Amy Gardner for WaPo: What played out in Tennessee illustrates the messiness that has accompanied some large-scale efforts to draw new Democratic voters into the electorate, providing an opening for critics to push for stricter rules. The fallout is part … Continue reading
Category Archives: election administration
The Tampa Bay Times reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: Google, Facebook and Twitter executives came to Capitol Hill to testify about election security. Instead they faced a grilling about whether their platforms are biased against conservatives.A string of Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee skipped questions about how … Continue reading
Politico: An effort to clamp down on potential voter fraud in Florida has been bogged down by an unlikely source: the state’s Republican-controlled administration.More than a year ago, Florida legislators gave permission to the nation’s third-largest state to join a … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
Roll Call reports. … Continue reading
Gene Mazo has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, University of Memphis Law Review). Here is the abstract: Voter ID laws are currently in force in 35 states. In most states, these laws have been divisive and controversial. Our political … Continue reading
Important opinion and order in an important case: In sum, the Plaintiffs have alleged that Defendants were aware of serious security breaches in the DRE voting system and failed to take adequate steps to address those breaches. Notably, even after … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: The voter registration database of a small county in the Florida panhandle was breached by Russian government hackers in 2016, according to two U.S. officials.The Russian military spy agency, the GRU, was responsible for the penetration of Washington County’s … Continue reading
Electionline Weekly reports. … Continue reading
Press release. … Continue reading
Tierney Sneed for TPM. … Continue reading
Eliza Newlin Carney: Russian attacks on the U.S. election infrastructure in 2016 were even more serious than reported at the time, recent disclosures show, and intelligence officials say they are bracing for more aggressive attacks from a wider array of foreign adversaries in 2020.Yet … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: Texas’ botched search for noncitizens on the voter rolls, which ended in a legal settlement after state officials jeopardized the voting rights of thousands of legitimate voters, was paid for in part with dollars earmarked for bolstering election … Continue reading
Miles Park for NPR: Sen. James Lankford is worried about election apathy.Not that people will stop caring about politics, but as the weeks and months pass after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report on Russian interference, the Oklahoma Republican … Continue reading
Read it here. … Continue reading
Charlotte Observer editorial: Kim Strach, the executive director of the state Board of Elections, was doing a good job before she got fired Monday. She’d helped guide the board through the minefield of the 9th Congressional District election fraud scandal. … Continue reading
Huffpost: Paxton has emphasized prosecuting election fraud in a political climate in which President Donald Trump has made unsubstantiated claims about noncitizens voting, and as the Hispanic electorate is growing. Despite Paxton’s intense focus on this issue, his office does not … Continue reading
AP: A proposed Texas Senate bill does not prohibit drivers from transporting groups of “elderly, disabled or poor” to the polls to vote as social media posts shared widely suggest.The false claims, which have been shared thousands of times on … Continue reading
Hartford Courant: A group of key conservatives is urging Senate Republicans to oppose an early voting measure, which the House overwhelmingly approved on a bipartisan basis earlier this year to bring Connecticut into line with most other states.Thirty-nine states and … Continue reading
AP: Kentucky’s secretary of state has challenged a new state law removing her power over the State Board of Elections. Alison Lundergan Grimes claims the action by Republican lawmakers amounts to an unconstitutional infringement of her executive authority.Grimes, a Democrat, … Continue reading
AP: Georgia’s highest court is mulling whether to reverse a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the outcome of November’s race for lieutenant governor in a case that focuses attention on the state’s outdated voting machines.The lawsuit says tens … Continue reading
NPR: “In an effort to improve confidence in elections, Microsoft announced Monday that it is releasing an open-source software development kit called ElectionGuard that will use encryption techniques to let voters know when their vote is counted. It will also allow election … Continue reading
NPR Morning Edition. … Continue reading
Jon Sherman Hill oped. … Continue reading
MinnPost reports. … Continue reading
AJC reports. … Continue reading
NYT: Bowing to fierce criticism from elected officials and privacy advocates, the New York City Board of Elections has removed the voter enrollment books that it had posted online, which had included every registered voter’s full name, party affiliation and home … Continue reading
AJC: A lawsuit asking a judge to correct problems with Georgia’s elections reached a packed federal courtroom Monday, where election officials argued that the case should be thrown out because a new state law could solve issues with voting machines, … Continue reading
Oregon Live: Ten people in Oregon have been convicted so far in voter fraud cases stemming from the 2016 election.The convictions represent a tiny fraction of the 2,051,448 votes cast in the election, in which Oregon voters elected Democratic Gov. … Continue reading
WaPo: In recent months, U.S. national security officials have been preparing for Russian interference in the 2020 presidential race by tracking cyber threats, sharing intelligence about foreign disinformation efforts with social media companies and helping state election officials protect their … Continue reading
NYT: Are you registered to vote in New York City? If so, then anyone can find out your party affiliation, full name and home address down to the apartment number — all with a few mouse clicks.The city’s Board of Elections … Continue reading
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state lawmakers on Tuesday said they’re working on legislation to reform the state’s voting system – including automated voter registration and increasing the sharing of information between agencies to avoid voter … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld reports. … Continue reading
Politico: DHS ON BMDs: DHS is scrutinizing the reliability of ballot-marking devices following a study from experts concluding that they cannot be reliably audited, Krebs also said Tuesday, but the department hasn’t come to a firm conclusion. “It’s part of the … Continue reading
NYT: In the months before Kirstjen Nielsen was forced to resign, she tried to focus the White House on one of her highest priorities as homeland security secretary: preparing for new and different Russian forms of interference in the 2020 … Continue reading
The Guardian: Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin is a newcomer to the cause of reforming America’s vote-counting machines, welcomed through baptism by fire. In 2015, Maryland’s main election system vendor was bought by a parent company with ties to a Russian … Continue reading
The Tampa Bay Times reports. … Continue reading
Important new paper from Andrew Appel, Richard DeMillo, and Philip Stark on the controversy over the new type of ballot printing machinery which uses barcodes: Computers, including all modern voting systems, can be hacked and misprogrammed. The scale and complexity … Continue reading
NPR: After high turnout in last year’s midterm elections propelled Democrats to a new House majority and big gains in the states, several Republican-controlled state legislatures are attempting to change voting-related rules in ways that might reduce future voter turnout.In … Continue reading
John Myers for the LAT. … Continue reading
WaPo: Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of the “sweeping and systematic fashion” in which Russia interfered in the 2016 election highlights the breadth and complexity of the U.S. voting infrastructure that needs protecting.From voter registration to the vote … Continue reading
Chicago Sun-Times: The Mueller Report confirms the Russians tried to hack the Illinois Board of Elections website in 2016.“In one instance in approximately June 2016, the GRU compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections by exploiting … Continue reading
Houston Chronicle: Galveston County’s top election official, currently being sued in federal court for removing naturalized citizens from voter rolls, has referred five “potential non-citizens” to the local district attorney’s office to be investigated for possible voter fraud.Cheryl Johnson, the … Continue reading
Wichita Eagle: Sedgwick County residents will now have the option to vote at any polling place on Election Day.Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly this week signed into law Senate Bill 130, which gives counties the option to let voters cast ballots … Continue reading
Here is the ballot, for the PA 12th congressional district special election, leaving off the name of Republican Fred Keller. Flashback to 2016, same county: I’ve just received what I’ve been told is a copy of the overseas ballot sent … Continue reading
Brennan Center: Automatic voter registration has led to a spike in average registration rates in every state where it’s been implemented, according to a new analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. In the first study of its … Continue reading
ARS Technica: joint intelligence bulletin (JIB) has been issued by the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation to state and local authorities regarding Russian hacking activities during the 2016 presidential election. While the bulletin contains no new … Continue reading
WRAL: Legislation meant to work around a problem the state has had getting college IDs approved for voting identification was filed Tuesday.Lawmakers had been promising this fix. Most of the state’s universities failed to satisfy legal requirements set out by the General … Continue reading