Pennsylvania voters can cast a provisional ballot if their mail ballot is rejected, court says | Marc Levy/Associated Press

A court decided Thursday that voters in the presidential battleground of Pennsylvania can cast provisional ballots in place of mail-in ballots that are rejected for a garden-variety mistake they made when they returned it. Democrats typically outvote Republicans by mail by about 3-to-1 in Pennsylvania, and the decision by a state Commonwealth Court panel could mean that hundreds or thousands more votes are counted in November’s election, when the state is expected to play an outsized role in picking the next president. The three-member panel ruled that nothing in state law prevented Republican-controlled Butler County from counting two voters’ provisional ballots in the April 23 primary election, even if state law is ambiguous. Read Article

Pennsylvania: 2020 election deniers ordered to pay $1 million in voting machine dispute | Zachary Cohen/CNN

A Pennsylvania judge has determined that three 2020 election deniers must pay nearly $1 million in fees as the result of a years-long legal dispute with state officials over voting equipment used during the last presidential race, according to recent court filings. Recommendations from the judge, who was appointed to serve as a special master overseeing the case, attach a dollar figure to sanctions previously imposed by the state’s Supreme Court against two Republican county commissioners and their attorney for allowing an outside firm to examine voting equipment after the 2020 election – despite a court order prohibiting them to do so, according to the new filings. The case, which dates back to 2021, involves actions taken by two Fulton County, Pennsylvania, commissioners – Stuart Ulsh and Randy Bunch – who sought to have Dominion voting equipment examined by a third-party after the 2020 election. Many of former President Donald Trump’s allies falsely blamed Dominion’s software for his election defeat. Read Article

Texas attorney general sues over Bexar County voter registration program | Erik De La Garza/Courthouse News Service

Making good on his threats to sue one of the state’s most populated — and Democratic-leaning counties — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing Bexar County of enacting an illegal voter registration program. “This program is completely unlawful and potentially invites election fraud,” Paxton said in a statement immediately after filing the lawsuit in state court. “It is a crime to register to vote if you are ineligible.” County commissioners voted 3-1 on Tuesday in favor of a $392,700 contract for third-party company Civic Government Solutions to print and mail voter registration forms to unregistered voters “in location(s) based on targeting agreed to by the county,” according to the resolution. Read Article

Wisconsin social studies teachers face restrictions, complaints for teaching elections | Beatrice Lawrence/WPR

Social studies teachers are returning to the classroom during the home stretch of a contentious election season in Wisconsin. On top of their back-to-school responsibilities, they’re navigating how to teach about the topic in a politically polarized state. Sarah Kopplin is a social studies teacher at Shorewood Intermediate School and president of the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies. She said an alarming number of social studies teachers around the state have seen pushback on their lessons about elections and other current events. A survey from the council found 42 percent of council member respondents reported that building administration, school boards or community members lodged complaints or put restrictions on lessons related to politics, an election or current events, Kopplin said on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” Read Article

How states are preparing to head off an election certification crisis in November | Carrie Levine, Natalia Contreras, Jen Fifield, Hayley Harding, Alexander Shur and Carter Walker/Votebeat

New rules in Georgia governing how local officials finalize vote totals have some election watchdogs worried that loyalists of former President Donald Trump could trigger a crisis if he loses the state in November, by abusing their authority to delay or avoid certifying results. Election experts say they’re confident that the system’s checks and balances will quash those efforts and that each state has the legal authority to force members of county election boards to fulfill their duty to certify results. But they and state election officials are still concerned that the attempts could push the process close to strict deadlines and stoke doubts about the integrity of the election. Read Article

Arizona: US Supreme Court partly grants GOP request to enforce proof-of-citizenship voting law | Lawrence Hurley/NBC

The Supreme Court on Thursday partly granted a request from the Republican National Committee to make Arizona enforce measures requiring people to show proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. In what is likely to be one of many election-related disputes to come before the court ahead of the November election, the justices allowed for one of three provisions of the state law to be enforced. The vote was 5-4 on allowing limited enforcement of the law with conservative justices in the majority. One conservative, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined the three liberal justices in dissent. The court, in a brief order, did not explain its reasoning. Read Article

Supreme Court rejects GOP push to block 41K Arizona voters, but partly OKs proof of citizenship law | Lindsay Whitehurst and Jacques Billeaud/Associated Press

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a Republican push that could have blocked more than 41,000 Arizona voters from casting ballots for president in the closely contested swing state, but allowed some parts of a law requiring proof of citizenship to be enforced. The 5-4 order came after emergency appeal filed by state and national Republicans. It sought to give full effect to voting measures that were enacted after President Joe Biden won the state over Republican Donald Trump with less than 11,000 votes. The measures have drawn fierce opposition from voting rights advocates. The case could be one of multiple election disputes to come before the high court with the November election less than 90 days away. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have allowed the law to be fully enforced. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett would have joined with the court’s three liberals in fully rejecting the push, the order states. Read Article

National: US intelligence officials say Iran is to blame for hacks targeting Trump, Biden-Harris campaigns | Eric Tucker/Associated Press

U.S. intelligence officials said Monday they were confident that Iran was responsible for the hack of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, casting the cyber intrusion as part of a brazen and broader effort by Tehran to interfere in American politics and potentially shape the outcome of the election. The assessment from the FBI and other federal agencies was the first time the U.S. government has assigned blame for hacks that have raised anew the threat of foreign election interference and underscored how Iran, in addition to more sophisticated adversaries like Russia and China, remains a top concern. Besides breaching the Trump campaign, officials also believe that Iran tried to hack into the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris. Read Article

National: How Russian gender-based disinformation could influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election | Owen Wong/The Conversation

Most people have a general understanding of disinformation — false information that is intentionally created to cause harm. Disinformation becomes “gendered” when deliberately false information draws on common understandings of issues like masculinity, femininity and sexual violence. Although gender-based disinformation does not receive as much attention as race-based disinformation, it’s particularly dangerous because it taps into deep-seated beliefs about our own identities. Narratives about gender identity are also harder to fact-check than simple true or false stories. Read Article

National: Trump’s AI fakes of Taylor Swift and Kamala Harris aren’t meant to fool you | Will Oremus/The Washington Post

A week after Donald Trump falsely accused Kamala Harris’s campaign of using artificial intelligence to fabricate campaign images, he appears to have done just that. Over the weekend, the Republican presidential nominee shared a pair of posts on his social network, Truth Social, that included AI-generated images: one depicting a hammer-and-sickle flag over a Soviet-style Harris rally, another showing young women in “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts. On Sunday, he reposted the Harris image to X and on Monday sent an email to supporters, calling it “the photo Kamala doesn’t want you to see.” What’s noteworthy isn’t just that Trump is turning to generative AI to blur the truth. It’s the casual, almost mundane way he’s using it so far: not as a sophisticated weapon of deception, but as just another tool in his rhetorical arsenal. Read Article

National: Election officials like Tina Peters are a more pressing threat to elections than theoretical voting machine hacks | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

An important lesson became clear last week after a Colorado jury convicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters of helping conspiracy theorists to breach her county’s voting system in 2021. At the same time the trial was wrapping up, some tech whizzes were gathered in Las Vegas at DEF CON, the annual event where white-hat hackers try to break into all kinds of computer systems, from banking to aerospace, in search of security vulnerabilities. But the real, pressing security issues are not the things DEF CON uncovers, but rather the more boring things: chain-of-custody procedures, appropriate training, and adequate oversight. Which brings us to convicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, an actual threat to elections systems. “This case was a simple case centered around the use of deceit to commit a fraud,” Robert Shapiro, a special deputy district attorney for Colorado’s 21st Judicial District, told the jury during closing arguments in Peters’ trial Monday. “It’s not about computers. It’s not about election records. It’s about using deceit to trick and manipulate others, specifically public servants who were simply trying to do their job.” Read Article

Editorial: Republicans’ New, Dangerous Idea for Breaking the Election | Bob Bauer/The Atlantic

Only months before November’s elections, the Republican National Committee has launched a new legal attack on the rules that govern federal elections. Supported by 24 states, the RNC is seeking, on an emergency basis, a Supreme Court ruling that the United States Congress lacks the constitutional authority to regulate presidential elections—congressional elections, yes, but not elections held to select presidents. The petitioners’ immediate goal is to allow the state of Arizona to impose a “proof of citizenship” requirement as a condition of a person’s right to vote for president. If they are to succeed, the Court will have to suddenly, with mere weeks left before people start voting, abandon or explain away a decision it rendered in 2013—that Congress has the power to establish rules for voter registration in presidential elections. But even if the suit fails, it risks achieving some success in sowing doubt about the integrity of elections, highlighting claims of illegal voting by immigrants, and laying a foundation for post-election allegations of fraud and related legal challenges. Read Article

Alabama law makes offering, receiving compensation to gather mail ballots a felony | UPI

Voters in Alabama may face up to 20 years in prison for offering or receiving compensation for assistance turning in a mail-in ballot, according to a new state law. SB1 makes it a Class B felony to pay or give a gift to a third party to order or deliver an absentee ballot. A Class B felony is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $30,000 fine. Likewise, it is a Class C felony for a third party — with some exceptions — to accept payment or gifts for these purposes. The maximum penalty for this is 10 years in prison. Read Article

Florida: VR Systems takes ‘full responsibility’ for election websites crashing | Ana Goñi-Lessan/Tallahassee Democrat

Election supervisor websites crashed in multiple Florida counties on Tuesday after the company that supports the sites said they suffered “extraordinary stress.” “We believe the logging that was enabled as a security measure was at the root of the issues that our customers experienced,” VR Systems, the Tallahassee-based elections software company, said on Tuesday evening. Leon, Palm Beach, Manatee, Sarasota and Broward and other counties’ websites were experiencing technical issues, could not be accessed or were timing out. Almost an hour after polls closed, Lake and Palm Beach still did not have results pages. In an updated statement released Wednesday afternoon, VR Systems said the glitches affected every clients’ website that they host, and they “take full responsibility.” It is not yet known how many Florida counties were affected and what time all the issues were resolved. Read Article

Georgia board rejects widespread use of paper ballots for November election | David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The State Election Board on Monday rejected calls to implement widespread use of paper ballots filled out by hand in the November election. Election integrity advocates asked the board to authorize the statewide use of hand-marked paper ballots, citing concerns about the security of Georgia’s Dominion Voting System machines. “I’m just asking you to move to secure our voting system before the most important election in my lifetime,” longtime tea party activist Debbie Dooley, who proposed one of the rules, told the board. But the board unanimously rejected two similar rules calling for the use of hand-marked paper ballots. Among other things, board members said they lack the authority to implement sweeping changes to the way Georgians cast their ballots. Read Article

Michigan: In small towns, even GOP clerks are targets of election conspiracies | Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline

Deep in the thumb of Michigan’s mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula, Republican election officials are outcasts in their rural communities. Michigan cities already were familiar with the consequences of election conspiracy theories. In 2020, Republicans flooded Detroit’s ballot counting center looking for fraud. Democratic and Republican election officials faced an onslaught of threats. And conservative activists attempted to tamper with election equipment. But the clerks who serve tiny conservative townships around Lake Huron never thought the hatred would be directed toward them. “I’m telling you — I’ve heard about everything I could hear,” said Theresa Mazure, the clerk for the 700 residents of Hume Township in Huron County. “I just shake my head. And when you try to explain, all I hear is, ‘Well, that’s just the Democrats talking.’ No, it’s the democratic process.” Read Article

Nevada Supreme Court declines to wade into flap over certification of election results, for now | Scott Sonner and Gabe Stern/Associated Press

Nevada’s Supreme Court declined Tuesday to wade into an electoral controversy despite pleas from the state’s top election official and attorney general after one county initially voted against certifying recount results from the June primary. The Democratic officials wanted the justices to make clear that counties have no legal authority to refuse to certify election results. The high court said in a ruling that the matter was moot since the Washoe County Commission’s original 3-2 vote against certification was later nullified when it re-voted the following week to certify the results. Read Article

New York’s early mail-in voting law upheld by top court | Dan Clark/Times-Union

New York’s highest court upheld a law Tuesday that allows ballots to be mailed in during the early voting period ahead of an election, soundly rejecting arguments from Republicans that the statute violates the state constitution.The ruling means the mail-in voting option will be allowed in this November’s election and future elections in New York unless the law faces another legal challenge. “While some want to put up roadblocks and stifle New Yorkers’ ability to exercise their constitutional right to vote, I will always stand up and protect this basic, yet essential, freedom,” said state Attorney General Letitia James, whose office defended the state in the case. Read Article

Pennsylvania Judge Rules Butler County Voters Cannot Cure ‘Naked’ Mail-in Ballots | Rachel Selzer/Democracy Docket

As a result of a ruling issued last Friday by a Pennsylvania judge, Butler County voters will not be able to cure defective mail-in ballots that are missing inner secrecy envelopes — also known as “naked ballots.” The ruling, which is expected to be appealed, upholds a prior decision from the Butler County Board of Elections refusing to allow two voters to cure their “naked” mail-in ballots cast in the state’s 2024 primary election. “It is the voter’s burden to ensure they have completed the steps necessary for their mail-in ballot to be included in the tabulation,” last week’s order reads. The judge added that it is the task of the Pennsylvania Legislature, not the court, to implement a new set of curing procedures to remedy defective mail-in ballots. Read Article

Five of Pennsylvania’s ‘fake electors’ from 2020 are back on Trump’s 2024 slate | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Five Pennsylvania Republicans who joined an alternate slate of electors for Donald Trump in 2020 will again serve as presidential electors in this year’s contest. William “Bill” Bachenberg, Bernadette Comfort, Ash Khare, Patricia Poprik, and Andrew Reilly are included on a list of electors submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of State by the GOP. Those electors, along with 15 others, drew criticism after submitting their names as electors for Pennsylvania in December 2020 and casting votes for then-President Trump, even though Joe Biden won the state’s popular vote. But unlike similar groups of alternate or “fake” electors in other swing states in 2020, the Pennsylvania slate avoided legal repercussions because of a caveat they included in the certificate documenting their vote. Read Article

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