A Citizen’s Report on Election Security in Nevada and the
Nation
Prepared by Indivisible Northern Nevada
Election Security in Nevada and the
Nation
Introduction
Unless everybody’s vote is secure, nobody’s vote
is secure.
We know that in 2016, Russia targeted voting systems in
all 50 states and used social media to spread disinformation and disunity among
the American electorate. Voting is the lynchpin of our democracy — and we
can’t effect change on the issues that matter to us, from gun safety to health
care, without securing the ballot box.
Grassroots
organizations around the nation are working together with local and statewide
election officials to raise awareness about the threats to our election
security and to develop strategies to mitigate existing and evolving threats.
But how are regular citizens to judge if their vote can be compromised? How Secure Is Our Vote in Northern Nevada?
This report is an
effort by Indivisible
Northern Nevada (INNV) with help from Nevadans
for Election Reform and
the League
of Women Voters of Nevada to answer this question by integrating all
publicly available information, interviewing officials and chasing down answers
when none were readily accessible.
Nevada’s
Election Infrastructure:
Strengths
and Vulnerabilities
Overall, it is our
assessment that, in Nevada, our County Clerks, Registrars, and election
officers in the Secretary of State’s (SOS) Office have made great strides in
securing the election processes. Our state legislators have supported funding
for new voting machines and paper ballots
that have also bolstered this work throughout Nevada. In Washoe County, and
despite record turnout, Deanna Spikula,
Washoe County Registrar of Voters reports the 2018 general
election ran without major issues.
We especially commend the work of the Advisory Committee
on Participatory Democracy (ACPD) established in 2017 by the 79th Legislative
Session (NRS 225.250) and charged with making
recommendations concerning programs, activities, and events that promote
citizen participation in governance for their dedication to helping all
eligible Nevadans vote.
Our citizens’
investigation left us feeling comfortable that Nevada’s systems, while not
perfect, are among the most secure in the country. We also feel that officials
at all levels are earnestly working to secure our vote and to deploy all
granted resources toward this goal.
However, we note
that the structure of our election system in Nevada is such that each county in
the state is responsible for running its own elections, including training its
own poll workers. We also do not have a single encrypted voter data system, but
rather an aggregation of county systems. Resources and staffing are not uniform
across counties. Significant additional investment is needed for all the
counties to have the systems and labor they need.
Thus, our statewide vote is only as strong as our weakest county. Although new voting machines and paper ballots are installed in all
17 counties, to date, we have only been able to research systems in Washoe
County. We look forward to continuing our work to evaluate the situation in the
other Northern Nevada counties. In addition to this challenge, record numbers
of voters in the 2018 midterm elections and expanded voting opportunities for future
elections (See Appendix), will require more resources and staff to address new
and remaining structural challenges.
Likewise, our national vote for President and Vice-president, are only
as strong as the weakest state. Despite all the
work Nevada is doing to secure our votes, our votes at the national level
remain glaringly vulnerable. States vary widely in the attention and resources
they have devoted to election security. We believe that the federal agencies
with expertise in cybersecurity should be responsible for carrying out
comprehensive threat assessments on election infrastructure, as many states
need assistance in securing their election systems.
Few issues are more
pressing for every citizen of the United States than the security of our vote.
It requires relentless vigilance and unity to face increasingly sophisticated
and evolving threats. With sufficient funding, we can continue and expand the
progress that Nevada has made and support similar efforts in all other states.
Lacking that, no one’s vote is truly safe.
Recent
History
No significant voter fraud has been detected in
our state.
In 2018, the Nevada
Republican Party Chair publicly voiced concerns about the integrity of the
election following sweeping victories in state and federal races for Democrats
in the midterm election. Although there were cases under investigation from the
primary elections, which were subsequently dismissed, no credible reports of voter fraud were received regarding the midterm. Clark and Washoe County
Registrars, as well as Secretary of State Cegavske and Governor Sandoval – both
Republicans – denied any evidence of voter fraud.
Nevada has an Election Integrity Task Force (EITF), which includes the SOS office, Nevada Attorney General’s office, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and various
other state and local law enforcement agencies such as the Washoe County
Sheriff’s office. It also includes representatives from the Republican,
Democratic, Independent American and Libertarian parties. No non-partisan
representative is included; we suggested that a long-standing non-partisan be
included on the task force given the growing number of Nevada voters choosing
to be unaffiliated.
The EITF assembles
on election day and deploys resources on the ground to investigate complaints
regarding questionable voter registration practices, potential voter fraud, and
the enforcement of laws regarding voter intimidation or electioneering at the
polls.
The relevant
section in the SOS website has not been updated since 2016, but we were able to
speak with Wayne Thorley, Deputy Secretary for Elections, and
confirm that the Task Force was indeed convened for the 2018 elections and will
be convened again for 2020. Thorley reports that thankfully we did not have
many incidents last election and that most concerns were quickly resolved.
Strengths
New Voting Machines and Paper Ballots
New voting machines with the latest
security and encryption protocols were purchased in 2017 for all 17
Nevada counties for a combined total of $25 million, primarily from Dominion Voting Systems. Carson City purchased Election Systems
& Software Ballot Marking Devices.
The new voting system was tested to federal standards. Further, our voting machines are
secured through a Chain of Custody where access is restricted and
audited in a continuous cycle of testing, reconciliation and certification.
Machines are removed from the cycle if there is any suspicion of equipment
malfunction, broken chain of custody or malicious activity. Each voting machine is autonomous, and each has 2 thumb
drives and the paper roll which record all votes. Once the system is broken
down, each of the thumb drives goes in a separate bag which is sealed. The
paper rolls, verified and signed, go into a third bag which is sealed. The
number of votes cast on each machine are recorded and tallied and reconciled
with the number of voters.
Per Deputy Secretary
Thorley,
the voting system, which consists of the voting machines, central tabulators
and scanners that run absentee and mail ballots, is never connected to the
Internet. A so-called air gap exists
between this system and the voter registration system, which does occasionally connect to the
internet, to prevent the voting system from ever connecting to the Internet.
In
Washoe on voting days, a mobile hotspot is individually generated at each
polling site. An encrypted router then connects to a closed intranet that is
also password protected. A Voter Kiosk,
which consists of a laptop and tablet, can now connect to this closed intranet.
Voters check in and sign on the tablet which displays only limited information
to maintain privacy. The poll worker uses the laptop to electronically verify
the signature as well as to access a live chat connected to registrar
headquarters to facilitate problem solving and answering questions. While there
is a paper backup for the precinct, all voting registration is in real-time.
Separate
printers are used to generate labels and voting cards, and these are hardwired
into the system. Voting sites do not connect to each
other.
Because The two vendors for Nevada that provide voting systems (Dominion
and ES&S) both use proprietary software, some additional measures are in
place. Before an election is certified
for use in Nevada, we require the vendor to provide the Secretary of State with
the source code. In partnership with the
Gaming Control Board, the SOS office reviews the software prior to
certification. The software is also on
file with the National Software Reference Library, and NV officials make sure the software on the machines
matches the software on file at the Reference Library prior to every election. This way we would know if the software was
altered without our knowledge.
Decentralized Data and Encryption
Per Secretary Cegavske, and as mentioned above, Nevada has
a decentralized voter registration system, commonly known as a bottom-up system where not all the
information is held in one place. County clerks and registrars from Nevada’s
seventeen counties provide information relating to the registration status of
all eligible citizens throughout the state. The submitted information is then
compiled and verified by the SOS office in accordance with state and federal
election laws. NevVoter is publicly accessible through
the SOS office, but access must be requested and approved.
INNV sees this structure as both a strength and a
challenge because while an assault on one system may be isolated, there are
more systems to secure, each its own access point into the voter rolls. Moreover,
counties have varying resources and sophistication when it comes to
cybersecurity. Nevada has used a portion of our HAVA (Help America Vote
Act) funds to purchase albert sensors for all counties in the state meant to function as an intrusion
detection system. HAVA granted $4.5 million in March 2018 and $104,640 in August
2018. These sensors placed on the county networks that house the voter
registration database monitor incoming network traffic for malicious actors,
especially looking for certain signatures of known entities and send out alerts
for investigations. Per Deputy Secretary Thorley, in the past year about 24
incident reports have been generated every month. These have been investigated
but thus far none have turned out to be genuine attacks.
Nevada is continuing to make improvements to the statewide voter
registration database,
including improved password strength requirements, multi-factor authentication,
and better user access controls. Along with 27 other states and D.C, Nevada is
a member of ERIC, the Electronic Information Center, a non-profit
organization with the sole mission of assisting states to improve the accuracy
of America’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all
eligible citizens. It provides a cross-check of voter registration data. ERIC
was formed in 2012 with assistance from The Pew Charitable Trusts and is
governed and managed by member states.
While the new
voting machines in all counties have encryption protocols, as noted earlier,
Nevada does not have a single encrypted voter data system. So, encryption
protocols are implemented at the county level Washoe specifics are here. Of note and not
mentioned above are:
- Four
points of security back up – Primary and Secondary USB thumb drive, internal
memory and VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail). USB thumb drives are
encrypted memory devices for enhanced security. Votes are never stored
unencrypted and are secure from tampering.
- System
requires authentication through smart cards which require a PIN to unlock the
encrypted data on the card. Three levels of users:
- Technician (configures the device and loads election files)
- Poll Worker (used to open poll and export logs, cannot load election
files)
- and Voter (used only for voting session activation)
- ICX
Prime system does not allow any external hardware to be connected to the tablet
during official elections other than what is authorized by election officials
during the pre- election Logic & Accuracy testing.
- System
does not allow any external information or link and does not allow any other
information other than what is authorized by election officials which is
preprogrammed into the system.
- Security
controls include access through controlled mechanisms using security
credentials and authentication of authorized users.
- Data
integrity and confidentiality of security mechanisms that use National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) approved algorithms for
software-based encryption and decryption of data
- Access to results storage area is
secured behind a secured door with a security seal.
Trained Election Officials and Disciplined Protocols
State and County
staff are working together to assess threats and solve problems.
Staff Training
Although staff are
not trained to directly identify social media threats, Nevada is one of only a
few states to have all our local election officials signed up as members of the
national Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis
Center (EI-ISAC), which monitors social media to alert
election officials to potential threats, including disinformation or cyber
fraud.
In August 2018, the SOS and a broad group of election
security stakeholders (state and local election officials; state and local IT
officials; state and local emergency management officials; and federal, state,
and local law enforcement officials) participated in a national tabletop
exercise (TTX).
The TTX allowed them to role-play various emergency and election security
scenarios, with the goal of improving collaboration and cooperation among all
the election security stakeholders. The TTX also allowed them to put incident
response plans into practice and identify any areas that need improvement. In
September 2018, the SOS, election staff, and IT staff attended the National Election Security Summit (NESS) in St. Louis where they
learned about best practices in election security and how to mitigate risks and
vulnerabilities in election infrastructure.
Since the 2018 general election, the SOS
and the Deputy for Elections attended the annual membership meeting of the
EI-ISAC, in April 2019. The meeting included information on how to secure
election infrastructure and protect against emerging risks and threats. The
Nevada SOS office and local election officials have also participated in a second
national TTX, which was held in June 2019. In July 2019, the SOS office hosted
a Nevada-specific, in-depth TTX for all our county election officials.
More recently, two employees with the SOS
office attended the annual DEF CON hacker conference in Las Vegas in August
2019. DEF CON included a Voting Village with various
speakers on election security and hands-on auditing of voting equipment. In
September 2019, election staff went to New Jersey to assist with a
state-specific TTX and learn how to better conduct a Nevada-specific TTX.
In June 2019, the National Governors Association (NGA)
announced that Nevada was competitively selected as one of six states to participate
in a Policy Academy on
Election Security. The NGA will
come to Nevada to host the Policy Academy in November/December.
The goal of the Policy Academy is to bring election
security stakeholders together from all over the state to refine and improve
election security practices in Nevada. Additionally, all state employees,
including SOS staff, are required to take annual information security and cyber
security awareness training. Senate Bill 123 from the 2019 Legislative Session
also requires local election officials and local election staff to take annual
information security and cyber security awareness training. These trainings
include information on how to spot phishing emails, proper password management,
and how to create a cybersecurity mindset in all that you do.
County Registrars
and Clerks receive further training through the US Department of Homeland
Security to role-play emergency situations primarily focused on cyber-related
fraud or disinformation.
Poll Workers
The Nevada SOS office is not involved in the training of
poll workers. Nevada counties train thousands of poll
workers every year, with the goal of having an efficient and fair voting
process, including how to respond to issues such as electioneering or voter
intimidation. They also observe the new colored lights on voting machines to
provide assistance, if needed.
In
Washoe County, poll workers receive mandatory training. Each poll worker is
required to complete a 2-hour online course before they attend the training. At
the 4-hour in-person training session, a slide show presentation, which is
printed for each trainee, goes over the basics and there is a demonstration.
Trainees are then paired to set up, run, and repack the equipment. Time is
allotted to try the machines and ask more detailed questions.
Each
poll worker is issued 2 spiral bound books: one is the Poll Workers Handbook,
written by the voting machine manufacturer, which covers setup, verification,
managing situations, closing the polls, and breakdown and transport to
headquarters specific to Washoe County. The second spiral bound notebook is a
step by step, screen by screen guide for every foreseen situation. Poll workers
are told in training that these books are only for their use and asked not to
give them to anyone who has not had the training.
Poll
workers have access to a chat and a hotline that connect directly with
headquarters for sending and receiving general information (to all polling
places, like alerts, or solutions to problems that have come up) and specifics
(like the label printer has jammed and we can’t fix it, so that maintenance
personnel can be deployed to the site).
They
also have a hotline number. Protocol specifies that problems like this be
turned over to the poll manager or assistant manager, who contacts headquarters
and resolves the problem. Any problems taking more than 5 minutes to solve is
logged at headquarters as an issue to be fixed before the next election.
Each
of the new voting machines retains a lifetime ballot count log, but each is
checked at the beginning of each voting day to confirm that its session log is
at zero. If it is not, the machine is taken out of service. Additionally, every
log is recorded on sheets, every seal is logged on sheets, and seals that are
placed after voting are logged on sheets. All these sheets are sealed in an
envelope and turned in separately from any voting tallies.
Recommendation: Our
observer did note stubborn problems. For example, a voter registered but her
registration did not show on the records. Poll staff received a series of steps
to get her processed, and tried it twice, but were placed into a loop. It took
45 minutes and multiple staff members and delayed the prompt processing of the
other voters at the site. Thus, sometimes the line poll workers may not have
the experience, training or expertise to solve such cases.
Given
the new challenge of same day registration in the 2020 election, a few sites
will be designated for this and staffed with highly trained individuals. Our
Fair Elections Team suggests that difficult cases be transferred to one of
these sites, instead of to headquarters. We believe they have the best chance to
be resolved in lieu of having to issue a problematic provisional ballot.
These are indeed a challenge. Provisional ballots are fail-safe ballots that are
mandated by federal and state law.
Nationwide, very few of the provisional ballots cast are actually
counted because the voter does not resolve the issue that caused him or her to
be required to cast a provisional ballot.
Errors by passed on by the DMV electronically to election officials are
indeed a risk, but Thorley believes it to be a “a pretty minor risk” especially
in the coming election, “with (the new) same-day registration available
starting next year, a voter will have the opportunity to correct any
discrepancy at the polling place.”
For example, out of the 114 provisional ballots submitted in Washoe, only 11
provisional ballots were actually cast.
That said, in 2018 Washoe County
significantly reduced provisional ballots by allowing voters to vote at any
location, not just at an assigned poll, but many voters remain unaware of this
option. Previously, there
were more than 1,000 provisional ballots which had to be verified. In 2018
there were only 105. Registrar Spikula noted that the previous
restriction on voting locations accounted for about 50% of provisional ballots:
“All those conditions are actually
removed now.”
Our
observer also noted that in the case of the label machine, there was no warning
color on the tape, like you see in a grocery store. It was recommended that, if
this is going to be a problem (and it will, with the volume of voters) there
should be a warning to replace the tape. It seems likely this will be
implemented.
Vulnerabilities
and Challenges
Initial Challenges
in 2018 Have Been Overcome
The transition to the new machines did not go entirely
smoothly in 2018. During the June 2018 primary elections, there were 300 incidents across
11 counties which were not due to hacking or
malicious actors, but were due to equipment failures tied to human error. More
than 100 were reported in
Washoe County.
Some ballots were truncated, omitting candidates whose
names come later in the alphabet, and some ballots were pre-marked due to a
cache issue when voters did not complete the ballot before removing the card.
Some voters reported anomalies and were given a second ballot, resulting in
unintended duplication. Subsequently, additional training requirements were
added for poll workers and firmware upgrades were installed by the manufacturer
to clear the cache and record fled voter
in cases where cards are removed ahead of completion. The
SOS office reports the company has already completed a firmware update needed
to correct the issues.
Registrar Spikula affirms that she has “every confidence” in the Dominion
voting machines. Indivisible Northern Nevada can verify that voting booth
notification lights and extra poll worker cards were provided in an effort to
avoid future voting booth failures.
INNV volunteers,
including our Fair Elections Lead, Mary Richardson, received this training and
worked the polls in 2016 and 2018. She confirms that the
training was updated from 2016 to 2018 as well as between the 2018 primaries
and the general vote. Along with the new equipment, she observed other improvements
to support a more secure system.
In
particular, the previous paper voter verification process compared on-site
signatures to original signatures in a book before the voter was issued a
voting card to insert into the machine. This was updated in 2018 to an
electronic voter book where the specimen signature is now visible to the poll
worker only. A one-time use card activates the voting machine which brings up
the correct ballot for the individual voter. If a card which has completed the
vote is re-inserted into a different machine without being reissued, it creates
an error message.
Significantly,
to minimize the ‘fled voter’ situation where a voter thinks they have cast
their vote, but in fact they have not completed the final step of printing the paper
ballot, a (new) light on the top of the machine changes from white to red and
the manager is alerted. Staff can now alert the voter, escort them back to the
machine, and go through a procedure so their vote can be completed. When the
prior vote is registered, the light turns green and the machine is clear for
the next voter.
Current
Questions and Concerns
Accessibility of information
The difficulty of
putting this report together highlights the need to update the SOS website.
Nevada is in fact doing more than what is specified. Better access to more
information will improve voter confidence.
Registration Challenges
The voter
registration system does, manually
not automatically, connect to the internet occasionally.
Our new laws to
expand voter access (See Appendix A) do present some challenges for election
officials and poll workers:
“With Automatic Voter Registration and Same-Day registration with
provisional ballots passing in this legislative session and being implemented
simultaneously, we will need to secure our voter registration system on a
number of fronts before June of 2020.” (Sondra Consgrove,
Chair ACPD)
Doug Goodman,
(ACPD) observed that one of the interesting things to watch regarding the
same-day voter registration will be the number of nonpartisans that may decide
to re-register on primary day in order to be able to vote in a partisan
primary.
Secretary Cegavske
has concern that the staff at all 17 counties are going to have to verify
residence in a short amount of time. She also worries that Nevadans used to
quick results will be impatient with the longer wait times that may be needed
to accurately count the votes.
Cegavske also has
overarching concerns about groups registering voters who might not complete the
process accurately. Even though there are groups like the League of Women Voters who do an exemplary job, she sees problems with untrained and
uncertified field registrars. In particular Cegasvke believes that some field
registrars may be telling people who are not currently eligible to vote that
it’s okay to go ahead and sign up and that when they become eligible, they will
be all set, but then they have problems when they arrive at the polls.
Thorley confirms
that according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Nevada has the
highest percentage of voter registration coming from third-party voter
registration drives. (INNV registered many voters in 2018. We can verify that
our volunteers are trained.) Moreover, changes to law via SB452 from the 2019
session provide clearer deadlines for registration groups. (See Appendix)
Chair Cosgrove
emphasized that it would be incumbent upon the groups doing voter registration
and voter education to exhort people to register now to diminish the numbers of
unregistered voters arriving at the polls once early voting has started. She
has also clarified that, per the new law, people can now update their
registration at the polls and therefore this new option should be specifically
updated with additional language in the Voter Registration Toolkit.
To date the Voter Registration Toolkit showing on the SOS site is still from 2016. The ACPD is doing a total revision of the toolkit.
It will be more extensive, renamed Guide to Elections and Civic Participation
in Nevada, and be posted as modules on the SOS website. Target for
completed draft is the end of September 2019.
Concerns
for the 2020 Election
Funding is needed to improve elections security
“We don’t have the
funds to create a centralized voter registration system to allow for one
encrypted system, so we’ll be moving to automatic voter registration and
same-day registration with county-level servers that feed information up to the
SOS Office. This means that each county will need help to encrypt their data
and the smaller counties may need financial or contracted labor help,” notes Sondra
Cosgrove.
Joe Gloria with the Clark Elections
Department and Wayne Thorley from the Sec. of State’s office are both attending
the League of Women Voters Sept. 21st community meeting to explain how Nevada
will be handling all the changes to voter registration and what the various
county elections departments and the SOS office are doing to keep the voter
rolls secured. Meeting will be live-streamed through the League of Women Voters Facebook Page.
Audits Are County by County
A
report stating the percentage of machines/ballots that were randomly audited is
included in the election certification report sent to the Nevada Legislature.
The counties and
state conduct a number of post-election audits per (NAC 293B.120):
“After each election, each county clerk shall audit the mechanical
recording devices. The devices being audited are selected at random to verify
that the hash value of the software and firmware installed matches that on file
with the National Software Reference Library. Although law specifies a minimum
number of units to be audited, Nevada’s local election officials usually audit
more units than required. In a county whose population is 100,000 or more, at
least 2 percent but not less than 20 units must be audited. In a county whose
population is less than 100,000, 3 percent but not less than four units must be
audited.”
We do note that the document regarding election security on the SOS website is from 2016.
Washoe
performs audits and monitoring before and after every election. Despite record
breaking turnout in 2018, the post-election audit was completed Saturday,
November 10th by the Accuracy Certification Board (ACB) – Reconciliation
completed with no unexplained errors. A final abstract has been printed and
vote history posted.
We look forward to a new SOS program effective January 1, 2022 pursuant
to SB123 that will require a post-election audit that manually examines the
paper record of the votes cast. All county clerks will be required to conduct
risk-limiting audits. A Pilot program will run in 2020.
Recounts are not
Automatically Prompted
Recounts for
federal offices (President, Senator, Representative) are subject to federal
law. All other elections are subject to Nevada Revised Statutes enacted through
the legislature and the Governor. The Elections Division of the Nevada SOS
Office published the Recount and Contest Guide 2018 enumerating the policies enacted by the legislature and the procedures
designed by the SOS office, when such procedures are not specifically
identified by statute.
Indivisible
Northern Nevada’s Fair Democracy Team does have concerns about our current system. Most notably:
- There are no circumstances (close margins, anomalies, etc.) that
trigger automatic recounts. Other states do have these protections. Recounts will only be conducted if one is
requested by one of the losing candidates.
- The person or entity calling for a recount
bears a significant financial liability and prospective burden if they do not prevail as a result of the recount.
Although, the requesting party is entitled to an estimate of the cost of a
recount and then is required to deposit the estimated cost prior to the recount, the cost has become prohibitive
for all but the healthiest candidates or organizations.
Additionally, recounts are often required to be very broad, rather than
narrowly defined, causing the associated costs to be larger. We note a recent
example of this process at work: In the 2018 Washoe County Assessor race which
ended with a margin of 0.29%. There were only two precincts at serious issue,
but the current law required a countywide recount at a cost of $15,000 - If an
anomaly is discovered, the county or the Secretary of State could refuse to
certify the results of the election, but state law isn’t clear on what would
happen if the results weren’t certified.
- State
law does allow for election contests. A
person can contest an election if there was a malfunction in any of the voting
equipment (i.e., an anomaly). More
information about election contests can be found in NRS 293.407 through 293.435.
In June 07, 2019 Governor Steve Sisolak and
Secretary Cegavske announced that Nevada was chosen to participate in the National Governors
Association (NGA) Policy Academy on Election Cybersecurity to work on best practices and improving public confidence in the
security of elections in preparation for the 2020 cycle.
Based on our review, INNV asserts the
need for more information and better information distribution, especially
pursuant to our new laws meant to expand and improve voter participation:
For example, every voter can use any vote
center during early voting AND on election day. It appears that we ended up
with long lines on election night in 2018 because the news media kept reporting
about the vote centers from the malls, so many voters assumed that only the
mall voting locations were vote centers. Communication about all our good voter
registration and election changes will be vital for those changes to produce
good results instead of chaos.
Information
Regarding Poll Locations
INNV documented an unintentional, yet significantweakness in the 2018 election that
threatened to suppress the vote in Sun Valley. We discovered that due to a delayed
venue contract the early voting schedule published by the Washoe County
Registrar showed no voting venue for Sun Valley, despite the long history for a
specific location. A subsequent schedule was published with the new venue but
with no communication from the Registrar highlighting the change. We were told an effort was made to communicate this
to voters via post, but INNV’s Registration Team was unable to
confirm the date the post office sent the notification or whether all affected voters received this
notification. We urged election and community officials to find additional ways
to communicate accurate information through the press, on electronic
billboards, and additional roadway signage to disseminate information
throughout the affected community.
The community of Cold Springs did not
have an early voting location, so with record turnout in
2018, they became the last polling site to close in the state. Registrar Spikula says her
office will look at the issues, but she is confident that they can be solved:
“I fully
anticipate moving forward if we need more locations, more machines, our county
commission, our county manager will fully support us in that. We will
definitely get all the equipment, people . . . whatever resources we need.”
Indivisible
Northern Nevada leadership remain concerned about the dissemination of voting
location information. AB345 eliminated the requirement to publish certain
information relating to elections in a newspaper, including names of candidates
and offices for which they are running and information on all statewide ballot
measures, but to our understanding polling locations are still required to be
published.
Election Security
at the Federal Level
Unless everybody’s vote is secure, nobody’s vote
is secure.
We are only as
strong as the weakest state. However, across the US, the votes of millions of
citizens are still NOT secure. Despite all the work Nevada is doing to secure
our elections, our votes for President and Vice-President remain glaringly
vulnerable. States vary widely in the attention and resources they have devoted
to election security. We believe that the federal agencies with expertise in
cybersecurity should be responsible for carrying out comprehensive threat
assessments on election infrastructure. States need assistance in securing
their election systems, especially against sophisticated threats foreign and
domestic.
In 2020, nearly 16 million people in 12 states will be
voting on systems with no auditable paper back-up, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Other serious election systems vulnerabilities were detailed in a
recent report created by a group
of white hat hackers investigating
voting machines currently in use throughout the U.S. These include the use of
outdated software with known, unresolved bugs
that can be exploited by hackers, along with poor password security, among many
other issues.
While the diversity
of hardware and software systems across the US makes our entire system
virtually impossible to hack all at once, interference in just a few key
counties in battleground states would be enough to swing a close election. It
is still imperative that Congress and the President act now to provide funding
for election security, especially in key counties and states.
Take Action Now:
A Citizens’ Call to Action
Securing our elections is a matter of national security. Here are 3 things we
recommend everyone do now:
- Call your senators and urge them to pass the election security funding bill that was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this
summer.
- Do your own research. We have provided links to a number of
resources that can help you understand this complex issue, and what
remedies are needed.
- Help raise awareness. Share this information with others via
social media and letters to the editor in your community.
- Volunteer
in your county: Interested in becoming a poll
worker in Washoe County? CLICK HERE to apply.
APPENDIX
Assembly Bill 137 specifies that if a request is made to
have a polling location (whether for early voting or on election day) on an
Indian reservation, that request must continue for all future elections unless
withdrawn by the Indian Tribe. Prior to
this bill’s passage, the tribes had to request a polling location, for early
voting and election day before each election. Effective date: October 1, 2019
Assembly Bill 345 requires counties to have at least one
place that’s known as a vote center where any registered voter in the county
can cast a ballot, requires that same day registration be available both during
early voting and on election day. It also changes the deadline to request an
absentee ballot from the current 7 days to 14 days before the election and
allows for a person to request a permanent absentee ballot. Finally, it changes
the counting process of absentee ballots such that they need to be postmarked by Election Day instead of received by Election Day and gives the
counties up to 7 days after an election to count them. Counties will have to
establish a system to notify absentee voters if there are signature-matching
issues and give voters an opportunity to cure that record up to the seventh day
after the election.
Assembly Bill 431 changes the previous cumbersome and
limiting process for voting restoration for convicted felons. This bill
maintains the right to vote of a convicted person who is not in prison and
immediately restores the right to vote to a person that has been released from
prison. It also restores the right to vote for those with prior convictions who
have not had their vote restored and are not in prison. Bill was effective July
1, 2019. If someone is convicted of a felony in another state and out of prison
and now resides in Nevada, he or she can register to vote. There is no
distinction based on category of felony or type of felony.
Assembly Bill 450 deals with the apportionment of voting
districts, both Congressional districts and Legislative districts. It requires
the Department of Corrections to notify the State Demographer of the last known
address of an incarcerated inmate if the person was a resident of Nevada and
then count that person for apportionment purposes based on their last known
address, not where they are incarcerated.
Senate Bill 123 requires all county, city clerks and staff
to complete cyber security training annually. It also defines and lists the
requirements for appointment of a cybersecurity incident response team. In
addition, this bill requires the Secretary of State to adopt regulations for
conducting risk-limiting audits of elections with a pilot program in place for
the 2020 election. This is a type of post-election audit that manually examines
the paper record of the votes cast. All county clerks will be required to
conduct risk-limiting audits based on the Secretary of State program effective
January 1, 2022.
Senate Bill 450 deals with the recall election process and
what must occur before a recall election is held. This bill requires the
verification of all the signatures on the petition. It requires the recall
petition proponents to pay for the cost of verifying the signatures. And it
requires a halfway through check-in process during the 90-day recall process.
Senate Bill 452 requires organizations that distribute
bulk absentee ballot requests to notify the local election officials in the
county where they’re distributing those forms at least 28 days before
distributing the forms. It requires the bulk mailings be done no later than 35
days before an election. The
bill revises the deadline for providing such notification to the county or city
clerk from not later than 14 days to not later than 28 days before distributing
the forms. 25 Sections 1.1 and 2 of this Bill prohibits such a person from
mailing the forms to registered voters later than 35 days before the election.
Senate Bill 557 deals with campaign finance. It defines
the term personal use and expressly
prohibits using campaign finance funds to pay a salary. If a public officer or
a candidate for public office has an expense that exists regardless of their
duties as a public officer or regardless of their campaign, then they cannot
use campaign funds to pay for that. The bill also increases the civil penalty
for violating campaign finance law to $10,000 per violation.
Senate Joint Resolution 3 proposes to amend
the Nevada Constitution to include the Voter Bill of Rights which is
currently in statute in Chapter 293 of NRS. It will go to a vote next year on
the 2020 General Election ballot and asks voters whether they want to amend the
Constitution to include the Voter Bill of Rights in the Nevada Constitution.
