National: Russia is quietly churning out fake content posing as US news | Dana Nickel/Politico

A pro-Russian propaganda group is taking advantage of high-profile news events to spread disinformation, and it’s spoofing reputable organizations — including news outlets, nonprofits and government agencies — to do so. According to misinformation tracker NewsGuard, the campaign — which has been tracked by Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center as Storm-1679 since at least 2022 — takes advantage of high-profile events to pump out fabricated content from various publications, including ABC News, BBC and most recently POLITICO. This year, the group has focused on flooding the internet with fake content surrounding the German SNAP elections and the upcoming Moldovan parliamentary vote. The campaign also sought to plant false narratives around the war in Ukraine ahead of President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. Read Article

National: Mail-in voting is nothing new, just ask Civil War soldiers | Claire Barrett/Air Force Times

“We cannot have free government without elections,” President Abraham Lincoln reflected outside the White House on Nov. 10, 1864. “And if the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.” By the fall of 1864, the United States had been engulfed in a civil war for nearly 44 months, with “the bones of thousands of Northern boys [lying] in Southern graves or decayed unburied in the thickets and swamps of Dixie,” writes historian Gerald Swick. For Lincoln — and for the Union — the outcome of the 1864 presidential election hung in the balance. If voters rejected Lincoln, the war to save the Union would almost certainly be lost. According to Swick, Peace Democrats, Lincoln’s chief political opposition, wanted an end to hostilities immediately, under almost any circumstances. Read Article

 

Opinion: Would You Trust This Man With Your Elections? | Richard L. Hasen/The New York Times

With Republicans potentially losing their current seven-vote majority in the House in next year’s midterm elections (or, less likely, their six-vote majority in the Senate), President Trump has been sending clear signals of his intent to interfere with the fairness and integrity of those elections. The fear that Mr. Trump will try to subvert the 2026 elections is real — after all, he tried to overturn the results of the first presidential election he didn’t win. But even if Mr. Trump fails to keep the House and the Senate in Republican hands, he will have delegitimized future Democratic victories in the eyes of his MAGA base. Mr. Trump wants his supporters to believe that Democrats can win only by cheating. “Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM,” he wrote in his Monday post. (Never mind that he raised his claim after he was apparently lectured on the supposed insecurity of mail-in ballots by the noted democracy enthusiast Vladimir Putin.) It’s a recipe for further polarization and, as someone in Mr. Trump’s orbit told The Times, “maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.” Read Article

Arizona voters caught up in state error should keep full voting rights, attorney general says | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Arizona voters who were caught up in a state error tracking citizenship should keep their full voting rights, according to Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. Her opinion, issued Monday, marks a turning point in the debate among officials over how to handle the eligibility of the roughly 200,000 voters, who were erroneously listed in state records as having provided proof of U.S. citizenship even though they hadn’t been asked to. Arizona requires such proof to vote in state and local elections, and counties have been sending notices to voters to try to collect the information. Mayes, a Democrat, said county recorders cannot legally suspend these voters’ registrations or make them eligible only for federal elections if they now fail to respond to these notices. Read Article

California: Money for Los Angeles County voting machines ended up in bribery ‘slush fund,’ feds allege | Rebecca Ellis and Richard Winton/Los Angeles Times

An election technology firm allegedly overbilled Los Angeles County for voting machines used during the 2020 election and funneled the extra cash into a “slush fund” for bribing government officials, federal prosecutors say in a criminal case against three company executives. Smartmatic, a U.K.-based voting system company, had bribery embedded as part of its business model, prosecutors allege in a Florida federal corruption case against company co-founder Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez and two other company officials. Prosecutors do not indicate who benefited from the alleged pot of Los Angeles County taxpayer money. Dean Logan, the county’s top voting official, has acknowledged regularly meeting with Piñate, a Boca Raton resident who was charged last year with bribery and money laundering in the Philippines. Read Article

California’s long ballot count may be Trump’s next target in the war over voting | Adam Noboa/NBC

The latest salvo in President Donald Trump’s campaign against mail-in voting arrived Monday, as he announced he wants to “lead a movement” against mail ballots and advocate instead for in-person and paper ballots, which he says are “faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.” Trump has criticized mail-in ballots since their rapid rise in 2020, when after years of slower growth they exploded as a key innovation of the Covid election. But the logistics of counting mail-in votes helped keep the nation in suspense over who won for nearly four days after polls closed. This latest push by Trump may also have the convenience of being the latest line of attack in the redistricting wars. In California, state Democrats are attempting their own mid-decade gerrymander to counter the Trump-led push by Republicans to draw more friendly districts in Texas. And California sticks out as one of the most prominent embracers of mail-in voting — and among the slowest to count them. Read Article

Colorado: Trump again calls for release of ex-clerk guilty of election data breach | Rachel Leingang/The Guardian

Donald Trump again called for the release of a former election clerk in Colorado who was convicted for her role in breaching election data in a quest to find fraud, threatening he would take “harsh measures” if she was not let out of prison. Peters was charged for allowing access to county voting equipment by an outside election activist, who was given security credentials under a different name. Materials and passwords were then published online on Telegram and on the rightwing outlet the Gateway Pundit. She was found guilty by a jury in Mesa county in 2024 of seven counts related to misconduct, conspiracy and impersonation, four of which were felony charges. She was sentenced later that year to nine years in prison. Her attorneys had argued for probation instead of prison time. Read Article

Georgia’s mass voter registration cancellation puts some registered voters at risk | Mark Niesse and Phoebe Quinton Phoebe Quinton/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Marcus Jacobs-King is a registered Georgia voter — for now. But he’s about to lose his ability to vote because he hasn’t cast a ballot in more than a decade. Jacobs-King is one of 478,000 people whose Georgia voter registrations are scheduled for cancellation this week because they haven’t participated in recent elections or moved away. “I’m concerned about it. Like most people, I want my voting rights and want to make a difference,” said Jacobs-King, a 35-year-old from Fairburn who works in the cargo industry. “In most cases, I was busy and had to do something and couldn’t get to vote soon enough.” Georgia’s mass cancellation of inactive voter registrations this year — one of the largest in U.S. history — targets people who likely moved away and didn’t vote in the last two general elections. But the cancellation effort comes with a risk that eligible voters could get swept up in the process. Read Article

North Carolina updates thousands of voter registration records to fix missing IDs | Gary D. Robertson/associated Press

Voter registration records for more than 20,000 people in North Carolina have been successfully amended thus far in an effort by election officials to add missing identification numbers. In mid-July, the State Board of Elections began formally an effort that seeks to resolve a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department that focused on voter registration records that lacked either a voter’s driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Federal and state laws have directed that election officials must request this ID information since 2004 of new registrants, but for about a decade the state’s registration form failed to make clear that voters were supposed to provide it if they had it. Read Article

Pennsylvania Congressional Republicans say election powers should remain with states | Jordan Wilkie/WITF

Three Republican members of Congress from Pennsylvania said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s recent statement that he wants to eliminate voting machines and mail-in ballots is theoretically appealing but impractical, as elections are managed by the 50 states, not the president. Asked about Trump’s comments on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Dave McCormick didn’t criticize the president. But he made the point that mobilizing more Republicans to vote by mail last year helped him and Trump both win in Pennsylvania. Two fellow Republicans who were in McCormick’s company, Congressmen Lloyd Smucker and Scott Perry, said election rules are generally left up to the states. Read Article

Texas’ Tarrant County Cuts Over 100 Polling Sites, Reduces Early Voting Locations | Drew Shaw/ProPublica

Officials in a large North Texas county decided this week to cut more than 100 Election Day polling sites and reduce the number of early voting locations, amid growing concern about GOP efforts to limit voting access ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The 3-2 vote on Tuesday by commissioners in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, came one day after President Donald Trump vowed to end the use of mail-in ballots. The president lacks the unilateral power to decide how individual states run elections, but his declaration speaks to long-brewing and unfounded claims by some conservatives that the country’s electoral system is insecure and vulnerable to widespread fraud. Trump has repeatedly and falsely asserted that he won the 2020 presidential election instead of Joe Biden. Read Article

Wisconsin: Madison chooses new clerk to run elections after 2024 snafu | Alexander Shur/otebeat

Madison’s mayor announced the appointment of Lydia McComas, an official from Minnesota, as the city’s new clerk Wednesday, marking a fresh start for election administration in Wisconsin’s state capital after the turmoil triggered by the loss of 193 ballots in November 2024. McComas, who will begin Sept. 29, previously managed the voter engagement division in Hennepin County, Minnesota, a jurisdiction with over 700,000 voters that encompasses Minneapolis and some of its suburbs. Madison is still working to rebuild its reputation after the November 2024 ballot snafu, when election officials lost track of nearly 200 ballots. The error led to the suspension and ultimately the resignation of Maribeth Witzel-Behl, who was Madison clerk for over 20 years and was recognized by other Wisconsin clerks as a leader and mentor. Read Article

Wyoming lawmakers seek to ban ballot drop boxes, again | Jasmine Hall/Jackson Hole News and Guide

After a failed attempt this past winter, Wyoming lawmakers are once again seeking to ban county clerks and election officials from collecting absentee ballots using drop boxes. Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray has been pushing for the ban since he took office, and said it’s a “key priority to advance election integrity, ensuring voter confidence and transparency in Wyoming elections.” On Friday, he told the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee that unattended and unstaffed ballot drop boxes were vulnerable to attacks of terrorism. Read Article

National: States should scrutinize Justice Department’s requests for voter rolls | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

The U.S. Justice Department has begun asking states to hand over lots of information, including voter rolls, in its campaign to check compliance with federal voting laws. Pennsylvania got an expanded request this week. Eventually, all 50 states will be contacted. State officials tell Votebeat they are hesitant to respond to the requests, which haven’t provided much explanation of how the data will be used or protected. Their reluctance makes sense: The requests themselves might violate federal law. Some states, including Maine, have already said no to the Justice Department’s request. Others are still reviewing them. Read Article

Who’s questioning women’s right to vote? | Mariel Padilla, Grace Panetta, Mel Leonor Barclay/The 19th

“In my ideal society, we would vote as households,” a pastor tells CNN. “And I would ordinarily be the one that would cast the vote, but I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household.” Another agrees, saying he’d back an end to a woman’s right to vote: “I would support that, and I’d support it on the basis that the atomization that comes with our current system is not good for humans.” The discussion of 19th Amendment rights was part of a news segment focused on Doug Wilson — a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist pastor based in Idaho — that was reposted to X by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The secretary is among Wilson’s supporters, and his involvement with Wilson’s denomination highlights how a fringe conservative evangelical Christian belief system that questions women’s right to vote is gaining more traction in the Republican Party. Read Article

National: CISA says it’s not abandoning the states. Cyber officials aren’t so sure | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Federal programs designed to aid in protecting critical infrastructure operated by state and local governments have wilted during the first six months of Donald Trump’s second presidency, and technology officials have noticed. Numerous state and local officials shared with StateScoop a belief that they will need to be more self-reliant in the years ahead, as keystone cyber programs are abandoned or scaled back, and as they receive fewer communications from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the federal cyber bureau that has in recent years served as a uniquely valuable coordinator of the nation’s sprawling IT defense efforts. Of particular concern for many state and local technology officials are recent federal cuts to the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a group that for more than 20 years has shared critical cybersecurity intelligence across state lines and provided threat monitoring services and other resources at free or heavily discounted rates. Five associations representing state and local governments last week wrote a letter to congressional appropriations leaders urging them to reinstate the MS-ISAC’s funding. Read Article

National: The Quiet Collapse of Election Security | Rowa Nawari/American Security Project

Just weeks ago, a hacker group believed to be linked to pro-Iranian groups infiltrated Arizona’s online portal for political candidates, replacing some official candidate photos with images of Ayatollah Khomeini. State officials scrambled to secure the portal by troubleshooting and shutting down the site, but ultimately did not notify the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), stating that they believed the agency had become too “politicized and weakened” to respond effectively. With CISA’s leadership nomination currently pending and its future uncertain, this incident signals a deeper national concern: the growing vulnerability of election security in the absence of coordinated federal oversight. That vulnerability was intensified by the federal agency’s own diminished capacity. The Trump administration froze CISA’s election infrastructure programs in February with no indication of reinstatement. Since then, the agency has lost nearly all of its top officials, including key advisors who specialize in election security, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cut $135 million from CISA’s budget. Additionally, its contract with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to analyze national cyberthreat sensor data expired in July without renewal, leaving systems blind to incoming threats. Read Article

National: In Election Cases, Supreme Court Keeps Removing Guardrails | Adam Liptak/The New York Times

If Republicans succeed in pulling off an aggressively partisan gerrymander of congressional districts in Texas, they will owe the Supreme Court a debt of gratitude. In the two decades Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has led the Supreme Court, the justices have reshaped American elections not just by letting state lawmakers like those in Texas draw voting maps warped by politics, but also by gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and amplifying the role of money in politics. Developments in recent weeks signaled that some members of the court think there is more work to be done in removing legal guardrails governing elections. There are now signs that court is considering striking down or severely constraining the remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act, a towering achievement of the civil rights movement that has protected the rights of minority voters since it was enacted 60 years ago last week. Read Article

National: Trump calls for mid-decade census that excludes undocumented immigrants. Can he really do that? | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

Just as he did during his first term in office, President Donald Trump is trying to reshape the census to serve his political goals. This time, he’s calling for an extraordinary mid-decade population count that would be used for apportioning congressional seats, and that would explicitly exclude undocumented immigrants. He announced his intentions where many of his policy pronouncements start out, on social media. It’s another effort by his administration to influence redistricting and congressional apportionment in ways that could benefit the GOP, though it’s not clear what the outcome of such a census would be. Democratic-leaning states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have large numbers of undocumented immigrants, but so do some Republican strongholds like Texas and Florida. Red Article

Opinion: Midterms are more than a year away, but Trump is already challenging them | Chris Brennan/USA TODAY

The 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act came and went on Aug. 6 amid a massive mission shift within the U.S. Department of Justice. That agency spent six decades using the Civil Rights Movement law to protect the ability of all Americans to cast ballots in elections. Now, the people President Donald Trump put in charge at the DOJ have shifted that mission entirely to protecting him from election results he dislikes. The DOJ is out of the civil rights business. Now its officials making demands, with not-so-veiled threats, for data from state election administrators while regurgitating Trump’s oldest lie about elections – that hoards of noncitizens cast ballots, changing who wins and loses. Read Article

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