A Serious Senate Debate About an Unserious Bill | Russell Berman and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Atlantic

The United States has launched a war in Iran. Soaring gas prices are pounding an economy that many Americans already considered unaffordable. And the federal department responsible for protecting the homeland ran out of money more than a month ago. Naturally, the Senate is debating none of those things. Instead, Republicans in Congress’s upper chamber are spending this week trying—likely in vain—to pass a bill aimed at addressing President Trump’s yearslong obsession with his 2020 defeat. The proposal, known as the SAVE America Act, would require people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and photo identification when casting their ballot. The legislation is ostensibly designed to toughen enforcement of a core tenet of American democracy that most election experts say is already rigorously enforced: the law that only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in federal elections. But those same experts, along with Trump himself, view the SAVE America Act as much more far-reaching. If it’s passed, voting-rights experts contend, more than 20 million eligible voters could lose ready access to the polls, including many married women who have changed their name and young people who have moved out of state to attend college. A Serious Senate Debate About an Unserious Bill – The Atlantic

National: Where Trump Has Installed 2020 Election Deniers in Government | Alan Feuer, Nick Corasaniti and Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

When President Trump sought to overturn his loss in the 2020 election and remain in power, resistance from within his own government helped to stop him. Top Justice Department officials rejected his specious claims that the vote had been marred by widespread fraud. Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security refused to go along with his outlandish efforts to seize voting machines. Cybersecurity experts praised the count as secure, and the intelligence community sidestepped his requests to declare that foreign nations had interfered in the results. But Mr. Trump’s second term looks very different. The president has filled his administration with people who are sympathetic to his baseless claims that the presidential race more than five years ago was stolen. Read Article

National: Amendment to require photo ID to vote fails in Senate as Democrats object | Caitlin Yilek/CBS

An amendment that would require voters to show photo identification to cast a ballot failed to advance in the Senate on Thursday, despite Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying last week that Democrats were not opposed to such a requirement. The amendment to the elections bill needed 60 votes to advance. It was defeated in a 53 to 47 vote. The vote came during the second week of a marathon debate over a controversial elections bill known as the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and certain forms of photo ID to cast a ballot. The legislation does not have enough support to clear the 60-vote threshold in the upper chamber, but President Trump has dialed up the pressure on Senate Republicans to find a way to force it through. ReaD ARTICLE

National: Some States Already Preparing for Potential Supreme Court Ban on Late Ballots | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Francisco Aguilar, the secretary of state in Nevada, stepped out of the Supreme Court in Washington on Monday, where justices had just heard arguments about the legality of counting mail votes that arrive after Election Day. He immediately called his top deputy. The court’s conservative majority had appeared deeply skeptical of the arguments for continuing the practice. So Mr. Aguilar’s message was urgent, he later said in an interview. He began listing things “we need to start working on and answering.” And in the middle of the midterm election season, they couldn’t wait for a decision to land — perhaps as late as June. “We have to provide a road map for the county clerks,” he said into the phone. Mr. Aguilar, a Democrat, is one of 18 top election officials in states and territories across the country bracing for the possibility that the Supreme Court will require major changes to election law just months before the midterm election in November. Part of the urgency: getting the message out to voters that late-arriving ballots may no longer be counted. Such a decision could affect hundreds of thousands of voters. Read Article

National: On cyber, local elections officials are ‘natural risk managers,’ says former CISA official | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Geoff Hale got his start in defending the nation’s elections infrastructure from cyberattacks in 2016. “I guess I can thank Russia for that,” he said, pointing to his work at the National Protection and Programs Directorate, which was two years later to be transformed into the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security division granted an expansive remit on coordinating and rallying technical and intelligence resources in response to cybersecurity threats, foreign and domestic. He recalled Russia’s successful cyberattacks in 2016 against the Democratic National Committee, but also lesser known cyber activity aimed at state governments. Much has changed over the past decade, including the level of support offered by the federal cyber agency created during Donald Trump’s first presidency. Federal support for state and local governments has been slashed broadly, including for programs that would aid local election officials as they prepare for the midterm elections and the 2028 presidential race. Read Article

National: Republican states are pushing through their own versions of the SAVE America Act | Andrew Howard/Politico

As the Senate continues to stall on the SAVE America Act, Republicans in a number of states are moving forward with plans to add citizenship requirements to their voting laws. Six states are likely to vote on new measures this fall that echo President Donald Trump’s top legislative priority. Republican lawmakers in Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota and West Virginia have put various citizenship-related amendments on the ballot. In West Virginia, the most recent state to put a measure on the ballot, the amendment would change the state’s constitution from saying “citizens of the state shall be entitled to vote,” to “only citizens of the state who are citizens of the United States are entitled to vote.” Read Article

National: Trump’s voter crackdown reaches college campuses | Bianca Quilantan/Politico

College campuses are already getting a taste of President Donald Trump’s effort to impose broad, new voting restrictions across the country. While Trump’s push for a partisan elections bill faces several bottlenecks on Capitol Hill, his administration has spent months quietly chipping away at programs designed to boost turnout among a voting bloc Republicans say lean Democratic. Colleges play a critical role in helping students vote in what is often their first chance to cast a ballot. But the Trump administration is barring colleges from using a federal program that employs low-income students to register voters and threatening to investigate schools if they use data from a nonpartisan student voting study to help boost turnout. Read Article

National: Trump said he voted by mail in Florida because he ‘should be’ in D.C. He cast his ballot from Palm Beach. | Irie Sentner/Politico

President Donald Trump — a relentless critic of mail-in voting — said Thursday that he voted by mail in Florida’s special elections this month because he felt he should be in Washington D.C. “instead of being in the beautiful sunshine. Because of the fact that I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida, because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine,” Trump told reporters at the White House during Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. Reminded that he is often in Palm Beach at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump responded: “I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn’t be there, because I had a lot of different things.” But the president cast his mail-in vote from Palm Beach, records show. Read Article

National: ICE agents have been deployed to airports. Are the polls next? | Gabe Cohen/CNN

The high-profile deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports has renewed support on the right and fear on the left about the possibility of ICE going to the polls in November. Steve Bannon is urging President Donald Trump — who surprised officials in his own administration this weekend by ordering ICE agents to airports to help alleviate long lines — to treat that move as a dress rehearsal for the 2026 midterms, arguing the same armed officers should ultimately be positioned around polling places. “We can use this as a test run — a test case — to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm election,” Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, said Monday on his “War Room” podcast, reiterating his past calls for a law enforcement presence at the polls. While Bannon holds no official role in the administration, his remarks reignited concerns among some election officials and Democratic lawmakers who fear the Trump administration could try to use ICE as a political weapon — intimidating voters and potentially suppressing turnout in November. They argue that kind of presence at polling sites could run afoul of federal law. Read Article

In Alaska, a grace period for ballots is seen as a necessity | AP News

The tiny Alaska Native village of Beaver is about 40 minutes — by plane — from the nearest city. Its roughly 50 residents rely on weekday flights for mail and many of their basic supplies, from groceries to Amazon deliveries of everyday household items. Air service plays an outsize role in the nation’s most expansive state, where most communities rely on flights for year-round access. Planes also play a critical role in elections, getting voting materials and ballots to and from rural precincts such as Beaver and in delivering ballots for thousands of Alaskans who vote by mail — some in places where in-person voting is not available. The vast distances and relative isolation of so many communities make Alaska unique and are why its residents have a significant interest in arguments taking place Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court. Read Article

California GOP sheriff who’s running for governor seizes ballots from 2025 election | Jane C. Timm/NBC

A Republican sheriff in California who’s running for governor seized more than 650,000 ballots from election officials last week, saying he is investigating potential fraud in last year’s election. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said a group of citizens conducted their own “audit” of California’s 2025 special election results in the county, and he claimed that the election workers’ tally of ballots received was 45,000 fewer than the number of votes certified to the state. Riverside County considered one ballot question in the November special election: whether to approve a new Democratic-drawn congressional map. Voters statewide and in the county ultimately passed the measure, putting Democrats in position to gain up to five House seats in this year’s midterm elections. Read Article

Florida: As SAVE America Act stalls in the Senate, Florida passes its own proof-of-citizenship law | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

A signature piece of voting legislation championed by President Donald Trump may not have much of a future in the U.S. Senate, but in Florida, the future is here. Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers in Trump’s home state approved a sweeping overhaul of the state’s voter registration system, one that mirrors the core idea behind the federal SAVE America Act: requiring proof of citizenship to get on the rolls. The details differ — the Florida bill, for instance, would not take effect until after the midterms — but the architecture is the same. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law any day now. In states like Florida, policies like this one that are on the GOP’s wish list can move quickly. Republicans face little meaningful Democratic opposition, and the bill advanced with relatively little resistance — a stark contrast to Washington, where things are far messier. Read Article

Georgia Court of Appeals sides with Fulton County in fight over election board appointments | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

Georgia’s Court of Appeals has overturned a trial court’s ruling ordering the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to seat two conservative election activists on the county election board or face daily fines. In May, Democrats on the board had rejected two Republican Party nominees, Julie Adams and Jason Frazier, citing concerns about both individuals’ past actions and arguing that they were not qualified for the position. But the Fulton County GOP filed a lawsuit arguing that the commissioners were required to approve the party’s nominees as long as they met basic required standards like living in the county, being a registered voter and not being an elected official. Read Article

Maryland: The price of new voting equipment is stirring up frustration | Latest News | Kyle Orens/WBOC

A looming 50/50 split for new voting equipment in Maryland is fueling frustration. Over the next few years, Dorchester County will have to pay $421,000 for new machines the county never asked for. Earlier this week, we reported on new, high-tech voting machines that Maryland plans on buying for the 2028 elections. It will cost the state an estimated $109 million, but every county across Maryland will have to pitch in. “It’s another unfunded mandate that’s being pushed down on to the counties,” said Lenny Pfeffer, Dorchester County Council President. Pfeffer said that money, which is now going towards new poll books, scanners and ballot marking devices, could have been used for a new ambulance, new public works vehicles or even paving projects. Read Article

Mississippi Secretary of state’s push to use unverified addresses from credit agency for ‘election integrity’ left some legitimate voters inactive during primaries | Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today

For the last 12 years, Thomas Minor has never missed a single election — local, state or federal. It’s his way of making sure he has a say in the place he’s called home his whole life: Itawamba County. Over the years, he’s cast his ballot for candidates across the political spectrum. But in Mississippi’s latest election — the March 10 congressional primaries — he didn’t end up voting at all. When Minor showed up to the polls, he found his name missing from the poll book. His voting status had changed to inactive. A couple days later, he learned it was all because of an error that was never supposed to happen. Unverified credit data knocked legitimate voters off rolls for primaries – Mississippi Today

North Dakota has an exemption in the SAVE Act but questions remain as Senate debate continues | Mary Steurer/North Dakota Monitor

State officials have said a controversial election security bill in Congress wouldn’t impact North Dakota, but some voting rights advocates in the state raise concerns that it could make it more difficult for some people to vote. The SAVE America Act would require voters to present valid photo ID to vote in federal elections, and proof of citizenship to register. The proposal has broad support among Republicans, including North Dakota’s congressional delegation. Critics oppose the bill on the grounds that it would expand federal control over elections and could make it harder for some to vote. It’s currently being debated in the Senate. The legislation includes an exemption for North Dakota since it’s the only state without voter registration, though it would still require North Dakota to have a system for verifying the citizenship of its voters. The SAVE America Act doesn’t say anything about what this process must look like. SAVE Act contains exemption for North Dakota voters, but questions remain as Senate debate continues • North Dakota Monitor

Pennsylvania: Automatic voter registration has enrolled more than 350,000 voters, but they don’t always vote | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Two and a half years into Pennsylvania’s new program to register more voters, rural counties have seen some of the biggest gains, a Votebeat and Spotlight PA analysis has found. In September 2023, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that Pennsylvania would join the more than 20 other states that offer automatic voter registration. Under Pennsylvania’s version of AVR, eligible but unregistered voters who get a new driver’s license or ID card at PennDOT facilities are automatically led through the process to join the voter rolls unless they opt out. Previously, these prospective voters had to opt in to register at PennDOT facilities. State data suggests that the program has achieved its goal of registering more voters, including some who may not have registered otherwise. However, Votebeat and Spotlight PA’s analysis found that these new voters are less likely to actually vote than their counterparts who registered by other means. Experts who have studied AVR programs say that result is not uncommon. Read Article

Puerto Rico: Gabbard testimony on voting machines raises questions about role of Venezuela conspiracy theory | Aram Roston/The Guardian

When the US director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, testified that her office seized voting machines from Puerto Rico, she said it was at the request of the office of the US attorney in Puerto Rico. Left unsaid was that the prosecutor, as the Guardian previously reported, has been the center of a push by Donald Trump supporters to revive a long discredited conspiracy theory purporting to link Venezuela to Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat. Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the conspiracy theory maintains, controlled electronic voting machines worldwide and remotely manipulated results in 2020 to deprive Trump of a presidential victory. It was just one of the theories and grievances pushed by Trump and his supporters. Other complaints involved dead voters, stolen ballots, mail-in ballot fraud and mass voting by noncitizens. Gabbard testimony on Puerto Rico voting machines raises questions about role of Venezuela conspiracy theory | Puerto Rico | The Guardian

Texas: Thousands of Dallas County voters went to wrong polling site | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

At least 12,674 Dallas County voters trying to cast ballots in both party primaries showed up at the wrong polling locations March 3 after the county GOP forced the elimination of countywide polling sites on election day, county data shows. Democrats had more than double the number of primary voters in Dallas County as Republicans so, unsurprisingly, a larger number of Democratic voters had to be redirected to the correct site, according to a Votebeat analysis of data provided by Dallas County election officials. But similar percentages of voters from both parties were affected by the change. Out of the total voter turnout on election day, at least 6,641 voters, or 7.7%, seeking to cast ballots in the Democratic primary, and 2,369 voters, or 6.4%, seeking to cast ballots in the Republican primary, went to the wrong voting site. Those voters subsequently received texts from county representatives stationed at polling sites to redirect voters to the correct places, according to the county data, which was obtained by Votebeat via a public records request. Read Article

A Utah County Clerk Grapples With Election Denial | Governing

Ricky Hatch, clerk for Utah’s Weber County, had a chance to interview for a government job when he was still in college. “Who would want to work in government?” he asked his professor. “That’s got to be the most boring thing ever.” “Boring” would be the last word to describe his 16 years as clerk. They include running an election during a pandemic, fending off runaway conspiracies, a leadership role in preventing foreign election interference and a growing list of worries about staff and voter safety. Read Article

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