Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking
Federal Legislation: A group of Democratic senators introduced a bill Thursday that would prevent President Donald Trump from sending uniformed military or federal law enforcement to the polls to intervene with elections. The Protect Our Polls Act would require the president to get congressional approval before deploying uniformed military to voting places and would cut off funding for uniformed military to seize ballots or voting machines. Federal law already prohibits the military from polling places unless it is necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, according to 18 U.S. Code Section 592. It is also illegal for uniformed military to interfere with elections by touching or seizing ballots and voting machines, according to 18 U.S. Code Section 593. While the federal government has never sent uniformed military to the polls during an election, the Protect our Polls Act would require congressional approval to do so and cut off any funding for uniformed military or federal law enforcement to seize ballots and voting machines. It also would protect service members from prosecution if the president illegally sends uniformed military to the polls. “In the last six months alone, the president has said that the 2020 elections were rigged over 100 times, including just this week,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said at an event where she was joined by many of the bill’s co-sponsors. “In the State of the Union, where we were all sitting on the House floor, he said again, ‘If my side doesn’t win in November of ’26, then the elections were rigged.’” The bill’s introduction comes after Slotkin led three separate amendments to address the issue through the National Defense Authorization Act, all of which failed. It also comes as the president continues to pressure GOP senators to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and an ID when casting a ballot. The measure has stalled in the Senate because it lacks the 60 votes needed to pass.
Arizona Ballot Measure: When Arizona voters go to the polls in November to decide who will be the next governor and hold the other statewide offices, they’ll also get to weigh in directly on some of the policy priorities of the Republicans who currently run the state legislature. HCR 2001 (2026)— “Fast Election Results Act”: Amends the Arizona Constitution to include a series of election reforms: only citizens may vote; foreign nationals may not contribute anything of value to influence an Arizona election; and every voter must show government-issued ID before casting a ballot “whether voting in person or by any other method.” The provisions limiting voting to citizens and requiring voter ID at polling places are already in state law; it is unclear how voters would show their ID if they vote by mail, as more than 70% of voters do.
Los Angeles: Voters in Los Angeles will decide this November whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote in city elections after the City Council took the first formal step toward placing the issue before voters. The council voted 10-5 to adopt a measure that would amend the city charter and ask voters whether eligible noncitizen residents should be permitted to participate in municipal elections. Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, who led the effort, said local government decisions affect all residents regardless of citizenship status. “It’s about the people whose lives are shaped by the decisions made in the city every single day,” Soto-Martinez said. “People who work here. People who pay their taxes. People who raise their families here.” If approved by voters, the measure could extend voting rights in city elections to more than one million noncitizen residents across Los Angeles. Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, but states and local governments can set their own rules for certain local contests. San Francisco currently allows some noncitizens to vote in school board elections, but a similar proposal in Santa Ana was rejected by voters in 2024.
San Jose, California: The San Jose City Council has punted on a proposal that could have introduced ranked choice voting to certain city elections. Councilmembers voted 8-2 to advance a ballot measure that would allow the city to use the ranked choice model to fill unexpected council or mayoral vacancies. However, while the original proposal would have put the question before voters this November, the final measure sets the ballot contest for the March 2028 primary election. The year-and-a-half delay comes in response to an estimate from county election officials that found holding the vote this November would cost the city $2 million more than waiting until 2028, when the ballot measure could piggyback on the citywide mayoral election taking place that year. The ranked choice reform push has been energized by concern about San Jose’s recent spending on special elections. Supporters argue that granting city leaders the option to use ranked choice voting in such elections could save the city millions of dollars by eliminating costly runoffs. However, the proposal has been met with fierce opposition. At various points during public comments, angry residents described the voting method as “bad public policy,” a “scam” and an “abomination.” Several argued it undermines elections by adding unnecessary complexity.
Delaware: Delaware’s version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act makes it through the House chamber. The bill’s sponsor State Rep. Larry Lambert said dismantling of the federal voting rights act means Delaware needs to pass its own laws against voter intimidation, dilution, and obstruction. And since the Supreme Court Callais v. Louisiana decision, multiple states have moved to redistrict. “This bill does not enable additional people to vote,” Lambert said. “It doesn’t change who’s eligible. It provides additional civil protections for the department of justice. It also provides language assistance so all voters can make informed decisions in the voting booth.” It grants new powers to the state Attorney General to bring lawsuits for policies and actions that cause voter suppression. Lambert said 9 other states have passed similar legislation. But Delaware is the first to introduce the state level voter rights act since the Supreme Court’s Callais decision last month. It passed in the House along party lines and heads to the senate. If it becomes law, it would go into effect in July 2027.
District of Columbia: Independents will be able to vote in District primaries soon, as the D.C. Council passed an amendment to fund the part of Initiative 83 that calls for semi-open primaries. But the move only comes a week after the 2026 primaries, featuring races for major offices in the District, had already happened. Voters passed Initiative 83, a ballot initiative that implements ranked-choice voting and semi-open primaries, in 2024. Last Tuesday, voters got to see the first part of that initiative with the District’s first ever ranked-choice primaries. But despite it being part of the same ballot initiative, independents in the District were not able to vote in partisan primaries. That’s because the D.C. Council only funded the ranked-choice part. Now, that’s about to change. The council passed an amendment to the 2027 budget that would put $1.1 million over the next four years toward semi-open primaries. The amendment was brought by At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson. Semi-open primaries means that D.C.’s 88,000 independent voters will be allowed to choose to participate in either Democratic or Republican primaries. In a city like D.C. where voters are overwhelmingly Democratic, it gives independents a voice in the elections that more often than not indicative of the November general. According to the D.C. Board of Elections, there were around 365,000 registered Democrats ahead of last week’s election.
Georgia: Lawmakers dialed back a controversial change that would have mandated hand recounts of the two top-ticket races in every election before local officials could certify the results. The hand-count provision was added by Senate Republicans over the weekend to a measure extending the state’s self-imposed deadline to stop using ballot QR codes to tally votes, prompting outcry from Democrats, local election officials and other advocacy groups. The revised measure, which passed out of both chambers largely along party lines, limits the use of hand recounts to only the governor’s or lieutenant governor’s race, and implements them only when the leading candidate’s margin of victory falls within half a percent of the candidate in second place. The state will reimburse counties for the cost of conducting a hand recount. An amendment added by Covington Rep. Tim Fleming, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, instructs the committee to narrow their focus to hand-marked paper ballot systems, which would represent a shift away from Georgia’s current system that uses voting machines to mark ballots. Sen. Max Burns, a Sylvania Republican who is sponsoring the bill in the Senate, told lawmakers the language “ensures that Georgia moves forward, that our elections are safe and secure, that we are prepared for not only 2026 elections but also for ’27 and ’28 and beyond.” Speaking to reporters after the bill passed, Burns added that the hand count provision was aimed at boosting voter confidence in the machine-tallied election results, despite the fact that studies have shown hand-counts of ballots are less accurate than ballots counted by machines. The bill also allows the state to continue using QR codes to tally votes until 2028, meaning they will still be in place for this year’s midterms, and mandates additional post-election audits on certain statewide contests and establishes a special committee to help select the state’s next voting system.
Hawai’i: Gov. Josh Green signed Senate Bill 2239 into law as Act 67, establishing Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) statewide beginning Jan. 1, 2027. The measure was introduced by Senate Housing Committee Chair Stanley Chang. Advocates say this marks a major step toward modernizing Hawaiʻi’s voter registration system and expanding access to the democratic process. Act 67 modernizes Hawaiʻi’s voter registration system by automatically registering eligible residents to vote when they apply for or renew a Hawaiʻi driver’s license or state identification card, unless they choose to opt out. Previously, residents were required to affirmatively check a box to register to vote. The law also streamlines the voter registration process by automatically updating voter registration records when residents update their address through driver’s license or state ID renewals. The new system is designed to improve the accuracy of voter rolls, reduce administrative costs, and make voter registration more accessible for Hawaiʻi residents. By integrating voter registration into existing government services, the law helps ensure that more eligible voters can participate in the democratic process.
Michigan: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a bipartisan package of bills that her office says is aimed at enhancing the state’s election security and ensuring that all votes are counted. The four bills amend local elected officials’ terms of office to ensure effective implementation of Proposal 2 of 2022 by “creating uniform term start dates and ensuring that elected officials are not sworn in until voting results are certified. The governor’s office says the bills are “particularly important to ensuring overseas voters and service members’ votes are properly counted before local elected officials take their oath of office.” “Michigan elections are safe and secure,” Whitmer said, per a press release. “I’m proud to sign these bills that will protect ballots sent by mail from our service members and voters overseas. Every Michigan voter deserves the chance to make their voice heard in our elections. Let’s keep working together to make sure that every vote counts.” Senate Bills 240 and 241, sponsored by state Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Bloomfield), require township and village local elected officials’ terms of office start dates to begin no earlier than Dec. 1 to allow enough time after election day for all votes to be processed and counted. House Bill 4358, sponsored by state Rep. Mike Hoadley (R-Au Gres), and House Bill 4359, sponsored by state Rep. Pat Outman (R-Six Rivers), modify the start dates for the terms of city and village officers to ensure that all votes are counted. “These bills strengthen two essential foundations of our secure, fair elections – ensuring every eligible citizen can cast their ballot and that every vote is counted,” said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. “Military servicemembers and their families make sacrifices to keep us safe and free. They deserve to have their voices heard in every election.”
New Jersey: According to the New Jersey Monitor, new legislation that would allow county clerks to rotate political candidates’ names on primary ballots faced a chilly reception from voting advocates and wariness from election officials during an Assembly hearing this week. The bill, which did not get a vote before the Assembly State and Local Government Committee Tuesday, is intended to allow candidates to have equal time in the top spot on a ballot. But some critics noted that the measure would allow name rotations only after a ballot draw, and then only at the request of political party leaders. “If the goal is to have a fair election outcome, then why would we once again take a good governance reform meant to be uniformly applied statewide and instead hand it over to the control and discretion of political parties?” said Antoinette Miles, state director for the New Jersey Working Families Party. The bill seeks to denude the effect ballot draws have on results by allowing clerks to rotate candidates’ names in a given office block so that, across a voting jurisdiction, each candidate’s name appears an equal number of times in the No. 1 spot. Under the bill, a request for rotation would also have to be approved by members of a county’s elections board who belong to the party that made the request, but only if there was no rotation the year prior. “We do not think this should be optional,” said Heather Richner, associate counsel with the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. “Randomization and rotation are best practices which should be implemented across the state. All counties should be required to conduct a mechanic or electronic randomized draw and then utilize the rotation procedures.”
North Carolina: A sweeping bill to revamp North Carolina’s election laws passed a key state House committee this week, but the Senate could make further alterations to the bill. The 37-page bill would make changes to general election administration, voter registration, how elections are conducted and campaign finance laws. It passed the House Rules Committee on June 23, typically a final stop before a vote among the full chamber. The committee vote was 14-9 and at least one Republican member voted against it. The committee adopted additional amendments to the bill, marking at least the sixth different version of the legislation that was originally filed in April 2025. Among the election changes in the bill: State Board of Elections and county board members would be barred from supporting or opposing candidates and encouraging or influencing voter turnout. People would have to belong to a political party for at least a year, up from 90 days, in order to run for office with that party designation. Political appointees to election boards would be paid more. Elections in all 100 counties would be audited over a six-year period by the state auditor. The exemption for reporting campaign finance contributions would increase making fewer contributions, loans and expenditures public So-called “never residents” would be removed from the definition of a covered voter
Ohio: Gov. Mike DeWine has vetoed legislation that would have required the vast majority of voters to provide their photo ID to cast a mail-in ballot. “H.B. 472 is all burden for so little benefit,” DeWine said in his veto message. Currently, to get an absentee ballot, a voter must provide their generic personal information, a signature and either the last four digits of their Social Security number or their full driver’s license number. They also could provide a photo ID, but it isn’t required. Under House Bill 472, an applicant would need to complete all prior work, plus upload a live-capture photo ID and an electronic signature to an online portal — one that would need to be created by the state. Individuals could also mail a photocopy to their board of elections. “House Bill 472 would not discourage fraud, would not add any real security, and would create an additional and significant burden for Ohioans who vote by mail,” DeWine said. “This bill is not needed,” he added, because Ohio does an excellent job running elections.
Legal Updates
U.S. Supreme Court: The U.S. Supreme Court announced June 22 that it will not review an Arkansas-based lawsuit, leaving in place a 2025 appeals panel ruling that ends a long-used tool for protecting minority voters from discrimination under the landmark law in seven mainly Midwestern states. That ruling found that in the states covered by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota — private individuals and groups do not have the right to sue to enforce what’s known as Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which generally allows voters with a disability or inability to read or write to get help with voting from a person of their choice. For decades, enforcement of these sections of the Voting Rights Act has mainly been driven by lawsuits by private individuals and groups. But after conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a single-paragraph opinion in 2021 questioning a private right of action, Republican officials in multiple states have raised a novel legal argument: Only the U.S. attorney general, they contend, has the right to bring lawsuits under these parts of the Voting Rights Act. Such an interpretation of the law is likely to lead to a dramatic decline in voting rights lawsuits because of the Justice Department’s limited resources and shifting priorities under different presidential administrations. The case that the justices decided not to take up was brought by the immigrant advocacy group Arkansas United, which has provided Spanish-language interpreters at polling sites to assist voters with limited English proficiency.
Federal Litigation: U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked key pillars of President Donald Trump’s efforts to overhaul the 2026 elections, declaring unconstitutional his attempts to create centralized lists of adult citizens and giving the U.S. Postal Service unprecedented authority over who can vote by mail. The 37-page ruling concluded that the president did not have the constitutional authority to regulate state elections as he tried to do in a March executive order. The executive order directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to create a nationwide list of verified U.S. citizens over 18, and thus presumably eligible to vote in federal elections. It also called on the U.S. Postal Service to create a system to handle and accept mail-in ballots only from voters on preapproved lists. Tawani’s decision came one day after the head of the Postal Service said the agency would refuse to deliver mail-in ballots to voters that were not on lists approved by the federal government, making explicit what the agency’s proposed new rules had previously implied. In her ruling, Talwani said that the federal government could not use the postal system to regulate who gets ballots. “No law enacted by Congress delegates authority to control mail-in voting to USPS,” Talwani wrote. Talwani issued an injunction specifically preventing the federal government from enforcing those provisions of the order against the 24 jurisdictions (23 states and the District of Columbia) whose attorneys general and governors brought the lawsuit. The list includes most Democratic-led and swing states, including Arizona, California, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. However, the injunction applies only to this year’s elections. Talwani granted the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ legal challenges to the executive order as not yet ripe when it comes to future elections.
U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ruled this week that a recently revamped version of a federal tool central to the Administration’s efforts to nationalize elections can no longer be used. Sooknanan sided with advocacy groups that argued the recent upgrades to the program, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from voter rolls. “All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan said in an order explaining the decision. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.” She said Congress had expressly prohibited the government from centralizing Americans’ personal identifying information and that the federal agencies that created the SAVE program “knew that the database violates those statutory protections.”
U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Casper effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban. Casper rejected the Republican administration’s argument that the lawsuit to block the changes brought by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the rules had yet to be put in place. Instead, she agreed that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s requirements violated the separation of powers. The Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” wrote Casper. Among other proposed changes, Trump’s order would have required people to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, prevented mail ballots from being counted if they arrive after Election Day, even if they were postmarked by then, and punished states that failed to comply by withholding certain federal grants, including those intended to beef up election security. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose state was the lead plaintiff in the case, said the ruling reaffirmed the constitutional principle that it’s up to the states and Congress to set election rules. “While we are proud of this result, we are clear-eyed that President Trump’s attacks on voting rights and our elections show no signs of slowing down,” Bonta, a Democrat, said in a statement. “So let me be clear: we will keep fighting back every step of the way.”
The company formerly known as Dominion Voting Systems is ending its $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against MyPillow and its CEO, Mike Lindell. The voting machine company, which was sold last year to a former GOP election official and is now called Liberty Vote, agreed to dismiss the long-running lawsuit in a federal court filing this week. “The parties have agreed to a confidential settlement to this matter,” a Liberty Vote spokesperson said in a statement. The agreement reached this week stated that all parties in the lawsuit will bear their own legal fees and costs. Lindell estimated his legal fight with Dominion cost him about $20 million. Dominion Voting Systems filed the defamation lawsuit against Lindell and MyPillow in 2021 over Lindell’s discredited claims that the company rigged the 2020 election for Joe Biden. The company also accused Lindell, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, of waging his election fraud crusade to boost MyPillow sales and to raise his political profile.
Alaska: With a deadline to print voting ballots just days away, an Alaska judge must come to a decision before then on whether a Petersburg man with the same name as Alaska’s sitting U.S. senator should be placed on the primary ballot. The case between Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg and incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan has been much-publicized this month after the Petersburg candidate threw his name into the race earlier this year. The argument centers around the state’s Division of Elections decision to take the Petersburg Sullivan off the ballot and whether it had the legal authority to do so. Election Director Carol Beecher announced June 15 that the Petersburg candidate would be taken off the ballot, claiming that his candidacy was “not filed in good faith,” and his choice of filing as a Republican “strongly suggests an intent to confuse” voters with two candidates of the same name. The Division of Elections argues that three main points: That the Petersburg Sullivan filed under a name “Dan Sullivan,” instead of Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” as he has previously registered as; He changed party affiliation from “undeclared” to Republican” just two days before filing his candidacy; and His campaign website bears a striking resemblance to that of the current sitting senator’s website. A brief filed by Sullivan and his attorneys calls the division’s decision against historical precedent “dangerous and constitutionally infirm,” citing past cases where candidates have been allowed on the ballot even when they don’t live in the state.
Arizona: The Arizona Court of Appeals paused a lower court order that gave Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap a legal victory over the Board of Supervisors in their ongoing election fight due to concerns the ruling would cause confusion ahead of this year’s fast-approaching elections. Back in April, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney found the supervisors acted illegally when they took away the recorder’s IT staff and systems. He also interpreted the state’s complicated web of election laws — which divide responsibilities between boards and recorders — in an attempt to resolve disputes between Heap and the supervisors over who controls what. But that ruling did little to resolve the conflict, as Heap and the board continue to spar over election drop boxes, ballot replacement sites and an array of other election administration issues ahead of the upcoming July 21 primary. The Board of Supervisors argued the order violated the so-called Purcell Principle. That’s U.S. Supreme Court precedent named after former Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell that essentially states courts should avoid making significant changes immediately before upcoming elections. Heap’s attorney had argued that the Purcell Principle only applied to federal cases. But two out of three judges on an appeals court panel disagreed and granted the supervisors’ request to pause Blaney’s decision as they appeal the ruling, citing Arizona Supreme Court cases that also invoked the Purcell Principle. “That principle is that courts are reluctant to order last-minute changes in election rules and procedures because they can burden election workers and complicate and create confusion in the voting experience,” Presiding Judge Andrew Jacobs wrote. The court determined that, without the stay, the order could create that confusion this year.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused the U.S. Department of Justice’s appeal of a lower court ruling that the Trump administration has no right to Arizona’s voter registration database until two other cases are resolved. The court issued an order in the lawsuit, granting a request from DOJ that the Arizona case be put on hold until the same court rules on appeals stemming from court rulings in California and Oregon in which judges also ruled that the Trump administration cannot demand that states surrender voting lists.
Indiana: Two Republican primary races in Knightstown are headed for a special election after a ballot error allowed people to vote despite not living in Knightstown. A Henry County judge made the decision June 24 after the problem with two Republican primary races in Knightstown. “We are aware and want to have on record that we are aware that an error occurred in our system that allowed people that lived in an outside area of Knightstown to vote in an inside election,” said Kirsten Cronk, election board chair. Knightstown sits in three precincts in Wayne County, but the town limits do not cover the entire precincts. “We can confirm that people outside the town limits had the opportunity to vote in town elections,” said Joel Harvey, Henry County attorney. “We don’t know how many actually voted in the town election, and from what I understand, there’s no way to make that determination.” The county clerk now has 10 days to come up with a plan for the special election, which will likely happen in late July or August.
Maryland: U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher has dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit demanding Maryland voter registration records, what state officials derided as a “fishing expedition” for sensitive personal information on voters. The order noted that eight courts have ruled against the government in every ruling so far in other states. Her order said she “joins every court to have addressed this issue in concluding that an SVRL [statewide voter registration list] is not a record or paper that a state must produce to the United States” under the Civil Rights Act. “The State Board of Elections is transparent and open about its processes and voter registration,” Maryland State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis said in an interview. “This fishing expedition by the DOJ, courts saw through it and they [DOJ] were not forthright as to what their reasons behind asking for over 4.3 million records on voters that include sensitive information. I feel vindicated in my decisions.” The Justice Department argued that federal law allows it the right to demand the records under the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Gallagher disagreed. She noted that the Civil Rights Act carried penalties for anyone who altered records, but the other two acts the federal government cited specifically requires states to constantly update their records. “The United States’s proposed interpretation of the CRA would therefore criminalize the same conduct that the NVRA and HAVA require,” Gallagher’s decision reads. Interpreting the law as the Justice Department proposed would produce “an absurd result,” she wrote.
Michigan: The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Michigan does not have to turn over its unredacted voter roll to the Department of Justice, dealing the Trump administration its highest-profile loss yet in its quest to obtain voter data from states ahead of the 2026 midterms. Michigan’s case is the first to be heard, and be ruled on, at the appellate level. The next step up would be to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Department of Justice officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Even if the case is taken up by the country’s highest court, a resolution — particularly one that could be meaningfully implemented — before the midterm elections is unlikely. Absentee ballots for the Michigan primary election start going out June 25.
Minnesota: Timothy Scouton, 65, of Badoura Township in Hubbard County, pleaded guilty to accepting ballots from 11 unregistered voters in the 2024 general election.Scouton pleaded guilty in March to one count of accepting ballots from unregistered voters. Scouton was serving as an election judge during the general election on Nov. 5, 2024. Scouton was initially charged with accepting votes of unregistered voters and a neglect of duty after swearing an oath as an election judge, both felonies. Scouton’s attorney sought a gross misdemeanor-level conviction for accepting the ballots from unregistered voters as part of the plea agreement. “Any felony-level conviction likely will tear down everything he has worked so hard to achieve in his life, and anything that he seeks to achieve in the future for trying to best serve his country as a volunteer head election judge.” Hubbard County Judge Kathryn Lorsbach sentenced Scouton to a stayed one-year prison sentence June 15 with a felony conviction. He is ordered to serve local time in the Hubbard County Jail for 30 days, with credit for four days already served, plus spend five years on supervised probation. He must also pay a $200 fine. Among conditions of the sentencing, Scouton is prohibited from serving as an election judge again.
Missouri: Secretary of State Denny Hoskins wants the courts to shield him from disclosing how his office is reviewing a disputed batch of signatures on a referendum petition challenging the state’s new congressional map. In a lawsuit filed this week, Hoskins is suing People Not Politicians, the political action committee pushing for a referendum. Hoskins is asking the court to declare that he does not have to fulfill a Sunshine Law request from Emily Gerber, deputy director of the PAC, because the records being sought are protected from disclosure as public records because there is ongoing litigation over the information they contain. “The secretary’s determination that the records were closed at the time of Ms. Gerber’s request was based on the nature of the records as being related directly to pending litigation, not on the identity of the requester,” Assistant Attorney General Kate Walker wrote. The lawsuit was filed, she wrote, because the Sunshine Law allows government entities to ask the courts whether a decision to withhold records was correct.
Nebraska: The Republican National Committee and two Nebraska voters have filed a lawsuit against Nebraska over a part of state election law that was meant to implement a 2009 federal election law. The lawsuit, which names Secretary of State Bob Evnen as the defendant, was filed in Lancaster District Court on Monday. It alleges that part of the state election law violates the state constitution because it allows U.S. citizens who have never resided in the state or country to vote in Nebraska elections. The law was passed during the Nebraska 101st legislative session in 2010, according to the state legislature website. The law aimed to “implement the requirements of the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act,” which was signed into law in 2009 by former President Barack Obama. It also “streamlines and reorganizes the current provisions in law dealing with ballots for members of the armed forces and overseas citizens.” The bill passed by the U.S. Congress aimed to expand the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986 by providing greater protections for service members, their families, and other overseas citizens, according to a U.S. Department of Justice fact sheet. The eight-page complaint cites a provision of the state constitution that defines who can vote in Nebraska. RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement that “Nebraska’s Constitution is clear, voters must live in Nebraska.” “This law tries to get around that requirement by allowing people who have never lived in the state to vote,” Gruters said. “The RNC is fighting to stop it and ensure Nebraska elections are decided by Nebraska voters only.”
New Hampshire: A month after Judge Samantha Elliott of the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire struck down a law requiring hard proof of citizenship to register to vote in New Hampshire; the state Attorney General’s Office has requested a stay of the decision while it appeals. Because of that ruling, first-time voters do not currently need hard proof of citizenship to register for the September state primary and November general elections, though they will need proof of identity, age, and domicile. The state’s motion, if successful, would allow the new proof-of-citizenship law to take effect this fall. The frozen law, which was passed via House Bill 1569 and took effect just after the 2024 presidential election, required people registering to vote for the first time in New Hampshire to produce documentary evidence, such as a passport, birth certificate, naturalization certificate, or other document, that they are U.S. citizens or be denied registration, with no exceptions. It eliminated the previous option for a voter to sign a “qualified voter affidavit” in which they testified on penalty of voter fraud charges that they were a U.S. citizen in order to register to vote without presenting those documents.After a group of voting rights organizations and voters sued to block the law, Elliott ruled that requiring proof of citizenship violated the First and 14th Amendments because it could disenfranchise voters. She ordered the Secretary of State’s Office to restore the qualified voter affidavits for citizenship. Now, with the state’s Sept. 8 primary less than 11 weeks away, attorneys for the state are asking Elliott to stay her ruling while they appeal to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. To succeed, they’ll need to prove that they are likely to defeat the ruling on appeal, that allowing the new law to stay in effect is in the public interest, and that Elliott’s blocking of the law will cause irreparable injury to the state and other parties.
New York: Artist Courtney Francis Fallon says she has been charged with criminal tampering in the 3rd degree placing a wheat paste installation outside a Tonawanda polling place that said “Zell No.” Wheat paste installations include graphics printed on paper and attached to surfaces with a combination of water and glue, meant to dissolve fairly easily and not designed to be permanent. Fallon says that she installed the artwork outside the 100ft electioneering zone setup near polling stations early Sunday morning. Five installations were placed outside of polling places in Buffalo, Amherst, Tonawanda and Williamsville. Fallon says that she was contacted by Amy Kobler on Monday, asking what vehicle she drove. Fallon was then contacted by Tonawanda police shortly thereafter. She was asked to come to the station and when she did, she was handcuffed and processed, she says. Fallon has a hearing in Tonawanda city court scheduled for July 7. Criminal tampering in the 3rd degree carries a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail.
Pennsylvania: Miya Pack, 40, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty in an election fraud case concerning the 2024 presidential race. Pack admitted to casting two ballots. First, she voted at an early polling location in Teaneck, New Jersey, on Oct. 26, 2024. Ten days later, she voted again at the Christy Recreation Center in Cobbs Creek on Election Day. According to a plea memorandum, Pack grew up in New Jersey and registered to vote in Bergen County in 2004. But she never actually cast a ballot in the state until 2024. She registered to vote in Philadelphia County in 2016 and participated in every subsequent general election, as well as the 2019 municipal election. Pack was indicted in September after an FBI agent contacted her on the phone. During the June 23 interview, she confirmed she was on the ballot rolls of New Jersey and Pennsylvania and admitted to voting twice in the 2024 presidential election. Initially, however, she claimed she had done so because she cast a mail-in ballot late in New Jersey and never received a confirmation of receipt. This was not true, since records confirmed she voted in person on a machine in the Richard Rodda Center in Bergen County.
South Dakota: State Senator Tom Pischke of Dell Rapids is charged with two counts of Offering a False or Forged Instrument for Filing, according to the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office. The charges relate to potentially fraudulent election forms submitted to the Minnehaha County Auditor’s office. If convicted on both counts of offering a false or forged instrument for filing, Pischke faces up to four years in prison. The charges relate to alleged behavior that took place more than two months before the June 2 primary. Pischke was unopposed in the primary, and faces an independent candidate in the general election. The charges filed against Pischke on Tuesday are linked to 16 fraudulent nominating forms for precinct committeeman and precinct committeewoman, according to a Minnehaha County Sheriff’s office report in Pischke’s criminal case file.
Texas: The Supreme Court of Texas announced June 19 that it would not hear an appeal on behalf of conservative activist and Republican megadonor Steven Hotze, in a suit in which he and three other plaintiffs accused the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office of failing to uphold election integrity by properly maintaining the county’s voter registration roll. An appeals court had earlier ruled in favor of Tax Assessor-Collector Annette Ramirez, on the grounds that Hotze and his fellow plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. The lawsuit asserted that the registration roll includes voters “who have moved out of Harris County, voters who have died, voters who are felons, voters who have registered at post office or private mail boxes with commercial mail receiving agencies, scores of voters who are not related to each other but have registered at the same address, voters who have registered at a commercial address and do not reside there and voters who claim to live on vacant [properties].” Hotze’s proposed remedy was to force the Harris County voter registrar to monitor the accuracy of the county’s voter registration roll, to review the National Change of Address database on a monthly basis, and to promptly review and determine challenges to the registration status of a voter.
Virginia: Virginia’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion on June 18 seeking an expedited remedy to restoring voting rights to those formerly incarcerated. The group accused election officials of violating a voting rights lawsuit previously won earlier this year.Virginia’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union argued in King v. O’Bannon that Virginians with a variety of felony convictions should have never lost their right to vote in the first place. A judge ruled in their favor earlier this year and ordered the state to comply by May. Attorney General Jay Jones then successfully sought an extension to June 1 so that the state could compile guidance for registrars and ascertain which modern-day felonies might bar someone from registering to vote. While the legal organization “has serious questions” about how the lists were determined and whether eligible people will be able to vote this year, the group has tried for months to glean a better understanding from Jones’ office. Since June, registrars have been instructed to not fully process new voter registrations of people with felony convictions, according to documents obtained by The Mercury that are now exhibited in the new motion. In May, ACLU Virginia wrote a letter to Jones and Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge asking why revisions to registration forms were not feasible for registrars, and for more details on challenges preventing the state from fully complying with the court order. The organization also asked for more clarity on conviction types that may require individualized review by Jones’ office.
Michael H. Drucker
