National: Jan. 6 Rioters Are the New Hot Event in Town for Republicans | James Fanelli/The Wall Street Journal

Former Jan. 6 defendants are the new draw at local Republican fundraisers, helping to fill seats at normally sleepy events while getting a platform to tell their version of the Capitol riot. The Davis County Republican Party in the Salt Lake City suburbs held its annual Abraham Lincoln Day Dinner in March at $75 a plate. One marquee speaker was a pardoned defendant who federal prosecutors said knocked back a shot of Fireball whiskey in the conference room of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “This was not an insurrection,” the speaker, Treniss Evans, told the crowd. “This was Kent State. This was Tiananmen Square.” It has been nearly six months since President Trump granted pardons and commutations to the roughly 1,500 people criminally charged in the attack on the Capitol. The pardons initially unsettled some Republicans who thought Trump was showing leniency to defendants who attacked law-enforcement officers, but the GOP is increasingly willing to reintegrate these former defendants into the fold. Read Article

National: Justice Department requests voter rolls and election data from states | Patrick Marley and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Washington Post

The Trump administration and its allies have launched a multipronged effort to gather data on voters and inspect voting equipment, sparking concern among local and state election officials about federal interference ahead of the 2026 midterms. The most unusual activity is happening in Colorado — a state that then-candidate Donald Trump lost by 11 points — where a well-connected consultant who says he is working with the White House is asking county clerks whether they will allow the federal government or a third party to physically examine their election equipment. Federal agencies have long offered technical assistance and cybersecurity advice to election officials but have not examined their equipment because election laws tightly limit who has access. Read ArticleRead Article

National: Election Officials Have Been Under Attack For Years. Now The DOJ Wants to Criminally Charge Them | Matt Cohen/Democracy Docket

In recent months, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sent letters to states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona, and Colorado, pressing for information about voter roll management, demanding to see state voter rolls, and threatening to sue over alleged voting law violations. But the department’s campaign has gone much further. Criminal prosecutors at DOJ sent separate broad requests for information to election officials in at least two states, people who have seen the requests told Democracy Docket. Those letters were first reported by the New York Times, which added that they’re part of a broader initiative at DOJ, still in its early stages, to look into whether it can bring criminal charges against election officials for not doing enough to protect their voting systems against fraud and illegal voting. Read Article

National: GOP lawmakers try again to change who’s counted in key census numbers | Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

Republicans in Congress are reviving a controversial push to alter a key set of census numbers that are used to determine how presidents and members of the U.S. House of Representatives are elected. Ratified after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment says the “whole number of persons in each state” must be included in what are called apportionment counts, the population numbers based on census results that determine each state’s share of House seats and Electoral College votes for a decade. But GOP lawmakers have now released three bills this year that would use the 2030 census to tally residents without U.S. citizenship, and then subtract some or all of them from the apportionment counts. Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee unveiled the latest bill Monday. Read Article

National: Republicans target voting rights of U.S. citizens who have never lived in the country | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

The Republican Party is challenging the voting eligibility of some U.S. citizens who have always lived abroad, in what they’re calling a broader strategy ahead of next year’s midterms to clean up voter rolls and improve voter confidence. But Democrats see the effort as a blatant attempt to disenfranchise eligible Democrats in key swing states. The GOP terms the voters they are targeting as “never residents” because they are U.S. citizens but haven’t lived in the United States. Most frequently, they are children of U.S. citizens who have been in the military, or lived overseas for other reasons. Three-quarters of states have laws on the books allowing such citizens to vote by absentee or mail ballot in the same state where their parents or other relatives last lived or are registered. Read Article

National: Emil Bove declines to rule out 3rd Trump term or denounce Jan. 6 rioters in Senate questionnaire | Scott MacFarlane/CBS

Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official who previously served as President Trump’s criminal defense attorney, declined to rule out the possibility of the president running for a third term and did not denounce the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in a questionnaire submitted to a Senate panel considering his nomination for a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote next week on whether to advance Bove’s nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. CBS News obtained the 165-page questionnaire that Bove submitted to senators in response to their written questions. In his answers, Bove also wrote he does not recall which Jan. 6 criminal cases he helped supervise when he served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. In response to the question “Do you denounce the January 6 insurrection?” Bove wrote: “The characterization of the events on January 6 is a matter of significant political debate,” and said it would be “inappropriate to address this question” given ongoing litigation over pardons of Jan. 6 defendants. Read Article

National: Senate Democrats seek answers on Trump overhaul of immigrant database to find noncitizen voters | Derek B. Johnson/CyberScoop

As the Department of Homeland Security seeks to transform a federal database for immigrant benefits into a supercharged database to search for noncitizen voters, a trio of Democratic senators are pressing the department for more information. Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday posing a series of questions around the department’s overhaul of the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. “States and nonpartisan voter advocacy organizations have expressed concerns with using the SAVE program as a standalone tool to determine voter eligibility without adequate safeguards,” the senators wrote. “In particular, there are concerns that data quality issues may cause state and local officials who rely on the program to receive false positives or incomplete results.” Read Article

Arizona: Hacker breaks into election website with candidate profiles –  Jen Fifield/Votebeat

A hacker gained access to the web portal Arizona candidates use to upload information about themselves and changed candidate profile photos that were live on the election results website, just three weeks before the special congressional primary election, Votebeat has learned. The Secretary of State’s Office realized the system had been breached, shut down the candidate portal the week of June 23, and kept it offline for a week, according to JP Martin, an office spokesperson. Martin said officials flagged the problem upon noticing unusual activity. He said he did not know what kinds of photographs had been improperly posted, or which candidate photos were changed. Read Article

Colorado: Consultant, claiming White House backing, called clerks to gain access to voting machines | Seth Klamann/The Denver Post

A consultant claiming to work for the White House called several Republican county clerks in Colorado last week, seeking “third-party” access to secure voting equipment, election officials told The Denver Post. At least 10 Republican clerks were contacted by consultant Jeff Small, officials said Wednesday. Small, who has Colorado political connections, told the clerks that he was working on the project for the White House and the U.S. departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and he said he wanted the clerks to let an outside party access voting equipment to identify “gaps.” He also requested access because President Donald Trump’s administration was frustrated with the slow rollout of an executive order issued earlier this year. Trump’s order sought greater federal control over elections, though a federal court last month blocked it. Read Article

Georgia lawmakers consider more election changes ahead of 2026 | Mark Niesse and Michelle Baruchman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The 2026 elections may seem like a long way away, but that’s not how state lawmakers see it. Plans — from new voting machines to even more new voting laws — are already underway as a special legislative committee dominated by Republican lawmakers met for the first time Tuesday. Members of the House Study Committee on Election Procedures are considering replacing Georgia’s touchscreen voting system, reviewing voter registration accuracy and complying with a state law that requires removal of inscrutable QR codes from ballots by July 1. Meanwhile, several legislators angling for higher office are looking to boost their resumes — including committee Chairman Tim Fleming, who recently filed paperwork to begin raising money to run for secretary of state. Read Article

Michigan: GOP election conspiracist given platform in House committee to rail against Democrats | Ben Solis/Michigan Advance

A former Republican lawmaker, gubernatorial candidate and election conspiracy theorist on Tuesday asked a Michigan House of Representatives committee to request federal investigations against three of Michigan’s top ranking Democrats, whom he has repeatedly accused of fraud and other crimes, including bribery. Pat Colbeck, who served in the Michigan Senate from 2011 to 2019 and sought the Republican nomination for governor in 2018, presented a laundry list of election integrity concerns to the House Election Integrity Committee, chaired by state Rep. Rachelle Smit (R-Martin). The three officials Colbeck asked to be investigated include Attorney General Dana Nessel, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Supreme Court Justice Kyra Harris Bolden. Nessel spokesperson Danny Wimmer, in a statement to Michigan Advance, dismissed Colbeck’s claims and accusations as “unhinged.” Read Article

Minnesota: A Month After Shootings, We’re Normalizing Political Violence | Joshua A. Douglas/Washington Monthly

It’s been a month since the assassinations, yet hardly anyone seems to remember they occurred. On June 14, an assassin murdered the leader of the Minnesota House Democratic Caucus, Melissa Hortman, and her husband in the middle of the night at their home in suburban Minneapolis. The perpetrator also shot and wounded State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Thankfully, Hoffman is now out of the ICU, though he has a long recovery ahead of him. The murderer, Vance Boelter, had a “hit list” of 45 targets, all of whom were Democrats. The politically motivated attack, however, barely made a blip in the national consciousness. People expressed shock the day it happened, but the country swiftly moved on. Similarly, almost no one is still discussing the April break-in and arson of the Pennsylvania Governor’s mansion, with the perpetrator’s goal of beating Governor Josh Shapiro with a hammer. That attack echoed a 2022 incident in which an individual broke into the home of Nancy Pelosi and assaulted her husband with a hammer. In 2020, several men plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to start a civil war; two were convicted. Read Article

New Hampshire Secretary of State rebuffs Trump administration request for state’s voter roll | Todd Bookman/NHPR

New Hampshire is among the states targeted by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking information about its voting system, including a request for a complete copy of the state’s voter registration list. The inquiry for sensitive voter information comes as the Trump administration continues to make false claims about the validity of election results. In a June 25 letter, officials from the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division asked New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan for information about a range of election policies, including how the state registers voters, removes deceased residents from voter rolls, and identifies non-citizens who may seek to register. The letter also requests a copy of New Hampshire’s statewide voter registration list: “Please include both active and inactive voters,” the letter says. State officials were given 30 days to comply with the request. Read Article

New York: What the election case in Rockland County tells us about the tide of voter mistrust | Jessica Huseman/ Votebeat

Donald Trump is leaving little doubt about who’s president right now, but in one corner of the country, a lawsuit is helping to fan skepticism about the results of the 2024 general election. The case against Rockland County, New York, claims that there were irregularities in the county’s vote tallies, judging in part by what the plaintiffs characterize as statistical anomalies — notably the mismatch in support between Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and the person at the top of the party’s ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris. Gillibrand won the suburban county by about 8,000 votes, while Harris lost to Trump by more than 17,000. The plaintiffs say it’s a suspicious pattern of ticket-splitting that suggests vote-rigging or errors, an echo of the spurious claims made by Trump allies when he lost several swing states in 2020. They want the court to invalidate the Senate and presidential election results and order the county to redo the election. Read Article

North Carolina Launches Voter Roll Program That Could Disenfranchise Tens of Thousands | Jen Rice/Democracy Docket

North Carolina formally launched a project Thursday that could disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters, despite pushback from national Democrats. The plan, conceived by a former top GOP legislative aide, would create a two-tiered system for some voters with missing information — allowing them to vote in federal elections, where legal protections for voters are stronger, but not in state and local contests. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued North Carolina last month, alleging that the state failed to collect information from voters required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). In response, the North Carolina State Board of Elections released a plan that requires voters with missing information to vote a provisional ballot unless they respond to mail notifications by providing the additional information. Read Article

Pennsylvania redesigns provisional-ballot envelope to help cut rejections | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Pennsylvania election officials on Monday announced a redesigned provisional-ballot envelope that they hope will lead to fewer ballots being rejected for technical errors. “Improvements to envelope design might seem like a small thing, but it has a huge impact on the ability for Pennsylvanians across the commonwealth to have their votes counted,” said Seth Bluestein, a Republican city commissioner for Philadelphia, which worked with the Department of State on the new design. Philadelphia plans to use the new design in its November municipal elections. The state also consulted election officials from Berks, Greene, Butler, and Mercer counties. Read Article

Texas Attorney General Ken investigating “potential” noncitizen voters | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday that he is investigating “more than 100 potential noncitizens” suspected of casting more than 200 ballots during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. Paxton’s news release said most of the cases involve Harris County voters. His office is also investigating possible instances in Guadalupe, Cameron, and Eastland counties, using information obtained from the Texas Secretary of State, the news release said. In Texas, about 11 million voters cast ballots in Texas in the November 2020 presidential election, and more than 8 million in the November 2022 general election. The more than 200 ballots Paxton cited for the two full election cycles would amount to around one-thousandth of 1% of the ballots cast in just the two general elections combined. Read Article

Wisconsin: US Appeals Court rules against town that removed voting machines last year | Rich Kremer/WPR

A northern Wisconsin town sued by the U.S. Department of Justice last year for not providing electronic voting machines to people with disabilities has lost its federal appeal. Thornapple’s town board passed a resolution to stop the use of electronic voting machines in June 2023. Court documents show the town’s former clerk Suzanne Pinnow cited “the controversial nature of electronic voting machines” as part of its justification. The DOJ sued Thornapple and the Rusk County Town of Lawrence for removing access to voting machines designed for people with disabilities. They said the decisions violated the federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA. Officials in Lawrence negotiated a settlement and agreed to make at least one accessible machine available in future elections. Read Article