Category Archives: campaign trend

Campaign TREND begets Regulatory TREND. An Ethics Commission + Campaign Contributions in Bitcoin = Regulations

State: Wisconsin

What did Wisconsin’s Ethics Commission do about bitcoin campaign contributions? The Ethics Commission Administrator asked the Legislature to make a determination on how to handle bitcoin contributions

What 2 policy reasons did the Ethics Commission give to the Legislature? 

  • “provide clarity to candidates and committees as to whether they may accept contributions of cryptocurrency.”
  • concern over the anonimity of bitcoin contributions

What prompted bitcoin as campaign…

Campaign TREND. Campaign Hacked. Campaign Funds Taken. What you Need to Know

the candidate: California State Senate incumbent Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento

the alleged hack: Sent the campaign treasurer, from the candidates account, an invoice for a vaccine-related nonprofit organization, billing  the campaign for $46,000,  which was paid

What track was left? A series of emails between the Campaign Treasurer and the hackers, pretending to the candidate, with the treasurer asking whether the candidate really wanted to pay the Texas based vaccine related non-profit

Sacr…

Election Trend. Risk Limiting Audits for Elections. +1 More More State Adopts the Policy. Procurement & Legislation Required.

State: Colorado

What is risk limiting audit for elections? 

  • require all jurisdictions to have a sound ballot accounting process
  • require use a batch size of one ballot
  • require that a cast vote record exist and be available and retrievable for each individual ballot

How do risk limiting audits combat election hacking?

  • The number of ballots to select initially is calculated by using the risk limit and the margin of the contests
  • Ballots are next randomly selected
  • Each ballot’s vote…

Election Trend. Social Media Disclosures. Read the Bill.

A bipartisan bill in Congress seeks to require social media companies to disclose the same campaign related information that is required of radio and tv.

Which social media companies would be affected? websites, apps, search engines, social media and ad networks with over 50 million unique visitors

What would be trigger amount for dislcosures?  if a person or entity spends at least $500 on political ads a year

What disclosures would be required?

  •  copies of ads
  • information about groups…

Poll. Election Hacking Impacts Voter Turn out. 3 Key Pieces of Data.

A poll by Carbon Black reveals the concern level of voters for election integrity.

  • 27% of voters polled are considering not voting because of fear that their voter data will not be secure.
  • If the 27% hold true, that reduduces voters by 59 million voters
  • 45% think the 2018 elections will be impacted by cyber breaches

SC Media | Cybersecurity concerns may stop 59 million Americans from voting in 2018

The Steps Maryland took after hacker went for its voter information. Procurement Opportunity.

In August 2016, Maryland officials notices hackers were trying to get to voter information, that set off a flurry of legislator and regulator activity. Here’s where they ended up almost a year later:

  • legislators didn’t find out until it was in the news which ruffled feathers. suprise!
  • Within 3 days of noticing the hacking attempt,  state’s computer staff blocked the IP address from multiple parts of the network
  • The Maryland elections administrator notified the Governor’s cabinet
  • 2 weeks…

GOP Data Firm. Class Action Lawsuit. Voter Data. 3 Key Points.

GOP Data Firm, Deep Root Analytics, stored personal details of roughly 198 million citizens unprotected and publicly assessible. 

A cybersecurity firm says potentially all of America’s 200 million registered voters were exposed, including names, dates of birth, home addresses, phone numbers, and voter registration details.

The complaint: McAleer v. Deep Root

Business Insider Nordic | ‘The mother lode of all leaks’: A massive data breach exposed information that ‘you can use to steal an…

One Country Looks to Protect its Elections

Country: Germany

The protections that Germany seeks to combat election hacking:

  • Greater hacking authority for its law enforcement
  • Specifically, Germans are pushing for the ” use co-called Staatstrojaner, or “state-trojan,” to break into computers and smartphones.”
  • German high courts have limited the ability for government hacking unless lives are at stake.

SC Media | Lawmakers in Germany push for encryption-busting trojan in lead up to election

Regulatory Trend. Election Hacking Unit. 3 Key Points for your state.

The U.K. Parliament is working to create an election hacking unit that:

  • The unit’s goal: help ensure the integrity of UK Democracy & public confidence
  • The unit will be monitoring only
  • Recommendations focus on an executive level, law enforcement driven unit

SC Magazine UK | Parliamentary committee proposes unit to combat ‘election hacking’