Georgia: Judge rolls back order on runoff voter challenges | Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney/Politico

A federal judge has agreed to allow a Georgia county to require that certain voters cast provisional ballots, just days before two runoff elections in the state that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. More than 4,000 voters faced eligibility challenges ahead of the Jan. 5 runoffs based on unverified postal change-of-address records. The new injunction from U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner, issued just before midnight on Wednesday, replaces an earlier restraining order she had issued that prevented Muscogee County from forcing those voters to cast provisional ballots at all. The latest order represents a significant move in the direction the county board urged during a court hearing earlier Wednesday. Although the county may now require provisional ballots from those voters, Gardner’s order directs that no challenges to their eligibility be upheld based exclusively on data in the National Change of Address Registry, a U.S. Postal Service database that Democrats have worried is an unreliable and unverified indicator of whether individuals have changed their legal residence. “The challenge to their eligibility will not be sustained absent specific evidence of ineligibility,” ordered Gardner, who sits in Albany, Ga. “Such specific evidence shall not include the appearance of a voter’s name or other information on the NCOA registry” Her order also requires Muscogee County to notify any voters for whom it finds such evidence of ineligibility and give them a chance to present evidence to count their ballot by Jan. 8. The order came in a suit brought by Majority Forward, a Democratic nonprofit, affiliated with Senate Majority PAC, that focuses on voter registration.

Full Article: Judge rolls back order on Georgia runoff voter challenges – POLITICO

Iowa Legislature likely to address election recount inconsistencies | James Q. Lynch/Quad City Times

A still-unresolved U.S. House race in Iowa has prompted election officials to call for legislative action to address the procedures for recounts. Nine weeks after the Nov. 3 election, the outcome of Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District is in the hands of the Democratic-controlled U.S. House. Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks had a 282-vote lead in the 24-county southeast Iowa district on election night. That narrowed to 47 votes after late-arriving mail-in absentee and provisional ballots were counted, and precinct reporting errors were corrected. Iowa election officials on Nov. 30 certified her the winner by just six votes. That prompted Democrat Rita Hart to challenge the outcome, filing a petition asking the U.S. House for a review of all ballots cast in the race. Miller-Meeks has been seated provisionally while the fate of the contest is decided, but the U.S. House could reverse that. County auditors, campaigns and others have raised concerns about the vote recount process not being consistent from one county to another. In some counties, complete hand recounts were conducted in the race. Other counties did machine recounts and some, including Johnson and Scott counties, used a hybrid version. Iowa House State Government Chairman Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, doesn’t have a solution — yet. However, leaving the outcome of an Iowa election in the hands of the U.S. House is unacceptable to him.

Full Article: Iowa Legislature likely to address election recount inconsistencies | Local News | qctimes.com

Michigan Attorney General: Attorney in Antrim County case should reveal names of elections review team Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

An attorney working with a team that reviewed voting machines in Antrim County wants a judge to prevent Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel from publicly revealing the names or other identifying information of those who conducted the review. The report is at the heart of conspiracies furthered by President Donald Trump and others that incorrectly assert there was widespread election fraud in November. Attorney Matthew DePerno said in a recent legal filing that revealing personal information would endanger the team, whose members “fear for their safety and the safety of their families in this hyper-political climate.” He also says he has been personally threatened. However, a copy of the 23-page report posted to his law firm’s website already includes the name of the firm that conducted the review on Dec. 6, and the name of the man who prepared the report. Attorneys working in Nessel’s office told the court they are willing to agree to an order that would prohibit the release of any contact information, like phone numbers or addresses, for everyone involved in creating the report. But by asking the court to prevent the release of the names of the people who conducted the review, they say DePerno and his client are trying to both publicize the report while withholding information that could bolster or undermine its credibility.

Full Article: AG: Names of Antrim County election review team should be public

New Jersey: Historic election prompts calls for voting reforms | Colleen O’Dea/NJ Spotlight News

The 2020 general election in New Jersey will go down in the history books for both the state’s ability to conduct its first mail-in paper ballot vote under extreme circumstances and for the voters who adapted with relatively few mistakes. Despite the success, most officials and many voters do not want to conduct future elections the way New Jersey did this year. At the top of the list for many, with the lessons learned from the 2020 elections serving to inform proposed reforms, is incorporating true early, in-person voting with electronic poll books. And while the number of votes rejected represented 1.4% of all ballots cast, a total of 66,506 ballots were rejected, according to the state Division of Elections, a number many advocates consider to be too large. “As we get ready for the 2021 elections, we need to be doing a deep dive into our entire election infrastructure — not just mail-in voting — to ensure our elections are robust and accessible,” said Jesse Burns, executive director of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey. Gov. Phil Murphy proclaimed the general election a success and said officials in his administration are still looking into the details of the voting and how to improve on it during a future election conducted in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic or similar crisis. Murphy points most often to allowing early voting in person and adopting electronic poll books. Last August, a Senate committee endorsed one early voting bill (S-99), and two months later an Assembly committee approved a different version (A-4830). Both bills currently are stalled in their respective appropriations committees. Using electronic poll books appears to be the only way the state could conduct the same kind of large-scale mail-in balloting as what occurred this year and still allow for some in-person voting by machine.

Full Article: Lessons learned in New Jersey from 2020 elections? | NJ Spotlight News

New York: Brindisi, Tenney argue, vote by vote, in epic nail-biter. How perfect does a voter have to be? | Patrick Lohmann/Syracuse Post-Standard

Thousands of disputed votes in New York’s 22nd Congressional District election will come under intense scrutiny this week as attorneys for both candidates fight for every vote in a race now divided by 29 of 311,695 cast. Attorneys for incumbent Anthony Brindisi (D-Utica) and challenger Claudia Tenney, a Republican from New Hartford, have detailed in written briefs the arguments they intend to make in court. State Supreme Court Judge Scott DelConte will rule on which ballots will count. Lawyers for Brindisi, who trails Tenney by 29 votes, are trying to get ballots that have been rejected to be included in the count by arguing that technicalities and alleged errors by government employees should not be enough to toss votes. Tenney’s attorneys are arguing that the judge should adhere strictly to what they say is established law. Dustin Czarny, Democratic election commissioner for Onondaga County, hadn’t read the briefs Saturday but said some of Brindisi’s arguments will be a “tough lift” based on a reporter’s description of them. Other arguments, he said, are fresh territory for the courts, so it’s not clear what will happen. Onondaga County is not part of the 22nd Congressional District. There are about 2,500 absentee and affidavit ballots that are contested from eight counties that comprise the district.

Full Article: Brindisi, Tenney argue, vote by vote, in epic nail-biter. How perfect does a voter have to be? – syracuse.com

Tennessee: AT&T not conducting voting machine audit near Nashville explosion site | Ali Swenson/Associated Press

CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee — to the same AT&T building that was damaged in a Christmas morning explosion.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. AT&T did not have a contract to audit Dominion machines and was not holding Dominion machines in its Nashville building, both companies confirmed to The Associated Press. Authorities still don’t know the reason for the Christmas day bombing, but there’s no evidence it was election related.

THE FACTS: As federal officials work to piece together a motive for the blast that rattled downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, social media users have invented their own far-fetched theories. One theory shared thousands of times on Facebook over the weekend tries to connect the explosion to voting machines used in the Nov. 3 election. … These claims are groundless. Spokespeople for AT&T and Dominion confirmed to the AP that AT&T had no contract to audit Dominion machines, and no Dominion machines were to be sent to Nashville. Some of the posts attempted to further link AT&T to Dominion by claiming a former owner of the AT&T building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion.

Cerberus Capital Management, the firm named in the posts, does not own Dominion, nor does it own the company that does own Dominion, Staple Street Capital. “Dominion has no connection to AT&T, the building, Nashville, family members of the Bidens or the Clintons, and Staple Street is not owned by Cerberus,” said Tony Fratto, a partner at the PR firm Hamilton Place Strategies who emailed the AP on behalf of Dominion. “These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth.”

Full Article: AT&T not conducting voting machine audit near Nashville explosion site

Tennessee: Nashville bombing quickly linked with voting, 5G conspiracy theories | Adam Tamburin/Nashville Tennessean

Within minutes of the Christmas Day bombing that blew apart several buildings in downtown Nashville, conspiracy theories surfaced online tying the attack to familiar, debunked claims of voter fraud and the rise of the 5G mobile network. … Conspiracy theorists said the AT&T building near the blast housed tainted voting machines. That false claim was quickly denounced by company spokespeople, and multiple news outlets confirmed the conspiracy theory was not true. Dancy said public officials seeking to dampen the power of conspiracy theories should openly acknowledge uncertainty during emergencies and investigations. “Stick to the evidence,” Dancy said. “You have to be very honest about what you know and what you don’t know.”

Full Article: Nashville bombing quickly linked with voting, 5G conspiracy theories

Wisconsin: Trump Campaign Asks US Supreme Court To Take Case On Overturning Election Results | Danielle Kaeding/Wisconsin Public Radio

The Trump campaign wants the U.S. Supreme Court to consider its lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin’s U.S. presidential election results after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against them this month. The Trump campaign’s lead attorney Rudy Giuliani announced the filing on Tuesday. The state Supreme Court rejected the campaign’s lawsuit in a 4-3 vote, ruling that President Donald Trump should have challenged Wisconsin’s rules prior to the November election if he had problems with them. “Regrettably, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in their 4-3 decision, refused to address the merits of our claim,” said Jim Troupis, Trump’s lead Wisconsin attorney. “This ‘Cert Petition’ asks them to address our claims, which, if allowed, would change the outcome of the election in Wisconsin.” Troupis highlighted that three conservative members of the state Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Pat Roggensack, dissented from the majority. In doing so, they voiced criticism of fellow conservative Brian Hagedorn, who sided with liberal justices in the 4-3 decision. The ruling came hours before the state’s electors were set to cast their votes for President-elect Joe Biden. The Trump campaign wants the nation’s highest court to provide an expedited decision before Congress counts Electoral College votes on Jan. 6.

Full Article: Trump Campaign Asks US Supreme Court To Take Case On Overturning Wisconsin Election Results | Wisconsin Public Radio