National: US surveillance, election cybersecurity and Tulsi Gabbard | Ann-Marie Corvin/Cybernews

Earlier this week, a US senator publicly warned about the expanding use of personal data by federal authorities while separately sending a brief, private letter to the director of the CIA. In a video posted on Instagram, and intended to reach a wide audience, Ross Wyden pointed to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practice of using surveillance technologies and data sources in enforcement activity. “ICE is using apps to collect biometric data on protesters,” he warned. “That means that they can track your location, where you go, what you do, and especially who you talk to.” Wyden also said the agency is purchasing location information from commercial data brokers and using motor-vehicle records obtained from state governments. “My investigators have found that ICE is using government data they collect from state Departments of Motor Vehicles,” Wyden said. “They are refusing to answer any questions of ours about how this data is being used.” Read Article

National: Alarm bells sound over Trump’s ‘take over the voting’ call | US voting rights | Sam Levine/The Guardian

Donald Trump set off alarm bells earlier this week with comments that his administration should “take over the voting” in some states in the run-up to the 2026 midterms, which followed an unprecedented FBI raid on an election office in Georgia. Although election experts say it’s clear the president doesn’t have authority over elections, they warn the president’s corrosive rhetoric leaves little doubt about his intent. For months, the Trump administration has stoked doubts about the integrity of American elections largely through lawsuits designed to create the impression states aren’t doing enough to keep ineligible voters off the rolls. That effort escalated significantly last week when the FBI raided the election office in Fulton county, Georgia and seized ballots, along with other materials, related to the 2020 election. Shortly after the raid, Trump escalated his attack even further, saying the federal government should take over elections. “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said during a recent interview with Dan Bongino, the former deputy FBI director who has returned to hosting a podcast. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many – 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” Democracy experts believe there is no longer any doubt about Trump’s desire to interfere with this fall’s elections. Read Article

Arizona primary to move up 2 weeks under bipartisan legislation | Sasha Hupka/Votebeat

Arizona will permanently move up its state primary election date under a new law that will also give voters more time to fix signature problems on early ballots and codify where party observers may watch election activity. The Arizona House voted unanimously on Feb. 2 to pass the legislation, which will move the primary from the first Tuesday in August to the second-to-last Tuesday in July. That will ensure that election officials can meet federally mandated deadlines to send out general election ballots to military and overseas voters, even if a statewide recount delays the finalization of the primary results. The legislation passed the Arizona Senate with a similarly bipartisan vote on Thursday, and was signed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs on Friday. The 2026 primary election date will now move from Aug. 4 to July 21. Read Article

Delaware Elections Office asks for state funds increase after drop in federal support | Bente Bouthier/Delaware Public Media

Gov. Matt Meyer’s 2027 budget plan opted not to fund several requests from Delaware’s Dept. of Elections, such as expanded early voting locations and upgrades to its campaign finance reporting system. State Election Commissioner Anthony Albence told the Joint Finance Committee that funds for an updated campaign finance reporting system border on necessary. CFRS was implemented first in 2015, and the Office of Budget and Management said its approved updates to the system since then. Albence said that making tweaks to the current system is more expensive. Read Article

Georgia: FBI raid of Fulton County was driven by Trump appointee, court docs show | Chloe Atkins, Ryan J. Reilly, Jane C. Timm and Corky Siemaszko/NBC

The FBI last month raided a Georgia election hub near Atlanta and seized ballots and voter records at the urging of a lawyer who had worked with President Donald Trump to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election, a newly released court record revealed Tuesday. FBI special agent Hugh Raymond Evans wrote in an affidavit that the investigation “originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity.” Olsen, who took part in the “Stop the Steal” campaign more than five years ago and promoted baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, was previously sanctioned by a federal judge for making “false, misleading and unsupported factual assertions.” He was hired last year by the administration to investigate the 2020 election. Read Article

Michigan governor’s budget proposal includes $43 million for new voting machines | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s proposed 2027-2028 budget includes more than $43 million for new voting equipment, an appropriation election officials across Michigan say is critical in keeping the state’s election infrastructure secure and up to date. The money is only a tiny portion of the $88.1 billion proposal Whitmer unveiled Wednesday. If approved, it will allow clerks to upgrade their machinery to the newest federal standards without forcing cities and townships to shoulder all the costs on their own. If that money doesn’t win approval from the Legislature, however, it could put a major crunch on local clerks who have already seen their elections budgets double or even triple in the last decade with recent expansions to voting procedures. Read Article

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

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