Archive for March 2018

Members of the Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council recently published an “open letter” to voters addressing their work to enhance the nation’s election cybersecurity. While it won’t be easy, this effort suggests that common strategies to resist cyberthreats to the America’s voting system are on the way.

The Virginia Department of Elections is moving to adopt new ballot guidelines after mismarked ballots became an issue in key races in last year’s elections.

New England’s third nor’easter snowstorm in as many weeks pummeled New Hampshire yesterday, on the same day as voters across the state were supposed to head to the polls. But unlike last year, when bad weather forced many towns to cancel local elections, voting went ahead as state officials moved to restrict such cancellations.

A group of 19 bipartisan Secretaries of State and state election officials has written a letter to U.S. Senate leadership vehemently opposing legislative language in the DHS reauthorization bill that they say would allow armed Secret Service personnel at the polls.

The election world suffered a huge loss this weekend with the death of longtime Boone County, MO Clerk Wendy Noren. Wendy’s legacy is immeasurable; so many “cutting edge” ideas in play today in the election field were pioneered in Boone County thanks to her foresight – and ferocious dedication to the work.

The latest electionlineWeekly has a guest post from California’s Contra Costa County, describing that office’s efforts to augment polling place accessibility by educating poll workers on key issues involving voting by people with disabilities.

MIT’s Charles Stewart has a new post up over at Election Updates looking at how public opinion about election hacking has changed since the 2016 election … with fascinating insights into partisan differences about the seriousness of such threats – which have a follow-on effect on policymaking on election security.

Anyone who’s ever looked at their own signature and cringed at the thought of what their second grade teacher would think (or is it just me?) will cheer the news from California, where a court has ruled that the state must give voters a chance to fix questionable signatures before rejecting a ballot.

With election security efforts humming along at the state and local level, Congress could (at long last)  join the work this week with amendments to the Department of Homeland Security re-authorization bill. Here’s hoping this amendment means Congress will (finally!) get off the sidelines and into the election security game.

Two key state election jobs have new occupants this week in the wake of the announcement that Ed Buchanan is the new Secretary of State in Wyoming and Meagan Wolfe is the new election director in Wisconsin. Both of their appointments are an indication that the process in both states is returning to some semblance of normal.