Florida’s new election law hit with third legal challenge | Jim Saunders/Tampa Bay Times

Alleging discrimination against Black and Latino voters, a coalition of groups has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new Florida elections law that includes additional restrictions on voting by mail. The lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. district court in Tallahassee is at least the third challenge to the law, which was passed last month by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis during an appearance on Fox News. The law (SB 90) was one of the most controversial issues of the 2021 legislative session and came after a relatively smooth 2020 election in Florida. Republican lawmakers contended the changes were needed to ensure election security and prevent fraud in future elections. But the lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of the groups Florida Rising Together, Faith in Florida, UnidosUS, the Equal Ground Education Fund, the Hispanic Federation and Poder Latinx, contends that the changes dealing with issues such as voting by mail could curtail voting by Black and Latino residents. “While SB 90 imposes unjustified burdens on all voters, it places disproportionate burdens on Black voters, Latino voters, disabled voters, and voters who face greater challenges in exercising the right to vote, even in the best of circumstances,” the 91-page lawsuit said. “SB 90 imposes specific obstacles on voters’ ability to cast ballots through in-person voting, mail voting, and the use of secure drop-boxes for early voting.”

Full Article: Florida’s new election law hit with third legal challenge

Georgia Trump supporter proposes election audit | John Bowden/The Hill

A Trump supporter running to replace Georgia’s governor in the state’s Republican primary came out in favor of an Arizona-style audit of Georgia’s 2020 election results on Wednesday. State Rep. Vernon Jones (R) vowed that he would call for an audit should he win the governor’s mansion next year in a statement first reported by CNN. “Georgians still have questions about irregularities found in the 2020 election and they deserve answers,” he said, according to the network. “We must get to the bottom of all of this and other irregularities to restore trust in our election process. If Mr. Kemp refuses to demand an audit, then I will when I am elected to replace him.” Jones is not yet officially endorsed by Trump, but his willingness to support the former president’s unproven claims about widespread election fraud in 2020 could easily change that. Georgia’s governor, Republican Brian Kemp, has refused to endorse such calls, and the state’s GOP secretary of state, Brian Raffensperger, also emerged as a top critic of the former president’s false claims in the days after the election.

Full Article: Trump supporter proposes election audit in Georgia | TheHill

Iowa Republicans pass new absentee ballot restrictions | David Pitt and Anthony Izaguirre/Associated Press

Iowa Republicans have approved strict limits on who can assist voters in delivering ballots in a surprise change to state election law hours before adjourning the legislative session. Legislators approved the restrictions in a party-line vote late Wednesday, just weeks after Iowa became one of the first Republican-run states to extensively rewrite election rules to tighten other aspects of voting, including when ballots can be turned in and how voter rolls are maintained. Republicans said the changes would enhance the security of voting, though have acknowledged that voting fraud is rare in Iowa and the last election had almost no problems. More than 1 million Iowans voted by absentee ballot in November, a record attributed in part to the pandemic and efforts by election officials to encourage voters to cast ballots at home. Officials have not released data on how often people other than voters return ballots in Iowa, and supporters of the new restriction didn’t offer examples of practices that have led to fraud.

Full Article: Iowa Republicans pass new absentee ballot restrictions – ABC News

Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin tired of elections resolutions | Legislature | Mark Ballard/The Advocate

Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin blasted Tuesday the number of resolutions being pursued by Republican legislators that hint at widespread voting irregularities are occurring in Louisiana elections. “I’m dead-dog tired of my staff and the clerks and the registrars and their staffs getting poked at,” Ardoin, a Republican, told the House & Governmental Affairs Committee during consideration of another legislative instrument concerning how elections are handled. House Concurrent Resolution 81 by Baton Rouge Republican Rick Edmonds directs the Legislative Auditor’s Office to review the State Department’s “policies, procedures, and practices and those of elections officials in this state regarding the integrity of elections.” Edmonds ran against Ardoin for secretary of state in November 2018 promising to root out election fraud. He came in fourth in the nine-candidate primary. Ardoin pointed out that his department’s performance already is scheduled to be reviewed and judged in 2022, as part of the legislative auditor’s routine analysis of every state agency. Edmonds’ resolution is superfluous.

Full Article: Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin tired of elections resolutions | Legislature | theadvocate.com

Michigan Judge Dismisses one of the last remaining lawsuits by Trump supporters challenging the 2020 election | Neil MacFarquhar/The New York Times

A Michigan state judge on Tuesday dismissed one of the last, high-profile court cases questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election, a case former President Donald J. Trump cited to claim fraud after unofficial results in one county initially assigned some votes for him to President Biden. The plaintiff, William Bailey, a local resident, and his lawyer, Matthew S. DePerno, had sought to use the case to cast doubt on the vote nationwide, suggesting that a flawed count by Dominion Voting System machines in Antrim County, Mich., meant that all such machines were open to manipulation and deliberate fraud. The suit was also an attempt to force another statewide audit. Although Mr. DePerno and the various experts he tapped to analyze the vote repeatedly said that various flaws with the voting machines left them open to hacking, they did not cite any specific evidence that it had occurred. A computer expert hired by the state also noted some security weaknesses, but said there was no indication that they had been exploited. Mr. Trump cited Antrim County in his speech on Jan. 6 in Washington claiming that the vote was corrupt and has continued to site the case as an example of “major” fraud. The critical mistake made by local election officials was readily evident right after the Nov. 3 vote. Unofficial results posted online by the county clerk indicated that Mr. Biden won the heavily Republican country with 7,769 votes versus 4,509 votes for Mr. Trump.

Full Article: Michigan Judge Dismisses Suit Questioning 2020 Election Result – The New York Times

Michigan GOP bills would embolden challengers and create election chaos, voting rights advocates say | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

A series of Republican bills that would dramatically expand the rights of poll watchers and election challengers would burden election administrators, cause delays for voters at polling locations, open the door to voter intimidation and re-create the chaos that unfolded last fall at Detroit’s TCF Center in future elections, according to election officials and voting rights advocates. Chris Thomas, who served as the Michigan director of elections for more than 30 years under Democratic and Republican secretaries of state, said the legislation introduced by Michigan’s Senate Republicans is seriously flawed. “They are terrible bills that are really written without forethought as to the result and really are written to satisfy one party’s faction,” he said. The GOP bills would significantly increase the number of challengers who can observe elections while eliminating nonpartisan challengers, allow poll watchers and challengers to film and photograph inside polling locations and counting rooms, and invite election monitors to challenge a voter’s ID, among other changes. Election officials and voting rights advocates warn that the changes would embolden challengers and embed partisan hostility and mistrust in the election process. Aghogho Edevbie, the Michigan state director for All Voting is Local, called the bill that lays out a challengers’ right to challenge a voter’s ID “a dangerous step.” “It is very clear that many poll challengers are not from the communities that they observe, so how they’re going to go about raising actual and good faith doubts about the identity of voters is beyond me,” he told the Senate Elections Committee during a May 12 hearing.

Full Article: GOP bills propose new rights for poll watchers, election challengers

New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office taking wait-and-see approach to fold glitch in vote scanning machines | John DiStaso/WMUR

Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said Tuesday his office is taking a wait-and-see approach to the possibility that fold lines in absentee ballots may have caused scanning machines to misread the vote totals in the Windham state representatives’ election and that the problem could be widespread in the state. The forensic auditors investigating the discrepancy in the Election Day Windham vote totals and subsequent recount totals said Monday the AccuVote scanning machines in Windham may have misread fold lines that crossed through the oval vote “targets” as votes for Democratic candidate Kristi St. Laurent. She said her name happened to fall along the fold “most commonly.” Auditors said they had not reached a definitive conclusion on the question as of Monday but said that if the fold issue turns out to be the cause of the discrepancy, it could be a statewide concern. “Throughout New Hampshire, you’re using the same voting machines, the AccuVote, and in principle, it could be an issue,” auditor Phillip Stark told WMUR. “It really depends where the folds are in relationship to the vote targets.” The auditors said the matter would be tested extensively as the audit continued Tuesday and is expected to continue Wednesday. Scanlan told WMUR that about 200 polling places in the state – approximately two-thirds of the total number of polling places — use AccuVote scanners to count ballots, while about 100 polling places use paper ballots. n“I saw the comment (by the auditors) and at this point, it is speculation until they dig deeper into it,” Scanlan said. He said he and Secretary William Gardner are aware of the comments by the auditors.

Full Article: Secretary of State’s Office taking wait-and-see approach to fold glitch in vote scanning machines

Ohio: DC group founded by former Trump campaign staffers files open meetings lawsuit against Stark County Board of Elections | Robert Wang/The Canton Repository

A group founded by former Trump campaign staffers has filed a lawsuit against the Stark County Board of Elections, alleging the board held an illegal private discussion before voting to buy Dominion voting machines. Look Ahead America is asking a Stark County Common Pleas judge to invalidate the board’s Dec. 9 vote to approve the purchase of 1,450 Dominion ImageCast X voting machines and other voting equipment. The other plaintiff in the case is listed as Merry Lynne Rini of Jackson Township. Look Ahead America is based in Washington, D.C. Look Ahead America’s 19-page complaint filed Tuesday alleges the Board of Elections’ minutes show the four-member body met in closed-door executive sessions to discuss the purchase of public property four times. The complaint lists the board meetings for Dec. 9, Jan. 6, Feb. 9 and March 15. State law allows public bodies to discuss in executive session the purchase of public property. But only “if premature disclosure of information would give an unfair competitive or bargaining advantage to a person whose personal, private interest is adverse to the general public interest,” the complaint said. The Board of Elections gave no indication that it was meeting in executive session to avoid revealing information to give someone an unfair competitive or bargaining advantage, Look Ahead America argues. Therefore, it says the executive sessions are illegal and by law any actions based on discussions in illegal executive sessions are invalid.

Full Article: DC group alleges Stark County Board of Elections had illegal meetings

Pennsylvania: Northumberland County might replace faulty election machines, seek refund | Robert Inglis/The Daily Item

The Northumberland County Commissioners may seek a refund or replacement for the new election machines that have malfunctioned in the past three elections. Commissioner Chairman Sam Schiccatano said on Wednesday that Elections Systems and Software is looking into the latest issues that caused poll workers in 17 of 74 precincts to have difficulty closing down the machines on Tuesday, delaying the full results until Wednesday. The machines also malfunctioned when the paper ballots frequently jammed in the primary and general election in 2020, meaning there has not been an election where the machines have worked correctly. “I don’t know if it’s a refund or an exchange, but we need a remedy,” said Schiccatano. “We can’t have this every time we have an election. I’m on the phone with the state and everyone involved to work this out.” Following a state mandate, Northumberland County purchased 190 voting machines in 2019 from Elections Systems and Software with additional hardware, software and support services for $962,489 before reimbursement. The Wolf administration decertified all voting machines across the state, requiring the purchase of new systems with a verifiable paper trail beginning in 2020. It’s a settlement of a lawsuit brought by Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016, who sought a recount in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Four in five Pennsylvania voters used machines that lack an auditable paper trail, according to The Associated Press.

Full Article: Northumberland County might replace faulty election machines, seek refund | News | dailyitem.com

Texas: Appeal offers hope for woman facing five years for voting illegally | Sam Levine/The Guardian

For the last few years, I’ve been closely following the case of Crystal Mason, a Black woman in Texas who was sentenced to five years in prison for illegally voting in the 2016 election. The case has attracted national attention because of the severity of Mason’s sentence and because Mason has maintained that she had no idea she was ineligible to vote. Mason was ineligible to vote in 2016 because she was on federal supervised release – which is similar to probation – for a federal felony related to tax fraud. Texas, like some other states, prohibits anyone with a felony conviction from voting until they have finished their sentences entirely. But during a brief trial, the officials overseeing Mason’s probation testified that they never explicitly told her she couldn’t vote. Nonetheless, Mason was convicted of illegal voting in 2018 after prosecutors pointed to the fact that she signed a small-print affidavit on her provisional ballot swearing she was eligible to vote (Mason insists she never read it). Last year, a Texas appeals court upheld her sentence, writing “the fact that she did not know she was legally ineligible to vote was irrelevant to her prosecution.” In March, the Texas court of criminal appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, agreed to hear an appeal of that ruling and on Monday, Mason’s lawyers filed their opening brief.

Full Article: Appeal offers hope for Texas woman facing five years for voting illegally | US news | The Guardian

National: How The Republican Push To Restrict Voting Could Affect Our Elections | Geoffrey Skelley/FiveThirtyEight

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Republican lawmakers have pushed new voting restrictions in nearly every state. From making it harder to cast ballots early to increasing the frequency of voter roll purges, at least 25 new restrictive voting laws have been enacted, with more potentially on the horizon. The GOP has introduced such measures in the name of “election integrity,” but at the heart of this effort is former President Donald Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. “I liken it to a quack doctor holding up an X-ray, pointing to something going, ‘See, see, see?’ and getting the person to believe that there’s something really there on that X-ray that requires expensive and dangerous surgery,” said Carol Anderson, a professor of African American studies at Emory University, of Republican efforts to pass new voter restrictions even though there is no evidence of voter fraud in the election. “We had an election that was amazing in the midst of a pandemic. And instead of applauding themselves for it, they went with a Trumpian lie.” Understanding how new voting restrictions will influence our elections is difficult. Political science hasn’t found that these types of laws have that big of an effect, at least as individual measures. But, while laws that make it more taxing to vote are not new, the current onslaught of voting restrictions and changes to how elections will be administered is not something we’ve grappled with on this scale. Additionally, there is their nakedly partisan origins — nearly 90 percent of the voting laws proposed or enacted in 2021 were sponsored primarily or entirely by Republican legislators — and the fact that these laws are likely to have a greater impact on Black and brown voters, who are less likely to vote Republican. Republican efforts to pass new voter restrictions have been so aggressive and widespread that their effects are hard to predict. Elections, moreover, don’t run themselves; they’re run by people. And these new laws point to an even more troubling problem that threatens to undermine our democracy: the GOP’s eroding commitment to democratic values, like free and fair elections. In many ways, the most concerning change our elections face may not be any one law, but rather the GOP’s increased willingness to take such anti-democratic actions.

Full Article: How The Republican Push To Restrict Voting Could Affect Our Elections | FiveThirtyEight

Arizona: Republican chairman of Maricopa County calls state-led election review ‘dangerous’ as tensions rise over 2020 recount | Rosalind S. Helderman/The Washington Post

A recount of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona’s largest county is becoming “dangerous,” the Republican chairman of the county board of supervisors declared in a fiery statement late Thursday, a sign of escalating tensions over the controversial election review commissioned by the GOP-led state Senate. In a statement issued after a lengthy closed-door meeting of the Maricopa County board, whose five members include four Republicans, Chairman Jack Sellers blasted allegations made this week by a private contractor hired to reexamine the election that the audit has already identified problems with the vote. Sellers said those claims, described in a letter by state Senate President Karen Fann (R), were “false and ill-informed.” “I know you have all grown weary of the lies and half-truths six months after the 2020 General Election,” he wrote. He added that the private contractors — led by a Florida firm called Cyber Ninjas, whose founder has promoted baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election — “are in way over their heads.” “This is not funny,” he wrote. “This is dangerous.” A spokesman for Fann did not immediately respond to a request for a response, nor did former Arizona secretary of state Ken Bennett, who is acting as a spokesman for the audit. State Sen. Warren Petersen (R), chairman of the Senate’s judiciary committee, tweeted, “No real answers yet from the County, just angry deflections to President Fanns list of questions. I thought she asked nicely.” The widening division among Arizona Republicans comes as the GOP nationally has been convulsed by former president Donald Trump’s ongoing falsehoods that the election was rigged.

Full Article: Republican chairman of Arizona county calls state-led election review ‘dangerous’ as tensions rise over 2020 recount – The Washington Post

National: Sweeping election reform bill faces Senate buzz saw | Jordain Carney/The Hill

One of Democrats’ biggest priorities — a sweeping bill to overhaul elections — is facing long odds of passing the Senate. Democrats are set to meet Thursday to talk about the For the People Act, a roughly 800-page measure that would set national standards aimed at expanding access to voting. Progressives view the bill as a must-pass, and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has vowed to bring it to the floor. Senate Democrats are tamping down expectations for Thursday’s meeting, characterizing it as largely educational after the Senate Rules Committee held an hours-long markup Tuesday full of high drama, and hope to use the gathering as a way to solidify unity around the bill. “My goal is … to convince everybody that we have to be together on this. We were the subject of a physical attack on Jan. 6 that was designed to disenfranchise 80 million people,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who has been spearheading the bill in the Senate, said the meeting will allow members who haven’t been involved with the legislation to ask questions. “It’s just a kind of a ‘let’s make sure we understand what this bill is,’ ” he said. “Between now and when we can get it to the floor, we’re totally open to other insights.” But Democrats face big challenges in the Senate, alongside intense pressure from their base, to make good on their promise to send the legislation to President Biden’s desk.

Full Article: Sweeping election reform bill faces Senate buzz saw | TheHill

National: Senate Panel Deadlocks on Voting Rights as Bill Faces Major Obstacles | Nicholas Fandos/The New York Times

A key Senate committee deadlocked on Tuesday over Democrats’ sweeping proposed elections overhaul, previewing a partisan showdown on the Senate floor in the coming months that could determine the future of voting rights and campaign rules across the country. The tie vote in the Senate Rules Committee — with nine Democrats in favor and nine Republicans opposed — does not prevent Democrats from moving forward with the 800-page legislation, known as the For the People Act. Proponents hailed the vote as an important step toward adopting far-reaching federal changes to blunt the restrictive new voting laws emerging in Republican-led battleground states like Georgia and Florida. But the action confronted Democrats with a set of thorny questions about how to push forward on a bill that they view as a civil rights imperative with sweeping implications for democracy and their party. The bill as written faces near-impossible odds in the evenly divided Senate, where Republicans are expected to block it using a filibuster and at least one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, remains opposed. With their control in Washington potentially fleeting and Republican states racing ahead with laws to curtail ballot access, Democrats must reach consensus among themselves on the measure, and decide whether to attempt to destroy or significantly alter the Senate’s filibuster rules — which set a 60-vote threshold to overcome any objection to advancing legislation — to salvage its chances of becoming law.

Full Article: Senate Panel Deadlocks on Voting Rights as Bill Faces Major Obstacles – The New York Times

National: House Panel Advances Bipartisan Postal Overhaul Measure, USPS Board Gets New Members | Eric Katz/Government Executive

Congress on Thursday took multiple actions to support the U.S. Postal Service, advancing legislation to relieve the agency of some of its financial burdens and providing it with additional leadership. The House Oversight and Reform Committee unanimously approved the 2021 Postal Reform Act after Republicans begrudgingly offered their support. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., co-authored the bill and emphasized at Thursday’s markup it represented a compromise. Virtually all Republicans who spoke on the measure said they were supporting it despite their significant reservations. Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said Comer was a “tough negotiator” and told colleagues it was the hardest she had ever worked on a bill. A Republican committee aide told Government Executive that the GOP side successfully fought to remove a provision Democrats had originally included to restrict USPS from altering its service standards. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is in the midst of implementing his business plan, which includes a slowing down of delivery for some mail. The negotiations also led to more thorough public reporting requirements on mail delays through regular, online postings, required updates to Congress on the implementation of DeJoy’s plan and a facilitation of his proposal to shift more mail delivery away from the air and toward ground transportation, the aide said. The core of the bill will shift more postal retirees to Medicare for their health care and require most postal workers to select postal-specific health care plans. It would take onerous payments toward health care benefits for future retirees off the agency’s balance sheets.

Full Article: House Panel Advances Bipartisan Postal Overhaul Measure, USPS Board Gets New Members – Government Executive

National: Republicans Pursue Harsh Penalties for Poll Workers | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Anita Phillips has been an election judge in Texas for 17 years, responsible for managing a precinct in Waco, a city of roughly 135,000 people. But over the last four years, the civic duty she prized has become arduous. Harassment by partisan poll watchers has grown increasingly caustic, she has found, and helping voters is ever more treacherous amid a thicket of new rules. Those regulations are likely to grow stricter: Republican lawmakers in Texas, following in the footsteps of their counterparts across the country, are pressing forward with a voting bill that could impose harsh penalties on election officials or poll workers who are thought to have committed errors or violations. And the nationwide effort may be pushing people like Ms. Phillips to reconsider serving their communities. “It’s just so taxing,” Ms. Phillips said. “And if me — I’m in my 40s, and I’m having this much stress — imagine every election worker and election judge that is 65 and over with severe health issues. This is supposed to be a way for them to give back. And it’s supposed to be something that makes them feel good about what they’re doing, but now they’re starting to feel like, ‘Are we going to be safe?’” Ms. Phillips is one of millions of citizens who act as foot soldiers of the American democratic system, working long hours for low pay to administer the country’s elections. Yet this often thankless task has quickly become a key target of Republicans who are propagating former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. In their hunt for nonexistent fraud, they have turned on those who work the polls as somehow suspect.

Full Article: Republicans Pursue Harsh Penalties for Poll Workers – The New York Times

National: Purges, poll watchers and gridlock: Five developments in the voting battles | Fredreka Schouten/CNN

Arizona just became the latest Republican-led battleground to impose new voting restrictions, enacting a law that could purge tens of thousands of voters from the state’s early mail-in ballot list. And in other key states, GOP lawmakers are charging ahead with efforts to change the ground rules for future elections — with big bills pending in Texas, Michigan and elsewhere. As Republicans erect barriers to the ballot box, voting rights advocates are putting fresh pressure on congressional Democrats to pass a sweeping federal rewrite of election rules to counter the new laws. But a contentious committee meeting in an evenly divided Senate only underscores the near-insurmountable hurdles Democrats face in passing their elections overhaul. Here’s a look at recent developments in the battles over voting rights: A law signed last Tuesday by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey targets the state’s Permanent Early Voting List. Under that system, people on the list automatically receive a ballot for every election. The new law removes voters from the list if they fail to cast an early mail-in ballot in at least one primary or general election in a four-year period and don’t respond to mailed notices warning them of their removal. But voting in person during that window won’t count as casting a mail ballot.

Full Article: Voting rights battles: Latest news and developments – CNNPolitics

National: Group that can’t find systemic voter fraud eager to help combat systemic voter fraud | Philip Bump/The Washington Post

Mother Jones magazine published video on Thursday obtained by the group Documented and depicting a donor meeting in Arizona last month hosted by the advocacy group Heritage Action. You’re likely familiar with the nonprofit conservative think tank Heritage Foundation; Heritage Action is its sibling that raises often-anonymous money to focus on political advocacy. In the video from the meeting in Tucson, the organization’s executive director, Jessica Anderson, boasts about the group’s efforts to influence legislation aimed at restricting voting in states. “We’re working with these state legislators to make sure they have all of the information they need to draft the bills,” Anderson says at one point. “In some cases we actually draft them for them.” She also tells the donors, according to Mother Jones’s Ari Berman and Nick Surgey, that the organization has also “hired state lobbyists to make sure that in these targeted states we’re meeting with the right people” to advance the proposals. At another point, she and her colleague Hans von Spakovsky discuss a call with a number of secretaries of state a few weeks prior. They brag that they’d managed to share information with “the best conservative secretaries of state” without a single leak to their political opponents. This sort of privacy is a focal point; Anderson also crows about the work the organization did in Iowa that “honestly? Nobody noticed.” Both Anderson and von Spakovsky have ties to the Trump administration. Anderson worked in the Office of Management and Budget as an associate director. Thanks to his years of focus on the issue, von Spakovsky was an instrumental part of former president Donald Trump’s ill-fated voter-fraud commission that collapsed early in his term. Given that shared background, it’s not surprising that Anderson articulated Heritage Action’s goal as being to “take the fierce fire that is in every single one of our bellies to right the wrongs of November.”

Full Article: Group that can’t find systemic voter fraud eager to help combat systemic voter fraud – The Washington Post

National: Conservative group boasts of secret role in voting laws | Nicholas Riccardi and Anthony Izaguirre/Associated Press

The head of a national conservative group told supporters it secretly helped draft legislation in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country as part of a coordinated network of organizations pushing to tighten voting laws across the country. Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, made the claim during a recent meeting with supporters in Arizona. A recording of the event was released by the liberal investigative website Documented, which made a copy available for The Associated Press to review. Heritage Action confirmed its authenticity. “In some cases, we actually draft them for them,” Anderson said of legislation written for state lawmakers. “Or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation, so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.” Anderson’s comments shed additional light on precisely how well-funded national organizations have seized on false claims about the 2020 election to try to tighten state voting laws. While it is known that Heritage Action and several other groups are working with state lawmakers on legislation, it is rare to hear a leader detail how a group masks involvement to give the bills the appearance of broad political support. Anderson gave the example of Georgia, where she said an activist affiliated with Heritage had given a letter outlining the group’s recommendations to key legislators. The activist first had the proposal signed by thousands of other activists. Other states where she said the group helped write bills included Iowa and Texas — though in Iowa, the authors of the voting legislation said they never spoke with Heritage. In a statement Friday, Anderson said: “Heritage Action is proud of our work to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. That work begins at the state level through our grassroots and continues in state legislatures throughout the country.”

Full Article: Conservative group boasts of secret role in voting laws

National: Here’s How Disinformation Drives Voting Laws | Maggie Astor/The New York Times

When State Representative Bobby Kaufmann of Iowa spoke in February in support of a restrictive voting bill he was sponsoring, he made what might once have been a startling acknowledgment: He could not point to any problems with November’s election that demonstrated a need for new rules. But many Iowans believed there had been problems, he said. And that was reason enough to allow less early voting, shorten Election Day polling hours, put new limits on absentee balloting and forbid counties to have more than one ballot drop box. “The ultimate voter suppression is a very large swath of the electorate not having faith in our election systems,” Mr. Kaufmann, a Republican, said in defense of his bill, which was signed into law in March. “And for whatever reason, political or not, there are thousands upon thousands of Iowans that do not have faith in our election systems.” Former President Donald J. Trump’s monthslong campaign to delegitimize the 2020 election didn’t overturn the results. But his unfounded claims gutted his supporters’ trust in the electoral system, laying the foundation for numerous Republican-led bills pushing more restrictive voter rules. The bills demonstrate how disinformation can take on a life of its own, forming a feedback loop that shapes policy for years to come. When promoted with sufficient intensity, falsehoods — whether about election security or the coronavirus or other topics — can shape voters’ attitudes toward policies, and lawmakers can cite those attitudes as the basis for major changes.

Full Article: Here’s How Disinformation Drives Voting Laws – The New York Times

National: Manchin, Murkowski call on Congress to reauthorize Voting Rights Act | Sahil Kapur/NBC

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, wrote a letter Monday calling on Congress to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, seeking to jump-start a debate on a bipartisan path to bolstering voting access. “Protecting Americans’ access to democracy has not been a partisan issue for the past 56 years, and we must not allow it to become one now,” they wrote to the top four congressional leaders. While the letter didn’t name the bill, a Manchin aide said the senators are referring to the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which aims to require states with a recent record of discrimination in voting rights to get federal pre-approval before changing their election laws. The Supreme Court in 2013 gutted the formula established by Congress to determine which states are subject to the rule, calling it outdated. The issue has since languished on Capitol Hill, with Republicans uninterested in re-establishing a “preclearance” requirement, and GOP-led states around the country moving to pass restrictive voting laws. The Manchin-Murkowski letter is designed to show that there is some bipartisan support for the cause of protecting voting rights. It comes as Manchin faces progressive criticism for being the lone Democratic holdout on the “For The People Act,” a sweeping bill that aims to allow more ballot access and that all states must follow. The Democratic-controlled House approved that bill but it hasn’t taken up the bill named for John Lewis. Manchin has insisted that any attempt to overhaul federal voting laws have support from both parties.

Full Article: Manchin, Murkowski call on Congress to reauthorize Voting Rights Act

Arizona: Key figures who pushed 2020 election conspiracies are now boosting audit | Will Steakin/ABC News

More than six months after the 2020 election, several members of former President Donald Trump’s inner circle are pouring millions into a renewed push to challenge the election’s outcome — an effort that has gained new life in Arizona as it captivates the former president and many of his followers. In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, a sprawling collection of Trump loyalists, fueled by a host of baseless conspiracies involving disproven claims of widespread voter fraud, failed over and over again to overturn the election results in the courts. And while the effort resulted in dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits, many of the same Trump supporters — from a former Overstock.com CEO to longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon — have reemerged as key forces boosting the Republican-backed Arizona audit of the 2020 election results. The audit, which comes after two previous audits found no evidence of fraud sufficient to invalidate President Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona and Maricopa County, has not only commandeered the attention of the MAGA movement but also of Trump himself, who has continued to push false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump has repeatedly issued email statements encouraging the audit, while behind the scenes he’s been making periodic calls to get updates from those involved, including Arizona Republican chair Kelli Ward, according to people familiar with the situation. “Some very interesting things are happening in Arizona,” Trump said in late April during remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a video posted online. The former president even tipped his hat to a growing right-wing conspiracy that suggests the Arizona audit could be the first domino to fall in a series of events that returns him to the White House.

Full Article: Key figures who pushed 2020 election conspiracies are now boosting Arizona audit – ABC News

Arizona: Cyber Ninjas, UV lights and far-right funding: inside the strange Arizona 2020 election ‘audit’ | Sam Levine/The Guardian

One of the first things you see when you step outside Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the ageing arena in Phoenix, is the Crazy Times Carnival, a temporary spectacle set up in the parking lot. In the evenings, just as the sun is setting, lights from the ferris wheel, the jingle of the carousel and shrieks of joy fill the massive desert sky. Inside the coliseum – nicknamed the Madhouse on McDowell – there is another carnival of sorts happening. The arena floor is where the Arizona senate, controlled by Republicans, is performing its own audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa county, home of Phoenix and most of the state’s registered voters. The effort, which comes after multiple audits affirming the results of the November election in the county in favor or Joe Biden, includes an examination of voting equipment, an authentication of ballot paper, and a hand recount of the nearly 2.1m ballots cast there. Republicans in the state legislature are simultaneously considering measures that would make it harder to vote in Arizona, which Biden carried by about 10,000 votes in November. The review – unprecedented in American politics – may also be one of the clearest manifestations to date of Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud and the conspiracy theories that spread after the election (the former president and allies have loudly cheered on the Arizona effort). Far-right conspiracy theorists appear to be connected to the effort and the firm hired to lead the charge, a Florida-based company called Cyber Ninjas, has little experience in elections. The firm’s CEO has voiced support for the idea that the election was stolen from Trump. Election experts are watching the unfolding effort with deep alarm, pointing out that officials are not using a reliable methodology – they hesitate to even label it an audit – and will produce a results that will give more fodder for conspiracy theorists. More troublingly, they worry the Arizona audit could be a model for Republicans to try elsewhere.

Full Article: Cyber Ninjas, UV lights and far-right funding: inside the strange Arizona 2020 election ‘audit’ | Arizona | The Guardian

Editorial: Arizona is now ground zero in Republicans’ war on voting | The Washington Post

Undeterred by the backlash to Georgia’s new anti-voting law, Arizona Republicans have made their state ground zero in the party’s spurious efforts to question the 2020 election results and restrict voting. First, they insisted on running a chaotic “audit” of the 2020 vote in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, without the expertise or the safeguards to do so credibly; that nightmare continues, and the results could seriously harm faith in U.S. elections. Then, Arizona Republicans imposed what they call “fixes” to state election law, including a new voting restriction that is pointless — if your goal is to make elections simple and fair. Before about a decade ago, Arizona had been a model in expanding ballot-box access. Large numbers of Arizonans continue to cast ballots by mail. In fact, the state automatically mails ballots to some 75 percent of its voters, who are on Arizona’s permanent early voting list. But President Donald Trump turned against absentee voting last year, as it became clear that many Democrats would use the method to avoid voting in person during the covid-19 pandemic. Then he lost the November presidential election by failing in places such as Arizona. Though extreme scrutiny, including two examinations of the Maricopa County count, confirmed that result, Mr. Trump continues to promote the lie that Arizona’s results were fraudulent. He issued on Saturday more wild claims that Maricopa County Recorder Steven Richer, himself a Republican, called “unhinged” and “insane.”

Full Article: Opinion | Arizona is now ground zero in Republicans’ war on voting – The Washington Post

Georgia: Latest lawsuit over voting law objects to election takeovers | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An election integrity organization sued over Georgia’s voting law Monday, challenging provisions that allow state takeovers of local elections, shorten absentee ballot deadlines and change absentee ID requirements. The case is the seventh federal lawsuit trying to throw out parts of the voting law. It was filed by the Coalition for Good Governance, five county election board members and several voters. The lawsuit opposes allowing the State Election Board to replace county election boards after performance reviews. A temporary county election superintendent appointed by the majority-Republican board would have broad authority to certify elections, fire staff, decide on voting locations, spend tax money and set policy. “The takeover provisions are so egregious and dangerous to every concept of free and fair elections that they must be stricken from the law before they undermine Georgia’s elections,” said Marilyn Marks, executive director for the Coalition for Good Governance. The litigation also takes issue with “impractical” absentee ballot deadlines that require voters to request a ballot at least 11 days before an election, leaving little time to vote by mail in runoffs. The voting law shortened the period between general elections and runoffs from nine weeks to four weeks.

Full Article: Latest lawsuit over Georgia voting law objects to election takeovers

New Hampshire: Voter machine audit comes up with new totals in Windham | Kevin Landrigan/New Hampshire Union Leader

The first review in the forensic audit of Windham election returns has produced different vote totals than were reported right after the Nov. 3 election. The four Republican candidates for state representative in Windham each got roughly 220 more votes through an audit of automated vote counting machines than reported on Election Day. Meanwhile, Kristi St. Laurent, the top-finishing Democrat, got about 125 fewer votes from the audit than announced Nov. 3. The audit of the four AccuVote machines used to count ballots in Windham wrapped up over the weekend. Volunteers began Monday the hand recounting of all ballots cast in the races for state representative, governor and U.S. senator. Mark Lindeman, a member of the three-person audit team, urged the volunteers to carefully examine ballots with fold lines in them as the automated voting machines improperly counted some of them as votes. “In some cases fold lines are being interpreted by the scanners as valid votes,” Lindeman said. “That’s something we especially want to encourage to look for at the table.”

Full Article: Voter machine audit comes up with new totals in Windham | State | unionleader.com

New Hampshire: Windham vote auditors point to ballot fold lines as possible source of discrepancies | Adam Sexton/WMUR

Independent auditors examining vote discrepancies in the 2020 state representative race in Windham are zeroing in on fold lines across ballots as a potential explanation for significant changes in vote tallies from the November machine count and a subsequent hand recount. The work of closely examining each of Windham’s 10,000 ballots from the November 2020 election is expected to last three days, but auditors and volunteers at the secure audit facility in Pembroke could be inching closer to an explanation for the discrepancies. “Something we strongly suspect at this juncture, based on various evidence, is that in some cases, fold lines are being interpreted by the scanners as valid votes,” said independent auditor Mark Lindeman. Auditors said the scanners could be interpreting the fold lines as a vote when they go through a “vote target,” or a candidate’s name on the ballot. They said a lot of Windham’s ballots appear to have fold lines across the target of a Democratic state representative candidate.

Full Article: Windham vote auditors point to ballot fold lines as possible source of discrepancies

New Jersey among nation’s worst in making sure elections are secure. Why haven’t we fixed that? | Jonathan D. Salant/NJ.com

After President Donald Trump and his Republican allies singled out Georgia and Arizona in falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, both states recounted their votes and found no significant problems. That’s not so easy to do in New Jersey after each election. It’s one of just six states that do not require a paper trail that allows election officials to check that voting machines were not hacked and the results not tampered with. “New Jersey is increasingly behind the curve here,” said Mark Lindeman, acting co-director of Verified Voting, a national nonprofit election verification organization. While New Jersey could do an audit last year because so many ballots were cast by mail, that was a one-shot deal due to the coronavirus pandemic. Going forward, the Garden State will remain an outlier unless the state comes up with the estimated $60 million to $80 million needed to replace county voting machines. “That’s totally the problem,” said Eileen Kean, a Monmouth County elections commissioner. “It’s really a very, very expensive undertaking.” Voting experts said that a paper trail will do more for election security than all of the voting restrictions being enacted by Republican state legislatures, including both Georgia and Arizona. The new laws focus on voter identification to curb in-person ballot fraud, which studies have shown is virtually non-existent, or making it harder to vote by mail despite an election that Trump administration officials said was the most secure in history even with expanded absentee voting.

Full Article: N.J. among nation’s worst in making sure elections are secure. Why haven’t we fixed that? – nj.com

Pennsylvania: A new wave of election directors step in to fill state’s many vacancies — with little training and varying experience | Marie Albiges/Philadelphia Inquirer

Among the most stressed-out folks in local government this week will be the former manager of the USA Field Hockey team, a congressman’s past chief of staff, and an ex-political science professor. They’ll all be running elections in Pennsylvania for the first time during Tuesday’s primaries — and they will do it under the microscope of a skeptical GOP electorate galvanized by Republicans in the state legislature.After what election directors described as a “nightmare” election in 2020 — in which huge changes to Pennsylvania’s voting process were complicated by the pandemic and partisan misinformation fueled by former President Donald Trump and his allies — at least 25 of their peers left their jobs. Five months later, most of those positions have been filled, but not everyone has the same level of experience as their predecessors. For the newest election directors, their first real test will come Tuesday, when thousands of Pennsylvanians will cast a ballot in the primaries. “The view from the consumer side of the counter, and the view from this side of the counter, is tremendously different,” said Bob Morgan, who started as Luzerne County election director a mere six weeks ago after leaving a job as U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwight’s chief of staff. “It’s a little bit like drinking from the firehose.”

Source: A new wave of election directors step in to fill Pa.’s many vacancies — with little training and varying experience

Texas: Just How Strict Will Republicans’ Voting Bill Be? | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Texas Republicans on Monday resumed their push to pass a major voting bill with an array of restrictions, moving the bill to a closed-door panel of lawmakers who will hash out the final version of the legislation. But much of the suspense surrounding the panel, known as a conference committee, centers not on whether the legislation will pass the G.O.P.-controlled Legislature, but on what measures it will include when it does. After a late-night scramble of last-minute negotiations among lawmakers last week, it looked as if recently introduced voting options, such as drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, would survive Republicans’ initial attempt to ban them. The version of the bill passed by the State Senate would have prohibited those types of voting, but the House version passed last week made no mention of either provision. However, State Senator Bryan Hughes, the Republican sponsor of the initial bill and one of the committee members who will shape the final version behind closed doors, said in an interview last week that he would like to see the provisions banning drive-through voting and 24-hour voting added back to the final bill. “It makes sense,” Mr. Hughes said, citing internal polling suggesting that Texas voters preferred standardized hours for early voting across the state. “So there’s some predictability and people are confident that the rules are being followed.” The conference committee will meet this week to start crafting a final version of the bill, which would then be sent for a final up-or-down vote in both chambers. The Senate announced its members — made up of four Republicans and one Democrat — on Monday, and the House will make its appointments when the chamber convenes on Tuesday.

Full Article: Just How Strict Will Texas Republicans’ Voting Bill Be? – The New York Times