Arizona: Maricopa County proposal to send out unsolicited mail ballots has a history | Jen Fifield/Votebeat

When Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap proposed sending mail ballots for a July election to a group of voters who hadn’t requested them, the suggestion seemed to come out of nowhere. Heap’s plan especially shocked his fellow Republicans, including the county supervisors, who have been clashing with him over election policy and who quickly voted to try to block it. GOP Chairwoman Gina Swoboda told Heap in a letter that his plan would be ill-advised and illegal. But Heap has defended his plan as a way to avoid disenfranchising rural voters who would otherwise have to drive unreasonably long distances to vote in person. And there’s some history that helps explain why Heap, who is aligned with the GOP’s arch-conservative Freedom Caucus and who campaigned on a platform of “election integrity,” would suggest such a move. Read Article

Arizona judge deals blow to case over 2020 Republican electors | Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Patrick Marley/The Washington Post

An Arizona judge has ordered state prosecutors to send back to a grand jury a case in which Republicans were charged last year for their alleged roles in trying to overturn the 2020 election, potentially jeopardizing the high-profile indictments. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam J. Myers sided with the Republicans and found that prosecutors failed to provide the grand jury with the text of an 1887 federal law that is central to the Republicans’ defense. The law, known as the Electoral Count Act, spells out how presidential electoral votes are to be cast and counted. “We are extremely pleased with the court’s ruling, and we think the judge got it exactly right,” said Stephen Binhak, the attorney who spearheaded the effort to get the case back to a grand jury. The decision is a major setback for Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D), who promised to appeal the ruling so she could keep the prosecution going. Read Article

Kansas ends mail-in ballot grace period voting law. Why have other states followed? | Tyler Kirby/Kansas City Star

Once a bipartisan safeguard against postal delays and slow mail processing times, Kansas’ three-day mail ballot grace period is now gone — axed by lawmakers, challenged in court, and mirrored in a growing number of Republican-led states. Following the 2020 election, former President Trump promoted false claims of widespread voter fraud, targeting states that allowed ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted after polls closed, many under temporary pandemic-era policies. Trump and his allies seized on mail delays and extended deadlines to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the results. A law passed nearly unanimously by the Kansas Legislature in 2017 granted a three-day grace period for legally postmarked mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day, responding to concerns that U.S. Postal Service delays were causing some ballots, especially from rural areas, to arrive late and go uncounted. Read Article

Michigan GOP lawmakers lose U.S. Supreme Court bid to void election laws | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a petition by 11 Republican Michigan legislators who sought to overturn expanded voting measures enacted through statewide ballot initiatives, bringing an end to the federal case known as Lindsey v. Whitmer. The federal case was always a longshot, experts told Votebeat when it was first brought before the Supreme Court, which hears only about 150 of the thousands of requests it gets each year. The justices denied the lawmakers’ petition without comment. But their attorney, conservative legal activist Erick Kaardal, told lawmakers that he’s not done trying to challenge the election measures, which include no-reason absentee voting, and straight-party voting, passed as part of 2018’s Proposal 3, as well as early voting and ballot drop boxes from Proposal 2 in 2022. Read article

Montana lawmakers tighten voting rules, signature-gathering laws. | Tom Lutey/Montana Free Press

Several bills passed during the 2025 legislative session change state election laws governing elections, including how late Montanans can register to vote. Senate Bill 490, sponsored by Sen. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, changes the deadline for registering to vote or changing voter information. Proponents said the bill would put an end to long lines of last-minute voters waiting, sometimes until after midnight on Election Day, to register and vote. The bill limits same-day registration to a four-hour period on Election Day, and ends the ability to register on the Monday before an election. Previously, anyone in line by 8 p.m. on Election Day could register to vote. Cuffe told lawmakers that county election officials across the state asked for the change. Read Article

After North Carolina Supreme Court Win, Democrats Lose Control of Board That Sets Voting Rules | Doug Bock Clark/ProPublica

Last week, North Carolina Democrats scored a victory when Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin, who’d lost a tight race for the state’s Supreme Court, finally conceded defeat after a six-month legal battle to throw out ballots that he contended were illegitimate. But that same morning, the party suffered a setback that may be more consequential: losing control of the state board that sets voting rules and adjudicates election disputes. The board oversees virtually every aspect of state elections, large and small, from setting rules dictating what makes ballots valid or invalid to monitoring compliance with campaign finance laws. In the Supreme Court race, it consistently worked to block Griffin’s challenges. Read Article

Oklahoma will teach high schoolers ‘Big Lie’ about 2020 election | Kayla Jimenez/USA Today

Oklahoma’s public school history teachers will soon be required to teach the disproved conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party stole the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump. The Republican-led state’s new high school history curriculum says students must learn how to dissect the results of the 2020 election, including learning about alleged mail-in voter fraud, “an unforeseen record number of vo

Pennsylvania: A failed plot to steal a local election shows how hard it is to pull off fraud | Carter Walker/Spotlight PA

In October 2021, shortly before Election Day, Mahabubul Tayub was reviewing the voter rolls for the tiny Philadelphia suburb of Millbourne, where he was on the ballot as a candidate for mayor. Something didn’t seem right. Dozens of new voters had been registered in recent weeks, he noticed, including some people he knew — people who didn’t live in Millbourne. Tayub won the mayoral election that November, but it would take years for authorities to fully unravel what was behind the odd registrations he discovered: a brazen attempt at election fraud. Read Article

Texas lawmakers want penalties for local governments’ campaign finance posting failures | Lexi Churchill/The Texas Tribune

Texas lawmakers are pushing to impose steep penalties on local governments that don’t post campaign finance reports online, after an investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found some school districts weren’t doing so. The initial posting requirements, designed to make election spending more transparent, went into effect nearly two years ago. Most of the school district leaders said they had no idea they were out of compliance until the newsrooms contacted them. Even after many districts uploaded whatever documentation they had on file for their trustee elections, reports were still missing because candidates hadn’t turned them in or the schools lost them. “I was surprised and disappointed,” said Republican state Rep. Carl Tepper, who authored the online posting requirement. “I did realize that we didn’t really put any teeth into the bill.” Read Article

Utah elections audit highlights some cybersecurity concerns | Andy Culp/KSL

A new report highlighted cybersecurity weaknesses in the state’s election system but found that Utah elections are overall secure. The audit, which was discussed during Wednesday morning’s Government Operations Interim Committee meeting, found several areas of recommendations for county clerks to help strengthen security in Utah elections. The audit didn’t find any glaring errors or causes for concern, but did find a few areas where security could be strengthened. One of these dealt with wireless networking capabilities. According to the audit, the election server in one country was built using an off-the-shelf laptop. That meant the laptop had wireless internet components installed. Read Article

Washington state to require counties to partition off their election systems | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson on Saturday signed 50 bills into law, including one designed to strengthen the security of election systems overseen by state and county offices. Senate Bill 5014, which the legislature unanimously approved last month, creates several new requirements for government offices involved in elections, including adoption of the .gov top-level domain for their websites. It requires election equipment to be partitioned from other “supporting electronic infrastructure” and adds new breach reporting requirements. Upon signing the bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Matt Behnke, Ferguson said it “will reinforce and strengthen Washington’s commitment to fair and secure elections.” The legislation advises all changes to be made “as soon as practicable,” but no later than July 1, 2027. Read Article

National: Political tension and fears of violence may have changed voter turnout in 2024 | Grace Panetta/The 19th

Women and gender-nonconforming people were more likely than men to fear violence and harassment while voting in the 2024 election, and those who expressed concerns about safety were more likely not to vote at all, new research shows. The study, released Monday and shared first with The 19th, was conducted by States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization focused on promoting fair and secure elections and upholding the rule of law. “Tens of millions of Americans ultimately cast their ballots in 2024 without incident,” the report said. “But voting was not straightforward and safe for all Americans. Many were harassed, and a limited number were subjected to physical violence.” Read Article

Opinion | How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy? | Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt/The New York Times

Authoritarianism is harder to recognize than it used to be. Most 21st-century autocrats are elected. Rather than violently suppress opposition like Castro or Pinochet, today’s autocrats convert public institutions into political weapons, using law enforcement, tax and regulatory agencies to punish opponents and bully the media and civil society onto the sidelines. We call this competitive authoritarianism — a system in which parties compete in elections but the systematic abuse of an incumbent’s power tilts the playing field against the opposition. It is how autocrats rule in contemporary Hungary, India, Serbia and Turkey and how Hugo Chávez ruled in Venezuela. The descent into competitive authoritarianism doesn’t always set off alarms. Because governments attack their rivals through nominally legal means like defamation suits, tax audits and politically targeted investigations, citizens are often slow to realize they are succumbing to authoritarian rule. More than a decade into Mr. Chávez’s rule, most Venezuelans still believed they lived in a democracy. Read Article

National: State and local election officials plead with Congress for election security funding | Derek B. Johnson/CyberScoop

As the Trump administration takes a hatchet to the federal government’s election security work and attempts to place conditions on funding to states, state and local election officials are pleading with lawmakers to provide robust support they say is crucial to keeping American elections secure. In a letter sent to leaders on the House and Senate Appropriations committees this week, 150 active and retired officials from across the country asked Congress to set aside $400 million next fiscal year for election security grant funding under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). “The federal government shares with state and local governments the responsibility to overcome funding shortfalls in the most essential charge our government carries: to ensure safe, secure, and effective elections,” the officials wrote. “Yet, Congress has recently provided inconsistent and insufficient funding to meet these requirements.” Read Article

National: DOJ Voting Section Has Just Three Lawyers Left, Watchdog Estimates | Matt Cohen/Democracy Docket

The voting section of the U.S. Department of Justice has only three attorneys left on staff, according to an estimate provided by a group working to support the department’s remaining staff. It’s a severe reduction in the voting section since the start of the Trump administration in January, when it had an estimated 30 attorneys assigned to enforce voting rights laws. According to the group, Justice Connection, staff attorneys in the voting section either resigned as part of the deferred resignation program, or were reassigned to another department in the DOJ. Justice Connection said it obtained its estimate from employees within the civil rights division, of which the voting section is a part. Read Article

National: Federal appeals court deals major blow to Voting Rights Act | Tierney Sneed/CNN

A federal appeals court on Wednesday shut down the ability of private individuals to bring Voting Rights Act lawsuits challenging election policies that allegedly discriminate based on race in several states, a major blow to the civil rights law that has long been under conservative attack. The ruling, which leaves enforcement of the VRA’s key provision to the US attorney general, comes as the Trump Justice Department is gutting its civil rights division and pivoting away from the traditional voting rights work. The DOJ, for instance, dropped major lawsuits previously brought against Texas and Georgia. The new ruling from the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals covers the seven midwestern states covered in the St. Louis-based Circuit. The opinion means that in those states, only the Justice Department can bring lawsuits enforcing a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, which was passed by Congress in 1965 to address racial discrimination in election policies. Read Article

National: DHS won’t tell Congress how many people it’s cut from CISA | Tim Starks/CyberScoop

The Department of Homeland Security won’t tell Congress how many employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency it has fired or pushed to leave, a top congressional Democrat said Wednesday. “You’ve overseen mass reductions in the workforce at CISA and” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, told DHS Secretary Kristi Noem at a hearing of the panel. “Despite repeated requests from this committee on how many people have been fired or have been bullied into quitting … DHS has refused to share that information. “It should worry every American that we do not know how many people are left at FEMA to respond to disasters and how many cyber defenders still work at CISA as China and other adversaries attack our systems every day,” he continued. Read Article

National: Trump Administration Cancels Scores of Grants to Study Online Misinformation | Steven Lee Myers/The New York Times

The Trump administration has sharply expanded its campaign against experts who track misinformation and other harmful content online, abruptly canceling scores of scientific research grants at universities across the country. The grants funded research into topics like ways to evade censors in China. One grant at the Rochester Institute of Technology, for example, sought to design a tool to detect fabricated videos or photos generated by artificial intelligence. Another, at Kent State University in Ohio, studied how malign actors posing as ordinary users manipulate information on social media. Officials at the Pentagon, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation contend that the research has resulted in the censorship of conservative Americans online, though there is no evidence any of the studies resulted in that. Read Article

National: Advocacy groups ‘concerned’ about federal proposal to override state AI regulations | Keely Quinlan/StateScoop

A provision included in a House committee budget bill this week would prohibit states from enforcing their own laws and regulations governing the use of artificial intelligence systems over the next decade. The provision, which is included in a broader, budget reconciliation bill pushed ahead by House Republicans of the Energy and Commerce Committee and advanced by a vote on Wednesday, would prohibit states and local governments cities from passing new laws or enforcing existing laws that regulate AI models or systems, until 2035. If enacted, the bill would put a moratorium on laws such as Colorado’s landmark comprehensive AI legislation, and California’s laws addressing harms caused by AI deepfakes. Many state AI laws are aimed at promoting transparency, protecting creative rights and mitigating harms that could be caused by invasions of privacy. Read Article

Opinion: The End of Rule of Law in America | J. Michael Luttig/The Atlantic

Thus far, Trump’s presidency has been a reign of lawless aggression by a tyrannical wannabe king, a rampage of presidential lawlessness in which Trump has proudly wielded the powers of the office and the federal government to persecute his enemies, while at the same time pardoning, glorifying, and favoring his political allies and friends—among them those who attacked the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection that Trump fomented on January 6, 2021. The president’s utter contempt for the Constitution and laws of the United States has been on spectacular display since Inauguration Day. For the almost 250 years since the founding of this nation, America has been the beacon of freedom to the world because of its democracy and rule of law. Our system of checks and balances has been strained before, but democracy—government by the people—and the rule of law have always won the day. Until now, that is. America will never again be that same beacon to the world, because the president of the United States has subverted America’s democracy and corrupted its rule of law. Read Article

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