spent the last two years working on election security at the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology. He was previously a fellow in the Senate advising the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on cybersecurity issues.

National: Primary states voting Tuesday take steps to limit coronavirus risks | Ben Popken/NBC

The blue painter’s tape issued to poll workers in Cook County, Illinois, has a particularly important use this year: marking off 6-foot increments to make sure people maintain a safe distance from one another. “It is our job to ensure the safety of those around us while we carry out our civic duty today,” tweeted County Clerk Karen Yarbrough. Arizona, Florida and Illinois are proceeding with Tuesday’s primaries, but officials are stressing alternatives, such as voting by mail, and telling voters to be on the lookout for changes due to coronavirus precautions. Polling places are also taking their own precautions in an effort to keep people at least 6 feet apart, the distance recommended by health professionals to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. Disruptions have already been reported in each state, with some locations closing or changing and poll workers dropping out because of coronavirus concerns. In Arizona, Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, cut almost 80 polling places due to a lack of sufficient cleaning supplies and to ensure that those sites that remain open have enough poll workers, the county’s board of supervisors announced.

National: Connecticut, other states talk about delaying ‘Acela primary’ | Mark Pazniokas/CT Monitor

Connecticut and the other five northeastern states now scheduled to hold presidential primaries on April 28 are in talks about finding a new date in May or June to accommodate the current ban on large public gatherings due to the coronavirus. “Our primary is very, very late, which ironically was considered a liability by some. Now, it gives us more time to think this through.” said Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, who has talked to Gov. Ned Lamont about a delay. “We don’t need to make that decision now.” The registrars of votes are urging a postponement, and Merrill was scheduled to hold a conference call with the registrars and town clerks Tuesday, followed by a teleconference with the state party chairs, Democrat Nancy Wyman and Republican J.R. Romano. The primary date is set in state law, but Gov. Ned Lamont has authority under his public health emergency declaration to waive laws and regulations. “Only the governor can make that decision. I certainly will have a recommendation,” Merrill said.

National: Election Assistance Commission allows states to use election security funds for cleaning supplies to fight coronavirus | Maggie Miller/The Hill

The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) on Tuesday announced it would allow states to use funds allocated by Congress for election security to fight the spread of coronavirus at the polls. The EAC said it would allow states to use the money, which totals over $800 million, to purchase disinfectant wipes, masks and other cleaning supplies in order to lower the risk of voters contracting coronavirus at the polls. “The EAC considers these allowable costs purchased to protect the health and safety of poll workers, staff and voters during federal elections,” the EAC wrote in a notice announcing the change. The funds include $380 million allocated by Congress to states to shore up election security in 2018. It also includes the $425 million given to states as part of the 2020 appropriations cycle, money that has still not been made available but that states are allowed to incur expenses against.

National: Audit finds severe vulnerabilities in Voatz mobile voting app | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

An extensive audit published Friday of Voatz, the mobile app that’s been used to collect live ballots from overseas voters in multiple states since early 2018, revealed 16 “severe” technical vulnerabilities. These include sensitive user data being exposed to the company’s developers and improper use of cryptographic algorithms, a blow to a company that has staked its reputation on its use of blockchain technology. The audit confirmed the findings revealed last month by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who found, among other flaws, that Voatz’s use of third-party vendor to authenticate the identity of its users could compromise the anonymity of ballots the app collects. But unlike other reviews of Voatz’s technology, including the MIT study, the new audit, which was prepared by the cybersecurity firm Trail of Bits, was authorized by the company and Tusk Philanthropies, the venture capital-backed foundation that’s been promoting online voting by funding pilot uses of Voatz around the United States for nearly two years. Among the most glaring vulnerabilities Trail of Bits found was that Voatz had been storing authentication key passwords, which are required to release new versions of the app and could give an attacker an opening to masquerade as Voatz to distribute malware. Researchers also criticized Voatz for its reliance on unvalidated client data and weak security procedures, including a lack of insufficient continuous monitoring and risk-assessment plans. The audit’s executive summary chalks up Voatz’s flaws as a result of the company’s rush to get its app to market.

National: Our Full Report on the Voatz Mobile Voting Platform | Trail of Bits Blog

Voatz allows voters to cast their ballots from any geographic location on supported mobile devices. Its mobile voting platform is under increasing public scrutiny for security vulnerabilities that could potentially invalidate an election. The issues are serious enough to attract inquiries from the Department of Homeland Security and Congress. However, there has been no comprehensive security report to provide details of the Voatz vulnerabilities and recommendations for fixing them—until now. Trail of Bits has performed the first-ever “white-box” security assessment of the platform, with access to the Voatz Core Server and backend software. Our assessment confirmed the issues flagged in previous reports by MIT and others, discovered more, and made recommendations to fix issues and prevent bugs from compromising voting security. Trail of Bits was uniquely qualified for this assessment, employing industry-leading blockchain security, cryptographic, DARPA research, and reverse engineering teams, and having previously assessed other mobile blockchain voting platforms. Our security review resulted in seventy-nine (79) findings. A third of the findings are high severity, another third medium severity, and the remainder a combination of low, undetermined, and informational severity.

Read our Voatz security report and threat model for full details.

National: Election Assistance Commission Issues Guidance on Handling Primaries and Caucuses During Coronavirus | Courtney Bublé/Government Executive

As the novel coronavirus outbreak occurs during the presidential primary and caucus season, the nation’s elections information clearinghouse issued guidance last week to mitigate public health risk during voting. The independent and bipartisan Election Assistance Commission, which certifies voting systems and provides best practices in election administration, published a list of resources for state election officials, voting system vendors and federal agencies on Thursday on how to deal with the coronavirus. Primary and caucus season kicked off on Feb. 3 and runs until June 7, which is followed by the Democratic convention in July and the Republican one in August. So far only Louisiana and Georgia have postponed their primaries because of the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said on ABC News on Sunday that it could take “several weeks to a few months” before things go back to normal. Then on Sunday night, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there should be no large events or mass gatherings with 50 or more people for the next eight weeks.

National: Pandemic Planning Should Ensure All Votes Can Be Cast by Mail in November, Experts Say | Robert Mackey/The Intercept

As Ohio’s Governor ordered that his state’s primary be delayed until June, citing the need for social distancing in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Senate Democrats and election experts pressed Congress to act immediately on legislation to ensure that voters in all 50 states will be able to cast ballots by mail or vote early in the general election if the public health emergency lasts into November. That is particularly urgent because, as Marc Elias, a lawyer who represents the Democratic Party on voting rights issues, explains, while states can set their own primary days, “the federal general election is set by federal statute as the the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. This date cannot be changed by a state nor by the President.” Democratic senators Ron Wyden, of Oregon, and Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, introduced legislation on Monday that would require all states to offer an option for voters to mail in or drop off hand-marked paper ballots if 25 percent of the states have declared a state of emergency related to an infectious disease, like Covid-19, or a natural disaster. “The pandemic could hit like a tsunami,” Wyden told The Intercept by phone from his home in Portland. “How can we tell people, particularly elderly veterans, that they have to choose between their health and their vote?”

National: Closed locations, a lack of poll workers: How coronavirus is affecting Tuesday’s election | Rebecca Morin/USA Today

Tuesday’s primary elections have seen some changes, large and small, amid the coronavirus outbreak. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday afternoon that he is requesting a delay to in-person voting from Tuesday until June 2, making it the only state holding contests on Tuesday to try to delay its primary. After a judge denied the request, the polls are likely still closing after all after an 11th hour manuever. Three other states – Arizona, Florida, and Illinois – will for sure head to the polls Tuesday, with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic race. Rep Tulsi Gabbard is still in the race, but she trails Biden and Sanders by hundreds of delegates. Many states and cities have taken extra precautions to slow the spread of the virus. Dozens of K-12 schools and universities have suspended classes or moved classes online. Restaurants are doing delivery or takeout only. Many Americans have begun working from home and practicing social distancing. Last week, officials from all four states said they were taking extra precautions to keep voting machines sanitized and will post guidance from local health officials at voting locations. Arizona Secretary of State Kathy Hobbs, Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee, Illinois Elections Board Chairman Charles Scholz and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a joint statement last week that they are working closely “with our state health officials to ensure that our poll workers and voters can be confident that voting is safe.”

National: Hackers Attack Health and Human Services Computer System | David E. Sanger, Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Rosenberg/The New York Times