Pennsylvania to require voting machines with paper backup
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday ordered counties that plan to replace their electronic voting systems to buy machines that leave a paper trail — a safeguard against hacking — but his budget doesn’t include any money to fund the replacement of the state’s aging, increasingly vulnerable fleet.
The Democrat’s administration said the move to require that new systems include a paper backup will increase the security of voting systems and make balloting easier to audit.
“This directive will ensure that the next generation of the commonwealth’s voting systems conforms to enhanced standards of resiliency, auditability and security,” Acting Secretary of State Robert Torres said in a statement.
The state, however, is not requiring counties to discard their old equipment. The directive only requires them to buy machines with a paper backup if they decide to switch systems. Nor does the Wolf administration’s budget plan , released this week, include any new money to help counties replacing their aging systems.
Marybeth Kuznik, the founder and executive director of VotePA, a nonprofit advocacy group that opposes paperless electronic voting, said counties don’t have the money to buy new machines.
“The General Assembly needs to step up to the plate and budget for this,” she said.
Nevertheless, Kuznik, a longtime election judge outside Pittsburgh, called Friday’s order “a huge step forward for Pennsylvania, for better elections. Just huge.”
Pennsylvania is one of 13 states where most or all voters use antiquated machines that store votes electronically without printed ballots or other paper-based backups that could be used to double-check the vote, according to researchers at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.
So-called direct-recording electronic machines make it almost impossible to know if they’ve accurately recorded individual votes or if anyone tampered with the count.
Election officials in 41 states plan to use the older machines in the 2018 midterm elections, the Brennan Center said this week. Most election officials surveyed by Brennan Center researchers said they lacked funds to replace machines that are more than a decade old.
The vast majority of Pennsylvania’s fleet of more than 20,000 voting machines record votes electronically and leave no paper trail, according to a 2014 tally by state election officials.
In 2006, voters filed suit against Pennsylvania to bar the use of paperless electronic voting machines, contending they were unreliable, lacked adequate safeguards against vote tampering and violated a state law requiring “a permanent physical record” of each vote.
The state Supreme Court dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs had not shown that direct-recording electronic machines are more susceptible to fraud or tampering than other kinds of voting systems.
Virginia banned the use of touch-screen voting machines in November’s gubernatorial contest over concerns the equipment could be hacked.
The federal government in September told election officials in at least 21 states, including Pennsylvania, that hackers targeted their systems before the 2016 presidential election, but at the time only Illinois reported that hackers had succeeded in breaching its systems.

By KATHLEEN RONAYNE, Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia — a #MeToo advocate — took a voluntary unpaid leave of absence Friday, a day after sexual misconduct allegations against her became public.
Garcia, a Democrat, chairs the Legislative Women’s Caucus and has been an outspoken ally of the anti-sexual harassment movement sweeping the California Capitol and the nation. She is accused of groping former legislative staff member Daniel Fierro in 2014, an allegation she denies. His claim is under a formal investigation, and Garcia said she is taking a leave to minimize distractions and avoid appearances of exerting influence.
“Upon reflection of the details alleged, I am certain I did not engage in the behavior I am accused of,” Garcia said in a statement. “However, as I’ve said before, any claims about sexual harassment must be taken seriously, and I believe elected officials should be held to a higher standard of accountability. ”
Fierro accused her of stroking his back, grabbing his buttocks and trying to grab his crotch in the dugout after a legislative softball game. An anonymous male lobbyist told Politico on Thursday that Garcia made a crude sexual remark and tried to grab his crotch at a May 2017 fundraiser.
Both the lobbyist and Fierro said Garcia appeared to be drunk at the time of the incidents.
Garcia, of Bell Gardens, was one of nearly 150 women to sign an open letter in October calling out a pervasive culture of sexual harassment at the Capitol and said that she herself has been the target of groping and inappropriate remarks by people in the building. She slammed two male colleagues accused of misconduct before both resigned last year, and she was featured in Time Magazine’s Person of the Year issue on sexual harassment “Silence Breakers.”
“I refuse to work with (Assemblyman Bocanegra) and anyone who takes part in harassment or assault,” she tweeted in October after news that Bocanegra was disciplined for groping a colleague in 2009.
On Monday, she was one of the featured speakers at a Capitol rally in favor of legislation giving legislative staff members whistleblower protections for reporting sexual misconduct or other misbehavior.
Her outspokenness prompted Fierro to finally share his story in January with his former boss, Democratic Assemblyman Ian Calderon, the majority leader. Calderon reported it to the Assembly Rules Committee for an investigation.
“If the person leading the charge on it isn’t credible it just ends up hurting the credibility of these very real stories,” Fierro told the AP.
About two dozen sexual harassment allegations were made against Assembly lawmakers, staff and lobbyists in 2017 — the most within a single year since 2006 — and at least eight allegations are pending, according to documents released last week.
Fierro, of Cerritos, left the Assembly in 2016 and now runs a communications firm. Calderon, his former boss, is now the majority leader.

AN ALIQUIPPA WRITERS GROUP IS TRYING TO GET BACK ON TRACK. THAT WAS ONE OF THE TOPICS OF THIS WEEK’S ALIQUIPPA CITY COUNCIL MEETING. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO WAS THERE. Click on ‘play’ to hear Sandy’s report….

TWO POLICE OFFICERS AND ANOTHER PERSON WERE HOSPIALIZED LATE LAST NIGHT FOLLOWING A CRASH RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE WENDY’S ON BRODHEAD ROAD IN ALIQUIPPA. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO HAS THE STORY. Click on ‘play’ to hear Sandy’s report…

Congress votes to reopen government, passes budget deal
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House moved swiftly early Friday to reopen the federal government and pass a $400 billion budget deal, overcoming opposition from both liberal Democrats and tea party conservatives to endorse enormous spending increases despite looming trillion-dollar deficits.
The 240-186 vote came in the pre-dawn hours, putting to bed a five-and-a-half hour federal freeze that relatively few would notice. Many who did quickly labeled it a pointless, head-scratching episode. The shutdown was the second in three weeks.
The breakdown came largely in the Senate, when after a day of inaction, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky went rogue and stalled a vote in protest over his party’s willingness to bust the budget. But Democrats also had their divisions and wrangling, largely with liberal upset the measure were not tied to any plans to assist the “Dreamer” immigrants.
Most Democrats opposed the measure, following the lead of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who tried and failed to use the moment to secure a promise for a separate vote on immigration. Up to the final minutes, it was not clear the bill would pass and many Democrats held their votes, allowing the tally to creep slowly and giving no indication which way it might fall.
House Speaker Paul Ryan urged Congress to avoid a “second needless shutdown in a matter of weeks — entirely needless.”
There was far less drama in the Senate, where the measure sailed through by a 71-28 tally. President Donald Trump has promised to sign the bill into law.
The White House was forced to order the government shutdown shortly after midnight, but leaders quickly hustled to move before federal employees were due back at work, hoping to minimize the disruption. A shutdown essentially cuts the federal workforce in half, with those dubbed non-essential not allowed to work, while military and essential workers remain on the job.
The House vote ensured most employees would report for work as usual. Under federal law, passage of the measure is enough to call off the shutdown; Trump is expected to sign the measure as soon as he receives it.
The White House kept its distance from the quarreling on Capitol Hill. Trump did not tweet and aides did not try to assign blame.
Senate GOP leaders, however, were clearly irked by the debacle. In his attempt to sway Paul to relent, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas declared his fellow Republican was “wasting everyone’s time” and prompting a shutdown for “no good reason.” But Paul, the resident contrarian, repelled suggestions to stand aside.
“I didn’t come up here to be part of somebody’s club. I didn’t come up here to be liked,” Paul said.
The budget agreement is married to a six-week temporary funding bill needed to keep the government operating and to provide time to implement the budget pact.
The bill includes huge spending increases sought by Republicans for the Pentagon along with a big boost demanded by Democrats for domestic agencies. Both sides pressed for $89 billion for disaster relief, extending a host of health care provisions, and extending a slew of smaller tax breaks.
It also would increase the government’s debt cap, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. obligations that looms in just a few weeks. Such debt limit votes are usually enormous headaches for GOP leaders, but the increase means another vote won’t occur before March 2019.
Senate leaders had celebrated the budget deal as a sign they had left behind some of their chronic dysfunction. Just three weeks ago, Senate Democrats sparked a three-day partial government shutdown by filibustering a spending bill, seeking relief for “Dreamer” immigrants who’ve lived in the country illegally since they were children.
Senate Democrats had no appetite for another shutdown.
House GOP leaders shored up support among conservatives for the measure, which would shower the Pentagon with money but add hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation’s $20 trillion-plus debt.
House Democratic leaders opposed the measure — arguing it should resolve the plight of Dreamers — but not with all their might. Pelosi made it plain she wasn’t pressuring her colleagues to kill the bill, which is packed with money for party priorities like infrastructure, combating opioid abuse and helping college students.
“She negotiated the deal. Her team was in on it,” said top GOP vote counter Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. “And they were a ‘no.’ And at the end her team broke.”
Pelosi continued to press Ryan for a promise to bring an immigration measure sponsored by Reps. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., up for a vote. But many Democrats backed the measure without that assurance.
Ryan said again Thursday he was determined to bring an immigration bill to the floor this year — albeit only one that has Trump’s blessing.
“We will solve this DACA problem,” Ryan said just before the vote. “Once we get this budget agreement done — and we will get this done for no matter how long it takes for us to stay here — we will focus on bringing that debate to this floor and finding a solution.”
The episode was a clear defeat for those who had followed a risky strategy to use the party’s leverage on the budget to address immigration. Protection for the Dreamers under former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, formally expires next month and there’s no sign that lawmakers are making progress on an agreement to extend the program.
Republicans, too, had their disappointments. Many were sheepish about the bushels of dollars for Democratic priorities and the return next year of $1 trillion-plus deficits. But they pointed to money they have long sought for the Pentagon, which they say needs huge sums for readiness, training and weapons modernization.
“It provides what the Pentagon needs to restore our military’s edge for years to come,” said Ryan.
Beyond $300 billion worth of increases for the military and domestic programs, the agreement adds $89 billion in overdue disaster aid for hurricane-slammed Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, a politically charged increase in the government’s borrowing cap and a grab bag of health and tax provisions. There’s also $16 billion to renew a slew of expired tax breaks that Congress seems unable to kill.
“I love bipartisanship, as you know,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. “But the problem is the only time we discover bipartisanship is when we spend more money.”
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Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Alan Fram, Jill Colvin and Richard Lardner in Washington and Zeke Miller at Osan Air Base, South Korea, contributed to this report.