"Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins... described the recent errors on the part of the New York City Board of Elections... a “national embarrassment” and pledged to hold legislative hearings this summer to develop reform proposals. ...The first State Senate hearing is expected to take place at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn on July 28th with additional hearings scheduled for other localities in the final week of July and first week in August. ...“We're going to go out to Syracuse and Rochester. We're going to hear from Westchester, Hudson Valley, and Long Island voters about what they think should be changed,” said Myrie.

New Yorker: "Even in a state that has long been considered, by those who keep track of such things, one of the worst in the country when it comes to election administration—the basic civic business of collecting and counting votes—New York City stands out.

...On Wednesday morning, advocates of election reform held a conference call with reporters to emphasize that the board’s error wasn’t related to ranked-choice voting. “The discrepancy was due to human error, not any problem with the scanners, or the ranked-choice voting technology—this was a mistake by a low-level junior staffer,” Susan Lerner, the executive director of the New York chapter of Common Cause, an advocacy group, said...” (A Board of Elections spokesperson later confirmed to me that a junior staff member in Queens had forgotten to hit “clear” in the vote-counting software.)

...Lerner and other reformers have advocated for taking control of the board out of the hands of party officials, and professionalizing the system by hiring nonpartisan election administrators. But lawmakers in both Albany and New York City have largely ignored these calls... Stu Loeser, who served as Michael Bloomberg’s spokesperson when he attempted to push such reforms as mayor, compared incumbent lawmakers’ resistance to election reform to the N.R.A.’s opposition to gun-control laws.

WAPO: "Suraj Patel, a two-time primary challenger to Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), cried foul last year after postal workers in Brooklyn failed to stamp some absentee-ballot envelopes with the date — a requirement in New York. When he cried foul, Maloney’s campaign, which had declared victory, demanded that he “concede that the voters have spoken and stop validating Trump’s undermining our democratic processes.”...Responses like that, Patel said, were mostly helpful to Trump and his party, by blocking the momentum to enact real improvements in city elections. Now, the city has lived through yet another problem-plagued election — and given Republicans yet another argument “to justify more fake audits and more anti-voting laws,” Patel said.”

"...Trump’s claim that the true results of the primary “will never be known,” for instance, is demonstrably untrue, Norden said — because New York uses paper ballots that can be individually hand-tallied if necessary."

NYTimes: "New York is the only state in the country with local election boards whose staffers are chosen almost entirely by Democratic and Republican Party bosses, and the board in New York City illustrates the pitfalls.

NYTimes: "“If you’re an upset voter tonight, I hear you,” Mr. Myrie, who leads the Senate’s Elections Committee, wrote on Twitter. “We have to do better for you. And we will. Stay tuned for a hearing date and bring all the energy, concerns, and ideas for change to the table. We stand ready to listen and where possible, implement.””

New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary was thrust into chaos on Tuesday night after the city’s Board of Elections released, then withdrew a new tally of votes after saying it accidentally included 135,000 test ballots in its preliminary figures.

The Justice Department sued the state of Georgia on Friday over a restrictive voting law passed in response to former President Donald Trump’s lies about mass voter fraud in the 2020 election.

The lawsuit alleges that the Georgia law was enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging the rights of Black voters in the state. The Justice Department says Georgia’s law was passed through a rushed process that departed from normal procedure, and contained provisions ― including limits on drop boxes for absentee ballots and on providing food and water to voters waiting in long lines ― that were passed with unlawful discriminatory intent.

In New York, CVINY has supported legislation which would give the legislature the power to set standards for voting machines, rather than capitulate to whatever the voting companies are selling. For example, standards like a requirement that voting machines not run on obsolete and unsupported operating systems, like Windows 7. (the operating system of the problematic ESS Expressvote XL). Unfortunately, this bill did not move forward this year.

• S6734/A8449 Establish an RFP process for voting machine procurement instead of enabling private, for-profit vendors to determine criteria and standards

Comment: Two recent extremely close Congressional races (Brindisi-Tenney NY22) show the urgency of getting 100% hand counts to confirm results. Sierra Atlantic, Common Cause and many others backed election security bills that passed the New York State Senate but failed to get to the floor in the Assembly. There is a slim chance that the Assembly will have a special session so it’s not too late to let your Assembly member know that it is urgent to pass these bill now to protect our elections. The Assembly must pass A1115 that bans hybrid voting machines and A6589 that clarifies that ballot images are subject to FOIL, the Freedom of Information Law.

Allegra Dengler

Hartmann: " In Arizona they’re in open violation of federal law, “inspecting” actual ballots and voting machines and even hauling some of them off to a “cabin in the woods in Montana” for “more careful examination.” .

...Election workers and volunteers all across the country, but particularly in swing states, are getting death threats and quitting in droves, to be replaced by GOP and Qanon operatives. One in six election workers has received a threat and one in three is thinking of leaving their job.

...In many of those states they’ve gone so far as to give openly partisan Republican officials the power to decide which votes will be counted and which votes will be discarded based on their own personal “suspicion.”

“...And now the NY Times is reporting that in Georgia and other states, GOP officials are actually firing and removing Black elections officials in largely-Black areas and replacing them with white Republicans...The For The People Act will clean up a lot of this, but not the GOP’s resetting how election systems work in the states so GOP officials can simply throw out votes from precincts or areas they simply “believe” (but cannot demonstrate or prove) have “fraud” (also known as “Black voters”). That’s going to require additional federal legislation."

APNEWS: "“Georgia’s sweeping new overhaul of election laws threatens the fundamental right to vote, freedom of speech and the separation of powers, according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday…."Liberty requires at least three essential things — an unfettered right to vote, freedom of speech, and the meaningful separation of powers,” the lawsuit says. “This lawsuit is necessary to preserve individual constitutional rights, and constitutional government, against the attacks that (the law) makes on these three pillars of liberty.””

COMMENT: Journalist Brad Friedman is a named plaintiff in this law suit that targets several elements of atrocious GA anti-voting law which have not been much noticed in previous coverage and lawsuits, including the fact that much of the reporting Friedman and others have done over the years on voting in Georgia would actually now be CRIMINALIZED by the new law. Brad is interviewing Marilyn Marks on today's BradCast LIVE at 6p ET -- streaming at https://kpfk.org to discuss this. Allegra Dengler

Comment: To regain trust in elections, there must be hand count audits of 100% of hand marked paper ballots with the public watching. Despite failures in other states and widespread public distrust, touchscreen voting machines are currently in the process of being certified by the NYS Board of Elections. Don’t let this happen! Let your NYS legislator know that you support S309/A1115 which will BAN hybrid touchscreen printer-scanners.

Allegra Dengler

Summary:
WAPO: Republicans aren’t just making it harder to vote. They’re going after election officials, too.
“...Far less noticed, however, have been provisions in these laws that penalize local election officials who administer our elections….
Iowa, in addition to limiting voter access by cutting early voting days and forbidding local election officials from mailing out absentee ballot request forms without a specific request from a voter, will now make it a crime if election workers violate the new rules. Florida has enacted a rule that limits ballot drop box availability to only during early voting hours, and provides that, “If any drop box at an early voting site is left accessible for the return of ballots outside of early voting hours, the supervisor is subject to a civil penalty of $25,000.” A Texas proposed bill would subject a local registrar to fines if the registrar fails to mail out notices demanding proof of citizenship to individuals otherwise deemed ineligible to vote. It would also criminalize election workers who “distance or obstruct the view of a [poll] watcher in a way that makes observation reasonably ineffective.” Arizona legislators want to make it a felony for an election worker to mail an early ballot to a voter who has not requested one.
...Election officials were already under immense pressure during and after the 2020 election. Death threats to these officials abound...The predictable result? Many election officials, burned out after the 2020 election experience, are leaving their jobs.”

NYTimes May 6, 2021: Arizona Review of 2020 Vote Is Riddled With Flaws, Says Secretary of State
Summary: "Untrained citizens are trying to find traces of bamboo on last year’s ballots, seemingly trying to prove a conspiracy theory that the election was tainted by fake votes from Asia. Thousands of ballots are left unattended and unsecured. People with open partisan bias, including a man who was photographed on the Capitol steps during the Jan. 6 riot, are doing the recounting….The effort has no official standing and will not change the state’s vote, whatever it finds….“We have a concern that Maricopa County election records, which are required by federal law to be retained and preserved, are no longer under the ultimate control of elections officials, are not being adequately safeguarded by contractors, and are at risk of damage or loss,” wrote Pamela Karlan, the principal deputy assistant attorney general with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division."

"We are very concerned that the auditors are engaged in ongoing and imminent violations of federal voting and election laws.”

"The Republican legislature and governor have made a breathtaking assertion of partisan power in elections…

• The Republican-controlled legislature has more control over the State Election Board.

• The secretary of state is removed as a voting member of the State Election Board.

• The G.O.P.-led legislature is empowered to suspend county election officials."

Palast: "True the Vote, ..founded by Tea Party.., challenged the right of 364,541 Georgians to cast ballots. "County elections boards, facing threats by the ACLU and Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight, rejected the challenges, noting that the numbers were too huge to be credible. One voter can challenge another if they have personal knowledge that the other voter is a fraud. The local shills used by the Texas group knew nothing of those they challenged…..However, the new Georgia law specifically authorizes unlimited challenges. And Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State has gleefully invited True the Vote to attack voter rolls...But won’t those same county boards kick out any new absurd challenges? The MAGA mob in the legislature has got that covered. Under the new law, the State Board of Elections can remove a county board if it doesn’t, in the state’s opinion, rule properly on these challenges.

COMMENT: Two races, same result. In very close races in Iowa and New York, there were discrepancies in the machine count that needed a hand count to resolve. In both cases the Democratic candidate sued and requested a hand count of the ballots. In both cases, judges denied their request. In both cases, the Republican was seated in Congress. Who did the people actually vote for? It may never be known. Allegra Dengler

“Despite our best efforts to have every vote counted, the reality is that the toxic campaign of political disinformation to attack this constitutional review of the closest congressional contest in 100 years has effectively silenced the voices of Iowans,” Hart said.

COMMENT: Too bad those “dozens to hundreds influenced by ... unsubstantiated allegations that the machines were hacked" don’t see the real problem. There are many acceptable Dominion voting machines, but the ImageCast X touchscreen is a TOUCHSCREEN. Like the ESS Expressvote XL that the New York State Board of Elections is working to certify, a voter’s ballot disappears as soon as they hit “cast”. The “paper record” records whatever the computer tells it to. If the voter doesn’t look extremely closely, they have just pushed the “permission to cheat” button. Why are Ohio Democrats pushing for more touchscreens? Allegra Dengler

SUMMARY:
OHIO: CANTON The Stark County Board of Elections moved Friday to initiate a lawsuit against the county commissioners if they don't approve funding to buy Dominion voting machines by their regular board meeting next week.

“The US slipped, again, in a global ranking of political freedoms, putting it on par with Panama, Romania and Croatia, and Mongolia. Over the last decade, the US has fallen 11 points…Dropping 11 points is unusual, especially for an established democracy, because they tend to be more stable in our scores…Americans should see it as a wake-up call.”