Wisconsin Governor pushes back against Madison argument in absentee ballot lawsuit | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Gov. Tony Evers is pushing back against arguments Madison city officials made in a recent lawsuit contending they can’t be sued for failing to count nearly 200 mail-in ballots in 2024 because absentee voting is not a right but a privilege. A group of Madison voters represented by the liberal law firm Law Forward sued city and county election officials in March over the city’s failure to count 193 absentee ballots cast during the 2024 presidential election. The voters are accusing the former Madison clerk of disenfranchising their right to vote in a class-action lawsuit. The clerk, Maribeth Witzel-Behl, and city election officials named in the lawsuit argue the voters’ constitutional rights were not violated when city officials failed to count their ballots because of a state law that says: “The legislature finds that voting is a constitutional right, the vigorous exercise of which should be strongly encouraged. In contrast, voting by absentee ballot is a privilege exercised wholly outside the traditional safeguards of the polling place.” Read Article

National: Trump is trying to change how the midterm elections are conducted | Patrick Marley and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Washington Post

Five years ago, President Donald Trump pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers and members of Congress to find him votes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he’s seeking to change the rules before ballots are cast. Trump, openly fearful that a Congress controlled by Democrats could investigate him, impeach him and stymie his agenda, is using every tool he can find to try to influence the 2026 midterm elections and, if his party loses, sow doubt in their validity. Many of these endeavors go far beyond typical political persuasion, challenging long-established democratic norms. They include unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots. Read Article

National: New federal ruling is latest defeat to Trump administration’s election agenda | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

A federal judge on Friday became the third one to block key provisions of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at revising election rules nationwide, ruling that the Constitution gives states and Congress —not the president— the authority to exercise power over elections. The administration signaled it is likely to appeal the decision, the latest blow to Trump’s agenda on elections. His March executive order sought to require proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form, mostly ban the use of machine-readable codes when tallying ballots, and prohibit the counting of ballots postmarked Election Day but received afterwards. The administration has appealed two earlier rulings in other cases against the executive order. The cases could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court, but election law experts told Votebeat the president faces long odds. Read Article

National: MAGA Thinks Maduro Will Prove Trump Won in 2020 | Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Atlantic

In the days after American commandos raided Nicolás Maduro’s compound and whisked him out of Venezuela, Mike Lindell wasn’t ruminating about the dramatic military operation or oil prices—he was reviving a long-dead conspiracy theory. Lindell, better known as the “MyPillow guy,” was celebrating because, in his telling, a possible witness to the theory that Venezuela conspired with election-equipment companies to rig the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump was now in U.S. custody. “I’m hoping now that Maduro will actually come clean and tell us everything about the machines and how they steal the elections,” Lindell, who has long espoused election falsehoods, told me the day after the Venezuelan dictator’s arraignment. The supposition boils down to this: Venezuela plotted with election-equipment and -technology companies to engineer Trump’s defeat in 2020. There is no credible evidence to support this. But with Maduro in U.S. custody months before the midterms and the Trump administration investigating the 2020 election, an idea that had been disproved by facts and debunked in lawsuits has been revived, with a newsy twist: Now Maduro will prove from a New York jail that Trump defeated Joe Biden. Read Article

 

National: Judge deals blow to the Trump Justice Department’s use of the Civil Rights Act to ‘clean’ voter rolls | Tierney Sneed/CNN

The Trump administration’s sweeping legal effort to obtain Americans’ sensitive data from states’ voter rolls is now almost entirely reliant upon the Civil Rights Act – a Jim Crow-era law passed to protect Black voters from disenfranchisement – a notable shift in how the administration is pressing its demands. The Justice Department says it wants to use the registration records to “help” states “clean” their rolls by comparing it to other data sets held by the government, according to public comments from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head the department’s civil rights division. But Thursday, a federal judge delivered a searing setback, blocking the administration’s bid to obtain confidential information from California, including driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers. Read Article

National: Supreme Court rules candidates can challenge voting laws | Ashley Lopez/NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that political candidates have the legal standing to challenge election laws before voting or counting starts. The case before the court was brought by Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. Michael Bost and other candidates, who wanted to challenge a state law that allows election officials to count mail ballots that arrive up to two weeks after Election Day, as long as they’re postmarked on time. Many states have laws that offer a buffer, or grace period, to voters to return mail ballots in case there are issues with the postal service, for example. A lower court ruled that Bost did not have standing to challenge the Illinois law. The conservative-majority Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, disagreed. Read Article

National: Election officials say trust with CISA on election security is broken | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security first declared in January 2017 that election systems were “critical infrastructure,” alarmed state election officials pushed back quickly and loudly, fearing the move could lead to a federal takeover of elections. DHS’s designation came during the final days of the Obama administration, as federal officials scrambled to respond to evidence of Russian interference with the 2016 election. Denise Merrill, a Connecticut Democrat who was then president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, helped lead the opposition. “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has no authority to interfere with elections, even in the name of national security,” NASS said in a February 2017 bipartisan resolution urging the new administration to rescind the designation. Read Article

National: The Quiet Campaign That Could Rewrite the 2028 Election | David L. Nevins/The Fulcrum

Most Americans are unaware, but a quiet campaign in states across the country is moving toward one of the biggest changes in presidential elections since the nation was founded. A movement called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is happening mostly out of public view and could soon change how the United States picks its president, possibly as early as 2028. If the compact reaches 270 electoral votes and overcomes likely legal challenges, the national popular vote winner would become president for the first time in U.S. history. Although this effort is not widely known, it could reshape the balance of power for years. So far, 17 states and Washington, D.C., have joined the NPVIC, giving it control of 209 electoral votes. This is about 39% of the Electoral College and 77% of the 270 votes needed for the compact to take effect. Member states include large ones like California, New York, and Illinois, as well as medium-sized states such as Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, and Washington. Smaller members include D.C., Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Read Article

National: Trump Regrets Not Seizing Voting Machines After 2020 Election | Alan Feuer, Ashley Ahn/The New York Times

President Trump said during an interview with The New York Times that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election, even though he doubted whether the Guard was “sophisticated enough” to carry out the order effectively. The remarks by Mr. Trump in the interview last week harked back to one of the most perilous moments from his first term in office, when he was urged by some advisers to order his national security agencies to take control of machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems in an effort to find evidence that they had been hacked to rig the election against him. The statement also came as he has continued his attacks on digital voting machines, saying that he wants to “lead a movement” to get rid of them altogether in advance of this year’s midterm elections. Mr. Trump has long been obsessed with voting machines, particularly those built by Dominion, a company that has figured prominently in conspiracy theories that technology was used to rob him of victory in his race against Joseph R. Biden Jr. Read Article

Alabama: ‘Gives people some peace of mind’: Lovvorn post-election audit requirement bill receives favorable committee report | Austen Shipley/1819news

Following the approval of a minor amendment, State Rep. Joe Lovvorn’s (R-Auburn) post-election audit legislation received a favorable report during Wednesday’s House Ways and Means General Fund meeting. If enacted, Lovvorn’s bill would require each county’s probate judge to conduct a post-election audit after every county and statewide general election to verify the accuracy of the originally reported results. “[State Rep.] Debbie Wood (R-Valley) carried for several years a post-election audit bill that would help make sure we are doing everything we can to make sure we feel comfortable and safe that elections are good,” Lovvorn explained during the meeting. “We do a good job with elections in this state. This just gives us another cog in that wheel to confirm that.” Read Article

Arizona Democrats say election transparency bills will jeopardize security | Joe Duhownik/Courthouse News Service

Arizona’s Senate Elections Committee moved to support a handful of bills that would increase public access to voter records, though Democrats say the measures would lead to safety concerns by publishing personal voter information. The elections committee, chaired by Flagstaff Republican Wendy Rogers, voted 4-2 to pass two bills that Republicans say will increase transparency. Senate Bill 1038 would require a county recorder to make publicly available the full, unredacted vote cast record after an election. Senate Bill 1040 would require the full, unredacted voter registration roll to be made downloadable via an internet portal. In July, a state judge ruled that full vote cast records are not public records according to current law. Read Article

Colorado appeals panel skeptical of former election clerk’s sentencing | Colleen Slevin/Associated Press

A Colorado appeals panel on Wednesday seemed skeptical that a judge could use former county clerk Tina Peters’ insistence on spreading election conspiracy theories as part of the reason to sentence her to nine years in prison for orchestrating a data breach of election equipment. The three-judge panel was dismissive of many of the arguments made by Peters’ attorneys. But they grilled the state’s lawyer over the trial judge reciting Peters’ false statements about elections in handing down her sentence. “The court cannot punish her for her First Amendment rights,” Appeals Judge Craig Welling said. The remarks are significant because President Donald Trump has embraced Peters, who was trying to find evidence of the fraud that he continues to claim, without evidence, caused him to lose the 2020 presidential election. He’s threatened Colorado with “harsh measures” if it does not release her and even issued a pardon of her last month, although she was convicted on state crimes that he cannot erase. Read Article

California: Trump administration’s demands for voter rolls, including Social Security numbers, rejected by federal judge | Kevin Rector/Los Angeles Times

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit demanding California turn over its voter rolls, calling the request “unprecedented and illegal” and accusing the federal government of trying to “abridge the right of many Americans to cast their ballots.” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Clinton appointee based in Santa Ana, questioned the Justice Department’s motivations and called its lawsuit demanding voter data from California Secretary of State Shirley Weber not just an overreach into state-run elections, but a threat to American democracy. “The centralization of this information by the federal government would have a chilling effect on voter registration which would inevitably lead to decreasing voter turnout as voters fear that their information is being used for some inappropriate or unlawful purpose,” Carter wrote. “This risk threatens the right to vote which is the cornerstone of American democracy.” Read Article

Georgia: Official says law Trump is using to seek legal fees in election case likely unconstitutional | Kate Brumback/Associated Press

The head of a nonpartisan group that supports Georgia prosecutors said the new state law that President Donald Trump and others charged in an election interference case are using to seek millions in attorney fees and costs from the Fulton County district attorney’s office is likely unconstitutional. The law has “serious and potentially unconstitutional deficiencies,” notably because it denies county governments any sort of due process when defendants in a case request reimbursement, Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council Executive Director Pete Skandalakis wrote in a court filing Wednesday. Georgia state legislators last year passed a law that says that if a prosecutor is disqualified from a case because of their own improper conduct and the case is then dismissed, anyone charged in that case is entitled to request “all reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred” in their defense. The judge overseeing the case then is responsible for reviewing the request and awarding the fees and costs, which are to be paid from the budget of the prosecutor’s office. Read Article

New Hampshire: Citing security, Republicans push to exclude student ID cards from voting verification | Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin

Weeks before a lawsuit against a recent New Hampshire voting law goes to trial in federal court, state lawmakers are pushing to tighten voting requirements further. The House passed a bill this month that would eliminate the ability for high school or college students to use their student identification cards to vote. Instead, under the proposed law, those students would be required to present an ID issued by the federal government or any U.S. state, such as a driver’s license, government ID card, or passport. It’s a contention at the heart of the yearslong partisan war over elections. Democrats and voting rights groups say the instances of voter fraud are vanishingly small and that the affidavit system still allowed for the prosecution of illegal voters. Imposing stricter requirements, on the other hand, could bar otherwise eligible voters from being able to vote, impeding on their rights, they argue. Read Article

North Carolina: Amid protests, elections board rejects campus voting sites and Sunday voting in several counties | Lynn Bonner/NC Newsline

NC A&T State University students packed the North Carolina State Board of Elections meeting in Raleigh to support an early voting site on their campus for the upcoming primaries. When the board adopted a plan without a voting site on the Greensboro campus, students stood with their signs near the front of the room behind the presenters’ desk. After a student said board members wouldn’t look them in the eye, board Chairman Francis De Luca threatened to call the cops on students if they didn’t leave. One student said the outcome would have been different if the group was white. De Luca said he resented that suggestion. Jeff Carmon, the state board’s only Black member, walked up to the students and encouraged them to keep working. The student protest was just one mark in a contentious meeting where the state board’s Republican majority decided that Elon University and Western Carolina University also will not have early voting sites for the primary, even though those colleges have a history of hosting polling places. Read Article

Oregon won’t need to hand over unredacted voter rolls to Trump administration | Alan Riquelmy/Courthouse News Service

A federal judge overseeing a legal battle between the federal government and Oregon over its voter list tentatively ruled in favor of the state Wednesday in its bid to withhold the data. U.S. District Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai engaged in a back-and-forth with attorneys during a daylong hearing held on Oregon’s motion to dismiss. The federal government sought unredacted voter information from the Beaver State, including voters’ full dates of birth and driver’s license numbers. Oregon has said the law doesn’t require the disclosure of that data. Instead, it pointed to a publicly available list anyone can access. Read Article

Pennsylvania: Trump pardon doesn’t apply to alleged 2020 double voter, judge rules | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Matthew Laiss, a man accused of double voting in the 2020 election, is not covered by a pardon President Donald Trump issued to allies who attempted to overturn his 2020 election loss, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. “This Court finds that Laiss has not yet applied to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, or received a certificate of pardon, which the plain language of the Pardon requires him to do,” U.S. District Judge Joseph Leeson Jr. wrote. Federal prosecutors charged Laiss in September with voting twice in the November 2020 election, alleging that he moved from Pennsylvania to Florida in August of that year and voted both in person in Florida and via mail ballot in Bucks County. Both votes were allegedly for Trump. Read Article

Texas Republicans drive a big change to voting. Democrats will have to follow | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

In an about-face, Dallas County Republicans last week decided against hand-counting ballots in Texas’ March primary, saying they weren’t able to line up enough workers, among other hurdles. That leaves just two counties where Republicans will hand-count their primary ballots: Gillespie County, west of Austin, and Eastland County, southwest of Fort Worth. But Republicans in Dallas and Williamson counties are planning another major change for the March 3 primary election that will also require more election workers, and will affect how voters cast their ballots: They intend to eliminate the use of countywide voting sites on Election Day. That means voters in these counties — Republicans and Democrats — would be required to cast ballots at assigned neighborhood polling places instead of at more centralized polling locations that can accommodate any voter from anywhere in the county. Read Article

Election Deniers Think the Venezuela Attack Is All About 2020 | David Gilbert/WIRED

Election deniers and MAGA influencers are confident that the US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has nothing to do with oil or drug trafficking. Instead, they’re sure it’s all linked to unfounded claims that the Venezuelan government rigged the 2020 election in former president Joe Biden’s favor. President Donald Trump and his administration appear to have boosted these conspiracy theories. In the days after Maduro’s capture on January 3, Trump shared a flurry of posts on his Truth Social platform about election fraud, including ones related to Dominion Voting Systems. Other MAGA influencers posted about Smartmatic, another election company. Read Article

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