The Atlantic:  "Instead of “partners,” some state authorities now view federal officials involved in election efforts with deep suspicion.“The trust,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told us, “has been absolutely destroyed.” The sentiment is not confined to Democrats. Some state-level Republican election officials…also said that federal officials’ activities involving elections have become so unusual that they are starting to question the federal officials’ competency and motives. These state officials wonder whether the feds are trying to do what Trump has accused others of doing: rig an election.”

The Atlantic: “Trump:... “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over’—we should take over the voting in at least, many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn’t win.”

Guardian:  "As one of Fulton county’s election officials put it: “All of this is about disrupting the elections in November. All this is about Fulton – the most important County in Georgia and maybe even the nation …””

Comment: What are the odds that very soon the FBI will “count the votes” and find that Trump really did “win" Fulton County?  The chain of custody has been broken wide open.  In a quote widely contributed to Stalin:  “It’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.”  Allegra Dengler

Huffpost: "Before Bondi, Noem and Gabbard canceled, it looked as though they were going to appear before the officials as a show of force as the administration works to force through an unprecedented effort to seize control of the nation’s elections ahead of the 2026 midterms.”

The Atlantic: “What they’re saying is ‘Buckle up, buttercup,’ because they’re coming after us,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, told us. “We’ve got to do our damndest to get ready.”...In Michigan, Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck, a Republican, told us he couldn’t help but take the actions in Georgia personally. The FBI search, he said, “should invite extraordinary scrutiny.”...“I think about what that would mean when it comes to defending our elections from any and all threats,” he told us. “And we would never want that threat to be our own federal government.”

The Guardian "Donald Trump lost Georgia in the 2020 election, and his false claims about voter fraud in Fulton county, home to Atlanta, were central to his efforts to try to overturn the election. “

Democracy Docket Marc Elias interview with Senator Jeff Merkley:   Senator Merkley: "Well, you can steal the purse, but we can hopefully get that back. You can put in loyalists, but hopefully we can have a different administration that doesn't have loyalists. But the things that entrench it are the weaponization of the Department of Justice that's going after political enemies, and in particular, the ability to put troops in the street to suppress dissent. But the scariest piece of all is the rigging of the next election."

"Unfortunately, the 2026 midterms will be easier for Trump to steal than the 2020 election...To start, there is no Electoral College to contend with and no need to pressure state legislatures. In addition, Trump and his team are more experienced, more confident and more ruthless. Sadly, our election systems are weaker than ever, having suffered never-ending attacks from election deniers since 2020.”

Ray Lutz:  "Paper Ballots Only Protect Elections If We Look at Them...Significant effort goes into securing paper ballots: controlled ballot stock, chain-of-custody procedures, sealed containers, and retention requirements. But these safeguards only matter if ballots are actually examined.”

Times Union: "Paramount to our democracy is a ballot system that works and can be trusted by voters. That’s why the problems with Rensselaer County’s November election ballots are deeply troubling….The commissioners' initial reluctance to acknowledge that a technological failure might have occurred gives us pause."

New York Times "Bomb threats in particular have become a common Election Day disruption. In 2024, at least seven states — Georgia, Maine, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio — faced such threats.“It absolutely is the new normal,” said Tina Barton, a co-chair of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, a nonpartisan group. She cited a surge “over the last five to six years” of swatting, bomb threats and physical intimidation surrounding elections. “The unfortunate part is that it’s really easy to do, to send an email and do it in mass quantities.”

Eric Neff, a Republican attorney with a web of ties to election-conspiracy theorists, is the new acting chief of the voting section at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), according to the department’s website. 

Neff replaces Maureen Riordan, who spent almost two decades in the department’s voting section from 2000 to 2017. In 2021, Riordan served as litigation counsel at the anti-voting legal group the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) before she returned to DOJ when President Donald Trump returned to the White House. 

A Dec. 2 legal filing identified Riordan as a “senior counsel” in the voting section. A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry about her current role.

Times Union: "Peabody and supporters of the institution pushed for a recount shortly after the election. But that request wasn’t entertained until county election officials discovered that some results from a separate state referendum that had been printed on the back of the ballot could have been impacted by ovals improperly juxtaposed over text….Based on the document count and the discovery of a machine processing error, election officials originally agreed to digitally retabulate the contest before eventually opting for a manual recount.”

Comment: Kudos to this local Board of Elections for agreeing to a recount and then opting that the recount of the ballots be by hand.  Under current law, they didn’t have to.  They could have just run them through a different scanner that may have had the same problem with the apparently misprinted ballots.  Ask your legislators to support Amy Paulin’s bill 01918 which requires audits by hand recount . Allegra Dengler

"It rarely breaks into national headlines, but [Trumpism’s] persistent attacks on free and fair elections serve as a constant hum in the background. It remains, in my opinion, the greatest threat to democracy because it is the gravest threat to free and fair elections….Undermining free and fair elections is the central tenet of Trumpism in 2025, and it will be the leading strategy of the GOP in 2026 and beyond….

...For the next 11 months, we must approach each day with these questions: What can we do to protect free and fair elections? How can we counter what the GOP is doing? How can we advance the voting rights of every eligible citizen and ensure their ballots are accurately counted and elections properly certified?” Marc Elias

Remember last week when we covered the five fake counties in the 2024 DDHQ data feed and the millions of votes that disappeared for Vice President Harris in real time? After watching that circus play out, there was no way we were going to sleep on Tennessee. 

"Trump has made his intentions clear. At a rally last summer in West Palm Beach, Florida, he offered his supporters a promise. “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians,” he said. “We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.””
...Stopping any attempt to subvert the midterms will require courage and integrity from the courts, political leaders of both parties, and the local officials running elections….Most of all, it will depend on individual Americans to stand up for their rights and demand that their votes are counted."

CNN: "The surprise move, and a public announcement that seemingly embraced parts of Trump’s push to transform voting procedures, spooked election officials around the US, raising concerns about the future of a company that unexpectedly found itself at the center of Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss….when CNN asked Leiendecker whether his acquisition of Dominion was a MAGA takeover, he replied, “it’s not.”

Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the president has made it clear that voter suppression is a top priority. In March, Trump issued a sweeping anti-voting executive order that could disenfranchise millions. And while courts have blocked key provisions of his order, the White House promised that another order, likely targeting mail voting, is on the way. 

About 80 protesters gathered outside Huntington Town Hall Tuesday evening to bring attention to their concerns about irregularities in the recent town board election that included candidates who never campaigned ahead of Election Day.

With about six Suffolk County police officers standing watch, the people at the peaceful gathering held signs with messages that included "Voters Demand Answers" and "Stop the Steal." They also demanded free and fair elections.

"If  anything, she suspects that the internet is becoming less resilient. Recently, the Trump administration decided to dismantle the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which ran programmes that monitor foreign attempts to break into critical infrastructure like voting systems and electrical grids."

COMMENT: Many on this list have expertise in cybersecurity and tech issues in relation to elections.  Help wanted:  efforts in Westchester  and New York to plan for disruption of the grid during elections.  One of many bills sitting on desks in Albany would require automatic extension of voting hours in case of delays due to poll site closures. One of the less likely possible causes of disruption on a large scale is  a "powerful solar storm on the scale of the Carrington event.” Solar flares can disrupt GPS, cellphones, satellites and power grids. Coincidentally,, it turns out there was a major CME (Coronal Mass  Ejection) this week.  Look for Northern Lights tonight in 18 states, including New York.