National: How to Make Sense of the Barcodes on Your Ballot | Luke Belant/NCSL

The way ballots are created and counted has been modernized significantly since the passage of the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002. Accuracy and reliability problems with older equipment, including punch card and lever machines, increased interest in ballot-counting equipment among legislators at the state and federal levels. Hand-counting ballots at scale was time-consuming, expensive and often inaccurate, so machine counting was considered the path forward. The federal government established voluntary voting system guidelines under the newly created Election Assistance Commission, and many states adopted federal standards, in some cases adding their own requirements for voting machines. These standards have been updated over time to adjust to evolving technology. Today’s voting systems tabulate paper ballots and use barcodes for a variety of reasons. Barcodes store information such as the election date and year and the county that produced the ballot. They also tell the voting machine where to look for voter selections on the ballot. The machine-readable format can be read by software programs and then translated for human viewing. Read Article

National: Bang, Bang, Bang: Callais Kills Off the Voting Rights Act | Pamela S. Karlan/Just Security

The authors of the Reconstruction Amendments did not trust the Supreme Court to ensure that Black Americans would be able to participate fully in the political life of the nation. That is why the amendments expressly gave Congress the power to enforce their provisions through additional legislation. It took nearly a century, but as part of the Second Reconstruction, Congress fulfilled that responsibility. It enacted a Voting Rights Act that goes beyond merely restating the constitutional prohibitions contained in the first sections of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The single most important contribution the Court ever made to minority citizens’ voting rights was to uphold and apply those congressionally expanded prohibitions. The current Supreme Court thinks differently. Section 2, as amended by Congress in 1982, was designed, and had been read for decades, to bar not only intentional discrimination but also practices and procedures that resulted in minority voters having less opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. (That “results” language, after all, is what the text explicitly provided.) In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court returned amended section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to a mere restatement of the constitutional prohibition on purposeful vote dilution. We are only just beginning to see how Justice Samuel Alito’s disingenuous opinion for the Court threatens to dismantle a fundamental pillar of the Second Reconstruction. Read Articlea>

Arizona Supreme Court declines to review fake electors case against Trump allies | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

The Arizona Supreme Court won’t review lower court rulings that crippled Attorney General Kris Mayes’ fake electors case, leaving the prosecution of 18 people who attempted to overturn the state’s 2020 election results in limbo. The case is one of several that arose in the aftermath of the 2020 election when allies of President Donald Trump, who lost the election, tried to install him anyway. Those people, who became known as fake or false electors, attempted to cast electoral votes for Trump in multiple states he lost and submit those certificates of votes to Congress. In Arizona, those people — alongside other Trump allies — were later indicted on felony charges of fraud, conspiracy, and forgery. Their case has been on pause since Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers sent it back to a grand jury last year, ruling that prosecutors had failed to provide a full copy of the relevant federal election law before the original jurors handed down their indictments in April 2024. Read Article

California’s slow ballot count makes it a target for critics. It doesn’t mean elections are rigged | Nicholas Riccardi/Associated Press

Days after the state's primary, California voters are in a familiar position -- waiting to find out which candidates will go on to the general election in their most high-profile races, for governor and Los Angeles mayor. It's not surprising those have yet to be resolved, along with several closely contested congressional races, because the state routinely takes days, or even weeks, to fully tally races. Nor is it unusual for President Donald Trump to complain about the pace of the count and allege fraud, as he did Thursday. It's something he's done repeatedly in the past. Trump's posts prompted a response from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose press office posted a clip of a CNN video explaining how the nation's most populous state prioritizes accuracy and accessibility over speed, drawing out the count. Read Article

Colorado: ‘It brainwashes people:’ Head of county clerks is concerned Tina Peters’ disinformation against elections will continue | Carl Bilek and Ryan Warner/CPR News

The executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association is concerned that former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters will continue to sow election lies now that she has been released from prison. “All of that disinformation really has an aggregating effect where it goes out. It brainwashes people. They think there are problems with these machines,” said Matt Crane, a Republican and former county clerk himself, in reference to the machines used to count ballots after an election. Peters was convicted of several felonies and misdemeanors and sentenced in 2024 to nearly nine years in prison for her role in tampering with Mesa County’s voting machines. Her sentencing came months after the 2020 presidential election when many Trump supporters were in search of evidence of election rigging. She did not find any evidence of wrongdoing. Read Article

Georgia voting overhaul could bring big payday to companies | Caleb Groves and Tamar Hallerman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A vendor set up outside the state Capitol during the General Assembly’s legislative session in March to tout his voting touchscreens and ballot tabulators. Election Systems & Software wasn’t there by chance. The Nebraska-based company was angling for a lucrative statewide contract it expected to go out for bid in early 2027, one that would determine how millions of Georgians cast ballots. On paper, the state isn’t due for new voting equipment until 2029. But after years of headlines about unpatched security flaws, unceasing conspiracy theories and polling showing a sizable chunk of Georgia voters with little confidence in the current system, lawmakers may choose to remedy the situation by taking bids for new machines in time for the 2028 elections. The contours of what that new system may look like could emerge during the June 17 special session. Lawmakers are tasked with redrawing the state’s political maps and finding a way to replace the QR codes currently used to count votes ahead of a self-imposed July 1 deadline. Vendors, however, are quietly positioning themselves for an even bigger prize: the prospect of a rare statewide contract worth upward of $100 million. Georgia voting overhaul could bring big payday to companies

Indiana: Candidate argues social media posts, obscure law should nullify votes | Cate Charron/Indianapolis Star

A Trump-backed state senate candidate is still fighting to win a tight election by making an unusual legal claim that voters' social media posts exposed that they voted illegally under an obscure state law. Republican Paula Copenhaver was one of many primary challengers seeking to defeat Indiana senators who defied U.S. President Donald Trump's demand to redraw Indiana's congressional district boundaries to favor Republicans. She was vying to unseat incumbent state Sen. Spencer Deery of West Lafayette, but lost by three votes in the May 5 primary. In her request for a recount, Copenhaver argues that social media posts and interviews with a journalist prove that several Democratic voters wrongfully crossed over to the Republican primary, swinging the election in Deery's favor. The crossover voting warrants investigation, she claims. Her argument hinges on a largely unenforced Indiana law that many voters, advocates and experts say they have never heard of. Her method of challenging voters in a recount is likely a first in Indiana and appears to conflict with the state's enforcement interpretation. Read Article

New Hampshire: Federal judge orders state to make it easier for voters to prove citizenship | Holly Ramer and Julie Carr Smyth/Associated Press

A federal judge has said that New Hampshire must make voter registration easier by allowing applicants to attest to their U.S. citizenship if they don’t have the documents to prove it. The case was seen as the first major legal test of an election reform that has been pushed nationally by President Donald Trump and has gained favor among many Republicans, though U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliot said she was not deciding whether requiring proof of citizenship itself is constitutional. Her ruling late Thursday night on a narrower question of New Hampshire law was significant, however, because it underscored the potential perils of implementing strict requirements for voters to document their U.S. citizenship so they can cast a ballot. Elliot found that changes in 2024 to the state voter registration law unconstitutionally removed one method of proof -- namely, a voter’s sworn affidavit attesting to citizenship. Read Article

North Carolina: Republican election officials say GOP and state auditor pressured them to reject campus voting site | Kyle Ingram/Raleigh News & Observer

Republican election officials in Jackson County say they were pressured — by their own party and the state auditor’s office, one says — to reject a plan for an early voting site on Western Carolina University’s campus. “I’ve been told that if I don’t vote a particular way, that they will do whatever they have to do to remove me from the board,” Republican board member Jay Pavey said. The comments came during a stunning board meeting on Tuesday morning in which Pavey sided with the board’s Democratic minority to approve the contested polling site for use in the midterm elections this fall. “I know that I’m bucking my party by this, and I may very well be a one-term person on the board of elections, but if that’s it, that’s fine,” he said. “I will stand on this hill and I will die on this hill.” Tuesday’s meeting also followed the unexpected resignation of one of the board’s Republican members. Read Article

Pennsylvania: New study finds that ballot curing helps more mail ballots get counted | Carter Walker/Spotlight PA

Mail voters who are informed and have opportunities to fix ballot errors ahead of elections are much more likely to have their votes counted, a new study of the 2024 election in Pennsylvania has found. The study, from the University of Pennsylvania, provides hard evidence to back up the arguments that county officials have used for years to justify such “notice and cure” policies for defective mail ballots. “Vote curing policies help balance the tension between promoting both access and integrity in mail balloting,” the study’s authors wrote. “In short, vote curing can reduce the number of eligible voters whose deficient mail ballots become ‘lost votes.’” Read Article

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson stepping down | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced Tuesday she will resign effective July 17, capping off three and a half years as the state’s top election official. “It has been my goal to ensure that voting in Texas is secure, accessible and fair,” Nelson said in a press release. “We have worked extensively to ensure accurate voter rolls and to educate voters about what they need to know to vote with confidence.” The press release did not say why Nelson is resigning from her role. Her office did not respond to a request for comment. By law, Gov. Greg Abbott is required to nominate someone to fill the vacant position “without delay.” It’s unclear how quickly Abbott will move to fill Nelson’s role or whom he is considering for the job. Read Article

Wisconsin: Milwaukee Council OKs election legal counsel in wake of FBI inquiry | Vanessa Swales/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Is the Milwaukee City Attorney's Office gearing up for a possible legal storm tied to the 2020 election? The answer: most likely. With no public discussion, the city's Common Council unanimously voted June 2 in favor of authorizing the City Attorney to hire outside counsel for election-related needs. Late last month, the city's judiciary and legislation committee took up the substitute resolution authored by Alderman DiAndre Jackson. No public report was available and council members discussed the item in closed session, voting to approve its passage to full council. City Attorney Evan Goyke declined to comment on the basis for the request. The move comes after the Federal Bureau of Investigation has interviewed a high-ranking election official in recent weeks about the 2020 presidential election. Read Article

National: Ballots Have Been Seized Across the US. No One Knows What Will Happen Next | Kim Zetter/WIRED

As US voters look to the November midterms, the Trump administration is obsessed with looking back to past elections, seizing ballots cast years ago in several states in search, it claims, of fraud or other malfeasance. But experts believe the goal may be more varied. The seizures began in January when FBI agents armed with a warrant raided an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and grabbed 600 boxes of ballots from 2020. This was followed in March by the Department of Justice obtaining ballot images from 2020 in Maricopa County, Arizona, and—citing claims about supposed fraud in 2020—demanding ballots from the 2024 election in Wayne County, Michigan. Read Article

National: The Justice Department wants to interview 2020 election workers | Katelyn Polantz and Tierney Sneed/CNN

The Justice Department wants to interview some poll workers and ballot counters who participated in the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, in a new effort to dig up details about the ballot-processing, prosecutors revealed at a court hearing last week. A prosecutor working with a grand jury in Fulton County told a federal judge on May 19 that once the Justice Department has names and addresses of 2020 election workers in the investigation, federal investigators would try to talk to the workers. The unusual investigative approach could potentially reinflate fraud theories that have been roundly rejected by several voting and law enforcement authorities about the result of the 2020 election, which President Donald Trump continues to want to avenge. Read Article

National: Trump official tried to ban half of US voting machines, citing conspiracy theories | Erin Banco, Jonathan Landay and Alexandra Alper/Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump’s election-security czar last year sought to ban voting machines used in more than half of U.S. states by asking whether the Commerce Department could declare their components national-security risks, according to two people ​with direct knowledge of the matter. White House adviser Kurt Olsen, a lawyer Trump has tasked with proving widely debunked election-rigging conspiracy theories, pushed the plan to target Dominion Voting Systems machines. The idea emerged, the sources said, as Olsen and other officials brainstormed about how ‌the federal government could take control over elections from U.S. states, an idea Trump publicly aired. Olsen wanted a national system of hand-counted paper ballots, the sources said, a frequent Trump demand some election-security experts say would be less accurate and potentially riskier than the current system of machines with auditable paper trails that almost all cities and states use. The plan to exclude the machines, reported here first, got far enough that in September, Commerce Department officials began exploring what grounds could be invoked to execute it, three additional sources said. It eventually collapsed, however, because Olsen and other administration staffers working with him failed to provide evidence to justify such a move, two of the sources said. The episode is part of a far-reaching Trump ​administration push to encroach on state and local governments’ authority to run elections – which is granted to them in the U.S. Constitution to prevent the executive branch from seizing power.Read Article

National: Election Officials Warn of Rising Threats As Security Funding Declines Ahead of Midterms | Kaitlin Bender-Thomas/The Fulcrum

Election officials warned lawmakers on Wednesday that threats against election workers and voting systems are escalating even as federal funding for election security remains far below 2020 levels, posing risks ahead of the 2026 midterms. In 2020, Congress allocated $425 million for election security grants, compared to $15 million in 2025 and $45 million this year. The Trump administration has also proposed a $707 million cut to the CyberSecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s fiscal 2027 budget and ended the agency’s election security support for state and local governments. These concerns were raised during a House Subcommittee on Elections hearing on election security. Thomas Hicks, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, which distributes federal funds to states and territories to improve election administration, said election workers across the country have faced phishing attacks, bomb threats, and swatting incidents — false emergency reports intended to trigger large police responses at polling locations. Read Article

National: Judge refuses to block Trump executive order that limits mail voting | Nicholas Riccarddi/Associated Press

A federal judge has declined to halt President Donald Trump’s executive order creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, late Wednesday rejected the request by Democrats and civil rights groups that had argued Trump’s order would likely be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. Nichols agreed with the Republican Trump administration’s contention that it was too early to block the order because it has yet to be implemented. Nichols’ ruling leaves the door open for further challenges when the Trump administration moves to implement the president’s directive. A separate lawsuit seeking to block the executive order is underway in Boston. No matter how rapidly the administration acts, no voting changes are expected during primary elections, which continue into next month. Read Article

National: OpenAI heralds cybersecurity, election interference safeguard plans for 2026 midterms | Tim Sparks/CyberScoop

OpenAI on Wednesday hailed its plans to safeguard information and aid cybersecurity defenders in the 2026 midterm elections, including work to combat deepfakes and other forms of artificial intelligence misuse. The announcement builds on commitments from major tech companies in 2024, including OpenAI, to protect elections from AI-infused election interference — efforts that some thought weren’t enough. Government agencies, non-governmental institutes and others have increasingly warned about AI’s ability to have a negative impact on elections even as they advertise its potential for good. OpenAI’s plan has five planks: spreading reliable information about voting and election results, helping with cybersecurity, watermarking deepfakes, enforcing policies that ban users from deploying its tools for election interference, and weeding out political bias in its models. Read Article

Opinion: Were the Constitution’s Authors a Little Too Optiistic? | Adam Liptak/The New York Times

The men who drafted the Constitution knew they were playing with fire when they created a novel and powerful new office: the president of the United States. “The first man put at the helm will be a good one,” Benjamin Franklin said at the Constitutional Convention in June 1787, referring to George Washington. “No body knows what sort may come afterward. The executive will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy.” The framers were not blind to the danger that they were creating a new kind of king, and the Constitution they adopted a few months later tried to strike a balance in inventing what was then a wholly novel office. They wanted a president who was decisive, responsive and responsible. But they also sought to establish a constitutional structure able to constrain a president who aspired to be a monarch. Read Article

Opinion: The ‘greatest threat’ to rule of law in decades. That’s how lawyers, judges see Trump | Mark Z. Barabak/Los Angeles Times

Sometimes it seems as though the only thing that stands between a functioning democracy and a full-on Trump autocracy is a thin, black-robed line.Although the Supreme Court, in general, and conservative appellate courts, in particular, have bowed and granted President Trump permission to do pretty much anything he wants, they haven’t thoroughly capitulated to his endless grasping for ever more power. (The way invertebrate congressional Republicans have.)At the lower-court level, judges have repeatedly ruled in ways intended to check Trump, most notably when it comes to violating civil and constitutional rights in pursuit of his indiscriminate immigration dragnet.The tendency to slow-walk his administration’s response to those rulings — and ignore others that Trump thinks he can safely snub — only contribute to the perception of presidential lawlessness and a sense that our judicial system is being strained to something approaching a breaking point.Go ahead, if you’d like, and dismiss those concerns as just so much overwrought hand-wringing, or the mindless anti-Trump blathering of your friendly political columnist. A new survey of legal experts — including federal judges, top-tier lawyers and scores of professors from some of the country’s leading law schools — finds widespread concern about the brittle state of our legal system. Read Article

Arizona: Maricopa County recorder threatens felony charges over ‘unauthorized’ drop boxes ahead of primary election | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

A messy and longstanding feud between Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors over control of the key swing county’s elections has spilled over into a new arena. On Wednesday, Heap sent a letter to the board asserting his office’s authority over ballot drop boxes and warning that election workers who handle ballots deposited in “unauthorized” receptacles could face criminal penalties. The letter, written by Heap’s attorney, arrived hours before county supervisors were set to take up a routine vote on drop box locations for the July 21 primary. It set the stage for a lengthy and fiery meeting that put the divisions between the county’s mostly GOP officials on full display. The spiraling saga is amplifying questions about how effectively top county officials will be able to administer this year’s midterm election. Read Article

California tries to block Trump involvement in election procedures | Laurel Rosenhall/The New York Times

Six days before the California primary, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Wednesday intended to safeguard elections after federal officials and local sheriffs took unusual steps in the last year to seize ballots from election offices.The new law, which takes effect immediately, would not stop officials who have a warrant. But Newsom described it as a way “to address the legitimate anxiety” over election security amid attempts by the Trump administration and the president’s allies to tamper with results and sow doubt in the mechanics of democracy.The governor, a Democrat whose popularity has soared as he’s taken a more combative stance against President Donald Trump, listed various actions taken by Trump to explain the need for the bill. Read Article

California’s overseas voters face new barriers after Trump administration cut key program | Sara DiNatale/San Francisco Chronicle

It’s never been easy to cast an absentee ballot from inside a military submarine. But now that the Trump administration has eliminated a crucial mechanism to return absentee ballots, overseas voting requires even more of a herculean effort. It’s an archaic reality: California’s absentee voter laws rely heavily on fax machines and the U.S. Postal Service. For military members in far-flung deployments or at sea, where the Postal Service is unreliable to nonexistent, the Department of Defense’s free email-to-fax service was a lifeline to democracy for the last 36 years. The Department of Defense in August announced, without explanation, it was cutting the fax service as the administration axed federal programs it said constituted wasteful spending. The voters who used the program are now facing their first election cycle without it. “We’re thinking of the military voters who will no longer be able to cast their ballots in time,” said Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, who is attempting to reform state absentee voting law in the Legislature. “We want to make sure we aren’t abandoning Californians who are deployed abroad or serving overseas.” Read Article

Colorado county clerks from both parties feel abandoned by Governor for letting felon Peters out of jail early | David O. Williams/The Aspen Times

Gov. Jared Polis thinks his decision to commute the prison sentence of 2020 election denier, convicted felon and former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters will someday be viewed in the same light as former Beaver Creek resident and President Gerald Ford’s pardon of President Richard Nixon: An act of national “reconciliation and healing.” For many Democrats and some Republicans in Colorado, that day will never arrive. While his own party calls for the censure or even impeachment of Polis for essentially ending Peters’ nearly nine-year sentence for breaching her own election systems in support of President Donald Trump’s widely debunked 2020 election claims, current and former Colorado clerks from both sides of the aisle say something much larger than the governor’s legacy is at stake. “We are furious, disgusted, and deeply disappointed by the Governor’s decision,” the Colorado County Clerk’s Association (CCCA) wrote in a statement. “At a time when election officials need strong support, this decision abandons them and supports the attack on the legitimacy of American elections.” County clerks from both parties feel abandoned by Polis for letting felon Peters out of jail early | AspenTimes.com

Maryland: Vendor error causes mass redo of mail-in ballots | Racquel Bazos/The Baltimore Sun

The Maryland State Board of Elections is sending new mail-in ballots to every voter who requested one after a vendor error mixed up some voters’ party affiliations, elections officials said Friday. Though it’s possible that not every mail-in ballot was incorrect, according to the State Board, election integrity and security demands resending all the ballots. Only voters who got their mail-in ballots before May 14 might be impacted, the board wrote. “We are diligently working to address this error and provide clear instructions to those affected as quickly as possible,” Jared DeMarinis, state administrator of elections, said in the Friday announcement. “The State and Local Boards of Elections remain committed to running an election that is verified, secure and accurate. Mail-in voting is an integral facet of the electoral process. With over 500,000 voters requesting mail-in ballots, we want to eliminate any doubt in its integrity or accuracy that is why I have arranged the sending of replacement ballots,” he said.. Read Article

Michigan state police investigate Antrim County Clerk’s husband’s access to office, computer | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop’s husband was alone in a secure area of the clerk’s office and using the clerk’s computer, according to a report by the Michigan State Police, which investigated the incident. According to the police report, a county maintenance worker saw Randy Bishop alone in the clerk’s office on Feb. 19, watching a video stream of a county board of commissioners meeting that Victoria Bishop was attending. Randy Bishop is a conservative talk radio host who goes by “Trucker Randy” and has claimed to have evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Votebeat obtained the report from a local resident who received it in response to a public records request, and confirmed the report’s authenticity with the state police. The report itself, which is partially redacted, says the case is currently pending review by the Antrim County prosecutor’s office, though that office said its understanding is that the matter was being referred to the state attorney general, whose office did not respond to a request for comment. Read Article

South Dakota: Snowbirds allege poll workers changed them to federal voters without instruction to prove residency | Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight

A couple who spend winters in Arizona and the rest of the year in South Dakota said they were given a federal-only ballot and denied a state-local ballot when they tried to vote in person last week at the Minnehaha County administration building. Instead of retaining their Hartford home when they retired and started traveling south for the winter, Steve Nolte and Kelly Stewart sold their home four years ago, bought a recreational vehicle, and parked it year-round at a South Dakota lakeside resort. They use a mail-forwarding service in Sioux Falls, and they’re registered to vote in Minnehaha County. Since January, state law requires that anyone who lists only a mail forwarding address or post office box — without describing where they actually live — be registered as a federal-only voter when they register or request an absentee ballot. That means the person can only vote in federal contests such as presidential and congressional races — not other statewide, legislative, county, city or local races or ballot questions. The law was motivated partly by some legislators’ opposition to full-time RVers voting in local and state races. Read Article

Texas: Calm, not chaos, as Dallas County voters cast ballots in runoff with countywide system | Tracey McManus/The Dallas Morning News

Voting unfolded slowly but smoothly in Dallas County’s runoff on Tuesday, a change from the chaos that took place during the March 3 primary election. After the county Republican Party forced a switch to precinct-based voting, thousands of confused voters from both parties, accustomed to the vote-anywhere system, were turned away from polls and redirected to their neighborhood voting sites. Making matters worse, some voters were sent to the wrong polls by incorrect maps on the Secretary of State’s website and others received bad information from navigators stationed at voting sites. It prompted former Republican Party Chair Allen West to amend the GOP’s contract with the county to revert to the countywide system for the runoff, citing a fear of being sued for voter disenfranchisement. Because county officials control early voting in Texas, the Republicans’ push for precincts applied only to the primary and runoff election days. Read Article

Texas using DPS records to confirm citizenship of voters flagged by federal database | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribine

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office is now checking whether 2,724 registered voters it flagged as potential noncitizens may have already provided proof of citizenship to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Christina Adkins, elections division director, said during a meeting with county election administrators earlier this month. That check comes after county elections officials found the federal database used to generate the list flagged some voters who had already given citizenship documentation to DPS when they registered to vote. Texas officials in October sent counties the list of potential noncitizens generated by checking the state’s roll of more than 18 million registered voters against a federal database used to verify citizenship. County election officials have since confirmed some of the flagged voters were citizens, though a total number was not immediately available. In addition, they found that hundreds of the flagged voters had registered through DPS, which requires proof of citizenship, such as a passport, and keeps copies of such documents on file. Read Article

Wisconsin: Lawsuit seeks to require election officials to let absentee voters cure their ballots | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin is challenging the state’s law governing voters’ ability to fix missing information on their absentee ballots, alleging that the law violates the Wisconsin Constitution by giving clerks a vast amount of discretion over whether to reject ballots. The group is asking a Dane County judge to require all clerks to provide voters notice when an absentee ballot certificate is lacking necessary information — such as a signature or the address of a voter or the person who witnessed the ballot’s casting — and give them an opportunity to add that information before rejecting the ballot, a process known as “curing” the ballot. Right now, the law tells clerks that they “may” return incomplete absentee ballots to voters. That results in some municipal clerks sending voters prompt notice about faulty ballots, while other clerks put those ballots in the rejected pile without informing the voter at all, the lawsuit states. Municipalities also treat absentee ballots differently depending on when they receive them, the lawsuit alleges, and those that arrive closer to Election Day often have a lesser chance of getting cured. Read Article