Iowa: Gov. Kim Reynolds signs law limiting Iowa secretary of state’s powers in elections | Ian Richardson/Des Moines Register

Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed into law new restrictions that will prevent Secretary of State Paul Pate from mailing ballot request forms to Iowans in November’s election without first seeking approval from legislators. The law will also prohibit county election officials from decreasing the number of polling places by more than 35% during an election. The legislation was passed by state lawmakers after Pate and county election officials took similar steps before the primary because of the coronavirus pandemic. Leading up to the primary, Pate extended the mail-in voting period from 29 to 40 days and mailed ballot request forms to every registered voter in Iowa. The primary had record turnout, with nearly 80% of those casting ballots voting absentee. But Republicans in both chambers of the Legislature looked to limit Pate’s power, with some saying he had pushed the limits of his authority and that another secretary of state could use the same powers in an effort to reduce voter turnout.

Maryland: Local election directors call for hybrid election, saying traditional format would set them up to fail | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Maryland’s local election board directors are calling on state officials to hold a hybrid vote-by-mail election in the fall with more in-person voting centers, saying it is too late to plan for a traditional election. In a letter to the governor, legislative leaders and top state election officials, the Maryland Association of Election Officials said Friday that its members are best prepared to hold a hybrid election amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The local election officials said they feared they would be “set up to fail” in a regular election with voting at precincts because of a shortage of personal protective gear, election judges and viable locations for polling places. Many neighborhood voting sites, such as schools and senior centers, remain closed or off limits during the pandemic. “While we acknowledge there were some problems with implementation of the primarily vote-by-mail June 2, 2020, primary election, valuable lessons have been learned and there is adequate time to remedy those issues before the general election,” the association wrote.

Montana: Lawmakers get update on Native American voting in all-mail primary | Jonathon Ambarian/KTVH

On Friday, a state legislative committee got an update on how Montana’s all-mail primary election went in Indian Country. The State-Tribal Relations Interim Committee wrapped up three days of online meetings Friday. Because of concerns about COVID-19, Gov. Steve Bullock gave Montana counties the option to switch to all-mail ballots for the June 2 election – and all 56 counties took that option. On Friday, the committee heard from four election administrators from counties with large Indian populations – Dulcie Bear Don’t Walk of Big Horn County, Tammy Williams of Blaine County, Katie Harding of Lake County and Joan Duffield of Rosebud County. All four counties had voter turnouts at or below the Montana average in the primary, with Big Horn County having the lowest turnout in the state at 35.4%. However, administrators said there were some positive signs for tribal turnout. Bear Don’t Walk said 25% to 35% turnout is typical for a primary in Big Horn County, and that about 44% of those who were mailed a ballot this year returned them. Williams said Blaine County estimated about 30% turnout in reservation areas, but that overall turnout was again on the high end of what was expected. According to Duffield, turnout in Rosebud County’s Lame Deer precinct was 20% this year, compared to 11% and 10% in the 2016 and 2018 primaries.

New Hampshire: Lawmakers, Secretary of State seek to iron out COVID-19 absentee ballot process | Ethan DeWitt/Concord Monitor

Weeks after a lengthy commission and exhaustive debate, lawmakers and the Secretary of State’s office say they’ve come up with a process for voting in New Hampshire during the coronavirus. But it’s not going to be effortless. Voters will be allowed and encouraged to vote by absentee ballot to avoid going to the polls – an option usually reserved for specific circumstances. Getting the state’s potential voters familiar and comfortable with the new process, however, will take new levels of outreach. Under the new process, voters looking to avoid polling locations will need to know how to register to vote by mail, apply for an absentee ballot by mail, and turn that ballot in properly. For many, it’ll be their first experience with the process. Town officials and the Secretary of State’s office are prepping for a surge. On Thursday, a key state Senate committee hammered out legislation that could make it easier. An amendment to House Bill 1266 recommended by the Senate Election Law Committee Thursday would allow voters to register to vote and apply for an absentee ballot for both the Sept. 8 state primary and the Nov. 3 presidential election. The bill will receive a full hearing and vote in the Senate on Monday.

New Mexico: New election law opens door to curbside, mail-in voting | Dan McKay/Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico voters this fall might cast their ballots at drive-thru sites, fill them out during expanded early-voting hours or even receive them by mail. The extra flexibility is part of complex election legislation signed into law Friday by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Under the legislation, any new procedures will have to be designed to protect public health amid the coronavirus pandemic. Procedures must be consistent with federal guidelines or be “otherwise evidence-based.” The rules could vary by county, depending on the severity of the outbreak in different parts of New Mexico. The legislation, Senate Bill 4, won Senate approval 40-2 last week and passed the House 44-26. Lujan Grisham’s office said the new law will protect voting rights and create flexibility that might be needed in a public health emergency. “There is no solution excluded nor is there a secret plan to go to a particular solution,” said Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, an Albuquerque Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill. The goal, he said, is to create options for health and election officials because of uncertainty over whether the virus will surge or abate as the Nov. 3 general election approaches. The new law doesn’t mention potential emergency options or rule any out.

New York: New Accessible Absentee Ballots Aren’t Accessible Enough, Voters Say | Ethan Stark-Miller/City Limits

New Yorkers with disabilities had mixed reactions to the accessible absentee ballot option that the state Board of Elections (BOE) implemented for the June 23 primary. Voters with disabilities named a number of problems with their accessible absentee ballots, from them not being compatible with screen reader technology to having issues with printing the ballot and bringing it to the mailbox independently. These problems, voters with disabilities said, got in the way of them being able to vote independently and privately. “It was disappointing, in that I was not able to independently mark my ballot without (a sighted person’s) assistance,” said Meghan Parker, a legislative co-chair of the American Council of the Blind New York (ACBNY). Parker, who is blind, said she wasn’t able to mark the ballot by herself because it was incompatible with her screen-reader technology. On the other hand, Ian Foley – the other legislative co-chair for ACBNY – said he spoke with members of his organization who had positive experiences with the ballot.

Pennsylvania: 2020 election in Pennsylvania could be a nightmare if state doesn’t act now | Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s Nov. 3, 2020. It’s been a long Election Day in Pennsylvania, with new voting machines causing confusion at some polling places, and the closure of others for public health reasons leading to long lines at locations still open. Meanwhile, a huge surge of mail ballots driven partly by coronavirus fears of voting in person means it’s going to take days to count them all and determine who won. But President Donald Trump is already declaring victory. Early, unofficial results make it look like he has won the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania in a landslide. But the election night results are incomplete, with most mail ballots not yet counted. And most Democrats voted by mail, while most Republicans voted in person. Trump isn’t winning. His voters are just being counted first. In the days after the election, as the populous and Democratic Philadelphia region counts its votes, the numbers shift in Joe Biden’s favor, and Trump begins to make false claims of voter fraud and election rigging — echoing conspiracy theories he has promoted for months. One week after the election, votes are still being counted, lawsuits are being prepared, misinformation and partisan attacks are flying. And public trust in the legitimacy of the election is fading, fast. None of this has happened yet. But the experience of this month’s Pennsylvania primary election, coupled with Trump’s increasingly frequent false claims about mail voting, show that it’s not only possible: Without policy changes before November, it is likely, elections officials and voting rights advocates say.

Pennsylvania: Bill to provide mail-in ballots to all Pennsylvania voters introduced to House committee | Mike Pesarchick/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A bill introduced in the state House would provide a mail-in ballot to all registered Pennsylvania voters, offering a possible alternative to long lines at the polls like those seen during the primary election earlier this month. The bill would direct county boards of elections to provide an official mail-in ballot to each qualified voter before any primary or general election. The bill would also repeal an earlier law that requires voters to submit an application for a mail-in ballot to their county’s board of elections. Mail-in ballots were introduced to the state election code last October. Rep. Ed Gainey, D-Lincoln-Lemington, the bill’s primary sponsor, said the bill would soothe concerns about voting in case of a second coronavirus pandemic. “It would reduce the number of people at the polls,” he said. Voters in Mr. Gainey’s district reported waiting for nearly an hour to vote in the June 2 primary, and lines at a Penn Hills polling place grew so long that a judge ordered the polls to remain open an extra hour.

Texas: Supreme Court Turns Down Request to Allow All Texans to Vote by Mail | Adam Liptak/The New York Times

The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would not require Texas to let all eligible voters vote by mail. The Texas Democratic Party and several voters had urged the court to reinstate a federal trial judge’s injunction requiring state officials to allow all voters, and not just those who are 65 or older, to submit their ballots by mail. They relied on the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 and said the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age.” The court’s brief order gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications, and there were no noted dissents. Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a statement saying that the question in the case raised “weighty but seemingly novel questions regarding the 26th Amendment.” But she said the court was right not to address those questions in the context of an emergency application. “I hope,” she wrote, “that the court of appeals will consider the merits of the legal issues in this case well in advance of the November election.” Voting by mail has been the focus of debate and litigation in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Five states will conduct the general election in November entirely by mail, and many others will allow all eligible voters to vote by mail.

Wisconsin: ‘A consequence that is going to have national implications’: Milwaukee elections in turmoil after mayor’s pick to lead agency withdraws | Mary Spicuzza/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mayor Tom Barrett’s pick to head the City of Milwaukee’s Election Commission is withdrawing from the appointment after it was delayed by the Common Council. That means with about four months to go until the November election — a race in which Milwaukee is expected to play a key role determining whether President Donald Trump wins reelection — the state’s largest city faces being left with no one running its elections agency. “I respect and fully support the Council’s desire for departments to come forward with clearly outlined plans on how we will work to improve equity for communities of color and to make programming decisions through an equity lens,” Claire Woodall-Vogg wrote in an email to aldermen Thursday night. “However, holding my appointment has jeopardized my ability to lead and evolve the Election Commission. Elections are administered by the hour and day, not by weeks.” Earlier this month, the Common Council voted unanimously to send a series of Barrett’s cabinet-level appointments back to committee for further consideration. Ald. Milele Coggs, who made the motion to further consider the appointments, said her intention was not to hold up the process for an extended length of time but rather for the council to reshape the city’s efforts to serve Milwaukee residents. The move came after unrest following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer. Coggs said the council needed to ensure that cabinet-level appointees have clear plans to address concerns the community has raised, especially about the quality of life for Black people in the city.

Russia: ‘It looks like a gameshow’: Russia’s pseudo-vote on Putin’s term limits | Andrew Roth/The Guardian

The people of Moscow received text messages this week telling them they had been registered to win “millions of prizes”. The catch? They have to vote on constitutional amendments that include allowing Vladimir Putin to remain in the Kremlin potentially until 2036. Organisers of Russia’s pseudo-referendum to amend the constitution – originally scheduled for 22 April but delayed owing to the coronavirus outbreak – appear to be making up the rules as they go along. In a single vote, Russians must choose whether to support a package of amendments that include pension and minimum wage boosts, a modest reorganisation of government, a constitutional mention of “faith in god”, a ban on gay marriage, exhortations to preserve Russian history, and a ban on top officials holding dual citizenship. Ads for the vote barely mention that it will also reset term limits for Putin, who has ruled since 2000. It is not an official referendum and the rules are custom-designed. Unlike in normal elections, voting is allowed online and takes place over a week, between 25 June and 1 July. As Russia continues to grapple with the coronavirus, some voting officials have decided it is safer to collect ballots outdoors, planting ballot boxes on tree stumps, in the boots of cars, in public buses and on plastic patio furniture.

National: U.S. Warns Russia, China and Iran Are Trying to Interfere in the Election. Democrats Say It’s Far Worse. | David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes/The New York Times

American intelligence officials issued a public warning on Friday that China was “expanding its influence efforts” in the United States ahead of the presidential election, along with Russia and Iran, but Democrats briefed on the matter said the threat was far more urgent than what the administration described. The warning came from William R. Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, in a statement 100 days before Americans go to the polls. “We’re primarily concerned with China, Russia and Iran — although other nation-states and nonstate actors could also do harm to our electoral process,” the statement said. The warning about China came at a moment of extraordinary tension between Beijing and Washington, only days after the United States indicted two Chinese hackers on charges of stealing intellectual property, including for the country’s main intelligence service, and evicted Chinese diplomats from their consulate in Houston. The intelligence warning on Friday did not accuse the Chinese of trying to hack the vote; instead it said they were using their influence “to shape the policy environment in the United States” and to pressure politicians “it views as opposed to China’s interests.” Russia, the warning said, was continuing to “spread disinformation in the U.S. that is designed to undermine confidence in our democratic process,” and it described Iran as an emerging actor in election interference, seeking to spread disinformation and “recirculating anti-U.S. content.” The statement was short on details, reminiscent of the vague warnings that the director of national intelligence turned out starting in October 2016 that, in retrospect, failed to seize the attention of officials and voters before the last presidential election.

National: Securing voter registration databases takes on added importance in pandemic, DHS official says | Sean Lyngaas/CyberScoop

The expansion of voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic makes it all the more important that election officials secure voter registration databases from hacking, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official. The greater amount of absentee voting and mail-in ballots “shifts the risk towards voter registration data security,” Matt Masterson, senior adviser at DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said Wednesday during a virtual conference. People voting by mail generally won’t have access to the same provisional-balloting process that those voting in person can use if they’ve been left off of voter rolls due to an administrative error. That makes the integrity of voter registration data all the more important in the era of COVID-19, Masterson said. The novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 120,000 people in the U.S., has forced many states to postpone presidential primaries and ramp up voting-by-mail options. Forty-six states currently offer all of their voters some form of by-mail voting, according to the nonprofit Open Source Election Technology Institute (OSET).

National: Trump’s False Attacks on Voting by Mail Stir Broad Concern | Maggie Haberman, Nick Corasaniti and Linda Qiu/The New York Times

President Trump is stepping up his attacks on the integrity of the election system, sowing doubts about the November vote at a time when the pandemic has upended normal balloting and as polls show former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ahead by large margins. Having yet to find an effective formula for undercutting Mr. Biden or to lure him into the kinds of culture war fights that the president prefers, Mr. Trump is training more of his fire on the political process in a way that appears intended to give him the option of raising doubts about the legitimacy of the outcome. Promoting baseless questions about election fraud is nothing new for Mr. Trump. He has hopscotched from saying that President Barack Obama was elected with the help of dead voters to suggesting that undocumented immigrants were voting en masse to claiming that out-of-state voters were bused into New Hampshire in 2016. But in recent days, Mr. Trump has focused intensive new attacks on voting by mail, as states grapple with the challenge of conducting elections in the middle of surging coronavirus cases in many parts of the country.

National: Security Flaws in US Online Voting System Raises Alarm Over Potential Vote Manipulation | Byron Muhlberg/CPO Magazine

As the 2020 US presidential election draws nearer, concern is beginning to mount over the potential threat of vote manipulation. Alarm over vote manipulation was once again raised after OmniBallot, an online voting system, was found to be riddled with a host of security risks according to the findings of a recent research paper by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Michigan computer scientists. The research paper, which hit the press on June 7, revealed that OmniBallot’s designer Democracy Live leaves the ballots that it processes susceptible to vote manipulation. What’s more, the researchers found that Democracy Live actively collects sensitive voter information and does not ensure adequate protection of the information while online. As a result, according to the paper, the online voting system runs the risk of providing easy pickings for sophisticated cybercriminals—especially those using ransomware—one that is only exacerbated by the fact that no technology currently exists to mitigate the risks in question.

National: Klobuchar: Trump’s opposition to expanded mail-in voting is a ‘blatant effort to suppress the vote’ | Rebecca Klar/The Hill

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) called President Trump’s opposition to expanding access to vote-by-mail amid the coronavirus pandemic a “blatant effort to suppress the vote.” Klobuchar accused Trump of trying to scare voters with unsubstantiated claims that more mail-in voting would lead to widespread fraud in an effort to aid his bid for reelection in November. “He said it himself. I would love to break news on your show that I had some special thing, but he has said that the vote by mail is going to hurt him in his election,” Klobuchar said Wednesday in an interview with The Hill’s Steve Clemons. “So what does he do, which is his typical playbook? He then claims that it’s fraudulent to scare people in a blatant effort to suppress the vote,” she added. Trump has railed against mail-in voting, as Democrats have pushed to expand the option amid the coronavirus pandemic. Klobuchar pushed back on the president’s claims. “He says it is fraudulent, yet if you look at a state like Oregon, which is nearly 100 percent vote by mail … the fraud rate is like 0.0000001 percent or something like that. It’s crazy,” she said.

National: Trump and Barr say mail-in voting will lead to fraud. Experts say that’s not true | Caitlin Huey-Burns and Adam Brewster/CBS

As election officials from both parties are scaling up their vote by mail operations ahead of November’s election, the president and the attorney general are making unverified claims that foreign actors could tamper with those ballots. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Attorney General Bill Barr said mail-in voting “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud” and claimed that “a foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots, and (it would) be very hard for us to detect which was the right and which was the wrong ballot.” It was the second time this month Barr had speculated about election fraud in November. In an interview with the New York Times, the attorney general said a number of foreign countries “could easily make counterfeit ballots, put names on them, send them in.” In a string of tweets on Monday, President Trump followed suit, claiming the 2020 election would be “rigged” because “millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries.” The comments have baffled election officials and experts who say a complicated and detailed set of safeguards in place are expressly designed to detect and prevent such interference. “You would have to reproduce the entire election administration apparatus somewhere in the middle of Siberia,” says Charles Stewart, the founding director of the Election Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

National: A Winner on Election Day in November? Don’t Count on It | Shane Goldmacher/The New York Times

The cliffhanger elections on Tuesday night in Kentucky and New York didn’t just leave the candidates and voters in a state of suspended animation wondering who had won. Election officials, lawyers and political strategists in both parties said the lack of results was a bracing preview of what could come after the polls close in November: No clear and immediate winner in the presidential race. With the coronavirus pandemic swelling the number of mailed-in ballots to historic highs across the nation, the process of vote-counting has become more unwieldy, and election administrators are straining to keep up and deliver timely results. The jumble of election rules and deadlines by state, including in presidential battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all but ensure that the victor in a close race won’t be known on Nov. 3. And top election officials are warning that if the race between Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. is anything but a blowout, the public and the politicians need to recalibrate expectations for when the 2020 campaign will come to a decisive conclusion.

National: ‘Too early to call’: why it’s unlikely we’ll have a winner on US election night | Sam Levine/The Guardian

As Kentucky voters wait to see which Democrat will challenge Mitch McConnell this fall, Americans are quickly realizing there’s a new normal for elections during the pandemic: we’re not going to know the winner on election night. Over the last few months, states across the US have seen record numbers of their voters cast their votes by mail as states expand and encourage its use during Covid-19. It’s a change that means election officials are going to need more time to count votes as ballots flood election offices on election day and afterwards – some states count ballots postmarked by election day if they arrive in the days after the election. There are worries about how the US will react to delayed results during November’s hotly contested presidential election. Americans are used to the spectacle of election night – anchors on major networks breathlessly analyze and call races and the evening culminates in a late night speech from victorious candidates. That’s very unlikely to happen this year – Americans are going to be waiting a while to find out whether or not Donald Trump will be president for another four years.

Voting Blogs: Safely opening PDFs received by e-mail (or fax?!) | Andrew Appel/Freedom to Tinker

Many election administrators in U.S. states and counties need to receive and open PDF files from voters. Some of these administrators receive these PDFs as e-mail attachments. These may be filled-out voter registration forms, or even voted ballots from UOCAVA (overseas and military) voters. We all know that malware can lurk in e-mail attachments; how can those election officials protect themselves from being hacked? Internet return of voted ballots is inherently insecure; that’s a separate issue and I’ll discuss it below. For now, how can one safely open a PDF attachment? I discussed this question with Dan Guido, cybersecurity consultant and CEO of trailofbits.com. The safe way to view a PDF is inside the Chrome or Firefox browser. Printing a PDF directly from Chrome (or Firefox) to your printer is reasonably safe. The unsafe way to view a PDF is with your favorite PDF-viewer app such as Adobe Reader. The reason is simple: Google (for Chrome) and Mozilla (for Firefox) have put enormous effort into making their PDF viewers safe, putting them inside a “sandbox” that the hackers can’t get out of — and they’ve largely succeeded.

Georgia: Questioning State Elections Officials, Lawmakers Express Concerns Over November Vote | Emil Moffatt/WABE

Five million Georgians are expected to vote in November, an election that will come less than five months after the state experienced a bumpy primary. Amid a global health pandemic, the state rolled out its new voting system statewide for the first time on June 9. The result: many voters had to wait in lines for hours as poll workers – some of them brand new – sorted out technical problems. “We think the most important thing, obviously is training, training and re-training,” said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as he spoke in front of the House Governmental Affairs Committee. “And having more techs [technical support personnel] in there so that any issues that do pop up can be really handled expeditiously so that we have an improved result in November.” Raffensperger pledged to have technical support at every precinct in November, something that wasn’t there in June. Tuesday’s meeting started an hour late because House members were still across the street voting on a hate crimes bill which had been passed by the Senate just a short time before. And when the meeting started, Raffensperger made only a brief statement and took a handful of questions, citing other obligations. That didn’t sit well with House Minority Leader Bob Trammell, who said he wanted to hear more from the state’s top election’s official. “I would point out that voters often waited in line for hours, and the secretary was here for 20 minutes,” said Trammell.

Georgia: Republican Lawmakers Advance Bid to Ban Automatic Absentee Ballot Mailings | Kayla Goggin/Courthouse News

Georgia lawmakers advanced legislation Wednesday which would ban election officials from mailing absentee ballot request forms unless a voter requests one. The measure is part of Senate Bill 463, which also loosens restrictions on ballot signature-matching requirements and provides for the division of large precincts under certain conditions. The bill could receive a vote in the Georgia House before the Legislature ends its current session Friday. If the measure passes and is signed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp, it could take effect before the November general election. If passed, the bill would prevent Georgia election officials from repeating a large-scale absentee voting effort undertaken by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger prior to the primary election. Raffensperger mailed ballot request forms to 6.9 million registered voters ahead of the primary to encourage voting by mail in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The effort led to increased voter turnout, particularly among Democrats.

Indiana: Judge orders Secretary of State to produce documents on voting-machine security | John Russell/Indianapolis Business Journal

A Marion County Superior Court judge has ordered Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson to produce documents to back up her claim that the public should not see emails and other communications about the reliability and security of voting machines because they could jeopardize cyberterrorism security. Judge Heather Welch ruled Tuesday that Lawson did not provide adequate justification for withholding the materials and ordered her to produce some of the documents for inspection in chambers. In a 27-page ruling, the judge ordered Lawson to submit the materials that she had withheld based on the counterterrorism exception so that she may examine them in private. A spokesman for Lawson declined comment on Wednesday. The matter arose after a national group of cybersecurity experts sued Lawson last year, saying she has refused to turn over emails and other communications about the reliability and security of voting machines, despite numerous requests.

Kentucky: ‘A substantial challenge’: What Kentucky, New York tell us about voting in a pandemic come November | Joey Garrison/USA Today

NBA star Lebron James slammed Kentucky’s plan to cut voting sites from 3,700 to 200 “systemic racism and oppression.” Stacey Abrams called it “voter suppression.” So did Hillary Clinton, declaring it’s time to restore the Voting Rights Act. But the dire forecasts ahead of Kentucky’s state primary Tuesday – warnings of severely long lines and disaster certain to come – didn’t materialize. In fact, some critics quickly changed their tune after recognizing that Kentucky sacrificed in-person voting sites for a robust vote-by-mail program that allowed anyone to vote absentee from home amid the coronavirus pandemic. In a sharp reversal from her message the day before, Clinton tweeted “kudos” Tuesday night to Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear for making it “easy for every (Kentuckian) to vote” through no-excuse mail-in voting and early voting. An estimated 1.1 million Kentuckians voted in the primary – a record for a Kentucky primary – including 75% through mail-in ballots in a state where typically only 2% vote absentee. Kentucky is now getting widely lauded for its election performance. Still, vote-by-mail advocates aren’t ready to crown the Bluegrass State the perfect model for voting in a pandemic during the November general election.

Kentucky: Lexington candidate had to convince election officials dogs ate her primary ballot |Associated Press

A Kentucky woman was allowed to vote after convincing the board of elections that her dogs ate her and her husband’s absentee ballots. Christine Stanley, a 34-year-old Lexington health care attorney, voted in the Democratic primary at Kroger Field but only after getting out of line and going before the board of elections. After showing the board evidence, including “lots of bite marks, drool and dirt,” she and her husband were allowed to vote, and Stanley said she voted for herself for the Urban County Council seat she is seeking, for Charles Booker in the Democratic primary to challenge Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and for Democrat Josh Hicks to run against Republican Rep. Andy Barr. Stanley, who is Black, said race didn’t really play a part in her choice of Booker.

Minnesota: Secretary of State Simon waives witness rule for primary absentee ballots | Tim Pugmire/MPR

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon is waiving the state’s absentee voting witness requirement for the August 11 primary election. Simon, a Democrat, made the call after a district court judge signed off last week on a proposed settlement for a lawsuit challenging the rule. However, a federal judge hearing a similar but separate lawsuit this week did not accept the agreement. Early voting for the primary begins Friday. Simon said he will follow the state court. “The ruling yesterday does not affect last week’s primary state court ruling that this arrangement and this settlement agreement is fair, it’s adequate, it’s reasonable, it’s in the public interest,” Simon said. “We’re bound by that ruling. We can’t choose not to abide by the ruling.”

New York: COVID-19 forced New York to vote by mail. Participation went through the roof | Jon Campbell/Gannett

First COVID-19 forced New York to shut down businesses and tell residents to stay home. Then it forced an experiment in democracy. With infection rates climbing, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state health officials decided in March to rely heavily on voting by mail for June’s school budget votes and primary elections, encouraging New York voters to cast their ballot from their home rather than congregating in close proximity at a polling place. The results so far? Voter participation appears to be soaring, a not-so-insignificant feat for a state that has long struggled to get people to the polls. “It did not surprise us because you’re making voting more accessible,” said Dave Albert, spokesman for the state School Boards Association. “Theoretically, you wouldn’t need to leave your house to vote.”

Pennsylvania: A Philadelphia poll watcher got coronavirus, but the city isn’t notifying voters | Emily Previti/PAPost and Katie Meyer/WHYY

A Philadelphia woman who spent the entire June 2 primary as a poll watcher tested positive for COVID-19 10 days later. It’s unclear whether she contracted the virus at the polls. But thanks to a contact tracing program the city says isn’t fully staffed, the vast majority of voters and election workers who were at that polling place haven’t been notified that they may have been exposed. The situation also calls into question whether election and health officials across Pennsylvania are prepared to respond to potential coronavirus exposure at the polls. Andrea Johnson, a Democratic committeewoman, says she’s been vigilant during the pandemic, working from home as a paralegal and wearing a mask on the occasions she’s gone outside. But on June 2, she spent the day at the polls at Andrew Hamilton School in West Philadelphia. Johnson says she disclosed that information to contact tracers working for the city health department. She says she also provided a list of eight people — all voters and poll workers whose names she knew — who she’d come in close contact with in the days leading up to her positive diagnosis. She confirmed that city health officials contacted those eight people, but said she thinks contact tracing efforts ended there.

South Carolina: Democrats prep more lawsuits as Legislature punts on absentee voting expansion amid pandemic | Palmetto Politics | Jamie Lovegrove/Post and Courier

South Carolina Democrats are planning to file more lawsuits challenging the state’s absentee voting limitations during the coronavirus pandemic after lawmakers declined to expand ballot options for the general election during their brief legislative session this week. Republican leaders said they would consider taking action when they return in September if the pandemic is still at large, as health officials expect. They said they wanted to limit their brief time in the Statehouse this week to distributing federal funds for coronavirus relief. Democratic lawmakers questioned the decision to wait. “Why put off until tomorrow what we could do today?” asked state Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg. House members voted down two proposed amendments Wednesday to the coronavirus relief package that would have expanded absentee voting for November, largely along party lines.

Tennessee: State Supreme Court keeps mail voting expansion amid appeal | Jonathan Mattise/Associated Press

The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that it will not block a judge’s order offering a by-mail voting option to all eligible voters during the coronavirus pandemic while the state continues to appeal. The Tennessee high court did agree with the state’s wish to fast-track the appeal without a lower appellate court considering it. But a majority of justices voted against stopping the absentee voting expansion pending appeal, dealing a blow to the state’s efforts to unravel the expansion as the Aug. 6 primary approaches. Voters are able to apply for absentee ballots through July 30. The primary election will be headlined by a contested Republican race for an open U.S. Senate seat. State election officials have opposed the expansion, instead recommending preparations as though all 1.4 million registered voters 60 and older will cast mail-in ballots in the primary. Historically, Tennessee has historically seen less than 2.5% of votes cast by mail, the state has said.