New York: Amid turmoil at U.S. Attorney’s Office, federal probe of Ulster County Board of Elections ‘still ongoing’ | Paul Kirby/Daily Freeman

A federal unspecified probe into the Ulster County Board of Elections is apparently ongoing despite upheaval in the U.S. Attorney’s Office that is conducting it. Deputy County Executive Amberly Jane Campbell said Thursday that the investigation is “still ongoing (but) we can’t provide any other update right now.” Deputy County Executive James Amenta confirmed last week that in the last month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Northern District of New York requested documentation from the Ulster County Board of Elections, although Amenta declined to say what documents the federal government requested. On Wednesday, federal judges appointed Donald T. Kinsella as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District, but U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a social media post, fired Kinsella. That apparently left John A. Sarcone III in charge even after a federal judge last month concluded he was serving as U.S. attorney unlawfully. Read Article

North Carolina: Governor, Republican lawmakers square off in court over control of elections | Will Doran/WRAL

North Carolina appellate court judges heard arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit that could determine which political party is in charge of setting the rules for and confirming the results of elections in the state. It could also pave the way for a mass reshuffling of executive power in the state. The lawsuit pits North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein against top state lawmakers. Stein, a Democrat, argues that North Carolina Republican lawmakers violated the state constitution in late 2024 when they passed a law taking control of state election administration from the Democratic governor, giving it instead to the incoming Republican state auditor. The shift, implemented last year, came after nearly a decade of previous failed attempts by Republican lawmakers to give themselves power over elections. Read Article

Pennsylvania will pilot internet-connected pollbooks in May primary | Carter Walker/Spotlight PA

The Pennsylvania Department of State is launching a pilot program to try out the use of internet-connected electronic pollbooks, and the devices would be deployed as early as the May primary election.More than half of Pennsylvania counties are already using or have tested out electronic pollbooks, or e-pollbooks. But the state doesn’t currently allow those systems to be connected to the internet, limiting their utility, proponents say, and some county election officials have been petitioning the state to change that.Proponents point out that internet-connected pollbooks could reduce administrative burdens and allow counties to check results more quickly. But some county officials are concerned that connecting them to the internet could compromise election security. Amy Gulli, a spokesperson for the Department of State, said that on Jan. 28, the department informed e-pollbook vendors about how to apply to participate in the pilot program, which is still in the early stages, and “will assess whether internet-connected EPBs allow county election officials to respond to polling place issues faster and more efficiently.” Read Article

Texas: SAVE tool keeps mistakenly flagging voters as noncitizens | Jen Fifield and Zach Despart/The Texas Tribune

When county clerk Brianna Lennon got an email in November saying a newly expanded federal system had flagged 74 people on the county’s voter roll as potential noncitizens, she was taken aback. Lennon, who’d run elections in Boone County, Missouri, for seven years, had heard the tool might not be accurate. The flagged voters’ registration paperwork confirmed Lennon’s suspicions. The form for the second person on the list bore the initials of a member of her staff, who’d helped the man register — at his naturalization ceremony. It later turned out more than half the Boone County voters identified as noncitizens were actually citizens. A similar situation has been playing out in Texas, where county clerks have likewise found numerous examples of misidentified voters across the state. Read Article

Vermont is getting less help from the feds to keep elections secure | Shaun Robinson/VTDigger

Vermont’s secretary of state says it could get more difficult to keep elections secure because of recent federal funding cuts and other policy changes backed by the Trump administration that have limited cybersecurity information-sharing between states. From 2022 to 2024, Vermont received a $1 million grant each year under decades-old federal legislation called the Help America Vote Act. That money helped pay for long overdue upgrades to the software the state uses to run elections and keep voter data safe, according to Sarah Copeland Hanzas, the secretary, among other initiatives. But for 2025, Congress reduced Vermont’s award to $272,000. That left a gap the secretary’s office worries the state won’t be able to fill going forward, if federal support continues to waver. “It appears that we are on our own for now,” Copeland Hanzas, who’s a Democrat, told Vermont’s House Appropriations Committee last week. Read Article

Wisconsin: Lawsuit against Madison over uncounted ballots will move forward | Sarah Lehr/WPR

A Dane County judge is allowing a lawsuit to move forward against the City of Madison over uncounted ballots. On Monday, Judge David Conway rejected motions from the city and from former Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzhel-Behl that sought to have the case dismissed. The progressive law firm Law Forward launched the lawsuit on behalf of 193 Madison voters whose absentee ballots went uncounted in November 2024. Those untallied votes would not have changed the outcome of any race or referendum. But Law Forward argues that Madison violated the constitutional rights of those nearly 200 voters. Read Article

Wyoming Lawmakers Advance Hand-Count Recount Bill Despite County Clerks’ Objections | David Madison/Cowboy State Daily

House Bill 52 cleared the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee on Wednesday with broad support, overhauling Wyoming’s recount process to allow hand counting of ballots in close races. The county clerks who would have to carry it out, however, say the bill is a recipe for failure. The measure, a product of the Joint Corporations Committee’s 2025 interim work, redefines a “recount” in Wyoming law. Currently, the statute defines a recount as “the processing of ballots through the tabulation system for an additional time or times” — essentially running ballots back through the same machine. HB 52 changes that definition to include “the counting of ballots by hand.” Read Article

National: Trump doubles down on taking over elections, as outrage builds | Matt Cohen/Democracy Docket

Congress members, state election chiefs, and voting rights advocates are decrying President Donald Trump’s insistence that the federal government wrest control of elections from the states. “Any calls to ‘nationalize’ our elections are a power grab by the Trump Administration,” Rebekah Caruthers, the president and CEO of Fair Elections Center, told Democracy Docket. “Our Constitution says that Congress and the states set the rules for our elections, and the hardworking election officials in thousands of jurisdictions all over the country run them—not the president.”  Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, echoed that view. “As president, Trump has spoken and acted as if he has unlimited power, including unlimited power to interfere in elections,” Lindeman told Democracy Docket. “Americans should expect him to cross Constitutional lines, and we should be ready to push back.” Read Article

National: Steve Bannon calls for Trump to deploy ICE and military troops to polling sites – Jacob Wendler/Politico

MAGA commentator Steve Bannon voiced support for Donald Trump’s push to nationalize elections, calling on the president to deploy ICE officials and military troops to polling sites. Trump said in a Monday podcast interview that “the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” despite the fact that the Constitution grants states explicit jurisdiction over election administration. His call sparked outrage from Democrats and largely fell on deaf ears in the GOP — but Bannon, a conservative firebrand who has been a prominent voice in election conspiracy theories, was forceful in his support for the idea. The former White House strategist called for the Trump administration to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to polling sites to prevent noncitizens from voting, citing a debunked conspiracy theory about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Read Article

National: Trump’s Call to ‘Nationalize’ Elections Adds to State Officials’ Alarm | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

President Trump’s declaration that he wants to “nationalize” voting in the United States arrives at a perilous moment for the relationship between the federal government and top election officials across the country. While the executive branch has no explicit authority over elections, generations of secretaries of state have relied on the intelligence gathering and cybersecurity defenses, among other assistance, that only the federal government can provide. But as Mr. Trump has escalated efforts to involve the administration in election and voting matters while also eliminating programs designed to fortify these systems against attacks, secretaries of state and other top state election officials, including some Republican ones, have begun to sound alarms. Some see what was once a crucial partnership as frayed beyond repair. They point to Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, his continued false claims that the contest was rigged, the presence of election deniers in influential government positions and his administration’s attempts to dig up evidence of widespread voter fraud that year, even though none has ever been found. Read Article

 

National: FBI invites state election officials to an ‘unusual’ briefing on the midterms | Jane C. Timm/NBC

Days after a tense gathering in Washington, D.C., laid bare growing acrimony between President Donald Trump’s administration and state election officials, the FBI invited those same officials to discuss “preparations” for the midterm elections. The invitation, is scheduled for Feb. 25. It will include the FBI, the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Election Assistance Commission. The invitation, which was sent this week, according to the election official, was signed by Kellie M. Hardiman, who identified herself as an “FBI Election Executive.” A LinkedIn page for Hardiman says she was appointed seven months ago. The official who was invited and requested anonymity to speak candidly called it “unusual and unexpected,” adding that they planned to attend. Read Article

National: Top Republicans throw cold water on ‘nationalizing’ elections | Nina Heller/Roll Call

As many Republicans in Congress push for action on a voter ID bill, its future remains uncertain — and key voices in the GOP say they are wary of increasing federal involvement in elections. “I’m supportive of only citizens voting and showing ID at polling places. I think that makes sense … but I’m not in favor of federalizing elections. I mean, I think that’s a constitutional issue,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday. While the SAVE Act passed the House in April, it has yet to see action in the Senate. Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, led a letter on Monday urging Senate Rules and Administration Chair Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to advance the legislation through his committee, saying it was “past due.” McConnell, however, is one of a small handful of Republicans who have not signed on as co-sponsors of the SAVE Act. Asked about his position on the bill, his office pointed to a Wall Street Journal op-ed he wrote in April arguing that increasing federal involvement in elections is a slippery slope. While many states have voter ID requirements of their own, a federal mandate would be different. “Elections may have national consequences but the power to conduct them rests in state capitols. No public mandate, real or perceived, lets Washington tamper with this authority, not even for a worthy cause like election integrity,” McConnell wrote at the time, pushing back on an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March. Read Article

National: Tulsi Gabbard running solo 2020 election inquiry separate from FBI investigation | Trump administration | Hugo Lowell/The Guardian

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is running her own review into the 2020 election with Donald Trump’s approval, working separately from a justice department investigation even as she joined an FBI raid of an election center in Georgia last week. Her presence at the raid drew criticism from Democrats and former intelligence officials, who questioned why the country’s top intelligence officer with no domestic law enforcement powers would appear at the scene of an FBI raid. But Gabbard, whose role ordinarily focuses on overseeing the intelligence agencies, has played only a minimal role in the criminal investigation, according to three administration officials. “She’s doing her own thing,” one of the officials said. The parallel investigations into the 2020 election underscore the extent to which it has returned as a priority for the president. And Gabbard being sent to the raid showed the interest on voting machine manipulation claims that Trump has cited as evidence the election was stolen. Read Article

National: Election officials grapple with a brain drain as threats rise | Andrew Howard/Politico

Increasingly violent threats toward and harassment of public officials — from county clerks up to the president — are driving more and more of those figures out of their jobs, a particular concern among local election officials, who have struggled with attrition for years. In the years since the 2020 election, roughly 50 percent of top local election officials across 11 western states have left their jobs since November 2020, according to a new report from Issue One, a bipartisan organization that tracks election issues and supports campaign finance reforms. The election administration world has been grappling with a significant brain drain since the one-two punch of the 2020 pandemic and threats arising from conspiracy theories surrounding that year’s election. But the new report — which focuses on election offices in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming — is particularly concerning because it shows departures haven’t tapered off, marking a 10 percentage point uptick since the group’s 2023 report survey. Read Article

National: As feds pull back, states look inward for election security support | Derek B. Johnson/CyberScoop

It’s no secret that the Trump administration has radically altered the federal government’s relationship with state election officials since being sworn into power last year. While his first term included the creation of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the distribution of hundreds of millions in congressional funding sent to help states upgrade election security, Trump’s second term has so far been more adversarial toward states. As CyberScoop and others have reported, CISA has scaled back its election security support – in some cases shuttering work on topics like disinformation — while firing or sidelining election security specialists at the agency. The administration is also pursuing voter data from all 50 states, an effort that has been called “unprecedented and illegal” by one court. As feds pull back, states look inward for election security sRead Article

National: ‘Cowards’: Election officials rip Bondi, Gabbard, Noem for bailing on NASS event | Chris Teale/Route Fifty

The usually staid and bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State winter conference descended into rancorous dueling press conferences last week, after several administration officials promised to attend, only to withdraw at the eleventh hour. Typically, the event brings together state leaders and federal officials to discuss elections, cybersecurity and business-related issues. But the recent federal raid of the Fulton County, Georgia elections offices, observed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard apparently in search of alleged voter fraud during the 2020 election, as well as ongoing Department of Justice lawsuits demanding states turn over election data and records, had many officials on edge. Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a letter that federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement would withdraw from Minneapolis if, among other demands, the state turns over its voter rolls to the DOJ. Gabbard, Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had been announced on stage at the NASS conference as attending for a “fireside chat” by Jared Borg, special assistant to the president and deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. But none showed up, prompting a furious response from Democratic secretaries of state who had anticipated asking the trio about the data lawsuits, the raid in Georgia and ICE’s continued presence in their communities. Read Article

Arizona has lost more top election officials than any western state since 2020 | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror

In the five years since the 2020 presidential election, during which Republicans sowed doubt in election systems by spreading evidence-free “fraud” claims, a new report shows that Arizona counties have had more turnover in local election administration than any other western state. In fact, all 15 of Arizona’s counties have experienced turnover in at least one chief election position. The report by Issue One, a nonpartisan political reform nonprofit, shows that all 15 of Arizona’s counties experienced turnover, with the vast majority of them leaving due to personal reasons. After Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020, the Grand Canyon State became an epicenter for bogus election fraud claims manufactured by Donald Trump’s supporters. That led to things like the Arizona Senate’s sham “audit” of the 2020 presidential election — even though it was run by vocal Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists, it turned up no evidence of fraud — and efforts by candidates to overturn their election losses, often citing unfounded claims of fraud. Read Article

California: US Supreme Court rejects GOP challenge to new election map | David G. Savage/Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that California this fall may use its new election map, which is expected to send five more Democrats to Congress. With no dissents, the justices rejected emergency appeals from California Republicans and President Trump’s lawyers, who claimed the map was a racial gerrymander to benefit Latinos, not a partisan effort to bolster Democrats. “Donald Trump said he was ‘entitled’ to five more congressional seats in Texas. He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he’ll lose again in November,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in response to the court’s decision. Trump’s lawyers supported the California Republicans and filed a Supreme Court brief asserting that “California’s recent redistricting is tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” But the court turned down the appeal in a one-line order with no explanation. Read Article

Georgia House considers scrapping touchscreen voting by this year’s midterm elections | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In the wake of an extraordinary FBI raid on a Fulton County elections office, Georgia Republican lawmakers are moving to rework how the state conducts its elections in advance of a crucial midterm election. Under a draft House proposal obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgians would have two in-person voting options for casting their ballot. Election Day voters would use hand-marked paper ballots, which would be tabulated by machines. Georgians voting early would be able to choose to fill out a ballot by hand or select their candidates using the current touchscreen system, which prints out a paper ballot receipt. Touchscreen votes would be hand-counted. The proposal was expected to be considered in the House Governmental Affairs Committee on Monday, but the meeting was called off after the proposal’s language immediately sparked controversy among local election officials and Democrats. Read Article

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