Elections
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Twitter plans for the worst with new election misinformation policy
Twitter is ramping up its fight against election misinformation ahead of the 2020 election.
Facebook will ban new political ads in the week before US elections
Facebook has announced that it will block new political ads a week before US elections, as part of a new campaign to protect the integrity of elections.
USPS will stop removing mail-sorting machines until after the election
There are no plans to reinstate machines that have already been taken offline.
USPS appears to be retiring vital machines ahead of mail-in ballot surge
The United States Postal Service is reportedly retiring mail sorting machines. According to Postmaster general Louis DeJoy, the agency is in a “dire” financial situation, citing significant falls in mail volume, “a broken business model” and an inadequate management strategy as reasons for the “impending liquidity crisis.” Dejoy has been implementing changes since assuming the role in June, including organizational restructuring and a management hiring freeze, saying they’re meant to “strengthen the Postal Service.”
Report finds many US election officials vulnerable to phishing attacks
Security researchers have determined that some US election officials are vulnerable to phishing attacks, whether through accounts or software.
TikTok users and K-pop fans say they wrecked Trump's Tulsa rally
TikTok users and K-pop fans say they sabotaged Trump's Tulsa rally through campaigns to reserve tickets and not show up.
Study finds security holes in online voting for New Jersey and West Virginia (updated)
Researchers say they've found privacy and security issues in OmniBallot's online voting platform.
Recommended Reading: He bought StubHub right before the pandemic
Noah Kirsch, Forbes In November, Eric Baker’s online ticket marketplace Viagogo purchased rival StubHub for $4 billion.
Elizabeth Warren campaign open sources its organizing tools
The impact of Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign might be felt well after it ended. The Warren for President team is open-sourcing some of its key get-out-the-vote projects to help other politicians and cause supporters with their own efforts. These include the peer-to-peer texting platform Spoke, the polling location search tool Pollaris, a Caucus App used in Iowa (above) and the data handling app Redhook, among other tools.
Facebook and Twitter take down accounts linked to Russian troll farm
Facebook and Twitter took down a network of accounts with links to the same Russian troll farm responsible for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. The Internet Research Agency (IRA), which has spent the last several years using social media to spread disinformation and manipulate US elections, was ultimately behind the Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, the companies said. Facebook reports the network of 49 Facebook accounts, 69 Pages and 85 Instagram accounts was in the "early stages," but they had already reached hundreds of thousands of users by the time they were removed.
Netanyahu's party left Israel's entire voter registry exposed
Political parties have left voter records exposed before, but seldom on this scale. Haaretz has learned that Likud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, uploaded Israel's entire voter registry to the Elector voting management app, which had glaring security issues that effectively left the data wide open for days. You could even access the info through a web browser without tools or expertise. The collection included personal details (such as addresses and ID numbers) for nearly 6.5 million Israelis, including Netanyahu and other top politicians.
Iowa Democrats say sloppy app code delayed caucus results
We're still waiting for a full explanation about what, exactly, went wrong during Iowa's caucus Monday night, but the state's Democratic party claims a "coding issue" in a new app is the biggest reason for the delayed results. The app, which the WSJ reports was developed by the Washington, DC-based company Shadow, managed to accurately record caucus data submitted by precincts across the state. But the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) claims a programming error made the app only report partial data. The organization managed to locate and fix the error, but now it's in working on confirming the caucus results via paper records. (Update: The IDP says it plans to announce results by 5PM ET today, the Washington Post reports.)
Iowa Caucus results delayed, link to mobile app problems is unclear (updated)
Technology is already creating hiccups for the 2020 election mere hours into the caucuses. Democratic county chairs in Iowa told Bloomberg that precinct chairs were having problems downloading or signing into the mobile app used to tabulate and share results from the roughly 1,700 sites. They could still provide results through a phone line, but the problems threatened to delay reporting on results for hours.
West Virginia will allow people with disabilities to vote by smartphone
More governments in the US are offering the option to vote by smartphone. West Virginia's governor is poised to sign a bill requiring that all counties offer people with disabilities a way to vote online, just in time for the 2020 presidential election. It'd be the first state to provide the option. While the details have yet to be established, Secretary of State Mac Warner said it would most likely offer the mobile app Voatz, just like it did when it allowed online voting for overseas troops.
Lyft expands free voter rides to all US primaries
Lyft is bringing back its free rides for voters during the 2020 US election cycle, and this time it won't be limited to the final vote. The ridesharing firm is expanding its Voting Access Program to offer no-cost rides to polls through the entire primary calendar and general election, starting with the Iowa Caucus in early February. As before, it's partnering with nonprofits like the League of Women Voters, National Urban League and Voto Latino Foundation to make the rides available.
Seattle-area election will let residents vote by smartphone
Claims that Americans could vote by phone have usually been hoaxes, but Seattle-area residents will get to try the real thing before long. NPR has learned that a King County board of supervisors election on February 11th will let all eligible voters cast their ballots by smartphone -- the first time this has been an option in the country. You'll have the mobile voting option from today (January 22nd) through to the actual election day.
Apple News partners on a presidential debate for the first time in February
Apple isn't just offering in-depth election news -- for 2020, it'll have a degree of participation in the process. Apple News will partner on its first political debate on February 7th, when it cooperates with ABC and WMUR-TV for the eighth Democratic debate in Manchester, New Hampshire. Apple hasn't outlined just what it will do as part of its co-hosting duties (we've asked it for details), but it's safe to presume that the debate will receive priority coverage in the News app.
A bug caused UK election ad spend data to disappear on Facebook
Earlier this week, an unspecified bug caused as many hundreds of thousands of political ads to disappear from Facebook's Ad Library, a tool the company rolled out globally earlier this year to provide more transparency on political spending. According to CNN Business, the bug caused ads to go missing in several countries across the world, including the UK.
Reddit bans 61 accounts linked to 'suspected campaign from Russia'
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn presented leaked documents to back claims that the British government put its NHS on the table as part of trade talks with the US. Earlier this week, network analysis firm Graphika Labs linked the leak of the documents and the posts on Reddit from a month before to techniques used by a Russian influence campaign on Facebook dubbed "Secondary Infektion" that had been uncovered in June. As DFR Labs described it "The operation's goal appears to have been to divide, discredit, and distract Western countries." According to The Guardian it's unclear how the documents ended up with the Labour Party, although they'd clearly been floating around and may have been the source of a report published in The Telegraph back in July, long before Corbyn showed them or they were posted on Reddit. Now, Reddit has announced that it went back to the original post and "along with indicators from law enforcement" linked it to a "pattern of coordinated behavior." As a result, it has banned the r/ukwhistleblower subreddit and 61 accounts from the platform, with their names published in a post so people can see which accounts are known to be involved.
Google bans political ad targeting by affiliation and voter records
Google is the latest internet giant to rethink its approach to political ads. The company is limiting the targeting options for election ads to age, gender and general location. US advertisers will no longer be allowed to target based on political leanings or public voting records, for example. The new strategy will take effect in the UK next week (just before the country's General Election), in the EU by the end of 2019, and all other countries by January 6th, 2020.
