Summary:
A researcher based in the Canary Islands alerted Apple to a flaw in iOS 13 that allows anyone who has physical possession of a device to read the contacts list without needing a passcode or facial recognition. He talked to Apple about the problem, and he became concerned that the company would not release an immediate fix. Therefore, he went public with the information. Apple has a scheduled update to iOS 13 on September 24.

Summary:
The US Senate has proposed $250M to to reassure the public that the states will have the resources they needed to protect the integrity of their elections. After rejecting similar measures as being partisan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell backed a new proposal, saying that it was safe from feared Federal regulation that Democrats might have imposed.

Summary:
Microsoft announced a software suite intended as a tool for safeguarding the integrity of paper-based US elections. The blogpost by Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President, Customer Security & Trust at Microsoft, described the suite as a tool that can be used by the existing election community. The open source system uses cryptography to ensure that an election audit can be carried out with confidence in the result. Microsoft will provide a deeply discounted version of the Office 365 application suite for political parties and campaigns.

The product, Election Guard, is based on ideas developed by Microsoft's senior cryptographer, Josh Benaloh. He has been working on election security technology for 30 years.