National: Voting by mail faces uncertain moment ahead of midterm elections | Jonathan Shorman/Stateline

Derrin Robinson has worked in Oregon elections for more than 30 years, long enough to remember when voters in the state cast their ballots at physical polling sites instead of by mail. As the nonpartisan clerk of Harney County, a vast, rural expanse larger than Massachusetts, Robinson oversees elections with about 6,000 registered voters. Oregon has exclusively conducted elections by mail since 2000, a system he thinks works well, requires fewer staff and doesn’t force voters to travel through treacherous weather to reach a polling place. “As you can tell, I’m not an advocate for going back,” Robinson said. Not everyone agrees. An Oregon Republican lawmaker has introduced legislation to end the state’s mail voting law, and organizers of a ballot measure campaign seeking to ban mail-in voting say they have gathered thousands of signatures. Read Article

National: CISA Left Leaderless as Plankey’s Nomination Stalls in Senate | Emily Hill/The National CIO Review

The nomination of Sean Plankey to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has effectively stalled following his exclusion from a recent Senate vote to advance a group of nominees. Plankey, a former Coast Guard officer and cybersecurity adviser, faced multiple procedural holds from senators, one of which was linked to a dispute over a Coast Guard contract. As Plankey was not included in a package of nominees that advanced last Thursday, Senate procedures now make it unlikely that his nomination will move forward in the current session. This development leaves CISA without a Senate-confirmed director at a time of increasing focus on national cybersecurity efforts and ongoing transitions in agency leadership. Read Article

National: John Robert’s Dream Is Finally Coming True | David Daley/The Atlantic

In 1982, when the Voting Rights Act was up for reauthorization, the Reagan Justice Department had a goal: preserve the VRA in name only, while rendering it unenforceable in practice. A young John Roberts was the architect of that campaign. He may soon get to finish what he started. Last month, at the oral argument in Louisiana v. Callais, a majority of the conservative justices seemed to signal their willingness to forbid any use of race data in redistricting. That could lead to the end of the VRA’s Section 2 protections for minority voters, and allow states across the South to redraw congressional districts currently represented by Black Democrats into whiter, more rural, and more conservative seats, potentially before the 2026 midterms. A central question of the case, hotly debated during oral arguments, is whether Section 2 should prohibit election laws and procedures that have a racially discriminatory effect, or just those passed with clear racially discriminatory intent. Roberts almost certainly had flashbacks. This is the same question that was at the center of the 1982 reauthorization fight. Back then, the future chief justice’s job was to design the Department of Justice’s VRA strategy. Read Article

 

Arizona: Appeals court deals final blow to GOP’s elections rulebook challenge | Caitlin Sievers/AZ Mirror

After nearly two years of court rulings, with wins and losses on both sides, one of the Republican challenges to Arizona’s elections rulebook is finally finished. On Dec. 5, the Arizona Court of Appeals dismissed a legal challenge to the state’s 2023 Election Procedures Manual that had been brought by the Republican National Committee, the Arizona Republican Party and the Yavapai County Republican Party. Every two years, the secretary of state is tasked with creating a new EPM, outlining procedures and rules for county elections officials to implement state election laws when they conduct elections in the state. The manual carries the force of law, and must be approved by the governor and attorney general — offices both currently held by Democrats — before it’s published. Read Article

Colorado: Federal judge declines to release Tina Peters, the only Trump ally in prison for 2020 election-related crimes | Marshall Cohen/CNN Politics

A federal judge on Monday refused to release from prison former Colorado clerk Tina Peters, the only ally of President Donald Trump currently behind bars for crimes related to the attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Last year, a state jury convicted Peters, the former Republican clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, of participating in a criminal scheme with fellow election deniers to breach her county’s secure voting systems, in hopes of proving Trump’s false claims of massive fraud. Trump has championed the case of Peters, 70, who is now one year into a nine-year prison sentence, calling her an “innocent political prisoner.” CNN recently reported that Trump is being strongly encouraged to more aggressively intervene in the matter, to try to get her out of prison. FRead Article

Georgia election board rejects rule change on using hand-marked paper ballots | Jeff Amy and Kate Brumback/Associated Press

Georgia’s State Election Board on Wednesday rejected a proposal defining when hand-marked paper ballots could be used in place of the state’s touchscreen voting machines. Opponents said the rule would have overstepped the board’s legal authority and could have created an escape hatch for widespread use of paper ballots when state lawmakers mandated the use of the ballot-marking devices. Janice Johnston, the board’s vice chair, seemed to agree, saying, “This really is the duty and the job of the legislators.” The proposed rule failed on a 2-2 vote after a debate in which proponents contended that use of the current machines at least sometimes violates the law because voters can’t read their ballots’ QR code to ensure it matches the paper ballot, and because machines don’t afford enough privacy to voters. Read Article

Maryland makes headway on voting system overhaul, awards new pollbook contract | Sarah Petrowich/WYPR

Maryland is set to update its electronic pollbook vendor for the first time in close to twenty years as part of a larger overhaul to the state’s voting system. Last week, the Maryland Board of Public Works approved new vendor Tenex Software Solutions to modernize the state’s electronic pollbook, which verifies voter eligibility at polling locations. Legacy vendor Election Systems and Software (ES&S) has been operating Maryland’s pollbook since 2006, but the State Board of Elections (SBE) says the current system has outperformed its lifespan. SBE hoped to have a new pollbook up and running for the 2024 election after awarding a contract to DemTech Voting Solutions a few years back, but the company underestimated the complexity and resources required to implement a working system before the deadline of Summer 2023. Read Article

Michigan court rules against Secretary of State’s election guidance: Mismatched mail-in ballots can’t be counted | Danielle James/mlive.com

The Michigan Court of Claims has ruled that guidance issued by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on counting absentee ballots with mismatched numbers is not valid. Ballots are typically prepared with a detachable stub at the top that has a unique identifying number. When ballots with these stubs are sent out to absentee voters, a local clerk will record the number on the stub assigned to that same voter in the qualified voter file (QVF). That number then corresponds with what is printed on the outside of the absentee ballot’s return envelope. In cases where absentee ballots are returned and the numbers don’t line up, Benson’s previous guidance to election officials was that they could process the ballots as “challenged.” The plaintiffs requested the court declare that guidance unlawful, arguing that absentee ballots should be rejected the same way that one of an in-person voter would be if there was a mismatch, or of an absentee voter whose signature could not be verified. Read Article

New York: Voting machines said Stephentown rejected the proposed library budget. A recount said otherwise. | Tyler A. McNeil/Albany Times-Union

Unofficial results after Election Day a month ago showed that Stephentown Memorial Library’s budget proposal was shot down by 89% of voters, or 528-60. As it turns out, that count was wildly inaccurate. Certified election results submitted by the Rensselaer County Board of Elections following a recount show that the library’s proposal — to increase municipal tax contributions from $95,000 to $110,000 — actually passed easily by a vote of 540 to 279. Those results were filed Monday with the state Board of Elections. The certification marks the end of a shocking chapter for the rural library located less than 3 miles from the Massachusetts border. The initial results had been met with disbelief among library stakeholders. Read Article

Pennsylvania: Judge to rule on whether Trump pardon applies to 2020 election fraud case | Carter Walker/Votebeat

A judge overseeing a criminal double-voting case in Pennsylvania appeared open to the defendant’s argument that a pardon from President Donald Trump should apply to him. The defendant, Matthew Laiss, is accused of voting for Trump twice in the 2020 election — once in person in Florida and once via mail in Pennsylvania. At a hearing Monday in federal court, he argued that Trump’s Nov. 7 pardon of allies who attempted to overturn his 2020 loss should also apply to his alleged crimes. While Trump did not directly name Laiss in the pardon, his attorneys argued it covers his case because of its broad language. The Department of Justice argues the pardon does not apply to Laiss, a view it says is shared by the U.S. pardon attorney. Read Article

South Carolina: Federal lawsuit claims absentee ballot law makes voting harder for people with disabilities | Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette

A South Carolina law meant to prevent election fraud makes it harder for people with disabilities to vote, civil rights groups claimed in a federal lawsuit. Under a 2022 law, anyone can vote early with no excuse necessary or request an absentee ballot to vote by mail. To prevent the possibility of fraud, legislators added a limit of five ballots that any one person could request or submit for someone else. In nursing homes and residential care settings, where residents often rely on a single staff member to help them vote, that makes voting difficult, attorneys for the state American Civil Liberties Union argued in a lawsuit filed in federal court Friday. Three nursing home residents sued alongside the state NAACP, contending the law violates the federal Voting Rights Act. Read Article

Texas: Dallas County Republicans proceed with plan to hand count ballots in March primary | Tracey McManus/Dallas Morning News

The Dallas County Republican Party will proceed with hand-counting thousands of hand-marked paper ballots on the March 3 primary’s Election Day, positioning the county to become the largest in the United States with a manually counted election. The party’s executive committee voted in September to explore the concept, but GOP chair Allen West confirmed on Friday he will sign a contract with the Dallas County Elections Department to hold a separate primary from Democrats to enact a Republican hand count. Research shows the cost, time demands and risk of human error make hand counting far less reliable than machine tabulation, and fewer than 1% of Americans live in jurisdictions with the manual process. But the practice has been evoked in recent years amid misinformation around the accuracy of voting equipment, and President Donald Trump has pledged to eliminate voting machines and mail ballots. Read Article

Wisconsin clerks hope new law can alleviate statewide election official shortage | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Wisconsin clerks say two decisions on legislation this week — a new law expanding towns’ ability to hire clerks and a veto that blocks broader standing to sue election officials — will help ease mounting pressure on local election offices, which have faced record turnover and increasing legal threats. The new law allows small towns to more easily hire clerks that live outside of municipal limits, a change clerks say is urgently needed as finding small-town clerks has become harder in recent years amid increased scrutiny, new laws and ever-evolving rules. As the new law moved through the Legislature, some small towns ran elections with no clerks at all. “There are lots of townships that will benefit from this,” said Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican. “It’s going to help tremendously.” Read Article

National: The Feds Cut Funding for Election Cybersecurity. How Will Public Officials Adapt? | Jule Pattison-Gordon/Governing

Election officials frequently face all manner of cybersecurity threats. Cyber attackers may try to breach voter registration databases and steal information, take down websites that help voters find polls, spoof official websites and more. Just this November, Utah Lt. Gov Deidre Henderson issued a warning about AI-generated fake election results circulating online. Across the country, public officials have often turned to trusted federally supported resources for help managing these dangers. The nonprofit Center for Internet Security (CIS) has traditionally provided no-cost and low-cost cybersecurity services and intelligence to state and local governments, in particular through its Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). For decades, the MS-ISAC has helped states defend against and respond to cyber attacks. States and localities that are ISAC members receive threat intelligence as well as one-on-one consultations with cybersecurity experts, some cybersecurity tools and a 24/7 security operations center. Read Article

National: DHS lookup tool may expose sensitive data of hundreds of millions of Americans, secretaries of state warn | Colin Wood/StateScoop

A repurposed IT system being used by the Department of Homeland Security presents “unacceptable risks” to the nation’s eligible voters, according to a group of secretaries of state who on Monday signed off on a letter opposing a recent proposal by the federal agency. The remarks, which include the signatures of a dozen secretaries of state, mostly from states run by Democrats, are a 29-page protest against a disclosure by DHS that it plans to codify its repurposing of a system originally designed to check immigration statuses and verify benefits eligibility. The arcane and purportedly unwieldy system, called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program, is subject to numerous legal changes under DHS’s proposal, including that it would be used not for its original narrow purpose, but allow bulk searches and searches of “individuals that are U.S. citizens by birth” to find ineligible voters and instances of voter fraud. Read Article

National: Justice Department sues six more states to get detailed voter data |Michael Casey/Associated Press

The Justice Department on Tuesday sued six more states in its ongoing campaign to obtain detailed voter data and other election information. The department announced it was suing Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington over their “failure” to produce statewide voter registration lists. It has portrayed the litigation as part of an effort to ensure the security of elections, but Democratic officials have raised concerns over how the data will be used and whether the department will follow privacy laws in protecting it. Tuesday’s actions bring to at least 14 the number of states the Justice Department has sued in its quest for the voter information. Read Article

National: Changes to the agency that helps secure elections lead to midterm worries | Steve Karnowski and Julie Carr Smyth/Associated Press

Since it was created in 2018, the federal government’s cybersecurity agency has helped warn state and local election officials about potential threats from foreign governments, showed officials how to protect polling places from attacks and gamed out how to respond to the unexpected, such as an Election Day bomb threat or sudden disinformation campaign. The agency was largely absent from that space for elections this month in several states, a potential preview for the 2026 midterms. Shifting priorities of the Trump administration, staffing reductions and budget cuts have many election officials concerned about how engaged the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will be next year, when control of Congress will be at stake in those elections. Some officials say they have begun scrambling to fill the anticipated gaps. “We do not have a sense of whether we can rely on CISA for these services as we approach a big election year in 2026,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who until recently led the bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State. Read Article

National: They tried to overturn the 2020 US election. Now, they hold power in Trump’s Washington | Rachel Leingang/The Guardian

The people who tried to overturn the 2020 election have more power than ever – and they plan to use it. Bolstered by the president, they have prominent roles in key parts of the federal government. Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who helped advance Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election in 2020, now leads the civil rights division of the justice department. An election denier, Heather Honey, now serves as the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the Department of Homeland Security. Kurt Olsen, an attorney involved in the “stop the steal” movement, is now a special government employee investigating the 2020 election. A movement that once pressured elected officials to bend to its whims is now part of the government. Read Article

Arizona: Lawsuit seeks change to Independent Party’s name | Ray Stern/Arizona Republic

The decision to let the state’s No Labels Party change its name to the Arizona Independent Party should be declared unlawful and reversed, a new lawsuit demands. Citing worries of “a virtual certainty of substantial voter confusion and frustration,” the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission’s suit targets Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who made the October decision to make the name change official on Dec. 1. The commission, which filed the lawsuit Dec. 2 in Maricopa County Superior Court, charges that Fontes’ decision interferes with the agency’s duties to support candidates and educate voters and election officials, violating the 1998 Citizens Clean Elections Act that created the agency. The commission oversees public campaign financing for eligible candidates and provides voter education, including organizing candidate debates. Read Article

Colorado governor’s office affirms rejection of Tina Peters transfer request | Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline

The office of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis affirmed this week a decision by state prison officials not to fulfill a request by the Trump administration to transfer custody of Tina Peters from the state to federal authorities. Peters, the former Republican Mesa County clerk, is serving a 9-year prison sentence for her role in a scheme to breach the security of her own election equipment. President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that she be released. The director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons sent a letter to the Colorado Department of Corrections last month requesting that the state “initiate the transfer” of Peters to the bureau. Read Article

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