California election officials face false choice: count votes quickly or count them right | Maya C. Miller/CalMatters

Political persecution, threats of violence and the seizure of sensitive documents might sound like a plot line for a heist or thriller movie. For California election officials tasked with enabling participatory democracy, these are now everyday realities — from Riverside County, where Sheriff Chad Bianco seized more than 650,000 ballots from his own county’s registrar of voters, to Shasta County, where threats of violence forced the longtime registrar to retire early. The integrity of the state’s voting systems will be under intense scrutiny this year with control of the U.S. House on the line, as Californians could play a decisive role in which party wins the majority. Yet while timely and decisive results are more crucial than ever, California is famous for its ploddingly slow vote count. That lengthy wait has increasingly sown distrust in the accuracy of California’s results, especially among Republicans, and particularly in races where a candidate leading on election day falls behind as more ballots are processed in subsequent days. Read Article

Georgia voting machine deadline leaves counties with no way to run the 2026 election | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

The state of Georgia’s elections right now is anything but peachy. In abouThe state of Georgia’s elections right now is anything but peachy. In about 10 weeks, county election officials are required to stop using their current voting system — but the state hasn’t told them what to replace it with. Right now, Georgia voters make their selections on touchscreen ballot-marking devices manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems (recently purchased and rebranded as Liberty Vote). Georgia rolled the machines out just before the 2020 election, as part of a sweeping and expensive statewide modernization effort — spurred in part by a 2019 federal court ruling that barred continued use of the paperless touchscreen systems the state had relied on since the early 2000s. The newer machines print a paper ballot listing the voter’s choices in plain English next to a QR code encoding the same choices. When ballots are tabulated, the scanners read the QR code — not the printed text beside it — to count the vote. That design has long drawn fire from both Republicans and Democrats, who argue voters can’t actually verify what a QR code says, only the text next to it. Read Article

Louisiana governor postpones U.S. House primary elections after Supreme Court ruling | Piper Hutchinson/Louisiana Illuminator

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the May 16 primary elections for Louisiana’s six U.S. House seats Thursday, the day after the U.S. Supreme Court declared the state’s existing congressional map unconstitutional. “Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters,” Landry said in a written statement. “This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map.” Absentee voting in the U.S. House races had already begun, and early voting was scheduled to start Saturday. But postponing the election allows Landry and the Louisiana Legislature to pass a new map that eliminates one or both of Louisiana’s two majority-Black congressional districts. Read Article

Michigan court tosses Republican suit challenging overseas voting for military spouses and children | Kyle Davidson/Michigan Advance

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel on Wednesday dismissed a challenge to Michigan election law brought by the Republican National Committee and the Michigan Republican Party against Michigan’s secretary of state and director of elections. While the suit aimed to invalidate a state law that allowed the spouses and dependents of Michigan voters who are living abroad to cast a ballot in Michigan elections, Patel concluded that the law remains in line with the Michigan Constitution. The suit was one of many cases that Republicans have filed against Benson, with the Michigan Court of Appeals rejecting a similar case in 2025, centered on the same rules within the state Election Officials Manual. While the law does not require a servicemember’s spouse or child to have lived in Michigan in order to cast their ballot there, the RNC argued that the law stood at odds with language in the state’s governing document that states, “every citizen of the United States who has attained the age of 21 years, who has resided in this state six months, and who meets the requirements of local residence provided by law, shall be an elector and qualified to vote in any election except as otherwise provided in this constitution.” Read Article

Montana: Even after reminder, voters struggling with new law requiring birth year on ballot envelope | Darrell Ehrlick/Daily Montanan

Even as election officials throughout the state reminded residents last month of changes to Montana’s election laws and how ballots should be marked, Montana’s largest county, Yellowstone, said that it is working with nearly 1,000 residents to fix rejected ballots before the school board elections on May 5. On Monday afternoon, Yellowstone County Elections Administrator Dayna Causby said that 960 ballots had been rejected largely because most failed to include the elector’s birth year, which is now required by state law. That new requirement caused a higher percentage of Montana ballots to be rejected in 2025, but election officials are worried because there are several different elections in 2026, including primaries in June as well as the general election in November. Read Article

North Carolina elections board considers new rules for photo ID, polling places | Lynn Bonner/NC Newsline

A new proposal would make it easier for North Carolina county boards of election to throw out ballots of people who don’t show photo ID when they vote. Under the proposal, county boards would no longer have to agree unanimously that voters lied about the reasons they didn’t have ID. A majority on the county boards, on which Republicans currently hold three of five seats, could determine that voters were lying and reject their ballots. The changes to the rejection threshold are part of a list of proposed election rules governing absentee ballots and conduct at polling places. The state Board of Elections took its first step Wednesday to advance the proposals, voting 3-2 to put them out for public comment. The board’s two Democratic members were opposed. After the 60-day comment period, the board would vote on any revisions. The Rules Review Commission would have to approve. Read Article

Pennsylvania court grants public access to voting data in dispute from 2020 election’s aftermath | Mark Scolforo/Associated Press

Pennsylvania’s high court ruled Tuesday that spreadsheets of raw data associated with every ballot are public records, providing access to the “cast vote records” that had been requested by an election researcher hired by the Trump Administration last year. The Democratic-majority Supreme Court said its unanimous decision was a way to “satisfy the voting public that our elections are safe, secure and accurate” while preserving the state constitution’s requirement that votes remain secret. The Lycoming County elections director in Williamsport had denied Heather Honey’s request for digital copies from the 2020 presidential election, saying that would amount to letting her review the contents of a ballot box, one vote at a time. Cast vote records are created when a voter’s choices are made electronically or scanned. Read Article

South Dakota: Confusion emerges over new voter ID requirements | Alexander Rifaat/South Daskota News Watch

County auditors in South Dakota are, in certain cases, deciding how to implement new voter ID rules on their own due to uncertainty over guidelines issued by the state's secretary of state, as early and absentee voting for the primary election is well underway. Senate Bill 175, passed in the 2026 legislative session, requires new voters to provide proof of citizenship as part of the registration process. The bill was enacted with an emergency clause, which allows the regulations to take effect for the upcoming primary ballot on June 2. The secretary of state's website outlines various documents first-time registrants can provide as a photocopy to show proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate. But confusion has emerged as to whether eligible South Dakota driver's licenses, which identify a person's citizenship status, can also be provided as a photocopy or have to be shown in person. Read Article

In Texas political parties choose how to run their primaries. Here’s how that causes headaches for voters. | Natalia Contreras/Dallas Free Press

By all accounts, the administration of the 2026 primary election in Williamson County was calamitous. Voters did not know where to vote. Lines were long and chaotic. Election workers made errors and misplaced ballots. Nearly everyone seems to agree on who’s to blame: the Williamson County Republican Party, which last fall decided to eliminate countywide voting and, for the first time in more than a decade, force all voters to cast ballots at assigned precincts instead. Republicans in Dallas and Eastland counties made the same decision. The moves set off a chain reaction of problems. “It was a mess, and I’m not going to deny that it was a mess,” said Michelle Evans, the chair of the Williamson County GOP, at a county commissioners court meeting days after the March election, though she said Republicans weren’t the only ones responsible. The meeting, inside the county courthouse in downtown Georgetown, an affluent suburb of Austin, was packed with upset voters and poll workers, who applauded a line of unhappy speakers. Read Article

Texas appeals court rejects Dallas County Republican’s move to force precincts in runoff | Tracey McManus/The Dallas Morning News

One month before the primary runoff, a Texas appeals court has rejected a Republican precinct chair’s emergency effort to force the Dallas County elections chief to reinstate precinct-based voting. he ruling leaves countywide voting in place for the May 26 runoff, but the conflict may not be over, with GOP leaders weighing next legal steps as Democrats cheered the decision as a win for voter access. In a petition filed last week, Barry Wernick alleged that former Dallas County Republican chair Allen West’s amendment to the party’s contract with the county that scrapped precincts for the runoff was invalid because he did not have authorization from the party’s executive committee. Read Article

Wisconsin orders Madison, Mequon to revise election tallies over disputed ballots | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday overruled controversial ballot-counting decisions in Mequon and Madison, ordering the cities to revise final tallies in their Wisconsin Supreme Court election results. Madison counted 23 late-arriving ballots that the commission voted should not have been included, while Mequon threw out five ballots the commission said should have been counted. The commission voted 6-0 to investigate both city clerks’ offices and ordered changes to the counts — voting 5-1 to require Madison and Dane County to exclude the 23 ballots, and 6-0 to require Mequon and Ozaukee County to count the five. The deadline for the state to certify the election is May 15, but some commissioners acknowledged the likelihood that lawsuits over today’s decisions could come before then. Read Article

National: Might Donald Trump try to rig the midterms? | The Economist

“Basically we just sort of rack our brains,” says Joe Morelle. “What would happen if this happened? Usually the answer is, well, that’s never happened before—but this is what we would do.” Mr Morelle is the top-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on House Administration. In normal times his team oversees matters of great importance to Congress, such as who gets a parking permit in the House garage. This being an election year, he is preoccupied with an even more existential question. What if Donald Trump tries to steal the midterms? Mr Morelle’s committee is in charge of adjudicating disputed elections in the House of Representatives. He has spent months doing tabletop exercises and dreaming up worst-case scenarios. His list of finagles that Mr Trump might attempt is 150 items long. His what-ifs include the president ordering immigration agents to the polls, declaring that postal votes are invalid and seizing ballot boxes. “I’m looking at things that are high, medium and low probability and then asking what’s the impact” and what is the Democrats’ response, says Mr Morelle. It is a group effort: he has been conferring with lawyers across the country, state attorneys-general and secretaries of state (ie, the top election officials in each state). Come November, Mr Morelle and his colleagues will have been war-gaming for more than a year.Read Article

National: Preparing for Law Enforcement Demands for Election Materials | Gary Restaino/Brennan Center for Justice

Already this year, law enforcement agencies have demanded sensitive election materials in at least four jurisdictions. In January, the FBI seized materials related to the 2020 federal election from Fulton County, Georgia. In February, the sheriff of Riverside County, California, seized ballots from the special redistricting election the state held last year. In March, the FBI served a federal grand jury subpoena to the president of the Arizona Senate, requiring records from independent contractor Cyber Ninjas’ discredited “audit” of the 2020 federal election. And this month, the Justice Department demanded 2024 ballots and other materials from Wayne County, Michigan. Using criminal investigative tools to challenge election results is unprecedented in America, and it appears to be part of this administration’s campaign to undermine elections. This pattern is troubling for democracy and diminishes voters’ confidence in elections. It is also inconsistent with the professional standards expected of law enforcement. Election officials, grand jurors, law enforcement, and judges should be prepared to keep sensitive materials secure in the face of any improper demands for election materials, and they should carefully scrutinize warrants and subpoenas that intrude on election security. Read Article

National: Trump administration blocking appointments to key panel overseeing voting machines, officials say | Jacob Knutson/Democracy Docket

Election officials across the country this week voiced concerns that the Trump administration is blocking appointments to a key federal committee that helps create standards for voting equipment used in U.S. elections.The unexplained rejections are keeping qualified experts in the creation of secure and accessible voting equipment off the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) — a body made up of technical experts and federal officials that helps develop guidelines to certify voting equipment. That could ultimately lead to the certification of voting machines that shouldn’t be in use — because they’re vulnerable to security breaches, inaccessible for certain types of voters, or otherwise flawed. And it represents the latest Trump administration bid to assert control over elections. Read Article

National: The National Guard ‘follows the Constitution,’ general says of troops possibly deployed to polls | Jonathan Shorman/News From The States

The National Guard’s top general told Congress on Friday that it would follow the Constitution and the law when he was asked about the possibility President Donald Trump would order troops to polling places for the midterm elections. The remarks at a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee hearing came as Democratic lawmakers also voiced unease over the continuing deployment of nearly 2,500 National Guard members in Washington, D.C. Rep. Joe Morelle, a New York Democrat, asked Gen. Steven Nordhaus, chief of the National Guard Bureau, what assurances he could provide to Americans concerned about the deployment of troops at the polls. “The National Guard, obviously, always follows the Constitution, law, policy and guidance, both at the federal and the state level,” Nordhaus said. Federal law prohibits the deployment of the military to polling places unless necessary “to repel armed enemies of the United States” and violations are punishable by up to five years in prison. Read Article

National: Internal documents shed light on Trump’s crusade to vet state voter rolls | Tierney Sneed/CNN

The Trump administration has been working for nearly a year on an effort to weed out noncitizens from voter rolls using a faulty data system while keeping those plans hidden from courts and Democratic election officials, internal Justice Department communications obtained by CNN show. The White House was kept in the loop on the Justice Department’s progress, as it struggled to get cooperation from states in its sprawling requests for unredacted voter registration information, ultimately bringing lawsuits against 31 election chiefs. Only last month did the DOJ’s top voting lawyer acknowledge in the litigation that the department wanted to run the data through a citizenship verification system operated by the Department of Homeland Security. Internal emails cited in a new lawsuit filed Tuesday by a voter advocacy group challenging President Donald Trump’s sprawling voter data-collection and review project shed new light on the effort. Read Article

National: Trump, aides chase vote-rigging claims even after latest probe finds nothing | Jonathan Landay, Erin Banco and Phil Stewart/Reuters

Late last summer, Kurt Olsen’s patience had run out. U.S. President Donald Trump had enlisted Olsen months earlier to seek evidence of foreign interference in U.S. elections and re-investigate Trump’s 2020 loss. A prominent election-denier, attorney and former Navy SEAL, Olsen aimed to prove the discredited conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems machines had been infected with malicious code controlled by Venezuela, according to three sources familiar with the matter. But a secret federal investigation of Puerto Rico’s Dominion machines had found no trace of hacking after the administration seized the machines in May and directed a cybersecurity contractor to scour them for months. Confronted with the results, Olsen turned on the contractor, Virginia-based Mojave ​Research Inc. in a September message to Trump, the three sources said. Infuriated, Olsen accused the firm of blocking his work, serving the “deep state” and secretly taking money from billionaire George Soros, a Democratic donor and frequent right-wing target, they said. Read Article

National: Trump Justice Department Curbs Efforts to Safeguard States From Election Crimes | Ben Penn/Bloomberg Law

The Justice Department is curtailing election year coordination aimed at protecting state-run voting processes, increasing risks of the Trump administration interfering in the November midterms or unwittingly exposing precincts to threats, said multiple state officials and former DOJ election crime lawyers. Ahead of an election that will determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress, DOJ leaders have eliminated a centralized command post, discontinued mandatory election law training for prosecutors, and restricted access to threat briefings for state officials, said people briefed on the situation. To attorneys steeped in federal-state election law enforcement norms, DOJ’s information-sharing pullback is a subtler form of undermining the election integrity principles that this administration touts as a priority. It coincides with the department’s escalating push to seize state voting records and FBI Director Kash Patel’s promise of imminent arrests tied to the 2020 presidential election. President Donald Trump has also hinted at stripping states’ constitutional authority over election administration. Read Article

Alabama elections now subject to audit, but bill sponsor wants some changes | Anna Barrett/News From The States

The sponsor of a new law requiring audits of general elections in Alabama said Monday he wants to make some changes in the future. HB 95, sponsored by Rep. Joe Lovvorn, R-Auburn, requires probate judges to conduct a post-election audit of every ballot in one precinct after every county and statewide general election. An executive amendment from Gov. Kay Ivey added to the legislation in the final days of the 2026 legislative session removed a requirement that the audited precinct be randomly selected. Lovvorn said in a phone interview Monday was the same amendment that was adopted in a Senate committee in February, but later tabled on the Senate floor in late March. Read Article

Arizona: Conservative groups lose appeal of election overhaul lawsuit | Caitlin Sievers/Arizona Mirror

An appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit from conservative groups that challenged how Arizona counties verify early ballot signatures and run ballot drop-boxes, among other things. Brought by the America First Legal Foundation and the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona on behalf of a group of voters, the lawsuit rehashed numerous claims that election deniers have made unsuccessfully in court for years. The conservative groups argued that Maricopa, Yavapai and Coconino counties illegally used unstaffed ballot drop boxes, canceled voter registrations and used improper procedures to verify voter signatures on vote-by-mail ballot envelopes. The America First Legal Foundation was created by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Project 2025 and one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisors. The Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, which mostly operates under the name EZAZ, is run by conservative political operative Merissa Caldwell, formerly Merissa Hamilton. The Arizona Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed a Yavapai County Superior Court judge’s 2025 decision to dismiss the case. Read Article

California: Volunteer dismissed from poll training after pushing back on political commentary by Shasta election official Clint Curtis | Annelise Pierce/Shasta Scout

Two women say they were told to leave a poll worker training session Thursday after expressing discontent with political commentary made by Shasta’s chief election official. A third poll worker made it through her training earlier in the week but was left with significant concerns. Shasta County community member Joyce Lively was present at a poll worker training on Thursday when Curtis brought the Riverside topic up about ten minutes into the session. She said he mentioned the matter in passing as he discussed poll worker positions, saying a particular position could be the one to prevent an event like the alleged 45,000 ballot discrepancy in Riverside County. Lively said it bothered her that Shasta’s election official was treating an unproven claim made by activists as fact, especially in a space that’s supposed to be nonpartisan. “I put up my hand and I said I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t bring politics into the training situation,” Lively said afterwards. Curtis responded by calling the ballot discrepancy a “statement of fact,” Lively said. She said she pushed back firmly but politely, telling him the allegation was a matter of opinion and something she felt didn’t belong in a poll worker training, “He looked at me and smiled and said ‘you’re dismissed’,” Lively recounted. “I asked him if he was serious and he said yes he was.”Read Article

Colorado: Appeals court declines to rehear Tina Peters’ arguments | Tom Hesse/CPR

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals will not take a second crack at Tina Peters’ appeal despite a request from her attorney asking for more consideration of some of their arguments. Peters’ attorneys requested the rehearing on April 16, two weeks after the Court of Appeals ordered a re-sentencing for the former Mesa County Clerk on the grounds that the trial judge, 21st Judicial District Court Judge Matthew Barrett, had improperly considered Peters’ public comments and may have violated her First Amendment right to free speech. Today, the Court of Appeals rejected that rehearing request. In their request for a rehearing, Peters’ attorneys argued that the Court of Appeals “misapprehended” their arguments on the supremacy clause. Peters has long maintained that she was acting in a federal capacity when she permitted unauthorized access to county voting equipment and, therefore, should be immune from state charges. Thus far, no court has sided with Peters’ claims. Read Article

Georgia’s voting technology blunder | Cory Doctorow/Medium

Nearly 25 years ago, in the aftermath of Bush v Gore, I got involved in a bunch of ugly tech policy fights over voting machines. The hanging chad debacle in Florida prompted Congress to appropriate funds for states to purchase new touchscreen voting machines based on a robust, open standard. The problem was, those machines didn’t exist. The voting machine industry in those days was already very consolidated (it’s far more consolidated today). They went shopping for a standards body that would publish a spec for a “standard” voting machine that could soak up those federal dollars in time for the 2004 election. The only taker was the IEEE, who unwisely offered to serve as host for this impossible rush job. Once the voting machine reps were around a table at IEEE — largely sheltered from antitrust scrutiny thanks to the broad latitude enjoyed by firms engaged in standardization, which is otherwise uncomfortably close to collusion — they admitted what everyone already knew: there was zero chance they were going to develop a new standard in time for the election. Read Article

Georgia elections board weighs paper ballots options for November voting | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Faced with a vote-counting system that may soon violate state law, the State Election Board is weighing Georgia’s backup system: paper ballots filled out by hand. The Republican-controlled board spent hours Wednesday debating its rulemaking authority and a proposal to abandon Georgia’s current touchscreen voting system that uses QR codes, unreadable by humans, to count votes. The proposal would switch the state to a system where voters would fill in bubbles on a paper ballot that would then be read by a scanner. Critics — including many local election officials — fear a midyear switch would cause disruption at the polls in November. Others said the rule change would overstep the board’s legal authority. Proponents say those concerns are overblown, noting that poll workers are supposed to be trained to use the backup system and a majority of the country already uses paper ballots. The move comes as the state hurtles toward a July deadline to eliminate using QR codes to tally votes, leaving election officials and elections in limbo with no clear plan for compliance. Read Article

Michigan: Antrim County voters confused after clerk attempts to cancel hundreds of voter registrations | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Hundreds of voters have reportedly been affected by Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop’s attempt to cancel voter registrations in the small northern county, leaving voters confused and local clerks frustrated. The Michigan Bureau of Elections sent a letter to Bishop last week accusing her of improperly changing and canceling voter registrations. Such changes “fall outside the scope” of her authority as a county clerk, the bureau wrote, and failed “to comply with the law.” Michigan law puts municipal clerks, not county clerks, in charge of voter list maintenance. Bishop has until Thursday to respond to the state with an explanation of why she made the changes and lists of the affected voters. Read Article

North Carolina: No voter ID? Proposal could make it easier for election officials to reject your ballot | Paul Specht/WRAL

State election leaders may soon make it easier for county officials to reject ballots submitted by voters seeking an exception to North Carolina’s voter identification requirements. North Carolina voters are required to show a form of ID — such as driver’s license or a U-S passport — in order to cast a ballot. Voters who are unable to show ID can seek an exemption from the rule by testifying that they are a victim of a recent natural disaster, have a religious objection to being photographed, or have an impediment to obtaining ID, such as a disability or lack of transportation. Under current rules, county elections boards can reject a voter’s exemption request if they believe it to be false — but only if board members vote unanimously. The North Carolina State Board of Elections is considering changing the rule so that local boards can reject those exemption requests by a majority vote, rather than a unanimous vote. Read Article

Pennsylvania Supreme Court case challenges state rule for registering voters | Carter Walker/Spotlight PA

Should voter registration applications be rejected if voters’ personal information doesn’t match government databases? The Pennsylvania Department of State said in 2018 that the answer should be no. But in a case currently pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Potter County Commissioner Robert Rossman is arguing the department is misinterpreting the law. If Rossman’s challenge is successful, it could result in more voter applications being rejected. In 2018, the Department of State issued a directive stating that, based on state and federal law, counties can’t reject voter applications solely because the driver’s license number or last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number don’t match state or federal databases, as could happen if the voter makes a mistake when filling out the application. Read Article

Texas: New lawsuit seeks to force Dallas County to use precinct voting again for runoff after messy primary | Natalia Contreras/Votebeat

Some Dallas County Republicans on Monday sued the county elections department in a bid to require voters to cast ballots for the May 26 primary runoff at specific polling places in their precincts rather than any location in the county. That precinct-based voting system on primary election day in March created chaos. Local party leadership is trying to reverse a decision made by its former chair, who resigned last week after facing backlash for agreeing to use countywide voting on election day in the runoff. But early voting for the runoff election starts May 18, and Dallas County election officials say it’s too late to change course. The lawsuit, filed in the Texas Fifth Court of Appeals by Barry Wernick, a Republican precinct chair and a candidate for Dallas County Commissioner District 2, is asking the court to require the county to use precinct polling places for the runoff election. Some Dallas Republicans sue county to force a return to precinct voting for May runoff - Votebeat

Wisconsin: Judge rules against ex-Trump attorney in Wisconsin fake elector case | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A state prosecution will proceed against a top architect of an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election on felony charges related to a plan to gather signatures of Republicans falsely claiming to be electors for President Donald Trump. A Wisconsin judge on Thursday ruled against former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro in his effort to keep statements he made to investigators in other battleground states about the fake elector plan from being introduced in the criminal filed by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul against Chesebro and others over the scheme. Kaul in 2024 filed 11 counts of felony forgery charges against Chesebro, former Trump campaign attorney Jim Troupis and former Trump aide Mike Roman. The charges allege the three lied to the Wisconsin Republicans who signed paperwork falsely claiming to be electors for Trump in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 election for former President Joe Biden. Read Article

National: Trump Doesn’t Have the Power to Enact His Latest Elections Scheme | David A. Graham/The Atlantic

Anxiety among election officials and experts had been building for months before Donald Trump issued his latest executive order purporting to ensure election integrity late last month. When the actual text emerged, the reaction wasn’t relief exactly—but a definite sense that things could have been much worse. Americans have many reasons to be worried about whether the midterm elections will be free and fair. As I laid out in a cover story last fall, the president’s plan to subvert the 2026 election is multifaceted and already in swing. But last month’s order and the dismissive reaction it’s received from experts—along with this weekend’s decisive defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which shows how the competitive-authoritarian playbook that Trump has imitated can be beaten—also point to the reasons to resist doomerism. Trump Doesn’t Have the Power to Enact His Latest Elections Scheme - The Atlantic