National

Top officials from Google, Apple, and Meta testified Wednesday before the United States Senate Intelligence Committee about each of their company’s ongoing efforts to identify and disrupt foreign influence campaigns ahead of the country’s November elections. The hearing, chaired by Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, served largely to impress upon the companies the need for more extensive safeguards against the disinformation campaigns being funded by foreign entities with an eye on influencing US politics. “This is really our effort to try to urge you guys to do more. To alert the public that this has not gone away,” Warner said. Read Article

National: Trump’s Talk of Prosecution Rattles Election Officials | Nick Corasaniti and Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

Donald J. Trump’s escalating calls to investigate and prosecute election officials he sees as “corrupt” are sounding alarms among democracy experts and the local and state workers preparing to run elections and tally millions of votes across the country. In recent social media posts, Mr. Trump has said that election officials “involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.” Read Article

National: House Defeats Spending Bill Tied to New Rules Requiring Proof of U.S. Citizenship to Register to Vote | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

The House on Wednesday defeated a $1.6 trillion stopgap spending bill to extend current government funding into March and impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements on voter registration, as Republicans and Democrats alike rejected Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposal to avert a shutdown at the end of the month. The bipartisan repudiation was entirely expected after several Republicans had made clear they would not back the spending plan and Democrats almost uniformly opposed the voting-registration proposal. The vote was 220 to 202, with 14 Republicans joining all but three Democrats in opposition. Two Republicans voted present. Read Article

National: In-person voting for the US presidential contest starts today in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia | Steve Karnowski/Associated Press

The Democratic and Republican national conventions are just a memory, the first and perhaps only debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is in the bag, and election offices are beginning to send out absentee ballots. Now come the voters. Friday is the start of early in-person voting for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, kicking off in Virginia, South Dakota and Minnesota, the home state of Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz. The first ballots being cast in person come with just over six weeks left before Election Day on Nov. 5. About a dozen more states will follow with early in-person voting by mid-October. Read Article

Illinois: Contractor’s unsecured databases exposed sensitive voter data in over a dozen counties | Andrew Adams/Capitol News Illinois

Around 4.6 million records associated with Illinoisans in over a dozen counties – including voting records, registrations and death certificates – were temporarily available on the open internet, according to a security researcher who identified the vulnerability in July. The documents were available through an unsecured cloud storage platform. They included Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and voter registration history. Election security experts said the breach is unlikely to affect the upcoming election but could make affected individuals susceptible to identity theft. The researcher, Jeremiah Fowler, has also identified similar data vulnerabilities which exposed thousands of rail passengers’ travel details in the United Kingdom and over 4 million student records in the U.S., among others. Read Article

National: Fears mount that election deniers could disrupt vote count in US swing states | Ed Pilkington/The Guardian

Fears are rising that the vote count in November’s presidential election could be disrupted as a result of the proliferation of Donald Trump’s lies about stolen elections and rampant voter fraud in the key swing states where the race for the White House will be decided. A new survey of eight vital swing states reveals that at least 239 election deniers who have signed up to Trump’s “election integrity” conspiracy theories – including the false claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him – are actively engaged in electoral battles this year. The deniers are standing for congressional or state seats, holding Republican leadership positions, and overseeing elections on state and county election boards. Read Article

National: 2024 election faces foreign influence efforts from Russia, Iran, China | Hayley Fuchs and Josh Gerstein/Politico

The season of foreign election interference is well underway. The Department of Justice this week announced it had seized websites linked to a Russian disinformation campaign. Federal authorities separately accused two employees of the Moscow-controlled media organization RT of being a part of a scheme to spread Russian propaganda, bolstered by millions of dollars. And it’s not just Russia. On Friday, a hawkish think tank revealed that a network of pro-Iranian sites have been circulating disinformation around the election. That comes on the heels of the intelligence community linking Iran to a hacking of the Trump campaign. U.S. officials said in a briefing with reporters on Friday that Russia, Iran and China were all trying to influence the upcoming elections. Read Article

National: Trump threatens lawyers, donors and election officials with prison for ‘unscrupulous behavior’ | Jillian Frankel/NBC

Former President Donald Trump, who makes frequent false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen through rampant fraud, warned Saturday that he would try to imprison anyone who engages in “unscrupulous behavior” during this year’s race. Election workers across the country have been subject to threats, most famously Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, two election workers whose entire lives were uprooted when Trump and his allies targeted them after the 2020 election with false accusations of fraud. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Trump began making baseless warnings of election interference, which grew louder after he lost and culminated in a mob attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election. He has begun making similar statements ahead of this year’s election. Read Article

National: How unfounded GOP claims about noncitizen voting could cost some eligible voters their rights | Carrie Levine/Votebeat

At Tuesday’s presidential debate, former President Donald Trump once again asserted that “elections are bad” and that Democrats are trying to get immigrants who’ve entered the country illegally to vote. As fact checks pointed out and Votebeat has previously reported, there is no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting, and experts say it is extraordinarily rare. Republicans, though, continue to allege that voting by noncitizens is a pressing problem that demands a legislative solution. And the assertions aren’t just political theater: They are already affecting actual voters, and the impact could grow. Trump wants Republicans to shut down the federal government until they get their way on legislation requiring everyone registering to vote to provide documentary proof of citizenship. Read Article

National: CISA publishes cybersecurity checklist ahead of November election | Sophia Fox-Sowell/StateScoop

With the U.S. presidential election less than two months away, state and local election administrators finalizing operations can turn to a cybersecurity checklist published Monday by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to ensure their infrastructure is protected from malicious actors. The checklist outlines a series of steps election officials can take to protect their election infrastructure, including networks that store, host or process voter registration information, public-facing election websites that support functions like election night reporting and polling place lookup, as well as email and other critical business operations, which remain attractive targets for cybercriminals. Read Article

National: Bipartisan group of lawmakers signs pledge to certify 2024 election results | Sarah Ferris/Politico

More than 30 House members, including a half-dozen Republicans, have signed a bipartisan pledge to uphold the results of the 2024 election amid an increased focus on Congress’ role in certifying the tally next January. A pair of House centrists, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), have worked for months to organize what they’re calling a “unity commitment” — an agreement to “safeguard the fairness and integrity” of this fall’s presidential election. Five other Republicans also signed on: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.). None of the six Republicans who signed the pledge voted against certifying the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021. (Several of them were not yet in office.) A total of 139 House Republicans did vote against certifying President Joe Biden’s victory. Read Article

National: Justice Dept. Official Calls Election Meddling a ‘Clear and Present Danger’ | Glenn Thrush/The New York Times

The Justice Department’s top national security official warned on Thursday that foreign interference in the 2024 election posed a “clear and present danger” and said that Russia was ramping up its disinformation efforts in hopes of helping former President Donald J. Trump. Matthew G. Olsen, the head of the department’s national security division, cited Iran’s recent hacking of the Trump campaign as evidence that some adversaries were also seeking to damage Mr. Trump’s chances of victory, though Tehran tried, unsuccessfully, to hack Democratic campaigns as well. Mr. Olsen, amplifying warnings issued by the U.S. intelligence community and senior F.B.I. officials, did not suggest that Mr. Trump or any of his associates were working with overseas actors. He also identified China as posing a serious threat to the election. Read Article

National: Officials warn that problems with US mail system could disrupt voting | John Hanna and Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

State and local election officials from across the country on Wednesday warned that problems with the nation’s mail delivery system threaten to disenfranchise voters in the upcoming presidential election, telling the head of the U.S. Postal Service that it hasn’t fixed persistent deficiencies. In an alarming letter, the officials said that over the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be counted. They also noted that properly addressed election mail was being returned to them as undeliverable, a problem that could automatically send voters to inactive status through no fault of their own, potentially creating chaos when those voters show up to cast a ballot. Read Article

National: Hacking blind spot: States struggle to vet coders of election software | John Sakellariadis/Politico

When election officials in New Hampshire decided to replace the state’s aging voter registration database before the 2024 election, they knew that the smallest glitch in Election Day technology could become fodder for conspiracy theorists. So they turned to one of the best — and only — choices on the market: A small, Connecticut-based IT firm that was just getting into election software. But last fall, as the new company, WSD Digital, raced to complete the project, New Hampshire officials made an unsettling discovery: The firm had offshored part of the work. That meant unknown coders outside the U.S. had access to the software that would determine which New Hampshirites would be welcome at the polls this November. The revelation prompted the state to take a precaution that is rare among election officials: It hired a forensic firm to scour the technology for signs that hackers had hidden malware deep inside the coding supply chain. Read Article

National: No, local election officials can’t block certification of results – there are plenty of legal safeguards | Derek T. Muller/The Conversation

Some local election officials have refused to certify election results in the past few years. Georgia has new administrative rules that invite election officials to investigate results before certifying. And worries abound that election officials might subvert the results of the 2024 presidential election by refusing to certify the results. While states may have different names or processes, certifying an election typically looks something like this: On election night, the local precincts close, and local election workers tabulate the vote; they affirm or attest that the precinct results are the proper tabulation and send those results to the county. In a matter of days, the county election board assembles the results across all the county’s precincts, tabulates them and certifies the county’s result. Those results are sent to the state election board, which adds up the results from all the counties and certifies the state’s winners. The governor then signs certificates of elections for the winning candidates. There isn’t one weird trick to steal a presidential election. And there are ample safeguards to ensure ballots are tabulated accurately and election results are certified in a timely manner. Read Article

National: Justice Department accuses Russia’s RT network in $10 million election plot | Bart Jansen/USA Today

The Justice Department charged two Russian citizens with directing a $10 million campaign to influence the 2024 election through online platforms that flooded millions of Americans with disinformation, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Wednesday. The complaint focused on RT, the Russian state media network dropped by American distributors after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The company bankrolled a $10 million campaign through a Tennessee company to distribute Russian misinformation to U.S. social media influencers and encourage divisions in U.S. politics, Garland said. The department also seized 32 internet domains that Russians used to distribute misinformation about the election under a program called “Doppelganger,” Garland said. The domains were built to look like legitimate U.S. news organizations, but were instead filled with Russian propaganda that could be picked up and relayed through U.S. influencers. Read Article

National: State Republican parties renominate electors who were on fake slate in 2020 | Alice Herman/The Guardian

State Republican parties have nominated 14 of the 84 fake electors from the 2020 presidential election to serve again as Republican party presidential electors, an indication of the legitimacy that election deniers continue to hold in some quarters of the GOP. The Republican parties of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada have each nominated one or more electors who attempted to submit themselves as electors for Donald Trump and Mike Pence in 2020 despite the former president losing in their states. Presidential electors typically perform a rote but critical behind-the-scenes role in elections. Read Article

National: Swing states prepare for a showdown over certifying votes in November | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

Stateline crisscrossed Michigan and Wisconsin — two states critical in the race for the presidency — to interview dozens of voters, local election officials and activists to understand how the voting, tabulation and certification processes could be disrupted in November. There is broad concern that despite the checks and balances built into the voting system, Republican members of state and county boards tasked with certifying elections will be driven by conspiracy theories and refuse to fulfill their roles if former President Donald Trump loses again. Last month, the Georgia State Election Board passed new rules that would allow county canvassing boards to conduct their own investigations before certifying election results. State and national Democrats have sued the state board over the rules. The fear that these efforts could sow chaos and delay results is not unfounded: Over the past four years, county officials in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania have refused to certify certain elections. After immense pressure, county officials either changed their minds, or courts or state officials had to step in. Read Article

National: GOP lawsuits set the stage for state challenges if Trump loses the election | Nicholas Riccardi/Associated Press

Before voters even begin casting ballots, Democrats and Republicans are engaged in a sprawling legal fight over the 2024 election through a series of court disputes that could even run past Nov. 5 if results are close. Republicans filed more than 100 lawsuits challenging various aspects of vote-casting after being chastised repeatedly by judges in 2020 for bringing complaints about how the election was run only after votes were tallied. After Donald Trump made ” election integrity ” a key part of his party’s platform following his false claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020, the Republican National Committee says it has more than 165,000 volunteers ready to watch the polls. Read Article

National: Christian group recruits ‘Trojan horse’ election skeptics as US poll workers | Alice Herman/The Guardian

A Christian political operative has teamed up with charismatic preachers to enroll election skeptics as poll workers across the country, using a Donald Trump-aligned swing state tour to enlist support in the effort. Joshua Standifer, who leads the group called Lion of Judah, describes the effort as a “Trojan horse” strategy to get Christians in “key positions of influence in government like Election Workers”, which will help them identify alleged voter fraud and serve as “the first step on the path to victory this Fall”, according to his website. Standifer has been on the road with a traveling pro-Trump tent revival featuring self-styled prophets and Christian nationalist preachers that has made stops in key swing states including Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. Read Article

National: Iran Emerges as a Top Disinformation Threat in U.S. Presidential Race | Steven Lee MyersTiffany Hsu and Farnaz Fassihi/The New York Times

A website called Savannah Time describes itself as “your trusted source for conservative news and perspectives in the vibrant city of Savannah.” Another site, NioThinker, wants to be “your go-to destination for insightful, progressive news.” The online outlet Westland Sun appears to cater to Muslims in suburban Detroit. None are what they appear to be. Instead, they are part of what American officials and tech company analysts say is an intensifying campaign by Iran to sway this year’s American presidential election. Iran has long carried out clandestine information operations against its adversaries, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States, but until now most of its activities were conducted under the shadow of similar campaigns by Russia and China. Its latest propaganda and disinformation efforts have grown more brazen, more varied and more ambitious, according to the U.S. government, company officials and Iran experts. Read Article

National: Justice Department accuses Russia of spreading disinformation before November election | Eric Tucker, Matthew Lee, David Klepper/Associated Press

The Biden administration announced wide-ranging actions Wednesday meant to call out Russian influence in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, unsealing criminal charges against two employees of a Russian state-run media company and seizing internet domains used by the Kremlin to spread disinformation. The measures represented a U.S. government effort at disrupting a persistent threat from Russia that American officials have long warned has the potential to sow discord and create confusion among voters. Washington has said that Russia remains the primary threat to elections even as the FBI investigates a hack by Iran of Donald Trump’s campaign and an attempt breach of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign. Read Article

How states are preparing to head off an election certification crisis in November | Carrie Levine, Natalia Contreras, Jen Fifield, Hayley Harding, Alexander Shur and Carter Walker/Votebeat

New rules in Georgia governing how local officials finalize vote totals have some election watchdogs worried that loyalists of former President Donald Trump could trigger a crisis if he loses the state in November, by abusing their authority to delay or avoid certifying results. Election experts say they’re confident that the system’s checks and balances will quash those efforts and that each state has the legal authority to force members of county election boards to fulfill their duty to certify results. But they and state election officials are still concerned that the attempts could push the process close to strict deadlines and stoke doubts about the integrity of the election. Read Article

National: US intelligence officials say Iran is to blame for hacks targeting Trump, Biden-Harris campaigns | Eric Tucker/Associated Press

U.S. intelligence officials said Monday they were confident that Iran was responsible for the hack of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, casting the cyber intrusion as part of a brazen and broader effort by Tehran to interfere in American politics and potentially shape the outcome of the election. The assessment from the FBI and other federal agencies was the first time the U.S. government has assigned blame for hacks that have raised anew the threat of foreign election interference and underscored how Iran, in addition to more sophisticated adversaries like Russia and China, remains a top concern. Besides breaching the Trump campaign, officials also believe that Iran tried to hack into the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris. Read Article

National: How Russian gender-based disinformation could influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election | Owen Wong/The Conversation

Most people have a general understanding of disinformation — false information that is intentionally created to cause harm. Disinformation becomes “gendered” when deliberately false information draws on common understandings of issues like masculinity, femininity and sexual violence. Although gender-based disinformation does not receive as much attention as race-based disinformation, it’s particularly dangerous because it taps into deep-seated beliefs about our own identities. Narratives about gender identity are also harder to fact-check than simple true or false stories. Read Article

National: Trump’s AI fakes of Taylor Swift and Kamala Harris aren’t meant to fool you | Will Oremus/The Washington Post

A week after Donald Trump falsely accused Kamala Harris’s campaign of using artificial intelligence to fabricate campaign images, he appears to have done just that. Over the weekend, the Republican presidential nominee shared a pair of posts on his social network, Truth Social, that included AI-generated images: one depicting a hammer-and-sickle flag over a Soviet-style Harris rally, another showing young women in “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts. On Sunday, he reposted the Harris image to X and on Monday sent an email to supporters, calling it “the photo Kamala doesn’t want you to see.” What’s noteworthy isn’t just that Trump is turning to generative AI to blur the truth. It’s the casual, almost mundane way he’s using it so far: not as a sophisticated weapon of deception, but as just another tool in his rhetorical arsenal. Read Article

National: Election officials like Tina Peters are a more pressing threat to elections than theoretical voting machine hacks | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

An important lesson became clear last week after a Colorado jury convicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters of helping conspiracy theorists to breach her county’s voting system in 2021. At the same time the trial was wrapping up, some tech whizzes were gathered in Las Vegas at DEF CON, the annual event where white-hat hackers try to break into all kinds of computer systems, from banking to aerospace, in search of security vulnerabilities. But the real, pressing security issues are not the things DEF CON uncovers, but rather the more boring things: chain-of-custody procedures, appropriate training, and adequate oversight. Which brings us to convicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, an actual threat to elections systems. “This case was a simple case centered around the use of deceit to commit a fraud,” Robert Shapiro, a special deputy district attorney for Colorado’s 21st Judicial District, told the jury during closing arguments in Peters’ trial Monday. “It’s not about computers. It’s not about election records. It’s about using deceit to trick and manipulate others, specifically public servants who were simply trying to do their job.” Read Article

Michigan: In small towns, even GOP clerks are targets of election conspiracies | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline