Georgia’s top judge wants to scrap partisan judicial elections | Rosie Manins/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia’s top judge urged state lawmakers Tuesday to end all remaining partisan elections for state judges, saying widespread efforts to politicize the courts are as concerning as the increasing attacks and threats of physical violence against judges. In his third annual State of the Judiciary address, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Boggs said proposed legislation to end the few remaining partisan elections for probate and magistrate judgeships in Georgia has the full support of the impacted courts. Most of the state’s 1,600 judges are subject to nonpartisan elections, but some probate and magistrate judges are still elected in partisan races, where judges campaign with a party affiliation like Republican or Democrat. Boggs said the politicization of courts impedes public trust and confidence in the judicial system. Read Article

Michigan GOP proposes proof-of-citizenship requirement for voters | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

A new proposal from a top Michigan House Republican seeks to require would-be voters to provide proof that they are U.S. citizens when they register. The proposal to amend the state constitution isn’t likely to pass the Legislature with required two-thirds support, but conservatives are already gearing up for a petition drive to try to put the proposal before voters on the 2026 ballot. The proposed amendment is the latest in a growing movement across the United States to create barriers to noncitizen voting, even though there’s little evidence that a significant number of noncitizens try to vote. Federal laws already ban noncitizens from voting in elections, and the risks for them are high, including felony charges and the loss of their residency status. Read Article

Mississippi: US Supreme Court leaves in place state’s voting ban for people convicted of some crimes | Mark Sherman/Associated Press

The Supreme Court on Monday left in place Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft. The justices, without comment, turned away an appeal from Mississippi residents who have completed their sentences, but who have been unable to regain their right to vote. The court’s action let stand a ruling by the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected the claim that permanent loss of voting rights amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. Mississippi legislators, not the courts, must decide whether to change the laws, the 5th circuit said. Read Article

New York’s Voting Rights Act has survived a constitutional challenge | Dan Clark/Albany Times Union

The New York Voting Rights Act, which sets guardrails for localities to follow in administering fair elections, was upheld as constitutional Thursday after a state appellate court reversed a decision that struck it down last year. The case was filed by residents of the town of Newburgh who claimed its at-large election system diluted the vote of racial minorities in violation of the state law. Read Article

North Carolina: They Followed Election Rules When They Cast Their Ballots. Now Their Votes Could Be Tossed Anyway. | Doug Bock Clark/ProPublica

Republican state appeals court Judge Jefferson Griffin has spent more than two months trying to overturn his narrow defeat for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat by arguing that around 60,000 ballots should be tossed out. But many residents have only recently learned that their votes are in danger of not being counted and say they have done nothing wrong. Elizabeth MacDonald, who registered as an unaffiliated voter and lives in an area of Western North Carolina ravaged by Hurricane Helene, made sure to cast a ballot, even though she was still consumed by both the devastation of the storm and the demands of caring for her infant. “The prospect of losing my vote for arbitrary and political reasons is especially painful given the personal and communal trauma we’ve endured over the past several months,” MacDonald wrote in a letter to Griffin. Read Article

Pennsylvania: Efforts to replace outdated, glitchy voter registration system are months behind schedule | Carter Walker/Spotlight PA

More than a year after the Pennsylvania Department of State canceled a contract to upgrade the state’s voter registration system, there’s still no replacement contract in place. The state has been trying since 2019 to upgrade the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors, or SURE, a database of the state’s voters that was built in the early 2000s and still undergirds many of the functions of running elections. Local election officials complain that the system is outdated, has a tendency to crash, and requires complex workarounds for some processes. State officials had hoped to have a replacement contract for the upgrade in place months ago, but have not said what is holding it up. Read Article

Texas counties scramble after ES&S pollbook decertified | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

With city and school elections just a few months away, election officials in more than 60 Texas counties are scrambling to replace a key piece of voting equipment that’s no longer in service: the electronic pollbooks they use to check voters in at the polls. The state decertified widely used pollbook software from voting machine company Election Systems & Software in December after several thousand voters in Dallas County received the wrong ballot during the November presidential election, a problem local officials attributed to glitches with the e-pollbook. Now county officials have to decide whether to wait to see if ES&S’s updated software is certified in time to prepare for the May elections, or choose a different certified vendor, which could be expensive. They must also consider whether any new option would be compatible with their existing systems and whether they have enough time to train poll workers to use it. Read Article

Wisconsin: Who knew about Madison’s 200 uncounted ballots? Voters get conflicting accounts. | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Madison voters and state investigators are getting conflicting accounts from city and county officials about what happened after batches of uncounted ballots were discovered in the weeks after Election Day in November. Madison’s city clerk says her office reported the first ballot discovery promptly to the county. The Dane County clerk says that didn’t happen. And the mayor’s office says it didn’t get word from the city clerk either. The communication breakdown, wherever it occurred, meant that ballots that still could have been counted after they were found weren’t included in the state’s final tallies. The Wisconsin Elections Commission is investigating. Read Article

Wyoming: Hand counting votes? Ban on ballot drop boxes? Election bills move through Legislature | Chris Clements/Wyoming Public Media

A slate of bills aiming to change the way Wyoming conducts elections is gaining ground in the state Legislature. Highlights include a prohibition on the use of ballot drop boxes by county clerks, the authorization of hand count audits post-elections and a new requirement for Laramie County to use pen and paper ballots for its election process. Many are supported by the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its ally, Secretary of State Chuck Gray. Read Article

National: A need for speed: Several states are looking for ways to count votes faster | Ashley Lopez/NPR

Legislators in California and several other states — including Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Wisconsin — have signaled interest in tackling vote-counting rules in an effort to speed up the process. It’s a mix of states, led by Democrats or Republicans or with divided government, and one key question is whether lawmakers can quicken results without sacrificing access to the ballot. Pamela Smith — president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on technology in elections — said many states that take more time often do so to give voters more opportunities to cast a ballot. “I think what’s important to think about is the balance between how fast we get results reported out and how well voters are supported for their participation,” Smith said. “So, for example, if you reduce the time for voters to cure a signature problem on a ballot so that it can be counted or determined to be not countable, are you disenfranchising them in the name of ‘we have to know immediately’?” Read Article

GOP Already Controls the North Carolina Supreme Court – Why Are They Obsessed With Overturning That Race? | Courtney Cohn/Democracy Docket

While a single seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, which already has an overwhelming Republican majority, may seem insignificant, this race has the potential to set a dangerous precedent for future election challenges. If Republicans use it to undermine the electoral system, consequences could be felt by voters across the country. “I spent 15 years as a civil rights attorney with a focus on voting rights. I know what disenfranchisement looks like,” said Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic candidate in this race, in a Democracy Docket interview. “The right to vote and to have your voice heard is a fundamental, precious right, and our democracy only works if those in charge respect the will of the voters.” Read Article

National: Special Counsel Report Says Trump Would Have Been Convicted in Election Case | Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage/The New York Times

Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted President-elect Donald J. Trump on charges of illegally seeking to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, said in a final report released early Tuesday that the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Mr. Trump in a trial, had his 2024 election victory not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue. “The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,” Mr. Smith wrote. He continued: “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.” Read Article

National: Biden warns of the rise of a new American ‘oligarchy’ | Toluse Olorunnipa and Cleve R. Wootson Jr./The Washington Post

President Joe Biden used his final address from the Oval Office to deliver a somber warning about the threat posed by the “dangerous concentration of power” in the hands of wealthy and well-connected individuals, a thinly veiled reference to billionaire technology executives who have been increasingly signaling their desire to work closely with President-elect Donald Trump. “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said during his farewell speech, days before he steps down from a four-year presidency and a lifetime in public office. “We see the consequences all across America, and we’ve seen it before.” Read Article

National: Despite Trump’s win, ‘election integrity’ activists still seek sweeping voting changes | Miles Parks/NPR

For Donald Trump and his supporters, concerns about election administration quickly dissipated once it became clear he would win the 2024 presidential election, and in surveys since, most Republican voters say the election was run well. But for the wing of the Republican Party that has been pushing sweeping election reform since the 2020 contest, the work continues. On Jan. 3, the day the new Republican-led Congress was sworn in, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, reintroduced legislation aimed at stopping noncitizens from voting in federal elections — something that is already illegal and which research has universally shown rarely happens. Read Article

National: Civil servants are being asked who they voted for in 2024 election | Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller/The Independent

Incoming senior Trump administration officials have begun questioning career civil servants who work on the White House National Security Council about who they voted for in the 2024 election, their political contributions and whether they have made social media posts that could be considered incriminating by President-elect Donald Trump’s team, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter. At least some of these nonpolitical employees have begun packing up their belongings since being asked about their loyalty to Trump — after they had earlier been given indications that they would be asked to stay on at the NSC in the new administration, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters. Read Article

National: Head of US cybersecurity agency says she hopes it keeps up election work under Trump | Ali Swenson/Associated Press

Jen Easterly, the outgoing head of the U.S. government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said Wednesday she hopes her agency is allowed to continue its election-related work under new leadership despite “contentiousness” around that part of its mission. “I really, really hope that we can continue to support those state and local election officials,” she said during an event in Washington, D.C., with the nonprofit Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “I think they’ve benefited by the resources that we’ve brought. I think they would say that.” CISA is responsible for protecting critical infrastructure, including the nation’s dams, banks and nuclear power plants. Voting systems were added after the 2016 election and Russia’s multipronged election-meddling effort. Read Article

Editorial: Fifteen Years Later, Citizens United Defined the 2024 Election | Marina Pino and Julia Fishman/Brennan Center for Justice

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 decision that swept away more than a century’s worth of campaign finance safeguards, turns 15 this month. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called it the worst ruling of her time on the Court. Overwhelming majorities of Americans have consistently expressed disapproval of the ruling, with at least 22 states and hundreds of cities voting to support a constitutional amendment to overturn it. Citizens United reshaped political campaigns in profound ways, giving corporations and billionaire-funded super PACs a central role in U.S. elections and making untraceable dark money a major force in politics. And yet it may only be now, in the aftermath of the 2024 election, that we can begin to understand the full impact of the decision. Read Article

Arizona: New GOP-led elections committee in House signals voting debate isn’t over | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Republicans in the Arizona House have created a new committee that will take a comprehensive look at how the state’s elections are run, another sign that the state’s debate over election policy didn’t end with the 2024 election. GOP state Rep. Alex Kolodin will lead a panel called the House Ad Hoc Committee on Election Integrity and Florida-Style Voting Systems, according to an announcement Thursday, ahead of the Monday start of the new legislative session. Republicans have been saying for months that they want the state’s elections to be run more like Florida’s. Kolodin said he believes that means quicker election results, cleaner voter rolls, and better security for mail-in ballots. But it’s already clear that not everyone will agree on the changes, or that such changes would make the state’s elections better. Read Article

Colorado appeals court greenlights Dominion Voting defamation claims against conservative radio host | Michael Gennaro/Courthouse News Service

A Colorado Court of Appeals panel ruled unanimously Thursday morning that a former Dominion Voting Machines employee could seek defamation claims against a conservative radio host and the Denver network that hosts his show after the host claimed in 2020 that the employee had antifa ties and was attempting to fix the 2020 presidential election. Following President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, Randy Corporan, an attorney who hosts a conservative radio show, interviewed Joseph Oltmann, a Castle Rock-based businessman who claimed he heard a man identified as “Eric from Dominion” say on an antifa conference call that he was going to make sure Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Read Afticle

Georgia: Rudy Giuliani avoids trial by settling with election workers he defamed | Nicki Brown and Katelyn Polantz/CNN

Rudy Giuliani has reached an agreement with two Georgia election workers that he defamed to settle the nearly $150 million judgment against him, in a deal that will allow him to keep his home and most valuable possessions. The settlement agreement brings to an end a yearslong saga over Giuliani’s false statements after the 2020 presidential election, when the former New York City mayor was a lawyer for then-President Donald Trump. Giuliani was about to face trial and potentially lose the Florida condo in which he says he lives and several New York Yankees World Series rings. He had been in litigation with the women, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, over whether his $3.5 million Florida condo is his primary residence and can be exempt from the women’s debt collection efforts. Read Article

Kansas: New voting restrictions a top priority for emboldened GOP supermajorities | Matthew Kelly/Kansas City Star

Kansas Republicans are wasting no time pursuing tighter voting restrictions as they aim to capitalize on expanded supermajorities in the House and Senate this year. On Tuesday’s first day of committee meetings, GOP lawmakers introduced a series of familiar bills that would tighten regulation of ballot drop boxes and eliminate the state’s three-day grace period for late-arriving mail ballots. Republicans also put forward bills banning ranked choice voting and seeking an amendment to the Kansas Constitution explicitly stating that non-citizens are not allowed to vote, despite the fact that voting laws already limit voting rights to citizens. Read Article

Michigan’s GOP House rebrands committee to spotlight ‘election integrity’ | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

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