Maryland preps for multibillion-dollar shortfalls, approves $109.4M voting machine buy | Gary Collins/The Baltimore Sun

Maryland is preparing to spend up to $109.4 million on a new statewide voting system, setting up a costly election overhaul that uses similar machines as the state continues to confront large structural budget gaps for the rest of the decade. This large-scale purchase would mark nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in taxpayer expenditures on state election equipment since 2002. The Maryland Board of Public Works approved the contract on July 22 with Omaha-based Election Systems & Software (ES&S). The initial award is approximately $84.9 million, with two two-year renewal options that could increase the total to roughly $109.4 million over nine years. The equipment is intended to be ready for the 2028 presidential election. Procurement documents reviewed by Spotlight on Maryland show eight vendors were solicited, four submitted proposals, and ES&S received the highest overall technical ranking from the evaluation committee in a unanimous final decision. Read Article

National: Voting machines have real security issues. Researchers worry they could be weaponized by election deniers. | Dana Nickel/Politico

Last spring, the Trump administration asked a small cybersecurity firm based in Virginia to scrutinize electronic voting systems the federal government had seized from Puerto Rico. The task before the company, Mojave Research, was nominally simple: to determine whether the machines had any major security flaws that could have affected the results of the 2024 presidential election. The company ultimately discovered numerous security gaps in these machines, made by election giant Dominion Voting Systems, including weak or recycled passwords used across networks and other vulnerabilities that had previously been identified but remained unpatched. But according to Jason Wareham — the chief executive of Mojave Research who presented the findings of this investigation for the first time publicly last Friday at the DEF CON cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas — they had no reason to suspect that these security issues had any material impact on the results of the election. Read Article

National: Judge halts Trump order to expand Postal Service role in elections | Michael Casey and Nicholas Riccardi/Associated Press

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled against President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and directly involve the U.S. Postal Service in election operations in a way that would limit mail voting. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani had already halted the order Trump signed in March, his second one attempting to set national election rules. On June 25, she sided with Democratic state attorneys general in granting summary judgment, preventing the core parts of Trump’s order from taking effect. Tuesday’s ruling creates another legal hurdle for the Trump administration to overcome should it get the initial injunction lifted by the U.S. Supreme Court. “That it is now less than 90 days before the November 3, 2026 midterm elections underscores the critical need for an injunction to prevent Defendants from changing election rules on the eve of the election,” she wrote. Read Article

National: No more ‘hypothetical situations’: States move to fortify elections against Trump | Kevin Hardy/Stateline

State Democratic officials are preparing for chaos at the polls this November, as President Donald Trump casts doubt on election security and pushes for more federal involvement in local voting. “We’re no longer talking about hypothetical situations,” said Nick Brown, Washington state’s Democratic attorney general, noting the president’s push to nationalize election administration and to question the integrity of upcoming elections. Brown is among the many Democratic state officials raising alarms over how Trump may seek to interfere with or challenge the results of November’s midterms. At stake is not only whether Republicans will maintain their grip on Congress, but also the control of state legislatures across the country. Democratic gains at either the state or national levels could provide a new check on Trump, who has sought to significantly expand executive power in his second term. Read Article

National: What happens if election deniers run elections? | Zack Beauchamp/Vox

Tom Tiffany, the new Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, is not just a passive supporter of President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election. He is an active promoter of them. In December 2020, when he was a member of Congress, he signed on to a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory. On January 6, 2021, he voted against certifying the results in Pennsylvania and Texas just hours after rioters threatened to kill his colleagues. He has stated he would have overturned Wisconsin’s results too, and just this year endorsed an FBI investigation into the state’s elections. And though the national climate in 2026 favors Democrats, Wisconsin is a closely divided state: Tiffany could beat the odds and win the general. There is, in short, a very real chance that someone who doesn’t believe American elections are legitimate may soon be supervising them in one of the 2028 presidential cycle’s most important swing states. Read Article

National: Voting machine researchers say federal work abruptly ended after Trump ally pushed back on their findings | David DiMolfetta/Nextgov/FCW

After spending roughly six weeks analyzing Dominion voting systems used in Puerto Rico’s 2024 elections, Mojave Research came back to the Trump administration with findings that startled its researchers. The systems contained at least a dozen high- or critical-severity software vulnerabilities. Passwords were reused, firewalls were disabled and basic cryptographic protections were poorly implemented. And in Puerto Rico, active cellular hardware modems opened additional pathways into underlying software that was thought to be isolated. But the small cybersecurity firm found no evidence that any of those weaknesses had actually been exploited, or that votes had been changed. The company still wanted more time to be certain. Federal officials initially seemed willing to give them considerably more of it. The company was asked to grow the team working on the effort from roughly 10 people to about 60, according to CEO Jason Wareham. Read Article

National: Top Democrats simulate election threats as Trump continues assault on voting | George Chidi/The Guardian

In a Washington DC conference room last month, some of the most senior Democrats in the US Senate gathered to plan for a prospect that only recently would have felt more akin to science fiction: they started to wargame democracy. Chuck Schumer, the US Senate minority leader, and senators including Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff, Mark Warner, Elissa Slotkin and Raphael Warnock were among those in the room as a team of legal experts offered scenarios. The first: realistic deepfake videos, created with artificial intelligence, showing “evidence” of widespread election fraud, spreading through social media a few weeks before voting begins. Forensic experts discredit the videos quickly as synthetic in the given scenario, but rightwing media – and the US president – amplify the claims, nonetheless. Election workers begin receiving death threats. Armed men start appearing at polls. If you’re a Democratic senator, what would you do? Read Article

National: How the DMV Became Ground Zero in the Election Integrity Fight | Louise Radnofsky, Eliza Collins, Joseph De Avila and Corinne Ramey/Wall Street Journal

In President Trump’s prime-time address last month declaring U.S. elections vulnerable, his centerpiece claim was that more than 250,000 noncitizens were registered to vote. A day later, the Department of Homeland Security said the striking number covered just four states. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill already knew her state had a problem but nothing of that scale. The day before Trump’s speech, the Democrat learned from her state attorney general’s office that under the previous governor, the state had accidentally put thousands of noncitizens on its voter rolls. Even worse, hundreds of them appeared to have cast ballots. The governor and her advisers quickly realized they needed to acknowledge the errors. On July 21, Sherrill said 6,600 noncitizens had been added to New Jersey’s voter rolls from June 2023 to June 2024, blaming a software glitch at the motor vehicle commission, which automatically registers eligible people to vote. While applying for a driver’s license, these people selected “no” when asked if they were U.S. citizens, Sherrill said, but “the system registered them anyway.” Read Article

National: Trump loses 21 straight court battles for state voter rolls as midterms near | Luc Cohen/Reuters

The Trump administration’s streak of courtroom defeats in its effort to obtain state voter rolls reached 21 this year when a judge ruled this week that states are not required to share the records with the federal government. With President Donald Trump’s Republicans defending slim majorities in both chambers of Congress, ​his administration has mounted an aggressive effort to expand federal oversight of elections ahead of the November 3 midterms. A Reuters investigation found that just 129 people have been prosecuted for noncitizen voting since a law criminalizing it was passed in 1996, and that most of those cases stemmed from voter confusion or miscommunication with election officials rather than any conspiracy. Read Article

National: How a Counterintelligence Inquiry Into Trump’s Russia Ties Was Derailed | Michael S. Schmidt/The New York Times

For the last year, the Trump administration’s efforts to seek retribution against intelligence officials and F.B.I. agents who investigated Russia’s 2016 election meddling have been spearheaded by federal prosecutors in South Florida trying to build a criminal case. But in recent weeks, the White House has added a dimension to its push to rewrite the history of the Russia investigation, releasing a trove of previously classified F.B.I. memos that it says back up President Trump’s claims that a so-called deep state was out to get him. There is little new of substance in the documents, and nothing that fundamentally undercuts the F.B.I.’s rationale for pursuing the Russia investigation. But the material does shed new light on an often overlooked aspect of the swirl of events surrounding Mr. Trump in his first months in office in 2017: the bureau’s remarkable decision to open a separate counterintelligence investigation into the president of the United States, and how that inquiry was sidetracked before it had much of a chance to get going. Mr. Trump has always dismissed as baseless smears suggestions that he was a Russian asset or had extensive financial ties to Russia. And no publicly known investigation into Mr. Trump ever demonstrated that he was acting at the behest of the Russians. Read Article

Opinion: Election security, or the engineering of distrust? | Ervin Hoskins/The Journal-Courier

By turning voting machines, classified intelligence, and alleged foreign interference into political theater, the Trump administration is preparing voters to distrust an election that has not yet taken place. Donald Trump has never treated elections simply as contests to be won or lost. He treats them as tests of legitimacy whose results are valid only when they confirm his political authority. His planned national address on the “integrity” of voting machines therefore should not be dismissed as another attempt to relitigate the 2020 election. It may represent something more consequential: an effort to establish, before the 2026 midterms, a rationale for challenging any result unfavorable to Republicans. The issue is not whether election systems should be protected. They should. Foreign governments have sought to influence American voters, spread disinformation, and deepen existing political divisions. Voting equipment, like every form of critical infrastructure, also requires testing, oversight, and investment. Read Article

Alaska continues criminal prosecution of nine American Samoan residents despite landmark U.S. Supreme Court citizenship ruling | Jonson Kuhn/KTUU

The State of Alaska is doubling down on its criminal prosecution of nine American Samoan residents in Whittier, opposing a motion to dismiss that argues a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling makes them U.S. citizens. The development comes as members of the Pese family remain caught in the state’s slow-moving legal system. A discovery hearing for Michael Pese — who filed the initial motion to dismiss in Anchorage Superior Court — was scheduled for this week, though representation for the family said they expect little progress as these hearings have repeatedly been rescheduled. In a court filing on Aug. 4, state prosecutors formally opposed Pese’s motion to dismiss the felony voter misconduct charges. Pese’s defense team argued that under the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Barbara, anyone born on U.S. soil—including U.S. territories like American Samoa—is constitutionally a U.S. citizen under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Read Article

Arizona: Court revives voting restrictions ahead of midterms | Natalie Hausmann/Democracy Docket

The Ninth Circuit ruled to uphold previously blocked voting laws in Arizona that will go into effect in time for the state’s midterm general election, making it harder for some voters to cast ballots. The 11-judge panel Friday reinstated two provisions of a 2022 law that imposed strict voter registration requirements. Parts of the bill have faced heavy litigation since its inception, with courts flip-flopping on the legality of the suppressive measures. One provision demands that a voter’s registration be cancelled when they move to a different county within the state. The other provision criminalizes what are deemed “mechanisms for voting,” which plaintiffs argue could include anything from helping someone update their address to sending a child at college their absentee ballot. Read Article

Georgia Secretary of State launches bipartisan election integrity task force | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office is launching a bipartisan task force to shore up voter confidence in election results on both sides of the aisle. The organization, which is made up of former elected officials from both parties, county election workers and other election experts, officially launched Wednesday. Members include former Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, former GOP U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, former GOP U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, who is a Democrat. In an interview, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is a Republican, said he hopes the appointees’ long records of public service will help voters trust the results of the midterm elections. Read Article

Michigan Attorney General charges 5 noncitizens who allegedly committed voter fraud in 2024 election | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Michigan’s attorney general announced Thursday she was charging five noncitizens for allegedly voting in the 2024 general election, plus one U.S. citizen accused of registering their noncitizen spouse to vote. Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, made the announcement more than a year after her office announced she was investigating 13 potential noncitizen voters referred by the Michigan Department of State. Thursday’s announcement encompassed those referrals as well as 25 other people referred more recently on similar allegations. In addition to the six who were charged, 10 of those cases have been closed without charges, and 22 remain under investigation. In addition, the voter registration of every identified noncitizen — including several who were not charged — has been cancelled. Read Article

Nevada: Clark County judge dismisses case against Nevada ‘fake electors’ for second time | Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

A Clark County judge has tossed out forgery charges against Nevada’s six so-called “fake electors” for the second time, the latest defeat for prosecutors’ efforts to convict the Republicans behind the effort to overturn Nevada’s 2020 election results for President Donald Trump. Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled Thursday that state prosecutors did not provide enough evidence that the GOP electors had intended to defraud state officials. She also said prosecutors “independently undermine[d] the integrity of the indictment” against the electors by withholding certain evidence to members of the grand jury. In 2024, she tossed out the case on the grounds that Clark County was an invalid place to consider the case, but the Nevada Supreme Court unanimously overruled her last year, kicking the case back down to Southern Nevada. Attorney General Aaron Ford’s (D) office plans to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. That process — if it mirrors the one from Holthus’ first dismissal — could take more than a year, prolonging the case that began almost three years ago. Ford, who is running for governor, is unlikely to still be in office by the time the case ends. Read Article

North Carolina auditor’s office liaison invoked state GOP wishes in some county early voting plans | Lynn Bonner/NC Newsline

A staff member in the North Carolina auditor’s office used mentions of the wishes of his boss and the state Republican Party in an attempt to sway decisions on at least two counties’ early voting plans. Hundreds of pages produced as a result of public records requests reveal the extent to which Dallas Woodhouse, a former elections liaison for state Auditor Dave Boliek, pushed for early voting sites in particular locations and against them in others. Woodhouse recommended that counties eliminate Sunday voting hours, advised county chairs on bargaining tactics to reach unanimous approval for early voting plans that Democrats didn’t like, and told two county elections chairs what Republicans on the state Board of Elections would or wouldn’t approve and what the state Republican Party wanted. Read Article

Texas’ mail ballot ID requirements restored by federal appeals court | Ayden Runnels/The Texas Tribune

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday restored several pieces of a 2021 Texas election law that overhauled mail-in and assisted voting, overturning a lower court’s block on those provisions. Five years ago, Texas passed Senate Bill 1, a wide-reaching election law that changed the way local officials administer elections and how some Texans vote, particularly aimed at initiatives Harris County implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The law was denounced by voter advocacy groups, civil rights organizations and Democratic lawmakers, who broke quorum in an attempt to stifle the bill. After several lawsuits over accessibility concerns created by the new law were consolidated into a single suit, a district judge in March 2025 struck down nine of its provisions. Those blocked provisions included requiring Texans to provide an identification number or social security number on mail in ballot applications and have them match the state’s records. The judge also blocked provisions that create processes for curing defective ballots and require voters and those who assist them in filling out their ballot to sign an oath swearing they did not coerce the voter and disclose how they’re related. Read Article

Wisconsin: Download error in Milwaukee delays results | Vanessa Swales/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson announced shortly before midnight that issues had arisen during the downloading of absentee ballots at the City of Milwaukee’s Central Count, further delaying the closely watched results of Wisconsin’s Democratic primary for governor. Paulina Gutiérrez, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, identified the issue as “human error.” Gutiérrez later clarified that the “wrong button was pressed.” According to Gutiérrez, five of the nine USB sticks used to download the election results of tabulators did not contain the results and only had the audit logs before the absentee ballots were transported to the Milwaukee County Election Commission. She said were no issues with the machines, but the sticks used to download the information. Read Article

National: A Growing Number of Election Deniers Hold Key Local Roles in Midterms | Nick Corasaniti and Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

A significant number of local officials who have publicly questioned the integrity of past elections are now in positions that allow them to oversee or administer upcoming midterm elections. This trend is particularly notable in counties across the nation that are slated to host competitive House and Senate races, contests that will ultimately decide control of Congress. The presence of these individuals in key administrative roles raises concerns for voters and election integrity advocates. Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer for the National Association of Election Officials, said these officials’ roles risked lending legitimacy to false theories. At worst, they could try to interfere directly with results. “What we’re seeing now is the sort of thing that people have long worried about,” Ms. Patrick said. Still, she added, such election interference is rare. Read Article

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