The Center for Government Excellence (CGE) today released a new algorithm toolkit designed to help local government leaders remove bias from algorithm-based decision making. Complex algorithms, like those used by local governments, can learn from data, identify patterns, and make predictions with minimal human intervention.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) is the latest in a string of organizations to release its recommendations on how Federal, state, and local officials can best secure U.S. elections, including the use of paper-ballot components.

A pair of U.S. senators wrote to the heads of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Friday, imploring them to work with social media companies to root out election interference on their platforms and asking the agency heads for more information on the steps they’ve already taken to do so.

Bob Kolasky, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recently created National Risk Management Center (NRMC), said today that DHS is taking action this month to boost the level of communication and data exchange among state and local election officials in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections in November.

California’s state Assembly is attempting to turn back time on net neutrality by voting yesterday to approve a controversial bill that brings the state closer to enacting the Obama-era Federal net neutrality laws that were gutted by the FCC earlier this year.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Facebook, and Microsoft hosted a joint briefing on Friday, Aug. 24, for the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) regarding “actions being taken to combat malicious interference operations.”

The state of Maryland is not properly securing Medicaid data and information systems, according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report released today that found “numerous significant system vulnerabilities” in the state’s IT systems.

The Federal Communications Commission said this week it is seeking public comment through Sept. 10 on its annual report to determine whether “advanced telecommunications capability”–typically referred to as broadband service–is being deployed “to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”

A bipartisan group of House Intelligence Committee members today introduced the Secure Elections Act that would help state and local governments apply for Federal grants to modernize their election systems and receive relevant cyber threat information.

FirstNet, the nationwide public safety broadband network, announced that it is creating Emergency Drop Kits for first responders. FirstNet, a public-private partnership between AT&T and the First Responder Network Authority, is partnering with ruggedized cellphone provider Sonim on the kits.