National: GOP recruits army of poll watchers to fight voter fraud no one can prove exists | Jane C. Timm/NBC

Republicans are recruiting an estimated 50,000 volunteers to act as “poll watchers” in November, part of a multimillion-dollar effort to police who votes and how. That effort, coordinated by the Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, includes a $20 million fund for legal battles as well as the GOP’s first national poll-patrol operation in nearly 40 years. While poll watching is an ordinary part of elections — both parties do it — voting rights advocates worry that such a moneyed, large-scale offensive by the Republicans will intimidate and target minority voters who tend to vote Democratic and chill turnout in a pivotal contest already upended by the coronavirus pandemic. Some states allow poll monitors to challenge a voter’s eligibility, requiring that person’s ballot undergo additional vetting to be counted. In Michigan, for example, a challenged voter will be removed from line and questioned about their citizenship, age, residency and date of voter registration if, according to election rules, a vote challenger has “good reason” to believe they are not eligible. They are required to take an oath attesting that their answers are true and are given a special ballot.

Iowa: Senate Republicans propose limiting election officials’ powers during emergency | Ian Richardson and Stephen Gruber-Miller/Des Moines Register

Three days after a statewide primary election that saw record turnout due largely to coronavirus-related absentee voting, Iowa Senate Republicans advanced legislation that would prevent election officials from repeating some of the same steps in the general election. The legislation would prohibit county auditors from reducing polling locations by more than 35% during an emergency and prohibit the secretary of state from mailing absentee ballot requests without a written voter request. Iowa election officials took both of those actions before Tuesday’s primary to ease both voting and election administration during the virus. Republicans have said they want to write guidelines to provide clarity for campaigns ahead of the November federal elections. But Democrats on Friday said the changes would suppress votes, and the amendment also drew outcry from local election officials.

Editorials: Bill Barr’s strategy to undermine confidence in the 2020 election | Perry Grossman/Slate

We are in the midst of a lethal pandemic. There are also unprecedented protests against police brutality and curfews in place. And the attorney general of the United States is using his time to actively undermine confidence in the integrity of the November elections by floating nonsense conspiracy theories about counterfeit absentee ballots. Republican attempts at voter suppression are nothing new. What’s new is the chaos element that Barr’s remarks inject into the 2020 election cycle. It’s an attempt to foment a climate in which Trumpian authoritarianism can take center stage over liberal democracy. For decades, Republicans have used false claims of voter fraud to justify voter suppression efforts. For example, in the 1981 race for governor of New Jersey, the Republican National Committee and the state party executed a voter-caging scheme by mailing out letters targeting thousands of primarily Black and Latinx New Jersey voters using an outdated voter registration list. They then used the bounced-back mail to try to purge those voters from the rolls. That same year, Republicans deployed a group of off-duty police officers wearing armbands identifying themselves as members of the “National Ballot Security Task Force,” armed and carrying walkie-talkies, to patrol polling places in minority neighborhoods on Election Day. They posted signs reading: “WARNING THIS AREA IS BEING PATROLLED BY THE NATIONAL BALLOT SECURITY TASK FORCE.” These tactics resulted in a consent decree against the RNC’s “ballot security” programs that remained in place for the next 25 years, but Democrats lost that 1981 gubernatorial race by fewer than 2,000 votes.

National: As Trump attacks voting by mail, GOP builds 2020 strategy around limiting its expansion | Amy Gardner, Shawn Boburg and Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post

President Trump’s persistent attacks on mail-in voting have fueled an unprecedented effort by conservatives to limit expansion of the practice before the November election, with tens of millions of dollars planned for lawsuits and advertising aimed at restricting who receives ballots and who remains on the voter rolls. The strategy, embraced by Trump’s reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee and an array of independent conservative groups, reflects the recognition by both parties that voting rules could decide the outcome of the 2020 White House race amid the electoral challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Helping drive the effort is William Consovoy, a veteran Supreme Court litigator who also serves as one of Trump’s personal lawyers. Consovoy’s Virginia-based law firm is handling a battery of legal actions on behalf of the RNC, several state GOPs and an independent group called the Honest Election­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­s Project, which is connected to a Trump adviser. The legal firepower and direct involvement of the national party reflect a major escalation in the conservative battle over voter fraud and voting rights, which until this year had primarily been waged by lesser-known groups with far fewer resources. The tactics of those organizations are now being embraced by new players with connections to influential figures in the president’s orbit. Thanks in part to Trump’s focus on the topic and his assertion that widespread mail balloting would harm Republicans, claims about the high risks of voter fraud have become central to the GOP’s 2020 playbook.

National: Americans doubt elections as Trump discredits voting systems | Evan Halper/Los Angeles Times

The diatribes are as unnerving and unrelenting as they are untrue: An incumbent president warning that the nation’s voting systems are cauldrons for fraud and ripe for rigging, seemingly setting the groundwork to discredit the results should he lose in November. But while such rhetoric lacks precedent in the Oval Office, scholars say it’s a familiar playbook that President Trump is using — and one that has already had a malignant impact on public trust in American democracy. Trump’s repeated warnings of mass robbing of ballots from mailboxes, rampant forgery and flocks of illegal immigrants being permitted to hijack elections have been debunked by voting officials across party lines. Nevertheless, evidence increasingly shows that Americans are losing faith in the integrity of the nation’s elections, putting the U.S. in unaccustomed company. “I have only ever thought about these things before in an authoritarian setting,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior intelligence officer who led the U.S. government’s strategic analysis on Russia and is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. “Now the same indicators are relevant here.”

National: Trump’s Mail-In Voting Fraud Claims Draw Republican Critics | Shaun Courtney/Bloomberg

President Donald Trump‘s unsubstantiated claims that voting by mail will result in massive fraud in November has prompted worried protests from an increasing number of luminaries from within his own party. “It’s actually disappointing because it means you’re trying to sow the seeds of doubt in a process that has been so much a part of Americans’ history,” former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge said about the president’s vote-by-mail tweets. “It flies in the face of what I think both parties should be focused in on, and that’s creating options that are safe and secure for all voters, particularly during the pandemic.” Ridge is the Republican face of VoteSafe, a bipartisan campaign to ensure that every U.S. state and territory has secure mail-in ballots and safe, in-person voting sites during the Covid-19 pandemic. The group, also led by former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, launched May 21. By politicizing access to voting for a perceived short-term political gain, Trump risks undermining one of the basic tenets of American democracy, Ridge and other former leaders of the Republican Party say.

Editorials: Republicans would rather undermine California’s elections than honorably take their lumps | Los Angeles Times

Making it safe to vote during a pandemic shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But Republicans, including and especially the president, are turning it into one. This week, the state and national Republican Party organizations filed a lawsuit challenging Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order mandating that every registered voter receive a vote-by-mail ballot as a hedge against the likelihood that the coronavirus will still be circulating in November (though in-person vote centers will still be available). No one should have to risk the fate of the many Wisconsin residents who had to cast ballots in the April primary in person. Fifty-two people who participated were later found to have contracted COVID-19. The lawsuit claims that the governor’s emergency authority doesn’t extend to setting rules about voting and that only the Legislature has the power to do so. Maybe, maybe not. The governor’s emergency authority is so broad and vague that it’s possible a federal judge may agree. But it’s largely irrelevant because the Legislature is moving a bill (Assembly Bill 860 by Palo Alto Democratic Assemblyman Marc Berman) to codify the governor’s order. And even if it didn’t, the vast majority of Californians already choose to vote via mail ballots. But halting mail ballots is probably not the intent of the lawsuit. What seems more likely is that Republicans are seeding doubts in the legitimacy of California’s election returns in expectation of a drubbing in November. That’s a game that President Trump has been playing for months, as he continues to falsely claim that mail ballots lead to fraud (drawing his first Twitter fact-check disclaimer on Tuesday).

National: Trump Sows Doubt on Voting. It Keeps Some People Up at Night. | Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

In October, President Trump declares a state of emergency in major cities in battleground states, like Milwaukee and Detroit, banning polling places from opening. A week before the election, Attorney General William P. Barr announces a criminal investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr. After Mr. Biden wins a narrow Electoral College victory, Mr. Trump refuses to accept the results, won’t leave the White House and declines to allow the Biden transition team customary access to agencies before the Jan. 20 inauguration. Far-fetched conspiracy theories? Not to a group of worst-case scenario planners — mostly Democrats, but some anti-Trump Republicans as well — who have been gaming out various doomsday options for the 2020 presidential election. Outraged by Mr. Trump and fearful that he might try to disrupt the campaign before, during and after Election Day, they are engaged in a process that began in the realm of science fiction but has nudged closer to reality as Mr. Trump and his administration abandon longstanding political norms. The anxiety has intensified in recent weeks as the president continues to attack the integrity of mail voting and insinuate that the election system is rigged, while his Republican allies ramp up efforts to control who can vote and how. Just last week, Mr. Trump threatened to withhold funding from states that defy his wishes on expanding mail voting, while also amplifying unfounded claims of voter fraud in battleground states.

National: Trump escalates fight against mail-in voting | Brett Samuels/The Hill

President Trump this week ratcheted up his attacks on mail-in voting as more states move to increase absentee ballot access due to coronavirus uncertainties. The president has levied unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud dating back to the 2016 election and has continued to do so even though he was victorious. But he took his complaints a step further in threatening to withhold federal funding from Michigan and Nevada, two potential swing states, as they took different steps to allow residents to vote by mail. “To really vote, and without fraud, you have to go and you have to vote at the polling place,” Trump said Thursday at a Ford factory in Michigan, arguing that mail-in voting is “wrought with fraud and abuse.” The president has targeted Democrat-run states over their efforts to expand mail-in voting to ensure safety during the pandemic, lashing out in recent weeks at Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and California. GOP-led states such as Nebraska, West Virginia and Georgia have made similar plans to offer applications for absentee ballots but have not drawn sharp rebukes from the Oval Office. Experts note there is minimal evidence of meaningful fraud in mail-in voting, and some see Trump’s latest round of attacks as an effort to restrict ballot access and preemptively cast suspicion on the 2020 election results should he lose.

Michigan: Trump misstates Michigan mail-in ballot policy, threatens federal funding | Zach Montellaro and Quint Forgey/Politico

President Donald Trump mischaracterized Michigan’s absentee ballot policies on Wednesday while threatening federal funding to the state if election officials there do not retreat from measures meant to facilitate mail-in voting. The ultimatum from the White House, which Trump tried to downplay later in the day, comes as Michigan, a state crucial to Trump’s reelection chances, combats the fallout from a particularly severe coronavirus outbreak. “Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” Trump tweeted. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” He then followed up with another message mentioning the official Twitter accounts for acting White House budget director Russ Vought, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the Treasury Department. Hours later, the president deleted his original tweet and re-sent a similar tweet that said “absentee ballot applications” without noting his original mistake. The president’s tweets inaccurately described a recent policy change in Michigan, where Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that all of the state’s registered voters would be mailed absentee ballot applications for the August down-ballot primaries and November general election — not a ballot directly.

Michigan: Trump attacks Michigan Secretary of State with false claim; Benson quickly responds | By Matt Durr/MLive

President Donald Trump has again attacked Michigan leadership via his Twitter account. This time Trump went after Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, alleging she’s sent absentee ballots to 7.7 million voters in Michigan ahead of the August primaries. In a now deleted tweet, Trump called Benson a “rogue Secretary of State” and threatened to withhold funding to the state for attempted voter fraud. “Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!..” read Trump’s original tweet. The problem with Trump’s message is that Benson did not send ballots to voters. On Tuesday, Benson announced all voters in the state will receive applications to vote from home ahead of the August primary and general election in November. Benson said the option is available to Michiganders as part of efforts to protect the safety of voters and election workers during the coronavirus crisis. Shortly after Trump sent his tweet Wednesday morning, Benson corrected the president and pointed out that similar efforts have been made in other states.

Michigan: Can Michigan Mail Absentee Forms? Yes. Can Trump Withhold Funds? Unlikely. | Linda Qiu and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

President Trump on Wednesday made false accusations about mail-in voting in Michigan and Nevada, continuing his unfounded attacks on absentee balloting. He initially mischaracterized the Michigan secretary of state’s actions to expand voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, falsely claimed such actions were illegal, and repeated his false assertion that there is rampant fraud in mail balloting. He also threatened to withhold money from the states — which itself may be unconstitutional or illegal. Here’s an assessment of his claims.

Is Michigan mailing absentee ballots to 7.7 million voters?

No. Mr. Trump’s first tweet on the issue, on Wednesday morning, inaccurately said that absentee ballots were being mailed to 7.7 million people. But Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, is sending out applications for absentee ballots for the August primary and the November general election. To receive an actual mail-in ballot, a voter would have to fill out the application form and mail it to a local election office to be verified.

National: Trump Is Threatening to Go Ukraine on Michigan Because They’ll Let People Vote By Mail During a Pandemic | Jack Holmes/Esquire

Just to recap a presidential abuse of power from 14 years—whoops, three months—ago, the president withheld vital aid to a United States ally, Ukraine, until the government of that country agreed to ratfuck the 2020 presidential election for his personal benefit. When he was impeached on the basis he’d misused the powers of his office in an attempt to extort a foreign country until it acted to undermine our democracy to help him get reelected, Pamela Karlan, a legal scholar from Stanford, testified in favor of his removal from office on those grounds. She also offered a future hypothetical. “Imagine living in a part of Louisiana or Texas that’s prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding. What would you think if you lived there and your governor asked for a meeting with the president to discuss getting disaster aid that Congress has provided. What would you think if that president said, ‘I would like you to do us a favor. I’ll meet with you, and I’ll send the disaster relief, once you brand my opponent a criminal.’ Wouldn’t you know in your gut that such a president had abused his office, that he had betrayed the national interest, and that he was trying to corrupt the electoral process?”

National: Activists Vow to Protect USPS as States Expand Mail-in Voting | Gabriella Novello/WhoWhatWhy

The latest victim of the attack on voting rights appears to be the United States Postal Service (USPS). As more states make changes to their election laws due to fears about the coronavirus, it remains uncertain how prepared local officials are to offer alternative methods of voting. In California, for example, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced last week that the state would move toward an all-mail election — which means tens of millions of ballots will go through the postal system. Local election officials have raised concerns about the surge in absentee ballots and whether there is enough funding to process every returned ballot. And, in part because the White House has turned funding the postal service into a partisan debate, the cost of mailing every Californian a ballot could amount to a figure that the state has never had to meet before. The challenges may intensify, as the USPS, the agency charged with delivering and returning millions of ballots, is facing unprecedented uncertainty after reports that President Donald Trump will veto any legislation that includes funding for the beleaguered agency. Without federal aid, states may be forced to make difficult budgetary decisions in order to pay for the surge in mail ballots — so voting-rights groups are turning to the courts for help.

National: Postal Service Pick With Ties to Trump Raises Concerns Ahead of 2020 Election | Alan Rappeport/The New York Times

The installment of one of President Trump’s financial backers and a longtime Republican donor as the postmaster general is raising concerns among Democrats and ethics watchdogs that the Postal Service will be politicized at a time when states are mobilizing their vote-by-mail efforts ahead of the 2020 election. The Postal Service’s board of governors on Wednesday night selected Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman and veteran of the logistics industry, to lead the struggling agency, which faces insolvency and has frequently drawn the ire of Mr. Trump. The president has been pushing the post office to increase prices on companies that use it to deliver packages, such as Amazon, and has threatened to withhold funding if sweeping changes are not enacted. Those changes have failed to get off the ground, but with Mr. DeJoy at the helm there are growing concerns that the nation’s mail carrier could be weaponized. Mr. Trump declared last month that “the Postal Service is a joke” and assailed it for taking steep losses on packages it ships for big e-commerce companies at low rates. He suggested that the service increase the price it charges companies by four or five times the current rates.

National: ‘The Nightmare Scenario’: How Coronavirus Could Make the 2020 Vote a Disaster | Zack Stanton/Politico

For a certain segment of the American electorate, the onset of the coronavirus pandemic birthed a 2020 nightmare scenario, with an embattled President Donald Trump delaying the November election. But the prospect that terrifies election experts isn’t the idea that Trump moves the election (something he lacks the power to do); it’s something altogether more plausible: Despite an ongoing pandemic, the 2020 election takes place as planned, and America is totally unprepared. The nightmare scenario goes something like this: Large numbers of voters become disenfranchised because they’re worried it’s not safe to vote and that participating makes it more likely they catch the coronavirus. Voter-registration efforts, almost always geared toward in-person sign-ups, bring in very few new voters; few states allow online voter registration, and relatively few first-time voters take part in the election. A surge of demand for absentee ballots overwhelms election administrators, who haven’t printed enough ballots. In some states, like Texas, where fear of coronavirus isn’t a valid reason to request an absentee ballot, turnout drops as Americans are forced to choose between voting in person (and risking contact with the coronavirus) or not voting at all.

Wisconsin: Health department: 36 people positive for coronavirus after primary vote | Nolan D. McCaskill/Politico

At least three dozen Wisconsin voters and poll workers have tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the unique coronavirus, the state health department told POLITICO on Monday. Shortly after the state held an in-person election on April 7, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services announced “new tracing mechanisms” to help local health departments track residents who might have been exposed to the virus while working the polls or casting a ballot. “So far, 36 people who tested Covid-19 positive after April 9 have reported that they voted in person or worked the polls on election day,” said Jennifer Miller, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Miller said “several” people within that group reported additional possible exposures, making it unclear whether the election itself is responsible for their contraction of the disease. If those people contracted the virus prior to the election, they could have also spread it to others who went to the polls that day.

National: Joe Biden Steps Up Warnings of Possible Trump Disruption of 2020 Election | Katie Glueck/The New York Times

For months, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has argued that under pressure and political duress, President Trump may pursue increasingly extreme measures to stay in power. In November, Mr. Biden said he feared that “as the walls close in on him he becomes more erratic. And I’m genuinely concerned about what he may do in order to try to hold on to the office.” In January, Mr. Biden fretted: “He still has another nine or 10 months. God knows what can happen.” And on Thursday, he added some urgency to his warnings, suggesting that Mr. Trump might try to delay or otherwise disrupt the election. “Mark my words, I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Mr. Biden said at a fund-raiser, according to a news media pool report. Mr. Trump, he suggested, is “trying to let the word out that he’s going to do all he can to make it very hard for people to vote. That’s the only way he thinks he can possibly win.” It was an extraordinary claim for the presumptive Democratic nominee to make about an opponent, especially for Mr. Biden, a former vice president and Washington veteran who prides himself on civility and respect for American institutions, including and especially the presidency.

Editorials: The ‘voter fraud’ fraud | Steve Mulroy/The Hill

Many states have moved toward voting by mail for the 2020 elections due to pandemic concerns, leaving only seven states lacking this option for all voters. Members of Congress have called for national legislation for a vote-by-mail option for federal elections this year, which would cover the remaining states. President Trump and some other Republicans have resisted, arguing that mail voting risks election fraud. There’s little empirical evidence to back up this fraud claim, but there have been enough instances of absentee ballot fraud over the years to make it worth a look. Evidence for the pro-vote-by-mail side may come from an unlikely source: A database of fraud cases maintained by a conservative think tank that raises alarms over voter fraud and is decidedly not in the pro-mail ballot camp. Its data suggests that mail ballot related fraud is actually more common in states that restrict absentee voting than in other states. The Heritage Foundation is an established conservative think tank. It has long raised the alarm about the perceived dangers of voter fraud, most notably as a justification for strict voter photo identification laws for in-person voting. But they have also spoken out against mail-in voting, suggesting, among several complaints, that it raises an unacceptable risk of fraud.

Pennsylvania: How hard will it be to vote during the coronavirus? It depends on where you live. | onathan Tamari and Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer

If you’re a Pennsylvanian who wants to vote by mail this year, you can — but make sure your ballot arrives by 8 p.m. on Election Day. If you’re in New Jersey, you have more time. Your ballot will be counted as long as it’s postmarked by Election Day and arrives within 48 hours of the polls closing. Across Pennsylvania’s northern border in Erie County, N.Y. (home to Buffalo), some polling places open more than a week before Election Day and are scheduled to be available over two weekends, for convenience. In Erie County, Pa., a few miles south, voting early is less flexible. You have to do it with an absentee ballot at the county election office. Weekend hours aren’t certain. (The same goes throughout Pennsylvania.) As states scramble to adapt elections for the coronavirus pandemic, the rules vary widely, each set by seemingly small bureaucratic decisions that together determine how easy or hard it is to vote — and how many people do or don’t. The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has set aside $10 million for legal battles against efforts to make it easier to vote, arguing that looser laws could lead to fraud (though studies show election fraud is rare).

Wisconsin: At least 7 new coronavirus cases appear to be related to Wisconsin’s election, Milwaukee health commissioner says | Alison Dirr/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Officials have identified seven people who appear to have contracted COVID-19 through activities related to the April 7 election, Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik said Monday. Six of the cases are in voters and one is a poll worker, Kowalik said. By the end of this week, officials hope to have additional information on the cases that were reported between April 7 and Monday, she said. That includes an answer to whether any of the seven cases resulted in death and whether the cases were concentrated at any of the city’s five in-person polling locations. “There needs to be a little bit more analysis so we can connect the dots, that’s why case investigation and contact tracing is so important,” she said. Asked how to conduct contact tracing at polling sites when anyone present was surrounded by numerous strangers, Kowalik referenced doing broad notification for people who were present during a certain time frame.

Editorials: Wisconsin Voters Faced an Impossible Choice. It Shouldn’t Happen Again. | The New York Times

It was as gratifying as it was unexpected to watch Wisconsin’s Republican lawmakers — who have repeatedly ignored if not erased the political voices of their own constituents — take a drubbing at the hands of the voters themselves. The state’s Republican leadership insisted on holding an election in the middle of a pandemic and a statewide stay-at-home order, knowing that the dilemma it posed would hit minorities and other Democratic-leaning voters hardest. Yet Republicans still lost in the state’s marquee race. When the ballots were counted and the official results were reported on Monday, Jill Karofsky, the Democratic candidate for a seat on the state’s Supreme Court, had comfortably beaten her Trump-endorsed opponent, the incumbent, Justice Daniel Kelly. Defying the pleas of voters, poll workers, public-health officials, the Democratic governor and Democratic lawmakers, Republican legislators forced Wisconsinites to make a choice between protecting their health and casting their ballot.

National: Democrats accuse Trump administration of voter suppression in mail ballot fight | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Democrats are accusing President Trump and his allies of using the novel coronavirus to suppress minority votes as they rally for federal funding to increase voting by mail during the pandemic. They point to last week’s primary election in Wisconsin where Democratic efforts to delay the vote were stymied by Republicans and mail-in ballots never arrived for some voters. As a result, many voters in heavily African American Milwaukee County and elsewhere were forced to stand in blocks-long lines and risk contracting the virus to cast their ballots. “What we saw in Wisconsin … is its own most cynical form of voter suppression,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), whose state votes almost entirely by mail, said during a call organized by the advocacy group Stand Up America. “That they would require Wisconsin voters to risk their health and risk their lives in order to vote is suppression of the highest order.” Brown and other Democrats are urging up to $4 billion in federal funding to ensure mail-ballot access for all voters across the country. The calls underscore how the pandemic and the chaos in Wisconsin have broadened the coalition pushing for major changes to the voting system. They’re also uniting groups that sought changes to protect elections against hacking by Russia and other adversaries, and those who want to ensure ballot access laws don’t disenfranchise minorities and lower-income voters.

New Mexico: High court halts automatic mail-in election in victory for GOP | Michael Gerstein/Santa Fe New Mexican

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a petition to conduct the June 2 primary election solely by mail, quickly drawing praise from Republicans and condemnation from Democrats who say the ruling will put poll workers and voters at risk. Chief Justice Judith Nakamura acknowledged the state is in the midst of a public health crisis and that voting by mail is the safest option. But justices nonetheless ruled unanimously that state law does not allow ballots to be sent automatically to voters eligible to participate in the primary. Justices in effect acknowledged that allowing an election by mail would require lawmakers to change state law — something parties who petitioned the court to rule on the matter had argued is impossible during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic because it would put lawmakers at risk of contracting or spreading COVID-19 in a hypothetical special session.

National: How a Supreme Court Decision Curtailed the Right to Vote in Wisconsin | Jim Rutenberg and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

The Wisconsin spring elections were less than a week away, and with the state’s coronavirus death toll mounting, Democrats were challenging Republican plans to hold the vote as scheduled. In an emergency hearing, held via videoconference, John Devaney, a lawyer for the Democrats, proposed a simple compromise: Extend the deadline for mail ballots by six days past Election Day, to April 13, to ensure that more people could vote, and vote safely. “That’s going to be much more enfranchising,” said Mr. Devaney, arguing one of the most politically freighted voting-rights cases since Bush v. Gore from his bedroom in South Carolina as his black lab, Gus, repeatedly interrupted at the door. The presiding federal judge, William M. Conley, agreed, pointing out that clerks were facing severe backlogs and delays as they struggled to meet surging demand for mail-in ballots. Yet with hours to go before Election Day, the Supreme Court reversed that decision along strict ideological lines, a decision based in large part on the majority’s assertion that the Democrats had never asked for the very extension Mr. Devaney requested in court. It was the first major voting-rights decision led by the court’s conservative newest member, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and it was in keeping with a broader Republican approach that puts more weight on protecting against potential fraud — vanishingly rare in American elections — than the right to vote, with limited regard for the added burdens of the pandemic.

National: As Pandemic Imperils Elections, Democrats Clash With Trump on Voting Changes | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

A showdown is taking shape in Congress over how far Washington should go in expanding voting access to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, with Democrats pressing to add new options for voters and President Trump and Republicans resisting changes they say could harm their election prospects in November. Democrats are determined to add new voting requirements for November’s general election to the next stage of coronavirus relief legislation, a move that Mr. Trump and Republican leaders have vowed to oppose. But it is one that Democrats believe is necessary and all the more urgent in light of the confusion and court fights surrounding Wisconsin’s elections on Tuesday. With public health officials encouraging social distancing and staying at home to slow the spread of the virus, the prospect of millions of voters congregating at polling places around the country to cast their ballots this fall appears increasingly untenable and dangerous. But the fight over whether the federal government should require states to offer other options — by allowing voting by mail, extending early voting and instituting other changes to protect voters and voting rights — is emerging as a major sticking point as lawmakers look to pass a fourth emergency aid measure in the next few weeks.

Editorials: Trump Wants 50 Wisconsins on Election Day | Jamelle Bouie/The New York Times

The voting debacle in Wisconsin on Tuesday was further evidence of an incontrovertible reality in American politics: The Republican Party does not believe in free and fair elections, where free means equal access to the ballot and fair means equitable rules and neutral procedures. Here’s what happened. Last week, once it was clear that coronavirus would make in-person voting unsafe, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, convened a session of the Wisconsin Legislature to find a solution. The Republican majority leader gaveled the chamber in and just as quickly gaveled it out. There would be no session and thus no solution. Republicans wanted to hold the election as is, endangering the lives of voters who went to the polls in the midst of a pandemic. When, on Monday, Evers issued an executive order to push the election to June and give officials time to implement universal vote-by-mail, it was immediately overturned by the conservative majority of the state Supreme Court.

Texas: Republicans say there’s no need for changes to elections in coronavirus era | James Barragán/Dallas Morning News

As the novel coronavirus shifts all aspects of daily life, most Republican candidates in runoff contests scheduled for July 14 remain convinced that the elections will go on as expected without the need for additional protections. Texas Republicans have runoffs in several highly contested congressional and state house races, but none of the candidates interviewed by The Dallas Morning News expressed a need for immediate changes to current election procedures. “Our state limits vote by mail to specific circumstances and I support the current system,” former Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions, who is now running for U.S. House District 17 in Central Texas, said in a statement. His opponent in the race to replace outgoing Republican Bill Flores, Renee Swan, said her team had made “tens of thousands” of wellness calls to check on citizens in recent weeks. “Our neighbors have been telling us over and over again during those conversations that they are anxious to be done with the quarantines so they can get back to work, attend church, and that they will enthusiastically vote in-person,” Swan said in a statement.

Wisconsin: An election day unlike any other: Wisconsinites vote in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic | Bill Glauber, Molly Beck and Mary Spicuzza/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It was an election day for the history books, unprecedented and unimaginable. After Gov. Tony Evers tried to delay it, and the state Supreme Court declared the vote must go on, Wisconsinites went to the polls in Tuesday’s spring election and cast ballots carefully, deliberately and defiantly in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. “People died for my right to vote, so if I have to take a risk to vote that’s what I have to do,” said Michael Claus, 66, who was among several hundred people waiting in an early morning line to vote at Milwaukee’s Riverside University High School. Across the state, in schools, churches and town halls, poll workers risked their health to make sure democracy worked. Members of the National Guard also pitched in. In Milwaukee, where only five polling sites were open, the workers donned face masks and rubber gloves, handed out black pens to voters, wiped surfaces clean and kept the lines moving as best they could even as the state remained under a safer-at-home order. Hand sanitizer was a must.

National: Trump: GOP should fight mail-in voting because it ‘doesn’t work out well for Republicans’ | Quint Forgey/Politico

President Donald Trump on Wednesday directed Republicans to “fight very hard” against efforts to expand mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that such a shift in ballot-casting practices would yield unfavorable electoral results for the GOP. “Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” The president fiercely criticized mail-in voting as “horrible” and “corrupt” during the White House coronavirus task force’s daily news conference Tuesday, but also conceded that he voted by mail in Florida’s primary last month. Trump offered no legitimate explanation for the discrepancy between his position on mail-in voting and his personal voting habits, but insisted “there’s a big difference between somebody that’s out of state and does a ballot, and everything’s sealed, certified and everything else.” In other instances of mail-in voting, however, “you get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody’s living room, signing ballots all over the place,” Trump claimed.