Arizona Election rulebook submitted for approval despite threatened GOP lawsuit | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

The Election Procedures Manual, which must be revised and approved every two years, has undergone changes after previous Republican lawsuits challenged provisions in it. Some of those changes included deleted examples of what constitutes voter intimidation and deleting a paragraph saying that the secretary of state could finalize the state’s election results without a particular county’s results if the officials missed the state deadline. “Every voter, in every corner of Arizona, should have the same fair and secure election process,” Fontes said in a statement Wednesday about the submission. “The EPM makes that possible.” The manual also aims to try to alleviate ballot printing errors that have plagued election officials in recent years. Both Hobbs and Mayes must sign off on the EPM by December for it to take effect. Read Article

Colorado attorney general says Tina Peters’ First Amendment appeals claims are wrong | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

The Colorado Attorney General’s office has formally responded to claims from former Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters that the state court is trying to keep her from speaking out on election security, in violation of her First Amendment rights, and has unjustly denied her bond while she appeals her conviction on charges related to handling election equipment. Peters is currently incarcerated at the La Vista Correctional Facility, a medium-security facility for women located in Pueblo. In 2024, a state judge in Grand Junction sentenced Peters to nine years in prison when she was found guilty of several felony charges stemming from her efforts to help a man gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion voting machines in 2021. Read Article

Georgia: A squabbling State Election Board struggles after State Supreme Court ruling | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

When it’s not busy bickering, the State Election Board keeps trying to insert itself into Georgia’s voting process even after the state Supreme Court reduced its power this spring. The board’s two-day meeting last week was marked by arguments over manhood, attempts to subpoena ballots from the 2020 election and efforts to end no-excuse absentee voting. The Republican-controlled board also debated a rule that would give itself the power to eliminate Georgia’s voting touchscreens, fought over the chair’s authority, and proposed that lawmakers shorten voting deadlines for military and overseas voters. All these squabbles came after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the board lacks the ability to create new election rules — such as statewide hand ballot counts and inquiries before certifying results — that go further than state laws. The high court said only legislators elected by the people can make those kinds of laws. Read Article

Idaho’s quiet success story is absentee voting is | Becky Funk/Idaho Capital Sun

Absentee voting has quietly served Idaho for decades. It gives seniors, rural residents, working families, and military members a trusted way to cast their ballots. For many, it’s not just convenient but essential. And for our active-duty service members in the U.S. and abroad, absentee voting isn’t simply a matter of convenience it is the only way their voices can be heard. A soldier serving away from home should never lose the right to vote for the leaders who shape the policies that affect their service. All veterans should always have a voice in the very democracy they helped defend. Absentee voting ensures that the men and women who have given so much for our country continue to have a say in its future. Absentee voting isn’t mail-in voting. One common misunderstanding is confusing absentee voting with universal mail-in voting. They are not the same. Read Article

Michigan proposal could force school board candidates into partisan primary | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

A proposed bill from House Republicans would make Michigan’s school board candidates declare a party affiliation, a change that’s drawing criticism from local election officials and school board members. Under state law, school board positions are explicitly nonpartisan. House Bill 4588, introduced by Rep. Jason Woolford, would tweak the law to require candidates for local school boards to declare a party affiliation. That requirement could force the races to have primary elections in August, in addition to the November general election when school board seats are typically voted on, officials said. Read Article

Pennsylvania Supreme Court rule that soters must be told if mail ballot is rejected, | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Voters must be notified if election officials are going to reject their mail ballots because of an error such as an incorrect date or missing signature on the return envelope, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Friday. In a 4-3 decision, the court ruled that Washington County erred in not notifying 2024 presidential primary voters that their mail ballots would be rejected, leaving them unaware their votes would go uncounted. “We must interpret the Election Code and its statutory procedures in a way that ‘favors the fundamental right to vote and enfranchises, rather than disenfranchises, the electorate,’ Justice Kevin Dougherty said, writing for the majority. “Reading the Code as allowing county boards to withhold readily available information from voters does not serve that goal.” V–read Article

South Carolina: Judge sides with release of voter data despite privacy argument | Nick Reynolds/Post and Courier

A state judge has rejected the effort to prevent the S.C. Election Commission from sharing its database of 3.3 million voters’ sensitive information with the U.S. Department of Justice. In a 12-page decision Oct. 1, Circuit Judge Daniel Coble said he believed the federal government’s right to the information took precedent. Additionally, he said he believed plaintiff Anne Crook failed to prove she will suffer an irreparable harm from the release of the data which she said would run afoul of her state-sanctioned right to privacy. While Crook’s attorneys argued the federal government had a poor track record in protecting voters’ information, Coble said they failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that South Carolinians’ information would not be protected. Read Article

Wisconsin lawyer Michael Gableman faces suspension over 2020 election probe | Tom Kertscher/Wisconsin Watch

A formal recommendation of punishment for Michael Gableman, whose career rise and fall set him apart in Wisconsin legal and political history, signals the end of a case that has been humiliating for the former state Supreme Court justice and the court itself. In a report issued Friday, a referee in a state Office of Lawyer Regulation case against Gableman found that Gableman committed 10 lawyer misconduct violations in his probe of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin. The partisan probe was authorized at the behest of then-citizen Donald Trump, who lost that election to Joe Biden. The referee, Milwaukee attorney James Winiarski, recommended that the state Supreme Court suspend Gableman’s law license for three years. Read Article

Wyoming: Weston County election snafu renews calls for hand counting election results | Maggie MullenWyoFile

A miscount in Weston County’s 2024 general election and the ensuing fallout over the last year have refueled calls for banning electronic election equipment in Wyoming. The state already relies on paper ballots in all but one county, but such a move would make Wyoming the only state in the country to count all its ballots by hand. “I’m so thankful that I work with legislators that are serious about making sure that we get good answers for what happened, and we don’t blow this off,” Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, told the Wyoming Legislature’s Weston County Clerk 2024 General Election Subcommittee as it met Monday in Casper. Reade Article

National: American Democracy Might Be Stronger Than Donald Trump | Jonathan Schlefer/Politico

For the last 10 years, we’ve been hearing that President Donald Trump will preside over the end of democracy in America. In liberal circles, that assertion is often accepted as fact. For many, the proof is in the evidence from other countries’ democratic declines. A whole genre of American political writing is issuing this warning. But the United States is different from many of the countries that feature prominently in the “death of democracy” literature. And for Americans concerned about what Trump will do in his second term, the ways other democracies have died isn’t the central concern. Those accounts are a bit like detailing how Covid can kill people but not assessing the chances, depending on age and risk factors, that the disease will kill you. Read Article

Opinion: America’s Zombie Democracy – Its trappings remain, but authoritarianism and AI are hollowing out our humanity | George Packer/The Atlantic

We are living in an authoritarian state. It didn’t feel that way this morning, when I took my dog for his usual walk in the park and dew from the grass glittered on my boots in the rising sunlight. It doesn’t feel that way when you’re ordering an iced mocha latte at Starbucks or watching the Patriots lose to the Steelers. The persistent normality of daily life is disorienting, even paralyzing. Yet it’s true. We have in our heads specific images of authoritarianism that come from the 20th century: uniformed men goose-stepping in jackboots, masses of people chanting party slogans, streets lined with giant portraits of the leader, secret opposition meetings in basements, interrogations under naked light bulbs, executions by firing squad. Similar things still happen—in China, North Korea, Iran. But I’d be surprised if this essay got me hauled off to prison in America. Authoritarianism in the 21st century looks different, because it is different. Political scientists have tried to find a new term for it: illiberal democracy, competitive authoritarianism, right-wing populism. In countries such as Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela, and India, democracies aren’t overthrown, nor do they collapse all at once. Instead, they erode. Opposition parties, the judiciary, the press, and civil-society groups aren’t destroyed, but over time they lose their life, staggering on like zombie institutions, giving the impression that democracy is still alive.Source: Your access has been blocked – The Atlantic

National: Justice Department Sues Six States Seeking Private Voter Data | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

The Department of Justice sued six states, including Pennsylvania, the nation’s biggest presidential battleground, on Thursday as the Trump administration escalates its efforts to obtain the personal and private information of voters. The lawsuits, filed against California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, follow similar suits that the department brought against Maine and Oregon, two Democratic-controlled states. All of those states have rebuffed previous demands from the Justice Department to gain access to statewide voter rolls that include sensitive information, such as drivers license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. The six lawsuits are the latest, and most aggressive, step in the Justice Department’s quest to amass the largest set of national voter roll data it has ever collected, buttressing an effort by President Trump and his supporters to make false and unsubstantiated claims that droves of undocumented immigrants have voted illegally. Read Article

 

National: DOJ Urges SCOTUS to End Key VRA Protection for Minority Voters | Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an amicus brief Wednesday in Louisiana’s ongoing redistricting case, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court should significantly weaken the power of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to block racial gerrymanders. Though not unexpected, the brief carries major symbolic weight. For decades, the Justice Department has been at the forefront of efforts to use Section 2 of the VRA to protect minority voting rights, most frequently in the redistricting process. Under President Donald Trump, it now argues for a radically narrowed interpretation of Section 2, which could make it all but useless in stopping racially motivated gerrymanders. Read Article

National: YouTube to bring back creators banned for COVID and election misinformation | Ali Swenson/Associated Press

YouTube will offer creators a way to rejoin the streaming platform if they were banned for violating COVID-19 and election misinformation policies that are no longer in effect, its parent company Alphabet said Tuesday. In a letter submitted in response to subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee, attorneys for Alphabet said the decision to bring back banned accounts reflected the company’s commitment to free speech. It said the company values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes their reach and important role in civic discourse. “No matter the political atmosphere, YouTube will continue to enable free expression on its platform, particularly as it relates to issues subject to political debate,” the letter read. Read Article

National: How do we build public trust in elections? | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Public trust in elections is the key to turning out voters — and to accepting the results when an election is done. So how do you build it? Votebeat this week sat down with election expert and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Charles Stewart; Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein; and Karen Brinson Bell, the former executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections to talk about the factors that drive trust in elections. The conversation and online forum were moderated by Votebeat Editorial Director Jessica Huseman. Read Article

National: The People Who Are Still Convinced Kamala Won | David A. Graham/The Atlantic

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: Partisan claims of fraud in the presidential election. Elaborate statistical analyses. Reports of shadowy, closed-door doings. All of this, they say, points to one conclusion: The results were compromised, and the real winner was kept out of the White House. That sounds like the aftermath of the 2020 election, but it’s also what’s happening right now. Kamala Harris’s loss in last November’s presidential election produced few prominent claims of fraud, and nothing like the concerted effort, using both lawsuits and force, to keep President Donald Trump in office that followed his defeat nearly five years ago. In the past few months, however, spurious allegations that fraud helped Trump win back the White House have been flourishing more online, elections experts told me, though why they’re so popular right now—other than the left’s compounding anger with the Trump administration—is not clear. Read Article

California Governor Gavin Newsom says he fears ‘we will not have an election in 2028’ | Sudiksha Kochi/USA Today

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he is worried there will not be a presidential election in a little more than three years, calling the Trump administration’s actions “authoritarian.” “I fear that we will not have an election in 2028. I really mean that in the core of my soul − unless we wake up to the code red, what’s happening in this country, and we wake up soberly to how serious this moment is,” Newsom said during a Sept. 23 appearance on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert. One of the Democratic party’s most forceful critics of President Donald Trump and a prospective candidate for the next White House race, Newsom blasted the Republican administration for taking “authoritarian actions” amid a nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown. Read Article’

Colorado officials from both parties push back on Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting | Western Colorado | Nathan Deal/Grand Junction Sentinel

At the start of September, President Donald Trump announced the relocation of Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama, seeing through his original plan from early 2021 in his first term. In the Oval Office, Trump made it clear that one of the reasons Colorado would be losing Space Command is its mail-in voting system. In light of Trump’s remarks, The Daily Sentinel contacted political figures on both sides of the spectrum for their response to the president’s criticism of Colorado’s elections. The responses were unanimous in defending the state. Read Article

Georgia election officials press lawmakers for swift funding action | Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat

Lawmakers who want to overhaul the way Georgians vote heard a consistent message Thursday from election chiefs. Hurry up! And give us money. A law backed by Republicans in the General Assembly outlaws the Quick Response (QR) codes that the state’s voting machines use to transfer voter intent into each polling place’s database. Poll workers will have to use a different method starting July 1, and the legislature has yet to identify it — or pay for it. Local election chiefs and poll workers told a House study committee that convened at Savannah Technical College Thursday that they will need months to train workers. Read Article

Maryland: Clean bill of health for Annapolis hand-count primary audit | Katharine Wilson/The Baltimore Sun.

The hand-count audit Thursday of the entire Annapolis Democratic primary found no mistakes in the official vote count in any race. The audit was conducted following the discovery of a transcription error in the Ward 6 unofficial in-person tallies. The audit was ordered because Anne Arundel County Board of Elections staff made a transcription error on the unofficial in-person tallies on Sept. 16, switching the figures for Diesha Contee and Craig Cussimanio. The initial report listed Cussimanio as leading when Contee led in in-person votes. The error was not noticed until a week later, when election staff was conducting the official canvass Tuesday. Contee eventually won the majority of total ballots. Read Article

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