National: Experts alarmed as Trump launches broad-front attack on US voting rights | Peter Stone/The Guardian

The Trump administration is waging war on voting rights using justice department lawsuits, FBI investigations and an executive order to limit voting by mail, moves mirroring the US president’s false claims he lost the 2020 election due to voting fraud, say election experts and ex-officials. Since Donald Trump began his second term, numerous 2020 election denialists have been installed in key agencies such as the Department of Justice, the FBI and elsewhere to pursue widely discredited claims of fraud, which can intimidate election workers and voters in swing states that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020. The justice department has also filed lawsuits seeking sensitive voter data from 30 states – even though, by law, states control elections – and the FBI has launched investigations into debunked allegations of voting fraud in Georgia, Wisconsin and a few other swing states that Trump lost in 2020. Trump in late March this year issued an executive order sharply tightening mail-in voting rules, which Trump has long claimed without evidence contribute to fraud. The order gives the United States Postal Service unprecedented powers to issue new rules making voting by mail harder. Read Article

National: Local election officials reel over ‘logistical nightmare’ of Trump’s vote-by-mail order | Jonathan Shorman/News From The States

As election officials across the country steel themselves for the midterm elections in less than five months, President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting voting by mail threatens to upend their preparations. The executive order instructs the U.S. Postal Service to refuse to deliver ballots in states that don’t provide lists of voters or meet other requirements. It has created a sense of deep uncertainty and concern among election officials as they consider how to comply, according to a review of court documents and interviews with election officials and experts on election administration. The March 31 executive order, and a proposed Postal Service rule published June 2 that would put the order’s requirements into effect, raise serious logistical and procedural challenges for those running elections, they say. Rural areas with limited resources are especially at risk, but jurisdictions of all sizes could be forced to scramble. The executive order is the latest step taken by Trump to assert control over state-run elections, along with the stalled SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide documents proving their citizenship. The Justice Department, under Trump’s control, is also trying to obtain state voter rolls. Read Article

National: Voting officials fear DHS may actually be a threat to elections this year | Miles Parks/NPR

Gary Berntsen is convinced Venezuela stole the 2020 U.S. election. That myth has been debunked numerous times, including as part of Fox News’ 2023 $787 million settlement with voting machine company Dominion, but Berntsen, a former CIA operative, has been pushing it for years. “One of the things that we learned is there’s 14 different technical ways that you can steal an election,” Berntsen explained in an interview in the fall with conservative podcaster Lara Logan. But ahead of the 2024 election, Berntsen says he couldn’t get anyone to listen to him. Not the FBI. Not the media. Finally, he went to Congress, where he says he was similarly rebuffed by almost everyone, including Republicans. Except one. “One politician in America was not afraid,” Berntsen told Logan. “It was Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.” Allies of Berntsen say Mullin — then a U.S. senator, now the head of the Department of Homeland Security — brokered a meeting at Mar-a-Lago so Berntsen could brief President Trump’s team on conspiracy theories about Venezuelan interference in elections. That is just one time of many that Mullin has gone to bat for election denial. DHS could be a threat to midterm elections this year : NPR

National: Trump Pulls Back Intelligence Pick to Pressure Congress on Elections Bill | Michael Gold and Dustin Volz/The New York Times

President Trump said on Wednesday that he was pulling back his own nominee to be the nation’s top intelligence official as he again tried to pressure Congress to pass a strict voter identification law that does not have enough support among Republicans to advance. Mr. Trump announced last week that he would nominate Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, to be the director of national intelligence, after senators in both parties condemned his earlier decision to install Bill Pulte, a loyalist and his top housing official, to the post. Senate leaders had sought to quickly confirm Mr. Clayton, hoping to clear the way for a bipartisan agreement to renew a surveillance law that expired last week. The bill to extend it collapsed amid the furor over Mr. Pulte, who has no national security experience and drew withering bipartisan criticism. And some Democrats had indicated they might be willing to fast-track his confirmation, eager to block Mr. Pulte. Read Article

National: Challenges in Rural Election Administration ‘Exacerbated’ in Runoff Elections | Bridget Goodman/The Daily Yonder

Runoff elections — including Tuesday’s in Alabama and Georgia — stress existing fragilities in rural election administration. “Challenges are exacerbated by the short timeline of a runoff,” said Cameron Wimpy, political science professor and director of the Institute for Rural Initiatives at Arkansas State University. “And then other challenges become exacerbated by the fact that you’re just having to do a whole election again.” More than two-thirds of American elections happen in rural areas, according to Wimpy. Although elections are administered – and often, largely financed – locally, counties must meet state standards. “A lot of things in election administration have to happen the same, whether you’re in a small place or a large place, an urban place or a rural place,” Wimpy said. “Voting machines have to be tested, boxes have to be checked, laws have to be followed, but that’s often being done with less people.” There are 10 states with runoff elections: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas. Each state has unique state laws governing how and when those elections occur. Read Article

National: Watch Out for False Voter Fraud Claims Fueled by SAVE Program | Jasleen Singh/Brennan Center for Justice

This year, observers should be wary of voter fraud claims made by government officials and private groups, even if those claims cite federal government data. Many such false or misleading claims promoted over the past year have relied primarily on the flawed Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, which this article addresses in detail. The second Trump administration has been engaged in a concerted campaign to undermine elections. Part of that involves collecting state voter files and using federal data sources to lend pseudolegitimacy to false claims of widespread fraud. While there may be valid ways to use federal data to support election officials’ efforts to keep voter rolls accurate and up to date, there are notable shortcomings in such data, and it may be misused to spread misinformation. To properly assess any claim of voter fraud based on federal data, it is important to understand the flaws in the data, common analytical pitfalls, and the ways faulty data may be exploited to disenfranchise eligible voters and erode confidence in elections. Read Article

National: Republicans are trying to impose Trump’s voting restrictions at the local level | Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket

Shasta County, California, recently approved one of the most sweeping local attacks on voting since 2020: a measure that would end most mail-in and early voting, require strict photo ID to register and vote, force election officials to hand count ballots and disconnect the county from California’s statewide voter registration system. The initiative, known as Measure B, passed this month with 56% of the vote in the rural Northern California county, where President Donald Trump received 67% of the vote in 2024. California is suing to block the measure, warning that Shasta County is trying to carve itself out of statewide election protections that apply to all 58 counties. “No city or county gets to unilaterally rewrite our election rules,” Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement. But Shasta is not an isolated case. Read Article

Arizona Court of Appeals rules in Maricopa County election dispute as primary draws near | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

The Arizona Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked a ruling that was favorable to Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap in his long-running legal battle with the board of supervisors over control of the swing county’s elections. Two of its three justices ruled to stay enforcement of a lower court’s order in the case to avoid disrupting the upcoming state primary. The other — Justice Brian Furuya, who was appointed to the bench in 2021 — dissented and said he would not have ordered the stay. The ruling puts the fiery feud within county government on ice just days before voting begins in a high-stakes primary election. The dispute has been ongoing since Heap took office and contended that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors usurped much of his power in a deal they struck with his predecessor. Heap, a Republican, sued over the matter last year. Read Article

California’s slow vote count stirs frustration, but changes would be hard | Grace Toohey/Los Angeles Times

Over the last decade, California became a national leader in voter accessibility and security, expanding options for when and how ballots can be cast while also strengthening election safeguards. But those reforms came at a cost: speed. And in a political climate where unsupported conspiracies about election fraud can run rampant on social media — pushed, at times, by top political leaders — some fear the slow vote count is becoming a liability. Election outcomes in recent years have become more drawn out in California, most recently taking about a week to determine the gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral candidates advancing to November’s runoff after hotly contested primaries. And in prior years, it’s taken even longer to determine tight U.S. House or state Senate seats. That trade-off — election accessibility and security over quick results — has long been defended as a byproduct of California’s desire to make it as easy as possible to cast a ballot while ensuring accuracy and integrity, something backers say remains vital to a thriving democracy. Read Article

California: Shasta County will not fight state over controversial Measure B or provide defense for Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis | David Benda/Redding Record Searchlight

Like it did for an earlier legal challenge to the controversial local election measure that would require voter ID, Shasta County will not defend against a lawsuit that California officials launched over the June 2 passage of Measure B. Coming out of closed session on Tuesday, June 16, Supervisor Matt Plummer announced the decision. “The board has voted 4-0 to provide no defense for the county or Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis,” the District 4 supervisor said. On Friday, June 12, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit, calling Measure B an “illegal election overhaul, including ending mail voting and requiring hand counting of ballots.” It would also require voter ID. The state’s lawsuit contends that Measure B exceeds Shasta County’s authority as a charter county, and even if the county had such authority, the measure is preempted by state law. Read Article

Colorado Governor Jared Polis overruled his own clemency board to release Tina Peters | Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti(The New York Times

Months before Colorado Gov. Jared Polis freed felonious election denier Tina Peters from prison, his own clemency board voted unanimously — twice — to reject her bid for early release, according to two of the board’s members. The first vote, taken under a cloak of secrecy, came in January, when the board reviewed Peters’ application during one of its meetings. At those gatherings, board members wrestle with some of the state’s toughest criminal cases, poring over handwritten pleas from convicted killers and others serving life sentences. A month later, the board got an unusual request from the Democratic governor’s office, which was under enormous political pressure from President Donald Trump to free Peters, two board members said — to take a second look. The clemency board obliged, but again, its vote was a unanimous no. Read Article

District of Columbia: Noncitizens can vote in D.C.’s local election, but many are afraid | Fabianna Rincón/The 51st

ANC Commissioner Monica Martínez López is “psyched” to vote in D.C.’s primaries. She’s been counting down the days until she can weigh in on the city’s mayor for the first time. Her ballot, however, won’t have an option to vote for the District’s delegate to Congress.Martínez López is one of three elected officials in D.C. without U.S. citizenship, and one of approximately 1,000 non-citizens registered to vote in the city, where the practice has been legal since 2024. She can’t cast a vote for federal offices, but she sees local political participation as a way to forge a “sense of belonging” in the city she calls home. “Being an immigrant who is a non-citizen, has lived here for over a decade, works here, has a family here, pays taxes here, cares deeply about what happens in this city; it’s a net positive to be engaged and to exercise my rights to the fullest extent,” she said. Read Article

Georgia’s vote-counting method likely to remain in effect for midterms | Sudhin Thanawala and Kate Brumback/Associated Press

A day after postponing plans to redraw Georgia’s congressional and legislative districts, state lawmakers were poised Thursday to delay making any changes to the state’s current vote-counting method.That would mean the system, which relies on a QR code to tally the votes, will remain in place for the November election, an outcome some voting rights advocates preferred to avoid creating confusion at polling sites. On Thursday, they advanced legislation that would postpone a looming deadline to change the election system used throughout the political battleground state. That system relies on a QR code printed on ballots to tally the votes. Legislators passed a law two years ago barring the use of the QR code for the official vote count beyond July 1 of this year, but no replacement method of tabulating votes was ever implemented. Lawmakers were expected to try to come up with a new system during the special session but instead appear set to punt the issue until later. A bill advanced Thursday by state senators would extend the July 1 deadline to Jan. 1, 2028. It also would create a committee to recommend “specifications, standards, and requirements” for a new voting system. “We feel that this gets us into a position to clarify and provide certainty to our election officials and to our electorate,” Republican state Sen. Max Burns, who co-authored the legislation, told lawmakers. Read Article

Louisiana courts more voting system vendors ahead of 2028 elections | Wesley Muller/Louisiana Illuminator

Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry is giving voting system vendors another chance to get their systems certified as potential replacements for the state’s decades-old machines, though it could take another year before any new machines reach the polls. In a news release last week, Landry announced she is reopening the certification process for any voting machine vendors interested in applying. The application deadline is July 2. According to a 2021 state law, vendors must have their voting systems and system components certified by the secretary of state before they can compete for a state contract to replace Louisiana’s 35-year-old machines, many of which have broken and cannot be repaired because parts are no longer available. This new certification round will be open to any voting systems and components not considered in the previous certification period last year. Systems that previously received certification are not required to do it again, according to Deputy Secretary of State for Communications Trey Williams. Read Artticle

Michigan revokes Antrim County clerk’s access to voter roll after unauthorized cancellations | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

The Michigan Bureau of Elections revoked Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop’s access to Michigan’s voter roll Friday, the latest salvo in the dispute between the state and the controversial Republican election official. Jonathan Brater, Michigan’s director of elections, said in a letter to Bishop that she is “taking actions … that do not comply with the Michigan Election Law and fall outside the scope of your statutory authority” after she allegedly changed or even canceled some voters’ registrations earlier this year. Under Michigan law, maintaining the Qualified Voter File — the state’s central database of registered voters — is the job of city and township clerks, not county clerks. Brater noted in his letter that Bishop does “not have authority to alter QVF records except in certain situations,” including to flag voters who have died. However, Brater wrote, the state’s review of Bishop’s QVF activity found that that was not what she was doing. He also reprimanded her for sending notices to voters about the cancellations that were insufficiently complete, based on unreliable information, and also supposed to be sent only by city and township clerks. Read Article

North Carolina: Tons of elections changes crammed into one omnibus bill | Sarah Michels/Carolina Public Press

While a group of lawmakers considered the latest version of a wide-ranging elections omnibus bill, a couple dozen protesters waited outside, holding their phones to their ears to hear what was happening inside the committee room. When lawmakers dispersed, they held up red flags and booed in disapproval, bringing the spirit of the World Cup to Raleigh. The 36-page elections omnibus bill, House Bill 958, touches on scores of election issues, including ballot counting deadlines, ranked choice voting and the auditor’s involvement in elections. Tuesday’s version tacked on a dozen pages to the last version of the bill, presented in July 2025. Bill sponsor Rep. Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke, emphasized that it was still a “work in progress.” Democratic committee members Reps. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, and Phil Rubin, D-Wake, worked with Blackwell over the weekend on a few changes, he said. There could be more on the way. Read Article

Ohio: FBI probe of voting rights group expands to include an affiliated national advocacy network | Dion Nissenbaum/Votebeat

Federal officials have served a subpoena on one of the nation’s leading nonprofit voter outreach groups, which has financially supported the Ohio election advocacy group at the center of a deepening investigation by the Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the probe. The FBI served the subpoena on America Votes, a Washington-based organization founded by prominent Democratic leaders that works to turn out voters nationwide, the sources said. America Votes, which has given the Ohio Organizing Collaborative at least $500,000 in recent years, according to its tax filings, issued a statement Wednesday confirming it had received a subpoena “asking for basic records related to funding of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. We have been informed America Votes is not a target of the investigation.” The subpoena signals a broader FBI investigation into the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a statewide nonprofit group founded in 2007 that works on voting rights efforts. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s sister organization, Ohio Organizing Campaign, said it registered nearly 160,000 Ohio voters in 2024, describing the effort as the largest independent voter registration program in the country. Read Article

Pennsylvania: Bipartisan election board languishing as governor fails to appoint new members | Carter Walker/Votebeat

In 2020, Pennsylvania’s elections were facing a major crisis. The presidential primary was set for April 28, but the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, restricting travel and complicating in-person activities — such as voting. So the state legislature came up with a solution. In a unanimous vote in both chambers, the primary was moved to June and, simultaneously, the state created a new bipartisan body meant to review and recommend changes to Pennsylvania’s near-century-old election law. The Election Law Advisory Board, as it is called, was heralded at the time as a way to thoughtfully reform the state’s elections. But six years later, the board has fallen into a state of disuse, in part because Gov. Josh Shapiro has so far failed to fill seven seats he’s responsible for. The board has not met in nearly three years, even as county election officials are still clamoring for changes to the state’s outdated, contradictory election code. Josh Shapiro has left 7 vacancies on Pennsylvania’s Election Law Advisory Board – Votebeat

Texas: Why the GOP wants closed primaries and what that could mean for vote | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

After an unsuccessful legislative push last year to close the primary elections, when voters choose a party’s nominees for the November general elections, state Republicans sued to make it happen. That litigation is still pending in federal court, but Abbott wants state lawmakers to try again. Lawmakers “can and should be more responsive to Republicans than a judge may be,” Abbott told the Texas Scorecard, a conservative news outlet. Administratively, changing the state’s current system could be complicated because the state’s more than 18 million registered voters have never had to declare a party affiliation. And the state’s voter registration system is not designed to accommodate that. Election policy experts are wondering whether switching to closed primaries would mean requiring all voters to re-register with a party affiliation. That could be a big lift not just for voters but for the state, which would have to redesign its forms and software to allow for voters to list a party affiliation. It’s not yet clear how long that would take and how much it could cost. Read Article

Wisconsin: Former Trump aides, attorneys plead not guilty to fake elector charges | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s attorney for the 2020 campaign in Wisconsin and two former aides all pleaded not guilty Tuesday to felony forgery charges for their roles in a fake elector scheme designed to overturn Trump’s loss in the swing state. Jim Troupis, a former judge who was Trump’s Wisconsin campaign attorney, Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020, and Ken Chesebro, a former Trump legal adviser, all entered the pleas in Dane County Circuit Court. Troupis, who lives in the Madison area, appeared in person. Roman and Chesebro appeared via Zoom. The Wisconsin fake electors case is moving forward even as others in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia have faltered. A special prosecutor last year dropped a federal case alleging Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Another case in Nevada is still alive. Read Article

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