Oregon: Federal cuts to election security programs spark concerns among elections officials | Carlos Fuentes/The Oregonian

Oregon election officials say they are worried that recent cuts to federal cybersecurity programs may leave the state’s election systems more vulnerable to attack. For years, local election officials have relied on federal programs to monitor threats, assess election security infrastructure and coordinate response plans. Federal officials hold regular security briefings with state and local officials, according to Tess Seger, spokesperson for the Oregon secretary of state. But those safeguards are now in jeopardy after the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency last week cut funding for a program that monitors cybersecurity threats across states and helps local officials respond. Read Article

Texas: Federal judge strikes down mail ballot ID requirement | Dan Katz/The Texas Tribune

A federal judge in San Antonio has ruled that the state of Texas’ ID requirements for mail ballot applications are unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez on Thursday found that the provisions in the state’s 2021 voter security law SB1 discriminate against voters with disabilities. Mail-in voters are principally people over the age of 65 and people with disabilities. Since the law was enacted, many voters reported having their ballots rejected because they didn’t provide an ID number, or the number they provided did not match the one the state had on file. Read Article

Utah Governor signs away the state’s popular universal vote-by-mail election system, requiring opting in | Emily Anderson Stern/The Salt Lake Tribune

Tucked in the middle of a list of 100 bills Gov. Spencer Cox signed Thursday was “Amendments to Election Law,” or HB300 — the law that is set to end Utah’s popular universal vote-by-mail election system, forcing voters to opt in before 2029 to receive and send a ballot through the mail. The governor did not include a comment on his decision to sign the bill in the news release, as he has for some other bills. An initial version of the bill would have effectively eliminated Utahns’ option to vote via the postal service altogether, but the version Cox ultimately signed allows voters to opt in to participating in elections through the mail. Utahns must opt in before 2029, when counties will stop sending ballots to every voter’s mailbox. The compromise came after widespread opposition among the elected officials who oversee the state’s elections, as well as skepticism from the Senate over cutting off access to voting by mail. Read Article

Wyoming becomes first state to enact citizenship proof law for all elections, including federal | Natalia Mittelstadt/Just The News

Wyoming has become the first state to enact a law requiring proof of citizenship in all elections, including federal. The bill was passed by the state legislature and became law without the governor’s signature. The law, House Bill 156, requires voters to provide proof of citizenship and Wyoming residency, in addition to instituting a requirement to reside in the state for a period of time before being eligible to register to vote. Other states that require proof of citizenship for voters do not apply the requirement to federal elections. Read Article

Trump wants to ‘go back to paper ballots.’ Most of America already uses them. | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

President Donald Trump recently repeated his calls for exclusively using paper ballots, lauding them before the first cabinet meeting of his second term. For the sake of honest elections, he said, “We have to go back to paper ballots.” In reality, the overwhelming majority of the country already uses paper ballots. Most states use one of two methods: either voters hand-mark a paper ballot that is then read by a machine, or they use a ballot-marking device that prints a summary of their choices on a sheet of paper for verification before it’s fed into a tabulator. Read Article

National: Federal cuts to information-sharing groups may damage nation’s security posture, warn officials | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Current and former government officials told StateScoop they’re concerned by cuts at two information sharing organizations widely used by state and local governments to protect IT and election systems from cyberattacks. Pamela Smith, the president and chief executive of Verified Voting, argued that given the current threat environment, support for cybersecurity services should be expanding, not shrinking. “First it was cuts at CISA because they didn’t want to have them to have anything to do with mis- and disinformation,” she said. “But if you’ve cut funding for something like EI-ISAC, it goes to the question of whether elections are still considered critical infrastructure. If the improvement of security and resilience of critical infrastructure on which Americans rely is no longer a goal of the department literally named Homeland Security, then they should explain that. I think the American public deserves to know.” Read Article

National: Democrats push Justice Department to keep Election Threats Task Force amid rollbacks  Edward Graham/Nextgov/FCW

Senate Democrats are sounding the alarm about the future of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force in the wake of the Trump administration’s moves to curtail or disband other federal election security initiatives. In a March 17 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, 31 senators — led by Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — called for the DOJ to continue the work of the task force, which was launched following the 2020 presidential election to investigate threats of violence made against election officials and workers. Since its creation, the group has probed thousands of extremist messages and acts targeting officials and has successfully taken enforcement actions against individuals who sought to harm election administrators. The letter’s signatories warned that “these threats have not only continued but escalated” since the task force’s establishment. Read Article

National: What’s next for cybersecurity, election info sharing? | Chris Teale/Route Fifty

Information sharing on cybersecurity and election threats may become a whole lot harder after the Department of Homeland Security ended some federal funding for two partnerships used by thousands of state and local governments. A spokesperson for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency confirmed it terminated a $10 million partnership with the Center for Internet Security for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center. That figure is less than half of the funding CISA provides, the spokesperson noted. The spokesperson said MS-ISAC and EI-ISAC, which allow state, local, tribal and territorial governments to share threat information and best practices while providing tools and other services for free or at a reduced cost, “no longer effectuates department priorities.” Read Article

US suspends some efforts to counter Russian sabotage as Trump moves closer to Putin | Erin Banco and Mari Saito/Reuters

Several U.S. national security agencies have halted work on a coordinated effort to counter Russian sabotage, disinformation and cyberattacks, easing pressure on Moscow as the Trump Administration pushes Russia to end its war in Ukraine. Former President Joe Biden last year ordered his national security team to establish working groups to monitor the issue amid warnings from U.S. intelligence that Russia was escalating a shadow war against Western nations. However, since Trump took office on Jan. 20 much of the work has come to a standstill, according to eleven current and former officials, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss classified matters. Reuters is the first to report on the full extent of the Biden administration effort and how multiple different U.S. agencies have since paused their work on the issue. Read Article

National: NIST’s vulnerability database logjam is still growing despite attempts to clear it | David DiMolfetta/Nextgov/FCW

Despite goals set last year by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to process a backlog of unanalyzed cybersecurity vulnerabilities, the agency said it’s not expecting a slowdown anytime soon. The National Vulnerability Database — NIST’s cornerstone repository for researchers who use its contents and measuring tools to assess the dangers of cyber exploits — has been backed up with unanalyzed vulnerabilities since February last year. The scientific standards agency was projected to clear the logjam this month based on rates observed this past summer, Nextgov/FCW previously reported. But NIST said Wednesday that vulnerability submissions increased 32% in 2024 and prior processing rates from spring and early summer last year are no longer sufficient to keep up with incoming submissions. The backlog is still growing as a result. Read Article

National: Top DC prosecutor, who promoted false 2020 voter fraud claims, forms ‘election accountability’ unit | Alanna Durkin Richer and Ali Swenson/Associated Press

The top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital, who promoted President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, has formed a “special unit” to investigate election offenses, according to an email sent to lawyers in his office on Monday. Martin, who is awaiting Senate confirmation to permanently take the position, was involved in the “Stop the Steal” movement, which was animated by lies about fraud after Trump lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Martin also served on the board of a nonprofit that raised money for Capitol riot defendants and their families and legally represented at least three defendants in Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot criminal cases, including a Proud Boys member who pleaded guilty to felony charges. Read Article

National: Trump’s Plan to Control Elections Is Coming Into Focus | Jacob Knutson/Democracy Docket

Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has many times outlined his extreme vision for U.S. elections. In the first cabinet meeting of his second administration, he falsely asserted that U.S. elections are “extremely dishonest” and called for restrictive voting reforms, like eliminating early voting. During a meeting with governors, Trump called on state leaders to pass laws eliminating mail and electronic voting while falsely claiming they are sources of election fraud. Now, Trump and his allies are acting on his words. In recent weeks, the administration has pulled back on efforts to fight racial discrimination in voting, weakened protections against foreign interference in our voting systems, and potentially laid the groundwork to increase Trump’s personal control over independent agencies, among other steps. Read Article

Alabama House narrowly passes election audit bill after pushback from both parties | Craig Monger/1819 News

The Alabama House of Representatives advanced legislation for the second year in a row to mandate post-election audits in statewide elections on Tuesday. Despite receiving broad support from lawmakers and the state Republican Party, the bill has failed to pass in the previous two legislative sessions. Last year, nearly identical legislation passed the House but could not get a hearing on the Senate floor. This year’s version, House Bill 30 (HB30), requires the probate judge of each county to order a post-election audit after every county and statewide general election of all ballots in one precinct of a countywide or statewide race, selected by the canvassing board of each county, so long as that election is not subject to a recount. Read Article

Arizona judge could throw out a Cochise County election over quirk in state law | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

A quirk in an Arizona statute governing all-mail elections for local taxing districts could prompt a judge to throw out the results of one such election in a case that could have legal repercussions around the state. The case calls into question the results of Cochise County’s May 2023 election, in which voters narrowly approved a new tax for a county jail. But without a legislative fix to the way the statute is written, other similar elections could be vulnerable to challenges in the future. The dispute involves a claim by four residents who sued the county to have the election nullified, arguing that ballots for the jail-tax election should have been sent to the roughly 11,000 inactive voters in the county, among other complaints. Read Article

Georgia Supreme Court questions State Election Board on last-minute voting rule changes | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia Supreme Court debated Wednesday whether the State Election Board went too far when it attempted to pass new voting rules weeks before last year’s election. The case tests whether the board’s right-wing majority had the power to require election inquiries and hand counts of ballots without laws passed by the Georgia General Assembly. While a judge’s order stopped those proposals from taking effect, the question remained about the extent of the board’s power. Justices on the state’s highest court on Wednesday often interrupted attorneys to ask whether the State Election Board has the authority to create new policies. Read Article

Maine begins first-ever post-election audit pilot | Emma Davis/Maine Morning Star

Maine started the state’s first-ever post-election audit pilot on Monday as a result of a law that seeks to provide additional assurance that procedures are fair and secure. The Maine Legislature passed a law in 2021 that created a non-partisan Division of Post-Election Audits and Training to pilot a post-election audit process for the 2024 election results, specifically six legislative races that were within a 5% margin of victory. The state is slated to make such audits a routine part of the post-election vote verification process starting in 2026. Read Article

Mississippi: Federal appeals court affirms  state can’t count late mail-in absentee ballots for federal elections | Taylor Vance/Mississippi Today

The conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it would not change its prior decree that Mississippi cannot count mail-in absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day. The order means that Mississippi’s law allowing election workers to process mail-in ballots for up to five business days after the election will be suspended for all federal elections. The law only allowed the workers to count ballots postmarked by Election Day. The ruling does not impact state or local races, including Mississippi’s upcoming municipal elections. Mississippi’s next federal election will be the 2026 midterm, where all four of Mississippi’s U.S. House members are up for reelection, as well as U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. Read Article

Nevada: A bipartisan mail ballot bill? It’s not as crazy as it sounds. | Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

Anything is possible in the Nevada Legislature — including a bipartisan bill on the politicized issue of mail ballots. The top Democrat and Republican in the Assembly are joining forces on a bill that would require all sample ballots to be sent to voters before mail ballots are distributed. An amendment also would provide a clearer timeline for when mail ballots must be sent to voters. Mail ballots are among the most politically fraught topics in the Legislature, as Republicans have long opposed universal mail ballots and the counting of certain mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day but received after. Democrats, meanwhile, have led efforts to protect existing mail ballot laws largely adopted during the COVID pandemic. Read Article

North Carolina State Supreme Court Lawsuit Hurts Trust in Judiciary | Mary Ellen Klas/Bloomberg

The 2024 election still isn’t over in North Carolina. On Friday, the state Court of Appeals will hear arguments in a dispute over a judicial election for the state Supreme Court. After two recounts, Jefferson Griffin, a Republican appellate court judge, still trails incumbent North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, by 734 votes out of the 5.5 million cast. Despite several unfavorable federal and state court rulings, Griffin won’t give up his fight. These sorts of disputes have become routine in the 25 years since Bush v. Gore put the outcome of the 2000 presidential election on hold for 34 days. That’s according to a group of legal scholars who convened this month at Florida State University’s College of Law for a conference on the legacy of the lawsuit. Read Article

Oklahoma Proposes Teaching 2020 Election ‘Discrepancies’ in U.S. History | Sarah Mervosh/The New York Times

High school students in Oklahoma would be asked to identify “discrepancies” in the 2020 election as part of U.S. history classes, according to new social studies standards recently approved by the Oklahoma Board of Education. The proposed standards seem to echo President Trump’s false claims about his 2020 defeat. They ask students to examine factors such as “the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states” and “the security risks of mail-in balloting.” They now head to the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature, which could take up the issue before its term ends in late May, or punt the issue to the governor’s desk. Read Article

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