National Updates

9-2-2016 - techdirt - DHS's New Election Cybersecurity Committee Has No Cybersecurity Experts - from the prepare-to-be-memoed-at,-hackers dept - There's not much to be said about  Georgia's Brian Kemp and California's Alex Padilla -- in terms of cybersecurity. However, there's plenty to be said about safeguarding elections. Padilla has been sued twice over alleged election fraud. And Kemp's office mistakenly released the personal information of six million registered voters. But there's one thing they can all agree on: there's nothing to worry about. Fortunately, this lack of technical prowess won't prevent the working group from achieving the DHS's goal, which appears to have little to do with actual cybersecurity. "Secretaries of State are committed to working with our federal partners to increase awareness of federal government cybersecurity resources and services that are available to election officials," said NASS President Denise W. Merrill, Connecticut Secretary of the State. "We look forward to sharing state best practices and technical advice that will strengthen understanding and collaboration between state and federal agencies."

8-29-2016 - BradCast - FBI Warns of New Election System Hacks; Last Minute Federal Court Battles Over Voting Rights - the FBI issues a new warning to states about voting system intrusion and last minute battles continue in federal courts over voting rights access to the polls.

8-29-2016 - Yahoo News - FBI says foreign hackers penetrated state election systems - by Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent - The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials.

8-18-2016 - FBI CYWATCH unit - Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems - Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems - The FBI is requesting that states contact their Board of Elections and determine if any similar activity to their logs, both inbound and outbound, has been detected. Attempts should not be made to touch or ping the IP addresses directly.

8-17-216 - Reuters - U.S. offers states help to fight election hacking - The government is offering to help states protect the Nov. 8 U.S. election from hacking or other tampering, in the face of allegations by Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump that the system is open to fraud. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told state officials in a phone call on Monday that federal cyber security experts could scan for vulnerabilities in voting systems and provide other resources to help protect against infiltration, his office said in a statement.

CA Updates

8-27-2016 - Los Angeles Daily News - Will making voting easier in California boost electorate’s participation? Will anything? - It didn’t take Julian Assange to uncover the dirty secret of Golden State politics: that in ever-increasing numbers Californians have more important things to do on Election Day than perform our most basic civic duty. In 2014, only 31 percent of registered voters bothered to cast a ballot, a record low, dropping California to 43rd out of 50 states in voter participation. [editors note: people know the system is rigged against their interests - that is why they think their vote does not matter - in my humble opinion]

8-25-2016 - Courthouse News Service - Sanders Fans' Fight Over Calif. Voter Rules Tossed - With the California primaries long over, a federal judge tossed a suit brought by Bernie Sanders supporters accusing election officials of violating their voting rights in the run-up to the June election. U.S. District Judge William Alsup dismissed the case as moot on Thursday, telling plaintiffs' counsel William Simpich that "there is plenty of time to take an appeal." [editors note: over 1 million votes for President were not counted in the June 2016 election - not enough votes to matter?]

8-25-2016 - Independent Voter Project - Nearly a Quarter of a Million Senate Votes Tossed - Several California voter registrars confirmed last week what the Independent Voter Project warned Secretary of State Alex Padilla about well ahead of the 2016 primary elections. As a result of insufficient voter education programs and ballot design problems there was mass voter confusion during the primary, resulting in — among other things — nearly a quarter of a million Senate votes being thrown out.
 
8-17-2016 - YourVoterGuide, Inc. - Ballot Design Issues Lead to Almost 250,000 Over-Votes in California, June 2016 US Senate Election -   We have grouped the different ballot designs together to analyze the effect of the ballot design on the number of over-votes. In comparison to the US Senate race, there were only 5,833 total over-votes for Republican and Democratic candidates in the Presidential primary. The discrepancy between the two races is striking; in the US Senate race, approximately 230,000 more people had their votes disqualified due to over-voting.

WI, NC, TX updates 

8-29-2016 - Bradblog - 7th Circuit: WI Photo ID Restriction to Remain in Place, Based on New Assurances from State - Despite being found a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act by multiple federal courts reviewing several challenges to Wisconsin's Republican-enacted Photo ID voting restriction, the law will stay in place this November, as per a new federal court ruling issued Friday. The court's reasoning is based on an assurance by the state that free Photo IDs will be made more readily available and easier to obtain than they have been in the past. The Wisconsin ruling stands in contrast to a recent ruling by the very conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeal that softened Texas Republicans' similar law by adding an allowance for voters without the requisite ID to be permitted to cast a normal ballot after signing an affidavit, and a U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeal ruling that completely struck down a similar provision in North Carolina after finding that it, and other NC GOP-enacted voting restrictions, were designed to "target African-American voters with nearly surgical precision."

Resources 

5-8-2015 - Reining in the Purcell Principle - Richard L. Hasen,University of California, Irvine School of Law -  the Supreme Court’s application of “the Purcell principle:” the idea that courts should not issue orders which change election rules in the period just before the election.

Critical Fundraising links:

Group: Election Justice USA
Facebook: Election Justice USA – Facebeook or Election Justice USA – Facebook
Twitter Link: #ElectionJusticeUSA or @Elec_Justice
Link: Election Justice USA Lawsuits

Group: JAMPAC
Web Page JAMPAC – DNC Fraud Lawsuit
Facebook Page: JAMPAC – Facebook
Twitter Page: #DNCfraudlawsuit or #DNCLawsuit
Court documents: DNC CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT – This page contains court-filed documents available for download.
To sign up as a class representative for the lawsuit, please email:dncfraud@jampac.us
YouTube Page: JAMPAC – YouTube