Yesterday, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced that Michigan has become the 25th state to join the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which helps states keep their voter lists up-to-date and accurate. This marks a major milestone for ERIC, which has existed for just over six years, but now includes half of the states,…
CEIR Research Associate Jenny Lovell spent Election Day 2018 in Fairfax City, Virginia, where she was an election officer. She showed up to her assigned precinct before 5 a.m. and worked until after the polls closed to help ensure the election went off without a hitch. Continue on to read more about her Election Day…
This past Tuesday, I was privileged to be invited to visit with election officials from the State of Colorado and Denver County during their primary election day. It was a great opportunity to watch professionals in their environment and see how their work isn’t static–they are constantly seeking improvements in security and efficiency. As many…
This morning, the Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing on “Russian Interference in the 2016 Elections.” This comes in the context of recent revelations from former FBI Director James Comey, as well as multiple leaks and recent reports in The Intercept, Bloomberg, Politico, and McClatchy, alleging widespread hacking of election systems. Some of these reports have claimed, without much information…
As news continues to trickle out about efforts of other nations to interfere and tamper with American elections, the line between working in U.S. elections and working internationally is blurring, as cyber-security and other issues require us to consider threats that go beyond our borders. It is timely, then, that for the past two days,…
Yesterday, the Intercept reported on a leaked NSA document detailing Russian government efforts to hack election offices and voting technology. There are serious and disturbing claims in this report, most of which aren’t entirely new, but which add details to some concerns surround the 2016 election and deserve to be put into context. WHAT WE KNOW The…
We’ve now had a weekend to ruminate on The President’s signing of an executive order last week, establishing a “Commission on Election Integrity.” Even with the perspective of some time, the order and the way it was approached leads to far more questions than answers. Specifically, why is this commission being formed, who will participate on it,…
It’s been a busy few months for the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR)! We just attended and presented at the NASED and NASS conferences in DC last month and updated the attendees on what we’re working on, and we want to share this information with all of you. First, it might be helpful…
1. It’s exceedingly difficult to hack or rig an election. Despite hysteria to the contrary, it is nearly impossible to hack or rig the outcome of a national election in the U.S., for several reasons. Election administration in the U.S. is decentralized. There are nearly 10,000 separate election jurisdictions in the U.S., using dozens of different…
As we reported in September, Facebook outreach to its users contributed to a significant increase in online voter registration activity in the days preceding National Voter Registration Day on September 27. Online registration transactions – both new registrations and updates to existing registrations – appear to have increased more than seven times on average September 23rd…
