Tag Archives: tvnw

A federal judge on Tuesday declined to temporarily bar President Trump’s voting commission from collectingvoter data from states and the District, saying a federal appeals court likely will be deciding the legality of the request. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District denied an emergency motion by Common Cause, a nonprofit government watchdog group. The group alleged the request for voting history and political party affiliation by the Trump administration violates a Watergate-era law that prohibits the government from gathering information about how Americans exercise their First Amendment rights. Lamberth advised the group to flesh out its claims by documenting the commission’s activity at a recent July 19 meeting while the lawsuit continues.

Editorials: A Solution to Hackers? More Hackers | Kevin Roose/The New York Times

If there’s a single lesson Americans have learned from the events of the past year, it might be this: Hackers are dangerous people. They interfere in our elections, bring giant corporations to their knees, and steal passwords and credit card numbers by the truckload. They ignore boundaries. They delight in creating chaos. But what if that’s the wrong narrative? What if we’re ignoring a different group of hackers who aren’t lawless renegades, who are in fact patriotic, public-spirited Americans who want to use their technical skills to protect our country from cyberattacks, but are being held back by outdated rules and overly protective institutions? In other words: What if the problem we face is not too many bad hackers, but too few good ones? The topic of ethical hacking was on everyone’s mind at Def Con, the hacker convention last week in Las Vegas. It’s the security community’s annual gathering, where thousands of hackers gathered to show their latest exploits, discuss new security research and swap cyberwar stories. Many of the hackers I spoke to were gravely concerned about Russia’s wide-ranging interference in last year’s election. They wanted to know: How can we stop attacks like these in the future?

Kansas: Appeals court ruling requires Kobach to testify under oath | The Washington Post

A federal appeals court ruling will force Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to answer questions under oath about plans to change U.S. election law. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied the Kansas Republican’s request for an emergency stay of his deposition by the American Civil Liberties Union. Kobach’s office declined to comment on the decision. Judges in Kansas found Kobach misled the court about the contents of a document he took into a November meeting with then-President-elect Donald Trump and a separate draft amendment to the National Voter Registration Act.

North Carolina: Legislative district maps set for August votes | News & Observer

North Carolina Republicans have begun to release details of their schedule for drawing new boundaries to correct legislative districts found unconstitutional by the federal courts. But they have not presented any maps to the public yet. The General Assembly, which met for what was expected to be a one-day legislative session on Thursday, is tentatively set to vote on new maps on Aug. 24 or 25, according to Rep. David Lewis, the state House member shepherding the redistricting process. Lewis, a Republican from Harnett County, and Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican from Mitchell County who leads the Senate redistricting committee, announced this week that they are seeking public comments Friday at a 10:30 a.m. hearing on the criteria the committee should use to draw new maps.

Tennessee: Personal Info of 650,000 Voters Discovered on Electronic Poll Book Sold on Ebay | Gizmodo

When 650 thousand Tennesseans voted in the Memphis area, they probably didn’t expect their personal information would eventually be picked apart at a hacker conference at Caesars Palace Las Vegas. … When US government workers decommission old voting equipment and auction them off to the public, they’re supposed to wipe voter information from the device’s memory. But hackers given access to an ExpressPoll-5000 electronic poll book—the kind of device used to check in voters on Election Day—have discovered the personal records of 654,517 people who voted in Shelby Country, Tennessee. It’s unclear how much of the personal information wasn’t yet public. Some of the records, viewed by Gizmodo at the Voting Village, a collection of real, used voting machines that anyone could tinker with at the DEF CON hacker conference in Las Vegas, include not just name, address, and birthday, but also political party, whether they voted absentee, and whether they were asked to provide identification.

Texas: Voting machine maker sues to block rivals’ paper-using devices | Austin American-Statesman

The manufacturer of the digital voting machines used across the state filed suit in Travis County district court this week, seeking to block the Texas secretary of state from certifying rival machine makers whose devices produce a paper receipt of votes cast. The lawsuit adds to the growing controversy surrounding the security of voting systems across the country — prompted, in part, by fears of potential hacking and by unsubstantiated claims by President Donald Trump that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election. The lawsuit filed by Hart InterCivic — the manufacturer of the eSlate voting machines used in Travis County — asks a district court judge to preemptively rule that voting machines that produce a paper record do not comply with state laws requiring the use of electronic voting machines for all countywide elections. The Texas secretary of state’s office declined to comment. Hart Intercivic’s attorney did not return calls from the American-Statesman.

Virginia: State auditors to review Virginia elections agency after IT troubles | Richmond Times-Dispatch

State auditors will review the Virginia Department of Elections after a series of technical problems that have raised questions about the reliability of the software that powers the state’s voter system. Last month, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission approved a resolution instructing its staff to conduct an in-depth review of the elections agency, which hasn’t been fully studied in almost 20 years. During that span, the agency implemented VERIS, the information system that local elections officials say has been spotty and slow. The IT problems have mostly meant headaches for the registrars who use the system. For the most part, they haven’t disrupted the election process, but a surge of would-be voters trying to register for the presidential election caused the registration website to crash right before the registration deadline. That failure prompted a federal judge to order the reopening of the state’s voter registration period to accommodate those who had been locked out.

Rwanda: Paul Kagame re-elected president with 99% of vote in Rwanda election | The Guardian

Paul Kagame, the controversial president of Rwanda, has won a landslide victory in the small African state’s election, securing a third term in office and extending his 17 years in power. The result will surprise no one, inside or outside Rwanda. Kagame, 59, has won international praise for the stability and economic development he has brought Rwanda since the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 people were killed, but he has also been accused of running an authoritarian, one-party state. Some have dismissed the polls as a sham. Friday’s election came after a constitutional amendment, which ended a two-term limit for presidents and theoretically permits Kagame to remain in power until 2034. The amendment was approved by 98% of voters.

Venezuela: False Election Turnout Reported, Voting Company Says | The New York Times

The Venezuelan government reported false turnout figures for its contentious election over the weekend, announcing a tally that had been altered by at least one million votes, a software company involved in setting up voting systems for the country said on Wednesday. “We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated,” the company, Smartmatic, said in a statement. The vote was part of an ambitious plan by the government to consolidate power. President Nicolás Maduro instructed Venezuelans to select from a list of trusted allies of the governing party — including his wife — who will rewrite the nation’s Constitution and rule Venezuela with virtually unlimited authority until they finish their work.

National: It took DEF CON hackers minutes to pwn these US voting machines | The Register

After the debacle of the 2000 presidential election count, the US invested heavily in electronic voting systems – but not, it seems, the security to protect them. This year at the DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas, 30 computer-powered ballot boxes used in American elections were set up in a simulated national White House race – and hackers got to work physically breaking the gear open to find out what was hidden inside. In less than 90 minutes, the first cracks in the systems’ defenses started appearing, revealing an embarrassing low level of security. Then one was hacked wirelessly. “Without question, our voting systems are weak and susceptible. Thanks to the contributions of the hacker community today, we’ve uncovered even more about exactly how,” said Jake Braun, who sold DEF CON founder Jeff Moss on the idea earlier this year. “The scary thing is we also know that our foreign adversaries – including Russia, North Korea, Iran – possess the capabilities to hack them too, in the process undermining principles of democracy and threatening our national security.”

National: U.S. elections are an easier target for Russian hackers than once thought | Los Angeles Times

When Chris Grayson pointed his Web browser in the direction of Georgia’s elections system earlier this year, what he found there shocked him. The Santa Monica cybersecurity researcher effortlessly downloaded the confidential voter file of every registered Georgian. He hit upon unprotected folders with passwords, apparently for accessing voting machines. He found the off-the-shelf software patches used to keep the system secure, several of which Grayson said could be easily infected by a savvy 15-year-old hacker. “It was like, holy smokes, this is all on the Internet with no authentication?” Grayson said in an interview. “There were so many things wrong with this.” … Among the most alarmed have been pedigreed computer security scholars, who warn that a well-timed hack of a vendor that serves multiple states could be enough to cause chaos even in systems that were thought to be walled off from one another. And they say security lapses like those in Georgia reveal the ease with which hackers can slip in.

Editorials: What does the US election integrity commission need to be credible? Some actual experts | Michael Halpern and Michael Latner/The Guardian

Last Wednesday, the US Presidential Advisory Commission on Electoral Integrity (PACEI) held its first meeting, with many election experts and political observers anxious to get clarity on the group’s composition and stated objectives. But even before its first meeting, experts have called it a sham and orchestrated chaos, and have accused it of breaking the law. Our assessment of the first meeting is that, as currently structured, the commission will almost certainly create more problems than it solves. The most remarkable thing about the first meeting is not who was there and what was said, but rather who was not there and what was not said. Election integrity commissions are traditionally bipartisan affairs, and have been led by major figures from both parties, like Jimmy Carter and Jim Baker. This commission is headed by Republicans Kris Kobach and Vice-President Mike Pence. Only two notable Democrats, Maine and New Hampshire Secretaries of State Matt Dunlap and Bill Gardner, have agreed to serve on the 15-member panel.

Alabama: State clashes with advocacy group in federal court over felony disenfranchisement suit | AL.com

Lawyers for the state of Alabama sparred Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Montgomery with attorneys representing a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit over issues related to Alabama’s felony disenfranchisement law. The hearing centered on a request by the Campaign Legal Center, a voting rights advocacy group, that Chief District Judge W. Keith Watkins force the state to take steps to educate thousands of convicted felons that they may be eligible to vote under a new state law. The organization is also asking Watkins to force the state to automatically add to the voting rolls several thousand convicted felons who applied to register to vote in recent years but were denied that opportunity, yet are now eligible to regain the franchise under the new law. “An issue will be ordered forthwith,” Watkins said at the conclusion of the hearing, without offering a specific timeframe for a ruling on the Campaign Legal Center’s request for a preliminary injunction, which was initially filed June 30.

Kansas: Kobach Statements ‘Demonstrate a Pattern’ of Misleading Claims | The Atlantic

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach could use a little credibility at the moment. President Trump’s so-called election-integrity commission, of which he is the de facto chief, has come under suspicion for both its methods and its purpose. But citizens seeking assurance about Kobach’s motives won’t find that from the federal courts. In a ruling yesterday, flagged by the indefatigable Rick Hasen, Judge Julie Robinson of the U.S. District Court of Kansas rejected Kobach’s request that she overturn a $1,000 fine levied on him by a U.S. magistrate judge. That wasn’t the most significant part of the ruling. Over 13 pages, Robinson carefully lays out ways in which Kobach appeared to be playing fast and loose with the facts in the lower court. And in affirming Magistrate Judge James O’Hara’s fine, she became the second federal judge to deem Kobach at the very least misleading in his court appearances. … Robinson, a George W. Bush appointee, continued that “these examples… demonstrate a pattern, which gives further credence to Judge O’Hara’s conclusion that a sanctions award is necessary to deter defense counsel in this case from misleading the Court about the facts and record in the future.” In the dry language of federal courts—a federal judge is unlikely to call a statewide official a liar—that’s a stinging judgment on Kobach’s honesty.

North Carolina: Judges: Is North Carolina Is Serious About Fixing Districts? | Associated Press

Two federal judges said Thursday they are concerned that North Carolina legislative leaders have taken few if any steps to draw new election maps since they were struck down last year, and one judge suggested they don’t appear to be taking their duty seriously. A three-judge panel is deciding when and how the electoral map must be remade. “What concerns, at least me, is the seriousness of how this is being taken by the legislature. This is serious,” Judge James A. Wynn of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals told a lawyer for the legislative leaders at a hearing in federal court in Greensboro. His fellow panel member, U.S District Judge Catherine Eagles, then added: “You don’t seem serious. What’s our assurance that you are serious about remedying this?” The panel ruled in August 2016 that 28 state House and Senate districts were illegally drawn, based on racial considerations. After Republicans took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices agreed this summer that the districts must be redrawn. Democrats hope the new boundaries could help them erode the GOP’s veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers.

Texas: Senate backs crackdown on mail-in ballot fraud | The Texas Tribune

The Texas Senate tentatively approved a bill Wednesday aiming to crack down on mail-in ballot fraud, largely by beefing up criminal penalties — a response to voting irregularities in Dallas County. “Any attempt to scam the system,” said Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, who authored Senate Bill 5, “must be addressed accordingly.” With a 21-10 vote, the chamber advanced the bill mostly along party lines. Several Democrats said they initially planned to back it, but they voted against the proposal due to a section that appeared to criminalize certain political discussions between family members “in the presence of” a mail-in ballot. “There is the possibility that a family member looking over my shoulder — saying you should vote for Sen. Van Taylor — that individual would be in violation of this section of the law,” said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. “I see this as a potential trap for senior citizens.”

Wisconsin: State files first brief to U.S. Supreme Court in gerrymandering case | Wisconsin State Journal

State lawyers defending Wisconsin’s 2011 redistricting plan, which was called an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander by a federal court panel, filed their opening brief Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the high court should reject the lower court ruling and throw out a lawsuit brought in 2015 by a group of state Democratic voters. The Supreme Court in June announced that it would decide the case, and later set oral arguments for Oct. 3. The group of Democrats charges that the 2011 plan was designed to heavily favor Republican candidates in state legislative races, giving them a built-in advantage to retain a large majority of seats in Wisconsin’s legislative houses, despite statewide vote totals in presidential races that typically split nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats.

France: Russia used Facebook to try to spy on Macron campaign – sources | Reuters

Russian intelligence agents attempted to spy on President Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign earlier this year by creating phony Facebook personas, according to a U.S. congressman and two other people briefed on the effort. About two dozen Facebook accounts were created to conduct surveillance on Macron campaign officials and others close to the centrist former financier as he sought to defeat far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and other opponents in the two-round election, the sources said. Macron won in a landslide in May. Facebook said in April it had taken action against fake accounts that were spreading misinformation about the French election. But the effort to infiltrate the social networks of Macron officials has not previously been reported.

Venezuela: Venezuela to vote on constituent assembly after months of protests | The Guardian

Venezuela’s beleaguered government appeared prepared to go ahead with a vote on Sunday that critics at home and abroad have warned will seal the demise of the oil-rich nation’s democracy. At least five people were killed last week after the opposition stepped up its protests against the controversial vote that will elect a 545-member constituent assembly with the power to rewrite the constitution and dissolve state institutions. A government ban on public demonstrations in the run-up to the election reduced turnouts for nationwide protests called by the opposition, but sporadic looting and clashes between protesters manning barricades of tree branches and barbed wire were reported in several cities on Friday night. Despite the continuing threat of repression, the opposition coalition, known as MUD, called for mass demonstrations in Caracas on Sunday while voting takes place.

National: Trump’s Voter-Fraud Commission Has Its First Meeting | The Atlantic

Getting served with seven different lawsuits is probably a bad way to start any job. But that’s exactly what the members of President Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity faced Wednesday, when the commission met in person for the first time. The latest of these lawsuits comes from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, alleging among other things that with Trump’s creation of the commission by executive order in May, he “appointed a commission stacked with biased members to undertake an investigation into unfounded allegations of voter fraud.” The lawsuit also states that “the work of the Commission as described by its co-chairs are grounded on the false premise that Black and Latino voters are more likely to perpetrate voter fraud.” The LDF lawsuit finds in the new commission a veritable rogues gallery of voter suppression. The first defendant named is Trump himself, who has touted controversial—and false—claims of millions of fraudulent votes in the 2016 election. But much of the plaintiffs’ ire is directed towards vice chair Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State and the de facto leader of the commission. In his position in Kansas, Kobach has launched a one-of-a-kind effort to track down illegal noncitizen voters, an aggressive campaign that has challenged hundreds of votes and brought to court dozens of campaigns but has only secured one such conviction so far.

Editorials: Digital ballots, outdated machinery leave us exposed to a second Russian hack | Jason Smith/USA Today

The Russians aren’t coming. They came. And they launched a cyber strike on last fall’s elections for which the consequences remain an unknown. It’s a sexy, new Cold War replete with headlines featuring the president’s son and a curious meeting with Russians last summer. Sadly, what gets lost within these seductive media narratives are the comprehensive hazards of America’s voting components. It’s essential to note that there’s no confirmed proof any vote recording or ballot tallies were altered back in November. However, such knowledge provides little solace because American voting systems remain extremely vulnerable, and as former FBI Director James Comey said of the Russians, “They will be back.” If the U.S. does not change how it conducts elections, when the Russians return, many of the vulnerabilities from 2016 will still be intact. I learned of these insecurities while producing “I Voted?,” a non-partisan documentary on election integrity.

Editorials: The Voter Purges Are Coming | Vanita Gupta/The New York Times

The Trump administration’s election-integrity commission will have its first meeting on Wednesday to map out how the president will strip the right to vote from millions of Americans. It hasn’t gotten off to the strongest start: Its astonishing request last month that each state hand over voters’ personal data was met with bipartisan condemnation. Yet it is joined in its efforts to disenfranchise citizens by the immensely more powerful Justice Department. Lost amid the uproar over the commission’s request was a letter sent at the same time by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. It forced 44 states to provide extensive information on how they keep their voter rolls up-to-date. It cited the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the Motor-Voter law, which mandates that states help voters register through motor vehicle departments. The letter doesn’t ask whether states are complying with the parts of the law that expand opportunities to register. Instead it focuses on the sections related to maintaining the lists. That’s a prelude to voter purging.

Colorado: State to require advanced post-election audits | Politco

Colorado on Monday said it will become the first state to regularly conduct a sophisticated post-election audit that cybersecurity experts have long called necessary for ensuring hackers aren’t meddling with vote tallies. The procedure — known as a “risk-limiting” audit — allows officials to double-check a sample of paper ballots against digital tallies to determine whether results were tabulated correctly. The election security firm Free & Fair will design the auditing software for Colorado, and the state will make the technology available for other states to modify for their own use. The audit will allow Colorado to say, “with a high level of statistical probability that has never existed before,” that official election results have not been manipulated, said Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams in a statement.

Maine: Legislature poised to take one more shot at fixing ranked-choice voting law | Portland Press Herald

Maine lawmakers will make a final effort in the closing days of the legislative session to act on a citizen-backed ballot law that gives Maine a first-in-the-nation ranked-choice voting system. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Kent Ackley, an independent from Monmouth, would allow ranked-choice voting for party primaries and Maine’s congressional seats. But it would set aside the part of the law, which was supported by 51 percent of the voters in November, that calls for ranked-choice voting in general elections for the Legislature and the governor’s office. Under the new law, voters will rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the first-place votes, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated.

North Carolina: Merger of elections and ethics halted while Governor Roy Cooper’s lawsuit pends | News & Observer

The state Supreme Court froze any further action in the revamp of the state elections board and ethics commission while a lawsuit challenging the merger awaits a hearing before the justices. The state’s highest court agreed this week to take up a case filed by Gov. Roy Cooper, challenging a law adopted by the General Assembly this spring calling for the merger of the state Board of Elections and the state Ethics Commission. But in an order issued on Thursday, Associate Justice Mike Morgan, the newest justice on the bench, put a halt on the process that is at the core of more than one legal challenge and has drawn heated debate. The case is scheduled for arguments at the Supreme Court on Aug. 28.

South Carolina: Voter registration system hit by nearly 150,000 hack attempts on Election Day | International Business Times

South Carolina’s voter registration system was reportedly hit by almost 150,000 hack attempts on Election Day 2016. According to a post-election report by the South Carolina State Election Commission, it is likely that most of the hacking attempts came from automated computer bots, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday (16 July). President Donald Trump comfortably won the state of South Carolina in the November election. However, WSJ reports that there is no evidence to suggest that the attempted cyberattacks targeting the state’s voter registration system were successful.

Texas: Trump DOJ: Trust Texas to Fix Racist Voter ID Law Without Court Oversight | Texas Observer

Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) waged legal war against the voter ID rules Texas lawmakers passed in 2011, saying the new restrictions would disproportionately impact minority voters. That finding was later validated by multiple federal court rulings, two of which concluded the state’s GOP majority passed a deliberately racist bill. This week brought another sign of the 180-degree change on voting rights cases under the Trump administration’s DOJ, which on Monday filed a legal brief that argues Texas should be allowed to fix its voter ID rules without federal intervention or oversight. The filing also argues that the courts should simply trust Texas to educate voters on the tweaked voter ID law the Legislature passed earlier this year, despite the state’s faceplant trial run when it tried to implement those rules during last year’s presidential election. Experts say it’s a remarkable argument, given the history of the state’s years-long legal struggle to implement some version of a voter ID law that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once called “the strictest regime in the country.”

Moldova: Lawmakers pass divisive election law amid street protests | Reuters

Lawmakers voted to overhaul Moldova’s electoral system on Thursday, as thousands of opposition activists massed outside saying the changes favored the two largest parties. A smaller group of activists rallied nearby backing the measures, which they say will bring voters closer to the people who represent them. Prime Minister Pavel Filip pushed to replace the proportional electoral system with a mixed scheme which will let voters cast their ballot for constituency candidates as well as party lists.

Papua New Guinea: Election chief described as complicit in fraud | Radio New Zealand