Monthly Archives: January 2025

After taking control of the Michigan House of Representatives, Republican lawmakers have begun shaping their election policy priorities. They’ve made one conspicuous change already: renaming the House’s Elections Committee — a standing body that outlives the control of any one party — the Election Integrity Committee. Republicans in Michigan and around the country continue to push the theme of election integrity as a counterweight to Democratic efforts to expand voting access. Whether the committee name change amounts to a mere branding exercise, or represents a firm marker of election policy priorities for Michigan’s House leaders will become clearer in the coming weeks, as members of the committee are chosen and leaders lay out their agenda. For now, it makes Michigan one of the first few states to have a legislative group dedicated by name to the idea of election integrity. Read Article

Opinion: Republicans in North Carolina Are Treading a Terrifying Path | Frank Bruni/The New York Times

Nothing should be shocking after Jan. 6, 2021, when an American president’s scheming to overturn the legitimate results of a fair election culminated in the bloody breaching of the Capitol. Still, I’m aghast at the audacity of what Republicans here in North Carolina are up to. They are following in their leader’s footsteps and trying to steal an election. And if such an effort no longer seems as strange and sinister as it did before Donald Trump stormed onto the political scene and took a torch to whatever scruples still existed, that’s all the more reason to examine it closely. We need to be clear about where things stand. With an election denier about to move back into the White House and his disciples emboldened, our democracy is in danger. That’s the moral of the North Carolina story. It’s much, much bigger than this state. Read Article

Oregon & Washington: FBI releases new details on metal compounds used to spark Pacific Northwest ballot box fires | Claire Rush/Associated Press

The devices used to spark three ballot drop box fires in the Pacific Northwest during the 2024 election were made of a “very volatile mix” of thermite and scrap metal, FBI agents said Thursday. Thermite devices are made of metal shavings and iron oxide, and can burn as hot as 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,204 Celsius), Special Agent in Charge Doug Olson told reporters at a news conference at the FBI’s Portland field office. He said the person who made the devices welded them using scrap metal for the exterior and inserted thermite inside. Thermite can be easily made, he added. Read Article

Pennsylvania legislative preview: Will election law changes finally pass? | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Pennsylvania lawmakers beginning their new legislative session this month are preparing to debate what changes, if any, should be made to the way the state’s elections are run. Once again, Republicans are planning to champion expanded voter ID requirements, while Democrats want to answer county calls for more time to process mail ballots and implement early voting. Their discussions will follow a highly scrutinized presidential election that ran smoothly compared with the 2020 contest, when counties were slow to produce unofficial results and faced a barrage of fraud claims. Read Article

Texas: “It kind of sounded biblical”: How a roll of the dice and numbered beads determined a Corpus Christi City Council race | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

A single Corpus Christi City Council seat drew five contenders in November’s election, a level of interest that ultimately prolonged the final outcome until this week — and at some points left officials scratching their heads as they were forced to dig through archaic rules to figure out how to determine the winner. After the November votes were counted, incumbent Everett Roy and former council member Billy Lerma earned the most support. But since neither got a majority of votes, the contest remained undecided. Both men advanced to a December runoff. The second round of voting didn’t bring a resolution. Turns out, voters were deadlocked. The candidates tied, 1,916 to 1,916. By law, that result triggered a recount. At Lerma’s request, the recount was conducted by hand and took city officials roughly four days.

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Wisconsin Assembly sends voter ID constitutional amendment to voters | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin voters in April will decide whether to amend the state constitution to include the existing law requiring voters to show photo identification while casting ballots — a move Republicans are hoping will protect the law from being overturned by a liberal-controlled state Supreme Court. Assembly lawmakers on Tuesday approved a resolution 54-45 along party lines to ask voters in the April 1 election to approve the photo ID amendment. The vote was the last hurdle in a two-year process to amend the state constitution and will put the question to voters in the same election they will decide partisan control of the state’s highest court. State laws already require voters to show photo identification, but the measure now moves the question to voters in a statewide referendum on the spring election ballot. If passed, the rule will be included in the Wisconsin Constitution. Read Article

Appeals court denies bid to block public release of special counsel’s report on Trump Jan. 6 probe | Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer/Associated Press

A federal appeals court on Thursday denied a bid to block the public release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down a emergency challenge aimed at keeping under wraps the report expected to detail unflattering revelations about Trump’s failed effort to cling to power in the election he lost to President Joe Biden. Even with the appeals court ruling, though, the election interference report will not immediately be released, and there’s no guarantee it will be as more legal wrangling is expected. Read Article

‘Evangelist for democracy’: Carter started election observation and fought fraud | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Once the victim of his own stolen election, Jimmy Carter later launched an international election observation operation that continues to watch for fair and democratic results. Part of the former president’s lasting legacy, the Carter Center’s election monitoring work started in 1989 with missions to Central American nations and later expanded within the United States after the 2020 election. Carter saw a need for greater accountability through election observation efforts to help ensure the results reflect the will of the voters, said David Carroll, director for the Carter Center’s Democracy Program. Read Article

National: Trump promised pardons for January 6 rioters in ‘first hour’ of his second term. What might this mean? | Martin Pengelly/The Guardian

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, politicians, legal observers and even sitting federal judges are expressing alarm about his stated intention to pardon or offer commutations to supporters who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 and were then convicted of crimes. Clemency for those who sought to block certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory “would undermine the US judiciary and criminal justice system and send a message to Americans that attacking US democratic institutions is appropriate and justifiable”, said a spokesperson for the Society for the Rule of Law. The group of conservative attorneys, academics, and former federal officials and judges also quoted sitting judges Royce Lamberth (“We cannot condone the normalization of the January 6 US Capitol riot”) and Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee who said “blanket pardons for all January 6 defendants or anything close would be beyond frustrating and disappointing”. Read Article

National: ‘A Day of Love’: How Trump Inverted the Violent History of Jan. 6 | Dan Barry and Alan Feuer/The New York Times

In two weeks, Donald J. Trump is to emerge from an arched portal of the United States Capitol to once again take the presidential oath of office. As the Inauguration Day ritual conveying the peaceful transfer of power unfolds, he will stand where the worst of the mayhem of Jan. 6, 2021, took place, largely in his name. Directly behind Mr. Trump will be the metal-and-glass doors where protesters, inflamed by his lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, stormed the Capitol with clubs, chemical irritants and other weapons. To his left, the spot where roaring rioters and outnumbered police officers fought hand to hand. To his right, where the prostrate body of a dying woman was jostled in the bloody fray. Read Article

National: Fears grow for voting rights as Trump plots to reshape US justice department | Sam Levine/The Guardian

Donald Trump could use a second term atop the justice department to gut enforcement of US federal voting laws and deploy an agency that is supposed to protect the right to vote to undermine it, experts have warned. Trump has made no secret of his intention to punish his political enemies and subvert the American voting system. His control of the justice department could allow him to amplify misleading claims of voter fraud by non-citizens and others, as well as investigate local election officials. It could also cause the department’s voting section to largely scale back its enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, returning it to the approach that it took under Trump’s first term. Read Article

National: Fox loses appeal to duck $2.7 billion Smartmatic defamation suit | Griffin Eckstein/Salon

A New York appeals court has rejected Fox Corp.’s request to toss a $2.7 billion defamation suit from voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic. Smartmatic alleged in a suit that the Fox News parent company “effectively endorsed and participated in” a campaign suggesting that the voting machine company participated in election fraud by manipulating the results of the 2020 presidential election. In the ruling from the New York Supreme Court First Appellate Department, a five-judge panel cited a Delaware court decision against Fox Corporation for defaming Dominion Voting Systems as precedent for implicating the Fox News parent company. Fox Corp. agreed to pay $787 million to Dominion in 2023. Read Article

National: What to watch for in 2025, according to election experts | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

As we move beyond the long, anxious 2024 election cycle, we’re entering the 2026 and 2028 cycles with a largely unshaped landscape for elections. To help develop an outlook, we’ve decided to turn our first newsletter of the year over to people who are smarter than us: folks who participated in the experts desk Votebeat ran this past election cycle. Their expectations provide a first guess about what election debates will look like over the next several months. “What will it take to have justifiable confidence in the trustworthiness of our elections every time, no matter who wins?” asked Pamela Smith, CEO and president of Verified Voting. “We are closely monitoring any attempts disguised as election security legislation that will instead disenfranchise voters and dismantle voting rights.” Read Article

Opinion | What to remember about Jan. 6 | Joe Biden/The Washington Post

On this Jan. 6, order will be called. Clerks, staff and members of Congress will gather to certify the results of a free and fair presidential election and ensure a peaceful transfer of power. Capitol Police will stand guard over the citadel of our democracy. The vice president of the United States, faithful to her duty under our Constitution, will preside over the certification of her opponent’s victory in the November election. It is a ceremony that for more than two centuries has made America a beacon to the world, a ceremony that ratifies the will of the voters. For much of our history, this proceeding was treated as pro forma, a routine act. But after what we all witnessed on Jan. 6, 2021, we know we can never again take it for granted. Read Article

Arizona: Maricopa County’s new leaders pledge another election audit — but not like the last one | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Maricopa County’s new leadership will move immediately to commission an independent audit of the county’s election system, incoming supervisors announced at their first meeting Monday, but they promised that it will not be a repeat of the partisan, chaotic review of the county’s 2020 election results. The announcement came as the county swore in three new Republicans on the five-member board of supervisors. Minutes after being elected chairman, returning Supervisor Thomas Galvin affirmed that supervisors would soon hire what he described as a reputable firm to do a “comprehensive review” of election procedures and recommend improvements. Read Article

Arizona counties block access to cast vote records, citing law, privacy | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

After Kari Lake lost her U.S. Senate race in November, some skeptics cried election fraud. They doubted that so many people who voted for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, who carried Arizona, would split their ticket and back Ruben Gallego, Lake’s Democratic opponent. In the past, local election analysts could counter such claims by analyzing a dataset known as the cast vote record — an electronic record of each anonymous ballot cast and all the votes recorded on it, including split-ticket votes. But for this election, they’ve hit a roadblock: They can no longer get that data. The counties that gave out their cast-vote record in the past now say that it is not a public record, or that they’ll provide only a heavily redacted version, without ruling specifically on whether the public is entitled to see it. Read Article

Georgia lawmakers consider even more election changes after a smooth 2024 election | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Every year, Georgia Republicans pass new “election integrity” laws they say are needed to boost voters’ confidence since the close 2020 election. Now that Donald Trump won a clear victory, the GOP base is emboldened by his return to power and is pushing for even more changes to Georgia’s voting laws — this time, without the false claim that the election was stolen. From hand ballot counts to an elimination of no-excuse absentee voting, the Georgia General Assembly could consider a wide variety of election proposals during the 2025 legislative session. Conservative activists are also seeking to require paper ballots filled out by hand instead of touchscreens, stronger authority to challenge voters’ eligibility and new rules to certify election results. Read Article

Maine’s voter ID effort includes limits on ballot drop boxes | Billy Kobin/Bangor Daily News

The conservative proponents of a November referendum on requiring photo identification to vote in Maine tucked in absentee voting limits that would hit two of the state’s liberal bastions hardest. The “Voter ID for ME” initiative would bar municipalities from having more than one absentee ballot drop box, a provision that would only affect Portland and Orono, the home of the University of Maine. The initiative would require a “bipartisan team of election officials” — rather than the local clerk or their designees — to retrieve ballots from the boxes. Read Article

Michigan: Trump’s false 2020 electors make renewed bid to get charges dropped | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

In a series of new court filings, Michigan Republicans who signed a certificate falsely claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 election contended their actions amounted to “participating in the political process” and urged a judge to dismiss their charges. The new filings provided the most detailed look yet at false electors’ defense arguments. They also represented an attempt to knock down felony charges that Nessel, a Democrat, announced in July 2023 against the 16 Michigan Republicans whose names appeared on the false certificates, which were used by the Trump campaign in an unsuccessful bid to overturn his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Read Article

Minnesota GOP asks state Supreme Court to halt special election in suburban House race | Rochelle Olson/The Minnesota Star Tribune

The state Republican Party and conservative Minnesota Voters Alliance have asked the state Supreme Court to void Gov. Tim Walz’s decision to hold a special election Jan. 28 for a DFL-held House seat. The legal challenge is among the unsettled issues that will determine which party controls the Legislature in the 2025 session, which starts in just more than a week. Republicans will begin the session with a 67-66 advantage in the House because the Roseville-area seat was left open after a court order voided a DFLer’s victory. Until the December court order, the DFL and GOP were to open the session tied at 67 members each and had been discussing a power-sharing agreement. But now Republicans say the 67-66 advantage will allow them to elect a speaker and control committee assignments. DFLers disagree; they say 68 votes are needed for any House action, including the election of a speaker. Read Article

North Carolina Supreme Court halts certification of apparent Riggs win | Kyle Ingram/Raleigh News & Observer

The North Carolina Supreme Court issued an order on Tuesday blocking the state from certifying a winner in the race for a seat on the high court. Granting the request of Republican Jefferson Griffin, who trails his opponent, Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs, by 734 votes, the court’s Republican majority issued a temporary stay that will prevent the State Board of Elections from certifying Riggs as the winner. Anita Earls, the only other Democrat on the court alongside Riggs, dissented, writing that “the public interest requires that the court not interfere with the ordinary course of democratic processes as set by statute and the state constitution.” Riggs recused herself from the case. Read Article

Texas: Dallas County scrambles to secure voter check-in software before May 3 election | Tracey McManus/The Dallas Morning News

Less than four months until voters return to the polls, Dallas County is scrambling to secure new check-in software after failures during the Nov. 5 general election. And the window for getting it done is tight. The county’s electronic pollbooks from Election Systems & Software malfunctioned during last year’s election, resulting in nearly 4,000 people voting with ballots tied to precincts where they do not live. As a result, the Texas secretary of state decertified that version of the pollbook software in December, said Judd Ryan, ES&S senior vice president of sales. Read Article

Texas: Can these 5 bills to expand voting access win bipartisan support in the Legislature? | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Republican lawmakers in Texas are signaling this year that they will continue pushing for restrictions on voting in the name of combating voter fraud, including ending countywide voting and requiring proof of citizenship to register. But some efforts to expand voting access — including legislation that has come up in past legislative sessions — could gain bipartisan support, some policy experts say. Bills that would expand the acceptable forms of ID voters can present at the polls and one that expands mail-voting access for people with disabilities, among others, have a chance to move forward, said Daniel Griffith, senior director of policy at the Secure Democracy Foundation, a nonprofit research group. They’re not sure bets to become law, of course. Read Article

Wisconsin: Two changes that could speed up election results — and stave off conspiracy theories | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

It’s a known risk for the municipal clerks who run Wisconsin elections: Starting at 7 a.m. on election day, they have around 16 hours to finish counting every vote, or they may start facing accusations of a fraudulent late-night “ballot dump.” Those baseless allegations, which sometimes go viral, have plagued election officials across the state but especially in Milwaukee, where counting often finishes in the early morning hours after election day. Republican candidates have repeatedly cast suspicion on the timing of results in the largely Democratic city to explain away their statewide losses. Currently, there’s little election officials can do to finish counting ballots sooner. Under state law, clerks must wait until the morning of election day to begin processing ballots and counting votes, even if they received those ballots weeks earlier. Read Article

Jimmy Carter sought to expand democracy worldwide long after he left the White House | Farai Mutsaka and Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

Amid everything else on his desk — the Iran hostage crisis, domestic economic turmoil, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and a grueling 1980 reelection fight — President Jimmy Carter elevated the independence of a country in southern Africa as a top agenda item. Carter hosted then-Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe at the White House soon after his country achieved independence and later described Zimbabwe’s adoption of democracy as “our greatest single success.” Three decades later, Carter, who was long out of office, found the door slammed shut when he and other dignitaries sought to visit Zimbabwe on a humanitarian mission to observe reported human rights abuses after a violent disputed election in 2008. He had become a critic of Mugabe’s regime and was denied a visa. Read Article

National: What did US election officials learn about our democracy from 2024’s vote? | Sam Levine/The Guardian

Until the 2020 election, local election officials worked in obscurity and anonymity, ensuring that the election was fairly administered and complied with state and federal laws. But ever since the president-elect’s loss in 2020, they have borne the brunt of his efforts to sow doubt about the integrity of US elections. They have faced vicious harassment campaigns, been bombarded with public records requests, and been on the frontlines combating misinformation about voting. A number left the profession altogether. Many election officials had been preparing for an intense period of uncertainty after election day, concerned that, as in the 2020 election, the winner of the presidential election would be uncertain and they would face immense pressure as Trump and his allies sought to subvert the election results. But when the race was called fairly quickly for Trump, the results were widely accepted, with few questions about who won. Read Article

National: The Year of the AI Election Wasn’t Quite What Everyone Expected | Vittoria Elliott/WIRED

In the spring, the US saw what was likely its first AI candidate. In a brief campaign for the mayor of Wyoming, virtual integrated citizen (VIC), a ChatGPT-based bot created by real human Victor Miller, promised to govern entirely by AI. At the outset of 2024, many suggested that even if not winning office, generative AI would play a pivotal role in—and pose significant risks to—democratic elections, as more than 2 billion people voted in more than 60 countries. But now, experts and analysts have changed their tune, saying that generative AI likely had little to no effect at all. So were all those prognostications that 2024 would be the AI election year wrong? The truth is … not really. Experts who spoke to WIRED say that this might have still been the “AI election”—just not in the way many expected. Read Article

National: The rise in mail voting comes with a price, as mismatched signatures lead to ballot rejections | Audrey McAvoy and Ayanna Alexander/Associated Press

As with many voters on Maui, Joshua Kamalo thought the race for president wasn’t the only big contest on the November ballot. He also was focused on a hotly contested seat for the local governing board. He made sure to return his ballot in the virtually all vote-by-mail state early, doing so two weeks before Election Day. A week later, he received a letter telling him the county couldn’t verify his signature on the return envelope, jeopardizing his vote. And he wasn’t the only one. Two other people at the biodiesel company where he works also had their ballots rejected, as did his daughter. In each case, the county said their signatures didn’t match the ones on file. Read Article

National: Vote-swapping campaign for 2024 fell short of its aims | Meghnad Bose and Uzma Afreen/Votebeat

Progressives determined to defeat Donald Trump but unsatisfied with Kamala Harris’s position on the war in Gaza were offered an 11th-hour voting option this year: In October, a group called Swap Your Vote began offering to match voters in politically “safe” states with those in swing states. The idea was that a prospective Democratic voter in a reliably blue state could instead cast a protest vote for a third-party candidate on behalf of their match in the swing state. The swing-state voter would feel like, through the trade, they were voting their conscience without putting their broader election aims at risk. Read Article

National: State Department sanctions Russian, Iranian groups for election interference | Derek B. Johnson/CyberScoop