Arizona official who delayed county’s 2022 election certification didn’t have immunity, court says | Associated Press

An appeals court has rejected an Arizona official’s argument that felony charges against him for delaying certification of his rural county’s 2022 election results should be dismissed because he has legislative immunity. In an order Tuesday, the Arizona Court of Appeals concluded Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby’s duty to certify the election results wasn’t discretionary. The court also said certifying election results is an administrative responsibility and that legislative immunity doesn’t apply to Crosby’s situation. Read Article

Iowa: Trump fraud lawsuit against Register unlikely to succeed, experts say | William Morris/Des Moines Register

Legal experts representing different ends of the political spectrum say the recent lawsuit by President-elect Donald Trump against the Des Moines Register is based on a strained interpretation of Iowa law and is unlikely to find success in court. Trump filed suit Dec. 16 against the Register, its parent company Gannett and longtime Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, alleging violations of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. The complaint centers on a poll published by the Register in early November that understated Trump’s support, showing Vice President Kamala Harris with a 3-point lead over Trump in Iowa just days before Trump went on to win the state by 13 points. Trump’s suit alleges the poll was fraudulent and an attempt at election interference. The Register has said it stands by its work. Several experts who have reviewed Trump’s petition say his legal theory is a stretch. Read Article

Kansas once required voters to prove citizenship. That didn’t work out so well | John Hanna/Associated Press

Republicans made claims about illegal voting by noncitizens a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign messaging and plan to push legislation in the new Congress requiring voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. Yet there’s one place with a GOP supermajority where linking voting to citizenship appears to be a nonstarter: Kansas. That’s because the state has been there, done that, and all but a few Republicans would prefer not to go there again. Kansas imposed a proof-of-citizenship requirement over a decade ago that grew into one of the biggest political fiascos in the state in recent memory. The law, passed by the state Legislature in 2011 and implemented two years later, ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote. That was 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018. Read Article

Missouri: Local election authorities say Hoskins’ plan to increase hand-counting ballots would cost counties time, resources | Hannah Falcon/WGEM

Missouri’s new secretary of state-elect wants to increase the amount of ballots that are hand-counted in any given election, but some local election authorities say that would take more time and resources. Currently, Missouri’s local election officials have to hand count 5% of ballots after the election to make sure that sample size matches the results from the voting machines. Hoskins proposes an increase, to hand counting 10% or 15% of the ballots instead. Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller said this would increase the time needed for audits. “So you would essentially triple the time that it would take, the cost that it would take, and then you would also need to make sure you have the time needed to actually conduct that audit,” Schoeller said. Read Article

North Carolina: Stein, Cooper revamp lawsuit against GOP bill on elections | Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi/Raleigh News & Observer

Incoming Gov. Josh Stein and Gov. Roy Cooper sought to expand a lawsuit on Monday to challenge a new wide-ranging law passed by the GOP-led legislature that removes power from incoming Democratic officeholders. Cooper and Stein had already filed a separate lawsuit earlier over the wide-ranging bill known as Senate Bill 382, but that case focused on a change making the State Highway Patrol a standalone department, removing it from the N.C. Department of Public Safety. On Monday, Cooper and Stein added to an ongoing lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court to target the portion of SB 382 that transfers the governor’s power to appoint members of the State Board of Elections to the state auditor, as well as the part of the bill that shifts the power to appoint the chair of each county board of elections from the governor to the auditor. Read Article

Pennsylvania court sides with state over Fulton County’s handling of voting machines after 2020 election | Mark Scolforo/Associated Press

A Pennsylvania court on Tuesday ruled 6-1 that the secretary of state has the authority to direct counties not to allow “unauthorized third party access” to voting machines or risk having those machines decertified and unable to be deployed for elections. The Commonwealth Court said the Department of State does not have to reimburse counties when they decertify machines, a defeat for Fulton County in a dispute that arose after two Republican county commissioners permitted Wake Technology Services Inc. to examine and obtain data from Dominion voting machines in 2021. That led the state elections agency to issue a directive against such third-party access based on concerns it could compromise security. Fulton’s machines were decertified as a result of the Wake TSI examination and the secretary of state was sued by the county as well as Republican county commissioners Randy Bunch and Stuart Ulsh. Read Article

Wisconsin Elections Commission seeks answers on uncounted Madison ballots | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

The Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously authorized an investigation Thursday into Madison’s mishandling of nearly 200 absentee ballots from the November 2024 election that were never counted. It’s the first such investigation that the bipartisan commission has authorized since becoming an agency in 2016. The review will allow the agency to probe whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated the law or abused her discretion. Read Article