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    Georgia secretary of state fends off cyberattack targeting absentee ballot website.

    Georgia’s secretary of state warded off a cybersecurity threat this month against what was most likely an attack by a foreign country targeting its website that voters can use to request absentee ballots.An unusual spike in users on the site appeared to be an attempt to shut it down. There were ultimately no disruptions to absentee ballot access. State and local election officials have faced increasing threats, both to their operations and physical safety, that have made the otherwise mundane, bureaucratic work of election management increasingly risky.The secretary of state’s office thwarted a sudden rise in users trying to access the site on Oct. 14, a tactic sometimes used by hackers to send a website offline by overwhelming it with requests, WSB-TV, a broadcaster in Atlanta, reported. A spokesman for the Georgia secretary of state confirmed this reporting.“We saw a spike of around 420,000 individual entities attempting to access the absentee ballot portal,” Gabe Sterling, an official in the secretary of state’s office, told WSB-TV. “We identified it and attempted to mitigate it immediately, and you see it start to drop back down.”Mr. Sterling also said that the attack may have come from a foreign country, although details were not clear.This is not the first cybersecurity threat Georgia election officials have faced. In 2022, a group of allies to former President Donald J. Trump tried to access voter data in Coffee County. The county also faced its own cybersecurity attack this year, according to CNN. Poll workers have faced threats of violence around the country. More

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    Pennsylvania Supreme Court Allows Provisional Votes After Mail Ballot Rejections

    The decision is likely to affect thousands of mail-in ballots among the millions that will be cast in Pennsylvania, a pivotal 2024 swing state.The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that voters who submit mail-in ballots that are rejected for not following procedural directions can still cast provisional ballots.The decision is likely to affect thousands of mail-in ballots among the millions that will be cast in Pennsylvania, the swing state that holds the most electoral votes and is set to be the most consequential in the presidential election.The court ruled 4 to 3 that the Butler County board of elections must count provisional ballots cast by several voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected for lacking mandatory secrecy envelopes.Secrecy envelopes are commonly used to protect the privacy of a person’s vote. In Pennsylvania, voters must accurately sign and date this outer envelope before sending in their ballots.Under the new ruling, voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for being “naked ballots,” lacking the secrecy envelope, or for bearing inaccurate or missing information on the envelope will be given the chance to cast a provisional vote at their polling place. The ruling makes the practice available statewide.Provisional ballots are counted only when the voter’s registration is confirmed after voting — and the rejected ballot will not count. Many counties in the state will notify voters if their mail-in ballots are rejected for not following technical procedures and will give them the opportunity for a provisional vote.The court’s majority argued that allowing people a provisional vote helps ensure voter access while preventing double voting.The Republican litigants argued that the Butler County elections board had initially correctly voided the provisional ballots cast by the voters whose mail-in ballots had been rejected on procedural grounds. The ruling is a blow to the Republican National Committee and the state G.O.P., which brought the appeal to the state’s highest court.A spokeswoman for the R.N.C. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Pennsylvania Democratic Party, which had participated in appealing the case, considered the ruling a victory.“While Republicans try to block your vote, Democrats are protecting it and standing up for the principle that every eligible voter has a right to make their voice heard, no matter how they vote,” Charles Lutvak, a spokesman for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, and Alex Floyd, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a joint statement. “This ruling reaffirms that principle.” More

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    With Election Day 2 Weeks Away, 15 Million Voters Have Already Cast a Ballot

    Since the pandemic, early voting has become a broadly accepted part of American elections. But it is difficult to glean partisan advantage.With two weeks until Election Day, more than 15 million people have already cast their ballots, the clearest sign yet that voting habits were forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic and that early voting has become a permanent feature of the American democratic process.While many people cast a mail-in ballot or voted early in the 2020 election out of necessity amid a dangerous pandemic, a lot of voters are choosing to vote early in this election, too. Some are taking advantage of new laws that expanded early voting options; others simply favor the process that exploded in popularity four years ago.Many states have set records for the first day of early voting. On Thursday, more than 353,000 ballots were cast in North Carolina, a record for the swing state still reeling from Hurricane Helene. On Friday, nearly 177,000 voters cast a ballot in Louisiana, a record for the deep-red state.The shift has been starkest in Georgia, where voters have set a daily record for in-person early voting nearly every day since polls opened last Tuesday. More than 1.5 million voters have already cast an early ballot in the critical battleground state.The persistent preference of many Americans to vote early — both by mail and in person — comes after the 2020 election prompted a sea change in voting habits for the country. With many fearful of voting in person during the pandemic, 65.6 million people voted by mail that year, and another 35.8 million voted early in person in an attempt to avoid large crowds.Yet as people flood early voting centers this time around, distilling a partisan advantage or what the early vote presages for overall turnout is difficult.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Criticizes Harris on the Border and the Economy in Michigan

    Former President Donald J. Trump crisscrossed the battleground state of Michigan on Friday, casting himself as an economic protectionist to blue-collar voters while attacking Vice President Kamala Harris over immigration on the same day she visited the southern border. Mr. Trump used a pair of events to try to blame Ms. Harris for inflation and the migrant crisis, tapping into some of the populist themes that helped him win Michigan — and the presidency — in the 2016 election. In 2020, the state flipped for President Biden.In the afternoon, the former president visited a manufacturing facility near Grand Rapids before holding a town hall event in the Detroit suburbs that started around 90 minutes late and ended after just a half-hour. At the second event, in Warren, Mich., Mr. Trump vowed, if Congress did not act, to use executive action to enact protective tariffs to limit the flow of imports from China and other countries that he said were killing jobs in the state. “The word ‘tariff’ I love,” he said at Macomb Community College, where he was joined onstage by Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, one of his staunchest allies in the Senate who served as the town hall’s moderator. Mr. Trump fielded a handful of friendly questions from his supporters that set up familiar talking points and lines of attack. He said Americans were forgoing certain comforts because they could no longer afford them under the Biden-Harris administration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Early Voting Begins in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia

    Early voting began in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia on Friday, letting voters in those states cast ballots while Election Day remains a month and a half away, on Nov. 5.All three states began sending out mail ballots on Friday, and residents now have the option of voting in person. Minnesota and South Dakota are letting voters fill out ballots and turn them in at various locations, while Virginia has opened some polling locations.Historically, voters who were unable to make it to the polls on Election Day had to request absentee ballots. But mail and absentee ballots now function effectively the same in many states. The terminology used varies; Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia mostly refer to early voting ballots as absentee.None of the three states are must-win battlegrounds, most of which start in-person early voting in October. Read more about important dates and deadlines, and ways to access information about the voting process in your state.MinnesotaVoters can complete paper ballots in person or request mail ballots through an online form or by mail. The ballots can be submitted in person at designated voting locations, which include municipal buildings, public libraries and community centers. Ballots that are mailed in must be received by Election Day.South DakotaSouth Dakotans can complete paper ballots in person at their local county auditor’s office during business hours or request to have them mailed. All mail ballots must be received by the end of business on Nov. 4, the day before Election Day.VirginiaMany counties opened at least one polling location on Friday, including local general registrar’s offices. Not all polling locations are open yet. More will open through late October. Early voting ends on Nov. 2.Virginia voters can request mail ballots in person at the local registrar’s office, by mail or online through Oct. 15. Voters who request ballots after the deadline may still be eligible in cases of emergency or unexpected obligation. Mail ballots must be submitted in person by 7 p.m. on Election Day or, if submitted by mail, postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the registrar’s office by noon on Nov. 8.Taylor Robinson More

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    Misdated Mail-In Ballots Should Still Count, Pennsylvania Court Rules

    The state court found that throwing out otherwise eligible ballots because they were undated or had the wrong date on the outer envelope would violate the State Constitution.Pennsylvania’s two most populous counties cannot throw out otherwise timely and eligible mail-in ballots because they are undated or do not have the correct date on the outer envelope, a state court ruled on Friday.The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, siding with voter advocacy groups, found that tossing ballots because they did not comport with a 2019 law requiring voters to date and sign the outer envelope would violate a State Constitution clause guaranteeing “free and equal elections” and pose a “substantial threat of disenfranchisement.” The ruling could play a critical role in November in the battleground state, which polls now show to be a tossup between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump. Election officials disqualified nearly 16,000 mail-in ballots for irregularities during April’s primary election. Almost half were disqualified because of issues like missing signatures and wrong dates on outer envelopes.The ruling applies only to Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties. Whether it will extend across the state will most likely depend on county officials and guidance from the office of the secretary of the commonwealth, who leads Pennsylvania’s Department of State.“This ruling makes clear a voter’s minor error of forgetting to date or misdating a ballot envelope cannot be a cause for disenfranchisement,” the department said in a statement. Gov. Josh Shapiro hailed the court’s decision in a statement posted on social media, calling it “a victory for Pennsylvanians’ fundamental right to vote.”The state Republican Party, which had intervened in the suit in support of the state law, known as Act 77, is likely to appeal the ruling to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The party’s state chairman referred a request for comment to its office in Harrisburg, which did not immediately respond.In 2022, the same Commonwealth Court ordered the counting of undated mail-in ballots after David McCormick, a Republican primary candidate for the U.S. Senate, filed a lawsuit during his close race against Mehmet Oz, the TV personality also known as Dr. Oz.Voting by mail in Pennsylvania rose roughly tenfold between the 2016 and 2020 presidential election cycles to 2.7 million ballots, which amounted to about 39 percent of all ballots cast across the state. The rise followed the passage of Act 77 in 2019, which allowed all Pennsylvanians to cast their votes by mail.The law also prohibited county officials from processing or counting mail-in ballots until the morning of Election Day. That slowed vote counting and results, which contributed to some protests in downtown Philadelphia in 2020.Officials across the country have been scrambling to figure out how to count ballots with only months before the election. In Georgia, local officials are trying to make sense of new rules about certification from the state election board.Nebraska is in the middle of a court battle over whether the votes of people convicted of felonies should be counted. Like in Pennsylvania, the Nebraska dispute hinges on whether a new state law comports with the State Constitution. More

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    Wisconsin Supreme Court Says Ballot Drop Boxes Can Again Be Used

    The decision by the court’s liberal majority, delivered four months before the November election, reverses a ruling by conservative jurists two years ago.The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s new liberal majority said on Friday that ballot drop boxes can once again be used widely in the state, reversing a ruling issued two years ago when the court had a conservative majority.On a practical level, the ruling changes how Wisconsin, a closely divided state that could tip the Electoral College, will carry out an election that is just four months away. On a symbolic level, the judicial U-turn is likely to fuel Republican claims that the court has become a nakedly partisan force — claims that Democrats made themselves not long ago, when most of the justices were conservatives.Drop boxes were used in Wisconsin for years as one of several ways, along with early in-person and mail-in voting, for voters to submit ballots before Election Day. The widespread use of drop boxes in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, drew the ire of Republicans and prompted a lawsuit that the court’s previous majority decided by mostly banning their use.“Our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes,” Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, a liberal, wrote for the four-justice majority on Friday. “It merely acknowledges,” she added, what Wisconsin law “has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily conferred discretion.”Her conservative colleague, Justice Rebecca Bradley, disagreed, writing in a dissent that “the majority again forsakes the rule of law in an attempt to advance its political agenda.”The ruling on Friday is part of a broader push by Democrats and progressive groups to have the Wisconsin Supreme Court weigh in on some of the state’s thorniest policy issues. After liberals won a 4-to-3 majority last year, the court ordered the redrawing of state legislative district boundaries, which had long been gerrymandered to benefit Republicans. Earlier this week, the justices announced that they would hear a case that asks them to consider whether the State Constitution includes a right to abortion. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Election Fraud Is Rare. Except, Maybe, in Bridgeport, Conn.

    Voters say that campaigns in Connecticut’s largest city routinely rely on absentee ballots — collected illegally — to win elections. Now, the city faces a mayoral primary redo.Two months ago, Joe Ganim received the most votes in the race for mayor of Bridgeport, Conn. This week, the city will vote again — to decide if he should even be the Democratic candidate.The unlikely and confusing situation arose after a judge ruled that there was enough evidence of misconduct in the Democratic primary in September to throw its result — a victory by Mayor Ganim — into doubt. The judge pointed to videos showing “partisans” repeatedly stuffing absentee ballots into drop boxes.The footage provided a particularly lurid illustration of ballot tampering, though experts say election fraud is rare in the United States and often accidental when it occurs.But in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, ballot manipulation has undermined elections for years.In interviews and in court testimony, residents of the city’s low-income housing complexes described people sweeping through their apartment buildings, often pressuring them to apply for absentee ballots they were not legally entitled to.Sometimes, residents say, campaigners fill out the applications or return the ballots for them — all of which is illegal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More