National: Trump said he voted by mail in Florida because he ‘should be’ in D.C. He cast his ballot from Palm Beach. | Irie Sentner/Politico

President Donald Trump — a relentless critic of mail-in voting — said Thursday that he voted by mail in Florida’s special elections this month because he felt he should be in Washington D.C. “instead of being in the beautiful sunshine. Because of the fact that I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida, because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine,” Trump told reporters at the White House during Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. Reminded that he is often in Palm Beach at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump responded: “I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn’t be there, because I had a lot of different things.” But the president cast his mail-in vote from Palm Beach, records show. Read Article

National: ICE agents have been deployed to airports. Are the polls next? | Gabe Cohen/CNN

The high-profile deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports has renewed support on the right and fear on the left about the possibility of ICE going to the polls in November. Steve Bannon is urging President Donald Trump — who surprised officials in his own administration this weekend by ordering ICE agents to airports to help alleviate long lines — to treat that move as a dress rehearsal for the 2026 midterms, arguing the same armed officers should ultimately be positioned around polling places. “We can use this as a test run — a test case — to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm election,” Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, said Monday on his “War Room” podcast, reiterating his past calls for a law enforcement presence at the polls. While Bannon holds no official role in the administration, his remarks reignited concerns among some election officials and Democratic lawmakers who fear the Trump administration could try to use ICE as a political weapon — intimidating voters and potentially suppressing turnout in November. They argue that kind of presence at polling sites could run afoul of federal law. Read Article

In Alaska, a grace period for ballots is seen as a necessity | AP News

The tiny Alaska Native village of Beaver is about 40 minutes — by plane — from the nearest city. Its roughly 50 residents rely on weekday flights for mail and many of their basic supplies, from groceries to Amazon deliveries of everyday household items. Air service plays an outsize role in the nation’s most expansive state, where most communities rely on flights for year-round access. Planes also play a critical role in elections, getting voting materials and ballots to and from rural precincts such as Beaver and in delivering ballots for thousands of Alaskans who vote by mail — some in places where in-person voting is not available. The vast distances and relative isolation of so many communities make Alaska unique and are why its residents have a significant interest in arguments taking place Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court. Read Article

California GOP sheriff who’s running for governor seizes ballots from 2025 election | Jane C. Timm/NBC

A Republican sheriff in California who's running for governor seized more than 650,000 ballots from election officials last week, saying he is investigating potential fraud in last year's election. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said a group of citizens conducted their own “audit” of California's 2025 special election results in the county, and he claimed that the election workers’ tally of ballots received was 45,000 fewer than the number of votes certified to the state. Riverside County considered one ballot question in the November special election: whether to approve a new Democratic-drawn congressional map. Voters statewide and in the county ultimately passed the measure, putting Democrats in position to gain up to five House seats in this year's midterm elections. Read Article

Florida: As SAVE America Act stalls in the Senate, Florida passes its own proof-of-citizenship law | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

A signature piece of voting legislation championed by President Donald Trump may not have much of a future in the U.S. Senate, but in Florida, the future is here. Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers in Trump’s home state approved a sweeping overhaul of the state’s voter registration system, one that mirrors the core idea behind the federal SAVE America Act: requiring proof of citizenship to get on the rolls. The details differ — the Florida bill, for instance, would not take effect until after the midterms — but the architecture is the same. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law any day now. In states like Florida, policies like this one that are on the GOP’s wish list can move quickly. Republicans face little meaningful Democratic opposition, and the bill advanced with relatively little resistance — a stark contrast to Washington, where things are far messier. Read Article

Georgia Court of Appeals sides with Fulton County in fight over election board appointments | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

Georgia’s Court of Appeals has overturned a trial court’s ruling ordering the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to seat two conservative election activists on the county election board or face daily fines. In May, Democrats on the board had rejected two Republican Party nominees, Julie Adams and Jason Frazier, citing concerns about both individuals’ past actions and arguing that they were not qualified for the position. But the Fulton County GOP filed a lawsuit arguing that the commissioners were required to approve the party’s nominees as long as they met basic required standards like living in the county, being a registered voter and not being an elected official. Read Article

Maryland: The price of new voting equipment is stirring up frustration | Latest News | Kyle Orens/WBOC

A looming 50/50 split for new voting equipment in Maryland is fueling frustration. Over the next few years, Dorchester County will have to pay $421,000 for new machines the county never asked for. Earlier this week, we reported on new, high-tech voting machines that Maryland plans on buying for the 2028 elections. It will cost the state an estimated $109 million, but every county across Maryland will have to pitch in. "It's another unfunded mandate that's being pushed down on to the counties," said Lenny Pfeffer, Dorchester County Council President. Pfeffer said that money, which is now going towards new poll books, scanners and ballot marking devices, could have been used for a new ambulance, new public works vehicles or even paving projects. Read Article

Mississippi Secretary of state’s push to use unverified addresses from credit agency for ‘election integrity’ left some legitimate voters inactive during primaries | Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today

For the last 12 years, Thomas Minor has never missed a single election — local, state or federal. It’s his way of making sure he has a say in the place he’s called home his whole life: Itawamba County. Over the years, he’s cast his ballot for candidates across the political spectrum. But in Mississippi’s latest election — the March 10 congressional primaries — he didn’t end up voting at all. When Minor showed up to the polls, he found his name missing from the poll book. His voting status had changed to inactive. A couple days later, he learned it was all because of an error that was never supposed to happen. Unverified credit data knocked legitimate voters off rolls for primaries - Mississippi Today

North Dakota has an exemption in the SAVE Act but questions remain as Senate debate continues | Mary Steurer/North Dakota Monitor

State officials have said a controversial election security bill in Congress wouldn’t impact North Dakota, but some voting rights advocates in the state raise concerns that it could make it more difficult for some people to vote. The SAVE America Act would require voters to present valid photo ID to vote in federal elections, and proof of citizenship to register. The proposal has broad support among Republicans, including North Dakota’s congressional delegation. Critics oppose the bill on the grounds that it would expand federal control over elections and could make it harder for some to vote. It’s currently being debated in the Senate. The legislation includes an exemption for North Dakota since it’s the only state without voter registration, though it would still require North Dakota to have a system for verifying the citizenship of its voters. The SAVE America Act doesn’t say anything about what this process must look like. SAVE Act contains exemption for North Dakota voters, but questions remain as Senate debate continues • North Dakota Monitor

Pennsylvania: Automatic voter registration has enrolled more than 350,000 voters, but they don’t always vote | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Two and a half years into Pennsylvania’s new program to register more voters, rural counties have seen some of the biggest gains, a Votebeat and Spotlight PA analysis has found. In September 2023, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that Pennsylvania would join the more than 20 other states that offer automatic voter registration. Under Pennsylvania’s version of AVR, eligible but unregistered voters who get a new driver’s license or ID card at PennDOT facilities are automatically led through the process to join the voter rolls unless they opt out. Previously, these prospective voters had to opt in to register at PennDOT facilities. State data suggests that the program has achieved its goal of registering more voters, including some who may not have registered otherwise. However, Votebeat and Spotlight PA’s analysis found that these new voters are less likely to actually vote than their counterparts who registered by other means. Experts who have studied AVR programs say that result is not uncommon. Read Article

Puerto Rico: Gabbard testimony on voting machines raises questions about role of Venezuela conspiracy theory | Aram Roston/The Guardian

When the US director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, testified that her office seized voting machines from Puerto Rico, she said it was at the request of the office of the US attorney in Puerto Rico. Left unsaid was that the prosecutor, as the Guardian previously reported, has been the center of a push by Donald Trump supporters to revive a long discredited conspiracy theory purporting to link Venezuela to Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat. Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the conspiracy theory maintains, controlled electronic voting machines worldwide and remotely manipulated results in 2020 to deprive Trump of a presidential victory. It was just one of the theories and grievances pushed by Trump and his supporters. Other complaints involved dead voters, stolen ballots, mail-in ballot fraud and mass voting by noncitizens. Gabbard testimony on Puerto Rico voting machines raises questions about role of Venezuela conspiracy theory | Puerto Rico | The Guardian

Texas: Thousands of Dallas County voters went to wrong polling site | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

At least 12,674 Dallas County voters trying to cast ballots in both party primaries showed up at the wrong polling locations March 3 after the county GOP forced the elimination of countywide polling sites on election day, county data shows. Democrats had more than double the number of primary voters in Dallas County as Republicans so, unsurprisingly, a larger number of Democratic voters had to be redirected to the correct site, according to a Votebeat analysis of data provided by Dallas County election officials. But similar percentages of voters from both parties were affected by the change. Out of the total voter turnout on election day, at least 6,641 voters, or 7.7%, seeking to cast ballots in the Democratic primary, and 2,369 voters, or 6.4%, seeking to cast ballots in the Republican primary, went to the wrong voting site. Those voters subsequently received texts from county representatives stationed at polling sites to redirect voters to the correct places, according to the county data, which was obtained by Votebeat via a public records request. Read Article

A Utah County Clerk Grapples With Election Denial | Governing

Ricky Hatch, clerk for Utah’s Weber County, had a chance to interview for a government job when he was still in college. “Who would want to work in government?” he asked his professor. “That’s got to be the most boring thing ever.” “Boring” would be the last word to describe his 16 years as clerk. They include running an election during a pandemic, fending off runaway conspiracies, a leadership role in preventing foreign election interference and a growing list of worries about staff and voter safety. Read Article

Virginia governor moves to secure elections, rejoin ERIC | Lyra Bordelon/Staunton News Leader

Gov. Abigail Spanberger issued an executive order focused on securing Virginia voter’s ballots on Tuesday, March 24. The order makes a few changes, such as getting the state to rejoin a multi-state voter database, requiring any systematic removal of voters from the rolls be completed 90 days before an election, and requiring the state’s top elections official to certify that election security measures now in place are still in place each year. “I know it feels like it is always election season in Virginia,” said Spanberger in a press release on the executive order. “With even more days of voting on our calendar this year, I’m acting early to strengthen Virginia’s transparent, robust voting process and protect the rights of all eligible Virginia voters. The actions Virginia is taking today are not only critical to allowing all eligible Virginia voters to register and cast their ballot, but to making sure that only Virginians who are eligible to vote are able to vote in our Commonwealth – this year, and in every election into the future.” Read Article

National: Trump’s push for Save America Act could hurt Republicans | Amy B Wang, Scott Clement and Lydia Sidhom/The Washington Post

President Donald Trump has ramped up pressure on Republicans in recent weeks to pass the Save America Act, a bill that would require people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote and to show photo identification at the polls, among other voting restrictions. Trump has gone so far as to declare that he will not sign any other legislation until Congress passes the bill, and vowed Tuesday never to endorse anyone who voted against what he dubbed “one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress.” He promised Republican lawmakers last week that passing the bill would “guarantee the midterms” for the GOP. But the bill might not help Republicans as much as Trump thinks. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Requiring Americans to prove they are citizens when they register to vote, in an effort to root out the extremely rare cases of noncitizen voting, would throw up roadblocks to the polls for millions of eligible voters across the political spectrum, and in some cases could hurt Republicans more. Read Article

Georgia was going to dump voting machines that Trump hates until things got complicated | Jeff Amy/Associated Press

It seemed like the stars had aligned for Republicans to get rid of their biggest targets — Georgia’s touch screen voting machines. But the complicated reality of changing voting systems has gotten in the way, despite the ascent of 2020 election deniers into influential places in state government and the second Donald Trump administration. Instead, it is looking increasingly likely that Georgia voters will still be casting ballots this November on the machines from Dominion Voting Systems, which was bought by a company called Liberty Vote. The machines print a paper ballot with a QR code, a type of barcode, that scanners use to tally votes. Republicans face hurdles in replacing Georgia's touch screen voting machines | AP News

Why the SAVE America Act . . . Won’t | The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board

For partisan hype, it’s hard to beat the Senate debate this week on the SAVE America Act. President Trump says the legislation is a salvation from mass voter fraud. Sen. Chuck Schumer says it’s an effort at mass voter suppression, “Jim Crow 2.0.” Neither is reality. Also, Republicans don’t have the votes to clear the Senate’s filibuster. And if they bully the bill through anyway, Democrats eyeing the end of the 60-vote rule will quietly celebrate. The House version of the SAVE America Act, which passed last month, has two main planks. First, people registering to vote would be asked to show proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or naturalization document. Many driver’s licenses wouldn’t qualify. While the bill says it would accept a REAL ID “that indicates the applicant is a citizen,” standard license designs often don’t say. Legal immigrants can get REAL IDs, too. “Enhanced” driver’s licenses do show citizenship, and those can be used to cross international borders. But they’re available in only five states that neighbor Canada, according to the Department of Homeland Security. To pick one state, Minnesota says it has issued 782,000 “enhanced” licenses, out of a total 4.7 million active credentials. Read Article

National: ‘It’s laughable’: Election officials pour cold water on MAGA midterm overhaul | Sam Brodey/The Boston Globe

President Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are increasingly intent on a massive overhaul of the country’s elections in time for the 2026 midterms. But an important group of people are warning that’s not possible: the professionals who actually run those elections. Around the country, state and local election administrators have been warily eyeing the proposed changes contained in the Save America Act, as Republicans escalate their effort to pass it. Among its sweeping proposals: mandating voters prove their citizenship in person to register to vote and also show a photo ID to vote at the polls; and ending mail-in ballots for nearly all voters. Combined, those measures could block millions of eligible voters from the polls, according to analysis from voting rights advocates. Read Article

National: In bid for voter data, Trump’s DOJ lays groundwork to undermine confidence in midterms | Jonathan Shorman/Stateline

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun connecting its push to obtain sensitive personal data on millions of voters to whether the upcoming midterm elections will be fair and secure, laying the groundwork for the Trump administration to potentially cast doubt on the results. The Justice Department has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia over their refusal to provide unredacted voter rolls that include the driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers of voters. The department has lost three of those lawsuits so far this year. But as the Justice Department begins appealing the losses, it has filed emergency motions warning the “security and sanctity of elections” would be questioned in those states — California, Michigan and Oregon — without immediate rulings. Read Article

National: The Trump administration is falsely claiming Jimmy Carter was against mail-in voting | Melissa Goldin/Associated Press

The Trump administration is using a 20-year-old report to misrepresent former President Jimmy Carter’s views on mail-in and absentee ballots as it pushes for federal legislation that would impose strict new proof-of-citizenship and photo ID requirements for voting ahead of the midterm elections. There’s no evidence that mail-in voting fraud was rampant then, and it’s not rampant now,” said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology. “Mail voting has become more common and more mature. So, over that period of time, states have learned from each other — best practices for not only avoiding fraud, but just generally administering mail balloting well.” For example, ballot tracking, curing ballots that had initially been rejected, and the ability to identify and address duplicate voter registrations have improved. Read Article

National: Trump’s emergency elections order is ‘being prepared,’ key ally believes | Matt Cohen/Democracy Docket

An anti-voting activist said to be part of a group pushing for President Donald Trump to take control of elections via executive order reiterated his view that the scheme is “being prepared.” “I think Plan A has always been an executive order from President Trump based on the fact that the Chinese penetrated and influenced the 2020 election,” Jerome Corsi — an election denier best known for spreading Barack Obama birtherism conspiracies — said Wednesday on a right-wing podcast. “I believe Donald Trump is resolute on this,” Corsi added. “He’s not going to allow the 2026 midterm elections to be stolen without taking some strong executive action and executive order.” Read Article

Trump’s Gutting of Election Security Fuels Worries for Midterms | Adam Sella/The New York Times

When election officials in Arizona opened their online candidate portal last summer, it was immediately clear that it had been hacked. The photos of aspiring public servants had been replaced by red and black images of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s first supreme leader. fter similar episodes in recent years, state officials often contacted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, the primary federal agency responsible for election cybersecurity. The agency, created by President Trump in 2018 to protect critical infrastructure, including elections, from cyberthreats, would have lent resources to stop the attackers and notified other election officials across the country so they could bolster their defenses. But after the hack last summer, Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, decided not to ask for CISA’s help. Arizona officials managed to stop the cyberattack, restore the website and ensure that no sensitive voter data had been compromised, though CISA might have been able to help them work faster and cheaper. nytimes.com

Arizona: Federal appeals court tosses GOP lawsuit seeking to purge 1.27 million voters | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that tossed out a lawsuit by Arizona Republicans that accused the state of violating federal law and sought to purge up to 1.27 million voters from the rolls. In 2024, then-Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Gina Swoboda, who is now running for the nomination of her party for Secretary of State, along with Arizona Free Enterprise Club President Scot Mussi and unsuccessful 2018 Republican Secretary of State candidate Steve Gaynor sued Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and accused the state of violating the National Voter Registration Act. The lawsuit claimed that Fontes failed to purge over a million ineligible and unaccounted for voters from the state’s registration rolls, costing the Arizona Republican Party time and resources on voter education and mobilization claims. However, a trial court judge concluded that they had no standing to sue. On Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. Read Article

Colorado: Tech glitches disrupt Democrats as they consider primary candidates | Rae Solomon and Caitlyn Kim/CPR

Over the last two weekends, Colorado Democrats held caucus meetings to help decide who will be on the primary ballot in June, but the meetings were beset with technical difficulties that have led to confusion and consternation from some who attended and concerns about whether delegates lost their voice in the process. In previous years, the process has run on paper ballots and in-person voting. This year was the first time the Party introduced voting by app. Delegates described using Airtable, a business workflow app that is not designed to run elections, to register their votes. The software struggled to handle the high volume of users throughout the process, and finally crashed toward the end of the day on March 14. “People are getting pretty tired and upset at that point in time,” said State House District 6 candidate Iris Halpern, who is hoping to serve as a delegate in several statewide races at the party convention in Pueblo later this month. “I think most people tried to be patient and stick with it. But I'm pretty sure we probably did lose some folks throughout the day.” Read Article

Georgia State Election Board urges faster shift away from ballot QR codes | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

Georgia’s State Election Board unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday urging state lawmakers to hasten a switch to hand-marked paper ballots, just a day after legislators unveiled a proposal to delay overhauling Georgia’s election system until after the 2026 midterms. The resolution, introduced by board member Salleigh Grubbs, requests that Georgia implement hand-marked paper ballots “as soon as practicable,” arguing that the state’s current system of using QR codes to tally ballots does not allow voters to fully proof their ballots before casting them. “I think this is an emergency in Georgia,” Grubbs said at a board meeting Wednesday. “I think a voting emergency should be declared.” Precisely what “practicable” means, though, is a matter of debate. House lawmakers unveiled a plan Tuesday to make the switch in time for the 2028 presidential election. Rep. Victor Anderson, a Cornelia Republican who is sponsoring the bill in the House, said lawmakers had hoped to remove the QR codes by the original deadline of July, but “very quickly and very abruptly began to realize that the practicality of that happening without causing a severe upset in our election system, it just wasn’t gonna happen. It wasn’t possible.” Read Article

Illinois: 10 years after Russians attacked the state voter registry. Is your info safe now? | Chuck Goudie/NBC Chicago

Tuesday’s primary election is almost at the 10-year mark since Russian hackers gained access to Illinois' voter data - a watershed moment in election security - that to this day prompts a simple question: is my ballot secure? Securing your vote is not as easy as simply posting up some election judges, keeping uniformed officers awake and having a day's supply of I Voted stickers. November 2016 is an election that lives in Illinois infamy. As voters cast ballots in bowling alley precincts, while pool players called the corner pocket and at the neighborhood laundromat, state election officials were on the lookout for Russian intruders. A few months earlier, in the summer of 2016 at the State Board of Elections in Springfield, Illinois' voter registration database was broken into from afar. According to a Justice Department report -prepared by special counsel Robert Mueller - in "June 2016, the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections...exploiting a vulnerability in the SBOE’s website." The Russian GRU "then gained access to a database containing information on millions of registered Illinois voters." Illinois election officials say Russian hackers viewed voters’ personal information - but that no data left the building. Read Article

Michigan voter roll case could reach the Supreme Court first | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Michigan was one of several states that refused to share its voter rolls with the federal government. Now, it may be the most likely to have to defend that decision in higher courts — potentially even the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justice Department has several appeals underway involving states that declined to share their voter rolls and initially prevailed in federal courts. Legal experts say the department may be seeking a ruling from the nation’s highest court before the November midterm elections — and Michigan’s case, because it is moving through a faster appellate circuit, could reach it first. “In Michigan, [the DOJ] filed an appeal within two days of the order appearing on the docket,” compared to much slower responses to other states, said Derek Clinger, senior counsel with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “There’s certainly evidence that they’re pushing the Michigan case the most.” Read Article

North Carolina’s plan to scrub voter rolls has been a disaster in other states | Paige Masten/Charlotte Observer

North Carolina is prepared to partner with the Trump administration to scrub alleged noncitizens from its voter rolls — an unnecessary effort that will almost certainly create more problems than it solves. The North Carolina State Board of Elections has proposed a set of rules outlining the use of government records and databases, most notably the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, to flag and remove “presumptive noncitizens” from the state’s voter rolls. The board is currently negotiating a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to feed potentially millions of voters at a time into SAVE in search of noncitizens, The News & Observer previously reported. Other states, such as Texas, have already begun working with DHS to mass-verify the citizenship status of their voters through SAVE. Election officials cite this as a reason why North Carolina should join in. The problem is, many of those states have encountered serious issues with the database. Read Article

Texas: Dallas County GOP will OK countywide voting sites for May 26 runoff | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Dallas County Republicans will agree to allow voters to cast ballots at countywide voting sites for the May 26 runoff election after a switch to precinct-based voting sites caused chaos, the county party chair said Tuesday. Dallas County Republican Chair Allen West supported the use of precinct-based sites earlier this month, but said using precincts again for the runoff would expose the county party to “increased risk and voter confusion” because the county is planning to use countywide sites for upcoming municipal elections and early voting. “To then shift for the one day runoff election to precincts would bring about large scale disruption,” West said in a statement. That’s what critics say resulted from the Dallas GOP’s decision to use precinct sites on Election Day for the primary on March 3. Dallas GOP will OK countywide voting sites for May 26 runoff

Utah urges court to toss Trump DOJ’s demand for private voter data, arguing it lacks any legal basis | Emily Anderson Stern/The Salt Lake Tribune

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson is asking a federal court to dismiss an effort by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to obtain Utah’s entire, unredacted voter database — and it has the backing of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. In a response filed Friday, Utah argued the DOJ has no legal basis or valid reason for demanding the sensitive data, and that the state would be breaking its own privacy laws in handing it over. Most states have refused the White House’s sweeping nationwide effort to obtain private voter information. Utah is one of 29 states that the DOJ has subsequently sued. So far, none of the federal government’s cases has been successful, and judges have dismissed four of them. Read Article