Opinion: How Americans can defend their right to vote | Pam Fessler/Los Angeles Times

The numbers are alarming. More than half a million mail ballots cast in the 2024 elections were rejected and never counted. Not because they were illegitimate, but because voters often made easily avoidable mistakes. They forgot to sign and date the envelope or get a witness to sign. Or their signature was out of date. Or they simply used the wrong envelope. That’s not to mention the thousands of other eligible voters who showed up at the polls that year and were unable to vote. They might have forgotten to bring the right ID, or their name wasn’t on the rolls, or they went to the wrong precinct. That happened in Dallas County, Texas, this spring when confusion over new polling sites led to the disqualification of almost 2,000 ballots that were cast too late. There was plenty of blame to go around, but voters might have avoided losing their vote by checking in advance where they needed to go. Read Article

Alaska Division of Elections erroneously removed more than 600 citizens from voter list | James Brooks/Alaska Beacon

More than 600 U.S. citizens were mistakenly flagged as possible noncitizens and removed from Alaska’s list of active voters earlier this year, the director of the Alaska Division of Elections said Thursday in a letter responding to questions from state lawmakers. Those citizens were among 3,058 people removed from the list after the division compared its citizenship data to a separate set of records kept by the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles. Someone removed from the voter list may still cast a vote this year, but they will not appear on the register of their local precinct and will have to provide additional identity information in order to cast a “questioned ballot.” Removal from the active voter list also puts a citizen on the path to being purged altogether from the voter list, an act that would make them ineligible to vote. Alaska Division of Elections erroneously removed more than 600 citizens from voter list | Alaska Beacon

Arizona: Maricopa County’s new ballot option sped up election results | Stephanie Murray/The Arizona Republic

Maricopa County counted ballots faster thanks to a new state law, leaders said at a review of the July 21 primary results. In fact, the county said it posted more than 99% of election results just 24 hours after Primary Day. “That’s the fastest we've ever done,” Maricopa County Supervisor Debbie Lesko, a Republican, said at an Aug. 3 meeting to approve the canvass of the primary election results. Maricopa County is one of the biggest swing counties in the nation, home to 2.6 million registered voters around metro Phoenix. The county has been at the center of the election denialism movement, in part because slow election results allowed critics to cast doubt on the system. Read Article

Georgia State Election Board tests limits ahead of midterms | Caleb Groves and Tamar Hallerman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The State Election Board drew national attention ahead of the 2024 presidential election for passing a slate of sweeping rules that read like a wish list of election skeptics. Once a lawyerly panel, a takeover by a trio of conservatives deeply mistrustful of the state’s voting system has turned the board’s once mundane meetings into boisterous events packed with crowds of cheering and jeering activists. Now, with high-stakes midterms on the horizon and President Donald Trump struggling to gain traction on many aspects of his election security agenda, all eyes are on the state board. The board is considering efforts that dovetail with Trump’s priorities, including reviewing voter rolls for suspected ineligible voters and approving voting system security upgrades, and it could revive efforts that would move toward hand-marked ballots for the midterms. Read Article

Michigan: Antrim County clerk and her husband cleared of ‘criminal wrongdoing’ in computer case | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Embattled Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop and her husband, a conservative talk radio host best known as Trucker Randy, won’t face charges after she left him alone with her government computer. In February, a county maintenance worker reported that Randy Bishop was sitting in the clerk’s office unsupervised watching a public video stream of a county commission meeting on the office computer. This led to concerns that he could have used the computer to access sensitive information, including the Qualified Voter File, the central database that contains Michigan’s voter roll and can only be accessed by election officials. Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a news release Thursday that her office found “no evidence of criminal wrongdoing” or that anyone had tried to access the QVF from that computer at that time. The investigation found that the clerk likely did allow her husband to use her computer — which matches what they later told the Michigan State Police — but that no sensitive county files were touched, either. Read Article

Michigan voter file glitch slows absentee ballot processing | Dana Afana/Detroit Free Press

The Michigan Department of State reported a "tech issue" affecting the Qualified Voter File across multiple cities, though it did not affect voters casting their ballots for Michigan's August primary election, according to department spokeswoman Angela Benander. Benander said the department was made aware of the outage at about 5:30 p.m. However, as of about 6:30 p.m., the issue had been resolved. It is unclear which jurisdictions were affected. The outage affected the counting of absentee ballots, Benander said, adding that the system was processing the ballots and voter registrations at a slower pace. She said she does not expect the outage to significantly delay results. Outage slows processing of Michigan absentee ballots

New Hampshire: Election officials unfazed by Trump administration monitoring primaries in Manchester and Nashua | William Skipworth/New Hampshire Bulletin

New Hampshire election officials say they’re unconcerned after the Trump administration announced it will send election monitors to watch September’s primaries in Manchester and Nashua — a longstanding practice that has drawn partisan suspicion amid the president’s recent actions on elections. The U.S. Department of Justice announced earlier this month it’s sending monitors to 15 jurisdictions in six states. In addition to Manchester and Nashua, the DOJ plans to send monitors to Boston and New Bedford in neighboring Massachusetts. Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia are the others. “We’re sending the monitors into cities and counties where there may have been some problems in recent elections,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a video posted to social media. “So this is something that DOJ does routinely.” Dhillon said the goal is to ensure people with disabilities and language barriers are able to vote, but also to “make sure that our voting is accurate so that every citizen who votes has their vote counted equally without being canceled out by somebody who shouldn’t be voting.” Read Article

North Carolina: lawmakers send two big election bills to governor | Sarah Michels/Carolina Public Press

After a year of work, North Carolina lawmakers agreed on a pair of wide-ranging election bills Tuesday evening that would shorten the primary early voting period, allow challenges of early voted ballots after Election Day and extend some ballot counting and curing deadlines, among other policy changes. Now, the power is in Gov. Josh Stein’s hands. He can sign the election bills into law, veto them or allow them to become law without his signature. Stein indicated late Tuesday that he would indeed veto the more controversial of the bills.. Read Article

Tennessee: Shelby County election officials investigate incomplete ballots reported at early voting site | The Tennessee Tribune

Shelby County election officials are investigating reports that some voters may have encountered an incomplete ballot on a voting machine during early voting at the Christian Life Church location. Officials said the issue appears to have been limited to a single voting machine and was likely caused by human error. Officials estimate that approximately 300 voters may have been affected by the issue. Election officials said they are reviewing the situation and expect to have confirmation regarding the impact of the problem. They emphasized that the issue was isolated to one voting machine and that election procedures are in place to identify and address concerns when they arise. The reported issue comes as Shelby County voters have turned out in large numbers for early voting. As of Thursday, nearly 70,000 voters had already cast ballots ahead of Election Day, reflecting strong participation in one of Tennessee’s largest and most politically significant counties. Read Article

Texas: Fracas over Tarrant County poll sites highlights public distrust | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Tuesday’s chaotic public meeting over the number of voting sites in Tarrant County for the upcoming November election highlighted public distrust in election administration decisions and the people making them in the state’s most populous purple county, experts and voting rights advocates said. Hundreds of people showed up at the Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting to oppose a proposal to significantly reduce the number of polling sites on Election Day, from 316 used in the 2022 midterm elections to 176. At least one person, a former Democratic state representative, was arrested after Tim O’Hare, the county’s executive and a Republican, kicked everyone out of the chambers, saying that people clapping and speaking loudly were disruptive. O’Hare also called multiple recesses during the meeting, prolonging it as people waited to speak. Speaker after speaker described the effort to reduce the number of locations as the latest in a series of efforts by O’Hare and the majority-Republican commissioners’ court to make it harder for residents to vote, something commissioners said wasn’t true. O’Hare and Commissioner Manny Ramirez, also a Republican, are both on the ballot in November. Read Article

Wisconsin judge rules that paper absentee ballots violates rights of disabled people | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

Absentee voting in Wisconsin discriminates against disabled voters, a judge ruled Tuesday, siding with groups that are seeking to force election officials to allow for electronic casting of ballots. But Dane County Circuit Judge Everett Mitchell stopped short of ordering electronic voting, setting up a trial on that issue later. It almost certainly will not be resolved before the November election. Disability Rights Wisconsin, the League of Women Voters and four disabled voters brought the lawsuit in 2024. They argued that the lack of an electronic absentee voting option violated their right to independence and privacy and the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Republican-controlled Legislature is fighting the lawsuit. Read Article