‘Hands Off!’ protesters rally against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk | Alaa Elassar, Shania Shelton and Mina Allen/CNN

Over 1,400 “Hands Off!” mass-action protests were held at state capitols, federal buildings, congressional offices, Social Security’s headquarters, parks and city halls throughout the entire country – anywhere “we can make sure they hear us,” organizers said. “Hands Off!” demands “an end to this billionaire power grab.” “Whether you are mobilized by the attacks on our democracy, the slashing of jobs, the invasion of privacy, or the assault on our services – this moment is for you,” the event flyers state. “We are setting out to build a massive, visible, national rejection of this crisis.” Read Article

National: Election officials alarmed as Trump orders probe of former cybersecurity chief​ | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

President Trump issued a presidential memorandum Wednesday demanding an investigation by the Justice and Homeland Security departments into his former top cybersecurity official, escalating a campaign of retribution aimed at those who contradicted his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. The memo directly names Christopher Krebs, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director; a second memo named Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security official during Trump’s first term. Trump’s move shocked many who work in elections. While some current and former officials brushed off the order as political theater, others are taking it far more seriously — for example, hiring an attorney, scrubbing social media, and warning their spouse. The range of reactions reflects both the extraordinary nature of Trump’s use of executive authority to target individuals and a deep uncertainty about how far it might go. Read Article

Arizona voter citizenship rulings lead to disparate treatment for voters across state | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Arizona voters who haven’t proven their citizenship are being treated differently across the state as they try to update their voter registration, in some cases seeing their registration suspended entirely until they provide proof, Votebeat has found. The disparate treatment across county lines comes as election officials decide how to comply with recent court rulings on state laws governing proof of citizenship, according to the responses nine out of 15 county recorder offices provided to Votebeat. The confusion over how to treat these voter updates is the latest complication arising from Arizona’s unique laws, which require voters to document their citizenship in order to vote in state and local elections. Read Article

Colorado lawmakers back new election process for appointed legislators | Seth Klamann/The Denver Post

Colorado lawmakers on Monday backed a pair of bills to reform the much-maligned process that helped seat nearly a quarter of the legislature, while rejecting a competing proposal that would’ve required changing the state constitution. The two favored bills, which cleared an initial House committee, are essentially a package aimed at changing the vacancy-filling process: House Bill 1315 would allow lawmakers appointed via a vacancy committee to serve no more than a full session in the Capitol before standing for an election, while House Bill 1319 would enact similar election parameters for vacancy-appointed commissioners in large counties. Both bills are bipartisan, and they passed the House’s State, Civic, Military and Veteran Affairs Committee in succession. The often-criticized vacancy committee process is used when an elected official leaves office early. That official’s party then convenes a committee of party officials and volunteers to elect a new representative. Read Article

Georgia elections bill dies, leaving absentee ballot drop off before Election Day intact | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia House let an elections overhaul bill die Friday night, failing to take a vote on proposals that would have withdrawn the state from a voter registration accuracy organization and banned absentee ballot drop-off the weekend before Election Day. The bill’s defeat marks the first year since Donald Trump’s narrow loss in 2020 that Georgia Republicans haven’t changed state election laws. House leaders never called the bill up for a vote before the General Assembly ended this year’s legislative session. Instead, the House created a study committee to review Georgia’s touchscreen voting equipment, a possible switch to hand-marked paper ballots and voter registration accuracy. Read Article

Michigan: With Trump’s executive order, thousands of military voters could see their rights curtailed | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Thousands of Michigan voters — including scores of military members and their families — could see their voting rights curtailed if President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on voting is allowed to take effect. The order, issued late last month, introduces major changes to how elections would be run. Among its most concerning provisions for those who serve in the military or live outside the U.S.: a requirement that all voters submit proof of citizenship and that all ballots, including those coming from abroad, must arrive by the close of polls on Election Day to be counted. Voters who live overseas or serve in the military are largely protected by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, known as UOCAVA. It guarantees that those living away from their home states or around the world can still cast their ballots. Reaqd Article

New Jersey: Territorialism, poorly trained poll workers contributed to Burlington County’s 2024 election ‘failures,’ report says | Alfred Lubrano/The Philadelphia Inquirer

In a pointed report released Thursday, a North Jersey law firm found numerous problems with how Burlington County conducted the 2024 election last November, which was characterized by “unacceptable” long lines and voting delays. The report, written by Connell Foley LLP, a law firm in Roseland, Essex County, outlines findings of “a culture of territorialism,” “partisan tension,” and “personality conflicts” among countywide election offices. The report also cited poll workers who refused to accept delivery of a new voting machine that would have alleviated delays; poorly trained poll workers who did not understand the voting process; and election officials who would “not work together at all,” among other problems. Read Article

Nevada: Federal appeals court dismisses lawsuit challenging election worker protection law | Gabby Birenbaum and Eric Neugeboren/The Nevada Independent

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a challenge to a Nevada law to protect election workers, likely ending the effort to decriminalize their harassment. In a unanimous opinion released Monday, the three-member panel of judges unanimously dismissed the suit brought by four former poll and ballot counting observers, who were represented in the case by Sigal Chattah, the new interim U.S. attorney for the District of Nevada, the state’s highest federal law enforcement officer. The ruling comes one year after federal Judge Cristina Silva blocked the lawsuit over a lack of standing. Chattah appealed the decision one month later. Read Article

North Carolina Supreme Court Halts Voter Eligibility Review in Contested Judicial Race | Nick Corasaniti and Eduardo Medina/The New York Times

The North Carolina Supreme Court temporarily blocked a lower court’s order from taking effect on Monday that would have required tens of thousands of people who voted in 2024 to verify their eligibility. The higher court stayed that order while it considers an appeal in a long-running dispute over the election. The ruling on Monday is the latest twist in a five-month battle over a seat on the very same State Supreme Court. Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent, won the election in November over Judge Jefferson Griffin, the Republican challenger, by 734 votes. Judge Griffin has challenged the result, seeking to dismiss the ballots cast by roughly 65,000 people. He has argued that a majority of them were ineligible to vote because they did not supply certain required identification data when they registered — though the omission was because of administrative errors and no fault of the voters. The race is the last 2024 statewide election in the nation that remains uncertified. Read Article

Oregon bill that would require county election clerks to livestream voting processes sparks concerns | Carlos Fuentes/The Oregonian

A proposed bill that would require every Oregon county election office to livestream its vote tabulation processes could improve trust in the state’s elections, its proponents say. But officials who’d have to implement the bill, which was introduced by a Republican senator, say it would be costly and logistically difficult. Senate Bill 1054 would require each of Oregon’s 36 county clerks to livestream footage of the rooms in which ballots are counted and from ballot drop sites during election seasons. It would also require those officials to store those recordings for two years. Read Article

Texas bill makes verifying hand-counted elections easier | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

A year after Gillespie County Republicans hand counted thousands of primary ballots, a bill from a Republican Texas lawmaker whose district includes parts of the area could make it easier to verify the accuracy of hand-counted election results. State Rep. Ellen Troxclair of Lakeway filed House Bill 3113, which would require counties opting for hand counts to use a ballot that is capable of being scanned and tabulated by voting machines using optical scanning technology. By law, Gillespie County Republicans were allowed to design their own ballots, and they didn’t choose to use ballots that could be scanned. That meant their primary results could only be verified manually. Read Article

Wisconsin legislators seek to give candidates a way off the ballot besides dying | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

After two high-profile cases in which candidates were unable to remove their names from the ballot, Wisconsin lawmakers are weighing a change to one of the nation’s strictest withdrawal laws. Under current Wisconsin law, once candidates qualify for the ballot, they can only be removed if they die. The restriction received renewed attention in August 2024, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an independent, unsuccessfully sought to withdraw from the Wisconsin presidential ballot — a request that ultimately reached the state Supreme Court. Read Article

National: New Trump order targets barcodes on ballots. Why? And what will that mean? | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

President Donald Trump’s new executive order on regulating elections is striking for the way it asserts broad powers for the executive branch that go far beyond what’s prescribed in the Constitution or sanctioned by courts. Experts expect the order to face legal challenges for that reason. But what’s also striking about the order is how it seeks to dictate some arcane details of the way voting systems work in some of America: Specifically, it bans the machine-readable barcodes or QR codes that are sometimes printed on ballots to help speed up vote counting. According to Verified Voting, an organization focused on election technology, there are 1,954 counties spread across 40 states that use voting machines that print QR or barcodes. Some have only a small number for use only by voters with disabilities (and would therefore not have to get rid of them), while other jurisdictions use them for all voters. Read Article

Georgia election security lawsuit dismissed after 7-year battle | Mark Niesse and David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge has dismissed an epic court case challenging Georgia’s touchscreen voting system, ending the seven-year lawsuit that uncovered election security vulnerabilities and a breach in Coffee County. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg closed the case Monday but cited “substantial concerns” about Georgia’s voting technology, which uses touchscreens to print paper ballots. The case was a major legal test of Georgia’s voting technology, manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems and installed months before the 2020 election. The lawsuit alleged that the voting technology is dangerously vulnerable to tampering, hacks or programming errors that could change the outcome of an election. Read Article

Trump’s election order creates much confusion before the next federal election in 2026 | Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to change how U.S. elections are run is creating uncertainty for state and local election officials and worries about voter confusion before the next federal election, the 2026 midterms. Trump’s order also targets voting systems in a way that could require some counties to change machines without offering additional money to help them pay for it. It directs the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, an independent and bipartisan agency created by Congress, to amend voluntary standards for voting systems to prohibit devices that use a barcode or QR code on ballots, with an exception for ones designated for voters with disabilities. While there are voting systems that do not use barcodes, the process for states to replace equipment takes time, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director with Verified Voting. Election offices must get approval to spend for new voting systems, go through a procurement process, wait for manufacturers to deliver the equipment and eventually train workers on how to use it. “It’s hard for any state to procure and obtain and test new voting systems, and if there was some mad rush for many states to replace their voting systems at once, we don’t know how many systems manufacturers could supply,” Lindeman said. Read Article

National: Democratic attorneys general from 19 states sue Trump over his executive order on elections | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Democratic attorneys general in 19 states are together suing Trump over his sweeping executive order on elections, saying that it is an illegal attempt to usurp state control of elections that “would cause imminent and irreparable harm” if the courts don’t intervene. The March 25 order, which Trump wrote would protect the integrity of elections, would require people to prove their citizenship when registering to vote. It would also set a national mail ballot receipt deadline of Election Day, require the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to rewrite voting machine certification standards, withhold federal funds from states that don’t use compliant machines, and require states to share their voter rolls with federal agencies. The order “sows confusion and sets the stage for chaos in Plaintiff States’ election systems, together with the threat of disenfranchisement,” the states wrote in the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on Thursday. The attorneys general emphasized that Congress has never required proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and that states have the authority to dictate the deadline for mail ballots. Read Article

National: Democrats Sue to Block Trump Bid to Control Elections | Jacob Knutson/Democracy Docket

The Democratic Party is suing President Donald Trump over his sweeping executive order last week that attempted to wrest control of elections from the states. Filed Monday by Elias Law Group on behalf of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and four national Democratic committees – the DNC, DGA, DSCC and DCCC – the lawsuit alleges Trump’s order is an illegal attempt to control how elections are administered, a power the Constitution grants to the states and Congress. “In the United States of America, the President does not get to dictate the rules of our elections,” the lawsuit reads. “Although the Order extensively reflects the President’s personal grievances, conspiratorial beliefs, and election denialism, nowhere does it (nor could it) identify any legal authority he possesses to impose such sweeping changes upon how Americans vote.” Read Article

National: Lawmakers to vote on bill targeting noncitizen voting: ‘There would be extensive uncertainty’ | Rachel Leingang/The Guardian

The myth that noncitizens are voting in large numbers in US elections wasn’t quashed with Donald Trump’s victory last year. Instead, a Republican bill that would make voting more difficult for millions of eligible US voters based on this false premise is expected to come up for a vote in the coming weeks. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility act, or Save act, is aimed at eliminating rare instances of noncitizens voting in US elections. It could disenfranchise swaths of eligible voters – including people who changed their names in marriage, young voters, naturalized citizens and tribal residents – by requiring onerous identification to vote. The bill comes after the US president signed an executive order on 25 March calling for requiring documentary proof of citizenship to be added to federal voter registration forms. If states don’t comply, they face federal funding cuts. Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, called the order “the farthest-reaching executive action taken” in the country’s history. Lawsuits are expected – several states have said the order is an unconstitutional federal overreach. Read Article

19 states sue over Trump’s voting executive order | Jude Joffe-Block/NPR

Nineteen states are suing over President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order on voting that he signed last week, saying it is “an unconstitutional attempt to seize control of elections” that will create barriers to voting that could disenfranchise millions. The lawsuit, which is the fourth legal challenge so far against the executive order, calls on a federal district court in Massachusetts to block several provisions of the executive order, which the attorneys general argue “usurps the States’ constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.” “We are a democracy — not a monarchy — and this Executive Order is an authoritarian power grab,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement. “With this Order, this President is prioritizing his own quest for unchecked power above the rights and will of the public.” Read Article

National: Experts urge Congress to reauthorize state and local cyber grant program | Sophia Fox-Sowell/StateScoop

Cyber experts urged lawmakers on the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection to reauthorize funding for the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program during a Tuesday hearing, calling it an “essential part of the country’s national security strategy.” In recent months, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has questioned the efficacy of the grant program, especially as the Trump administration looks for ways to curb government spending. During her tenure as governor of North Dakota, Noem was one of only two governors in the country to refuse funding for state cybersecurity grants in 2022 and 2023, calling it “wasteful spending.” With the grants on the chopping block, four cybersecurity experts, including Alan Fuller, chief information officer of Utah, argued before the subcommittee that the program allows municipalities with limited resources to implement a whole-of-state cybersecurity policy, strengthens relationships between state and local governments through information-sharing, and is a cost-effective prevention measure against the growing landscape of cybersecurity threats. Read Article

National: The Trump admin cut election security funds. Now officials fear future elections may be ‘less secure.’ | Maggie Miller/POLITICO

The Trump administration’s recent efforts to gut funding and personnel that support state and local election security efforts have left officials deeply concerned about their ability to guarantee physical and cyber security during the voting process. This swift overhauling of funds means that states could lose access to information on emerging threats and election officials may be left without funding for key security services, which could leave certain states and localities more vulnerable to interference efforts than others. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s programs for securing elections — everything from scanning election system networks for safety to sharing data with the public on potential threats — have been put on hold pending a review by the Department of Homeland Security, with no guarantee they will start up again. Read Article

Arizona: Longtime voters receive letters asking for proof of their citizenship | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Arizona counties are starting to send letters to some longtime voters telling them that they must provide documentation proving their citizenship before they vote again, prompting annoyance and confusion across the state. Around 200,000 longtime residents, or roughly 5% of the state’s voter roll, will eventually get such letters because they were caught up in a decades-long state error tracking proof of citizenship. Affected voters will need to provide a birth certificate, passport, or other documents proving their citizenship. If they don’t, they’ll eventually be restricted to voting only in federal elections, or be kicked off the voter rolls entirely. Some of these voters have been registered for decades. Read Article

Georgia Senate GOP muscles through election overhaul to allow hand-marked paper ballots | Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder

A pair of election bills the Georgia Senate passed Wednesday propose new State Election Board powers, remove Georgia from multi-state voter rolls sharing databases and allow voters to request hand-marked paper ballots. The Senate voted along party lines Wednesday for the sweeping voting rules changes proposed in House Bill 397 as well as Senate Bill 214, which aims to encourage voters to use pencils or pens to complete ballots instead of electronic voting machines as is the primary option now. Sen. Sally Harrell, an Atlanta Democrat, cautioned against rushing through a significant change in the state’s election system at this late stage in the legislative process, which could result in further financial mismanagement. Friday is the last day of the 2025 Georgia General Assembly. Harrell wondered aloud why Republican senators rejected her amendment proposing hand-marked paper ballots when lawmakers voted in 2019 to switch to an electronic voting system. The state has spent more than $107 million on the Dominion Voting Systems that have been used in statewide elections since 2020. Read Article

 

Indiana: ‘They are a threat:’ House votes to ban student IDs at polls | Kayla Dwyer/Indianapolis Star

Senate Bill 10 would specifically banish state university-issued IDs from being acceptible forms of photo identification used at the voting booth, seemingly to address fears about non-residents voting in Indiana elections, even though this part of the law has nothing to do with address verification. “What’s not being said here is ‘We don’t want people to actually come out and vote,” said Wade Arvizu, a student at IU Indianapolis, “and I think that’s the reality.” Rep. Renee Pack, D-Indianapolis, made the implication more explicit on the House floor Tuesday. “Who are these students voting for?” she said. “I’m just going to be truthful, they are a threat. They are threat to Republicans in this state. They’re powerful. And it seems like we just don’t like powerful groups.” Read Article

Mississippi: Early voting dies in Legislature. Concerns arose over new voting program, likely veto | Grant McLaughlin/Mississippi Clarion Ledger

The Legislature had passed a measure on Tuesday to allow folks to more easily vote prior to an election day, but lawmakers held the motion back on a parliamentary motion to reconsider and then failed to vote on that motion before ending the 2025 Legislative Session on Thursday. On Tuesday, both the House and Senate passed a bill that created a 22-day excused early voting program, which allowed folks to go to their circuit clerk’s office and vote and have the ballot counted into a voting machine if they had one of several excused reasons for not voting on election day. However, both chambers held the bill’s passage back, and while the House on Wednesday before gaveling out the session had tabled that motion, the Senate did not, leaving the bill on the cutting-room floor. Read Article

Ohio Secretary of State orders investigation of Perry County electronic pollbook | Perry County Tribune

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has announced the investigation of a voter check-in tablet purchased by the Perry County Board of Elections. County Elections Board Director Jamie Snider told The Perry County Tribune that her office noticed some “irregular activity that we needed to report, and that was done immediately when we were advised it was happening.” She said the devices “were fresh out of the box, brand new. We just purchased them in December, received them in February, and as we were unboxing them, we noticed some things on them that were out of the norm. So we reported it to the state like we should have.” Read Article

Oregon: Controversial proposal to take away vote by mail results in heated debate | Carlos Fuentes/The Oregonian

A controversial bill that could repeal Oregon’s vote by mail system resulted in a heated public hearing Monday afternoon, as dozens of individuals argued for and against scrapping the state’s first-in-nation voting system. Senate Bill 210, sponsored by Republican Sens. David Brock Smith and Kim Thatcher, would ask voters to decide in November 2026 whether to retain Oregon’s vote by mail system, which has been in place for more than two decades. The proposed measure would also require voters to present a government-issued ID when voting in person and would limit mail-in voting to citizens who are unable to vote in person. Read Article

Pennsylvania can’t reject improperly dated ballots, federal court rules | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Pennsylvania counties can’t reject a voter’s mail ballot solely because they forgot to put the date on the return envelope or put a wrong date on it, a federal judge wrote Monday in a ruling that likely applies to the upcoming primary. The ruling is the latest — and likely not the last — in a long-running legal battle over enforcing the date requirement that has bounced around state and federal courts. U.S. District Judge Susan Baxter of the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled Monday that rejecting mail ballots for issues with the date on the outer envelope violates voters’ First Amendment rights, since voting is considered an expression of free speech. Misdated mail ballots are ones where a voter writes a date on the envelope that is outside of the range between when the county can first send the ballot and the day of the election. Read Article

Texas bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote advances | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

In a quick vote after little debate, the Texas Senate approved a bill that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering and would restrict them to voting in congressional races only if they do not. The bill, a Republican legislative priority, still needs approval in the state House before it can become law. It would cost state officials nearly $2 million over the next five years to implement, according to the bill’s fiscal note, which doesn’t include any costs expected to be borne by local election officials. Read Article

How Wisconsin’s Washington County helped its municipalities expand early-voting hours | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Absentee voting didn’t used to be popular in Addison, a rural town of 3,300 in southeast Wisconsin. A few days before the last Supreme Court election in 2023, only about 60 residents had cast absentee ballots in person. This year, at the same point in the election cycle, that number was over 300. The sharp increase is due partly to Republicans’ recent embrace of absentee voting, especially in the nearly two-week period before Election Day when voters can cast absentee ballots in person. Washington County, where Addison is located, is one of the state’s most Republican counties, and one of many Republican-dominated areas across Wisconsin where early voting rates have surged. Read Article