A huge cyber attack had recently occurred on October 6th within Israel, where about 20 Israeli Cryptocurrency Executives were asked to pay digital currency after their phones were hacked and their identities were stolen. The failed cyber attack took place at the beginning of September and was carried out by a sophisticated team that may have been state sponsored. It’s not clear who the hacker was or where the individual or team was based, but Pandora’s co-founder Zahi Ganot, said he suspects a criminal group with access to the SS7 network may have planned and mounted the attack from an unassigned switch in the infrastructure. The country’s intelligence agency, Mossad, and the Internal Security Service Shin Bet are now involved with the investigation. Tzahi Ganot, co-founder of a Israeli based security firm Pandora, explained how the entire operation had heavily relied on the use of their own SMS verification processes to obtain personal data. Ganot commented that “stealing a user’s SMS messages is not simple and isn’t supposed to be accessible to private individuals.” Hackers can exploit SS7 to intercept text messages and calls by using a roaming feature and “updating the location of their device as if it registered to a different network.”

The hacker had been registered as a requested client who claimed to be the Deputy Chief Financial Officer of a company and asserted that his mobile phone had been hacked over night, along with his Telegram accounts and other accounts. The hackers had then sent messages to his contacts from the infiltrated Telegram account and had asked people to send cryptocurrency. The operation successfully managed to breach into the accounts of 20 executives from Israel who all worked as CEOs or vice-CEOs of digital currency firms and clients of Partner, an Israeli telecom company. The culprits behind the attack had demanded that all 20 Israeli cryptocurrency executives pay digital currency to regain electronic access, and had also impersonated their victims on Telegram in unsuccessful attempts to lure close acquaintances into making crypto trades.

Amid one of the most historic elections in U.S. History, voters and policy makers are now more than ever pushing change in the way we vote. These 5 states have either altered or are challenging voting rules in their region.

Arizona

In January, a “use it or lose it” bill was passed through Senate but not the full House that’s goal is to purge registered voters who have not voted for two consecutive Presidential Elections. The bill was not passed and has not been revisited since its introduction.

Florida

Huge strides have been made in Florida as voters and the state push for felons to be eligible to vote (under conditions). Felons must be done with prison, parole, and probation in order to be eligible to vote. Florida’s Republican majority legislature stepped into the transformation by adding that the felon’s outstanding court fees must be paid off in order to register.

New York

New York State lawmakers passed a bill that allows New York voters 10 days of early access to the ballot box ahead of any special, primary, or general elections. New York lawmakers also passed a bill that allows for 16 and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote.

California

The California Voter’s Choice Act is an act that was passed in 2016 but is rapidly being adapted and used by several counties in 2020. This bill was designed to mail every voter a ballot, expand early in-person voting, and allow any voter to cast a vote in any voting center in their county.

Fourteen new counties have adopted the system for the 2020 Election.

Georgia

Due to about 7,000 absentee ballots being rejected statewide in Georgia in 2018, a federal judge ordered election officials to stop rejecting absentee ballots due to mismatched signatures without giving voters the chance to change their mistakes.

Gwinnett County, which is more than half African American, Latino/a, and Asian, rejected over 400 ballots due to fixable mistakes on the absentee ballot. The federal judge’s decision to prohibit rejecting absentee ballots will change Georgia’s voting statistics significantly.

Now more than ever, it is essential to know your states voting procedures. For more on the 2020 Election, visit CIMA Law Group and CIMA Blog.

Under Florida’s Amendment 4, convicted felons who have served their sentences are voting for the first time, an act that could potentially swing the 2020 presidential election. Amendment 4, the Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative, was crafted to “automatically restore the right to vote for people with prior felony convictions, except those convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense, upon completion of their sentences. Sentences include prison, parole, and probation” (Florida Association of Counties, 2020).

The initiative, approved in 2018 with vast support, granted felons their right to vote in a state (Florida) which once disenfranchised convicted felons. According to Julie Ebenstein, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s voting rights project, approximately 1.6 million convicted felons in Florida who had completed their sentences were not allowed to vote. Furthermore, a federal appeals court ruled that convicted felons must pay the entirety of any expenses and fines before having their ability to vote restored.

A Tampa, Florida resident who has voted for the first time in 42 years shared that convicted felons who have served their time,

…live to vote and die trying to vote. My vote is just as important as theirs. My rights are just as important to me. I made some mistakes back in those days, I lost that right. But I paid my dues to society.

Clifford Tyson, Tampa, Florida resident pastor

Data shows that, despite a population of 21 million Floridians (over 7% of which are former felons), only 13 million people are registered voters in Florida. Thus, in the event the 1.4 million former felons registered to vote in Florida exercise their voting right, they would make up approximately 10% of voters in the state — possibly affecting the 2020 presidential election’s outcome. Florida being a swing state, its affect on the election is not an improbable one, as the state decided the 2000 presidential election between former Republican president George W. Bush and Democratic nominee Al Gore by fewer than 600 votes.

The Presidential debates concluded on October 22nd after two interesting debates and two different Town Hall’s interviewing both Presidential nominees, incumbent Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden.

The first debate was highly discussed after its airing on September 29th. Many viewers discussed Trump’s personal attacks on Biden’s family, his interruptions, and suggestions of microphone muting.

The first debate was hosted by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, the second debate instead were two separate Town Halls held for each nominee, and the third and final debate was hosted by NBC’s Kristen Welker. Topics that were discussed include COVID-19, health care, immigration, relations with China and Russia, and the Supreme Court.

The polls post debate show that the U.S. is in favor of Biden at 52% and Trump at 42%.

Millions of votes are pouring in as Election Day is approaching quickly. Many are suggesting to drop your official ballot off at a voting station instead of mailing it in due to mailing delays.

For more on the 2020 Election, visit CIMA Law Group and CIMA Blog.

As the election gets closer, the economy is not doing too well and many would even say it is on the brink. According to Columbia University, 8 million people are reported to have slipped into poverty since May, when federal aid dried up in the Coronavirus pandemic. Another analysis conducted by the University of Chicago, has reported 6 million out of the 8 million have slipped into poverty within the past 3 months. Lastly, a newly uncovered statistic has very recently discovered that 898k lay-offs have occurred only in this past month. This shocking report has beaten out the previous record of approximately 800k jobs lost within the span of a month occurring back in the the subprime mortgage crisis and the great recession in 2008. Ultimately suggesting validity to a census survey data which shows that a whopping 32% of Americans believe they are “very” or “somewhat” likely to face eviction in the next two months.

This is at a time where Congress has not gotten a stimulus agreement between the 1.8 Trillion dollar deal put forth by President Trump and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin. As the days steadily go by and with no real plan to address COVID substantively, the American people are about to enter an era to the likes that hasn’t been seen since the Great Depression. This claim can be backed by an estimate made by Analytical Homeless Expert Emily Benfer earlier this year in June, who had suggested that this rate of evictions may soon make 28 million homeless in the U.S. This poses a recipe for disaster with the consideration of 78% of workers living paycheck to paycheck before the COVID-19 outbreak and more than half of nationwide workers making a salary of 30k or less annually. The question now is, how will the U.S. government guide the country out of arguably the worst economic position it has ever been in.