KCUR: In a committee briefing on security matters Monday, Democratic Rep. Jeff Pittman raised concerns that Kansas could face lawsuits or have to pay for credit monitoring services if some of the records get hacked or improperly released. Kansas currently … Continue reading
Category Archives: election administration
Kansas.com: Kobach suggested another witness was also biased. He read aloud tweets from Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida, that disparaged Kobach. One tweet referenced reports that a staffer for Vice President Mike Pence had called Kobach … Continue reading
SacBee: California elections officials must notify voters before rejecting their mail-in ballots over concerns that the signature is not authentic, a San Francisco judge ruled this week. Current California election law allows officials to toss out vote-by-mail ballots if they … Continue reading
Gizmodo: Voting machine manufacturer ES&S is facing new questions from a prominent US lawmaker regarding the security of its voting systems. Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, has asked ES&S to explain by March 30th whether its voting machines or … Continue reading
Byran Lowry for the KC Star. … Continue reading
Trevor Potter has written this oped for The Hill. … Continue reading
Sam Levine for HuffPo. … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
SOS Dunlap says he’s no hero. … Continue reading
NYT: Faced with unrelenting interference in its election systems, the United States has not forced Russia to pay enough of a price to persuade President Vladimir V. Putin to stop meddling, a senior American intelligence official said on Tuesday. Adm. … Continue reading
A few weeks ago, NBC News issued a story about election hacking which it presented as an exclusive. It drew pushback from DHS, and from many in the elections community, saying that the information was not new, and some of … Continue reading
New from Jonathan Brater of the Brennan Center. … Continue reading
Journal-Sentinel: The head of the Wisconsin Election Commission said he would step down from his leadership role and eventually leave the agency because of opposition from Republican lawmakers. Administrator Mike Haas announced the news in a resignation letter this week … Continue reading
TPM reports. … Continue reading
Very bad news from Politico: House Speaker Paul Ryan faced Democratic criticism Thursday after choosing not to renew the term of a federal agency head who has helped lead the charge on securing elections from hackers. Matthew Masterson, chairman of … Continue reading
Eric Geller for Politico: At the heart of this election security standoff is an acrimonious relationship between the researchers who analyze voting systems for digital flaws and the vendors trying to preserve their profits and reputations in a small, difficult … Continue reading
Here. And here’s a BPC podcast talking to Missouri SOS Jay Ashcroft about voter registration modernization. … Continue reading
Release: In a change of course, effective February 21, 2018, the Texas Workforce Commission (“TWC”) will begin the process of implementing voter registration services to those served by its Vocational Rehabilitation program. The change comes after the agency received a notice from … Continue reading
Electionline: This new NCSL report, “The Price of Democracy: Splitting the Bill for Elections,” is the result of two years of studying all things related to elections and costs, addressing questions such as: What are the costs associated with running elections? … Continue reading
Reuters Exclusive: The head of a federal agency who has helped U.S. states protect election systems from possible cyber attacks by Russia or others is being removed from his post by Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and the … Continue reading
A ChapinBlog. … Continue reading
The Chicago Tribune reports. … Continue reading
John Nichols for The Nation. … Continue reading
Read the brief and press release. … Continue reading
Kim Zetter for NYT Magazine: But for as long as experts have warned about security problems, voting machine makers and election officials have denied that the machines can be remotely hacked. The reason, they say, is that the systems are … Continue reading
Courier-Journal: An hour after being defeated by Linda Belcher in a special election in Bullitt County Tuesday night, a spokesman for Rebecca Johnson said she is claiming voter fraud. “The big story out of Bullitt County appears to be voter fraud,” David … Continue reading
Gannett: Dozens of active Green Bay area voters went to cast their ballot in Tuesday’s primary election only to find they had been removed from voter rolls. Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesman Reid Magney attributed many problems voters experienced on Tuesday … Continue reading
ProPublica: A ProPublica analysis of voting machines found that over two-thirds of counties in America used machines for the 2016 election that are over a decade old. In most jurisdictions, the same equipment will be used in the 2018 election. … Continue reading
Last year the staff at Slate asked me to predict what would happen with voting rights in the Trump era, as part of a broader set of predictions about Trump’s effects on politics, law, and culture. Well they’ve now gone … Continue reading
That’s the lead story in this week’s Electionline Weekly. … Continue reading
Michael Waldman for Politico Magazine. … Continue reading
WaPo: House Democratic leaders want the federal government to approve more than $1 billion to help states improve ballot security, part of a set of measures they say are necessary to mitigate foreign interference in future election cycles. The proposals … Continue reading
Michael Chertoff and Grover Norquist WaPo oped: The nation’s top intelligence officers warned Congress this week that Russia is continuing its efforts to target the 2018 elections. This should come as no surprise: A few months ago, the Department of Homeland Security notified 21 … Continue reading
ABC News: State and local election systems remain vulnerable to outside attacks ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, House Democrats warned in a new report obtained by ABC News. The final report issued by the Congressional Task Force on Election Security, … Continue reading
Oh my: Today, Jeanette Manfra, National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) Assistant Secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications, released the following statement regarding the recent NBC news coverage on the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to combat election … Continue reading
Center for American Progress: By Danielle Root, Liz Kennedy, Michael Sozan, and Jerry Parshall In 2016, America’s elections were targeted by a foreign nation-state intent on infiltrating and manipulating our electoral system. On September 22, 2017, it was reported that the U.S. Department of … Continue reading
Good news. … Continue reading
Here’s what I reported on Jan. 31: Federal District Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Barring NC Legislature’s Elimination of Partisan Primaries for Electing State Appeals and State Supreme Court Judges Posted on January 31, 2018 12:06 pm by Rick Hasen You can find the … Continue reading
This looks worth the read. … Continue reading
Electionline: Nelson Mandela once said that education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world and U.S. Rep. John Lewis once said that the vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have. Orange County, … Continue reading
Release: Election officials across the country say they are heading into the 2018 midterms with outdated voting machines and computer systems, and many of them do not have the resources to replace them. In response to a nationwide survey distributed … Continue reading
NBC News: The U.S. official in charge of protecting American elections from hacking says the Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, … Continue reading
The great Pam Fessler reports for NPR (before she goes on a year-long book leave): It was clear that many of those gathering in Orlando already have protections in place and are well aware of the risks. But some county … Continue reading
You can find the opinion here. In light of the state apparently offering no reason at all for why it made this change as to appellate judges, the federal court’s decision makes a lot of sense. It might be a … Continue reading
Gizmodo: The State of Kentucky has pulled out of the Interstate Crosscheck System, Gizmodo has learned, making it the eighth state to quit the program so far—even though it cost nothing to participate. A source with direct knowledge of the … Continue reading
Letter. … Continue reading
Bloomberg Businessweek: What sets North Carolina apart, though, is the breadth of institutions that have been thrown against a wall. As the state prepares for 2018 campaign filing deadlines in February, congressional and Statehouse maps and even the district boundaries … Continue reading
Release: The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on Friday filed a lawsuit against the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) for blocking the public release of information related to their efforts to investigate unfounded claims of … Continue reading
Michael Morley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, U Pa L. Rev. Online). Here is the abstract: During a recent oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor raised the possibility of rejecting a proposed interpretation of a federal statute, the National Voting … Continue reading
Gilad Edelman and Paul Glastris WaPo oped. … Continue reading