National: The Importance of Letting Voters Defend Their Rights in Court  | Kendall Verhovek/Brennan Center for Justice

Since the dawn of the Voting Rights Act, federal courts heard Section 2 claims brought by voters. Without this ability to sue, many, if not most, of the claims against racially discriminatory voting policies would have gone unheard, leaving in place a far more unjust and imperfect electoral process. This right was tacitly affirmed in Brown v. Post and accepted again and again in every one of the hundreds of Section 2 cases brought by individuals and organizations and heard by federal courts. Until 2021. In a concurring opinion in a major Voting Rights Act ruling, Justice Neil Gorsuch called Section 2’s private right of action “an open question” — undercutting decades of judicial consensus. This invitation was accepted in 2022, when a district court, followed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023, fully embraced this radical theory. The courts concluded that impacted voters and organizations can’t bring lawsuits under Section 2. Last month, a second ruling by a panel of the Eighth Circuit narrowed enforcement power further, preventing voters from suing for Section 2 offenses under another federal law that broadly protects against government violation of civil rights. Read Article

Alabama to add invisible security emblems to ballots | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen on Tuesday announced his latest effort to improve the security of his state’s elections — new security emblems that will be attached to all ballots starting next year. In a press release, Allen said the emblems are invisible to the human eye and can only be detected by specialized equipment provided to election administrators in each of Alabama’s 67 counties. According to his office, it will be the first in the nation to use the technology. Read Article

Proposed Arizona settlement recommends more warnings for voters coming off early-voting list | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

Arizona election officials would be instructed to provide more notice to voters who are at risk of being removed from the state’s early-voting list, under a conditional legal settlement with voting rights groups. The settlement, which was filed in court Monday and is still subject to final approval, would resolve a longstanding challenge to a 2021 law that eliminated the state’s Permanent Early Voting List. The agreement says voters who face removal should be notified two additional times before they are taken off the list, and once afterward. The agreement does not appear to impose any new notification requirements on county recorders, who manage county voter rolls. What it would do is provide suggested best practices for how the recorders should implement the law, including the schedule of notices. Because the additional notices wouldn’t be required, voters across the state could face unequal treatment as recorders begin implementing the law for the first time in 2027. Read Article

California: Justice Department sues O.C. registrar for noncitizen voting records | Salvador Hernandez and Laura J. Nelson/Los Angeles Times

Federal authorities sued Orange County’s top elections official Wednesday, alleging the county registrar violated federal law by refusing to disclose detailed information about people who were removed from the voter rolls because they were not citizens. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that Orange County Registrar Bob Page is “concealing the unlawful registration of ineligible, non-citizen voters” by withholding sensitive personal information such as Social Security and driver’s license numbers. The 10-page lawsuit does not allege that any noncitizens voted in Orange County. Read Article

Georgia: Running a low-turnout runoff election could cost $100 per vote | Jeff Amy/Associated Press

Miller County Election Supervisor Jerry Calhoun says he’s not sure anyone will vote in an upcoming Democratic primary runoff. After all, the southwest Georgia county only recorded one vote in the June 17 Democratic primary for the state Public Service Commission among candidates Keisha Waites, Peter Hubbard and Robert Jones. Statewide turnout for the primary on June 17 reached just 2.8% of Georgia’s 7.4 million active registered voters. That includes more than 15,000 people who likely voted for Blackman and didn’t have their votes counted. But the Democratic runoff might struggle to reach 1% turnout statewide. And counties could spend $10 million statewide to hold the election, based on a sampling of some county spending. That could be more than $100 per vote. Read Article

Michigan: What Benson vs. GOP election-manual fight is really about | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Michigan’s top election official is locked in a clamorous legal battle with Republican lawmakers over access to election training materials, a conflict that likely has less to do with policy than politics — and the coming race for governor. And if the battle continues at its current volume, voter trust in Michigan’s elections could take a beating. On one side is Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who won her 2022 re-election race by nearly 14 percentage points and is now a leading Democratic candidate for governor. Since 2019, she has been a key part of the Democratic power structure in the executive branch and the face of election oversight in a swing state that became a target of heavy scrutiny and conspiracy theories after Donald Trump’s 2020 loss. On the other side is the Michigan state House, back under Republican control since January, which has subpoenaed her, sued her, and even made moves to impeach her. Read Article

Minnesota assassination prompts many lawmakers to wonder: Is service worth the danger? | Alex Brown and Robbie Sequeira/Stateline

A year into her first term in office, New Jersey Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer decided not to run for reelection. The political world saw her as a rising star in 2023; Jaffer, a Democrat, previously served as the nation’s first female Muslim mayor. But rampant harassment from online commenters and other politicians about her religion, as well as high-profile acts of violence against other public officials, made her reconsider her political future. “I was concerned about my family,” Jaffer said in an interview. “They didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t want to put them in harm’s way.” In the wake of the assassination of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, as well as the wounding of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, more public officials across the country are taking stock of their safety. Some say death threats have become part of the job. They fear that violence — real attacks and constant threats — will scare potential candidates away from seeking public office. Read Article

How Nevada’s elections will change with new 2025 laws | Jessica Hill/Las Vegas Review-Journal

New laws from the 2025 legislative session aim to increase accessibility to Nevada’s elections and improve voters’ experiences. Election reform was a major focus in Carson City, though bills that sought to drastically change Nevada’s elections were blocked by the governor, including legislation to implement voter ID requirements and to allow nonpartisan voters to participate in primaries. Other bills seeking changes were successful, from requiring that sample ballots be sent before official mail ballots to disclosing campaign advertisements made with artificial intelligence. “Everything we tried to do this session has been focused on the voter experience and the voter perspective,” said Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar. Read Article

North Carolina county elections boards shift from Democratic to GOP control | Lynn Bonner/NC Newsline

North Carolina’s elections shakeup extended to all 100 counties Tuesday as local boards flipped from Democratic to GOP control and State Auditor Dave Boliek appointed Republican chairs to lead them. The changes expand GOP control of elections to the local level. Last month, Boliek appointed a Republican majority state elections board under a new law that took appointment power away from Democratic Gov. Josh Stein. Stein has sued over the law, but state appellate courts have allowed it to go into effect. Historically, the governor’s party has held majorities on the state and county boards. Local boards of election are the on-the-ground decision makers that pick polling locations, set early voting schedules and hours, and decide whether provisional ballots should be accepted. Read Article

South Carolina: Voters beware: 25 states restrict AI in elections. South Carolina is in the other half. | Shaun Chornobroff/SC Daily Gazette

South Carolina enters the 2026 campaign season without any state laws preventing political candidates from using artificial intelligence to make unfounded attacks against their opponents. Twenty-five states now require disclosures when using AI in campaign materials or banned its use altogether, with a number of them passing their laws ahead of the 2024 election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In the last presidential election cycle, GOP hopeful Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign shared AI-generated images of President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one-time chief medical adviser to the president, who is loathed by much of Trump’s base. Read Article

Pennsylvania House unanimously passes bill to crack down on deepfakes in politi | Jaxon White/WITF

House lawmakers Monday approved legislation to combat artificial intelligence that is used to mislead voters by impersonating political candidates. The bill, passed in a unanimous vote, would require campaigns to disclose when they use AI-generated deepfakes that mimic a candidate’s appearance or voice. Under the bill, political campaigns and organizations that do not disclose their use of a deepfake in an advertisement could be fined every day the ad runs. That daily fine would be up to $15,000 in municipal elections, $50,000 in state elections and $250,000 in federal elections. Read Article

Texas lawmakers failed to pass a proof of citizenship law but made other changes to elections | Natalia Contreras/The Texas Tribune

After considering a number of bills that would significantly reshape election administration and voting access in the state, Texas lawmakers ultimately approved only a few, including legislation that would alter the schedule of the 12-day early-voting period to increase access. They also passed measures aimed at reducing rejections of mail-voting applications and ballots, and added new restrictions on curbside voting, but held off on some more controversial proposals. Among the bills that didn’t advance were Senate Bill 16, one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priority bills, which would have imposed a strict requirement for voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship, and a measure that would have given state Attorney General Ken Paxton more authority to prosecute election crimes. Bills that would have permitted online voter registration, audits of hand-count results, and guns in polling sites also stalled. Read Article

Wisconsin approves new rule for election observers | Wisconsin Law Journal

The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) voted to publish a new administrative rule addressing the conduct of election observers and their interactions with election officials after more than two years of bipartisan collaboration. On June 19, WEC commissioners voted 5-1 to approve the rule that intends to offer clarity and uniformity to election observation for the benefit of voters, election officials, and observers. The rule will take effect on Aug. 1 after it has been added to the administrative code as EL 4 and published in the Administrative Register at the end of July. The final rule order, which took more than two years to develop, specifies who can observe elections, defines the rights and limitations of what election observers may do, differentiates election observers from election inspectors, and creates a more streamlined and accessible set of instructions for election observers to follow during the election process. Read Article

‘I’m just so scared’: Lawmakers reckon with safety after Minnesota slayings | Patrick Marley, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Holly Bailey and Kyle Melnick/The Washington Post

Minnesota lawmakers, terrified by predawn attacks on two of their own, turned to each other on a group text for comfort. A colleague had been killed and another had been shot, and the accused gunman was still on the loose. The 20 Democrats grieved and shared prayers — and began exchanging safety tips as they learned some of them were on the suspect’s list of targets. “I’m hunkered down,” one wrote Saturday morning after learning that authorities said the suspect had assembled a list of dozens of Democratic targets across the Midwest. “Will stay put. But I feel so sick.” Read Article

Arizona tries again to ensure that manual audits of election results get done | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

In Arizona, where distrust in elections runs high, many people agree that a manual check of election results could help boost confidence. And state law requires counties to do such audits. Yet they aren’t always happening. That’s because state law has strict conditions on who appoints the workers, who participates, and when it happens. If those conditions can’t be met, the elections director cancels the audit. Lawmakers have tried to change state law before to make sure the audits — which examine votes cast on a certain percentage of ballots in a set number of races — actually happen in each county. This year, they are trying again. Read Article

National: Justice Department’s early moves on voting and elections signal a shift from its traditional role | Christina A. Cassidy and Scott Bauer/Associated Press

In North Carolina, it was a lawsuit over the state’s voter registration records. In Arizona and Wisconsin, it was a letter to state election officials warning of potential administrative violations. And in Colorado, it was a demand for election records going back to 2020. Those actions in recent weeks by the U.S. Department of Justice’s voting section may seem focused on the technical machinery of how elections are run but signal deeper changes when combined with the departures of career attorneys and decisions to drop various voting rights cases. They represent a shift away from the division’s traditional role of protecting access to the ballot box. Instead, the actions address concerns that have been raised by a host of conservative activists following years of false claims surrounding elections in the U.S. Some voting rights and election experts also note that by targeting certain states — presidential battlegrounds or those controlled by Democrats — the moves could be foreshadowing an expanded role for the department in future elections. Read Article

National: A second federal judge partially blocks Trump’s executive order on elections | Carrie Levine/Votebeat

A federal judge has issued a second preliminary injunction blocking some provisions of the sweeping executive order on elections that President Donald Trump signed in March. Judge Denise Casper blocked provisions ordering the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to take steps to require documentary proof of citizenship from people registering to vote and requiring federal voter registration agencies to “assess” the citizenship of individuals who receive public assistance before providing them a voter registration form. Those provisions were also blocked by a federal judge in Washington D.C. last month in a separate case. Casper also blocked parts of the order telling the U.S. Justice Department to enforce a ballot receipt deadline of Election Day and ordering the EAC to withhold federal funds from states that did not comply with it. Casper wrote that the states challenging the provisions had “shown the risk of irreparable harm” if they were permitted to go into force, and the provisions would require the costly and difficult process of revamping states’ voter registration processes, as well as hampering “the registration of eligible voters, many of whom lack ready access to documentary evidence of citizenship.” Read Article

National: FBI Director Kash Patel feeds 2020 election conspiracy theories with documents about unverified tip | Ryan J. Reilly and David Rohde/NBC

FBI Director Kash Patel said this week the bureau had shared “alarming” — but unsubstantiated — allegations about manipulation of the 2020 election with a Republican member of Congress. The unsubstantiated claim promoted by Patel, which an unidentified confidential human source gave to the FBI in 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first term, asserts that the Chinese mass-produced driver’s licenses to be used in a mail-in ballot scheme. Patel linked to an article written by John Solomon, whom Trump appointed alongside Patel in 2022 to represent him before the National Archives and Records Administration on matters related to his presidential records. The article Patel promoted mentioned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seized fake licenses that were arriving mostly from China and Hong Kong around the time the FBI received the tip about the election plot. According to a 2020 news release from CBP, most of the seized licenses “were for college-age students,” a population that has historically sought licenses with fake birthdays so underage students can get into bars and purchase alcohol. No evidence of widespread or systemic voter fraud affecting the 2020 election has been found, despite allegations promoted by Trump and his allies since he lost that year’s presidential race. Read Article

National: Jury finds MyPillow founder defamed former employee for a leading voting equipment company | Colleen Ylevin/Associated Press

A federal jury in Colorado on Monday found that one of the nation’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, defamed a former employee for a leading voting equipment company after the 2020 presidential election. The jury found that two of Lindell’s statements about Eric Coomer, the former security and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, including calling him a traitor, were defamatory. It ordered Lindell and his online media platform, formerly known as Frankspeech, to pay Coomer $2.3 million in damages, far less than the $62.7 million Coomer had asked for to help send a message to discourage attacks on election workers. “This is hurting democracy. This is misinformation. It’s not been vetted and it needs to stop,” Charles Cain, one of Coomer’s attorneys, told jurors in closing arguments Friday. Read Aerticle

National: Trump uses his power to cement a false history of the 2020 election | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

Donald Trump’s second term is shaping up to be just as much about the past as the future. Not the past as it unfolded, but the version of events as he wants them remembered. There are a few troubling examples of how the president and his allies are actively attempting to reshape public views of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — and how these efforts are starting to affect real people and real institutions. Take Oklahoma. Teachers there are now facing updated social studies standards that instruct students to “identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results” — not to examine election systems or to discuss voter confidence, but to presume that the election was flawed. This language is a quiet but profound distortion: It accepts Trump’s false narrative of fraud and requires educators to teach that falsehood as fact. Read Article

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