National: The Trump admin cut election security funds. Now officials fear future elections may be ‘less secure.’ | Maggie Miller/POLITICO

The Trump administration’s recent efforts to gut funding and personnel that support state and local election security efforts have left officials deeply concerned about their ability to guarantee physical and cyber security during the voting process. This swift overhauling of funds means that states could lose access to information on emerging threats and election officials may be left without funding for key security services, which could leave certain states and localities more vulnerable to interference efforts than others. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s programs for securing elections — everything from scanning election system networks for safety to sharing data with the public on potential threats — have been put on hold pending a review by the Department of Homeland Security, with no guarantee they will start up again. Read Article

Arizona: Longtime voters receive letters asking for proof of their citizenship | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Arizona counties are starting to send letters to some longtime voters telling them that they must provide documentation proving their citizenship before they vote again, prompting annoyance and confusion across the state. Around 200,000 longtime residents, or roughly 5% of the state’s voter roll, will eventually get such letters because they were caught up in a decades-long state error tracking proof of citizenship. Affected voters will need to provide a birth certificate, passport, or other documents proving their citizenship. If they don’t, they’ll eventually be restricted to voting only in federal elections, or be kicked off the voter rolls entirely. Some of these voters have been registered for decades. Read Article

Georgia Senate GOP muscles through election overhaul to allow hand-marked paper ballots | Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder

A pair of election bills the Georgia Senate passed Wednesday propose new State Election Board powers, remove Georgia from multi-state voter rolls sharing databases and allow voters to request hand-marked paper ballots. The Senate voted along party lines Wednesday for the sweeping voting rules changes proposed in House Bill 397 as well as Senate Bill 214, which aims to encourage voters to use pencils or pens to complete ballots instead of electronic voting machines as is the primary option now. Sen. Sally Harrell, an Atlanta Democrat, cautioned against rushing through a significant change in the state’s election system at this late stage in the legislative process, which could result in further financial mismanagement. Friday is the last day of the 2025 Georgia General Assembly. Harrell wondered aloud why Republican senators rejected her amendment proposing hand-marked paper ballots when lawmakers voted in 2019 to switch to an electronic voting system. The state has spent more than $107 million on the Dominion Voting Systems that have been used in statewide elections since 2020. Read Article

 

Indiana: ‘They are a threat:’ House votes to ban student IDs at polls | Kayla Dwyer/Indianapolis Star

Senate Bill 10 would specifically banish state university-issued IDs from being acceptible forms of photo identification used at the voting booth, seemingly to address fears about non-residents voting in Indiana elections, even though this part of the law has nothing to do with address verification. “What’s not being said here is ‘We don’t want people to actually come out and vote,” said Wade Arvizu, a student at IU Indianapolis, “and I think that’s the reality.” Rep. Renee Pack, D-Indianapolis, made the implication more explicit on the House floor Tuesday. “Who are these students voting for?” she said. “I’m just going to be truthful, they are a threat. They are threat to Republicans in this state. They’re powerful. And it seems like we just don’t like powerful groups.” Read Article

Mississippi: Early voting dies in Legislature. Concerns arose over new voting program, likely veto | Grant McLaughlin/Mississippi Clarion Ledger

The Legislature had passed a measure on Tuesday to allow folks to more easily vote prior to an election day, but lawmakers held the motion back on a parliamentary motion to reconsider and then failed to vote on that motion before ending the 2025 Legislative Session on Thursday. On Tuesday, both the House and Senate passed a bill that created a 22-day excused early voting program, which allowed folks to go to their circuit clerk’s office and vote and have the ballot counted into a voting machine if they had one of several excused reasons for not voting on election day. However, both chambers held the bill’s passage back, and while the House on Wednesday before gaveling out the session had tabled that motion, the Senate did not, leaving the bill on the cutting-room floor. Read Article

Ohio Secretary of State orders investigation of Perry County electronic pollbook | Perry County Tribune

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has announced the investigation of a voter check-in tablet purchased by the Perry County Board of Elections. County Elections Board Director Jamie Snider told The Perry County Tribune that her office noticed some “irregular activity that we needed to report, and that was done immediately when we were advised it was happening.” She said the devices “were fresh out of the box, brand new. We just purchased them in December, received them in February, and as we were unboxing them, we noticed some things on them that were out of the norm. So we reported it to the state like we should have.” Read Article

Oregon: Controversial proposal to take away vote by mail results in heated debate | Carlos Fuentes/The Oregonian

A controversial bill that could repeal Oregon’s vote by mail system resulted in a heated public hearing Monday afternoon, as dozens of individuals argued for and against scrapping the state’s first-in-nation voting system. Senate Bill 210, sponsored by Republican Sens. David Brock Smith and Kim Thatcher, would ask voters to decide in November 2026 whether to retain Oregon’s vote by mail system, which has been in place for more than two decades. The proposed measure would also require voters to present a government-issued ID when voting in person and would limit mail-in voting to citizens who are unable to vote in person. Read Article

Pennsylvania can’t reject improperly dated ballots, federal court rules | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Pennsylvania counties can’t reject a voter’s mail ballot solely because they forgot to put the date on the return envelope or put a wrong date on it, a federal judge wrote Monday in a ruling that likely applies to the upcoming primary. The ruling is the latest — and likely not the last — in a long-running legal battle over enforcing the date requirement that has bounced around state and federal courts. U.S. District Judge Susan Baxter of the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled Monday that rejecting mail ballots for issues with the date on the outer envelope violates voters’ First Amendment rights, since voting is considered an expression of free speech. Misdated mail ballots are ones where a voter writes a date on the envelope that is outside of the range between when the county can first send the ballot and the day of the election. Read Article

Texas bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote advances | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

In a quick vote after little debate, the Texas Senate approved a bill that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering and would restrict them to voting in congressional races only if they do not. The bill, a Republican legislative priority, still needs approval in the state House before it can become law. It would cost state officials nearly $2 million over the next five years to implement, according to the bill’s fiscal note, which doesn’t include any costs expected to be borne by local election officials. Read Article

How Wisconsin’s Washington County helped its municipalities expand early-voting hours | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Absentee voting didn’t used to be popular in Addison, a rural town of 3,300 in southeast Wisconsin. A few days before the last Supreme Court election in 2023, only about 60 residents had cast absentee ballots in person. This year, at the same point in the election cycle, that number was over 300. The sharp increase is due partly to Republicans’ recent embrace of absentee voting, especially in the nearly two-week period before Election Day when voters can cast absentee ballots in person. Washington County, where Addison is located, is one of the state’s most Republican counties, and one of many Republican-dominated areas across Wisconsin where early voting rates have surged. Read Article