Category Archives: mail in voting

Former DOJ officials slam Barr’s new policy on election investigations

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Former Justice Department officials on Tuesday sharply criticized Attorney General William Barr for reportedly reversing a longstanding department policy and clearing federal prosecutors to investigate alleged voting irregularities before election results have been certified. “The voters decide the winner in an election, not the president, and not the attorney general,” reads the statement from the Bipartisan Advisory Board of the Voter Protection Program, a nonpartisan election security initiative. The advisory board includes former Justice Department officials who served under Republican and Democratic administrations. “Thanks to a bipartisan group of experienced officials and poll workers across this country, the states, once again, ran fair and secure elections,” the statement continued. “We have seen absolutely no evidence of anything that should get in the way of certification of the results, which is something the states handle, not the federal government.” The criticism follows multiple media reports Monday that Barr gave Justice Department prosecutors the go-ahead to […]

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Cybercriminals Step Up Their Game Ahead of U.S. Elections

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Ahead of the November U.S. elections, cybercriminals are stepping up their offensive in both attacks against security infrastructure and disinformation campaigns – but this time, social media giants, the government and citizens are more prepared. Continue reading Cybercriminals Step Up Their Game Ahead of U.S. Elections→

As voters cast their ballots, courts nationwide issue election security edicts

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Legal battles with election security implications raged across the country over the holiday weekend, even with early voting well underway at historic levels in many states. In no state did those two things coincide more than in Georgia. Peach State voters amassed in lines marked by reports of 10-hour waits on Tuesday, following two key court rulings. Northern District of Georgia Judge Amy Totenberg on Sunday denied a bid to scuttle touch screen voting machines over cybersecurity vulnerabilities. On Monday, she also denied a request to require a specific number of emergency ballots to be on hand at Georgia polling sites. The ruling Sunday represented a setback for election integrity advocates who contend that Georgia’s machines have not been secure enough, and still aren’t. Totenberg ruled last year that Georgia must phase out its existing paperless voting machines, citing doubts about cybersecurity safeguards for direct-recording election equipment tabulations that couldn’t be audited without a paper record. […]

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Facebook removes fake accounts it linked to Turning Point USA

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Facebook said it removed hundreds of fake accounts and pages on Thursday that had denigrated Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden while boosting GOP President Donald Trump. The company also said it had banned a marketing agency as part of the influence operation that it linked to prominent, youth-driven conservative organization Turning Point USA. The marketing firm, Rally Forge, also worked to undermine mail-in voting with comments on news stories posted to its platform, Facebook said. In all, the social media giant took down 200 Facebook accounts and 55 pages, as well as 76 Instagram accounts. The removal is a reminder that, with just weeks before Election Day, social media companies still are contending with the deliberate spread of misinformation from both foreign and domestic sources. Facebook in recent months has taken action against networks of white supremacists, and alleged Russian propagandists, among other networks. Other Silicon Valley firms, such as Twitter, also have taken […]

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FBI, CISA: Foreign actors likely to spread disinformation on election results

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U.S. national security agencies said on Tuesday that foreign actors and cybercriminals could seize on delays in the reporting of election results to spread disinformation aimed at undermining confidence in the vote. Those adversaries could peddle false reports of “voter suppression, cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure, voter or ballot fraud, and other problems intended to convince the public of the elections’ illegitimacy,” the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a public advisory. Crooks or spies could set up websites or social media accounts to spread the false information, the agencies added. “The public should also be aware that if foreign actors or cyber criminals were able to successfully change an election-related website, the underlying data and internal systems would remain uncompromised,” the FBI and CISA statement said. The agencies urged voters to “rely on state and local government election officials” for official election results. With […]

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As Trump rails against mail-in voting, DHS warns Russia is doing the same

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The Russian government will continue to use its media mouthpieces to attack mail-in voting and sow divisions among voters just weeks before the U.S. election, the Department of Homeland Security warned state and local election officials on Thursday. “We assess that Russia is likely to continue amplifying criticism of vote-by-mail and shifting voting processes amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine public trust in the electoral process,” reads a DHS bulletin, which CyberScoop reviewed. “Since at least March 2020, Russian malign influence actors have been amplifying allegations of election integrity issues in new voting processes and vote-by-mail programs,” the memo says. Moscow’s reported denigration of the vote-by-mail process mirrors the criticisms leveled by President Donald Trump, who for weeks has baselessly claimed that mail-in voting can lead to widespread fraud. In reality, mail-in ballot fraud is exceptionally rare. On Wednesday, Trump suggested that voters should try voting twice in North Carolina, […]

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Shoring Up the 2020 Election: Secure Vote Tallies Aren’t the Problem

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With many in the public sphere warning about a potential compromise of the integrity of the Presidential Election, security researchers instead flag online resources and influence campaigns as the biggest problem areas. Continue reading Shoring Up the 2020 Election: Secure Vote Tallies Aren’t the Problem→

Facebook hopes voting hub will curb mail-in voting misinformation

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Facebook and Instagram are launching a new portal aimed at delivering accurate voting information ahead of the U.S. elections, an effort that coincides with ongoing misinformation surrounding the political process. The company announced Thursday it will launch a voter information hub that will include information about registration deadlines, ballot request information and the correct protocol for submitting a ballot. The hub will exist as a standalone web page, though Facebook and Instagram also will include notifications in users’ feeds about upcoming deadlines. The company also will include links on posts about in-person and mail-in voting, directing users to a page where they can find accurate information provided by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank, about the voting process. Facebook started adding such labels on posts by federal politicians, including President Donald Trump, and candidates for political office in July. The expanded effort comes amid an ongoing effort by […]

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Black Hat 2020: Scaling Mail-In Voting Spawns Broad Challenges

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Voting Village security celeb Matt Blaze delves into the logistics of scaling up mail-in voting ahead of November’s election. Continue reading Black Hat 2020: Scaling Mail-In Voting Spawns Broad Challenges→