Best of the States

AP Exclusive: Outdated software makes even new election systems vulnerable to hackers

The source’s text said there was something “really troubling” to pass along.

Tami Abdollah, Washington national security reporter, had just returned to covering cybersecurity – a topic she has followed off-and-on since 2015. What the source told her was big: New election systems purchased across the United States were running on outdated Windows 7 systems, making them vulnerable to hackers.

It was a great tip, but it required a lot of work to determine the scope of the problem. The result was an exclusive text and video package that received huge play and raised alarm among state and national lawmakers. Abdollah revealed that the vast majority of 10,000 election jurisdictions nationwide use Windows 7 or an older operating system to create ballots, program voting machines, tally votes and report counts.

For combining source reporting with meticulous research to break major news on one of the biggest issues ahead of the 2020 election, Abdollah wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP shows itself best of class in election coverage Super Tuesday

In the runup to Super Tuesday, The Associated Press showed why it’s at the top of the class when it comes to elections coverage.

As Super Tuesday neared, the AP had an issue on its hands: how will it call races that night when it would have no VoteCast poll — but the TV networks had their exit polling, which could have put the AP at a competitive disadvantage? Serena Hawkins, data scientist for AP’s Decision Team, got to work.

In just two weeks, she researched, developed, tested and deployed a new approach to race calling that allowed the AP to declare Donald Trump and Joe Biden winners in several states with a very small return of counted votes.

That new model, used by the AP on Super Tuesday, put AP’s race calls ahead in states where the TV networks didn’t have a poll, and only a few minutes behind in states where they did — and with no errors in its calls.

Meanwhile, the AP, for the first time, was able to deliver its vote count directly to news consumers through a new immersive elections experience on APNews.

The effort was captained by development lead Linda Gorman, with team members Ryan Best, Michelle Minkoff Carlson, Chaithra Chandraiah, Shelly Cheng, Chad Day, Phil Holm, Dan Kempton, Humera Lodhi, Maya Sweedler, Pablo Barria Urenda and Robert Weston. On the night of Super Tuesday, the recirculation rate for these pages was, in a word, stratospheric.

For all these reasons, Serena Hawkins and the Elections Data Visualizations Team are Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Multiformat reporters combine for insightful explanation of Nevada elections

AP journalists combined to produce clear, multiformat explanatory coverage of the complicated electoral process in Nevada, and why it matters. Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP first to declare Trump winner in New Hampshire thanks to lightning-fast vote count

Because it’s the first presidential primary on the calendar, there’s no margin for error.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: FDA skipped most baby formula plant inspections in 2020

turned seemingly mundane testimony of a legislative hearing into a timely scoop, breaking the news that the Food and Drug Administration had skipped nearly all its inspections of baby formula plants during the first year of COVID, likely contributing to the severe shortage of formula in the U.S. and raising questions about what the federal government could have done to prevent it.Using information he gleaned from Capitol Hill testimony by the three top baby formula manufacturers, Washington-based health writer Perrone identified the companies’ plants in the FDA’s online database and discovered the agency hadn’t inspected Abbott’s plant — responsible for a recall of formula that exacerbated the nationwide shortage — for two years between 2019 and 2021. In fact, the FDA later acknowledged only three of the nation’s 23 formula plants were inspected in the first year of the pandemic.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Breaches of voting software raise election security concerns

broke the news that copies of confidential software for a widely used voting machine had been released publicly during an event held by supporters of former President Donald Trump, leading to wider concerns about election security.After a local elections clerk in Colorado leaked confidential information about her county’s voting machines, Cassidy, an Atlanta-based state government reporter, began calling her sources to get a sense of what the breach could mean for other states that used the same voting machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems. Her source reporting uncovered yet another leak, this time in a county in Michigan where Trump allies had challenged his election loss. The software copies ended up being distributed publicly at a symposium hosted by the CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, a major Trump supporter who has helped spread his lies of election fraud.The software leak from Antrim County, Michigan, had not previously been reported until Cassidy learned of it. Election security experts said taken together, the leaked software could provide hackers with a “practice environment” to probe for vulnerabilities in Dominion machines, which are used in 30 states. https://aplink.news/kj8

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP finds homeless persons the 2020 census missed

followed a straightforward path to reveal flaws in the U.S. Census Bureau’s homeless count: They found the uncounted themselves.Price literally looked beneath the glitter of Las Vegas, in the tunnels beneath the city, to find people who hadn't been counted in a city where an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 people are without homes. And Schneider, AP's expert on all things census, leaned on his unmatched national network of sources to show that the problems were widespread. He bolstered the story with reporting on a federal report about flaws in the count — yet another government operation disrupted by the coronavirus — and spoke to an expert who said the problems could make Black and Latinos more likely to be missed in the 2020 count. https://bit.ly/35hmnJF

Best of the Week — First Winner

In exclusive AP interview, AG Barr says no evidence of widespread election fraud, undermining Trump

Justice Department reporter Mike Balsamo has spent months cultivating sources at the Department of Justice, earning a reputation as an objective journalist who reports fairly and accurately. 

His relationships paid off with an exclusive interview of U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in which Barr said the DOJ could find no evidence of widespread voting fraud, dramatically undercutting President Donald Trump’s insistence to the contrary.

“I knew ... he had made probably the biggest news he has in his tenure as AG,” said Balsamo. His story topped the news cycle and resonated for days. No other news outlet could match it and AP was widely cited for the scoop.

For persistent, evenhanded reporting on the Justice Department beat resulting in the interview that netted one of AP’s most consequential news coups of the year, Balsamo wins AP’s Best of the Week honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP journalists shadow George Floyd’s brother on Election Day

spent a chunk of Election Day documenting George Floyd’s brother in New York.With racial justice a central issue in the election, race and ethnicity reporter Morrison thought it fitting to tell a story through the lens of someone who lost a loved one to police violence. He had met Terrence Floyd, the younger sibling of George Floyd, in Minneapolis over the summer at the spot where a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes. Terrence, who lives in New York, agreed to let Morrison shadow him exclusively as he rode around the city in an SUV calling on a loudspeaker for people to vote, and later while waiting for election results at a watch party. At one point Terrence chanted “Don't forget to vote!” in rhythm with musicians outside a Brooklyn museum, a moment captured by Morrison, photographer Franklin and video journalist Shaffrey.https://bit.ly/38FgXe2https://bit.ly/3kqmQyb

Best of the Week — First Winner

Count every vote, call the winners and report fast, accurate election news: There’s an AP for that

Coverage of U.S. elections is one of the AP’s most crucial missions, carried out in a sprawling but hyper-meticulous operation that stretches company-wide and brings order and clarity to the nation’s patchwork voting system.

In this year’s election cycle, upended by partisan feuding, a steady stream of disinformation and a global pandemic, the AP built on 172 years of election experience to deliver stories, photos, videos and graphics in innovative ways that didn’t just tell the story of who won, but why as well. Among the highlights was a new feature called Explainer that offered contextual looks at the reasons behind race calls for each state, bringing greater transparency to AP’s decisions when it has never mattered more.

Success on a story this massive can happen only with months, even years, of diligent planning, strong execution and the dedication of hundreds of AP journalists and support staff. For coverage that distinguished the AP in a momentous election year, the collective work of AP’s staff earns this week’s Best of the Week honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

FBI, in reversal, will alert states to election cyber-attacks

for breaking news of a significant policy change by the FBI: The agency now pledges to alert states of attacks on elections systems and not just the county or local government that is hit. This means that state officials will know about attacks before certifying results in an election. https://bit.ly/2NQIWfC

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Analysis: 2020 census faces challenge in Detroit

for revealing that Detroit would be by far the toughest city to count, based on AP’s exclusive data analysis of the difficulties facing the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020. The team’s multiformat package explained why the city in transition poses such a formidable challenge. https://bit.ly/2EsNGmDhttps://bit.ly/2Z73k0D

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP leads coverage of the 2020 US Census

for breaking news leading up to the 2020 U.S. headcount. Starting with a smart follow-up by Schneider showing that federal government’s attempts to get states to surrender driver’s license information have been a bust so far, and concluding with a weekend spotlight story by Seitz and Lerman showing how new concerns about misinformation and fraud could cause major problems for the Census Bureau.https://bit.ly/36mZDqShttps://bit.ly/2N0gbgI

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Asia team delivers unmatched visuals of Jakarta election protest clashes

for thoughtfully deploying resources to cover multiple pockets of protest across the capital after protesters supporting losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto clashed with police. The team used Iris Bambuser and LiveU to capture unmatched images of the chaos and shot from various angles to show the scene with tear gas filling the streets and helicopters dropping water to extinguish fires.https://bit.ly/2Mkondlhttps://bit.ly/2wgY4tv

Best of the Week — First Winner

Investigation reveals omissions on Hillary Clinton’s official calendar

When investigating politicians, the adage goes, “follow the money.” But it is equally important to follow the meetings.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP first to identify, interview Russian-American lobbyist at Trump Jr. meeting

The sensational news about a campaign-season meeting involving a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump’s inner circle – including his son, Donald Trump Jr. – developed over six days, with details and accounts changing almost by the hour. Reports trickled out that another man also was at the meeting to represent Russian interests.

With all major news organizations in hot pursuit, Washington’s Desmond Butler was the first to nail the identity of the lobbyist in question and also to nab the first on-the-record interview with him. For tenacious source work, Butler wins Beat of the Week.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Inside story: How Russia hacked the Democrats’ emails and Putin’s foes

“Hi,” the email from Google began, before turning more ominous. “Someone just used your password to try to sign in to your Google Account.” Change your password immediately, it urged, by clicking here. But the email wasn’t actually from Google, and it wasn’t sent randomly. It was from hackers connected to Russia who were targeting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

What eventually emerged from the successful hack – thousands of embarrassing emails from campaign chairman John Podesta and others – was widely reported in the summer and fall of 2016. But the anatomy of how that hack occurred had never been revealed, until now. That investigative story, by Raphael Satter, Justin Myers, Jeff Donn and Chad Day, and a companion piece about wider Russian efforts targeting an array of Kremlin opponents, is this week’s Beat of the Week.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Reporter’s direct questions to Trump, Putin command center stage in Helsinki

“Who do you believe?”

In the defining moment of the US-Russia summit in Helsinki, President Donald Trump stood side-by-side with Russia's Vladimir Putin and appeared to side with Russian denials when asked whether Moscow meddled in the 2016 election.

The crystal-clear question came from AP White House reporter Jonathan Lemire, who asked Trump to choose between Putin and his own intelligence agencies.

The exchange, and an equally bold couple of questions to Putin, was the capstone of a grueling weeklong reporting effort by Lemire and fellow White House reporter Jill Colvin as they chronicled Trump’s tumultuous travels across Europe. The two, working in cooperation with colleagues in Europe and Russia, delivered smart spot reporting and strong enterprise at every stop on the president’s jaw-dropping trip.

For their exhaustive and highly impactful work, they win Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

How ‘wine cave’ found its way into a debate and your vocabulary

for reporting on a lavish wine cave fundraiser for Pete Buttigieg in Napa, California, that became a key issue during the Democratic debate on Dec. 19. His curiosity piqued after a source provided him with a copy of an invitation to an exclusive Buttigieg fundraiser, Slodysko picked up details that made it clear this wasn’t just any fundraiser. The room included a chandelier with 1,500 Swarovski crystals, an onyx banquet table and $900 bottles of cabernet. The story spoke to the issue of rich donors wielding outsized political influence and dominated the week’s presidential debate as fellow candidate Elizabeth Warren pressed Buttigieg about why he would need to hold a fundraiser in such a venue. By the end of the night, “wine cave” had entered America’s political lexicon. https://bit.ly/379yVBr

Best of the States

AP travels to the edge of America for start of the 2020 census in tiny Alaska town

On the edge of America, the U.S. Census started in a tiny Alaska town on the Bering Sea. Toksook Bay, population 661, is only reachable by plane, and isn’t an easy place to live, much less report. The temperatures hover around zero, and daylight is scarce this time of year.

After months of planning, Alaska news editor Mark Thiessen and San Diego photographer Greg Bull spent four days in the remote community, getting rare access to day-to-day life and an interview with the person who would be the first counted, 90-year-old Lizzie Chimiugak. 

And when the Census director finally arrived, delayed by bad weather that kept many other news organizations away, Thiessen and Bull were able to quickly file the spot news that Census 2020 had begun.

For overcoming myriad technical obstacles and very cold fingers to cover the news in a far-flung part of the country, while also providing a window into a world unlike any other place in the U.S., Thiessen and Bull win this week’s Best of the States award.