Electionline Weekly January-25-2024

Legislative Updates

Arizona: The Arizona Senate Elections Committee has passed a bill that would allow candidates for federal office to designate observers at vote counting centers. There are already rules that allow the general public, as well as representatives from each political party, to observe the counting of ballots. Senate Bill 1060 adds to that list one designated representative of a candidate for federal office, like president or U.S. Senate but only during the general election. It would also allow political parties at each county to send challengers to voting centers in addition to precincts. Observers would be barred from approaching officials’ tables or voting equipment or obstructing ballot processing and election administration.

Georgia: The Georgia Senate Ethics Committee advanced a bill that would ban election officials in Georgia from adopting an instant runoff system that allows voters to rank candidates by preference to determine the outcome of elections. The Senate Bill 355 measure passed the Senate panel by an 8-1 vote following hour-long testimony and debate on whether the state should take a preemptive strike banning a ranked choice voting method that’s becoming more common in municipal elections across the nation and is the way candidates are elected in states like Alaska. Cataula Republican Sen. Randy Robertson sponsored the bill that limits ranked choice voting in Georgia to military members who have federal protections protecting their absentee voting rights. Robertson said he wants to prevent local or state election officials from adopting a new election process that he said can become confusing for voters and election administrators alike.

Senate Bill 358 would give the Board of Elections the power to investigate both the Secretary of State and local elections officials, and how those officials conduct elections. It also gives the Board the power to hire its own investigators instead of relying on the Secretary of State’s office to conduct investigations. Senator Max Burns, a Republican from Sylvania, chairs the Senate Ethics Committee. He is also a sponsor of the bill. He said that the bill was driven, at least in part, by a debate among Board of Elections members last year. Burns told his colleagues on the Senate Ethics Committee that the legislation was requested by members of the Board of Elections. The bill would also remove the Secretary of State from the State Elections Board. The Secretary of State’s office has questioned whether the bill is constitutional, but a lawyer for the Ethics Committee says the bill should pass constitutional muster. SB 358 passed the Ethics Committee and could be voted on by the full Senate in the coming weeks.

Kentucky: A bill that would block Kentuckians from using university-issued IDs to vote has passed out of a Senate committee, prompting the Republican secretary of state to warn members of his party to “be careful not to gratuitously alienate young voters.” Identification cards issued by universities and colleges to students and employees would no longer be accepted as proof of identification at the polls under Senate Bill 80. The Senate State and Local Government Committee gave the bill favorable passage Wednesday in a vote of 9-2. The bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, told the committee such IDs are issued with less personal information than government-issued IDs used for primary voter identification, such as driver’s licenses. She said university IDs are “not enough to compare, for any purposes really.” Southworth’s bill also removes credit and debit cards from a list of accepted forms of identification if a voter lacks a driver’s license or other government-issued ID. “Our Photo ID to Vote law was carefully drafted to ensure success against court challenges, and Secretary Adams was successful in three such challenges,” said Michon Lindstrom, Adams’ director of communications. “We are concerned that this bill could get the Photo ID law struck down. Also, as a Republican, Secretary Adams believes his party should be careful not to gratuitously alienate young voters like college students by taking away their ability to use college Photo IDs in the absence of any evidence they have been used fraudulently.”

Indiana: A House elections committee approved a hotly debated bill some said would ensure election security while others feared it would disenfranchise some eligible voters and rely on potentially inaccurate data. House Bill 1264 would require people who haven’t previously voted in an Indiana general election to present photo identification and address-verifying mail if they register to vote in person to establish residency. That doesn’t apply if the prospective voter submitted a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number along with their voter application, and election officials successfully matched the information to state records. The legislation sets out a process for county voter registration offices to follow if applicants don’t comply with the new proof of residence requirement. The provision won’t apply to overseas voters and out-of-town members of the military, after a Wednesday committee amendment. The bill also creates new requirements for proof of citizenship that the state’s top election officials — designated National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) officials — must use to inform counties of non-eligible voters. It similarly sets out a process for counties to follow, which includes an appeals process. Indiana Clerks Association President Nicole Brown said bipartisan discussions between the organization’s members — county election officials — had left them at an “impasse” and therefore testified as neutral. “All 92 county clerks believe and support election security,” said Brown, the Monroe County clerk. But, she added, members had “significant concerns on both sides.”

Louisiana: The special legislative session ended Jan. 19. State lawmakers finished days earlier than scheduled, approved a new congressional district map, and closed the state’s primary voting system. Lawmakers also eliminated the jungle primary system in favor of a closed-party primary. The change is set to go into effect in 2026 and affects federal elections and those for: The Louisiana Supreme Court; The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education; and The Public Service Commission. The Senate approved the bill 29-9, and the House voted 67-36. The bill also goes to Landry for approval. “In terms of closed primaries, it’s been a goal for many that gained traction under the leadership of Governor Landry, and now was the time to act. With this session complete, all of our energy can now be directed towards the priorities that are important to our constituents,” Speaker of the House Phillip DeVillier said in a news release.

New Hampshire: Lawmakers are considering legislation to better protect election workers from harassment and intimidation. Rep. Ellen Read, D-Rockingham, said the bill aims to clarify laws for election workers already on the books. “We want them to know that we have their backs – that they feel safe and supported in those roles as they go about very important official duties,” Read said. Read added the bill would make it illegal to post election workers’ personal information online with the intent to threaten them. Current law only considers these threats to election workers when they are at their polling location.

New Mexico: One bill related to firearm regulation passed the Senate Rules Committee this week. SB 5 seeks to ban people from carrying firearms at or near polling places. “As we head into another turbulent election cycle, I think having consistency when it comes to banning guns and polling places is important,” Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, the bill’s sponsor, said. Wirth said constituents working as poll workers brought the topic to him. The bill allows certified law enforcement officers or authorized security personnel to have firearms at polling places and prohibits anyone else from carrying a firearm, loaded or unloaded within 100 feet of any voting location or 50 feet of a postal collection box or a monitored secured container. Anyone who is found guilty to be unlawfully in possession of a firearm near a polling place will be charged with a petty misdemeanor. The bill passed the SRC on a party-line 7-to-4 vote with all four Republicans on the Committee voting against the bill.

Oklahoma: Rep. Eric Roberts (R-Oklahoma City) wants to outlaw ranked-choice voting in Oklahoma. The state currently does not have ranked-choice voting, but efforts have been pushed to change that. Roberts filed two pieces of legislation to ensure it never comes to the state. HB 3156 would ban the practice. HJR 1048 would introduce a legislative referendum that would allow voters to decide stipulations about how elections are conducted in the state to the Oklahoma Constitution. The HJR would ensure voters can only select one candidate for the same office. Roberts says it’s too confusing for voters, and would delay election results. “Ranked-choice voting makes voting more confusing and has delayed election results everywhere it has been tried,” Rep. Roberts said. “We need to preserve the simplicity and timeliness of our current elections, along with our current ease in doing hand recounts when needed.” Roberts pointed to State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax, who told a committee last year that the adoption of ranked-choice voting would mean the state would have to replace all of its current election machines.

Lebanon County, Pennsylvania: The county commission voted to remove the county’s lone ballot drop box from service for the 2024 election cycle. About 3,000 voters used the box located outside of the county courthouse in 2022. Republican Commissioner Robert Phillips said the ballot box raised questions about security. “Someone can walk up to it and put more than one ballot in,” Phillips said. “And in Pennsylvania you’re allowed one ballot per voter, and there is no way for us to properly monitor that.” The ballot box in Lebanon was locked after hours and had a security camera positioned on top. The only person to vote against removing it was Democrat Jo Ellen Litz. She said the drop box saves time for elections workers who must now accept early ballots individually at their office. She also said it helps sick people avoid coming into the office and is easier for people with disabilities to use. “Why did you tamper with something that is working?,” Litz said. “Why would you increase the work for our staff who already are overworked? Why would you increase their risk of infectious disease? You know, why would you put people who are handicapped through a marathon to drop off their ballot. The list goes on. It just doesn’t make sense to me.” Litz speculated the lines to drop off ballots could be 45 minutes to several hours long. Lebanon County Elections Director Sean Drasher backed up her claim, saying people would be waiting 45 minutes in a line that would go past his office.

South Dakota: The Senate voted to repeal a 30-day residency requirement for voter registration that became law last year. Sen. David Wheeler, R-Huron, carried the secretary of state-supported Senate Bill 17 to the floor. The 30-day requirement passed last year in response to voter registrations by RV owners from other states who purchase a mailbox in South Dakota. Wheeler told senators the law won’t withstand legal scrutiny. He cited several U.S. Supreme Court cases, and pointed to a section of the federal Voting Rights Act specifically prohibiting durational residency requirements. South Dakota requires voters to register at least 15 days before an election. The 30-day rule was different, though. It required that voters attest, under penalty of perjury, that they’d lived in South Dakota for at least 30 days in the year leading up to an election. The office’s original version of SB 17 did not address enforcement, though. Instead, it would have required citizens to attest that they’d lived in South Dakota for 30 consecutive days immediately prior to registering. After hearing the legal concerns about that bill, Wheeler said, the Secretary of State’s Office chose to support his amendment, which rewrote the bill to remove the 30-day requirement. As amended, SB 17 passed 31-2. The bill now goes to a committee of the House of Representatives. This is the second time in modern history that lawmakers have passed and then had second thoughts about a 30-day residency requirement for voter registration. Twenty-one years ago, lawmakers passed a similar bill. The next year, on advice from then-Secretary of State Chris Nelson, who described the bill as unenforceable, legislators repealed it.

Tennessee: A proposal in the legislature would change the deadline to request an absentee ballot. Currently, voters in the state can ask for an absentee ballot up to seven days before an election. The bill proposed by Sen. Richard Briggs (R – Knoxville), SB 1648, would change that deadline to ten days before an election. It is expected to be discussed in the Senate’s State and Local Government Committee on Jan. 23, and no companion bill has been filed in the House of Representatives.

Utah: A bill requiring mailed-in ballots to be in the hands of election officials before the polls close on Election Day in order to be counted was put on hold this week by the Utah Legislature’s House Government Operations Committee. Utah law currently says mail-in ballots are valid as long as they’re “clearly postmarked before Election Day” and show up before noon on the day of the official canvass of the vote that usually comes two weeks later. The sponsor of the bill, HB214, Rep. Norm Thurston, R-Provo, said that makes Utah an “outlier.” He called for a “move from a complicated and difficult to explain system” to one that shifts the responsibility to voters “for making sure their vote gets in on time.” Thurston told the committee his bill would give Utahns more confidence in elections. But for more than an hour committee members heard largely critical testimony about the change, including its impact on rural as well as disabled Utahns who count on being able to mail in their ballots the Monday before an election. Before the committee voted to hold the bill rather than send it to the full House, it was amended to change the effective day from May 1 to Jan. 1, 2025, so the election already underway would not be affected.

Washington: Rep. Tarra Simmons, D-Kitsap has introduced House Bill 2030 that would effectively allow anyone incarcerated in a state prison to vote or sit on a jury. It only bans prisoners from voting who are convicted of a crime punishable by death. In Washington, a 2018 court decision determined capital punishment was unconstitutional, and Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill last April that abolished the death penalty in state law. There are around 13,000 people in Washington’s prisons, although not all of them are citizens. If Washington enacts HB 2030, it would join only Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia in allowing prisoners to vote. Simmons also said the legislation will help lawmakers see prisoners as constituents. She’s been pushing for the policy since she became a lawmaker in 2020.

West Virginia: The House of Delegates considered changes to several election laws this week. The House passed two election-related bills unanimously: House Bill 4428, requiring candidates to live in the state or local election district for the office they are seeking; and House Bill 4552, requiring that a candidate for office’s party affiliation is consistent with their voter registration. HB 4428 requires candidates for state, county, or local elected offices to reside in the state and district they are seeking election to. The provisions would not apply to circuit judges, family court judges, or prosecuting attorneys that are already allowed under State Code to reside outside their counties and/or districts. The bill lays out the definition of residence and what qualifies as proof of residence. HB 4552 requires the notarized certificate of candidate announcement form submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office for partisan elections to include the candidate’s political party affiliation on the date the certificate of announcement is submitted. Prior to accepting the certificate of announcement, state and local election officials would be required to electronically verify the candidate’s current party affiliation. The committee recommended House Bill 4205 for passage, giving the West Virginia legislature legal standing to bring actions against a governor, secretary of state, or other state officials who attempt to make unauthorized changes to state election laws and rules. It would open up the Legislature to participate in lawsuits that contest the legality or constitutionality of state election laws and regulations.

Legal Updates

Arkansas: Arkansas’ highest court agreed to fast-track a hearing in a lawsuit from a group advocating for the removal of voting machines from Arkansas elections. The nonprofit Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative sued Secretary of State John Thurston and the state Board of Election Commissioners earlier this month, asking the state Supreme Court to certify two proposed constitutional amendments: one that would require all Arkansas elections to be conducted with hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots and one that would limit absentee voting to people who can prove their inability to vote in person.Restore Election Integrity Arkansas, the ballot question committee supporting the measures, submitted both proposed amendments to Attorney General Tim Griffin in November. Griffin rejected both, citing a lengthy popular name, “partisan coloring language” and ambiguities. The group submitted revised proposals in December. Last week, Griffin again rejected the paper ballot measure, and he altered and certified the absentee voting measure. Thurston and the Board of Election Commissioners both declined to certify the proposed amendments as submitted, according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 9, the day before Griffin’s rulings. Certification of the measures would allow supporters to start collecting signatures from supporters. The group faces a July 5 deadline to collect signatures from 90,704 registered voters in order for the proposed amendments to appear on the November ballot.

California: Los Angeles County agreed to pay $5 million to the founder and CEO of a software company who was briefly accused of stealing data on county poll workers in a case he said was pushed by conspiracy theorists. The Board of Supervisors voted without public discussion to approve the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Eugene Yu of Michigan-based Konnech Corp. over his 2022 arrest and prosecution, KNBC-TV reported. County lawyers had urged approval of the settlement in a letter to the board, the station said. Konnech is a small company based in East Lansing, Michigan. In 2020, it won a five-year, $2.9 million contract with LA County for software to track election worker schedules, training, payroll and communications. Yu was arrested in Michigan in October 2022 and computer hard drives were seized. The LA County District Attorney’s Office alleged that Konnech had violated its contract requirement to keep data in the United States and improperly used servers in China to store information on hundreds of county poll workers. Yu sued the county, alleging that District Attorney George Gascón had targeted him based on allegations of conspiracy theorists and election deniers.

Connecticut: Attorneys for Bridgeport officials asked Superior Court Judge William Clark to sequester any of the 1,400 absentee ballots submitted for Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary between John Gomes and Joe Ganim that originated from applications obtained by a member of Gomes’ campaign. A motion filed by attorney Richard Burturla, who represents the Bridgeport Town Clerk, asked Clark to conduct an emergency hearing to determine “whether absentee ballots received from voters, who obtained their ballot applications from any of the 1,400 plus absentee ballot applications provided Ms. Denise Solano, be sequestered pending subsequent judicial determination of their validity.” The court filing claims that Solano provided “certain of these application forms to twenty-two volunteers for the Gomes campaign, which volunteers then circulated the same to voters.” The proposed order asks Clark to order the Registrar of Voters to sequester any absentee ballots obtained through applications taken out by Solano until the court can determine their validity.The motion was filed midday, Monday less than 24 hours before the polls open and voters decide for a third time between incumbent Ganim and Gomes. Clark has not indicated whether he will hold a hearing. On Jan. 23, after in-person voting had started in the special election Clark ruled that the ballots would not be sequestered and could be counted.

Iowa: Chief U.S. District Judge Leonard Strand has denied a motion to acquit the wife of Woodbury County Board of Supervisors member Jeremy Taylor of 52 counts of voter fraud. Strand ruled that federal prosecutors put forth adequate evidence for jurors to find Kim Taylor guilty. “I have determined that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to allow the jury to return verdicts of guilty as to all counts,” Strand wrote in his eight-page ruling. Kim Taylor was found guilty on Nov. 21 of 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration and 23 counts of fraudulent voting to stuff the ballot box for her husband, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for a U.S. House seat in the 2020 primary before winning election to the county board that fall.

Kentucky: Three people, including a former constable, have been sentenced for crimes stemming from a 2022 election fraud scheme in Monroe County. Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman announced the sentencings on Tuesday in a news release. “Kentucky’s election laws are strong, and our elections are secure,” Coleman said. “Our team is laser-focused on defending the integrity of the ballot box and protecting one of our nation’s most cherished and fundamental principles: free and fair elections. Every Kentucky voter can rest assured that our team will investigate suspected fraud.” Those sentenced recently included James “Darrell” Jackson, Mary Jackson and Leslie Jackson. After the Attorney General’s Election Fraud Hotline received a tip regarding suspected election law violations in Monroe County, the Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI) conducted an investigation, according to the news release. A Monroe County Grand Jury returned a 40-count indictment, charging seven Monroe and Barren County residents for the election crimes. According to the indictment, friends and members of the Jackson family facilitated an organized scheme to bribe voters or obtain blank ballots of registered voters in hopes of electing James “Darrell” Jackson Monroe County Jailer during the 2022 primary election.

Maine: Secretary of State Shenna Bellows appealed a decision by a Maine Superior Court judge in the ongoing legal fight over former President Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility in Maine. Bellows’ appeal comes after a Maine Superior Court judge Michaela Murphy paused the decision to have Trump removed from the ballot to allow time for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a similar case out of Colorado this week. Murphy denied Trump’s request to stay the proceedings, but she sent the case back to the secretary of state with instructions to await the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court case before issuing a new ruling modifying or upholding her original decision. In a written filing, Trump’s lawyers called on the justices “to put a swift and decisive end” to efforts to kick him off the 2024 presidential ballot over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.= “Like many Americans, I welcome a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in the Colorado case that provides guidance as to the important Fourteenth Amendment questions in this case,” Bellows said in a release issued Friday morning. “In the interim, Maine law provides the opportunity to seek review from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court – which I requested today. I know both the constitutional and state authority questions are of grave concern to many,” she continued. “This appeal ensures that Maine’s highest court has the opportunity to weigh in now, before ballots are counted, promoting trust in our free, safe and secure elections.” On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. The court declined to hear the challenge because the Maine Superior Court’s decision was not a “final” judgment, just a deferment. “Because the appeal is not from a final judgment, we dismiss the appeal as interlocutory and not justiciable,” the seven-justice Court wrote in a 19-page decision. “Requiring a final judgment in this situation serves the interests of justice; enhances administrative and judicial efficiency; averts our issuance of what would likely be, at least in some part, an advisory opinion; and it allows for true and effective decision-making when the matter is ripe,” the decision reads.

Michigan: Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Michigan to hold state House elections in 2024 using current district maps, concerned about “the unknown potential for error and voter confusion in the impacted districts” ahead of the August 2024 primary election. The request came after the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission appealed a December federal court ruling that 13 state legislative districts violated the Voting Rights Acts by diluting the representation of Black voters in Detroit. The commission and Benson had been sued by Detroit-area plaintiffs over the citizen-drawn districts. Tight timelines are at the center of Benson’s rationale for the request. “The secretary’s position is not that implementing new plans for August is impossible,” the brief filed before the nation’s top court says. “She is concerned about the uncertainty as to the scope of the changes that will be required and how well those changes can be implemented in the time allotted.” Under the court’s timeline, the new maps would be finalized a little more than three weeks before the April 23 candidate filing deadline, which according to Benson’s brief is “very little time.” The brief said not pausing the redistricting process for the election could harm an “orderly election process.”

Mississippi: Nineteen federal appellate judges heard arguments this week on whether Mississippi can continue to permanently strip voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes for which they have served a complete sentence. The outcome of the case will likely determine whether tens of thousands of people win back the right to vote. An immediate decision is not expected. Criminal justice advocates won a major victory last August when a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ban violates the Constitution’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual” punishment. But the full 17-member circuit court vacated that ruling weeks later and scheduled this week’s hearing. Attorneys for the state argue that the voting ban is a “nonpunitive voting regulation” and that, even if it did constitute punishment, it isn’t cruel and unusual.

New York: New York Supreme Court Judge David B. Cohen ruled this week that Fox News’ counterclaim against Smartmatic can go forward. The news channel is being sued by Smartmatic for $2.7 billion. The suit claims former President Trump’s lawyers falsely accused the company of manipulating vote counts in the 2020 presidential election, and that Fox News and three of its on-air hosts presented the disinformation on their programs. Fox News — which admitted it aired false statements in its coverage when it settled a similar suit from Dominion Voting Systems — has said the damages being sought by London-based Smartmatic are not reflective of the company’s value and aimed at chilling the conservative network’s free speech rights. Cohen also wrote that the settled defamation case filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News cannot be the basis of a malice claim because the trial did not go forward. Cohen previously rejected Fox News’ motion to dismiss the case. The company argued that even though Trump’s claims were false, they were newsworthy and therefore protected by the 1st Amendment.

North Carolina: U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder has ruled that new changes to North Carolina elections laws are likely unconstitutional and should be blocked from going into effect — at least until problems with the state’s same-day registration system are fixed. Schroeder found that the new rules would’ve violated voters’ due process rights, in part by throwing out potentially legitimate ballots without giving voters a chance to fight that decision. The now-blocked changes to the law would’ve affected thousands of people who use same-day registration during early voting. That process lets people register to vote, or update their address, and then immediately cast a ballot. The main argument in the case boiled down to what should happen after people use same-day registration. Typically the state sends a postcard to the address provided by the same-day registrant. If the postcard is returned as undeliverable, the voter’s ballot is canceled. Democrats sued, saying there should be more efforts to contact voters, not just by mail, before canceling their ballots. People should also have a chance to dispute challenges to their ballot, and prove they’re legitimate voters, they said. They argued that the new rules would cause too many legitimate ballots to be thrown out. Schroeder agreed and gave lawmakers a choice: find a way to address those due process concerns or not enforce the new rules.

Texas: A former candidate for City Council in the community of Beach City in Chambers County has been arrested, accused of election fraud. Kyle Diamond, of Beach City, was taken into custody on Jan. 18. He is facing an election fraud charge. According to the sheriff’s office, the investigation began in late Oct. 2023. It was reported to the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office by County Clerk Heather Hawthorne, who suspected someone was tampering with the City Council election for Beach City. At the time there were multiple complainants and all suspected it to be a candidate in the City Council election. During the investigation, multiple Beach City residents came forward and said someone had placed what appeared to be a falsified official election document in their mailboxes. The sheriff’s office said the documents appeared to be intended to sway the residents of Beach City to not go vote on election day due to the election being canceled. This same document is what caused the task force investigation because weeks prior it had been emailed to multiple registered voters of Beach City. The sheriff’s office was able to identify Diamond as the suspect thanks to multiple homeowner’s security videos and other information. An evidentiary search warrant confirmed emails and other electronic evidence along with campaign signs of his opponents in his possession. An arrest warrant was requested and granted to take Diamond into custody on the election fraud charge.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker