OSET Institute

Today Fulton County, Tomorrow??? On Wednesday, the FBI executed a search warrant on the Fulton County, Georgia, Elections Operation Center.

The Fulton County search warrant & its implications for the 2026 & future elections is critically important news & not getting the coverage it merits. Read my most recent piece to get the download & understand why this is such a significant development. open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

A beta test for November. Chilling

FBI raids Georgia elections office as Trump administration seeks voter data from states The FBI searched an elections center in Georgia seeking records related to the 2020 election. Baseless claims of voter fraud have been a focus of President Trump since he lost that race, and the raid ...

Tho' we're perhaps a bit more quiet than usual, never doubt we're listening. So, ICYMI: in an age of rage-bait headlines, this...THIS is genuinely a 5-Alarm development. It strikes at the heart of our mission (spelunk our site to learn learn more, but first see this):
www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

2026 midterms: If you want to go deeper into the weeds (ie facts) about election administration, here’s a starter pack of reliable experts & journalists who understand the mechanics of actually running elections — smart geeks & wonks who understand law, ballots, counting, etc.
go.bsky.app/PTSTqyD

Political consultants everywhere no doubt greedily rubbing their hands together, dreaming of new ways to use AI to spoon-feed voters misleading or outright hallucinatory “facts.”

A huge thank you to @stevevladeck.bsky.social for this incredible blurb. Steve is one of the sharpest observers of our legal system—and one of the most generous humans in it.

If you haven't read his book, The Shadow Docket, what are you waiting for? Read it, then The Pain Brokers (out Jan. 13)!

DOJ’s New Voting Lawyer Brought Flawed Charges Pushed By Election Deniers Read more here.

NEW: A Republican lawyer playing a leading role in DOJ's push to seize state voter records was put on leave in a previous job after bringing a flawed prosecution spurred by a tip from a far-right election conspiracy group.

#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three democratic appointees, #SCOTUS puts Texas's new House maps back into effect for (and, presumably, through) the 2026 midterms.

The three Democratic appointees, in an opinion by Justice Kagan, dissent.

I'll post the ruling shortly.

Colorado Tells DOJ ‘Take a Hike’ as It Rejects Demand for Statewide Voter Data Read more here.

Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state vehemently rejected the DOJ’s unprecedented request for her state’s unredacted, private voter data, asserting she would not help Trump “hurt the American people.”

I posted this here about a year ago. Seems like a good time to re-up it. cc: @macfarlanenews.bsky.social
👇👇👇

Thanks to the TrustTheVote®Project members, we took our ELLA, the first election specific AI agent, from initial pilot test to election tested solution for election administrators! Let's make election history in 2026! https://secure.anedot.com/the-trustthevote-project/giving_tuesday25

For factual information about elections, this starter pack includes reliable experts and journalists who understand the mechanics of actually running elections. A public that is educated about elections helps to support our democracy.
go.bsky.app/PTSTqyD

A cartoon by Cori6 compares two scenarios. The top panel, labeled "PROJECT 1938," shows a group of people, including adults and children, disembarking from a train with a ramp, reminiscent of historical deportations. The bottom panel, labeled "PROJECT 2025," depicts a similar group of people disembarking from an airplane using a mobile staircase, suggesting a modern deportation scenario. The cartoon is signed "Cori6" in the bottom right corner.

We’re honestly on a fast timeline to exactly this.

Trump orders an overhaul of how elections are run, inviting a likely legal challenge The order could be used to justify canceling a future election, one Democratic official warned. “It’s very methodical, and very, very dangerous.”

The entire @votebeat.org staff tore Trump's executive order on elections apart to explain it to you. Here it is. I promise you it's the most detailed article on this you'll find on the internet right now. www.votebeat.org/2025/03/25/t...

States lose a critical source of federal support on election security An information clearinghouse on security threats “no longer supports Department priorities,” a federal official wrote in an email to state officials, as the new administration ends its funding.

From our colleagues at @votebeat.org

Dismantling the EI-ISAC as well as ISACs in other critical infrastructure sectors only increases our electoral vulnerability to enemies foreign and domestic.

www.votebeat.org/2025/03/11/c...

(1/3) It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK, and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.

One of our best security experts sums it up:

America First should not put Russia second | George W. Bush Presidential Center

Interesting statement on Russia and Ukraine from leadership at the George W Bush Presidential Center.
www.bushcenter.org/publications...

Not. Normal.

Whenever you welcome guests, treat them with kindness, grace and respect. Simple as that.

DOGE will use AI to assess the responses from federal workers who were told to justify their jobs via email The revelation comes as federal workers face a midnight deadline to respond.

Some context: Edward "Big Balls" Coristine is listed in CISA's agency directory as a senior advisor. He's been accused by a former employer of leaking information to a competitor. And we learned today that DOGE in some instances is using LLMs to sift through federal staffers' words.

Federal cuts to election security concern secretaries of state | StateScoop Several secretaries of state and others in the election security space said they're concerned about the rapid changes unfolding at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Additional information regarding the purges at CISA from State Scoop. Good quotes from NM SOS Maggie Toulouse Oliver and MN SOS Steve Simon

statescoop.com/federal-cuts...

USDS Engineering Director Resigns: ‘This Is Not the Mission I Came to Serve’ “I do not believe that DOGE can continue to deliver the work of USDS, based on their actions so far,” wrote Anne Marshall in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday.

Our collective issue is that society decided “move fast and break things” was preferable to “move fast and try to actually fix things”.
Via @wired.com

www.wired.com/story/doge-e...

Scoop: NIST prepares to cut AI Safety Institute, CHIPS staff NIST probationary employees are bracing to be fired imminently.

Stripping NIST is a very bad idea. This will put us at an extreme disadvantage with foreign competitors, and will potentially impact election security research, development and testing. Via @axios.com *paywalled*

www.axios.com/pro/tech-pol...

Case Studies on the New Initiatives in the EAC’s Election Technology Division YouTube video by U.S. Election Assistance Commission

#nowplaying

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Nt...

Incompetence in Washington puts every American at risk, no matter how you voted. No one should be happy that the DOGE team - the same folks who randomly published classified U.S. security information online today - wants access to your bank account & Social Security numbers.

Vance Escalates Conflict With Europe in Alarming Speech

Vance accused European officials of “canceling elections,” in reference to Germany’s upcoming election.

He didn’t notice the irony of his words, given his boss’s attempt to overthrow democracy on Jan 6, 2021.

newrepublic.com/post/191549/...

The DOGE "force of super-geniuses" reinventing our $6 trillion government forgot to password-protect their website. Here's what it looks like right now www.404media.co/anyone-can-p...

CISA election, disinformation officials placed on administrative leave, sources say The moves happened Thursday and Friday last week, per a source.

Some additional background on the still-developing situation at CISA, with quotes from our colleague, Kim Wyman. The work CISA does to assist local election officials in protecting election systems is too important to ignore. Security > Efficiency

cyberscoop.com/cisa-misinfo...

US cyber agency puts election security staffers who worked with the states on leave Staffers at the nation’s cybersecurity agency whose job is to ensure the security of U.S. elections have been placed on administrative leave, jeopardizing critical support provided to state and local ...

This decision to curtail CISA will have potentially long-range negative impact on U.S. cybersecurity efforts. The agency was created to improve protection of 17 critical infrastructure sectors, elections being an integral part.

apnews.com/article/elec...