Yearly Archives: 2024

Republican congressmen from Pennsylvania have filed a federal lawsuit seeking stricter scrutiny of votes cast by U.S. citizens living abroad, reflecting a new GOP strategy to challenge the eligibility of a group of voters that includes overseas military personnel. The lawmakers claim in the suit, which was filed this week, that because local election officials in Pennsylvania are not required to verify the identity or eligibility of voters who register overseas, those ballots are vulnerable to fraud. They have asked a federal judge to require officials to set aside completed ballots and not count them until voter eligibility can be determined. The lawsuit is notable for targeting a group of voters long thought to favor Republicans because of the prevalence of military personnel stationed overseas, but that is now seen as more evenly divided or even leaning Democratic. The suit adds to a long list of Republican-backed litigation around the country with just weeks to go before the Nov. 5 election, with much of it aimed at disqualifying mail-in votes or removing ineligible voters from rolls. Read Article

West Virginia Republicans, Democrats Clash Over 2024 Legitimacy – Already | Crystal Hill/Democracy Docket

A proposal from five West Virginia Republicans urging the state not to recognize an “illegitimate presidential election” died quickly after it was introduced during a special legislative session. But not before a group of Democrats countered with their own proposal, requesting that the Legislature affirm a “free and fair” election. The session ended this week with no action on either resolution. But for some West Virginians, the brief episode reflects how the rural state’s Legislature, once majority-Democrat in a solidly blue state, has shifted further right over the past decade, especially since the rise of former President Donald Trump. Read Article

Wisconsin: Federal judge orders Rusk County town to bring back voting machines for voters with disabilities in future elections | Rich Kremer/WPR

A federal judge has ordered the Rusk County Town of Thornapple to resume using electronic voting machines after the town’s board switched to hand-counting paper ballots in two elections this year. The order says the town violated federal law aimed at making voting easier for people with disabilities. A preliminary injunction issued Friday by Chief U.S. District Judge James Peterson for Wisconsin’s Western District, states that the town’s clerk and three-member board of supervisors violated the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, by failing to provide at least one “voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities” at its single polling place in the April 2 and Aug. 13 elections. According to court documents, the town’s former clerk Suzanne Pinnow cited “the controversial nature of electronic voting machines” during a June 2023 town board meeting as part of the justification for moving to hand-counted, paper ballots. Read Article

Wyoming: Gillette Hand-Count Ballot Test Shows It Would Take Hundreds Of Counters, Cost Up To $1.3M | Leo Wolfson/Cowboy State Daily

A movement for hand counting election ballots in Wyoming has been gaining steam but faces many logistical hurdles if it’s ever required by law. A hand count election test conducted in Gillette last weekend showed that it could take hundreds of volunteers and cost as much as $1.3 million to make full hand counting of ballots work in Campbell County alone with an expectancy of getting results within a day of an election. Gillette resident Patricia Junek, a hand count supporter who helped facilitate the Campbell County test, said although she thought the test was “very successful” and proved hand counting could easily be done in Wyoming, it also showed a lot of volunteers would need to be recruited to make it happen. “We would need a substantial amount of people to count ballots,” Junek said. Read Article

National: Judge Unseals New Evidence in Federal Election Case Against Trump | Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage/The New York Times

When told by an aide that Vice President Mike Pence was in peril as the rioting on Capitol Hill escalated on Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald J. Trump replied, “So what?” When one of his lawyers told him that his false claims that the election had been marred by widespread fraud would not hold up in court, Mr. Trump responded, “The details don’t matter.” On a flight with Mr. Trump and his family after the election, an Oval Office assistant heard Mr. Trump say: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.” Those accounts were among new evidence disclosed in a court filing made public on Wednesday in which the special counsel investigating Mr. Trump made his case for why the former president is not immune from prosecution on federal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. Read Article

Former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters sentenced to 9 years for voting data scheme | Mead Gruver/Associated Press

A judge ripped into a Colorado county clerk for her crimes and lies before sentencing her Thursday to nine years behind bars for a data-breach scheme spawned from the rampant false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential race. District Judge Matthew Barrett told former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters — after earlier sparring with her for continuing to press discredited claims about rigged voting machines — that she never took her job seriously. “I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen,” Barrett told her in handing down the sentence. “You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan.” Read Article

National: Domestic extremists with ‘election-related grievances’ could turn to violence in final weeks of election, FBI and DHS warn | Sean Lyngaas/CNN

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are concerned that “election-related grievances,” such as a belief in voter fraud, could motivate domestic extremists to engage in violence in the weeks before and after the November election, as it did during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to a new intelligence bulletin from the agencies. Domestic violent extremists [DVEs] “continue to create, exploit, and promote narratives about the election process or legal decisions involving political figures, and we are concerned that these grievances could motivate some DVEs to engage in violence, as we saw during the 2020 election cycle,” the FBI and DHS said in the bulletin sent to state and local officials and private executives. Read Article

National: ‘Damning non-answer’: Vance refuses to acknowledge Trump lost the 2020 election | Ryan J. Reilly/NBC

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance refused to acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election during the vice presidential debate Tuesday and downplayed the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which injured more than 140 law enforcement officers. He also declined to say whether he would seek to challenge the results of this year’s election. Toward the end of the debate, Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz asked Vance to affirm that Trump lost the last election. “Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked. “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance replied before he pivoted to press Walz about censorship on social media. “That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said. “I’m pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. This is not a debate, it’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world.” Read Article

National: Trump Allies Bombard the Courts, Setting Stage for Post-Election Fight | Danny Hakim, Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Republicans have unleashed a flurry of lawsuits challenging voting rules and practices ahead of the November elections, setting the stage for what could be a far larger and more contentious legal battle over the White House after Election Day. The onslaught of litigation, much of it landing in recent weeks, includes nearly 90 lawsuits filed across the country by Republican groups this year. The legal push is already more than three times the number of lawsuits filed before Election Day in 2020. Read Article

National: Homeless People Have the Right to Vote — but Often Lack the Ability | Jule Pattison-Gordon/Governing

There’s no constitutional requirement to have a home in order to vote. In practical terms, however, it can sometimes feel like it. Individuals experiencing homelessness often struggle to meet voter ID requirements, stay on voting rolls or get to polling locations, among other obstacles. Although 54 percent of all eligible voters turned out back in 2012, only about 10 percent of homeless citizens voted. “If we could get that number up to 20 or 30 percent, it would make a big difference, especially with local elections,” said Donald Whitehead, the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “When people are thinking about structuring voter rights laws, they should be thinking about every citizen, not just those who are affluent or who have means.” Read Article

National: Republicans’ non-citizen voting myth sets stage to claim stolen election | Rachel Leingang and Sam Levine/The Guardian

James Cozadd, a 49-year-old plumber born in Montgomery, Alabama, has no idea why he got a letter from Alabama’s top election official telling him he was potentially ineligible to vote. He was born in the US, yet the letter said he was suspected of being a non-citizen and he would have to prove his citizenship to vote. “I’ve been racking my brain to try to figure out how I ended up on the list of purged voters, but I have no clue,” Cozadd said in a court filing in September. He was one of more than 3,200 voters the secretary of state asked to prove their citizenship – part of a wave of actions amid heated rhetoric among Republicans over the idea that non-citizens could be voting in large numbers in US elections, a theory that runs counter to data. Read Article

Opinion: Trump election interference trial: Jack Smith’s big new Jan. 6 brief is a major indictment of the Supreme Court | Richard L. Hasen/Slate

It’s rare to simultaneously feel red-hot anger and wistfulness, especially when merely reading a document. But those are exactly the emotions that washed over me when I read the redacted version of special counsel Jack Smith’s brief reciting in detail the evidence against Donald Trump for attempting to subvert the 2020 election. The anger is at the Supreme Court for depriving the American people of the chance for a full public airing of Donald Trump’s attempt to use fraud and trickery to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory before voters consider whether to put Trump back in office beginning January 2025. The wistfulness comes with the recognition that there is about an even chance that this will be the last evidence produced by the federal government of this nefarious plot. If Donald Trump wins election next month, the end of this prosecution is certain and the risks of future election subversion heightened. Read Article

Arizona can force counties to certify November results, despite federal court ruling | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

A federal judge has blocked an Arizona rule aimed at enforcing timely finalizing of election results, ruling that the state can’t simply exclude a county’s results if local officials there refuse to certify them, and noting the various legal alternatives that should make the rule unnecessary. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes had added the rule to the state’s most recent Election Procedures Manual, giving the secretary the power to move forward with the statewide certification without a county’s results. Read Article

Arkansas election board to sanction county officials over issues with hand-counted ballots | Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate

The State Board of Election Commissioners on Wednesday voted to sanction election officials in one Arkansas county where several hand-counted ballot mistakes occurred during the primary election. Commissioners did not explicitly state which county’s board of election commissioners would receive the sanctions; however, only officials in Searcy County hand-counted ballots in March. The investigation into the county that hand-counted ballots was among six that the SBEC considered at its meeting, all of which were discussed with some confidentiality. Reports remain private until 30 days after county officials accept the sanction, or deny it and prompt a public hearing. Read Article

California: Judge blocks law that targeted deepfake campaign ads | Jon Healey/Los Angeles Times

With deepfake video and audio making their way into political campaigns, California enacted its toughest restrictions yet in September: a law prohibiting political ads within 120 days of an election that include deceptive, digitally generated or altered content unless the ads are labeled as “manipulated.” On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the law, saying it violated the 1st Amendment. Other laws against deceptive campaign ads remain on the books in California, including one that requires candidates and political action committees to disclose when ads are using artificial intelligence to create or substantially alter content. But the preliminary injunction granted against Assembly Bill 2839 means that there will be no broad prohibition against individuals using artificial intelligence to clone a candidate’s image or voice and portraying them falsely without revealing that the images or words are fake. Read Article

Georgia Republicans sow doubt about Dominion voting machines in 2020 throwback | Zachary Cohen/CNN

Just weeks before early voting begins in Georgia, Republican Party officials and Donald Trump allies are trying to preemptively sow doubt about the viability of Dominion systems used across the key swing state, arguing in court that the machines should not be used because they are not safe or secure. In a replay of 2020 tactics, Republicans have continued to claim without proof that Dominion voting systems were exploited in previous elections, resulting in mass manipulation and vote-flipping by a nefarious actor. And GOP officials in DeKalb County in Georgia, aided by a familiar cast of pro-Trump lawyers, have signaled they are planning to once again question the 2024 election results if Trump loses. Read Article

Georgia election boards must certify the state’s election results despite new rules, judge says | Mark Niesse and David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In two preelection trials Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said state law requires county election boards to certify results one week after Election Day. Republicans who raised the question agreed that certification is mandatory — but with an important caveat. They said individual board members had the right to vote “no” and a majority of members could decide to exclude precincts from certification if they suspected fraud or irregularities. McBurney didn’t immediately issue rulings after the Republican-controlled State Election Board recently approved a rule calling for an undefined “reasonable inquiry” before certification on Nov. 12. Read Article

Montana: Indigenous voting rights dispute in Montana surfaces before 2024 election | Tom Lutey/Montana Free Press

Fort Peck tribal members are suing Valley County seeking satellite voting locations, arguing that Indigenous voters have poor access to the polls. Attorneys for the tribal voters say the absence of satellite voting locations in Frazer and Poplar violates the rights of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. Voters must drive 23 miles one way to vote in person and receive basic voter assistance available off the reservation. The reservation straddles Valley and Roosevelt counties. The tribes have asked both to improve voting access for tribal members in this year’s election. Read Article

North Carolina: Hurricane Helene upends election planning in some parts of state | Steve Harrison/NPR

North Carolina election officials said Tuesday that early voting would start as planned on Oct. 17, including in counties that were devastated by flooding from Hurricane Helene. But they don’t know how many early voting sites and Election Day polling places might be unusable in the swing state because of the storm. “There may be polling places impacted by mudslides, there may be polling places inaccessible because of damaged roads, and there may be polling places with trees that have fallen on them,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. North Carolina is still trying to assess the damage from Helene, which caused massive flooding in the mountainous western part of the state. Read Article

Pennsylvania mail ballot dating issue may be bound for U.S. Supreme Court | Carter Walker/Votebeat

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether requiring voters to date their mail ballot return envelopes violates federal law. The group filed its petition Friday on behalf of the Pennsylvania branch of the NAACP. It follows a separate request from voting rights groups this week to Pennsylvania’s highest court for an expedited ruling on the date requirement. “The right to vote is one of the most important in this country,” said Janette Wallace, general counsel of the NAACP. “Ballots should not be rejected because of irrelevant errors. We will continue to fight so that voters’ voices may be heard. That’s why we’re taking this to the Supreme Court.” Read Article

Texas’ vote harvesting law is unconstitutional, judge says | Xiomara Moore/The Texas Tribune

A federal judge ruled on Saturday that part of a Texas law that enacted new voting restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague and restricting free speech. The ruling, made by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, immediately halted the state’s ability to investigate alleged cases of vote harvesting, such as the investigation into the League of United Latin American Citizens by Attorney General Ken Paxton. Before today’s ruling, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers could spend up to ten years in prison and fined up to $10,000 for giving or offering these services. Read Article

Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that RFK Jr. must stay on November ballot | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request to have his name removed as an independent presidential candidate from the November ballot or covered with stickers, a relief for local clerks. The court on Friday upheld a decision by the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission to keep Kennedy — who dropped out on Aug. 23 and endorsed former President Donald Trump — on the ballot despite his request to drop out. The commission cited a law saying qualified nominees can only get off the ballot if they die. “It’s good to have that done so we could focus more on the election,” Waukesha County Clerk Meg Wartman, a Republican, said about the case. She said around 40,000 ballots had already gone out in the county, and some had already been returned. Read Article

National: To combat voter fraud claims, election officials try radical transparency | Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Washington Post

In this conservative bedroom community of Phoenix, where Donald Trump remains popular and his 2020 loss is viewed with suspicion, election falsehoods don’t fizzle. They fester and grow. So as Pinal County officials prepare for another election with the former president on the ballot, they are trying to combat that distrust with radical transparency. “When you know in your soul there is nothing to hide, being open about the process is a no-brainer,” said Pinal County Recorder Dana Lewis (R), who helps oversee elections. “Even when you pull the curtain back, there are still people who lurk in the shadows, but we are going to continue to try with logic, accuracy and reason to combat the narrative of distrust in the elections process.” Read Article

National: Little-noticed statehouse races could reshape election policies next year | Carrie Levine/Votebeat

Americans agree the fate of democracy rests on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, even if they don’t agree on what that outcome should be. But they may be too focused on the top of the ticket. A small number of lower-profile state legislative races in districts around the country could shift partisan control of legislative chambers in several key swing states next year, potentially allowing state lawmakers to reshape how elections are run. “What’s really going to impact most voters when it comes to how they experience their elections — the timing of their elections, when ballots are counted, how things are processed, security and infrastructure changes — that’s all happening at the state level,” said Megan Boler Bellamy, vice president of law and policy at Voting Rights Lab, a nonprofit group that monitors state legislation on voting and elections.fit group that monitors state legislation on voting and elections. Read Article

National: Election experts raise alarms about vote counting delays in battleground states | Fredreka Schouten and Sara Murray/CNN

In Pennsylvania, officials are bracing for another presidential election in which the state could once again be the decisive battleground and take days to determine the winner. Seth Bluestein, a Republican city commissioner in vote-rich Philadelphia, put the odds of knowing the winner on election night at “almost zero.” In battleground Wisconsin, meanwhile, a final tally isn’t likely until the morning after the election, said Ann Jacobs, a Democrat who chairs the state’s election commission. Election observers worry that delays in counting mail ballots could give the public a false sense of who’s winning the election. That could create a potential “red mirage” – showing GOP candidates ahead initially before more Democratic-leaning absentee ballots are processed and added to the tally – and leave an opening for false narratives about election fraud to flourish as the country awaits results. Read Article

National: Several states are making late changes to election rules, even as voting is set to begin | Ali Swenson/Associated Press

In Georgia, election workers will have to hand count the number of ballots cast after voting is completed. In North Carolina, some students and university staff can use their digital IDs to vote. In Wisconsin, ballot drop boxes are newly legal again, although not every voting jurisdiction will use them. Across the country, including in some of the nation’s presidential swing states, new or recently altered state laws are changing how Americans will vote, tally ballots, and administer and certify November’s election. It can be a challenge to keep track of these 11th-hour changes, especially since state election processes already vary so widely. Even more changes are looming in some states, with Election Day on Nov. 5 now just weeks away. Several states already have started sending out mail ballots, and in some states, voters have begun casting ballots in person. Read Article

National: The R.N.C. Asked a Conspiracy Theorist to Train Poll Watchers. Here’s What He Told Them. | Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

A few years ago, Jack Posobiec was a fringe figure and a right-wing agitator best known for helping spread “Pizzagate,” a conspiracy theory about Democrats running a satanic child abuse ring underneath a Washington pizza parlor. This month, he was invited by the Republican National Committee to speak to a group of volunteers about how to monitor elections in Michigan. The invitation was one sign of how the party uses figures and fictions that were once considered out of bounds to energize its activists. The counsel that Mr. Posobiec delivered was another. He blasted elections in the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia, for example, joking that officials in Venezuela learned how to conduct their elections, widely seen as corrupt, by visiting the city and studying how it is done, according to a recording of the Sept. 4 meeting. Read Article

National: Overseas voters are the latest target in Trump’s false narrative on election fraud | Melissa Goldin/Associated Press

Donald Trump this week claimed without evidence that anyone living overseas can get a ballot mailed to them, even if they are not eligible to vote, falsely accusing Democrats of subverting a 1986 law to win in November. The former Republican president’s allegation focuses on the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA, which protects the rights of U.S. citizens living abroad, including members of the military and their families, to vote in federal elections by absentee ballot. “In over 25 years of working in elections, in both Republican and Democratic administrations, and with election officials of both parties, I don’t recall any of them, or any elected leader from either party, ever denigrating this important program, until Trump’s false claims this week,” said David Becker, the founder and executive director of The Center for Election Innovation and Research. Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, agreed that “ensuring these voters can vote has never been controversial. I should say, never before.” Read Article

National: Newsmax and Smartmatic Settle Defamation Case Over 2020 Election | Katie Robertson/The New York Times

Smartmatic on Thursday settled its defamation lawsuit against Newsmax, the right-wing cable news channel that had spread false claims of election fraud, the companies said. The details of the settlement, reached as the jury was being selected before the trial, were not immediately disclosed. Smartmatic, an election technology company, had accused Newsmax of trying to entice viewers from its rival, Fox News, by airing false reports that Smartmatic helped swing the 2020 election for Joe Biden The lawsuit was filed in Delaware Superior Court in 2021. Read Article

National: Lawmakers’ concerns about mail ballots are fueled by other issues with mail service | John Hanna/Associated Press