Our picksElection Security Briefing Change | QAnon & Other Dark Forces | Canada & Terrorists, and more

Shift on Election Briefings Could Create an Information Gap for Voters(David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes, New York Times)
The elimination of in-person election security briefings to Congress could leave the public with a diminished understanding of the threats facing the election as it enters a critical phase.

Nation-State Hackers “Rattling at Our Doorknob,” Election Official Tells Congress (Benjamin Freed, Statescoop)
Foreign adversaries are again attempting to breach election-related computer systems in states, Kentucky’s top voting official told members of Congress Friday, but they’ve so far been unsuccessful in repeating the 2016 efforts made by Russian government agents to access voter registration databases.
“We’ve not been breached, but there has been rattling at our doorknob,” Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams told members of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Michigan Catches Robocall Spreading Disinformation about Voting by Mail (Benjamin Freed, Cyberscoop)
Two right-wing scam artists known for their bumbling political stunts allegedly paid for a robocall targeting Detroit voters with disinformation about voting by mail in the upcoming presidential election, according to an audio file released Thursday by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
The call’s narrator discloses that it was paid for by the 1599 Project, which claims to be a civil-rights organization, but is the outfit of Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, who are better known for attempts to smear Democratic politicians that often end in self-humiliation.
Election administration and cybersecurity professionals have issued warnings that disinformation campaigns — especially those attempting to question the reliability of absentee and mail-in voting — pose the greatest threat to election security. And fueled by President Donald Trump, who frequently claims without evidence that mailed ballots are inherently fraudulent, despite voting by mail in Florida himself, some other Republicans have followed his lead.
Burkman and Wohl are infamous in political media for sensational claims of having career-ending dirt on Democratic politicians — including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg — only for those claims to disintegrate rapidly under the lightest scrutiny. 

Trump Retweets Conspiracy Theory Questioning COVID-19 Death Toll (Peter Sullivan, The Hill)
President Trump over the weekend retweeted a conspiracy theory falsely claiming that only about 9,000 people had “actually” died from coronavirus, instead of about 150,000 [the actual number, as of Sunday, is 183,000].
Twitter later removed the tweet, written by a user named “Mel Q,” who is also a believer of the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying it violated its rules.
Trump’s retweet of the post indicates a desire to downplay the heavy death toll from the virus, a key issue as the election nears, and his willingness to retweet posts from fringe accounts like those of QAnon supporters.
Another tweet, from Trump campaign senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis, has not been removed by Twitter, and links to an article in the fringe site Gateway Pundit about the 6 percent statistic. That tweet was also retweeted by Trump.

How QAnon and Other Dark Forces Are Radicalizing Americans as the COVID-19 Pandemic Rages and Election Looms (Nathan Bomey and Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY)
The spread of conspiracy theories into the mainstream on social media channels like Facebook and YouTube is accelerating during the coronavirus.

Deradicalized or Not, Canadian Gov’t Releases Terror Offenders (Raheel Raza, Clarion Project)
Should prisoners be released on a ‘hope?’