Pro-Trump election deniers crash against ‘blue tsunami’ | AFP

For months, conspiracy-peddling supporters of President Donald Trump spread baseless theories that the vote would be rigged. But those claims all but dried up after Democrats swept the US midterm elections. Political pundits had anticipated a wave of legal challenges from election deniers seeking to contest the results of Tuesday’s vote, or efforts by Trump himself to tilt the outcome in his favor — as he did when he tried to overturn his 2020 election defeat. But none of that materialized. Read Article

A Tool Built by Election Deniers Said These Voters Were Dead. We Found Them Alive. | Doug Bock Clark, Max Blau, and Misty Harris/ProPublica

Ahead of the midterms, conservative election activists discussed plans to wield a powerful new weapon in the war against fraud: a data tool built by one of their own that could identify suspicious voters and help with contesting their ballots. The system was put to the test this week in Forsyth County, Georgia, where a member of the county’s election board provided other officials with what he suggested was evidence of wrongdoing: four allegedly dead voters. But it turns out all four are alive and well, ProPublica determined. The board rejected the attempt to challenge their ballots. The effort, though, shows that even after last week’s blue wave, those who believe the 2020 election was stolen have continued to relentlessly search for ways to contest Republican losses. Read Article

National: Election denialism losing steam as Trump flip flops on accepting midterm results | Jonathan Shorman/States Newsroom

Following sweeping Democratic midterm victories, election denialism failed to gain widespread institutional or media traction, even after President Donald Trump reversed his initial pledge to accept the results and began questioning the vote’s integrity on Truth Social. While Trump’s posts triggered a modest online spike among hardcore conspiracy theorists, researchers and state officials noted that on-the-ground protests were absent and major media outlets largely avoided amplifying unfounded fraud claims following massive defamation settlements from the 2020 cycle. Senior Republican leaders acknowledged the electoral losses and attributed them to political and policy factors rather than administrative irregularities. Election administrators and civic experts credited years of proactive public outreach, legal preparedness, and bipartisan community trust with insulating the democratic process from post-election subversion. Read Article

National: Democrats plot their course on national popular vote | Aaron Pellish and Lisa Kashinsky/POLITICO

Following Democratic midterm victories across several key battleground states, advocates for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact are expressing renewed confidence that enough states could join the agreement ahead of the 2028 presidential election to reach its 270-electoral-vote activation threshold. Currently enacted by 18 states and Washington, D.C.—representing 222 electoral votes—the compact would require 48 additional electoral votes to take effect, a target that advocates note could be met if newly minted Democratic trifectas in states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin pass the measure. However, incoming leaders and lawmakers in battleground states remain cautious. Read Article

National: “The Jig Is Up”: Voters Resoundingly Reject Republicans Who Wanted to Run Elections | Camille Squires/Bolts

Voters rejected Republican election-denier candidates and handed Democrats widespread control over state election administration in the 2026 midterms, flipping secretary of state offices in Georgia, Indiana, and Ohio while holding onto key posts in Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada. Out of the 17 states with the narrowest 2024 presidential margins, North Carolina remains the only state where Republicans retain control of election oversight while Democratic gubernatorial victories in states such as Texas and Pennsylvania secured appointment power over chief election officials. Read Article

National: USPS ‘got the job done’ delivering ballots, as postal unions push to permanently block mail-in voting restrictions | Jory Heckman/Government Executive

Postmaster General David Steiner and incoming USPS Board of Governors Chairman Dan Tangherlini praised the Postal Service’s execution of timely mail-in ballot deliveries during the 2026 midterm elections, following a mid-September U.S. Supreme Court ruling that blocked the agency from enforcing new executive-order restrictions ahead of the vote. Postal unions, voting rights advocates, and Democratic secretaries of state urged the USPS board to permanently rescind the rule, warning that Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion left the door open for implementation in 2028 and risked encroaching on state election authority. Read Article

National: Historic voter turnout powered Democrats’ blue wave | Lydia Sidhom, Luis Melgar, and Laura Beveridge/The Washington Post

Turnout in the midterm elections reached its second-highest peak in more than a century, only slightly behind the 2018 midterms with the greatest number of voters casting ballots in states where Democrats won unexpected victories. Across the United States, 49 percent of eligible Americans voted, the second-highest turnout since 1914, when neither women nor African Americans could vote in many states, according to preliminary data from the University of Florida Election Lab. Three states with the highest turnout – Maine (65.7 percent), Minnesota (65.2 percent) and Michigan (63.2 percent) – held competitive Senate races where Democrats prevailed. All three also elected Democratic governors. Read Articlea>

Alaska judge rules a request by Peltola campaign for ballot data in Senate race is ‘not reasonable’’ | Becky Bohrer/Associated Press

State Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews denied a legal request by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign seeking an immediate, centralized list of absentee voters whose ballots were rejected and the reasons for rejection. While acknowledging that such voter database records could theoretically be produced, Judge Matthews ruled that the request was “not reasonable” given the severe time constraints and heavy workloads facing the Alaska Division of Elections as it continues processing ballots. The ongoing Senate contest between Peltola and two-term Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan remains uncalled, with state election officials working toward a final ranked-choice voting tabulation scheduled for November 18, the statutory deadline for accepting overseas mail ballots. Read Article

Arizona Democrats have taken control of the Capitol. Here’s what we know about their election agenda. | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

Following the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats won control of both chambers of the Arizona Legislature—securing the party’s first statehouse and gubernatorial trifecta since 1966 (PBS News) alongside the reelections of Governor Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, and Attorney General Kris Mayes. Incoming legislative leaders, including Senator Lauren Kuby and Representative Brian Garcia, plan to use the upcoming January session to reverse post-2020 voting restrictions, prioritizing the restoration of the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL) before scheduled voter removals begin in January 2027. Additional priorities include implementing automatic or same-day voter registration, repealing proof-of-residency rules that have created hurdles for tribal voters, lifting the ban on private election grants, and securing funding to replace the state’s aging voter registration database. Because state budget constraints remain tight and party control could shift in 2028, Read Article

California: Targeted by Trump, Los Angeles County took action to speed up counting votes. Officials say it worked | Kevin Rector/Los Angeles Times

Following federal scrutiny and unfounded accusations of vote-counting delays during the June primary, California officials allocated $29 million statewide, including approximately $6 million to Los Angeles County, to accelerate ballot tabulation and counter election misinformation. Leveraging a centralized processing center, a newly purchased third mail-sorting machine, and continuous 24-hour staffing shifts, Los Angeles County processed roughly 99% of its nearly 3.2 million ballots within one week of Election Day, significantly outpacing its 2022 and 2024 post-election benchmarks. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan and independent election observers credited both the infrastructure upgrades and federal court rulings that blocked last-minute Trump administration efforts to segregate 20,000 contested mail ballots with preventing administrative bottlenecks. Read Article

Colorado defends its elections after Boebert campaign alleges voting irregularities  | Alexandra Hutzler/Democracy Docket

Colorado election officials pushed back against unsubstantiated allegations of “unusual voting patterns” raised by Republican Representative Lauren Boebert’s campaign as she trailed Democratic challenger Eileen Laubacher in the state’s 4th Congressional District. Campaign attorney Scott Gessler stated that Boebert’s team was investigating the vote count and anticipated a recount, though the campaign declined to provide specific evidence and had not formally contacted state administrators. Secretary of State Jena Griswold and her office affirmed that all ballots were processed strictly in accordance with state and federal law, while county officials worked toward statutory deadlines with final canvas certifications by November 25. Read Article

Idaho: After Latah County found 2,300 of unreported ballots, recount shows no races changed | Kyle Pfannenstiel/Idaho Capital Sun

A full recount supervised by the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office confirmed that no race or ballot measure outcomes changed in North Idaho’s Latah County after officials discovered 2,343 early-voting ballots had been omitted from Election Day unofficial reporting totals. Although the ballots had already been tabulated by voting machines, a data-upload error prevented their inclusion in the state reporting system until routine post-election review procedures caught the discrepancy. Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane and Latah County Clerk Julie Fry credited built-in paper ballot safeguards for verifying the final tallies ahead of the State Board of Canvassers’ official certification process. Election officials separately noted that a post-election audit in eastern Idaho’s Bannock County identified 333 uncounted ballots, which likewise left all local contest outcomes unaffected. Read Article

Iowa Secretary of State launches audit into uncounted Johnson County absentee ballots | Brooklyn Draisey/Iowa Capital Dispatch

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate and Johnson County Auditor Julie Persons launched an immediate audit of the county’s Absentee and Special Voters Precinct after local staff identified approximately 2,017 absentee ballots omitted from Election Night unofficial totals. Election officials emphasized that Election Night figures remain preliminary while counties continue processing ballots from overseas voters and domestic violence survivors ahead of formal county and state canvasses. Based on existing unofficial margins across federal, statewide, and legislative contests officials projected that tabulating the remaining ballots would not alter any race outcomes. Read Article

These Maine towns still count ballots by hand | Kevin Mann/The Maine Monitor

This election cycle, 73 of them decided to join the majority of Maine’s municipalities and switch to hand-fed optical scanners, which scan hand-marked paper ballots and tabulate the votes, storing the data on a memory stick. That is down from 161 towns, or about a third of the state’s voting jurisdictions, that did so in 2024, according to data from Verified Voting, a nonpartisan organization that researches the use of technology in elections. Those towns were quite small, with an average of 248 registered voters, make up 4% of the total voters in the state. “More towns opted into tabulators because counting by hand is incredibly time consuming and more subject to human error,” Jana Spaulding, the deputy secretary of state for communications, told The Maine Monitor this week. “Time and time again, towns that make the switch express relief at how easy the tabulators make it to count the votes quickly.”Read Article

Mississippian Scott Colom becomes state’s first Black senator since 1874 | Daniel Trotta/Reuters

Democratic district attorney Scott Colom defeated two-term Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, becoming the state’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction-era Senator Blanche Bruce in 1874 and the first Democrat to win a Mississippi Senate seat since John Stennis in 1982. Following multi-day processing of absentee and affidavit ballots, Colom edged out Hyde-Smith—who promptly conceded and wished him well in a social media video—expanding the Democratic Senate majority in a state that had voted heavily Republican in 2024. Campaigning heavily on cost-of-living pressures, rising fuel prices, and outreach across party lines, Read Article

Texas officials acknowledge problems with voter registration system and say they’ll work with local election officials to fix it | Natalia Contreras/Votebeat

Following more than a year of administrative complaints from county clerks, Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden and Elections Division Director Christina Adkins announced an independent audit and collaborative working groups to fix performance issues with the state’s updated voter registration system, TEAM. County election officials reported that the Civix-built platform frequently crashed, lacked basic date-sorting and batch-processing capabilities for mail-in ballots, and complicated efforts to clear state-created voter registration backlogs ahead of the midterm election. Texas Association of County Election Officials President Kristin Miles welcomed the state’s newly launched issue-tracking ticketing system and inclusion of local administrators and vendor representatives in upcoming December and January testing groups. Read Article

Wisconsin: After smooth election, clerks look to Legislature for long-sought changes | Rich Kremer/Wisconsin Public Radio

Following a smooth midterm election with no major polling place disruptions and fewer postal delivery issues, Wisconsin election administrators renewed calls for state lawmakers to modernize key election procedures. Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association President Karla Endres and Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood urged the incoming Democratic-led Legislature and Governor-elect David Crowley to pass a “Monday processing” bill allowing clerks to begin processing absentee ballots the day before an election, which would accelerate Election Night reporting and ease operational strain at polling locations. Trueblood also advocated repealing the statutory mandate requiring poll workers to write a voter’s poll list number on absentee ballots, noting that the rule creates ballot-secrecy vulnerabilities during open records requests and forces staff to spend hours manually redacting ballot images. Read Article

Our Democracy Was Hanging by a Thread. Here’s the Real Reason It Held. | Richard L. Hasen

Despite legitimate fears that the forces behind Jan. 6 would do their utmost to manipulate our elections, it was clear by Tuesday night that the just-concluded U.S. midterms survived President Donald Trump’s relentless attacks. We are in decent shape not because Trump’s attacks were weak, or because our electoral system is strong, or because we were just lucky—although the huge margins did make things “too big to rig.” The risk that Trump would interfere with our democracy in a way that made 2020 look harmless was quite serious, and it took the laborious efforts of thousands of lawyers and election administrators, along with key parts of civil society, to neutralize the threat from materializing. We should not walk away from 2026 feeling as if the mobilization against the forces of antidemocracy was overkill or unnecessary. We should be proud that, thanks to the efforts of thousands of people, the system held against a powerful barrage. Read Article

National: Trump threatened to interfere in the midterms. On Election Day, confrontation never came. | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

The Trump administration spent months threatening to intervene in the midterm elections but when Election Day arrived on Tuesday, the extraordinary federal intervention that many election officials had spent months preparing for never came. By the end of the night, no major statewide or national Republican figure had disputed the results, and the process of certifying the election and preparing for a transfer of power appeared to be proceeding without major resistance. President Donald Trump himself told the New York Times he would accept the election results. Pam Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, cautioned against treating the absence of federal intervention as permanent. “It’s a welcome pause from the worst threats, but a pause, not a resolution,” she said. “Election officials once could count on the federal government as a partner; at minimum they shouldn’t have to treat it as an adversary.” Smith said the election also demonstrated the importance of the institutions and people responsible for protecting the process, regardless of the outcome. “Continuing to improve how we ensure safe and robust participation and well verified outcomes is what lets us withstand future challenges — even in close contests, not just when the margins are wide.” Read Article

National: ‘Just Another Tuesday’: Election Day Sees No Major Cyber Incidents | Rae D. DeShong/GovTech

Election Day 2026 concluded without any major cybersecurity disruptions, with threat activity limited to minor, localized incidents that were swiftly resolved. Reports from the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) noted brief public website interruptions, misleading text messages, temporary high HTTP activity, and a handful of non-credible bomb threats, none of which impacted voting integrity or ballot security. Former CISA Director Chris Krebs characterized the day as “just another Tuesday on the internet,” highlighting that layered administrative defenses—including universal paper ballot backups, offline tabulators, and manual contingency procedures—ensured smooth operations even during routine technical hiccups. Read Article

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