National

Election officials have long dealt with faulty and vulnerable voting machines, but this year, they are also grappling with the risk of spreading a deadly virus to hundreds of thousands of individuals who will cast a ballot in person this November. While some states are beginning to make changes before the general election, a number of others will still require voters to use voting machines made with surfaces on which researchers say the coronavirus can linger for a number of days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has even taken the rare step of wading into the debate on US elections. For the first time ever, the agency laid out on its website a number of public health guidelines for cleaning election equipment. But it is unlikely that a majority of voters are aware that some products, such as standard alcohol wipes, should not be used to clean a potentially contaminated voting machine. Indeed, while alcohol wipes may give the voter a sense of safety, they actually can jeopardize the entire voting process.

National: States blast EAC for slow-walking voting standards | Derek B. Johnson/FCW

Officials at the Election Assistance Commission say they are eager to approve updated federal standards for the nation’s voting machines that will introduce new technical and security requirements, but the agency faced harsh criticism from several state election officials at a May 6 public meeting for its sluggish pace. The federal government’s voting system standards are voluntary, but most states require the machines they buy to comply with them. Virginia Elections Commissioner Christopher Piper called the current federal certification process “an obstacle to a more secure system” and griped that election officials have been waiting years for the newest version of the standards to work its way through the EAC approval process. “The process is not fast enough to adapt to the changing security environment or to address the accessibility needs of many voters,” Piper said, later adding “The fact is the delay has proven to be a convenient excuse in all sectors not to update our voting systems.”

National: States can’t access emergency COVID-19 election funding because of steep match rates | Nicole Goodkind/Fortune

In late March as part of the stimulus package known as the CARES Act, Congress gave states $400 million to protect the upcoming presidential and federal elections from any COVID-19 related disruptions. Now, some states are saying that they have no way to access that money. In order for a state to receive its part of the $400 million—doled out by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and expected to be put toward expenses like mail-in ballots and personal protective equipment for poll workers—it has to commit to matching 20% of the money with its own funds. Companies that received stimulus money from the bill had no similar match requirements. In the past, states have been asked to contribute money to receive election funds, but at a 5% rate, according to Democratic Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon. He’s unsure of why this particular match rate is so high, especially when the funds are so vital to ensuring a successful presidential election. Minnesota needs approval from its legislature in order to match funding, and with just two weeks before its members retire for the year, getting to any kind of agreement looks precarious. Still, Simon says, his state is lucky because the legislature is still in session. About 15 state legislatures have already adjourned for the year, which means that unless they call a special session to order, they won’t reconvene until early in 2021. In order to receive the funding, a match must be guaranteed by Dec. 31, 2020.

National: Report counsels reforms to guard against election meltdown | Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner

Political polarization and intense partisanship in media and social media have laid the groundwork for distrust about the fairness of the 2020 elections, and the COVID-19 pandemic seems likely to escalate those problems. Those are the conclusions of a new report released last week from a group of academics and voting-rights advocates, recommending a series of steps to shore up confidence and integrity in the nation’s election systems before the November presidential elections. The report, “Fair Elections During a Crisis,” was produced by the Ad Hoc Committee for 2020 Election Fairness and Legitimacy and grew out of a February conference organized by some of the authors and that also included journalists and state elections officials. It is sponsored by the University of California-Irvine’s Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy with foundation support. “Although a decade ago concerns about peaceful transitions of power were less common, Americans can no longer take for granted that election losers will concede a closely fought election after election authorities (or courts) have declared a winner,” the report states.

National: Facebook removed Russian propaganda network only after accounts got sloppy | Jeff Stone/CyberScoop

Two networks of inauthentic Facebook accounts and pages removed last month had spent years leveraging the social media company’s reach to amplify thinly-veiled Russian propaganda criticizing the U.S. and antagonists of the Kremlin. Facebook announced Tuesday it removed 91 accounts, 46 pages, two groups and one Instagram page connected to Crimea-based media agencies, News Front and South Front, which researchers now say have connections to Russian intelligence services. Both outlets have existed for years, though Facebook removed them last month after detecting that they used fake accounts to post content and generate engagement. It’s a dichotomy that exemplifies Facebook’s approach to information operations: The company historically has been reluctant to remove political misinformation or conspiracy theories, but acts against account operators caught misrepresenting their identity.

National: John Ratcliffe, spy chief nominee, hedged on whether Russia favored Trump in 2016 | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.), in his Senate confirmation hearing to be the nation’s next spy chief, took a pass on whether he agreed with the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was aimed at helping Trump’s electoral chances. When asked directly whether he agreed with that finding – which was reinforced by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee’s own investigation – Ratcliffe said he had not seen the underlying intelligence. He punted with a broader answer: “My views are that Russia meddled in or interfered with active measures in 2016, they interfered in 2018, they will attempt to do so in 2020. They have a goal of sowing discord and they have been successful in sowing discord.” But the fact that Russia’s hacking and disinformation operation is still being asked as a question that could be disputed by Trump’s national security nominees highlights a jarring reality more than three years into the Trump administration: That the president himself has never fully embraced the intelligence community’s conclusions about 2016 interference. Trump has also promoted conspiracy theories and unfounded claims that Ukraine was actually behind hacks at the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee that upended the election.

National: Vote-by-mail debate raises fears of election disinformation | Eric Tucker and Amanda Seitz/Associated Press

A bitterly partisan debate unfolding on whether more Americans should cast their votes through the mail during a pandemic is provoking online disinformation and conspiracy theories that could undermine trust in the results, even if there are no major problems. With social distancing guidelines possibly curtailing in-person voting at the polls in November, states are drawing up plans to rely more heavily on a mail-in system that has until now seen only limited use. Historically, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud through mail-in voting. But social media users are already pushing grandiose theories casting doubt on the method. President Donald Trump has encouraged the skepticism, saying during a televised briefing that “a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting.” On Saturday, he tweeted: “Don’t allow RIGGED ELECTIONS!” Justice Department officials are concerned foreign adversaries could exploit any vulnerabilities in the vote-by-mail process, especially since even minor tampering could trigger widespread doubts about the integrity of the vote. “Is it possible, in particular for a foreign actor, to cause enough mischief in the vote-by-mail process to raise a question in the minds of Americans, particularly Americans perhaps whose candidate has lost, that somehow the result of this election is unfair?” Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the department’s top national security official, said in describing a key question confronting law enforcement.

National: Will Americans Lose Their Right to Vote in the Pandemic? | Emily Bazelon/The New York Times

In March, as a wave of states began delaying their spring primaries because of the coronavirus, Wisconsin’s election, scheduled for April 7, loomed. The ballot for that day included the presidential primary, thousands of local offices and four statewide judgeships, including a key seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. On March 17, the day after Ohio postponed its spring election, voting rights groups asked Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, to do the same. “No one wanted the election to happen more than us, but it felt like this wave was about to hit our communities,” Angela Lang, the founder and executive director of the Milwaukee group Black Leaders Organizing for Community, a nonprofit organization, told me. While Evers weighed the idea of postponement, BLOC encouraged residents to apply for absentee ballots, which any registered Wisconsin voter can do by requesting one online. But some voters were struggling to figure out how to upload their identification from their phones to the state’s MyVote website. City officials reported that they couldn’t keep up with the overwhelming demand for absentee ballots; applications in Milwaukee rose from a typical daily count of 100 or so to between 7,000 and 8,000. “People were waiting on their ballots and asking where they were,” Lang said. “We needed a plan. But we knew the governor was in a tough position with the Legislature.”

National: Is online voting the answer during a pandemic? Cybersecurity experts say no | Brooke Wolford/McClatchy

The coronavirus pandemic has created a need for a new way to hold elections, and while many states are considering vote-by-mail, some states are experimenting with “internet voting.” But some experts and officials from both parties worry that could put the security of the country’s elections at risk, according to NPR. Two states will allow some to vote online, both using technology from the Seattle-based company Democracy Live, NPR reported. Delaware became the latest state to allow voters with disabilities, voters overseas and military voters to use the cloud-based system, according to NPR. West Virginia passed a bill earlier this year allowing voters with disabilities to use the technology, following its decision to allow overseas and military voters to use an app to vote in the 2018 midterms, NPR reported. New Jersey is reportedly considering allowing it under the same circumstances, according to NPR. Eugene Spafford, Purdue University’s director emeritus of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance Security, released a statement expressing his concern about the growing list of municipalities choosing to use online voting software, according to a release from the university.

National: Some States Dabble in Online Voting, Weighing Pandemic Against Cybersecurity Concerns | Alexa Corse and Dustin Volz/Wall Street Journal

A few states are allowing some voters to cast ballots over the internet in coming elections, overriding concerns from cybersecurity experts about tampering or technical glitches as election officials grapple with voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. At least three states—Delaware, New Jersey and West Virginia—will allow small slices of their electorates to use an online voting tool in presidential primaries or local elections. Those eligible chiefly include voters who are overseas, in the military, or sick or disabled. Particularly for those overseas and in the military, they would ordinarily vote by mail but that option could be hindered by the pandemic’s disruptions to postal services. At least two of these states looked into the option before the pandemic, and supporters say their efforts could promote wider adoption of online voting, particularly as states grapple with containing the pandemic. The move, if limited, shows how the pandemic is forcing some election officials to weigh protecting public safety along with cybersecurity in ways that seemed far-fetched a few months ago.

National: EAC on internet voting funds | Tim Starks/Politico

State election officials can use the grants they received in the CARES Act (H.R. 748) to fund internet voting projects, the Election Assistance Commission confirmed to MC on Friday. The rollout of internet voting is a permitted use of the grants if it is done “in response to [the] coronavirus and the 2020 election,” Mona Harrington, the agency’s acting executive director, said in an email to Eric. News that states can use the grants for internet voting, first reported by MC, comes as three states prepare to let some residents vote online in upcoming contests, with two of them adding the option due to the ongoing pandemic. Election security experts lambasted the decision, saying the government was effectively putting its seal of approval on a technology they consider highly dangerous. “To me, the purpose [of the grants] is to promote safety in elections and security in response to the COVID crisis — which should mean responsible vote-by-mail, early voting, and safe in-person voting options,” said Adam Ambrogi, a former EAC staffer who leads the elections program at the Democracy Fund. “The downside risks of moving in this direction are immense,” said Douglas Jones, a University of Iowa computer science professor who studies electronic voting. Asked about the legislative language, Jones said, “I think there are too few strings.” Congress did not address specific technologies when it authorized $400 million for “election security grants” in the CARES Act, a fact that dismayed a key lawmaker. “It would be a mistake for states to experiment with [insecure] methods of voting when there are time-tested and safer alternatives readily available,” House Administration Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), whose committee oversees election policies, told MC in a statement. “Requiring vote by mail paper ballots for all voters who want one and expanding early voting to reduce crowd size on election day, as House Democrats have proposed, will not only produce a verified paper trail that is secure and auditable, but also protect the safety of voters and the integrity of our elections.”

National: DHS, FBI: Russia could try to covertly advise candidates in 2020 | Eric Tucker/Associated Press

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI warned states earlier this year that Russia could look to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections by covertly advising political candidates and campaigns, according to a law enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press. The Feb. 3 document details tactics U.S. officials believe Russia could use to interfere in this year’s elections, including secretly advising candidates and campaigns. It says that though officials “have not previously observed Russia attempt this action against the United States,” political strategists working for a business mogul close to President Vladimir Putin have been involved in political campaigning in numerous African countries. The memo underscores how Trump administration officials are continuing to sound alarms about the prospect of future Russian interference in American politics even as President Donald Trump has sought to downplay the Kremlin’s involvement in his 2016 win over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Because it was prepared before the coronavirus outbreak, the memo does not reflect how the pandemic might affect the tactics Russia might use to interfere with the election.

National: Coronavirus boosts push for online voting despite security risks – It’s “the wrong direction to defend our democracy,” one cyber expert says. | Eric Geller/Politico

Three states will let some of their voters cast ballots online in the coming weeks — a trend that has gained momentum from the coronavirus pandemic but threatens to introduce new security risks into the nation’s already vulnerable elections. Delaware said this week that it will allow residents with disabilities to vote online during its June primaries, while New Jersey said it would do the same for this month’s nonpartisan municipal elections. West Virginia, whose primary is also in June, previously announced plans to offer internet voting for overseas residents, military service members and voters with disabilities. The modest increase in internet voting is yet another example of how the pandemic has upended priorities across the United States, four years after Russian hacking inspired a nationwide effort to deploy more secure, paper-based voting machines. Now, the virus is turning in-person voting into a health risk — and some election officials are exploring online voting as one alternative, despite extensive warnings from cybersecurity experts that the technology poses dangers no one has been able to solve. “I hope that other states will exercise caution rather than jumping on the bandwagon,” said Dan Wallach, a computer science professor at Rice University who helps draft federal voting-system standards. “We need to defend our elections against nation-state adversaries. Moving toward online voting is the wrong direction to defend our democracy.”

National: Ballot Printers Increase Capacity To Prepare For Mail Voting Surge | Pam Fessler/NPR

More Americans than ever before are expected to vote by mail this year because of concerns about the coronavirus. One challenge facing election officials now: how to print and mail the millions of ballots voters are expected to request in the coming months. Nearly a quarter of the 136 million presidential ballots cast 2016 were mailed in. That number could easily grow to well over half this year, especially if the health risk continues. With many states expected to expand mail-in voting for November, experts warn that existing ballot printing services could quickly become overwhelmed. One of of the biggest such vendors in the country is Runbeck Election Services. The company’s 90,000-square-foot facility in Phoenix, Ariz., is already bustling, and things are expected to get a lot busier soon. “This year we are going to mail probably around 40 to 50 million pieces. We’ll print probably close to 80 million, up to 100 million pieces when you count inserts,” said Jeff Ellington, the company’s president and chief operating officer. He gave NPR a virtual tour of the facility via FaceTime because pandemic travel restrictions prevented an in-person visit. Ellington explained that getting ballots to the right voters is a complicated, multi-step process. States need to decide what their ballots will look like and to get approval from the U.S. Postal Service for the design of the envelopes. After those envelopes are secured, companies like Runbeck step in.

National: County election officials detail massive costs of remote voting | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

State and local officials are facing a mountain of new costs as they prepare to hold elections during the coronavirus pandemic — and money provided by Congress so far doesn’t come close to covering it. Lawmakers approved $400 million for elections in last month’s coronavirus stimulus bill. But running elections safely and securely through November will cost at least $414 million in just five states — Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, according to a new analysis from election security experts. In each of those states, the federal money covers less than 20 percent of what’s needed and often closer to 10 percent, according to the report from the Alliance for Securing Democracy, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, the R Street Institute and the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security. States are facing severe funding shortfalls during the pandemic and are unlikely to be able to make up the difference. “What Congress has provided to our election officials to run elections in a pandemic does not come close to what’s needed,” Elizabeth Howard, counsel in the Brennan Center’s democracy program and a former deputy commissioner for the Virginia Department of Elections, said during a call with reporters.

National: States Race to Ready Covid-Era Balloting Ahead of November | Fola Akinnibi/Bloomberg

A steady stream of elections beginning this month will give officials a peek into what administering 2020’s main event may look like as some states push for more federal aid to prepare for voting in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic. Through September, elections will be held in 45 states and the District of Columbia to decide everything from mayoral contests to presidential primaries, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many are taking steps now, months earlier than usual, to prepare for the November presidential contest, as officials look to avoid missteps made in states that have held elections during the pandemic. At least seven people in Wisconsin have been diagnosed with the virus after the state’s Republican legislature overruled calls by Governor Tony Evers to postpone its April primary and a poll worker in Illinois tested positive and died after working the March 17 primary. States need to provide personal protective equipment for poll workers, enforce social distancing, ensure that vote-by-mail is an option and secure enough resources to properly count votes, said Danielle Root, associate director of voting rights and access to justice at the Center for American Progress. “Wisconsin should really serve as a warning to all elected officials,” Root said. “It is critically important that we start planning now to ensure we are ready for November. The best option right now is to plan for the worst.”

National: Postal Service, beset by funding woes, faces new fight over mail-in voting | Max Greenwood/The Hill

Advocates and experts fear the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) could find itself caught in the crosshairs of the emerging partisan fight over mail-in voting. Democrats are pressing for increased funding for by-mail ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic, citing concerns about voters and workers congregating at polling stations. President Trump, meanwhile, threatened last month to block emergency COVID-19 assistance for the Postal Service if it did not raise its prices to cover a growing hole in its budget that could see the agency run out of money by end of the fiscal year. Trump reversed course late last week, vowing to “never let our Post Office fail.” His earlier remarks, however, raised alarm among state and federal officials and voting rights advocates, who see those warnings to the Postal Service as implicitly linked to the 2020 elections. Should the agency turn to layoffs or service reductions to cut costs, they argue, mail-in voting could be disrupted and millions of voters could be disenfranchised. “This is not and should not be a partisan or political issue. Both blue states and red states rely on the Postal Service to deliver ballots to and from voters,” Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat, told reporters on a conference call on Wednesday. “We shouldn’t be playing politics with the postal service because it will disenfranchise and suppress voters.”

National: The Pandemic Is Crushing Voter-Registration Efforts | Ronald Brownstein/The Atlantic

Gamers playing nintendo’s animal crossing encountered an unusual sight late one afternoon last week. The massively popular online video game allows participants to customize their appearance, and in their onscreen avatar, some of the players were sporting political swag. A few wore T-shirts with the name nextgen or nga, for the liberal organizing group NextGen America. Some wore hats that read vote. And some stood beside virtual booths, like the kind you’d see at a carnival, that advertised the Tom Steyer–backed organization. NextGen, which Steyer, the erstwhile presidential candidate, founded in 2013 to engage young voters, recruited the players by posting notices on Twitter and in Facebook groups devoted to the game. About 60 users agreed to tout the group’s cause as they played; one even built a podium and delivered a short address through the chat function about the importance of registering to vote. The Animal Crossing event took place the day before Earth Day, when NextGen normally would have held an in-person voter-registration rally, likely featuring remarks from a political leader, says Mark Riffenburg, the group’s director in Nevada, who helped organize the event. Instead, with such outreach shelved by the coronavirus outbreak, the group tried to broadcast its message to the many players who spend hours inside the game building digital neighborhoods, buying and selling virtual crops, and interacting with anthropomorphic animals. At political events, Riffenburg says, “you are used to having a senator. But now it is a squirrel.”

National: Experts worry US elections even more vulnerable with COVID-19 | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Cybersecurity experts are increasingly worried that U.S. elections are growing even more vulnerable to outside interference because of the coronavirus pandemic. They say funds to prevent interference and ensure people can vote safely are running thin, despite the fact that Congress has passed $825 million in funding for election security since December. The chaos caused by COVID-19, which has forced states to delay or cancel primary elections and move toward allowing residents to vote absentee, has presented a new array of challenges for states that had already been focused on election security. “Certainly we are in an unprecedented time and these are unprecedented challenges, and these are challenges created at the intersection of these two issues,” said Benjamin Hovland, the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). “The challenges of disinformation and misinformation is one of the biggest areas of concern.”

National: Pandemic-time elections expected to be much more expensive | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

The $400 million in election assistance funds that Congress authorized in the March pandemic relief package would not even cover the costs of switching to predominately mail-in balloting in five states, much less all 50, according to a report published Thursday. The report, which was led by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, comes as state election officials resolve how to safely conduct elections during the coronavirus pandemic. The crisis has prompted several states where absentee ballots are rare to try converting to all-mail voting, an expensive project that typically takes states multiple election cycles to complete. According to the report, the election funds received by the five states it examined — Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania — would not even amount to 20 percent of the funds needed by those states to expand mail-in and absentee ballots to all their voters this November. But with state and local budgets plunging as public-health measures wipe out tax revenue, a shortage of federal assistance could lead to more situations like the recent Wisconsin presidential primary, in which hundreds of polling places closed and turnout plunged after state lawmakers and courts refused to postpone in-person voting. At least 52 people who went to polling places during the April 7 primary have tested positive for COVID-19.

National: Report finds states need millions more in federal funding to hold elections this year | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Five key states will need millions more in federal funding in order to move forward with this year’s elections during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research released Thursday found. According to a report spearheaded by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, current federal election funds will cover less than 20 percent of the costs required for mail-in voting and other election changes in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Missouri. The report, which was also put together by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, the R Street Institute and the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security, examined the impact of the $400 million in election funds sent to states as part of last month’s $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill. Georgia faces the biggest pitfall in funding, with the report finding that the $10.8 million the state received will only address around 10 percent of its election needs. This is primarily because mail-in voting has been historically low in the state, and now the state is funding the mailing of absentee ballot request forms to every registered voter. The more than $11 million given to Michigan only covers 12 percent of their estimated election costs this year, while the $7.6 million Missouri received will only cover up to 13 percent of costs. Ohio and Pennsylvania will fare slightly better, with the funding each state received able to cover between 16 and 18 percent of estimated election costs.

National: Election Officials Get Access to Microsoft Security Tools | Phil Goldstein/StateTech Magazine

Although the primary election season calendar has been thrown off-kilter, election cybersecurity concerns are still top of mind, and election security trainings have moved online. The threat landscape has not become any less complex for state and local election officials. In fact, one could argue the attention paid to countering the coronavirus pandemic is taking awareness and resources away from election security, making it even more important they be refocused on the ballot box. “Potential changes to the primary schedules of certain states, and the exploration of further mobile and mail voting options in the midst of coronavirus, has only piqued interest on the topic of election cybersecurity, and we look forward to continuing a bipartisan dialogue, state-by-state,” Justin Griffin, managing director of the University of Southern California’s Election Cybersecurity Initiative, tells Politico.

National: Vote safely by mail in November? Not so fast, say Republicans | Sam Levine/The Guardian