North Carolina: The State just changed election rules to expand early voting. Why GOP leaders say it’s unfair | Will Doran/McClatchy

Early voting sites should be easier to find in this fall’s elections, at least in North Carolina’s biggest cities, because of an order issued by the N.C. State Board of Elections on Friday. North Carolina Republicans say the change to statewide voting rules is just a partisan ploy to help Democrats, but state officials say it’s necessary to help protect voters against coronavirus. The order came as Democrats have been criticizing the long lines people have had to wait in to vote — especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic — that made national news earlier this summer in Georgia and Wisconsin. “If we do not take these measures, we risk much longer lines at voting sites and greater possibility of the spread of the coronavirus,” state elections director Karen Brinson Bell said in announcing the changes Friday. “These are not acceptable risks in this important election year when we expect turnout to be high.” The order says that every county in North Carolina must have at least one polling place for every 20,000 residents. That’s probably not going to lead to much change in smaller rural areas — which tend to lean conservative — but could force the creation of many additional polling places in urban, more liberal-leaning areas, said Republican Sen. Ralph Hise of Spruce Pine. The Board of Elections, appointed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper from nominees by the political parties, has a 3-2 Democratic majority. The board appointed Brinson Bell as the director. “It appears that areas with high concentrations of Democrats will have dozens of early voting sites while more Republican areas may have just one,” Hise said in a press release. “How is it fair or equitable for voters of one party to be able to walk down the street to vote early, while voters of another party will need to drive for miles and miles to vote early?”

North Carolina: Bipartisan voting bill sparks partisan argument | Travis Fain/WRAL

A bipartisan bill meant to prepare North Carolina for voting in a pandemic got less bipartisan in the state Senate on Wednesday as Democrats pushed back against voter ID language that hadn’t raised concerns in the House. House Bill 1169 makes it easier to request an absentee ballot and to vote that ballot, relaxing a state requirement that voters get two people or a notary public to sign their paperwork if they want to vote by mail. The bill would also create a new online portal voters can use to request ballots, and it has millions of dollars in it to help election officials prepare for the November general election. This bill cleared the North Carolina House last month 116-3, a rare bipartisan vote for a major elections bill. But Tuesday evening, a handful of progressive advocacy groups sounded the alarm, urging people to oppose the bill. The apparent problem lay in language that would add a new type of photo ID to the list of IDs accepted at the polls: Cards issued to people on various public assistance programs.

North Carolina: GOP, Democratic Lawmakers Find Common Ground On Absentee Voting | Rusty Jacobs/WUNC

North Carolina is accustomed to deep partisan divisions over elections law. Republicans and Democrats, along with voting rights advocates, have been battling at the Legislature and in court over issues like redistricting and voter ID for most of the past decade. Indeed, back in January, a federal judge halted the latest photo ID requirement crafted by the GOP-controlled Legislature from taking effect. That’s what makes the measure now cruising through the General Assembly so exciting, according to Myrna Perez, Director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “There seems to be some real truth-telling, right? There seems to be some acknowledgment of the real facts on the ground,” Perez said.

North Carolina: Near-unanimous North Carolina House passes funding, rules to prepare for spike in voting by mail | Will Dorn/Raleigh News & Observer

A bill making it easier for people to vote by mail in the 2020 elections passed with near-unanimous support Thursday in the N.C. House of Representatives. State officials have told lawmakers that normally, around 4% or 5% of North Carolinians vote by mail. But because of uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and public health concerns, they expect that it could grow to as high as 40% this year. “The most important thing about the bill is that it gives the State Board of Elections and county boards the flexibility and resources needed to accommodate the expected increase in absentee ballot requests due to the pandemic,” Republican Rep. Holly Grange, the bill’s lead sponsor, told The News & Observer last week when she first filed it. The bill would spend millions of dollars on that goal, as well as on public health concerns for polling places, cyber security improvements and more. It would also make it easier for people to request mail-in ballots, reduce the witness requirement for such ballots from two people to one, and mandate the use of technology that would let voters track their ballots to make sure they actually get submitted.

North Carolina: Pandemic prompts lawmakers to make changes for fall elections | Laura Leslie/WRAL

An elections bill responding to the coronavirus pandemic moved through two House committees Wednesday on its way to what appears to be likely passage by the full House Thursday. House Bill 1169 makes changes, some temporary and others permanent, to make voting by mail easier and more secure at the same time. “Voting is going to change. Right now, we only have 5 percent usually of absentee ballot voting. We’re expecting that to be significantly higher,” explained primary sponsor Rep. Holly Grange, R-New Hanover. “So, we wanted to make sure we gave the county boards of elections the resources that they needed and the guidance so that they could execute a safe election.” For 2020, the requirement of two witnesses for an absentee ballot is dropped to one witness, who is required to print his or her name and address. Voters will also be able to submit an official absentee ballot request online or by fax or email as well as by mail or in person.

North Carolina: Lawsuit argues North Carolina’s voting laws aren’t built for a pandemic | Travis Fain/WRAL

Left-leaning advocacy groups have filed a federal lawsuit demanding changes in North Carolina’s voting laws due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The 72-page suit declares the state’s absentee ballot and voter registration rules unconstitutional, saying people can’t be forced to choose between voting and protecting their health. Among other things, it calls for a longer registration period and contact-less drop boxes for absentee ballots, in case there are post office delays. The suit is the latest in a string of legal actions that may decide the ground rules leading up to the November presidential election in North Carolina. There are more than half a dozen lawsuits pending. State lawmakers filed legislation Friday that addresses some the issues targeted by the suit, but not all of them. Allison Riggs, chief voting rights counsel for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said that bill doesn’t go far enough.

North Carolina: Voters fearful of COVID-19 but wanting to vote would get help from this proposed bill | Taft Wireback/Greensboro News & Record

North Carolina legislators are moving ahead on a bill aimed at making it easier for voters across North Carolina to protect themselves from the COVID-19 virus by voting from home. The bipartisan measure removes obstacles for those who would rather vote using an absentee ballot rather than in the group setting of their local precincts. But it also closes off loopholes that skeptics fear could lead to fraud, backers say. “We are genuinely interested in a process that will protect people’s health and their right to vote,” said state Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Greensboro, a primary sponsor of  the measure. “We expect the pandemic to be a problem still in the fall … No one should have to chose between their health and their right to vote.” The “Elections 2020” bill goes before the state House Committee on Elections and Ethics Law on Wednesday morning. Supporters are hoping it wins approval from the full House later this week, followed soon by favorable action in the state Senate, Harrison said. The changes would directly affect voters throughout Guilford County. Local election officials are bracing for a potential onslaught of up to 125,000 mail-in ballots in November linked to fears of being infected with the coronavirus. That’s more than seven times the normal volume of absentee ballots.

North Carolina: Expand vote-by-mail for 2020, says a bipartisan group of lawmakers | Will Dorna/Raleigh News & Observer

With uncertainty looming over how serious coronavirus will be this fall, a bipartisan push at the state legislature would make it easier for North Carolinians to vote by mail this year. State officials are expecting a massive increase in people wanting to vote by mail in November. The legislature wants to make sure that goes smoothly, said Rep. Pricey Harrison, who has co-sponsored a new elections bill along with one fellow Democrat and two Republicans. Usually, Harrison said, fewer than 5% of North Carolina voters choose to vote by mail — but for 2020, “they’re expecting a surge of up to 40%.” Republican Rep. Holly Grange, the lead sponsor of House Bill 1169, said they wanted to give both state and local elections officials “the flexibility and resources needed to accommodate the expected increase in absentee ballot requests due to the pandemic.” People who vote by mail now have to find two people to serve as witnesses while they vote. But the bill filed Friday would drop that requirement to just one witness. Voters are currently not allowed to request absentee ballots by email or fax, but this bill would lift those restrictions.

North Carolina: Bipartisan election bill promised as others fight over ballot rules | Travis Fain/WRAL

House leaders are close to filing a bill, with bipartisan support, changing state election rules because of the pandemic. The measure has most of what the State Board of Elections asked for two months ago when it rolled out a laundry list of requests, Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, said Thursday. There are key exceptions though: The bill won’t make Election Day a holiday, and it won’t cover postage costs on absentee ballots, both state board requests. The bill would forbid the board from going to an all-mail-ballot election in November, something the State Board of Elections has not requested but has been a concern for conspiracy theorists nonetheless. Mail-in ballots are already available in North Carolina to any voter who requests one, and they would remain so. Lewis, a top House Republican on election issues, confirmed some details of the bill Thursday and said it will likely be ready Friday after weeks of conversation. He said the bill would also include “a significant amount of money” for local boards of elections.

North Carolina: The pandemic will drive up election costs, and so far North Carolina isn’t ready | WRAL

The first coronavirus response legislation that the N.C. General Assembly passed functions like a tourniquet — it aimed to stop the immediate economic hemorrhage from the pandemic and shore up health care across the state. But with legislators set to return to Raleigh on May 18, budgetary patients will still be in the waiting room needing attention. For North Carolina’s state and county elections agencies, and the voters relying on them to run a safe, fair and secure election, the clock is ticking. Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell has sent three letters to the legislature asking for changes to state voting laws and roughly $2 million in funding to match federal money made available by the CARES Act. Brinson Bell said the $11 million in federal money is needed to help counties pay for what elections officials expect will be a dramatic increase in absentee-by-mail voting and equipment to run in-person voting safely. As it will for the upcoming second primary in western North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District and a new primary for a county commission seat in Columbus County, Brinson Bell said the state plans to purchase masks for every poll worker as well as every voter. They will also buy enough pens that each voter gets his or her own, plexiglass shields for check-in stations and heavy-duty sanitizing kits for every polling place.

North Carolina: New lawsuit in North Carolina over absentee voting, mail-in ballots | Brian Murphy/Raleigh News & Observer

A group of voters backed by Democratic legal groups sued North Carolina on Monday seeking to loosen rules around absentee mail-in ballots amid predictions that the coronavirus pandemic will make voting by mail a widespread practice. They want the state to provide prepaid postage on all absentee ballots, change a requirement for two witnesses to sign a ballot, extend the deadline for receipt of ballots until nine days after Election Day and give voters a chance to fix signature discrepancies before election officials reject those ballots. North Carolina’s state board of elections endorsed the first two provisions in a proposed list of election changes released in March. “The current restrictions on mail ballots not only violate the state Constitution, but they also pose significant risks to voters’ health and safety, and, unless they are remedied, they could result in the disenfranchisement of an unprecedented number of North Carolinians,” said Marc Elias, a top Democratic elections attorney representing the challengers, in a statement.

North Carolina: Western North Carolina counties adjust second primary plans due to pandemic | Jordan Wilkie/Carolina Public Press

Several Western North Carolina counties are sharply cutting the number of polling places for the June 23 second primary in Congressional District 11. The counties, as well as the state Board of Elections, are also seeking additional rule changes and funding from the state legislature for election staffing, protective gear, cleaning supplies and mail-in ballot processing. This situation offers a potential preview for statewide changes that could be in order if the COVID-19 pandemic is not resolved in time for the general election. At least four counties — Madison, Mitchell, Transylvania and Yancey — have had polling place closures approved by the state Board of Elections, with Buncombe expecting its request to be approved shortly. Haywood County submitted an emergency plan for a stark reduction in polling places — from 29 to 11 — but will ask that it be approved only if the COVID-19 health crisis in that county significantly worsens, according to the county’s director of elections, Robert Inman. “Please bear in mind, we’re still in April,” Inman said earlier this week. “What happens and develops over the next several weeks, we just have to deal with as it happens. What’s happening today is absolutely no indication of what’s going to happen in days or weeks going forward.”

North Carolina: Elections officials work to prepare for voting during a pandemic, in the shadow of an election fraud scandal | Emily Featherston/WECT

This year was always going to be a challenging one for those working in North Carolina elections, as 2020 promises to bring massive turnout. With cases of the novel coronavirus continuing to climb the prospects of running a “normal” general election have flown out the window. Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, says her agency is doing what it can to prepare. “We don’t know what the situation is going to be in November,” she said, specifically referencing the rate of infection. “So our job as election professionals, anytime, is to prepare for the worst case scenario, and so that’s what we’re doing.” In the short term, that means gearing up for two elections scheduled for June 23: a runoff in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, and a new Republican primary for Columbus County Commission District 2. Under normal circumstances those races would have been held in mid May, but Bell said they were pushed back after the NCSBE staff talked with state health and emergency officials.

North Carolina: Suit claims ES&S ExpressVote could leave voters vulnerable to COVID-19 | Jim Morrill/Charlotte Observer

North Carolina’s NAACP has filed suit against election boards in Mecklenburg County and elsewhere, charging in part that new, touch screen voting machines risk exposing voters to COVID-19. The suit also says the ExpressVotemachines are “insecure, unreliable, and unverifiable” and threaten “the integrity of North Carolina’s elections.” The N.C. State Board of Elections, which was also sued, referred questions to the state Justice Department. Laura Brewer, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Josh Stein, said the department is reviewing the filing. Mecklenburg and several other counties adopted the machines in response to a 2013 state law requiring paper ballots in an effort to maintain elections security and stop potential hacking. The machines are similar to those used in the county since 2006. But after using a touch screen to make their choices, voters pull out a paper copy of their ballot and give it to a poll worker who inserts it into a tabulator. County and state officials have said the machines are secure. The suit alleges that the machines give voters a printed copy of their selections. But it includes a barcode of the selections that the suit says “may not necessarily match the human readable text.” The NAACP also alleges that the machines are susceptible to sabotage or hacking.

North Carolina: Lawsuit cites virus to stop touch-screen voting | Gary D. Robertson/Associated Press

The threat of hand-to-hand contamination from the new coronavirus while voting entered arguments in a lawsuit seeking to stop the use of touch-screen ballot-marking machines in North Carolina. Lawyers for four North Carolina voters and the state NAACP largely cited constitutional concerns in the lawsuit announced Wednesday in asking that the equipment from the nation’s largest voting machine manufacturer be barred from future elections. About 20 of North Carolina’s 100 counties have the machines, used first in one way of another during last month’s primary elections. But the plaintiffs also said using touch-screen machines are inherently hazardous to use during the COVID-19 crisis, because voters and poll workers are smudging screens with fingers and hands that could transmit the virus to unsuspecting people. Cleaning the ExpressVote machines — created by Election Systems & Software and targeted in the lawsuit — after every vote, would create long lines at voting sites, the lawsuit said. An ES&S memo last month recommended poll workers should use lint-free cloths with isopropyl alcohol or prepared alcohol wipes to clean screens for at least 30 seconds to disinfect them.

North Carolina: Voting rights advocates file lawsuit over allegedly insecure voting machines | Maggie Miller/The Hill

A group of voting rights advocates filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that voting machines used in almost two dozen North Carolina counties are not secure and could lead to voter disenfranchisement in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit, filed by the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and multiple North Carolina voters, alleges that the use of the ExpressVote XL voting machine violates the constitutional right of individuals in the state to free and fair elections, and has cyber vulnerabilities that could lead to election interference. The ExpressVote machines involve the voter inputting their choices digitally, with the machine then printing out a paper sheet with a barcode embedded with the voter’s choices. The voting rights advocates point to this system as making it impossible for the average voter to ensure their vote wasn’t changed and was accurate. “The ExpressVote is an insecure, unreliable, unverifiable, and unsafe machine that threatens the integrity of North Carolina’s elections,” Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the North Carolina NAACP, told reporters on Wednesday. “The new electronic system converts voters’ votes and ballots into undecipherable barcodes, forcing voters to cast a vote they cannot read.” Spearman urged the North Carolina counties using the machines to immediately “move to hand-marked paper ballots to restore voters’ trust in the integrity of our elections.”

North Carolina: With new federal money, officials planning for November elections | Jim Morrill/Charlotte Observer

North Carolina’s top elections official said Friday that much of the federal stimulus money the state expects to receive for elections will go to local boards to offset cuts caused by the pandemic. North Carolina is set to get $10.9 million for its elections from the $2.2 trillion bill that Congress passed last month. “Our real goal is to try to push as much of that money as we can down to the counties,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, told the Observer. “We’re at a time when we cannot do more with less.” With businesses closed and unemployment rising, the pandemic is expected to squeeze state and local revenues. N.C. officials are planning for an election that will be one of most important in memory, and one of the most fraught. Not only will millions of voters cast ballots for president and governor, but they’ll help determine which party controls the U.S. Senate and House and decide who controls the General Assembly. And they’ll do it in a public health environment no one can foresee. The coronavirus pandemic that has shut down much of the state could linger into fall.

North Carolina: Top Republican Dismisses Ideas To Make Mail Voting Easier | Steve Harrison/WUNC

North Carolina’s top Republican lawmaker, Senate leader Phil Berger, said Wednesday he opposes some recommendations made by the North Carolina Board of Elections to make it easier to vote by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic. Elections executive director Karen Brinson Bell has proposed a number of changes, including eliminating the requirement that mail ballots be signed by two witnesses or a notary, or only requiring one witness. She says that would encourage social distancing. And she has proposed making it easier for people to request mail ballots. In an interview with WFAE, Berger said he’s concerned that if North Carolina loosens its laws on mail voting it could cause problems similar to the 9th Congressional District mail ballot scandal in 2018. “I understand that some progressive, liberal Democratic groups would like to roll that back and put us back to where we were,” Berger said. “I’m afraid that’s where the elections director would take us with her proposals.”

North Carolina: Elections board wants to make Election Day a holiday because of virus | Travis Fain/WRAL

The State Board of Elections recommended more than a dozen changes to state election laws Thursday in response to COVID-19, including making Election Day a state holiday. Most of the suggestions stem from an expected uptick in absentee voting by mail. Among other things, state Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell will ask the General Assembly to pay postage on absentee ballots, make it easier to request absentee ballots and to ease witnessing requirements when people vote by mail. She laid out the requests in a six-page letter. “We believe the legislative recommendations released today would go a long way toward ensuring safe, accessible elections in 2020,” Brinson Bell said in news release accompanying the letter. “We look forward to continuing to work with the General Assembly to respond to the unprecedented threat facing our elections system at this time.” Legislative leaders have said they’ll consider changes, but the process will have a lot of eyes on it. North Carolina tightened its absentee ballot rules last year after an illegal ballot-harvesting campaign forced a do-over election in the state’s 9th Congressional District.

North Carolina: Elections officials complete primary work, adjust to coronavirus | Jordan Wilkie/Carolina Public Press

The gears of democracy are still turning in North Carolina, despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, the State Board of Elections certified results from the state’s March 3 primary, with the exception of one county contest requiring a redo and a handful of local races facing protests or appeals. The election, which came in just under the wire before the COVID-19 pandemic hit North Carolina, was run with few bumps and no major issues, according to watchdog organizations like Democracy NC. At the start of its Friday meeting, State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell used her emergency powers to postpone the state’s only runoff election by six weeks. Now, the second Republican primary for U.S. House District 11 is set for June 23. The district includes much of Western North Carolina’s rural counties, as well as the only major urban center, Asheville. Brinson Bell picked June 23 because it is outside the eight-week window recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to limit gatherings of 50 or more people to control the spread of COVID-19.

North Carolina: Two ‘Russian’ Ransomware Attacks Take Down Durham North Carolina City And County Government Systems | Davey Winder/Forbes

The same Russian ransomware that is thought to have been responsible for the City of New Orleans state of emergency last year has now struck Durham City and the County of Durham in North Carolina. As 2019 wound down to an end, the City of New Orleans was hit by a ransomware attack, thought to be attributable to Ryuk. That attack was severe enough for Mayor LaToya Cantrell to declare a state of emergency. Now the City of Durham and Durham County, in North Carolina, have had to shut down networks after being hit by the same Russian ransomware. The City of Durham and Durham County Government IT systems were subject to a successful cyber-attack late Friday evening, March 6. Malware detection systems kicked in to provide immediate notification of the attack, and networks were closed down to prevent further spread. The incident was described as a cyber malware attack, or rather “two separate attacks” at a press conference held by officials Monday, March 9. Thomas Bonfield, Durham City manager, said that while the malware had “been contained ” and the city was in recovery mode, “most city networks and phones remain intentionally offline during the initial stages of the recovery process.” Bonfield said that the National Guard cybersecurity team was helping with the recovery effort. It should be noted, however, that critical public safety systems, including access to the 911 network, remained operational thanks to the emergency cyber-attack remediation process.

North Carolina: Ransomware Attack Hits Durham North Carolina City, County Governments | Lucas Ropek/Government Technology

Hackers of “Russian” origin targeted the city and county governments of Durham, N.C., over the weekend, hampering computer and communications networks with ransomware, according to local officials. The attack, which used the infamous Ryuk malware strain typically spread through malicious attachments in phishing emails, was carried out late Friday by a Russian hacking group, according to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations, one of the agencies looking into the attack. On the heels of a year with a precipitous rise in ransomware attacks on state and local government, the incident is one of several to occur in the first few months of 2020 that show the trend does not seem to be slowing.  City and county officials confirmed during a joint press conference Monday that the malware appears to have spread after internal employees clicked on infected emails.

North Carolina: Super Tuesday vote counting problems in Warren County North Carolina | Will Doran/Raleigh News & Observer

Officials in a North Carolina county accidentally inflated the votes in one Super Tuesday primary election, but fixed the problem on Thursday. Tuesday’s election results are still unofficial everywhere in the state, and officials at the N.C. State Board of Elections will do audits all around the state regardless of whether voting results appear wrong. In one rural area, however, they have already found an issue and say it was due to human error. “It’s very important to note that the results on the election night reporting system are unofficial and this is ongoing,” Pat Gannon, a spokesman for the elections board, said in an interview Thursday morning. Warren County, a small community north of Raleigh on the Virginia border, has only 41 registered Libertarian voters. But on Tuesday the county reported more than 800 votes cast in the Libertarian presidential race.

North Carolina: How did Guilford’s new voting system work? | Taft Wireback/Greensboro News Record

The votes are in, and Guilford County’s new system of hand-marked, paper ballots came through its first, full-fledged test without any major snags. Elections Director Charlie Collicutt said the new equipment worked well in Tuesday’s primary and voters adapted successfully to the shift away from touchscreen voting to paper ballots. “There was some apprehension early in the process because it is something different from what you’ve been doing for the last 15 years,” Collicutt said Wednesday. Voters came out for Tuesday’s primary in robust, if not record numbers: 112,728 cast ballots, or about 31% of the county’s registered voters, Collicutt said. That’s 5% below turnout for the last presidential primary in 2016 when 122,897 voters participated, he said. Once voting got under way Tuesday, the only significant drawback came from delays by state government’s computer system in displaying Guilford’s results online, Collicutt said. “The big issue was how slow the state’s website was,” he said. “The upload was so slow.” Guilford County spent about $2 million for its new voting equipment to comply with changes in state law that require systems to leave a better paper trail than the touchscreen terminals Guilford had been using for years. The new system relies on printed, multiple-choice ballots that voters fill out in ink and feed into a tabulator at their precincts.

North Carolina: New Mecklenburg voting equipment ready for Super Tuesday | Jordan Wilkie/Carolina Public Press

Elections are unpredictable. Election administration does not have to be. For example, the Bipartisan Policy Center and MIT have jointly conducted research on polling-place lines in the 2016 and 2018 elections. Their findings, which are consistent with other research, show that voters of color wait in line, on average, longer than white voters and that election jurisdictions using electronic voting machines had longer wait times than those using hand-marked paper ballots. The factors that cause long lines on election day – outside of unforeseeable problems like storms or power outages – are known weeks if not months in advance. Charles Stewart III is a professor at MIT and an expert on election administration. He has used the predictable nature of things like line length at a polling place to help counties prepare for elections. “If you know how long it takes to serve somebody, so, like how long it takes to check somebody in or how long it takes for somebody to vote, you can estimate the average wait time,” Stewart said. Rather than waiting for the election to see if there were long lines, Carolina Public Press investigated the distribution of voting equipment in Mecklenburg County to detect red flags ahead of primary election day on March 3.

North Carolina: Mecklenburg County OKs Buying New Voting Equipment | Steve Harrison/WFAE

Mecklenburg Commissioners voted 8-1 Tuesday night to buy new electronic voting equipment that it will be in place for the March 3 primary. The county is buying new machines to comply with a North Carolina law that requires paper ballots to improve election security. Many North Carolina counties are switching to paper ballots in which voters will use a pencil to fill in ovals next to their choices.Elections experts have said that such an all-paper system would provide more security. But Mecklenburg Elections director Michael Dickerson said the elections board believes that will lead to problems. “If you are filling in an oval, and you partly fill in the oval, will it count? Will it not count?” Dickerson said. “What if you fill in two ovals and circle one meaning that’s the one you want? That’s what the board did not want to do. They did not want to have to be responsible for interpreting votes for the voters.” So, the county is going with a hybrid system.

North Carolina: Ignoring Warning Signs: Officials Approve Vulnerable Voting Machines | Gabriella Novello/WhoWhatWhy

Election officials know very well that using outdated and costly touchscreen voting machines — which are susceptible to hacking and other foul play — will likely lead to programming issues and cause long lines during the 2020 election that will ultimately drive voters away from the polls. Though more states are moving toward hand-marked paper ballots, most of those ballots will still be counted by machines. In other states — some of which could play a crucial role this year — election officials have ignored calls by election security experts to steer clear of problematic touchscreen machines altogether, and are rushing to approve even more. In North Carolina, despite overwhelming opposition from voters and election security experts, the State Board of Elections (NCSBE) bypassed a certification process to approve new touchscreen voting machines by Election Systems & Software (ES&S). At the same time, it  expressed “disappointment” in the company for misleading the board about whether it could provide enough of the voting machines that were certified in August. Critics of the decision argue that election officials rushed to approve the modification request after the board was forced to consider a more expensive voting machine just one month after the initial certification in August because ES&S said that it could not supply North Carolina with all the machines the state needed.

North Carolina: Election probe finds security flaws in key North Carolina county but no signs of Russian hacking | Kim Zetter/Politico

A long-awaited report this week from the Department of Homeland Security found security problems with the computer systems that a North Carolina county used to handle voter data during the 2016 election — but no evidence that Russian hackers had breached them. Still, the review is unlikely to totally resolve questions surrounding the county’s use of software provided by the Florida company VR Systems, which — as POLITICO reported last week — have added to broader doubts about the security of election technology that Americans will use at the polls in 2020. Experts contacted by POLITICO said the new DHS analysis has its share of holes — for instance, failing to examine all the computer systems the Russians could have targeted. And they noted that officials in Durham County, N.C., had waited until about a week after Election Day to preserve some potentially important evidence. “I think [the investigation is] incomplete,” says Jake Williams a former NSA hacker who is founder of the security firm Rendition Infosec and trains forensic analysts. “It’s the best investigation that can be conducted under the circumstances. We can’t investigate what we don’t have, [and] a lot of the crucial evidence is missing.” Among other security issues, the heavily redacted DHS report indicates that someone had used a “high value” desktop computer handling Durham County’s voter-registration data to access a personal Gmail account on Election Day. The report provides a lengthy list of suggestions — all blacked out — for how the county can improve the security of its election infrastructure.

North Carolina: Federal review finds no evidence hacking caused 2016 Durham County election problems | Travis Fain/WRAL

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security review found no evidence that hacking caused the 2016 election problems that forced Durham County to shut down electronic poll books on election day, the State Board of Elections said Monday in a joint statement with Durham’s board of elections. The report, months in the making, is “compelling evidence that there were no cyberattacks impacting the 2016 election in Durham,” Durham County Board of Elections Chairman Philip Lehman said in the joint statement. The state released a heavily redacted version of the 12-page report late Monday afternoon. In it, federal cyber security experts say they “did not conclusively identify any threat actor activity,” but that aspects of the state’s election security could be improved. Most of these recommendations are redacted for security reasons, but Lehman said in his statement that the county has already “implemented additional training, security measures and staffing changes” since 2016. State elections director Karen Brinson Bell said the state is working with county boards and the federal government “to improve security at every step in the voting process.”

North Carolina: No evidence of cyber attack in Durham County 2016 election, acordind to DHS | Will Doran/Raleigh News & Observer

There’s no evidence that the 2016 Election Day problems in Durham were the result of cyber hackers, according to the federal government. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference said a company — whose description closely matched the company that provided voter check-in software for Durham and other North Carolina counties in 2016 — was targeted by hackers. And Durham experienced widely reported issues with that check-in software during the 2016 elections. State officials have long said they believed the problems were just due to human error, however, and not anything malicious like foreign hackers. But after the Mueller report’s findings on election interference became public earlier this year, officials at the Department of Homeland Security agreed to look into the Durham situation. On Monday, putting an end to their months-long investigation, they announced they had found nothing to indicate a cyber attack. Phillip Lehman, chairman of the Durham County Board of Elections, called the report “compelling evidence that there were no cyberattacks impacting the 2016 election in Durham.” “As we have acknowledged, there was human error in the preparation of electronic poll books,” Lehman said in a news release announcing the investigation’s findings. “Since that time, the Durham County Board of Elections has implemented additional training, security measures and staffing changes. Elections in 2017, 2018 and 2019 were conducted efficiently and accurately with no significant incidents.”