The Voting News

Utah’s top elections official, Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson, said maintaining trust in voting has become one of the more difficult parts of her job, as misinformation, new laws and legal challenges collide. Henderson, who is responsible for overseeing elections in the state, said public confidence is increasingly being tested despite what she describes as a secure and well-managed system. “Fear sells. Facts are boring,” Henderson said. “And that has been the biggest challenge of my office.” Henderson pointed to the rapid spread of misinformation as a major factor. In reality, she said, “rigging” an election is incredibly difficult. “It’s very hard to manipulate that kind of system to affect a change in an election outcome,” she said. “But it’s easy to take little pieces of information here or there and create false narratives out of it.” Read Article

Virginia rejoins voter-registration data-sharing group after controversial exit | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Nearly three years after leaving the Electronic Registration Information Center, Virginia has renewed its membership with the nonprofit that allows states to share voter registration data to ensure only those allowed to vote may do so. Abigail Spanberger, Virginia’s governor, announced Thursday that the state has rejoined ERIC, as its 27th member, after the state pulled out in 2023 under the direction of former Gov. Glenn Youngkin. In an executive order in March, Spanberger said not participating in ERIC had made it “more difficult for Virginia’s election administrators to obtain information to help maintain Virginia’s voter rolls and otherwise engage in routine voter list maintenance,” such as identifying voters who’d moved to other states. In a press release on Thursday, Steven Koski, Virginia’s elections commissioner, claimed that rejoining ERIC will provide “a key source of information that will bolster our comprehensive voter list maintenance processes.” Read Article

North Carolina elections board hired a lawyer who was also suing it | Lynn Bonner/NC Newsline

State elections director Sam Hayes hired one of North Carolina Republicans’ go-to lawyers to defend the state Board of Elections in a lawsuit this year, even though that lawyer was representing clients with active lawsuits against the board in four other cases in state and federal court. Phil Strach represents Republican legislators, the Republican National Committee and the state Republican party in redistricting and election cases. As Hayes sought to hire Strach, Strach asked Hayes to sign a waiver acknowledging that his firm was representing board adversaries in other cases. “Your consent signifies a waiver of any and all conflicts on behalf of other Firm clients which may exist in present unrelated matters or could arise in future unrelated matters due to this representation,” Strach’s January 30 letter said. “You agree to not use our representation in the New Engagement as a ground for seeking our disqualification in such matters,” Strach’s letter said. Read Article

Arizona: Judge strikes down rule requiring counties to aid voters who go to wrong polling place | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes can’t force election officials to provide a way for voters who show up at the wrong polling place to cast a valid ballot, according to a new court decision striking down a key provision of the state’s election rulebook. In 2023, Fontes wrote a policy into the state’s election procedures manual directing counties that assign voters to polling places to allow out-of-precinct voters to cast their ballots on accessible voting devices, which state and federal law requires must be available at every polling place for voters with disabilities. Before that, voters had no way to cast a valid ballot if they showed up at the wrong polling location. Weeks before the 2024 election, Fontes, a Democrat, sued Pinal County, a bright-red jurisdiction sandwiched between Phoenix and Tucson, for failing to comply with the new policy. A Pinal County Superior Court judge ruled that the county was violating state law by not following the rule, but declined to force it to comply in that election. Later, the Arizona Supreme Court similarly ruled that it was far too close to the election to compel the county to change course. Since then, the two sides have continued to fight the issue in court. Read Article

Michigan: Judge dismisses felony charges in Michigan election tampering case | Bridge Michigan

A Hillsdale County judge on Thursday dismissed felony charges against a former election clerk and attorney accused of allowing unauthorized access to voting equipment following the 2020 presidential election. A lower court made an “error of law” and “abused its discretion” when it ordered Stephanie Scott and Stefanie Lambert stand trial on related felony charges, Circuit Court Judge Sara Lisznyai wrote in an eight-page ruling. Scott was serving as Adams Township Clerk in 2021 when she refused to turn over a missing tabulator amid a quest to prove the prior year’s presidential election was rigged against Donald Trump. Lambert, of metro Detroit, served as her attorney at the time. Read Article

National: Why red states are pushing back on Trump administration’s request for voter data | Cy Neff/The Guardian

The Department of Justice’s quest to secure sensitive voter data is finding opposition in typically friendly territory – several staunchly conservative states. As of 1 April, the Department of Justice has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for failing to turn over full copies of their voter registration lists. The push has hit repeated roadblocks, including legal defeats in California, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Arizona and Michigan. But the justice department is also running into obstacles in some of America’s reddest states, with Trump strongholds Utah, West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky and Idaho all refusing to hand over the requested data. In their objections, the Republican-controlled states cite their constitutionally guaranteed authority over election administration, as well as concerns over data security, privacy laws and the questionable legal grounds of the department’s request. Read Article

National: US cyber team hasn’t been activated yet to protect midterm elections from foreign meddling | Sean Lyngaas/CNN

For the first election cycle in years, US military and intelligence officials have not yet activated a specialized team dedicated to detecting and thwarting foreign threats to elections, according to comments from those agencies to Congress and CNN, alarming some lawmakers and former officials who have served on the team. A failure to activate the team would be a “major national security mistake and I hope that they will correct it in the weeks to come,” Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who sits on the armed services committee, told CNN. For every general and midterm election since the 2020 election, the Election Security Group (ESG) has been a hub for officials from the National Security Agency, the code-breaking and signals intelligence agency, and US Cyber Command, the military’s hackers, to share intelligence and launch counter attacks against trolls from Russia, Iran and elsewhere who were trying to undermine US elections. US cyber team hasn’t been activated yet to protect midterm elections from foreign meddling | CNN Politics

South Dakota: New requirement for combined state, local elections brings dizzying array of ballot variations | Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight

A new South Dakota law intended to make voting easier is doing the opposite for some of the people running elections. The new law requires cities and schools to hold their elections with the statewide primary in June or the general election in November, rather than on separate dates. Lawmakers hope the change will increase turnout, but it has some county auditors producing a staggering number of ballot variations in the interest of voter convenience. Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson told South Dakota Searchlight her office is printing 324 different types of ballots, known as ballot styles, ahead of the June election. Other county auditors reported a range from a dozen to more than 100. Read Article

National: Trump keeps saying the quiet part out loud on changes to the 2026 election | Aaron Blake/CNN

President Donald Trump doesn’t need any invitation — or any evidence, really — to claim that an election is “rigged,” as he’s done many times over the last 11 years. But just imagine for a second that, when his foes did something that Trump claimed amounted to rigging an election, they announced it by saying, “This is going to help us win elections!” Because that’s what the president has now done, over and over again. As he’s pushed a number of executive and legislative actions in recent months — from nixing the Senate filibuster, to requiring voter ID and proof of citizenship, to eliminating mail ballots — he’s repeatedly pitched them as ideas that will help Republicans win the 2026 midterm elections. Read Article

Georgia: Trump Administration Demands Names of 2020 Election Workers | Nick Corasanti, Richard Fausset and Alan Feuer/The New York Times

The Justice Department has demanded the identities of every worker who staffed the 2020 election in Fulton County, Ga., according to court records, escalating an ongoing federal investigation of the 2020 vote in Georgia’s most populous county that relies on false and debunked claims. The demand targets employees of Fulton County elections as well as volunteer poll workers, who likely numbered in the thousands during the 2020 election, according to court records. The demand, which came via a federal grand jury subpoena, appears to be the latest effort by President Trump and his administration to use the investigative power of the federal government to pursue false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. With midterm voting underway in many states, including Georgia, the effort risks further undermining public confidence and sowing chaos among voters. nytimes.com

National: How AI Can Help (and Hurt) Election Officials | Carl Smith/Governing

On his personal blog, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mused that ChatGPT might already be “more powerful than any human who has ever lived.” Cause for celebration in some contexts, perhaps — but not if those hoping to disrupt electoral processes have ready access to such tools. Researchers say AI capabilities have doubled every seven months since 2019. By this metric, AI is more 675 times “better” today than it was during the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. This doesn’t necessarily mean new ways to interfere with elections, says Mike Moser, a consultant for the Election Security Exchange. The risks aren’t new, he says, but AI advancement, particularly the development of large language models, exacerbates them. Moser describes it as the “industrialization” of malicious actors. “It lowers the barriers for those that don’t have the scale or the sophistication to do their own coding,” he says, “Or it helps them do faster reconnaissance and research.” A study by Stanford researchers found that messages on policy issues generated by AI were seen as “more logical, better informed and less angry” than those authored by humans. Izzy Gainsburg, associate director of Stanford’s AI for Public Benefit Lab, sees a bigger long-term concern. Read Article

John Roberts Believes in an America That Doesn’t Exist | Jamelle Bouie/The New York Times

“Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield,” President Lyndon Johnson declared as he signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965. “This act flows from a clear and simple wrong,” he continued. “Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote.” And so it did. The Voting Rights Act put the final nail in the coffin of American apartheid and opened the door to something that looked worthy of the name democracy. It brought a flowering of political participation, not just in the states of the former Confederacy but throughout the country, as disadvantaged and disenfranchised Americans took advantage of new rules and protections to fight for and win political power. Latinos, Native Americans and other ethnic and linguistic minorities all won greater access and influence under the voting right act and its subsequent amendments and reauthorizations. Read Article

Wisconsin Elections Commission sued for telling Madison not to count late-arriving absentee ballots | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is facing criticism from local officials and a lawsuit filed Wednesday after it ordered Madison not to count 23 absentee ballots that arrived late to the polls in the state’s recent Supreme Court race, a delay city officials say was caused by election administrator error. City officials also say the commission initially offered little guidance but later faulted them for making the wrong decision. As Madison officials discussed what to do with the late-arriving ballots the day after Election Day, Madison City Attorney Mike Haas reached out to Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe for advice. Wolfe sent the relevant statute the following day, and told Madison officials to “decide, within their statutory discretion” whether the 23 ballots should be counted. Madison decided to count them. Three weeks later, WEC’s commissioners decided Madison made the wrong choice, ordering them to remove the 23 affected ballots from the count. The commissioners didn’t mince words. Chair Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, said Madison committed an “absurd error,” and GOP commissioner Don Millis called it an “epic failure.” Read Article

Revealed: Russia’s top secret spy school teaching hacking and election meddling | Pjotr Sauer and Shaun Walker/The Guardian

Last April, Vladimir Putin visited the campus of Bauman Moscow state technical university, set on the banks of the Yauza River in the east of the city and home to some of the country’s brightest scientific minds. He toured the campus, met undergraduates and boasted about Moscow’s ambitious plans for space missions to the moon and Mars. “You have everything it takes to be competitive,” Putin told the students. What the Kremlin readout of Putin’s visit did not mention was a secret faculty inside the university, known simply as Department 4, or “Special Training”. Here, a select group of students are quietly prepared for careers in the GRU – Russia’s military intelligence directorate, whose operatives have hacked western parliaments, poisoned dissidents on foreign soil and interfered in elections across Europe and the US. Until now its role in preparing future intelligence operatives has remained largely secret, save among a select group of insiders. Read Article

Georgia: Judge denies Fulton County’s request for return of 2020 ballots seized in FBI raid | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice does not have to return 2020 election ballots seized by FBI agents to Fulton County. It is the latest twist in the bitter fight between Fulton County and the Trump administration over the county’s 2020 election records. Fulton could appeal the ruling to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling is a substantial blow for Fulton officials as it may have been the county’s best shot at reclaiming the election documents. Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts said he agrees that the affidavit was troubling, but adamantly opposed Boulee’s ruling. He said the county would pursue all available legal options and called the culmination of the DOJ’s efforts to probe the 2020 election a coordinated effort aimed at harassing and intimidating the county. Read Article

National: How Trump is moving to control U.S. elections, one state at a time | Ned Parker and Peter Eisler/Reuters

In January, the Franklin County Board of Elections in Ohio received a surprising call. The man on the line said he was an agent at the Department of Homeland Security – and he needed immediate access to voter records. Franklin County has a large population of Democrats and has long been a focal point of Republican skepticism about urban voting centers in Ohio. In the weeks that followed, the requests multiplied. According to emails reviewed by Reuters, the agent asked for voter registration forms and voting histories for dozens of voters – records that include driver’s license numbers and other confidential data. He pressed for information about local voter‑registration groups, describing the request as an “investigation” and “very time sensitive.” But he offered no explanation for what prompted his probe or where it was headed. The requests were a bolt from the blue for Franklin County election officials. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections – even for national offices such as the presidency – are run by states, not the federal government. Adding to the confusion, DHS’s mission has traditionally focused largely on counterterrorism, border security and immigration enforcement. Read Article

National: Voters Can Be Disenfranchised Now – Just Say It’s Because They’re Democrats | Adam Serwer/The Atlantic

For the conservative editor and columnist James Jackson Kilpatrick, the Supreme Court decision outlawing school segregation was an atrocity. Brown v. Board of Education, he wrote in the 1950s, was a “revolutionary act by a judicial junta which simply seized power.” He warned in 1963 that the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act would destroy “the whole basis of individual liberty.” And in a 1965 National Review cover story, he argued that in order to “give the Negro the vote,” the Voting Rights Act would repeal the Constitution. Kilpatrick did not hide the basis of his beliefs: In an article that was spiked after the 1963 Birmingham Baptist Church bombing, titled “The Hell He Is Equal,” he insisted that “the Negro race, as a race, is in fact an inferior race.” As the historian Nancy MacLean wrote in Freedom Is Not Enough, by the 1970s, this segregationist had refashioned himself as an opponent of racial discrimination, a champion of color-blindness. Liberal egalitarians supporting race-conscious remedies, he argued, were “worse racists—much worse racists—than the old Southern bigots.” His transformation was so complete, he joked, that he was like the convert who “became more Catholic than the Pope.” Read Aticle

National: ‘I have the right to vote.’ States and the DOJ are fighting over personal data | Bart Jansen/USA Today

Dozens of legal battles are being waged nationwide over federal access to personal information about voters, as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to weed out immigrants who are in the country illegally, while civil rights advocates fight for privacy. By determining who gets dropped from voter registration lists, the results of the cases will help determine who casts ballots in November midterm elections that will decide who leads the narrowly divided Congress. The Department of Justice has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for voter lists, which include driver’s license and Social Security numbers, in the hunt for fraud by ineligible voters. The department has argued that courts shouldn’t second-guess the reasons for searching the voter rolls. Read Article

National: US cyber team hasn’t been activated yet to protect midterm elections from foreign meddling | Sean Lyngaas/CNN

F For the first election cycle in years, US military and intelligence officials have not yet activated a specialized team dedicated to detecting and thwarting foreign threats to elections, according to comments from those agencies to Congress and CNN, alarming some lawmakers and former officials who have served on the team. A failure to activate the team would be a “major national security mistake and I hope that they will correct it in the weeks to come,” Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who sits on the armed services committee, told CNN. For every general and midterm election since the 2020 election, the Election Security Group (ESG) has been a hub for officials from the National Security Agency, the code-breaking and signals intelligence agency, and US Cyber Command, the military’s hackers, to share intelligence and launch counter attacks against trolls from Russia, Iran and elsewhere who were trying to undermine US elections. Read Article

National: Federal drawdown of election support ‘destroyed’ ongoing relationships, experts say | David DiMolfetta/Nextgov/FCW