National: How Trump Upended Biden’s Successful Push For Federal Agencies to Register Voters | Matt Cohen/Democracy Docket

In March, 2021, then-President Joe Biden became the first president to make it clear: Federal agencies should be registering voters. An executive order issued by Biden that month led to unprecedented voter registration efforts by federal agencies that were lauded by voting rights advocates: The Department of the Interior worked with several states to make Tribal institutions voter registration centers. The Department of Veterans Affairs created a pilot voter registration program with Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania. And the Small Business Administration started registering voters at local entrepreneur events in Michigan. That was just the start. But Republicans went ballistic, filing lawsuits and launching congressional probes into the order. They described the move as federal overreach, and warned, without evidence, that it would lead to non-citizens getting on the rolls. Read Article

National: Trump executive order takes steps to protect domestic hackers from blowback | Maggie Miller and John Sakellariadis/Politico

The Trump administration announced Friday it is amending “problematic elements” of two landmark cybersecurity executive orders — though the extent of the changes in many cases appears modest. The modifications are part of a new executive order signed Friday by President Donald Trump. The full text of the EO was released Friday afternoon, and the Trump administration first outlined details of the order in a White House fact sheet. The order outlines a potentially weighty change: the new EO would change the Obama-era order — which allows for sanctions on individuals behind cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure — by limiting it “only to foreign malicious actors” and clarifying “that sanctions do not apply to election-related activities. Read Article

National: States are picking sides as competing election integrity efforts move ahead | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Two events last week offered a glimpse of the growing weight of politics in the nation’s elections process. Alabama’s secretary of state, Wes Allen, announced that Virginia had become the tenth state to join his voter integrity database, called AVID, an increasingly popular alternative to a larger bipartisan voter integrity coalition used by half of the nation’s state governments. And the New York State Assembly approved legislation permitting the state to join the more popular bipartisan system, called the Electronic Registration Information Center. With 26 members, ERIC is still the most popular way for states of all political persuasions to verify the accuracy of their voter rolls, but the Alabama Voter Integrity Database is proving an enticing, if less sophisticated, option for some secretaries of state, particularly in conservative regions where claims of noncitizen voting and a multitude of unfounded conspiracies of ERIC’s shadowy dealings abound. Read Article

National: Federal vs. state power at issue in a hearing over Trump’s election overhaul executive order | AP News

Democratic state attorneys general and government lawyers argued Friday over the implications of President Donald Trump’s proposed overhaul of U.S. elections and whether the changes could be made in time for next year’s midterm elections, how much it would cost the states and, more broadly, whether the president has a right to do any of it in the first place. The top law enforcement officials from 19 states filed a federal lawsuit after the Republican president signed the executive order in March, saying its provisions would step on states’ power to set their own election rules. During a hearing in U.S. District Court in Boston, lawyers for the states told Judge Denise J. Casper that the changes outlined in the order would be costly and could not be implemented quickly. Updating the voter registration database just in California would cost the state more than $1 million and take up to a year, said the states’ lead attorney, Kevin Quade, a deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice. Read Article

National: CISA’s executive director is leaving the agency | Natalie Alms/Nextgov/FCW

Bridget Bean, the executive director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is retiring, the agency confirmed with Nextgov/FCW Tuesday evening. Bean had been serving as the acting director of the government’s cybersecurity agency as of early May when she testified before Congress, although currently, the agency lists its deputy director, Madhu Gottumukkala, as its acting director. Gottumukkala joined CISA in late April. “I am honored to represent CISA’s work supporting our mission to understand, manage and reduce risk to our nation’s cyber and physical infrastructure,” Bean told lawmakers in early May. “The risks we face are complex, geographically dispersed and affect a diverse array of our stakeholders and, ultimately, the American people.” Read Article

Arizona: Maricopa County Recorder sues county supervisors over election powers | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap is suing the county’s supervisors, claiming they are illegally trying to seize control of the county’s elections. The lawsuit, which Trump-aligned group America First Legal filed Thursday on Heap’s behalf, claims that the supervisors “engaged in an unlawful attempt to seize near-total control over the administration of elections.” It specifically states that Heap wants control over the information technology staff that manages the county’s voter registration system, and that the board has prohibited him from accessing certain areas of the elections building that he needs entry to for early voting purposes. The legal action comes after a months-long feud over control of elections between Heap, a Republican who took office in January, and the Republican-controlled board. The dissension has cast doubt on the officials’ ability to work together to run the elections in the closely scrutinized swing county. Read Article

Colorado: Trump’s DOJ makes its most sweeping demand for election data yet | Miles Parks and Jude Joffe-Block/NPR

The U.S. Department of Justice is demanding an unprecedented amount of election data from at least one state, according to documents obtained by NPR, as the DOJ transformed by the Trump administration reviews cases targeting the president’s political allies and caters to his desire to exert more power over state voting processes. On May 12, the Justice Department asked Colorado’s secretary of state to turn over “all records” relating to 2024 federal elections, as well as preserve any records that remain from the 2020 election — a sprawling request several voting experts and officials told NPR was highly unusual and concerning, given President Trump’s false claims about elections. “What they’re going to do with all this data, I don’t know,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat. “But I’m sure they will use it to push their ridiculous disinformation and lies to the American public.” Read Article

Georgia Supreme Court rejects State Election Board voting rules | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The State Election Board exceeded its authority by passing new voting rules last year, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously ruled Tuesday, limiting the Republican-led board’s power. The 96-page decision upholds a lower court decision that invalidated rules that would have required hand counts of ballots and election inquiries. The board’s efforts to change Georgia’s voting rules before the presidential election attracted national controversy, highlighting attempts to alter procedures that could affect vote counts. “Although it is not certain that these rules would actually lead to the rejection of votes that have been cast, the threatened violation of a plaintiff’s rights is sufficient to establish standing” that they were able to sue, Chief Justice Nels Peterson wrote. “The SEB can pass rules to implement and enforce the election code, but it cannot go beyond, change or contradict the (the law).” Read Article

Michigan: Election oversight fight headed to court: House GOP files lawsuit against Secretary of State | Zoe Clark and Rick Pluta/Michigan Public Radio

House Republicans are putting the squeeze on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in their ongoing feud over election materials that brings into play legislative prerogatives versus executive authority. The newest twist is the House complaint filed this week in the Michigan Court of Claims to compel Benson to comply with a legislative subpoena. Not that this is a surprise. The level of trust between the House GOP majority and the Democratic Secretary of State hovers somewhere around non-existent. The GOP-controlled House voted along party lines last month to hold Benson in civil contempt, which cleared the way for the lawsuit alleging “irrational and even conspiratorial objections” to keep those materials from the House Oversight Committee and the House Election Integrity Committee. Read Article

Montana: Advocacy groups sue over new absentee ballot law | Victoria Eavis/Helena Independent Record

A disability rights nonprofit and an elderly advocacy organization are suing the secretary of state over a recently enacted law that they say could disproportionately harm their ability to vote absentee. This complaint marks the third lawsuit — but the fourth bill — filed over elections-related bills since the 69th legislative session adjourned earlier this year. House Bill 719, sponsored by Columbia Falls Republican Rep. Braxton Mitchell and backed by Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen’s office, is the latest bill to be entangled in a lawsuit. The main provision of that new law requires Montanans voting absentee — which accounts for the majority of ballots cast in Montana — to now write their birthdate on the outermost envelope. Like a signature comparison which already exists in state law, elections officials would now also have to compare that date to the one they provided when registering to vote. Read Article

Nevada GOP governor vetoes voter ID bill pitched as compromise with legislative Democrats | Tabitha Mueller and Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

Gov. Joe Lombardo on Thursday vetoed a bill brought by legislative Democrats that would have required voter ID beginning in next year’s elections, meaning that voter ID’s rollout in Nevada will rely on passage of a ballot question next year. It’s a significant turn of events for AB499, the result of an apparent deal between Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) and the Republican governor. Along with requiring voter ID, the bill would have resurrected Yeager’s previously vetoed effort (AB306) to increase ballot drop box access in the days leading up to an election. The proposal, which was amended in the Senate to include voter ID, received opposition from five Senate Democrats before the Assembly agreed with the proposed changes in a voice vote. Read Article

Oregon: Trump administration challenges  state over voter rolls in lawsuit | Dirk VanderHart/Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Trump administration is wading into a court fight over whether Oregon does enough to scrub its voter rolls of ineligible voters. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would file a “statement of interest” in an ongoing suit between a number of conservative plaintiffs and the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. The U.S. DOJ says it is watching the case closely for signs Oregon violated a federal law, the National Voter Registration Act. Trump administration challenges Oregon over voter rolls in lawsuit – OPB

Pennsylvania improves election data transparency, with more upgrades to come | Jordan Wilkie/WITF

Pennsylvania’s election data is easier to access and interpret than it’s ever been, with more changes in the works to improve transparency, the state’s top election administrator said last week. The state has sold the ability to download bulk data on every voter in the state for $20, including vote history, party registration, voter age and more, but the files are convoluted and hard to handle. Downloading the statewide voter registration file and gaining any meaningful insight from it requires computer programming savvy and knowledge of county-by-county election administration. To make it easier for people to understand the data, the Department of State rolled out new data dashboards in late May. One covers 2024 general election vote history and registration. The other shows data on mail-in ballots. Read Article

Texas bill creating more weekend early voting could boost turnout, but delay election results | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Texans will have a new schedule for early voting in coming years under new legislation that starts the voting period later but slides it right up to Election Day, eliminating the three-day break in between. Experts say Senate Bill 2753, which lawmakers approved this week, will likely boost turnout, as it includes more time for voting on weekends. The author of the bill, Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, told Votebeat that the change also “simplifies the process” and would reduce the cost of election operations and equipment. But local election officials said they aren’t so sure of that, and are still determining how it will work and what it could cost counties. The bill doesn’t allocate any funding for counties to implement the changes. Read Article

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign sues Elon Musk, alleging million-dollar check giveaways were voter bribes | Bruna Horvath/NBC

A Wisconsin watchdog group has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk claiming that he unlawfully bribed voters with million-dollar checks and $100 giveaways in the state’s latest Supreme Court election. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign — a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that investigates election transparency — along with two Wisconsin voters, filed the suit against Musk, his super PAC America PAC and another Musk-owned entity called the United States of America Inc. In the suit, the plaintiffs claimed that Musk and his entities violated state laws that prohibit vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries. It also accuses Musk of conducting civil conspiracy and acting as a public nuisance. Read Article

Why stricter voting laws no longer help Republicans but the party is pushing tougher requirements anyway | The Economist

“The Republicans should pray for rain”—the title of a paper published by a trio of political scientists in 2007—has been an axiom of American elections for years. The logic was straightforward: each inch of election-day showers, the study found, dampened turnout by 1%. Lower turnout gave Republicans an edge because the party’s affluent electorate had the resources to vote even when it was inconvenient. Their opponents, less so. Yet Mr Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party has scrambled the voting coalitions that underpinned the pray-for-rain logic. Rich people used to vote Republican and poor people Democrat. Read Article

Justice Department targets Arizona and Wisconsin over compliance with federal election law | Alexander Shur andJen Fifield/Votebeat

The U.S. Justice Department has sent letters to election officials in at least two key swing states, threatening action against the states if they don’t comply with provisions of a 2002 federal election law. Lawyers from the department’s civil rights division sent letters in recent weeks to both Arizona and Wisconsin. The Arizona letter said that state officials are not properly verifying voters’ identities as dictated by the Help America Vote Act, and warned of a lawsuit. The Wisconsin letter said the Wisconsin Elections Commission is not properly resolving administrative complaints as required by the same law, and threatened to withhold federal election funds over that issue. The Justice Department recently sued North Carolina also, claiming that the state has not been properly verifying voter identity. Read Article

National: Trump budget proposal would slash more than 1,000 CISA jobs | Tim Starks/CyberScoop

The fiscal 2026 budget proposal President Donald Trump unveiled last week would make deep cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency workforce, with a goal of eliminating 1,083 positions and chopping its budget by $495 million, to $2.4 billion. That’s a slightly deeper total cut than an earlier budget outline forecast. And a new document produced by the Department of Homeland Security details where those CISA personnel reductions would come from, alongside other documents that show planned decreases to other cybersecurity programs in the federal government. The latest budget documents still don’t offer a full picture of Trump’s plans, as the administration hasn’t produced a full Defense Department budget blueprint, and Congress is awaiting delivery of a rescission package that would allow it to cement some of the federal funding cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency. Read Article

National: Inside Trump’s gutting of the DOJ unit that enforces voting laws | Tierney Sneed and Hannah Rabinowitz/CNN

The Justice Department’s unit tasked with enforcing federal voting laws is down from roughly 30 attorneys to about a half-dozen, as most of its career staff has departed in the face of escalating pressure tactics from the Trump administration. The mass exodus that has whittled the voting section down to a fifth of its normal size came after a relentless campaign by the department’s political leaders to smear the work of the longtime attorneys, dismiss noncontroversial cases, and reassign career supervisors. During President Donald Trump’s first term, DOJ officials forced voting section attorneys to abandon the more high-profile work that had often been opposed by conservatives. But the gutting of the section during Trump’s second administration goes far beyond that, according to former department attorneys and outside voter advocates. Read Article

National: DOJ’s New Top Voting Lawyer Worked for Leading Anti-Voting Law Firm | Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket

The new top voting lawyer at the Department of Justice was until recently an attorney and activist for a leading anti-voting legal group that has worked for years to spread fear about illegal voting and press election officials to tighten voting rules. The lawyer, Maureen Riordan, also has appeared with Cleta Mitchell — the right-wing activist who played a key role in President Donald Trump’s failed bid to subvert the results of the 2020 election — backing Mitchell’s pledge to “reclaim our election systems from the left.” Riordan’s appointment, which has not been formally announced by the DOJ, underscores the sharp reverse the department and its voting section have undergone under Trump — from their previous role as a largely consistent defender of voting rights to instead working actively to undermine them. Read Article

National: What the REAL ID saga tells us about proof-of-citizenship requirements | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

You know the REAL ID that you need to have if you want to board a plane? The deadline to get one was supposed to be May 7. But just days before that, the Department of Homeland Security hit pause, again. Twenty years after Congress passed the REAL ID Act, too many people still didn’t have the right kind of ID, so enforcement was delayed — as it has been multiple times. It’s easy to see why. In states like Kentucky, residents seeking a REAL ID faced long lines, limited DMV appointments, and widespread confusion over which documents to bring. In Illinois, hundreds of complaints poured in from residents who were denied IDs despite having paperwork they thought would qualify. Some were turned away because of paperwork errors, others because staff misinterpreted the rules. Meanwhile, nationwide, millions of Americans still lack a REAL ID, and once the law takes effect, they would face added hurdles if they wanted to travel by plane. So what does this have to do with voting? Read Article

National: Google’s New AI Tool Generates Convincing Deepfakes of Riots, Conflict, and Election Fraud | Andrew R. Chow and Billy Perrigo/Time Magazine

Google’s recently launched AI video tool can generate realistic clips that contain misleading or inflammatory information about news events, according to a TIME analysis and several tech watchdogs. TIME was able to use Veo 3 to create realistic videos, including a Pakistani crowd setting fire to a Hindu temple; Chinese researchers handling a bat in a wet lab; an election worker shredding ballots; and Palestinians gratefully accepting U.S. aid in Gaza. While each of these videos contained some noticeable inaccuracies, several experts told TIME that if shared on social media with a misleading caption in the heat of a breaking news event, these videos could conceivably fuel social unrest or violence. Read Article

Arizona: Mohave County supervisor pushes for legal immunity for hand counted ballots | Howard Fischer/Arizona Capitol Times

Ron Gould contends that Mayes constitutes a “real threat” to his powers and duties to certify elections simply because he believes that supervisors should be able to order a complete hand count. However, so far, he has been unable to make his arguments after a trial judge last year dismissed his lawsuit, stating that he had not shown any imminent threat of prosecution. Now Gould is asking the state Court of Appeals to issue a ruling declaring he has a legal right to pursue the case and directing Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bradley Astrowsky to let him present his evidence. The new bid is getting a fight from Assistant Attorney General Alexander Samuels. He is telling the appellate court that Gould’s claims are “speculative,” especially as he has “not articulated a concrete plan to violate the law” in the future. And there’s something else. Samuels pointed out that state law requires the use of electronic tabulation of ballots, not the kind of hand count that Gould has pushed for in the past and may be seeking in the future. He noted that Gould is not challenging the legality of that law, but simply wants a declaration that he can’t be prosecuted for breaking it. Read Article

Connecticut Governor forces legislators to keep elections watchdog independent | Mark Pazniokas/CT Mirror

Facing a potential veto from Gov. Ned Lamont, the General Assembly agreed Wednesday to delete a portion of a bipartisan bill that would have ended a half century of independence by Connecticut’s elections watchdog. Lamont objected to a portion of Senate Bill 1405 that would have subjected the appointment of an executive director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission to approval by a legislative committee, the House and Senate. Rather than risk a veto of a bill already approved by both chambers and on its way to Lamont’s desk, legislative leaders agreed to insert language into an unrelated fiscal bill that makes the change sought by Lamont, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and others. Read Article

Illinois: US Supreme Court to decide if challenge to grace period for mail-in ballots can proceed | Maureen Groppe/USA Today

The Supreme Court will decide whether a GOP congressman can challenge Illinois’ decision to count mail-in ballots that are cast, but not received, before the end of Election Day. Republicans have been trying to end that practice − adopted by many states − through lawsuits and a March executive order from President Donald Trump that is being litigated. They argue that states are illegally extending the election beyond the date set by federal law. But when Rep. Michael Bost, R-Illinois, and two presidential electors tried to make that case, lower courts said they hadn’t been sufficiently harmed by the policy so they couldn’t sue. The Supreme Court on June 2 said it will decide if the lawsuit can move forward. Read Article

Iowa Governor signs bills on election recounts, voter citizenship verification | Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed two bills related to Iowa’s election laws Monday, making changes to the state’s citizenship verification for voting and election recount processes. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, alongside several county auditors and some of the lawmakers who worked on the bills during the 2025 legislative session, joined Reynolds at the signing. House File 954, signed Monday, was the bill Pate proposed to better allow his office to check the citizenship status and other eligibility requirements of those on Iowa’s voter rolls. The second measure, House File 928, makes changes to Iowa’s system for election recounts, including setting new limits on who can request recounts. For statewide and federal races, the election results would have to have a 0.15% difference in votes between candidates for a candidate to request a recount. For state legislative and local races, a difference of 1% or 50 votes would be required. This would stop recounts in future elections similar to those requested in recent elections, like the 2024 election recount for the race between U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Christina Bohannan, that was within 0.2%. Read Article

Louisiana may finally buy new voting machines after Legislature approves new bidding process | Alyse Pfeil/The Times-Picayune

Louisiana may finally be on track to replace its decades-old voting machines, after years of controversies over how to do so. The Louisiana Legislature gave the Secretary of State the green light to use a new bidding process to pick a company that will replace the more than 10,000 machines that officials say are increasingly difficult to keep functioning. “Our machines are 35 years old, it’s impossible to find parts, and they don’t produce an auditable paper record for each vote cast,” Secretary of State Nancy Landry told lawmakers on the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee last month. Read Article

Michigan House sues Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over election training materials | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

The Michigan House of Representatives filed a lawsuit Thursday, June 5, against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, transforming the fight between Republican lawmakers and the state’s chief elections officer over election training materials into a legal battle. House Republicans have repeatedly argued that they have a right to review the material to ensure that election officials receive proper training that complies with Michigan election law. Benson, meanwhile, has raised concerns that some of the information requested could compromise election security and fears it could end up in the wrong hands. The lawsuit comes after Republican lawmakers in the state House voted to hold Benson in contempt for withholding some election training materials requested by the House Oversight Committee, which subpoenaed Benson and the Michigan Department of State. Read Article

Nevada’s bipartisan deal: Voter ID law and more ballot drop boxes | Rio Yamat/Associated Press

Facing a legislature dominated by Democrats, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo stood before Nevada lawmakers earlier this year with a message that some did not expect to go far: “Set aside partisan politics.” It was a plea that might have seemed more aspirational than realistic, given the country’s deep polarization. Yet it set the stage for one of the session’s most unexpected outcomes — a bipartisan agreement to bring voter ID requirements to the perennial battleground state by next year’s midterm elections. In a deal that came together in the waning days of the session, the Democratic-controlled Legislature approved a bill that combined a requirement for voter ID — a conservative priority across the country and something that has been on Lombardo’s legislative wish list — with a Democratic-backed measure to add more drop boxes for mailed ballots in the state’s most populous counties. Read Article

North Carolina: Changing of the guard. New and outgoing elections directors offer opposing perspectives. | Sarah Michels/Carolina Public Press

Some might say newly appointed State Board of Elections Executive Director Sam Hayes wrote his own job into law. As general counsel for the Speaker of the House, Hayes had a hand in writing Senate Bill 382, the Tropical Storm Helene relief bill that also shifted election appointment power from the Democratic governor to the newly elected Republican state auditor. As a result, the State Board of Elections got a new Republican majority that then chose a new executive director. After a state court allowed the law to go into effect, the board chose Hayes, a Republican attorney whose election experience includes defending North Carolina’s voter ID law, legislators’ redistricting plans and most recently, Senate Bill 382. “So I worked on the legislation, I’ve defended the legislation, and now I’m here,” Hayes said in a recent interview. Read Article