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May 31, 2022  | by Fredreka Schouten and Kelly Mena 

 

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS TAKE AIM AT VOTE COUNTING MACHINES

As false claims about fraud in the 2020 election continue to churn, some election skeptics have landed on a new strategy: Get rid of the machines used to count ballots.

 

Lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation that would shift to hand-counting and do away with electronic tabulation. And some local officials have taken action to ditch machines, as Fredreka recently reported. 

 

Election experts, including county clerks, have slammed the idea as impractical and said it could open the door to election subversion because hand-counting would delay results for weeks or months – creating opportunities for bad-faith politicians to prematurely declare themselves the victors of their respective races. 

 

“It would be chaotic,” said Jennifer Morrell, a partner at the Elections Group consulting firm and a former election official. “The folks who are promoting this idea don’t understand how elections work.”

 

For instance, the controversial examination and hand count of 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona, ordered by Republicans in that state’s Senate, took months to execute -- although it focused on just two contests on the 2020 ballot and relied on “an arena full of individuals” to help carry it out, she said. 

 

Morrell served as an independent observer of that count, at the request of Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ office.

PENNSYLVANIA BATTLE

 

Still, the issue could emerge as a key flashpoint in this year’s race for Pennsylvania governor.

 

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who earlier this month won the Republican nomination in this key swing state, has falsely maintained that widespread fraud led to former President Donald Trump’s more than 80,000-vote loss in the Keystone State.

 

And he’s taken aim at voting machines. 

 

“As governor, I get to decertify any or all machines in the state,” he said during an April appearance on the podcast of former Trump aide Steve Bannon. “I have my eyes on several counties that have machines that I believe are compromised.”

 

“It’s going to be a top issue for me,” he added.

 

Attempts to reach Mastriano through his campaign and Senate office were unsuccessful.

 

Pennsylvania is one of three states where the governor appoints the secretary of state, giving the state’s chief executive wide latitude to oversee elections. Mastriano will face state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, in the general election.

REDISTRICTING CHECK-IN WITH CNN'S ETHAN COHEN AND MELISSA HOLZBERG DEPALO

 

 

We last spoke with Ethan and Melissa about redistricting in March. As the process draws to a close nationwide, here’s the latest update:

 

Two years after the 2020 census was conducted, congressional redistricting around the country is finally concluding -- at least for now.

  

As the process winds down, we can look back at a redistricting cycle that was full of drama. There were legal fights, with maps being thrown out (and sometimes reinstated), like in Maryland and North Carolina. There were partisan legislatures that drew gerrymanders to advance their own political objectives (looking at you, Texas and Illinois), and new redistricting commissions in states such as Virginia and New York that failed to achieve their goals. 

 

However, there were also success stories, such as independent commissions that drew district lines with little partisan influence from state lawmakers in Michigan and Colorado. 

            

Overall, the nation’s new congressional map doesn’t seem to have a dramatically different partisan lean from the last decade’s. However, in states across the country, partisan legislatures have drawn safer districts for their incumbents, reducing the number of seats where the outcome could be affected by political shifts. 

 

Despite all that activity, this decade’s redistricting process isn’t yet over.

 

New Hampshire is the last state that hasn’t passed a congressional map. While the Granite State’s legislature passed a map, GOP Gov. Chris Sununu said he would veto it and now the map will be drawn by a special master appointed by the state’s Supreme Court. The special master released his first draft last week and oral arguments will be held on the map Tuesday.

 

And many maps could change before 2024. In some states, the process will start from scratch, as maps imposed by courts are set to expire after the election. In others, ongoing court battles, including at the Supreme Court, could change the lines for future cycles.

MICHIGAN GOVERNOR'S RACE ROCKED BY BALLOT SCANDAL

 

Five Republican candidates for Michigan governor will be kept off the primary ballot for now after state officials last week deadlocked during consideration of whether the candidates were ineligible due to invalid signatures.

 

The five candidates affected by the decision are Detroit Police Chief James Craig, businessman Perry Johnson, Michael Brown, Donna Brandenburg and Michael Markey. All five are vying to take on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in what could be one of the most closely watched gubernatorial campaigns of the year.

 

But as of late Friday, Craig and Johnson, who are considered the front-runners for the GOP nomination, filed lawsuits that challenge their disqualification and seek to have their names appear on the August 2 primary ballot.

 

Both lawsuits are calling for expedited consideration of the cases. The lawsuits allege that the State Board of Canvassers failed to comply with state law in its review of the challenged signatures by not checking them against the state’s Qualified Voter File before striking them as fraudulent. 

 

“It was evident during the testimony that the BOE (Board of Elections) staff did not perform its legal obligation to reject signatures on a line-by-line basis against the Qualified Voter File. Instead, they rejected whole pages based on their own determination of fraud,” Johnson said in an email statement to CNN. 

 

“We are confident that when the law is justly applied, our campaign will be on the ballot this August," he added. 

 

The entire fiasco stems from a state report that said the Board of Elections had identified 36 petition circulators who submitted at least 68,000 invalid signatures across multiple petition drives for various offices in what the report described as a widespread case of forgeries in signature gathering. The invalid signatures extended beyond those collected for gubernatorial candidates.

 

A gubernatorial candidate in Michigan needs at least 15,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

YOU SHOULD READ

 

• This piece from The New York Times looking at Cleta Mitchell’s efforts to recruit election deniers to monitor future elections. Mitchell was a central figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. 

 

• This piece from the Washington Post on how Georgia’s primary election ran smoothly this year, a sign to voting rights advocates that their mobilization and voter registration efforts paid off amid new voting laws.

 

• Our CNN colleague Katelyn Polantz’s exclusive look at how the Department of Justice is expanding its probe into Trump’s fake elector scheme.

WHAT WE'RE TRYING TO DO HERE

Our goal is to help guide conversations about the battle for voting rights in a critical year for American democracy. We’re sharing the latest developments in the battle for ballot access, hearing from experts, answering your questions and providing practical information about how to vote this year. Conversations about the battle for voting rights in a critical year for American democracy. Look for it in your inbox every Tuesday – along with a way to sign up for the free weekly CITIZEN BY CNN events. And, please, drop us a line to let us know what you think: [email protected]. And get your friends to subscribe here.